I’m going to try to avoid banging out novel-length posts this week. My cubital tunnel issue is flaring up again, because I’m stupid and like to rest my head on my elbow when I’m sitting at the desk, and also like to sleep with my arm under the pillow up over my head. It mostly goes away if I baby it and wear a splint at night, but it can take a while. Fortunately it’s not painful or debilitating, but I don’t want it to get to that point either. I have a lot of stuff building up in the tabs, and before Safari chokes, I better do some tab clearing:
Do people feel more or less safe with a gun? Most people feel more safe, except Democrats.
Massad Ayoob: Why we use expanding bullets, Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV
I’ve always kind of believed that if there’s a right to travel, there’s a right interest in being able to drive a car. I’ve never really bought the notion that it’s a privilege doled out by the state. Is it time to treat cars like guns?
The Boston Globe doesn’t get what the big deal is about Vivek Murthy. His views are mainstream, after all, they say. He agrees with the AMA, they say, without noting the AMA is rabidly anti-gun.
The NRA wins again. He notes that the other side overreaches. I think because at the end of the day banning private transfers really doesn’t do it for them. It’s only a small win that they hope to build on.
Trouble with polymer cased ammo? Seems to be an issue with fluted chambers.
John Richardson finds a Leland Yee business card. He’s a super villain! Meanwhile, the media is all “Hey, did you hear that a fatty-fat-fat Republican maybe did and maybe didn’t close a bridge lane a couple months ago?” Another fallout of the Yee arrest is Moms are demanding the memory hole.
Piers Morgan’s farewell statement. Personally, I think he was a great benefit to the gun rights movement.
Why are anti-gunners so violent?
Kevin Williamson makes the case for lesser-of-two-evils voting.
Whining media looking for Georgia Governor to save them from all these improvements in Georgia’s gun laws.
Another ordinary mom demands action.
Thirdpower notes some CSGV approved militias operating in Venezuela.
Feds raise USA Brass. Seems the issue is improperly handling lead residue on used casings.
Possessing hunks of lead if they are in the wrong shape can get you in trouble in DC.
ARMagLock looks like a way to get around the recent AWBs in MD, NY, and CT. It’s no bullet button, but it shows how utterly stupid these laws are.
Bob Owens notes that it’s not yet time to panic about 5.45×39 steel core ammo.
The Atlantic article (“NRA Wins Again”) focuses more on the antis’ strategy than the goals they were reaching for. It concludes:
I think that reveals a (largely inherent) weakness the antis have to deal with: lack of logic to their arguments.
Its like they fail to realize many tens of millions of Americans are not urban liberals who shit their pants at the sight of a gun. Waving around an AR/AK at a press conference and saying “look how scary!!” might be a winner with the constituents of Kevin De Leon or Dianne Feinstein, but most of America is not urban California.
When I was a surly teen in the 1970s, my high school provided free Driver’s Ed, a full semester course in classes and driving with instructors.
The owner of a car dealer had a teen in our class the semester I took the class, and donated two 1976 Pontiac Firebirds, complete with the bird blazing on the hood, for our use. They were stock, except for the passenger side brake pad for the instructor to use.
I learned to drive in a Firebird that had 70 miles on it when I got behind the wheel. I have felt my cars were not up to snuff ever since.
That’s a pretty poor article from Kevin Williamson. Especially when the lesser of two evils is a very small difference, like Romney and Obama. If people want conservatives to win, they better nominate actual conservatives. Not Romneys. Not McCains. They can’t say “your vote is wrong because OBAMA.” No, they have to put up good candidates.
In fact, I would say Obama winning has actually been GOOD for the right. It showed how terrible the left and its policies are. We showed just how strong the pro-gun side is. Would it have been that effective if Romney was pushing gun control? And instead of Romney trying to fix Obamacare, and the right having to take part of the blame, we have Obama and the left taking full ownership of the debacle. In fact, it might lead to winning the Senate for the GOP, which is obviously great for the right as well as gun rights. And if we can get a proper candidate like Rand Paul, we might take the Presidency.
