Month: October 2010

Reading Comprehension and Me

I pride myself on my ability to comprehend what I read and filter out bull shit. Sadly my filter seemed to have lapsed a bit today and I made a pretty glaring mistake. I read the following article about Gun Owners of America (GOA). The mistake came from the following piece:

Stallard told me that the “Pink Pistols has good relations with national gun rights groups.” Larry Pratt did not think so. His views can be summarized thusly: they should not have any rights; but, they do not deserve to be stoned to death.

I mistook the section emphasized as a direct quote from Mr. Pratt. In fact it’s a very poorly paraphrasing of some comments Mr. Pratt made about homosexuality. Personally I don’t agree with what Mr. Pratt said and I find it curious that somebody would says they have more “libertarian” views but be OK with barring homosexuals from marriage (it would seem the best libertarian answer to the question of gay marriage would be to abolish government involvement in marriage all together).

Anyways I made this mistake and posted it on Facebook. That was a mistake and a good thing. It was a mistake in that I made my remark about GOA based on what I thought was a direct quote. It was a good thing because two of my friends, Jeff and Sam, pointed out that the article never said what I said it said (how’s that for a confusing sentence).

Needless to say I want to use this mistake an an opportunity to remind everybody to read every article very carefully. Words matter as does punctuation. A lack of quotation marks is always something to watch out for.

Mountain Goats… We’re Not Safe Anywhere

Yesterday I posted a story about a man who was killed by a mountain goat. Today I’m here to inform you that mountain goats are out there, they’re out to get us, and there is nowhere that we are safe. These bastards were spotted climbing the Cingino Dam in Italy. Looking at the picture it’s obvious that going around the dam would have been easier which leads me to believe the mountain goats are sending us a message… a very frightening message.

Comcast Business Service

I do a lot of bitching on this site but rarely am I able to give out compliments. Consider this post one of those rare changes. For those of you unaware the connection I have at my apartment is Comcast Business. I did this for several reasons include the desire to have a static IP address and the only other options being Comcast Residential (which his horrible from what I’ve heard) or Qwest (which is also horrible from what I’ve heard).

Yesterday afternoon my Internet connection died (I know it was in the afternoon because that’s when my VPN tunnel exited and I couldn’t reestablish it). When I got home I did the usual dance of rebooting the router and such which lead to no change. So I decided to call Comcast for the first time. The support line for their Residential and Business services are completely separate from what I can tell as it took me less than five minutes to talk to a living human being (who had no accent I might add).

Mind you this is around 6:30 at night. The support agent had me redo my dance of rebooting the router which I did just to humor him at this point (frankly it takes less time than arguing that it’s a pointless gesture as I’ve already tried it). Once the router rebooted the support agent was still unable to see it so he wrote up a trouble ticket and dispatched a field agent. Around 8:00 p.m. the field agent showed up, came up to my apartment, checked the line, and found there was no signal. At this point we went down to the electrical closet where we learned somebody had disconnected my line (again, this is the third time somebody mucking about in there has disconnected my service). Once it was reconnected I was good to go.

I have to say Comcast’s Residential service may suck major donkey balls but their Business service is pretty bad ass. I can get a support agent there 24/7 instead of having to take off of work and wait three hours for somebody to show up. Anyways I’m a happy customer at this point.

Child Proofing My SOCOM 16

After the three gun competition yesterday I’ve decided I need to child proof my M1A SOCOM 16. Why? Because unlike most intelligent creatures on the planet I apparently have not learned to associate burning and pain with not doing something.

Case in point, after the final rifle stage I did the stupid thing I often find myself doing, grabbing the rail attached to the barrel of my rifle. Unlike a hand guard attached rail, the barrel attached rail on the SOCOM 16 seems to exist only to move heat to an easily contactable surface so the user can burn their hand. As this is the 157th time I’ve made this mistake I think it’s about time that rail comes off and a standard hand guard goes on. Heck it’s not like I can really utilize that rail anyways as I’ve always been concerned anything I attached to it would be completely cooked after a few magazines.

I also think it’s high time to replace that fat front sight with something that doesn’t completely cover a 10 inch target at 100 yards.

Hitler is Going to be Really Unhappy

First Hitler finds out the price of the ACR is much higher than he was originally quoted and now he’s going to find out that the expensive gun is being recalled:

During routine testing, Bushmaster discovered a design flaw which could result in multiple rounds firing continuously when the trigger is pulled. This unexpected firing of multiple rounds creates a potentially dangerous situation.

Yes the gun can go full auto under certain conditions which will certainly put you in the dog house with the Bureau of Fun Regulation (better known at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives).

