Snowflakes in Hell

From Glenn Reynolds on the 2008 Bejing Olympics:

I won’t be going, and I don’t plan to watch. The Olympics are a fount of corruption and chicanery anyway, upholding no ideals and promoting no good ends anyway. Plus, they’re boring.

I won’t be watching either.  Even the shooting events.  What the Chinese government is doing is a disgrace.  The only thing more disgraceful is the IOC’s capitulation.  China should not be permitted to host another Olympics until it cleans up its human rights record.  What’s next?  Havana Olympics?

Dave Hardy provides a few links to the motion for summary judgment in the Chicago handgun case.  A few things pop out at me:

1. They offer the possibility of using the privileges and immunities clause, which was gutted in the Slaughterhouse Cases.  If the court bites, we’d be re-blazing a trail long ago scorched by the Supreme Court.
2. It appears Mr. Gura is attempting to chip away a bit at registration.  While they are not challenging Chicago’s registration requirements per se, they are challenging a few aspects of it.  Here’s an exerpt:

Whatever the value of registration, the requirement that guns be constantly re-registered burdens gun ownership but serves no useful purpose.  The city already mandates that registrants immediately notify police of any changes in their registration information, including loss or disposition of a gun or registration certificate.  Chicago Mun. Code § 8-20-140.  Moreover, “[a] state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution.” Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943).  The penalty for lapsed or improper registration rendering the subject firearm “unregisterable” is likewise unconstitutional.

One bite off the apple at a time is how we’ll win this.

The bill is now in Thomas, if you care to search for it.  Interestingly, Congressman Patrick Murphy has signed on as a cosponsor.  Makes you wonder why he was unwilling to sign on to the congressional amicus brief to help overturn DC’s law at the Supreme Court.  Sorry, but if Congressman Murphy is only going to be a friend of gun owners close to election time, and spend the rest of the session screwing us, that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it?

I am willing to accept that perhaps the Congressman has realized he has erred in his position on second amendment rights, and has now seen the light.  If it’s a true turnaround, I welcome it.  But color me skeptical.

Looks like Google locked a bunch of blogs reportedly for being spam blogs.  I think if you enjoy blogging, and you’re good at it, it’s very much worth the investment to get your own domain, and get some hosting.  It helps with your google-fu too, because Google ranks people higher if they have their own domain, where blogspot.com gets reduced google-fu.

Our monthly IHMSA match is this weekend, which means it’s reloading time for me.  Bitter and I are also taking two new shooters, possibly more, to the range this weekend for some fun.  That means I’ll be a reloading fool.

Last time I did IHMSA, I used a 44 special load for shooting field pistol.  Basically 9 grains of Unique capped off with a 180gr semi-jacketed hollow point.  I think that load was a bit too hot for my tastes.  It headed out about 1100 feet per second.  You just need enough on the bullet to knock the rams over, and I think 900 feet per second would be just fine.  I think I will reduce the load to 8 grains of Unique this time around.

For the AR-15, I’ve tried and like using Lake City brass with 21gr of IMR-4198 capped off with a 55gr FMJ boat tail round.  Heads down range fired from my 20″ barrel AR at about 3150 feet per second, with a variance between the max and min only about 19 feet per second.  Next powder I’m going to try will be Varget, once I use up all the IMR-4198.

Been thinking about a load for reloading the M2 ball I have.  Seems to be that 50 grains of IMR-4895 with a .308 150gr FMJ boat tail round is reasonable for firing in an M1 Garand.  Decapping and resizing 30-06 is rough on the arm though.  Takes a lot more force than .223 or 6.8 SPC brass.

Some folks might remember the Brady’s posting this particular story about a Utah concealed carry license holder who shot a man in self-defense.  Well, it turns out he’s been cleared in the shooting.

Mays was two or three feet away from Harrison when he lifted his shirt with his right hand moved his left hand toward his waistband, prosecutors wrote.

Fearing Mays was reaching for a gun, Harrison drew his concealed .38 Special revolver from a holster at his waist and shot Mays once in the chest, killing him, prosecutors wrote.

Two other witnesses corroborated Harrison’s account, prosecutors wrote, noting that Harrison is licensed in Indiana to carry a concealed weapon, and that Utah recognizes other state’s concealed carry permits.

“Mr. Harrison believed that Mr. Mays was reaching for a gun to shoot him,” the release states.

Guy acting erratic comes up to me, says “You don’t know who I am, but I’ll fuck you up” and then reaches under his shirt?  Yeah… I would have drawn and fired too.  This not only was legal, it was the right thing to for Harrison to do.  Any police officer in the same situation would have reacted the same way.

Any upstart bloggers out there might be able to make a name for themselves by following many of these cases that the Bradys enjoy highlighting and seeing what the eventual resolution is.  In this case, they were completely wrong.

Looks like Blue Trail Range was ready to reopen, but the state decided they needed more time.  They’ve had some ballistic expert help, it looks like:

“Vargas concludes, based on his study of the elevations and theoretical bullet trajectories over the mountain, that it is beyond improbable — and actually implausible — that bullets that have hit residences on the eastern side of Tri-Mountain originate from Blue Trail Range,” she said.

…

State police ballistics experts have also been involved in the investigation of the origin of bullets found in the park as well as shots that have hit homes in Durham that are almost 1.5 miles from the range. The range is on the western side of Fowler Mountain, while the homes that were struck by bullets are on the eastern side.

Clark Vargas, president of C. Vargas & Associates, said the only way that a bullet fired from Blue Trail could have hit homes in Durham were if someone used a specialized shooting technique known as plunging angle fire.

I did my own analysis here, which concluded that fire from the 200 yard range could hit houses on the other side, but I am not an expert, nor did I visit the site.  I’ll take the word of the experts on this one.

UPDATE: Looks like the actual house, that was allegedly hit, is marked now in Google Earth.  Rerunning my ballistic calculations, I agree that there’s almost no chance that a bullet fired from that range managed to impact that house.  It’s well within the ballistic shadow of the mountain.

UPDATE: They are holding a sporting clays fundraiser this Sunday to help save the range.

Greg Rotz gives up an update to his story that suggests the judge in his case, who ordered his License to Carry Firearms returned, isn’t happy with the decision.  I will say, though, I have great admiration for a judge who, putting his personal feelings about carrying in polling places aside, is still willing to rule based on what the law says.  That’s more than I can say about four out of nine justices on the Supreme Court.