Snowflakes in Hell

Two more officers have been shot in the City of Philadelphia.  Michael Nutter can’t take over fast enough.  Anything, anything has to be better than John Street, and what the city has turned into under his watch.

Someone with a lot of spare times needs to make a parody of this video.

The Geek seems to be happy to be out of The Garden State, after relaying a story about how the police there are putting cameras in schools.  A lot of people seem happy to leave.

My reloads worked just fine. In fact, pretty well! But it was only 25 yards. I didn’t want to waste most of my reloads on that distance, but to make up for it, I punched out the 10 ring with my Glock at 10 yards firing about one shot a second. It’s been a while since Mr. Glock got the throw hot lead down range, and I was happy to land most of my hits in the center.

I also tried out those 20 and 30 round AR-15 magazines from Brownell’s that I got a few weeks ago, and they worked just fine. Not a single problem with them, so they get a passing grade from me. Even the 20 rounder did fine, and I have two others of a different brand that don’t feed so well.

I guess with John Timony and other South Florida gun control hacks picking up the slack on the evil assault weapon issue, the other gun control weenies feel safe in, once again, targeting gun shows.

I guess they figure if you recycle the same bullshit often enough, someone might buy it.

The gun show bogeyman is back in the media at the Richmond-Times Dispatch:

Massengill, who headed the eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, said more-thorough background checks on gun-show purchases are needed in Virginia, if only to reduce the availability of guns for illicit purposes.

Private sales or trades at gun shows involving unlicensed dealers are exempt from background checks, which can turn up information on criminal histories and hospitalizations for mental illness.

Supporters of the exemption argue that data is lacking to show a direct link between gun violence or crime and private sales. Such sales often involve a single weapon and another collector.

Massengill, who describes himself as “a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights”, at least agrees that checks “could be eased by exempting background checks for trades or sales among family members.”  Gee, that sounds a lot like what we did in Pennsylvania.  Of course, that doesn’t mean it worked here, and that doesn’t mean they aren’t asking for Just One More Law.

But Massengill said even if a background check had turned up Cho’s name, Cho could have purchased weapons at a gun show.

Outlaw private sales now, or the Bogeyman will be able to buy a gun at a gun show.  It would appear to be that for Massengill, staunch defender of the second amendment that he is, Cho is the new Bogeyman.

Ryan points out some really amusing cartoons the ATF publishes on how to run a gun shop.

SCOTUSBlog tells us that The Court has not said whether or not they’ll hear the case. Looks like we’re waiting a while longer folks.

The next date for possible action on it is likely to be November 26, following a pre-Thanksgiving Conference set for November 20.

It’s interesting. I wonder whether they didn’t get to it? Or did were they unable to come to an agreement? I don’t really know how this stuff works. Perhaps someone could enlighten.

UPDATE: I kind of wonder whether they perhaps would prefer to deal with it before the holidays, when people aren’t paying much attention to the news cycle. Pure speculation on my part. What think you all?

UPDATE: SCOTUSBlog has updated:

The Court, of course, does not explain inaction. But among the possible reasons for delaying the case are these: one or more Justices simply asked for more time to consider the two cases; the Court may be rewriting the question or questions it will be willing to review — especially in view of the disagreement between the two sides on what should be at issue; the Court may have voted initially to deny review of one or both cases and one or more Justices are writing a dissent from the denial. The appeal in 07-290 (District of Columbia v. Heller) raises the key issue about the Second Amendment’s meaning and the appeal in 07-335 (Parker v. District of Columbia) poses a question about who may bring lawsuits to challenge laws before they are actively enforced. Together, the cases thus present a somewhat complex mix for the Court, and it perhaps was not much of a surprise that no order issued on Tuesday. At no point is there likely to be an answer to what happened to bring about the delay. Both cases are expected to be re-listed for the Nov. 20 Conference.

Not sure if this indicates anything about what result we might be able to expect.  My guess is no.

STI International has pulled itself from the California market, for both civilian and law enforcement.  This is great news, and kudos for STI for doing.  We need a few of the big guys to do this too.

Joe Huffman asks what people would do if the Supreme Court rules the second amendment is an anachronism, and we eventually start losing our gun rights.

I agree with him, that I don’t think gun owners would do much.  I’ll be honest with you all, I’d probably not turn in the ammunition first, as I have no desire to fight for a lost cause against a law that’s not really enforceable.   Show me real opposition, and I might join, but aside from that, I plaster an off the books AR up in my wall with a “Break Wall In Event of a Emergency” note in my head, and keep a few thousand rounds of ammunition.   Then I’d be praying we soon develop technology to terraform other plants, because I think I’m starting to believe that in order to maintain liberty, people need the option of saying “Screw you guys, I’m going west!”

Today is the day we hear about the Heller case.  Are you nervous?  I’m crapping thumbtacks.

The Bench of Evil got quite a workout tonight, now that I have all the things I need to go to town.  I reloaded 40 rounds of 6.8 Rem. SPC and loaded 50 rounds of .223.

Started off loading some .223 rounds.  This is starting with fresh Winchester brass.  I’m using CCI small rifle primers.  Sierra 55gr Spitzer boat tail bullets, and 20 grains of IMR-4198 powder.  Going is slow at first as I get used to everything.  I spilled some of the powder all over the table, and had to do cleanup.  Put one primer in seated backwards, and thought better of trying to decap a live primer from the business end.

I managed to do the 40 rounds of 6.8 Remington SPC a good bit faster than the .223, but that’s not counting the decapping, resizing and cleaning I did prior to tonight.  I’m using Sierra OTM 115gr bullets, and 22 grains of the same powder.

The real reward will be firing them out of the rifle without anything blowing up.  I’m a little disappointed it took me all night to reload probably 30 minutes worth of ammo at the range, but I figure I’ll get faster.  My next purchase will be a reasonable electronic scale.