Guns – Page 1100 – Shall Not Be Questioned

You’re a Blogger Right?

I have to admit, my muse has gone on vacation too.Â But I haven’t so run out of things to say that I’m resorting to posting what the trolls say on the blog.Â When you get people posting crazy stuff, just ignore it.Â That’s what most of us do.Â I mean, I’ll gladly approve someone who disagrees with me, even if it sounds a bit nuts, but if you’re completely off the reservation, to the point where I don’t know what you’re saying or why you’re babbling, the “Spam” button works pretty well for that.

In defense of the Brady Campaign, I think that was probably an actual comment, though I see some people are skeptical of this.Â You’re probably seeing what they don’t approve. Â But still, we all get crazy stuff as comments from time to time.Â This is like having show and tell at an elementary school, and the Brady’s are the kid that brings a pencil.Â We’ve seen it before, and we all have one.

Finally Finished

Buying a new surplus SKS is not for those who don’t know how to completely strip down a rifle and reassemble it. I don’t mean field strip either, I mean strip down every part, clean, and reassemble. I picked it up from the UPS depot on Tuesday, and got to work immediately. I learned that Bitter frowns on the practice of using a tin foil tray in the toaster oven to melt off the excess cosmoline from the smaller parts. After a mishap, I ended up with a new toaster oven. It was a tough battle, but I think I’m happy with the result:

It’s now ready to take to the range. I can’t wait to shoot it. It had quite a lot of cosmoline on it that had to be removed. Turns out Gunzilla doesn’t work as well as Hoppes No. 9 on cosmoline. It works decently, but just not quite as well. That’s probably because Hoppes is mostly kerosene, which is going to solvate a heavy grease better than most other things.

What has me stoked is that it’s in really good shape. No rust, very little wear on the finish. Shiny barrel without any evidence of pitting. Good stock, which looks like it’s seen some use, but in decent shape. The kit that came with it has someone’s name written inside, which I thought was a nice added touch.

Taking the Media to the Range

Joe takes some local reporters to the range. I’m curious to see what they write. It’s good that they sought out someone with first hand experience and knowledge, rather than talk to the first “expert” willing to offer a quote. I notice Omie is left handed, and rather cute. Of course, any chick behind an AR-15 automatically gets a +5 in the looks department!

That looks like the same fiberglass Israeli mag that was my favorite for a while.

A Guitar for SayUncle

SayUncle used to be in a band. Well, if he ever decided to get back into it, this would be the perfect guitar:

Don’t know if they make a bass version of that. But you gotta like it.

Yet More NICS Stuff

It’s getting tiring posting about this, but it’s important, so I’ll keep doing it.Â Via SayUncle, I found a pretty good article opposing HR2640:

No one knows how many of the 21 million records Congress seeks will truly identify Americans who lack the legal right to have a firearm. The effect on guns already owned by people in the 21 million records seems clear — they would be subject to confiscation. At least, a transfer of ownership seems a likely requirement if the law is enacted and those people’s names are poured into the list. There are no plans to notify these people.

Well, you see, the problem is these 21 million or so people are likely already prohibited persons, and thus aren’t able to legally own firearms even currently. Â I agree that there are likely to be mistakes, but we have that now with the system the way it is, and there’s little recourse for getting your name out.Â There’s also a lot of veterans who get screwed in 2000 who will get unscrewed by HR2640.

It’s also important to note that the reason the bill is moving so fast is so that amendments can’t be tacked on during debate.Â We want this to move fast.

It seems to me that this article, though well written and well argued, is really arguing against the Brady Act altogether.Â I think that’s a reasonable argument to make, because background checks can be infringing if the records are not accurate.Â I wish we could have gotten more out of Congress in this regard.Â Â But we did get something, and something is pretty good for a law that doesn’t really add any new legal restrictions on who may or may not own guns.

OC Spray Effective?

You all remember the case up in New Hampshire of the Marine who shot dead a perpetrator that had previously shot a police officer and run him over. My friend Jason dug up the video (he also dug up that Pat Brown video from the other day, but I forgot to credit him). The video serves as a reminder to us that pepper spray is not always effective. This perp takes a blast in a confined space of a car and still manages to come out shooting, hitting the officer 4 times in the torso, and then run him over:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p4FK6Eq-ZA[/youtube]

For those that can’t see the YouTube, here is a link to QuickTime video. Officer McCay was foolish to turn his back on the perpetrator. At best, pepper spray is useful for getting out of fist fight situations, but I wouldn’t rely on it to overcome deadly force. It has a place, but I’ve always thought of it as a double edged sword, both tactically and legally. Aside from the tactical issue of blowback at you, and different people’s ability to fight through it, I’d hate to be in a situation where a prosecutor asks “You had pepper spray. Why didn’t you just use that?”

Poisoned Well

Clayton Cramer is talking about the “poisoned well” that the gun control movement has created that’s causing a lot of gun owners to see HR2640 as a gun control bill, when it’s really no such thing. He’s absolutely right that the gun control movement has created an environment where there’s substantial mistrust even on bills that ought not to be controversial. Trying to screw us every chance they get tends to do that. My main concern for the bill isn’t that it’s gun control, but that it can be spun as such by those who push for it, and build their political capital for future battles. On the flip side, they also couldn’t get anything done without having to offer significant concessions to NRA concerns.

E-Postal Results

Sailorcurt has the e-postal results up.Â Looks like I managed to beat Ahab.Â I forgot about tie breaking rules!Â Â I am quite happy with my placement.Â Â This is the kind of shooting I practice most often, so when we return to precision shooting, I’ll probably fall back down in the ranking again.

The cool thing about these e-postal matches is that they cover such a wide array of shooting disciplines.Â You might suck up the page on one match, and dominate the field on another. Â Try the next one out.Â It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are, because you’ll get better.Â I’m finding it’s getting me to the range a lot more, which is improving my shooting quite a bit over what it was four months ago.

Hopefully the next one will allow me to go back to .22LR, because I blew through a few hundred rounds of 9mm (not cheap these days) practicing up on double taps before heading to the range this Monday to shoot the submitted targets.

Update on Yesterday’s Thread

Ahab has an update on yesterday’s thread.Â Â Which is good, because of the decosomilining last night, I have nothing this morning.

Battling the Cosmoline

Got the new SKS today.Â For the rest of the evening, I will be battling the cosmoline.Â Pictures forthcoming when I’ve won.Â This will be a good test of Gunzilla.