New York on it’s Way for Micro Stamping

Another flawed idea by the anti-gunners is making it’s way through New York state…

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=4936

Senate Bill 4397, if passed into law, would make selling any semi-automatic handgun without so called micro stamping technology illegal.

For those of you out of the loop micro stamping is a method where the firearm marks every round it fires with some kind of unique identifier. The unique identifier is suppose to help police track a person illegally using a gun. Of course this requirement would jack up the price of the gun and won’t work to boot.

Let’s take a look at the basic idea. So the gun it supposed to stamp an identifier onto each round fire. In that case you have three options, stamp the bullet, stamp the case, or stamp both. Stamping the case would seem rather idiotic since you can just pick those up and take them with you. Stamping the bullet is equally idiotic since it’s mostly likely going to deform on impact with something which would distort and stamped on identifier.

So really nothing is accomplished. Further more the stamp inside the gun can easily be filed off so nothing is stamped on either the bullet or the case. So why would this get proposed? More importantly who would propose it?

Well the answer to that is ID Dynamics the company whom is the sole owner of the patent on micro stamping technology. The man who invented it, Todd Lizotte (I’d drop contact information but I can’t find any, if you know any means of contacting him let me know), claims it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. And he’s right it is for him and his company.

He’s of course stated that his company is willing to provide the technology royalty free. That’s an old trick really because even with the patent most gun manufacturers could not create the required tools in house to enact this technology, and certainly not in a timely manner. Because of that companies who have such patents often are willing to see the equipment required to use the patent, at a nominal fee of course.

Micro stamping accomplishes nothing besides increasing the cost of manufacturing guns. And that cost is then placed on the consumers. Remember if the anti-gunners can’t outright ban guns they will do the next best thing, ensure nobody can afford them (this trick was used in the abolishment of so called “Saturday night specials.”). Remember just because they can’t take your right doesn’t mean they can’t find a way to prevent you from exercising that right.

People of Congo Town Take up Arms in Self Defense

This article is actually dated a few months back but it’s a great story nonetheless…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29167366

Assholes from The Lord’s Resistance Army were harassing the people of Bangadi. They requested help from the military and the United Nations sit-on-their-ass, I mean peacekeeping, force. Neither group responded so the citizens of Bangadi did the logical thing, took up arms and defended their town. From the article…

So Akoyo called a town meeting and told everyone to bring whatever weapons they had: pre-World War II rifles, homemade shotguns, lances, swords, machetes, hunting knives, bows with sheaths of poisoned arrows.

The women came armed with kitchen knives and log-sized wooden pestles used to pound yams into flour.

And with these ancient rifles, MacGyvered shotguns, and various melee weapons they fought off the pricks of The Lord’s Resistance Army. Hell when this article was written the citizens thought there town was so nice they fought the bastards off twice. And because of these peoples’ inspirational stand…

News of Bangadi’s success — and the lack of military protection — have spurred hundreds of villages to form self-defense groups, according to Avril Benoit, a spokeswoman for Medecins Sans Frontieres.

That’s right other people in other villages are arming themselves and making a statement that they aren’t taking shit from those who would do them harm.

These guys further show what a community working together can accomplish. If people of cities of “developed” nations would ban together to defend each other we would see a drastic decrease in crime. Oh wait I forgot most “developed” nations’ governments won’t do shit to defend their citizens but if you try to defend yourself or other members of your community your government may very well move in and arrest you. Just ask Britain.

A Court with Common Sense, This is a Rare One

A while back (before I started this blog) there was a rather frightening story…

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/boston-college-prompt-commands-are-suspicious

A computer science student at Boston College was arrested. His room mate accused the student of “hacking” into the school’s computer systems and changing other students’ grades as well as ending out e-mails purporting the room mate was gay. But the reasoning on the warrant from the police is what was the scariest. The warrant for his arrest stated…

uses two different operating systems to hide his illegal activities. One is the regular B. C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.

So the evidence the police has was the fact the student was dual booting Windows and Linux (Linux is specifically mentioned later in the EFF article). Apparently Linux was being used to hide the student’s illegal activities. I mean we all know anything run via a command prompt is an operating system for only the most serious business of the serious business hackers.

Lord knows I could easily be arrested under such justification. Thankfully the Massachusets Supreme Court threw the case out…

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/06/update_on_compu.html

It’s nice to see some common sense dealing with potential computer crime still exists. Normally simply accusing somebody is a “hacker” is enough to get a court case. Couple that with a lawyer who can spew enough technical jargon, no matter how incorrect the jargon is used, and it is enough to convict the suspect.

Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts

Especially if those Greeks are a Japanese University…

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Japan-university-gives-away-apf-15379360.html?.v=3

Aoyama Gakuin University located in the city of Tokyo is giving 550 students free iPhones. Sounds like a great deal huh? Well wait until you see the string attached to this one…

The gadget will work as a tool for studies, but it also comes with GPS, a satellite navigation system that automatically checks on its whereabouts. The university plans to use that as a way check attendance.

By check attendance they mean track the students’ whereabouts. So as long as you’re willing to have your university actively track you everywhere you go (with the phone at least) you to can have a free phone.

Of course I am curious how they are tracking the phones. Because it can’t be with software on the phone since third parties can’t write software that runs in the background on an iPhone. Maybe they are jailbreaking the phones. Either way doing a full reset would take care of either scenario. Granted the school would also notice that any reset phone is no longer reporting tracking information back to them.

