Crime Guns

If you read that article, yesterday, to the bottom, you see a familiar fact.

Someone that works with disadvantaged youth in the city have only to ask one of their young charges to get them a gun and they will provide on in an hour.

Black market guns are easy to get if you or someone you know has connections with that market.

Something I hadn't thought of before. 

Clean guns are more expensive than dirty guns.  Guns are clean when they haven't been used in a crime or have not been stolen.  Ballistic or a serial number cannot be connected with any crime, so the price goes up.

A crime gun, a dirty gun, those can be cheap. 

Now, what if us gunnies had our own "gun buyback program."  If we bought a cheap crime gun, yes we might be receiving stolen goods, and we might not own an actual murder weapon, but...  that gun isn't going to murder anyone else once we have it.  Win win.  We get a cheap firearm and Black Market prices rise, and guns are removed from crime circulation making the streets safer.  Better than a cop sponsored buyback.  And we have cash, not gift cards. 

Gunnies from Seattle would have to buy guns in Baltimore, and Baltimore peeps should probably go to Seattle. 

I wouldn't mind if it was a murder weapon.  Not like the police are going to solve any murders from it if I turned it into them, unless I snitched out the person that sold it to me and cops shook that guy down working their way up the ladder to the actual killer.  Unlikely to be successful, even if I WAS a snitch.

But stolen property, that would bug me.  What if I got a really NICE black market gun, cheap.  The guy that originally owned it probably wants his really nice gun back.  I know I would.  So, a flaw, there.

Must be 30 or 40 kings down there...

This article has been making the rounds of gun advocacy websites.  The Right and Duty to Be At All Times Armed.

And this graph is the one that gets quoted

During the Viking Age, there was a man called Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker. The Lawspeaker’s office made him spokesmen for Swedes who owned their own farms—while not ‘citizens’ in our sense, they were a class of ordinary free people whose interests sometimes differed from those of their kings and lords. One such king, for reasons of pride, tried to draw Þorgnýr’s people into an unwanted war. This resulted in an outcry, and the king held a public meeting to persuade the people to go along. Þorgnýr spoke at this meeting, and reminded the King that seven previous kings had been drowned in a nearby well when they proved resistant to the advice of the people, and should reconsider his war.

Sheesh, I hope they pull up the drowned man quick like.  Folks can't get a bucket of water to wash the well is so choked with dead bodies.  And it's starting to smell foul.  That can't be good.   That Lawspeaker don't fool around.  But wouldn't it be better to hang the errant king from a handy tree limb?

MD CCW

Back in the old days, like before I was born, before the term CCW was a thing, people did buy gun and people did carry them on their person.  Back then, in Maryland, if there was going to be any background checks done on you, it was done with the local police forces.  The state or feds weren't set up to do stuff like this, and the locals knew the local people.

With a high sign from the local police station, you could carry concealed.  You had to ask face to face and have a good reason.  Or be buddies with the cops.  So, that is an abuse.

If you voted against the sheriff in the last election and supported his opponent, or you grew your hair a bit long, or your skin was the wrong color or the cops were just asshole, you might not get a 'permit' either.  More abuse.

Especially because of this racial angle, and with advances in database retrievals at the state level, the state of Maryland eventually gave the authority to say yay or nay to the Maryland State Police.  Easier to control from Annapolis, and hopefully would take perceived race prejudice out of the equation.  If you wanted to keep CCW permits out of black hands you just had to deny permits to most everybody.  And here is where we are.

Except people are trying to get the information from the Maryland State Police records on how they make their determinations to grant or deny a CCW.  Maybe find out if the state actually IS disproportionately denying certain racial groups.  And also find the plethora of other excuses used. 

Are the state police denying people because they take cholesterol medication or viagra?  That'd be interesting to know.  Is that a HIPAA violation?

So there is potential for legal trouble two ways, there, for the State. 

Plus just get the permit process to BUY a handgun these days hurt minorities.  Where does a person in Baltimore that relies on public transportation go for the required training?  What if they have no credit card, you need a credit card to get the permit from the state, online.  And you want to use a library computer to do all this?  Baltimore crime is increasing rapidly, and people that want to defend themselves have a harder time securing the means to do so than some middle class suburban resident in much-safer Crofton Maryland.

There are good holsters

And then there are bad holsters...

Ezekiel 25:17

The Crocodile is Never Sated

Compromise is not the way forward. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead.

There is nothing they don't want to ban.  They will cancel YOU if given any chance at all.

Did you see this gun control drama?

Did you see this gun control advertisement drama?

Summed up

A Virginia State Senator runs airs an ad and the ad says she is gonne "shoot down attacks from any anti-gun groups."

Gabby Giffords happened to be doing a spin through Virginia.  All the gun banners and her upcoming opponent pounced on Senator Chase

Oh Noes!  How could you?!  That's threatening violence!  She wants to shoot at anti-gun groups!

