Category: Side Notes

Another Gun Blog Incinerated to Ash

I’m fairly disconnected from the gun blogosphere. It’s not that I don’t like my fellow gun bloggers, it’s just that I don’t have time to operate a blog and follow a bunch of them. Of the small number of gun blogs I read frequently one of my favorites has been Tam’s (if the link goes to a blog then it’s happy days and you can ignore the remainder of this post). She managed to wield snark like a surgeon with a scalpel. Sadly she has deployed a desiccator* over her blog (Shall Not Be Questioned is another one of the handful of blogs I follow regularly).

Since I’m fairly disconnected from the gun blogging community I’m also the last to know about any ongoing drama or issues my fellows are dealing with. Based on the comments I’ve read it sounds as if Tam was dealing with the fun and excitement of a cyber stalker. Those can be a pain in the ass and are great at ruining any enthusiasm one may have for any online activity. Needless to say I understand why she burned her blog to the ground but I must also admit that it will be greatly missed.

I came into this gun blogging game late. Since I started several of the old timers have hung up their hats. Blogging requires a bit of work and doing it day in and day out for years isn’t easy and the pay usually sucks. Not to mention the difficulty of writing about one topic for years without falling into the trap of repeating yourself (because, let’s face it, there are only so many things to talk about regarding guns). I haven’t reached burnout point yet in part because I have broadened the topics I write about. Frequent blogging has also helps my writing skills considerably so I’m inclined to keep doing it just to keep the skill practiced. But there may come a day when I decide to deploy a desiccator over this site.

*Obscure reference probably warrants context:

Dark Reign was totally underrated.

A Modest Proposal for Modern Police Departments

It’s obvious to anybody who pays attention that modern policing has a big problem with force. Namely modern police officers are too quick to resort to force, especially deadly force. When I point this out police apologists always respond with some variation on “So? What’s the solution? You never give a solution! You just insult our heroes in blue who you rely on to save your life and keep you safe!” While the last part of that statement is false (I have never been in a position where I received protection from the police) the question itself is valid. So I present my modest proposal for helping reduce the amount of violence inflicted on the populace by police officers.

When an officer starts at a new department they should be on a probation period. During this probation period they should be prohibited from carrying any form of weaponry while on duty. Additionally they should be paired with another officer who has demonstrated effectiveness at resolving situations with the minimum amount of force necessary. The experienced officer would be armed as he has demonstrated an ability to be responsible with armaments.

As the new officer proves he can resolve situations with the minimum amount of necessary force and a general aversion to violence he can begin carrying less-likely-to-be-lethal armaments (pepper spray and a Taser). If the officer then demonstrates he is capable of responsibly using less-likely-to-be-lethal armaments he can begin carrying a baton. After he proves his ability to use a baton responsibly he can finally begin carrying a gun.

If our society is dead set on giving a monopoly on law enforcement to unaccountable individuals then they should at least be required to demonstrate an ability to act in a responsible manner.

Defcon 22 Recap

I’m back from my vacation. Where did I go? Well:

at-the-podium-at-defcon-22

That’s me at the podium in Track Two giving a rousing presentation about the need for hackers all around the world to use their skills to break into and sabotage government all government networks. Just kidding. That picture of me was taken by a friend when we gained access to Track Two after it was locked up for the night.

Defcon 22 was a blast. Things started off on a good foot when the room I had booked at the Palms was unavailable so they had to upgrade me to a better room for free. The room had living room separate from the bedroom and two bathrooms. It was a shame to have such a nice room and not spend much time in it but Defcon itself was packed with things to do. I got in line for my badge a few minutes before eight and proceeded to slowly make my way towards the registration desk for the next two and a half hours. During that time I made a few friends and learned some interesting things. After obtaining my fancy electronic badge I attended a handful of talks and met up with some friends.

Friday, when Defcon really begins, was packed with great talks. Defcon was also packed with people. I felt as though the number of attendees this year was at least 50 percent higher than last year (later I talked to a goon who said that the number of attendees wasn’t actually that much higher than last year but agreed that it felt much higher). As usual the convention was an exercise in controlled chaos. The villages proved to be interesting but the Social Engineering Village didn’t have nearly as much space as it needed and the Hardware Hacking Village was shoved off into a corner that was only accessible by going through the competition area. New this year were the Crypto Village and the Industrial Controllers Village. I walked through the latter but didn’t spend much time in it. The Crypto Village was interesting as they had some excellent presentations. It was there that I learned the Fifth Amendment doesn’t protect your biometric data. While you may be protected from giving the police the decryption key for your hard drive you cannot refuse to give your fingerprint (at least under the Fifth Amendment, technically you could refuse to do so until they decided to murder you). So securing your data with a fingerprint probably isn’t the best idea (I’m looking at your iPhone 5S users).

During the evening a few friends and myself hung out in Track One where several electronic music performers were doing their thing. One of the groups to play was Anamanaguchi. Their album sounds like it was made on an old Nintendo Entertainment System, which is pretty cool. But their live performance didn’t, which was disappointing. I still had fun though likely thanks to the alcohol.

Saturday was basically Friday all over again. Lots of good talks and fun things to do. During the evening a few friends and I went to Hacker Jeopardy. In years prior there was a woman on stage who would remove an article of clothing whenever a team got a Double Jeopardy question correct. That wasn’t the case this year. This didn’t surprise me too much since Defcon does get a lot of flak for being a sexist event (and much of that flak is justifiable). After Jeopardy we went to the party out by the pool. That started off pretty poorly since the girl performing was, well, fucking horrible. So my friends and I found ourselves in Track One again where the music was a marked improvement.

