Snowflakes in Hell

What do you know, it was a TOW missile carrying tube after all.

MSM: 0
Blogosphere: 1

Head over to Scalawag’s and check out the picture there.  Scalawag thinks it’s a mortar, but I’m not sure it’s not a rocket.  The shape isn’t consistent with a mortar shell, which usually tend to have a raindrop shape.  Those fins at the end probably fold back for flight stabilization.  It’s not inconsistent with other rockets that work the same way, and in the front it looks like there might be a clear window for an IR or laser guidance package.  It’s definitely not an RPG, but it might be some other type of rocket.

I wonder if it’s a movie prop.

It should be noted before reading this that the ATF states quite clearly on this data:

Firearms selected for tracing are not chosen for purposes of determining which types, makes or models of firearms are used for illicit purposes. The firearms selected do not constitute a random sample and should not be considered representative of the larger universe of all firearms used by criminals, or any subset of that universe. Firearms are normally traced to the first retails seller, and sources reported for firearms traced do not necessarily represent the sources or methods by which firearms in general are acquired for use in crime.

But the other side will be sure to draw conclusions, so I thought I’d take a look at some of the data.

• Pennsylvania recovered 5607 total firearms which could be traced to a state in 2006. 78% of all firearms traced to within state. 6% of all guns traced came from contiguous neighboring states. 3% came from Maryland and Virginia, which have a one-gun-per-month law.
• Delaware traced 585 total guns back to a state. 60% of all guns traced came from within state. 11% of all guns traced came from Pennsylvania. 10% came from Virginia and Maryland, both of which have one-gun-a-month laws.
• Maryland traced 4156 back to a state. 56% traced back to Maryland itself. Pennsylvania accounted for 5%. Virginia accounted for 11%. Maryland and Virginia both have one-gun-a-month laws.
• West Virginia traced 628 guns back to states. 73% traced back to West Virginia itself. 3% traced back to Pennsylvania. 6% traced back to Virginia and Maryland.
• Ohio traced 5695 guns to source states. 75% traced back to Ohio itself. Pennsylvania accounted for less than 2%.
• New York State traced 6085 guns back to states in 2006. 29% of guns traced to New York itself. Pennsylvania accounted for 8%. Virginia, which has one-gun-a-month accounted for 9%. It should be noted that New York City, where legal gun ownership is effectively prohibited, accounts for most of the traces for New York State. New York also has registration of handguns, which would make authorities unlikely to trace a firearm that originates within state.
• New Jersey traced 1878 firearms back to states. 26% of the guns traced in New Jersey came from New Jersey. 18% came from Pennsylvania. 7% came from Virginia. 3% from New York. 1% from Delaware.

Conclusions to draw? Well, there aren’t many. You have to control for a lot of other factors, like gun ownership rates, trace policies, etc. That’s why the ATF says not to draw conclusions from it. A large percentage of New Jersey’s trace requests are done by Camden and Trenton, both of which border PA directly. Given the intermingling of Trenton, Camden, and Philadelphia’s criminal cultures, it’s not all the surprising there’s a lot of gun intermingling too. We were high for Delaware too, indicating that there’s some criminal intermingling with Wilmington, which is also right over the border.

One might be tempted to conclude that strict gun laws are the reason New York and New Jersey trace most of their guns to out of state, however California, with strict laws, traced 71% of firearms to itself, which is on par with less strict states.

Get ready for the onslaught of people taking this data, and using it to push for more gun laws.

Keyboard and a .45 is a year old today.  Congratulations.

Any data center server move from one rack to another, while the server is alive, is a potentially hazardous undertaking.   It went something like this:

Me: OK, we have to be careful with this part.
Intern:  Right
Me: OK, ease it up a little more.  WAIT!  Something’s caught
Me: Oh crap!

Things are all fine now, but that was an unpleasant and unexpected emergency.   Moving servers live is always fun, but it’s definitely safer to take them down first, but on servers that are downtime sensitive, sometimes you have to try it the risky way.

After looking over the comments at Robb’s blog, I have come to the conclusion that this guy is an angry person who is unwilling to engage in any kind of reasonable dialog with people who disagree with him. If you can’t make your argument without insulting other people, how do you expect anyone else to take your argument seriously? Enjoy your echo chamber.

I love the headline for this over at CNN. Seems someone stole Elvis’s Smith & Wesson 9mm from a museum. I doubt someone will be able to fence that for its actual value. The real shame is, it’ll probably end up sold on the street for much much less than the gun is worth.

If this ATF data is to be believed, then Virginia is still a major source of traced firearms.   Maryland is too.   It’s useful to note that Maryland has some rather restrictive handgun laws, and that Virginia has one-gun-a-month.  One gun a month, folks who support gun control tell us, is critical to stopping illegal gun trafficing.

Forgive me if I call bullshit.  This is more evidence that particularly law is particularly useless.

Hat tip to Jeff Soyer

Denise has a story about how new arrivals, presumably from the worker’s paradise to the south, are trying to shut down a local New Hampshire gun range.

Lee Ann is a friend of mine from back in the MUD days:

Sebastian: She’s back blogging now, since she found a new bitch girl
Lee Ann: ha!
Lee Ann: i told you it woudln’t last
Sebastian: She’s only 22, but really impressive
Lee Ann: really?
Sebastian: yeah
Sebastian: She seems like the kind of person who’s going places
Lee Ann: good deal
Lee Ann: it’s Bitter’s new bitch right? not yours…
Sebastian: That’s right
Sebastian: She has a pimp gun and all
Sebastian: Bitter does, I mean
Sebastian: To keep her bitches in line
Lee Ann: sweet

The pimp gun I’m referring to is her Davis Industries DM-22 derringer.

It’s only ever been fired once that I know of, and that was by me in Texas. It’s a hard trigger pull (as it needs to be), and you can’t hit crap with it, but it’s great for keeping your Bitch Girls in line!

Confederate Yankee offers a different explanation for why ammo is currently so expensive.

Kevin Baker points out a long article, but one that is well worth reading, that documents the moral failings of the peace racket.

Most of the castle doctrine bills that have been worked through legislatures typically carry a provision to make someone who is involved in a self-defense shooting immune from civil suit from the attacker or his estate.  It’s always seems to me this would benefit police officers as well.

Wyatt Earp tells of a case where a police officer was involved in a self-defense shooting that was completely justified, and which the city is likely to settle instead of fight.   Yet the city politicians could be absolutely counted on to fight any kind of civil immunity for people involved in self-defense shootings, including police officers.

This is yet another example of the City of Philadelphia’s sick political culture, which does very little to empower police officers and citizens to fight crime, and does everything to empower the criminals.  Two things kill Philadelphia: taxes and crime.  There’s no indication that the cities leadership is interesting in tackling either.