Chronicling the depravities of the State.
Good news everybody Congress voted in favor of allowing gun owners to transport their firearms in checked luggage when traveling on Amtrak.
Amtrak will be forced to reestablish their system for allowing firearms in checked luggage much like airports do. When this goings through I may actually consider Amtrak a viable transportation method.
A couple posts ago I talked about how I felt felons shouldn’t be barred their right to bear arms. As it sits right snow in this country anybody convicted of a felony can no longer own or use a firearm legally. One problem is the list of felony charges is every increasing and many have nothing to do with violent behavior.
Listening to the latest episode of This Week in Tech I came across this story. From the story:
A birthday party that included a trip to see “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” could send 22 year old Samantha Tumpach to prison for three years.
So she taped a few minutes of a shitty movie based on a shitty book. What kind of charge do you get for that?
The managers at the theater contacted the police and Tumpach was arrested. She spent two days in jail and now has felony charges to face for illegally copying a movie.
Yup a felony. Tell me why this girl should be barred her right to bear arms. I’m waiting. She’s done nothing violent but thanks to the Gun Control Act of 1968 she, if prosecuted, will be barred her rights because she recorded a few minutes of a movie on a her camcorder. Yeah I guess all felons should be prevented from purchasing firearms.
Well the 802.11n protocol was finally ratified a while ago so that means it’s time for engineers to work on the next great thing. In this article they are talking about the next standard which is to be dubbed 802.11ac. They are claiming this next standard will support speeds up to 1Gbps.
But it’s their second claim I find doubtful, that this new protocol will be out by 2012. If anybody followed the 802.11n fiasco you’ll know it took them forever to finally ratify the standard and get it out the door. I highly doubt they will get the next version out in two years.
Via Sharp as a Marble we have a post on Walls of the City. It’s a list of different laws that would be on the books if other rights were shit all over as much as the second amendment. Here are some gems:
Anyone convicted of a felony or convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse or assault is not allowed freedom of speech or religion and must rely on the government to provide speech and religion for them.
(1968 gun control act)
Many people in the gun rights community don’t like to touch this particular law. It’s probably due to the fact that nobody wants to be seen as supporting felons or people who abused their spouse. Personally I’m against either restriction and I’ll tell you why.
If you are worried a person who committed a heinous crime (well not just heinous crimes are felonies anymore, practically everything is becoming one) is going to commit an act of violence why the Hell is he out of prison? A huge majority of crimes are committed by repeat offenders which seems to imply somebody who has already committed a crime is more than willing to break another law (obtaining a gun while being a felon) to assist in a repeat offense.
Than you have those charged with domestic violence. If you’ve ever known somebody accused of domestic abuse you know the situation is probably anything but cut and dry. I have friends who have been accused by their significant other of physical abuse. Personally I refuse to take sides in such an argument but I can say the situation is dicey and the truth is usually impossible to drill down to. The fact that somebody can have their rights ripped away from them without absolute cut and dry evidence is a slippery slope to say the least.
But the bottom line is I’m against stripping anybody of any civil right.
Before engaging in new free speech you must pass an instant background check by a government authorized free speech dealer. Sorry, if your name is like someone else prohibited from speech and religion, it is up to you to prove you’re not that person.
(NICS instant background check and Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993)
Sounds pretty stupid when applied to free speech doesn’t it? How about to a right of trial by jury? Maybe you should be required to go through an instant background check before you have the right to not have your property searched without an issued warrant.
Any religions, peaceable assemblies, camera, computer, telephone or free speech enabling device made before 1986 is available to use by the general public. Any made after 1986 is only available to law enforcement.
(Closing of the NFA machine gun registry in 1986 by Regan with the Firearms Owner’s Protection Act)
Pretty straight forward. Once against sounds rather unreasonable when applied to religion and free speech.
Of course some gun control zealot will spew out a river of bullshit claiming you can’t compare the second amendment to any other amendment. This of course implies that the founding fathers of this country meant what they said with every right listed in the Bill of Rights except the second item posted. Seems odd that they would have made a random exception without noting it anywhere.
I like to read Dvorak Uncensored because I come across some great articles.
For instance I needed something to read in order to test out the new built in PDF reader on my Kindle and I see something worth reading on Dvorak’s site. Behold the TSA Standard Operating Procedure manual. Now you can read first hand how they abuse passengers do their job.
Here’s an example of how we fight back. A certain “news” organization by the moniker the Herald Times went and published a list of streets where people holding concealed carry licenses lived. Of course they did this in the name of safety.
So in the name of safety Gun Nuts Media present a database of streets with a Google map of streets where authorized journalists live. This is of course in the name of safety.
Your move Herald Times.
No not a review by me, but by Engadget. So much like the first Kindle the Nook appears to be very 1.0. In other words it’s a valiant initial effort but needs improvement.