So yeah. The lesser of two evils voting style didn’t work that well. The greater of two evils voting style might actually be better.
I think I’ll disagree, but only marginally. I think we’d be better off if Mitt Romney were in the White House, but only marginally. At this point, I’m not sure if it’s a problem with the candidates, so much as it is with the electorate.
That is, even if Romney had won the election–and even if the Republicans take the Senate this year–and even if, however it’s done, we repeal Obamacare and turn back some of the other abuses of government–we still have the problem that Republicans and Democrats alike actually represent the people who vote for them, and those people are clamoring for big government.
Except for some, who clamor for small government, but don’t you DARE cut my benefits, or I’ll vote you out of office!
(As much as I can identify strongly with the Tea Party movement, it always bothered me that there were, among the rank and file, who were for small government, an end to deficits but were demanding that Medicare and Social Security be untouched, without noticing the contradiction…)
Maryland didn’t place a distinction on fixed vs. detachable magazine fed arms. They did a feature test on new guns and flat-out banned the remainder that were on the MD “Assault Long Gun” list. Stripped AR-15 lowers are presently banned in the state since they can be used to build banned and non-banned configurations of the rifle. The AR-15 is banned and it is not banned in MD depending on the barrel attached to it.
Nothing in the current law provides an exception for an “assault weapon” that has a bullet button type configuration. It’s just banned. I have a few ideas for getting around the stripped AR lower problem by having someone produce a stripped AR lower that has a fixed magazine well. Not a magazine locked in place ala bullet button but the well itself as an internal magazine like the M1 Garand.
Since the Maryland State Police declares a “copy” of a banned firearm as one that dimensionally similar and able to accept the components of a banned firearm as a copy, remove a major piece. If a lower cannot accept an AR magazine, it is no longer an AR-15. Same upper, same fire control group, same stock but would now fall under a fixed magazine semi-auto not dissimilar to an SKS and only subject to the feature test.
I need to talk to a good lawyer in MD to see how feasible this is.
yeah, i was going to say, the MD ban is a little different than some of the others out there, so that product isn’t likely to do much for us.
Why spend any time on this “feel” b*llsh*t, except to debunk the entire concept. What matters is a word exactly have the length of “feel”: what we should care about is if owning/having/being proficient with a gun–or a fire extinguisher, or a seat belt, or any other tool–makes us *be* safer, not if it makes us “feel” safer.
Because if the polls say that, it gives an indication how voters feel about guns in society.
Yes, of course. What I should have probably said was we need to push back against the notion, not ridicule it. Jeffrey Snyder is a good example to follow here.
Too bad that DPMS didn’t follow through with making that pump action AR-15. It would have made life easier in CA.
Been toying with that concept too. Would actually be pretty easy. Free float tube with a slot cut to the cycle length of the bolt, a machined piece that clamps the rod and passes through the tube slots and screws to a grip, slightly below gas tube diameter steel rod in line with the upper receiver hole that has small plastic bushing to prevent wear. The rod would go into the gas key on the bolt carrier. Pull the grip like a pump action shotgun to full travel and the recoil spring in the stock tube would do the rest once you took pressure off.
Could even make it a conversion kit. Like CA, thought about the idea as a way to get around an AR ban in MD if it had come to pass (it quite didn’t). Still would have the stripped AR lower problem but that could be fixed in a pump action design by doing a non-spec upper/lower with undersized takedown pins. Standard uppers wouldn’t fit and would no longer be a “copy” of an AR-15.
A pump-action AR handgun in .300 blackout would not only bypass the moronic California anti-gun laws, it would awesome in it’s own right. I’d buy one.
“I’ve always kind of believed that if there’s a right to travel, there’s a right interest in being able to drive a car. I’ve never really bought the notion that it’s a privilege doled out by the state.”
Having just driven from Baltimore through NYC, and having paid $50 in tolls (approximately a day’s wage @minimum wage).
I fear that driving may one day be deemed for the privileged few only.
:-|