Wednesday, July 17, 2013

And here's Arthur Silber, being all relevant again...

Despite being in failing health, and now freshly persecuted by The Gang That Wishes Demonstrably Sapient People Would Just Go Away...Arthur Silber is at it again.

Being relevant.

In From the Merely Calamitous to the Ungraspably Nauseating, he offers a brief (for Silber) reaction to Dear Leader's recent lecture on how a Zimmerman acquittal means that we should stop being naughty and swallow his gun control pill, for our own good of course.

It's not terribly flattering:

If a significant number of Americans were remotely healthy, they would treat Obama as they would any monster who raises his bloody arms from the open chest of his latest victim, lifts up his hands -- which hold his victim's heart, liver and other organs -- twists himself with enormous effort into his most obviously and fundamentally false serious mien and with phonily solemn voice, as blood soaks the scene, implores us all to love one another and embrace tenderness and gentle care for each other as the greatest of virtues.

What stuck out at me, though, was his quoting of himself, from January of this year, on the same subject in a previous round:

Therefore and thusly, to believe that one of the greatest sources of violence in the world today should be trusted to solve the problem of gun violence in America is to believe in self-contradictory statements which immolate themselves on a gigantic pyre of the most ridiculous, asinine, ludicrous notions ever imagined in the malformed, grotesque, nonfunctioning brains of the dumbest animal that has ever existed. Anyone who believes that gun control -- gun control devised and implemented by a brutal, endlessly violent, systematically murderous State -- will even begin to solve the problem of violent death in and by America is a fucking idiot. Moreover, to believe that the man who has lovingly embraced the principle of mass murder, and who proudly and repeatedly declares to the world that he is a serial murderer dedicated to continuing his murders into the indefinite future, targeting an ever-increasing number of victims, is sincerely devoted to ending even a single aspect of the problem of violence is so colossally, stupendously stupid that it defies accurate description. 

Well said, as usual.  And this is not a guy that you would naturally call a "gunnie" in the sense that I know it.

In Stop Doing the Vicious Work of the Ruling Class, he goes further on what I was on about in the last post.  As usual, Silber says it far better.

The demonstrations against the Zimmerman verdict continue, as the tribes play out their chosen roles. The demonstrations concern a case which should not have been brought, and which cannot support the constructions the right and left have placed on it. Meanwhile, wouldn't all those energies be far better directed if, for example, they were targeted against U.S. foreign policy? Or against the War on Drugs? Or against what is almost certainly the already irreversible rise of the surveillance state? But no: the right and left have learned their parts very well. All the arguments they need have been prefabricated, ready to be hauled out whenever the signal is given.

The Zimmerman case is yet another in an endless series of distractions. It is another bauble to be tossed around by the ever-busy writers and "activists" of this country's political factions. It is a means of fragmenting and splitting the people's political power, which would be far more meaningful -- and far more powerful -- if the warring factions could only be motivated to form strategic alliances. All those energies are safely directed into a non-threatening pathway -- while the ruling class continues to consolidate and expand its power over every one of us. To the extent the right and left play their parts with such enthusiasm, they do the ruling class's bidding. Most of those on the right and the left have enthusiastically placed themselves in service to the State, and the majority of them have no understanding whatsoever of their grievous failing.

At this point, I almost feel it's beside the point to blame the ruling class for this kind of thing. (Note: I continue to blame and condemn the ruling class without mercy.) What appalls me is how easy it is to distract the American public with incidents like this. Most Americans have been trained very thoroughly. The bell is rung, and they eagerly run to their designated positions. While they are entirely consumed with playing their meaningless roles in the affair of the moment, they pay no heed to the hell that is rising around them.

Indeed.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Oh, please do go on...

...about how there is simply no justice whatever that George Zimmerman was acquitted of the charges against him.

Or, please do go on about how Zimmerman must be acquitted, else the "Stand Your Ground" concept be hung out to dry and lost.

Either way:  please do go on,...Otto.



(Apologies, I couldn't find a single YouTube that had the whole sequence, hence the two clips.)

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Behold Gun Geo Marker, the app that will save us all!

New for your Android:  it's Gun Geo Marker, baby!

The Gun Geo Marker operates very simply, letting parents and community members mark, or geolocate, sites associated with potentially unsafe guns and gun owners.

Look, this isn't about the app being a monumentally stupid idea, either for reasons of the obvious lawsuit risk, the childishly easy crowdsource-hack, or the pluperfectly misanthropic hatred of individual privacy that drives the very idea behind the app.  You can figure that one out for yourself by arranging for three of your available brain cells to work together for a few seconds.

This is about the app being launched a few days ago on July 4, and since getting buried by pure snark.  It's freakin' delicious.

At the time of this writing, here's what the overview of "reviews" looks like:


And lest you get the wrong idea about those "five star" reviews, here's a sample:


Yeah, seriously.  Again, as of this writing, there are 34 "five-star" reviews, and of those, exactly one appears to be serious:


The eagle-eyed may note that while Mr. Gözler titles his missive "Fantastic App", he appears to be much more concerned with fecal flingery;  possibly this is simply because his words are lonely out there among the unrestrained rifraff, but really, who here understands the inner workings of such self-evidently superior beings?  :-)

Of course, none of this means anything, according to the provider, who assures us that it's all sour grapes.  (You may feel like you are listening to the Brady Campaign or CGSV, backpedaling [Fast and F]uriously.  Or perhaps listening to Emmett Fitz-Hume.)