The main criticism made by Engadget deals with the software. Navigation on the Nook appears to be a slight mess with an amalgamation of submenus inside of other submenus which in turn are inside of main menus. Furthermore due to the slowness of the E Ink display’s refresh there are often periods where the LCD and E Ink are synced up leading to apparent frustrations. Overall the entire software stack is sluggish according to the review.
Engadget also mentioned the backlit LCD screen is quite unpleasant when it’s on full brightness and you’re reading the E Ink display. Apparently if you’re using the Nook to play music the LCD screen comes on every time the song changes, something that I would find annoying.
The buying experience on the device appears to be quite a bit better than that on the Kindle. Also if you’re using the Nook in a Barnes and Nobel store you can read through entire books while there. Well you can read entire books for up to an hour a day at least. This feature seems rather meaningless to me since if you’re in the store already you can go grab any book there and read through it for as long as you please while there. Still it’s an interesting feature to note.
Hearing all of this I can honestly say I’ll be staying with the Kindle (not that I was planning to change). But it’s good to see some major competition coming down the pipe from another company that knows books and book selling (as opposed to a company like Sony who traditionally isn’t in the book industry). Many I love the gadget industry, there is just so much competition.
Snowflakes in Hell brings us more details on the impending Wisconsin microstamping legislation. First off the bill, titled AB 221, can be found here. The bottom line is that the bill is bad. Although all the provisions in the bill scare me this one is very interesting:
Fixing a broken pistol is now a misdemeanor, unless you get parts that make the correct microstamp. No replacing firing pins or barrels.
There you go, fixing a gun which you legally own will be illegal without getting parks that make the gun microstamp casings. This microstamping idea is beyond idiotic since it will cost gun manufacturers a fortune to implement, it will add parts to the gun making them less reliable, and it can easily defeated by criminals picking up their brass (or a cheap file). Those of you in Wisconsin now it the time to move against this.
Some time ago I mentioned I was doing a comparison of the XD and Glock lines of pistols. Of course I didn’t follow up on that in any reasonable time but here is the follow up. Before making posts comparing the two I’m going to go over the two pistols being compared, the Springfield XD Compact in .45 and the Glock 30SF also in .45.
Both guns are the compact versions of each companies .45 pistol. The XD Compact I’m testing has a 4.04″ barrel while the Glock 30SF has a 3.78″ barrel. Not a lot of difference there I must say. Meanwhile the XD is 5″ high while the Glock is 4.76″ when using the flush 9 round magazine (I only have 10 round magazines for the Glock). For width the XD is 1.21″ while the Glock is 1.27″ which is so negligible that it’s almost unnoticeable. The XD does look quite a bit thinner due to the fact the top of the slide is thinned while the Glock slide is the same width from top to bottom. According to company provided statistics with an empty 10 round magazine inserted the XD weighs in at 29 oz. while the Glock weighs in at 26.49 oz. This surprises me a bit since the Glock feels slightly heavier.
Both guns are capable of using their bigger siblings larger capacity magazines give both the capability of 13+1 rounds. One difference is Springfield has spacers for their magazines to make the 13 round magazines fit flush with the shorter grip compact model while Glock offers no such piece. Standard they take 10 round magazines giving both guns the same capacity.
On the exterior the guns only differ in appearance and a slight number of features. The XD comes with a striker cocked indicator and a grip safety. Both guns have a loaded chamber indicator but whereas the XD indicator is a separate piece on the stop of the barrel the Glock’s extractor doubles as a loaded chamber indicator. This is not achievable on the XD since it uses an internal extractor while the Glock uses an external one. Both guns have a trigger safety mean to prevent the firearm from going off if the trigger gains enough inertia but somebody isn’t pulling it.
The Glock grip is at a steeper angle than the XD. Some people hate this about the Glock while others like it but I found it easy to adapt to with a little time. The XD grip angle is similar to that of the CZ line of pistols from which much of its design came. Meanwhile the barrel axis of the Glock is noticeably lower than that of the XD. This in theory reduced felt recoil but to make up for that fact the XD has a much heavier recoil spring in it than the Glock does.
Those are the two pistols, if you want more details just do a Google search. Most people know the guns well enough that this post isn’t really needed but being this is an experiment I feel the need to list all information.
Checking Springfield Armory’s website I found that they introduced a new pistol, the XD(M) 3.8. It appears to more or less be an XD(M) with a 3.8 inch barrel and different slide serration.
Right now it only appears to come in 9mm but I’m sure .40 S&W will be coming along shortly. Although it’s being marketed at concealed carry it appears the grip is still the standard XD(M) length at the gun takes 19 round magazines. Personally I can conceal a 5″ barrel no problem it’s the grip of the pistol that I find most difficult to conceal. But that’s just an observation. Overall the XD(M) 3.8 doesn’t appear to be anything groundbreaking but may be a nice addition to the line.