Month: September 2014

Why I Like Night Sights

Somebody went and did it. Somebody upset the cosmic balance in the gun community by questioning ancient scripture. Via the Firearm Blog I came across a post that argues against night sights being a necessity. This is much more interesting than the caliber wars because you don’t often see people arguing over whether or not night sights are a must, their necessity is usually taken as a given. I encourage you to read it and keep an open mind because the author makes some good points. With that said, I’m going to explain my primary purpose for having night sights on my defensive firearms.

I’m not a fan of spending more money for night sights. But I have a condition which makes night sights handy. That condition is shitty eyesight, namely myopia. Without corrective lenses I can’t see fine detail out further than six or so inches. The notches that make up my rear sight blur together to create a rectangular blob sitting on top of my handgun, which makes picking out a black front sight practically impossible. But make the sights glow, specifically make the rear sights glow a different color from the front sight, and I can distinguish front from back and do a halfway decent job of aligning them. While my nearsightedness makes it practically impossible to distinguish the black rectangular blob on the rear of the gun from the black rectangular blob on the front of the gun I can distinguish the two orange blobs from the green blog.

Fortunately my nearsightedness doesn’t make seeing gross detail nearly as difficult. I can see well enough to determine if the person in front of me is holding a weapon and acting in a threatening manner. My low light vision is also surprisingly good (the light from a digital clock is usually enough for me to make out notable detail in a room). So my primary limitation in a low light self-defense situation is seeing the sights because they’re really tiny.

I do carry a flashlight on me because being flooding an aggressor with a 200 lumen light will probably blind him for a bit and will certainly make him very visible to me. A good flashlight or weapon mounted light is more valuable, in my opinion, than night sights when dealing with low light defensive situation. Laser sights are also good tools in my opinion since I can see a green blob on a target even better than two orange blobs and one green blob on top of my gun. The only reason I don’t have a laser/light combination mounted on my defensive firearm is because I can’t find a combination of a holster and sight with a green laser that I like (and I need green specifically because my eyes don’t pick up the wavelength most red lasers use very well). For my needs night sights are very useful, green laser sights are greatly appreciated, and really bright lights are awesome. But as always your situation probably differs from mine and your mileage will vary.

The Internet Thanks Police Officers

Apparently police apologists forgot about the fiasco that was #MyNYPD. Despite the backlash received for that attempted publicity stunt the 17th annual “Thanks a Police Office Day” went on. And not surprisingly the Internet responded:

Public ire spilled over once again yesterday, with the 17th annual “Thank a Police Officer Day” going about as well as the #MyNYPD hashtag campaign did back in April. The observance, conceived and promoted under the banner of lawyer Andrew M. Hale’s Whole Truth Project, is meant to further that group’s aim of combating negative assumptions about cops.

Instead, social media users took the opportunity to reinforce those unflattering stereotypes.

The article provides a lot of Twitter comments from people who are unhappy about the police state we live in. It’s no surprise that the backlash was pretty severe this year after the fiasco in Ferguson, Missouri. As modern policing becomes more and more adversarial it’s likely that publicity stunts like “Thanks a Police Officer Day” will garner more and more angry responses.

Amazon to Start Extorting Tax Money from Minnesotans

Bad new fellow Minnesotans. Starting on October 1st Amazon is going to begin extorting tax money from us:

Minnesotans don’t have much longer to get orders from Amazon.com tax-free.

Starting Oct. 1, the online retailer says it will start collecting sales taxes from Minnesota residents. Online-only retailers don’t have to collect state sales taxes if they do not have a physical location in a state.

I’m a big fan of Amazon. Hell, I’m a Prime subscriber. The free shipping I received from Prime from the amount of merchandise I purchase from Amazon more than covers the subscription cost. Part of the reason I prefer Amazon is because it doesn’t collect taxes that are used to fund militarized police, drug prohibitions, and stadiums for whiny rich bitch sports teams. Now that that’s changing I’m going to start doing less business with Amazon and more business with retailers that don’t extort money from me to fund my oppression.