A Case for Carry in National Parks

OK this title is misleading. I really should have titled it a case of why you should use our new law to carry a firearm in national parks. A man hiking in Olympic National Park was killed by a mountain goat recently:

Mr Boardman tried to shoo the animal away but it instead attacked him. After goring the hiker the goat stood over him, and had to be pelted with rocks by a ranger before finally moving away.

We have to remember humans are frail being compare to most wild animals; in a fair fight we rarely win. When hiking in the mountains, trudging through the jungle, or walking through the woods we are at the mercy of the animals who live there. As a race our dominating feature has never been our brute strength but our ability to construct and utilize tools. Although anti-gunners will try to convince you otherwise, a gun is a tool and it would have been the best object to have in this situation.

If you are able to legally carry a gun while out and about you should. Even in a nice neighborhood where you are 100% there is never ever crime (we in the gun community call this ignorance) a gun will give you means to protect yourself against four legged predators as much as two legged ones. You never know when a violence dog will make it’s way into your fine gated community.

And for those critics who claim there is absolutely no reason to carry a gun in national parks I urge you to read this linked article and tell me that after.

Three Gun Competition

Yesterday I partook in my first three gun competition. For my maiden voyage I accompanies a friend and a group of his friends down to Holmen, Wisconsin. First I must say the competition was a ton of fun. I shot heavy metal using my Glock 21SF, Springfield M1A SOCOM 16, and my friends bright yellow Remington 870.

The pistol potions gave me little trouble thanks to USPSA. Shotgun portions provided me some trouble as reloading an 870, like most shotguns, is tedious. I feel I did so-so on the rifle portions except for the last stage where a combination of a really fat front sight, small targets at 90 yards, and my lack of ability to shoot caused me some headaches. Most of the people there agree the stages were all design by a sadist but honestly I found them to be incredibly fun. It was certainly a challenge and I can’t wait for the next one. I’ve only found one downside to three gun and that is the price; it’s going to cost me a lot of money in the future.

I also learned a couple of lessons. First make sure you don’t place your body anywhere near those clay pigeon throwers activated by falling steel plates. If the plate falls and hits you in the shoulder it’s going to suck really hard for the rest of the day. The second lesson is the fact that the laws of thermodynamics haven’t changed so grabbing the top rail on the SOCOM after shooting a lot of rounds is going to lead to a burning sensation in your hand. Finally I learned that continuing to shoot a 7.62x51mm battle rifle when your shoulder is already very sore is not a sound tactical choice.

Reddit Shoot

As I continue to live up here int he Twin Cities area I keep acquiring new people to hand out with. There is a sub-reddit called /r/twincitiessocial. We have beer meet ups ever Friday and it’s what you’d expect from an event populated mostly by Internet nerds such as myself. This weekend we decided to do something different in the form of a group shoot at a friend’s house. This shoot consisted of several first time shooters including a few people from other countries (Canada, which really isn’t a country but our secret 51st state, and India namely).

We had enough Mosin Nagant rifles there to arm a small malnutrition communist army. Beyond Mosins there was a various assortment of firepower include my M1A SOCOM 16, a couple of AR-15s, a couple of 1911s, a few Glocks, some Kahrs, and a partridge in a pear tree… which was shot down by the Mossberg 500.

The shoot went very well and I think we created some new shooters out of the event. The only hitch in the day was when a super mutant showed up. Thankfully the Canadian guy knew his V.A.T.S. system and scored a direct shot to the eyes for some critical damage:

V.A.T.S.

CNBC Does a Hit Piece of Remington

Yet another piece of news I missed during my time in Texas has bubbled up to my attention. The Firearm Blog reports that CNBC did a hit piece of the Remington Model 700 series.

CNBC’s report claims the Remington Model 700 can fire without the trigger being pulled and that flaw has resulted in injuries and deaths. Of course as The Firearm Blog points out pre-1982 Model 700s were known to have that particular flaw (although if there were injuries and deaths involved I don’t know, just make it a point to not walk in front of any firearm and you can avoid that potential cause of injury/death). As the CNBC report mentions this flaw going back 60 years I believe they are digging up an old story, claiming it’s new, and ignoring the fact that the problem was fixed in 1982.

I also have to agree with a point made on The Firearm Blog. In this day and age there isn’t a single issue a firearm can have that won’t go across the entire Internet. Just look at the Ruger LCP when it came out, every issue on the planet was brought up on almost every firearm message board on the planet. The Remington Model 700 is incredibly popular with hunters, military, and police. If there was a major flaw in the gun it would be well known.

Of course CNBC isn’t exactly known for using facts and they’ve always had a major anti-gun slant as far back as I can remember. Hopefully this hit piece doesn’t cause too much trouble for Remington.