Senator goes "I never approved that wording!"

Ad company, "Oh yes you did you blood thirsty maniac!"

Senator, "I recorded the meeting with the ad company and let me play that for you."  She wanted: 'shoot down attacks on your gun rights' in the ad. 

Ad company: "How DARE you record us to prove we are now lying about you, Senator."

Senator Chase will probably lose re-election.  She is very pro-gun and that is a scalp the anti-gunners want in a state they can flip. So full court press against her. 

Range 23 Sep

Took the 1911.  All them good target with a striker trigger, let's see if there is change with that sweet 1911 Single Action!

Nope.

I mean not bad, but my flaws are the same.

36 rounds at the shorter range, one magazine at long range.

A good session with lots of good surprise breaks.  One day, every round in session with be a good trigger pull.  Not this time.  Still some big and little flinches.

Ooo, yes I did notice a perceived recoil increase going from 9 to .45. 

---

ooo, forgot.  50 more AE, no malfs, lubed ahead of time, 1117 since I made the gun. 

Way ahead of you.

You know what to do when the census comes. 

The social contract is dead.

Impeachment over a non-impeachable offense would have sealed that deal. But even worse a fake "inquiry" in name only that skirts the law. This isn't two-tiers. This is making it up as you go.

You have no obligation to this system. None at all.

— Jared A. Chambers 🇺🇸 (@C4CEO) September 24, 2019

So a buddy..

So a buddy, out of the blue, wants to get his Maryland HQL and buy a pistol.

The HQL is our 'permission to purchase' and it takes a while to get it all set up.  You need to pay some fees, get some training, some fingerprints, some checks...

Anyway, he'd caught the bug getting into prepper stuff.  He is HUGE into B-movies and Zombie movies, so easy match.  And dangit, why not?

So he asked me some stuff, but already had his eye on a Canik, a Taurus, or a Smith & Wesson M&P.  I told him some pluses and minuses for all of them.  So he is thinking S&W now.

But no matter, he asked what to get before he gets the pistol, since he has some time.

I always say a good gunsafe of some sort to lock it in.  First.  He has a kid, so especially so.  I also told him that children and surprisingly good locksmiths so train them up too.

But then the list of thing to get got longer.  And my list is much more compact now that I've been around the block.  I don't recommend elaborate cleaning kits, for example.  But the list is still long.

• gun safe
• Hoppes #9
• Shooter's Choice, oil
• Q-tips
• brass brush
• old tooth brush
• cleaning rags
• Bore Snake
• pistol case
• electronic ear muffs
• ear plugs
• Lula magazine loader
• A holster is on the list but not needed day one, here, in Maryland
• ...
• and ammo (paper targets you can get for a buck at the range)

I forgot eye pro because I wear glasses nowadays and didn't think of that.  

84th Division Documentary

Watching this old documentary.  84th Division holding the Marche - Hotton road in the Battle of the Bulge, and other actions.


I wonder why this guy's ammo has the rounds sticking our like that?  At first I thought it was stripper clips for an '03, but now thinks it's an M1.

But it's nice to see closeup of a soldier kit in these.

Everyone has one of these.  Guessing gas mask?  I could be wrong and they are extra rounds for the mortar tube spread out over a squad. But other than that they seem to be packing surprisingly light.  These days I expect bigger rucksacks getting humped all over for our soldiers.  When they're not fighting.  Maybe these aren't expecting imminent action, but action soon. Nice having lots of trucks hauling your groceries.

Even with a bigger pack it's still not that big.

But there is the entrenching tools.

It just struck me.

Lots of this is stock footage or footage re-used from other parts of the same documentary.  Such is the way of 1940s film.  You got more movie than you got footage.  I recognized someone hitting the deck from a different training film.  But the vast majority seems to be stuff from November and December 1944.  They aren't putting too much stuff from 1942, say, to pad it out.

Colt 2

You know what would be a brilliant move by Colt, to make another announcement:

We at Colt made a business decision to concentrate our efforts on some major customer production contracts, and to temporarily withdraw from the civilian market.  These larger orders are where our profit center lies.  

However, anti-gun forces are pretending like we at Colt acquiesced to their demands and somehow the company does not support the right of all Americans to keep and bear arms.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  The groups that wants to ban civilian firearm ownership have taken advantage of our announcement to try to score propaganda points.  And we don't like that.  

We really do have to have to focus on our bigger contracts, but, that doesn't mean we can't produce a token 300 Colt AR15s every year until it makes business sense to produce more than 300, however long that takes.  Just to show we haven't fully abandoned the civilian AR15 niche.  You can recognize these 300 rifles in the market because it will have the year and "Molon Labe" stamped on the receiver.  We don't want Gun Confiscators to mistake our position on the matter, and we think this move draws a line in the sand on where exactly Colt Manufacturing's position remains.   Thank you.