Thankfully there are a massive number of online retailers who haven’t caved to the pressure of state governments. I recently ordered an item from Newegg and didn’t pay a dime of taxes on it. Many online firearm parts and accessories retailers only collect taxes from people living in the state they have a physical presence in. This announcement from Amazon is good news for them because it means they will get more of my money and since I do most of my shopping online that’s not an insignificant chunk of change.

If You Hire Specialists You Should Probably Listen to Them

Since the breach at Target several other high profile cases of customer credit card data being stolen have arisen. Home Depot is one of the stores whose credit card data was obtained by unknown third parties. What’s interesting about the Home Depot case is that it’s beginning to appear as though the company’s internal security team issued a warning about the problem several years ago:

But despite alarms as far back as 2008, Home Depot was slow to raise its defenses, according to former employees. On Thursday, the company confirmed what many had feared: The biggest data breach in retailing history had compromised 56 million of its customers’ credit cards. The data has popped up on black markets and, by one estimate, could be used to make $3 billion in illegal purchases.

Yet long before the attack came to light this month, Home Depot’s handling of its computer security was a record of missteps, the former employees said. Interviews with former members of the company’s cybersecurity team — who spoke on the condition they not be named, because they still work in the industry — suggest the company was slow to respond to early threats and only belatedly took action.

A heads up from an anonymous former employee isn’t solid evidence but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is true. Companies have a history of putting aside time and money to hire security specialists only to ignore their advice. This is something that I never understood. Why would any company invest resources to hire specialists only to ignore their advice? When you hire security specialists you should expect them to deliver bad and costly news, especially between the time you first hire them and have a chance to implement their recommended security practices. Yet so many companies seem dead set on ignoring any bad news delivered by their security specialists. It’s stupid, that’s the only word for it.

Republicans Don’t Have a Monopoly on Voting Related Conspiracy Theories

Here in Minnesota the Republican Party has been banging on the Voter ID drum since they started losing some very high profile elections by pretty narrow margins. If you listen to their claims the Democrats supposedly have buses full of people that a driven from precinct to precinct so they can claim to be new voters and vote for Democrat candidates. Of course when pushed for evidence to support these claims the most you receive are anecdotes. They all know somebody’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate who saw these buses in operation and even followed them around to a couple of precincts but were somehow prevented from recording the escapade or calling the police (because shit like that is pretty illegal).

Democrats have no issue making fun of Republicans over this and rightfully so. But Republicans aren’t they only people who have conspiracy theories related to voting. As it turns out the Democrats have some real whoppers of their own. Take this one for example:

A militia group in Wisconsin is planning to target African-American Democrats at polling places in order to suppress the vote and keep Republican governor Scott Walker in office.

Ah yes, a nebulous militia is not only going to intimidate Democratic voters but African-American Democratic voters! Like the Republicans, the Democrats have ironclad evidence to support their claims:

Here is a Twitter exchange where the group details their plan:

There’s no way to refute that! Not just anybody can make an account on Twitter and post whatever the hell they want. If somebody on Twitter claims to be a member of a militia group in Wisconsin that is planning to intimidate African-American Democratic voters then that is absolutely what is going to happen.

It continues to amaze me how much time people waste on bitching about voting. Voting is the most meaningless thing to argue about. Your vote doesn’t even count. And the only options available on any ballot are people who want lord over you. Since there’s no option to abolish a position you are simply voting for the master you would prefer to submit to out of a small list of potential masters. Considering that fraud is irrelevant because no matter who wins you lose.

