Month: December 2010

Is Gun Blogging Getting Harder

Sebastian over at Snowflakes in Hell has an interesting post talking about gun blogging becoming more difficult. I’ve noticed this as well which is why there hasn’t been as many gun related topics as of late. Sebastian credits this to the wins we’ve scored as of late but I’m attributing it to a general lull in gun related things. No field of interest has interesting things happening, they usually have burst of interesting things followed by times of nothing happening. Currently there is no good or bad related firearms legislation on the table, no amazing new firearms are being presented or released, and for those of us up in the frozen tundra shooting competition season is over for the year.

When I started this blog my main focus was on firearms but I left it open for posting about other things. Needless to say with the lull in firearms related news I’ve been posting more about world news and technology.

Worry not though because whenever something interesting happens in the world of firearms or gun rights (and I hear about it) it will get posted here. The lull will eventually be over and there will be a glut of gun related things to write about again. At that point us gun bloggers will be finding it difficult to set aside time to write about it all.

Julian Assange Arrested

I’ve haven’t covered a whole lot of the recent Wikileaks fiasco because everybody else on the planet and their grandmother already is doing it. Either way I will mention Julian Assange was arrested in Britian and is facing extradition to Sweden. Wikileaks says they’ll continue operations as normal which should be expected as Mr. Assange is mostly a founder and figurehead.

And the Award for Biggest Bad Ass of the Year Goes To

Imagine you’re a rancher in Mexico who’s land is coveted by the local drug lords. Now imagine those very thugs came do your ranch and gave you 24 hours to vacate. What would you do? If you answered by saying you’d leave the property then you’re not nearly awesome enough to even continue reading this post. If you answered that you’d setup weapons at your windows and take down as many of those fucks as you could then you’ be Alejo Garza Tamez, a complete and total bad ass:

He defended his home like it was the Alamo.

A 77-year-old rancher gave drug-cartel thugs the fight of their lives when they tried to take possession of his sprawling property in northern Mexico, becoming a folk hero in a region ravaged by violence.

Alejo Garza Tamez turned his humble farmhouse into a fortress for his last stand — lining up his numerous hunting rifles in windows and doorways — after receiving an ultimatum on Nov. 13 from the drug-gang guerrillas to vacate within 24 hours or die.

The lionhearted rancher was ready when two truckloads of heavily armed gang members returned the next morning.

Obviously this was a man not to be fucked with. Hell the only way those thugs were able to finally end the firefight was to lob grenades into his home:

He shot so fast and furiously that the confused cartel assumed there were several people inside. Dropping their assault rifles, the thugs lobbed hand grenades into the ranch house until the shooting stopped.

When the Mexican army finally showed up after the gunfight, they found four dead and two injured gang members piled in a heap outside the shelled, bullet-pocked farmhouse.

Inside, amid a pile of rubble, was the lifeless, bullet-riddled Garza, two weapons at his side.

It’s also nice to see that the Mexican army will eventually show up… after all the shooting has concluded of course. It’s sad to see a man as bad ass as Mr. Tamez go but by God he went down in a blaze of glory. Do not give into evil would be the best phrase here.

The Science is In

File this under another reason to be against the war on drugs and government policy involving things we can and can not put into out bodies. The United Kingdom got a little irked when they told a group of scientists to do some research into various drugs. Unfortunately for the government the research didn’t give the results they wanted so now they’re making a new proposal that would remove the requirement for scientific advice when doing drug classifications:

The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government’s treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

And I love this wording:

“Removing the requirement on the home secretary to appoint to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at least one person with experience in six specific areas will allow us greater flexibility in the expertise we are able to draw on.

In other words it will allow the government the flexibility to classify things however the fuck they please.

I just want to emphasis the main point in this post, the United Kingdom government didn’t like the results of scientific research so they are moving to abolish the requirement of scientific input on drug classification.

Racism, We’ll Find it Everywhere

The best thing about racism is that you can find it everywhere:

Students for Transit Equality is a recently formed group of University of Minnesota School of Social Work students who are concerned about racial and economic inequalities in Twin Cities transit and transit planning.

Emphasis mine. What’s their case?

The purpose of this information campaign is to draw community awareness and publicity to the lack of any bus shelter at the bus stop at 7th Street and Nicollet Avenue. This bus stop is primarily used by buses bound for north Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center. Despite being the most-used bus stop regionwide, this stop has no shelter or any other amenities. Meanwhile, bus stops on the rapid-transit routes of Marquette and 2nd Avenues, serving primarily suburban commuters, are equipped with heated and lit shelters, real-time arrival displays and large transit maps.