A better PR guy than me can spiff up the press release.   The Colt 300 will sell out at the price point they want because the supply will be restricted, the company looks better to us, the announcement is a thumb in the eye of the bad guys, and 300 hardly interferes with the other work they are doing.  Win all around.

Colt

Maybe Colt managers are chickshite sellouts folding to George Soros' minions and betraying lovers of freedom and liberty that don't currently wear a uniform.

Maybe Colt has a crapton of orders to fill equipping some allies with M16s, and sales of over-priced but high cache ARs are flat.

I dunno.

The timing was odd for getting out of the civilian market for a time, either way, but maybe that might not have been helped.

And maybe option #3.  Colt is making bad management decision.  I mean when HASN'T Colt been making bad management decisions?  In my lifetime, sure.

Option D:  All of the above.

Goin with D?  Goin with D.   What I don't know is the weight of the A, B, C.

21 SEP

No Springs

It's hard to make your own brass cases at home.  Primers too.  Good bottlenecks for a tyrant to disarm a populace is to go after these.

Another hard thing to make at home is spring.  Well, GOOD springs.  You can make springs pretty easy.



A spring will make or break magazine functionality. 

If you are making a Home Depot Plumbing Department Sten gun at home, you need that one critical big spring.  Looks like an AR buffer spring a little.  Lots of those around.  I wonder if it would work for that application... Might not be stout enough.

Anyway, I need more spare springs.   I'm thinking for 1911s more than anything.  

And never wish for a disappearance of all springs.



Coily

If you could live in a past era...

What era would you choose?

Me?  I wouldn't want to go too far back.  No Rome or Colonial New England.  Certainly not 30 Years War era.  I'd want Air Conditioning and Anti-Biotics, and Modern Dentistry.  Yes, I capitalized them, as they are Important.

So, Post WWII.

Hey, Ima like the look of cars for a bit until the mid 70s!

But what would I drink?

Post prohibition beer isn't that great, and only get's worse over time until the microbrew revolution 60 years later.  Soda of the 40s-70s, for me, is too sweet.  I have to wait for the mid-80s to get a decent sugar substitute.  You remember how bad cyclamates and saccharin was!  So, decent beer is unavailable in the US for a couple decades, then when aspartame is available you still have to wait another decade for truly good micros to roll into the market.

Pah!

There is no such thing as the good old days.

Maybe I can live off of Ballantine from 1940-1970.


---

Guns?  Please.  Plenty of well made all-metal revolvers and automatics, the height of the war surplus days, and look for me to pickup some fun sub guns when inflations makes $200 seem less a bite.  Pre 1964 Winchesters.  The problem is what to restrict myself to.

Trial Balloon

The Whitehouse has released a trial balloon on a possible gun control scheme to placate the gun banners which will totally make them vote for Trump next November.

It's a gimped Universal Background check bill.

And folks don't like it.  I am one of those folks.  Unless hidden in it is some provision that removes all references to serial numbers in the background check.  It might also be a good way to expand the number of quasi FFLs as an unintended consequence.

The President didn't send it out and quickly announced through surrogate that he himself might not be on board with it.  So even he doesn't like it.  And at least needs cover from it. 

Ted Cruz notes it does nothing to go after bad guys and instead only goes after good guys. 

The only good thing I can say about it is this bill now might be better than a worse bill later and fend off that worse bill further into the future. 

But it still feel like I am losing another slice of the compromise cake. 

This bill PLUS nationwide CCW.   That'd be better.  Not best.  Best is just nationwide CCW and loosen suppressor regs.  

Grandpa

On this day in 1944. My grandpa was killed by Japanese forces.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity. The Silver Star. Semper Fi.  I wonder what he really did to earn that?  The details of the citation are sparse.

Peleliu. HQ company for his battalion. 1/7. Hanneken commanding the regiment.

I get my height from him. No one else in my family is as tall as us.  My other grandpa came closest.

Enlisted 2 June 1942. Mom was born 30 May 1942.

I've been looking for contemporary accounts that might give me information about my grandpa who died 25 years before I existed.  Eugene Sledge.  Robert Leckie.  Wrote about it, and were there.  No mention of even my Grandpa's boss.  Leckie used nicknames for everyone.

Gotta try George Peto.

Also

Fixed this for ya, @willwilkinson! https://t.co/yMMbKtNnyo pic.twitter.com/rC4IN2vuwp

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) September 18, 2019

It took a whole week

Before a Democrat said Beto was wrong. 

Dem Sen. @JoeManchinWV on Beto pledge to confiscate AR15s:

"Beto's one human being. He gave his own opinion, OK? I think it was very harmful to make it look like all the Democrats. I can tell you one thing: @BetoORourke's not taking my guns away from me. You tell Beto that OK?"

— Lindsay Wise (@lindsaywise) September 18, 2019