Sunday, being the last day of Defcon, was much more somber. Most of us were exhausted from back-to-back all-nighters. A couple of Sunday’s talks were very interesting. Deviant’s talk about elevators was fascinating. The closing ceremonies were as usual (which for me means kind of boring) except for the announcement at the end. Defcon 23 will be held at the Paris and Bally’s casinos. I’m not sure whether we outgrew Rio or if Rio simply refused to renew our contract. Hosting Defcon is kind of a pain in the ass since things all over the hotel get compromised and I could see the Rio simply refusing to renew our contract. Either way a new venue will be nice since Rio felt too small.

Defcon 22 was a blast. The only thing that wasn’t a blast was the flight home. Red eye flights aren’t fun and I don’t like touching ground in Minnesota at 05:30. Getting to bed at 07:30 is not my idea of a fun time. But that’s a pretty minor thing to complain about. I can’t wait for Defcon 23.

I’ve been completely out of the loop since Wednesday so I don’t have any other posts prepared for today. Catching up on a week’s worth of news and events isn’t easy, especially when your sleep schedule has been thoroughly fucked up by a red eye flight. Normal posting should resume tomorrow.

On Vacation

It’s time again for me to take a little vacation. In all likelihood I’m not going to have reliable network access for a few days so you shouldn’t expect any timely updates. However, as with previous vacations, I’ve taken the liberty of writing some posts beforehand so you won’t even know that I’m gone (except for the fact that I told you).

During this vacation I will not be responding to e-mails and comments from new commenters probably won’t get approved (your first comment has to be approved on my site as an anti-spam measure, sorry) until I return.

Inventories of Soldiers From 1066 to 2014

I came across a neat slideshow of various soldier load outs from 1066 to today. For the most part there is a trend of increasing equipment as time goes on but the variety of weapons carried decreases. Once our species masted firearm manufacturing (at least to a point where they were reasonably reliable and accurate) we said “Fuck these axes, maces, and swords.” That’s not surprising since the firearm really is the epitome of infantry weaponry.

Training

There was a time when I thought, as I believe many people think, that military and police personnel were highly trained in areas of fighting. It’s a logical assumption. If somebody’s job relies on the use of force you would expect them to be well trained in the use of force. However as I learned more about firearms I also learned that military and police personnel commonly have substandard firearm training. As Tim at Gun Nuts Media explained:

Those who have never been in the military often make the mistake of assuming that everyone within the organization is extensively trained in the use of small arms. This is not true. The unpleasant reality is that a large chunk of the people in uniform (be that a police or military uniform) are extremely poorly trained with small arms. I know a number of people who did multiple tours in the military without ever once touching a weapon. The handgun training that does happen is very rudimentary, happens infrequently, isn’t sustained by any ongoing practice, and generally results in somebody who it is hoped will be at least intelligent enough to know which end of the tube the bullet comes out of. That’s it. Even infantrymen who are supposed to be the warfighters get minimal handgun training that doesn’t leave them remotely prepared to use the weapon under combat conditions.

I’ve shot with quite a few military and police trained individuals who were, what I consider, abysmal with all manners of small arms. As I study martial arts I’m also learning that military and police personnel also have substandard training in hand to hand combat. Many, if not most, of the supposed hand to hand tactics taught to police have a very narrow range of applicability. For example, many of the pressure point tactics work well against a semi-compliant opponent but are practically impossible to execute on a fully resistant opponent who knows even a little about hand to hand fighting. From what I’ve noticed the military does a slightly better job since it spends time teaching soldiers how to utilize many objects as hand to hand weapons but even their training is surprisingly limited (granted, their primary weapon is their rifle but I already covered that their training with small arms is pretty pitiful).

Here in the United States we seem to have adopted a quantity over quality mentality when it comes to training police and military personnel. This is probably because training, for anything honestly but specifically for fighting in this case, takes dedication and a lot of fucking work. If you look at professional fighters and high ranking competition shooters they invest a great deal of their lives into mastering their trade. On the downside that means we’re stuck with a local police force running around with weapons they’re generally not well trained to handle and foreign countries get to deal with our military personnel who suffer the same problem. On the upside it also means that both groups will have very few if any encountered with people whose training exceeds their own. The number of professional fighters and competition shooters in the world is fairly small and most of the people who have invested so much of their time into mastering a skill are too busy to be fucking around with the police or military.

But I’m left wondering if our country’s decision to focus on quantity is partially to blame for our military and especially our police having a propensity to use far more force than is necessary. Competency often leads to confidence. Would a cop be a likely to shoot somebody if they were extremely confident in their hand to hand skills? Would cops be less likely to spray and pray with their firearms if they were extremely confident in their marksmanship? I’ve seen quite a few people who, in lacking competency, opt for overkill. Not just in fighting mind you. But in fighting the consequences are higher because those who tend to lack confidence will often attempt to compensate with more violence than a situation would actually need. In the case of police work that can make the difference between restraining a guy without hurting him and brutally assaulting him.

Perhaps it’s time that we demand military and especially police personnel dedicated a major chunk of their time to training. Yes it will involve high drop out rates as the lazy will seek alternative, less rigorous, work. But do we really want those people throwing around their authority? And it’s possible that those who remain will be less apt to cause great deals of harm. It’s an idea I’ve been throwing around recently and thought others might wish to consider.

Nothing to See Here

Last night I was busy creating aggregate demand by helping tear down my friend’s old deck. Paul Krugman would have been proud since we destroyed the shit out of that old deck but he also would have been unhappy that we left the rest of the house standing. I would like to say we walked away without injury by a high speed 2×4 did manage to clip my friend in the knee. But that may have further stimulated the economy by encouraging him to drink more beer to help relieve the pain!

The point I’m trying to get at here is that I didn’t get around to blogging last night because I was wrecking shit. So if you want more content you’ll have to check back tomorrow.