The other method is either the government or cell phone carriers must be giving the university access to the tracking information. In a country without freedom like Japan this is of course very possible.

Either way there is an easy solution. If you’re a student with one of these “free” phone just give it to a buddy who’s going to class when you want to skip. The phone can only report back where it is, so if it’s in class so are you.

Another Anti-Gunner Doesn’t Understand the Definition of Militia

Remember that blurb about how the anti-gunners should stop using the argument that guns are only for the militia?

http://blog.christopherburg.com/2009/05/29/for-those-anti-gunners-saying-amendment-two-is-for-militia-only/

Well it looks like somebody didn’t get the memo defining what the militia even is. This was found through Sharp as a Marble…

http://www.argusleader.com/article/20090602/VOICES05/906020316/1052/OPINION01

From the woefully ignorant article…

The purpose of the Second Amendment, as affirmed by federal courts, was to make sure there were adequate arms available to the “well-regulated militia.” Since the various National Guard units now are armed by the federal government, the “right to keep and bear arms” argument has been rendered moot.

As I discussed in my previous post pretty much all capable citizens are part of the militia. Let us revisit that important excerpt from the United States code dealing with the militia…

(b) The classes of the militia are –
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard
and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of
the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the
Naval Militia.

Oh Fuck two strikes against that morons argument. First the National Guard is considered an independent entity of the militia, not a replacement. Second that pesky part about the unorganized militia which is composed of the citizens of the United States. Once again an anti-gunner has shown us the fact that they don’t understand the concept of logic.

I also have to point out this line from the article…

The Founding Fathers understood the rules of English grammar.

It’s a good thing they did because the person who penned (typed) this article sure doesn’t.

Source:  http://blog.robballen.com/2009/06/02/p3455-not-just-any-psh.post

The SPAS 12

A couple of weeks back I finally obtained the gun I’ve been after since I first saw Jurassic Park, a SPAS 12. Here she is…

SPAS 12 and Choke Tubes

As you can see I also obtained a full set of choke tubes for it. As far as I know these are all the choke tubes that were produced for the SPAS 12. They are in order from left to right…

  • Improved Cylinder
  • Skeet
  • Improved Modified
  • Modified
  • Full
  • Extra Full

SPAS stands for Sporting Purpose Automatic Shotgun, although automatic really means semi-automatic. In actuality it’s a military shotgun now a sporting shotgun but the marketing people at Franchi probably didn’t think they would sell nearly as well with a name like MPAS.

The SPAS 12 is an interesting gun to say the least. It’s one of the few shotguns I’m aware of that can be used both as a semi-automatic and pump action shotgun. There is a button under the fore grip of the gun. Press it in and push the fore grip slightly forward and it goes into semi-automatic mode. Press the button and pull the grip back and it goes into pump action mode. This might seem like a strange idea until you realize some of the intended uses of this shotgun. Most non-lethal shotgun round, like beanbags and plastic slugs, lack the required pressure to cycle the gun in semi-automatic mode. Because of this the capability to manually cycle the gun was desired.

Another feature to facilitate using specialty rounds is the magazine cut off. On the right side of the gun is a small button near the magazine. Once pressed in the magazine is cut off so when the gun cycles next a new round won’t be automatically fed. So if you needed to use a slug but you only had shot loaded in the magazine you could hit the cut off, eject the currently chambered shot shell, and insert a slug. Once the slug is chambered the magazine cut off disengages automatically so the gun will function normally after the newly chambered shell is fired.

There are two safeties on the SPAS 12. The first being the quick action safety on the left side of the gun. When it is clicked back towards the user the trigger is disengaged. When you click it forward with a simple forward movement of your trigger finger the trigger is reengaged.

The second safety is located on the right side of the gun. There are two different setups for this safety. On older guns there is a large lever that really doesn’t have a save position which I’ll explain in a second. The second type is a crossbar safety which is a button similar to safeties on most modern shotguns. The reason I say the lever safety doesn’t really have a safe position is because it had a defect. Turning the safety from fire to safe could discharge the gun. This is why it was recalled and the new cross bar safety was used. Lucky me my gun has a level safety, but I’m not one to use manual safeties so it didn’t concern me much. The once nice thing about the large lever safety is it can be easily manipulated with gloves on, which was the original intent.

The final thing I’ll talk about in this post is the sights. Unlike most of the shotguns I’ve used the SPAS 12 doesn’t have a simple bead sight. Instead it has a nice ghost ring rear sight and a blade front sight. The ring has a notch cut out of the button. When using slugs you place the front blade into that notch, otherwise you center the front sight in the ring of the rear sight. It’s a very nice sight setup I will say.

I’ve had this gun out to the range twice so far and absolutely love it. I’ll be posting articles from time to time on interesting things I find with the SPAS as well as applications I’ve successfully used it for (I’m going to try trap shooting with it one of these days).

FBI to Join in Metro Gang Task Force Investigation

Funny how little things like large sums of money and cars missing can start up an investigation of a police task force. That’s what’s happening in the Twin Cities area. And now the FBI are joining in the investigation…

http://www.startribune.com/local/46244407.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU1yDEmP:QMDCinchO7DU

I guess questions are asked when $18,000 of money goes missing and important documents mysteriously get shredded. Who would have guessed?