Another Suspect Managed to Materialize a Gun from the Back of a Squad Car

We have yet another incident of an individual being cuffed, frisked, and placed into the back of a squad car only to materializing a gun. Unlike the previous stories of this scenario the suspect didn’t “shoot himself” but aimed his gun at an officer, which forced that officer to shoot the suspect dead:

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating the officer-involved shooting that took place Thursday morning in West Savannah on Augusta Avenue, between Eagle Street and Cumming Street. The victim, Charles Smith, 29, was handcuffed behind his back and in the process of being arrested during the incident. The encounter was caught on video, according to GBI. An autopsy on Smith’s body will be done at the GBI Crime Lab in Savannah Friday.

“After being placed in the patrol car, Smith was able to move his hands to the front of his body and kick out the window of the patrol car. The officers said as Smith attempted to exit the patrol car they saw that he had a firearm. This encounter resulted in officer David Jannot, shooting and killing Smith at the scene,” according to GBI.

I’m sorry if I sound a little skeptical. How, exactly, are these suspects ending up in the back of cop cars with guns? With how often this situation seems to be happening you would think police officers would be extra diligent to make sure they do a thorough pat down of anybody they’re cuffing and detaining. That is, of course, assuming these situations aren’t just executions being performed by officers and written off as suicides or covered up by having a spare gun to drop at the scene. While I’m not normally one to buy into such theories easily the fact that these people have been detained and thrown into the back of cop cars makes the official stories sound pretty fishy.

Monday Metal: Bleed by Sinbreed

I’m feeling old school but not old school. After digging through some classic sounding power metal I came across a band that I hadn’t heard of before, Sinbreed. They’re a German power metal band that has a nice old school sound to them but have only been around since 2005. I haven’t had a chance to listen to a lot of their stuff but what I’ve heard so far I’m digging:

New Social Media Site for the Rest of Us

Are you sick of seeing people on your social media sites buying cheap, tacky Rolex watches? Do you wonder why you have to suffer through posts of friends posting their shitty Ferrari (seriously, couldn’t they afford a real car)? Do you tire of Facebook and Twitter showing you pictures of puny yachts? Are you simply sick and tired of the problems of poor people appearing in your social media feeds? Well I’ve got good news for you, there’s a new social media site that will free you from all of this drudgery:

For a cool $9,000 first-year membership fee (and $3,000 a year every year after that), high-rollers can crowdsource names for their yachts or complain about having to fly commercial to a like-minded, sympathetic audience. Netropolitan is billing itself as “the world’s most exclusive online community,” one that will allow “affluent and accomplished individuals worldwide to socialize in a completely private and secure manner.” With the hefty subscription prices, Netropolitan can afford to be ad-free. And the posts will be moderated by the company’s own “professional moderators.”

$9,000 for the initial year and $3,000 for every year after that is a positive steal for getting away from Facebook and Twitter and their poor pauper users. Never again will you have to be burdened by the pathetic annoyances of serfs. So run along and join your diamond encrusted circlejerk today!

Let the Purges Begin

Ukraine is looking to be the start of Cold War II. Not surprisingly, just as was common during the Cold War, the United States is looking to back some really nice guys. On the anti-Russia side, which means our side, we have Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk who looks like a pissant tyrant in the making.

prime-minister-arseniy-yatseniuk

Mr. Yatseniuk has announced that his regime is going to begin purges loyalty screenings in a McCarthyistic attempt to remove all wrongthinkers:

Ukraine will screen about one million civil servants to root out corrupt practices from the past, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has said.

The parliament passed a law on Tuesday, allowing the removal of government officials from their posts.

All those who worked under ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and also former senior Communist and KGB members will be affected.

Like all tyrants Mr. Yatseniuk is selling his loyalty screenings as a narrowly focused effort to remove potentially destabilizing Russian sympathizers. But history has shown that loyalty screenings have a way of going from narrowly focused to so broadly focused that only personal friends of the ruling party members keep from being sent to the camps. Even if these screenings go to that extent we will sweep it under the rug because his regime isn’t supported by Russia and as we learned with America’s support of Pol Pot anybody who is against Russia, no matter how heinous, will receive America’s backing.