Obviously this is a clear case of racism! But wait:

The city of Minneapolis has slowly realized this inequality and has begun planning for an east-west transit spine through downtown Minneapolis that will potentially equip all bus stops along 7th and 8th Streets with shelters.

So… the group exists and is trying to raise awareness of itself even though their gripe is already in the plans to be fixed? What the fuck? I wonder what the next case of racism on Minnesota public transit will be. Wait the last time I took the light rail I remember there being far fewer white people on board than people of other races. RACISM!

Priorities

The Minnesota Vikings are whining that they want a new stadium or they may search for a new home. Caving to sports teams is like caving to terrorists, if you do it once they all expect you to do it again. Needless to say since Minnesota caved to pay part of the Twin’s new stadium with tax money the Vikings want the same:

There have been discussions about raising liquor taxes or possibly using “racino” money to help finance the project. Bennett has even suggested going to the old blackout days and charging people a small fee to get the game on TV, but he’s been told that can’t happen.

Oh, did I mention Minnesota is facing a $6.2 billion deficit? Priorities… we have them.

Lead Ammunition Ban Take Two

Remember when the Center for Biodiversity petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban all lead ammunition in the United States? Well the petition flopped and nothing came of it because frankly, it’s stupid. Now the dip shits at the Center for Biodiversity are suing the EPA:

Three environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to force it to prevent lead poisoning of wildlife from spent ammunition and lost fishing tackle.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by the Center for Biological Diversity, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the hunters group Project Gutpile. It comes after the EPA denied their petition to ban lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle, which the groups say kills 10 million to 20 million birds and other animals a year by lead poisoning.

OK it was actually three sets of dip shits but I rest my case. The funny thing is the group is claiming 10 million to 20 million birds are killed each year by lead poisoning. Of course I’ve not seen any scientific study that demonstrates any proof of this and I believe if the death toll was that high we’d notice something was amiss. It’s not like 10 million to 20 million random corpses of birds would go unnoticed by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Also between 10 million and 20 million? That’s one Hell of a cap in estimation. The fudge factor is literally 10 million birds, what kind of estimation is that and how did they come to estimate it? I also find it rather funny that the Center for Biodiversity believe they know the EPA’s authority better than the fucking EPA:

In August, the EPA denied the ammunition part of the petition, saying it didn’t have authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act. A few weeks ago, it rejected the fishing tackle portion, saying the petition didn’t demonstrate a ban was necessary to protect against unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, as required by the law.

In the lawsuit, the groups say that EPA erred when it said it didn’t have the authority to ban lead ammunition. They argued that the legislative history of the Toxic Substances Control Act makes it clear that components of ammunition – shots and bullets – may be regulated as chemical substances.

Believe me when it comes to authority government agencies know their boundaries and are always looking for ways to expand them.

Close the Washington Monument

I think Bruce Schneier just posted one of the best article’s he’s ever tossed up on his blog. The post calls for closing the Washington Monument:

Securing the Washington Monument from terrorism has turned out to be a surprisingly difficult job. The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there’s no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options, but I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

I think he’s dead on here. Let’s just shut down the Washington Monument and let is stand as a testament to the fact we let the terrorists win by being allowed to be terrorized in the first place. We’ve tossed away so many of our rights and liberties in the false promise of security from terrorism that there is no doubt that the 9/11 attacks were a complete success.

Our politicians will claim that America refuses to be terrorized while at the same time justifying out of control legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and actions such as allowing TSA agents to sexually molest American citizens. But the actions of our politicians are done by preying on our fear of the terrorists meaning we have been terrorized. We let fear guide our willingness to turn over power to others who promised protection from that which we feared. This is how tyranny starts ladies and gentlemen, but surrendering our rights and liberties to those who claim to offer solutions to our perceived problems.

Interesting Case Design

The Firearm Blog has the skinny on a proposed case design that replaces our tried and true brass casing with platic spiral cases. I see a few problems with this design myself beyond the lack of heat transfer mentioned on The Firearm Blog. The biggest issue I have is the fact these cases are almost guaranteed to not be reloadable.

Brass is malleable so after being blown out from the pressures inherit in firearm cartridges they can be resized back down to a specified size. Plastic does not have this advantage and I can’t imagine any plastic being strong enough to survive multiple reloadings. Just chambering and extracting the case will probably damage it beyond repair due to the physics involving plastic slamming against metal. The idea behind the case is that they will extract better but I don’t think extraction is really that big of an issue anymore. Most rifles and pistols have a very low rate of failure these days.