What was even funnier was clicking back to the Overview tab and noting something I had missed in the "About this app" section:


(snap) Well, of course!


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Hat tip to Claire.  The giggle was welcome today.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Got a little gunshop time today...

...very little, actually, but I'll take it:  I can store a lot of mental updates in a pretty short time.  A couple things seemed worth documenting, if only for me.

Made note again that Savage has entered what I might call "the Chipmunk market" for kids' starter rifles, with an inexpensive, nifty little scaled-down single-shot turnbolt .22 that features real aperture sights and the "Accu-Trigger" that I've heard so many good things about.  This one appears to be called the "Rascal".


Also I got to meet Baikal's coach gun, which fairly impressed me with its nice basic design and a nifty tang safety that has just the sort of crisp, positive snap! that is music to a 1911 guy's ears.  Mounts were quick and the stock felt shorter than it really was, which always makes me happy (most people still insist on long stocks, for reasons I've heard for years but understand less and less over time).


I'd probably further go against convention by putting something more visible than a bead on the sight rib, but other than that and a buttstock ammo carrier, this unit is ready to go.

Also, I finally got to meet a SIG 938, which I have been contemplating for a while as a potential platform for a kid-sized .22 pistol...and I'll admit the impression was mixed.


The gripframe is simply not as compelling as it should be.  It feels "long" high on the frame, enough so to stick out immediately.  I'd have to see it in a kid's hand, and also under fire, to comment further, but by comparison I was much more impressed by the reduced 1911-22 from Browning.  The SIG's safety was positive enough;  I'll always prefer the 1911 style slide-locking safety, but this isn't a deal-breaker.  The 938's trigger was surprisingly heavy;  a nice, short, and positive reset, but as a single-action trigger it felt...stiff.  Now, I'll be the first to admit that what I'm after here is something deliberately sweet so that it can represent a serious training .22 sized for a kid's hand, but even on a combat pistol, a single-action trigger doesn't have to be quite that lawyer-proof.  In the SIG's distinct favor were the sights (excellent), and the slide manipulation is notably easier on the hands than many tiny guns...  In the end:  I dunno.  It may be that with the addition of a few common accoutrements (read:  better sights, ducktail grip safety and appropriate hammer, and tastefully extended safety lever) and good leather, the 1911-22 will be the way to go for a training and development pistol.  We'll see.

Saw an LCR in .22 rimfire, and it surprised me by being a six-shooter instead of eight or nine.  I wonder what the story is on that?

It appears that Springfield Armory is now making the XD-S in 9mm as well as in .45;  as a 9 it's a 7+1 gun instead of a 5+1, but otherwise it doesn't appear dimensionally different at all.  Call me old-fashioned, but in the same size package I'll take six .45s, thanks.  (Where the 9 makes sense to me is in the luxuriously light 6+1 DB9, at 0.8" thick, eleven ounces empty and with a surprisingly friendly trigger mechanism.)  However, in comparing the two I was again reminded of how amazing a piece that XD-S in .45 is:  how the gun really can be that tiny and yet still fit all your fingers on its gripframe I do not understand, but combine that with a nice short-reset trigger, great sights and excellent ergonomics, and you've got a real winner there.  If I were starting over with a general battery of pistols, I'd probably replace the .40 Kahr with the .45 XD-S to fit the "smaller than a 1911 but still carried on the belt" niche, and be happy with it.

Ammo still seems stoopid, and reloading components stoopider still.  I know it's been a while since I've been a shotshell reloader, but a 25# bag of lead shot for over fifty bucks just nearly causes hyperventilation.  Not only am I carefully designing a plan for skills maintenance with airguns, I'm strongly considering getting set up to cast my own pellets.

Anyway, a few thoughts to set down so I don't forget them.  Would love to go through a more comprehensive review of the state of the industry, but with two small kids in the house even the above whirlwind is appreciated time.

Data points.  Duly noted.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Con brio.

I may not understand how this man could have willingly been a soldier and law enforcement officer in the first place, serving what seem to be predictable masters, but this is an extraordinarily powerful demonstration of the ire-of-the-betrayed, and it seemed worth documenting here.



Aaron Weiss seems to have served in perfectly good faith, and is pissed at what his current "leaders" have made of his efforts.  He seems to be on sturdy moral ground, and presents an excellent witness.

More of that, please.  Especially from within Leviathan's own ranks.  Much more of that, please.

______________________

UPDATE:  Thanks to Joel for outing a limited link URL.  Originally I thought this was a public-facing Facebook URL, but apparently it's not.  I'll try a direct-embed as a test, and may try to seek a transcript as well.

IMMEDIATE 2ND UPDATE:  Well, double-dog drat.  It is the video itself that retains the privacy settings;  apparently I can see it (probably through the "friends of friends" at some level)...Okay then, let's hit DuckDuckGo with a quick search...

IMMEDIATE 3RD UPDATE:  Much better.  This (which is now also the primary link and embed above) seems to be a common source for at least a few other entries that each seem to be suitably public-facing.  Interestingly, it also appears this was recorded back in March, and is just making the rounds now.  Don't think that changes anything, but it's a data point.