M1911 as official state gun (Utah)

 awesomeness, blather, politics, Utah, weapons  4 Responses »
Jan 262011
 

Utah lawmakers propose M1911 as official state gun

The bill to make the Browning M1911 the official gun breezed through a committee hearing this week and is scheduled to be debated by the full House as early as Wednesday.

Republican Rep. Carl Wimmer said the state should have the gun as one of its state symbols to honor John Browning, a Utah native who invented it in 1911.

While this is purely symbolic and strictly speaking a waste of the governments time… considering what they *could*be spending their time and effort trying to pass, it’s a magnificent use of public resources.

And the M1911 is a monumentally important invention. While it has been updated (the M1911A1 modifications, adopted in 1924, basically set the pistol in its permanent form), the original design is still a world-beater in terms of simplicity and reliability and stopping power. How many other one-hundred-year-old devices (the device itself, not just the design) can you think of that a person would feel fully comfortable and justified in keeping ready for everyday use? A hammer, maybe?

The only arguable flaw in the M1911 design is the use of a single-stack magazine with only a seven-round capacity. Several variant designs have been produced with double stack magazines providing 13 or more rounds. But since the .45 ACP is not a dinky little pipsqueak of a bullet like the 9mm, a .45 doublestack can lead to grips that are uncomfortably large for some shooters. Seven rounds, though, remains a respectable amount of firepower, and the standard magazines are cheap, reliable, easy to find and quick and easy to replace.

It could be argued that a better gun to honor John Moses Browning would be the M2 “Ma Deuce” 50 caliber machine gun. Another long-lasting design (entered service in 1921, and is still in production and military service around the world), the Ma Deuce has the little problem that for some reason the federal government has decided its not appropriate for civilian ownership and use. Thus the M2 is military only… while the M1911 is available to everybody.

So if you don’t own one, celebrate the centennial of the M1911 by going out and buying one for yourself, and more for family members. Do your part to support both history and human rights by irritating the hell out of the civilian disarmament advocates. If you are not a resident of Utah, do your part to see to it that your state competes well in the next “Brady Campaign To Neuter The Serfs” state scorecard listings. Utah has the best ranking of all fifty-seven states… a total score of ZERO. Hard to do better than zero… but that’s no reason not to try! The Utah state legislature could always pass a law that *mandates* that all households own at least one firearm, or else post a sign out front to alert passersby that that house is unarmed.

 Posted by at 10:51 am

My prediction comes true

 blather, dumbassery, I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons  8 Responses »
Jan 102011
 

So earlier today I wrote…

I fully expect to see some interesting new laws being pushed in the next few weeks… gun control laws and speech restrictions (such as the Orwellianly-named “fairness doctrine”) specifically.

My prediction came true, but far faster than I suggested:

Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill

McCarthy’s spokesman confirmed the legislation will target the high-capacity ammunition clips the Arizona gunman allegedly used in the shooting, but neither he or the congresswoman offered any further details.

But wait! There’s MOAR!!!

Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.

Because federal officials are more important than Little People.

Damnit, I just hit the gun show yesterday, and didn’t snap up the high-cap magazines. In retrospect, I probably coulda made my fortune if I’d known that the actions of a schizoid flag-burning communist Truther would lead to the usual pack of totalitarians in government to try once again to neuter the American people.

 Posted by at 12:32 am

Photos of guns terrifies some Aussies

 blather, dumbassery, humor, politics, weapons  15 Responses »
Dec 192010
 

Now this is just sad.

Is this a “great gift for children”?

I barely know where to start with this. It makes me so angry. Why would any toy retailer think this was appropriate?

Oy.

The toy itself is exceedingly lame… a wooden board with cutout puzzle pieces, with photos of guns stuck on the pieces. I guess it’s a simple puzzle for toddlers.

Guns are not educational toys for three-year-olds.

First off, the toy in question is not a gun, just a *picture* of a gun on a  piece of wood *vaguely* shaped like a gun. This sort of horror at guns is massively unhealthy… not only for the whiner suffering from it, but for everyone around him.

Now, if you want a good educational toy for a child, there are some good ones:

Single-shot training rifles in .22 caliber can apparently be weilded by kids as young as four. And such training rifles should clearly be made available; rather than viewing firearms with horror, kids should be taught what firearms are… and what they aren’t.

Now, there are also more expensive toys for your more advanced learners:

And some for those ready to skip a few grades:

But hey, Australia, if you don’t want your kids to play with or even understand firearms, that’s cool. They can grow up to be ignorant and fearful of them, wholly incompetant to wield them in any useful way. The neat thing is, there are other cultures that take a quite different approach to kids and weapons. I’m curious to see what that culture clash will be like.

 Posted by at 6:05 pm

Behold the Majesty Of Mach 8

 awesomeness, news, weapons, youtube  7 Responses »
Dec 102010
 

The US Navy just fired off a railgun witha  muzzle energy of 33 megajoules, with a muzzle velocity of Mach 8. Still a long way to go before it’s an operation weapon capable of blowing the nads off of a giant alien robot clambering over the Great Pyramid of Giza, but it’s a heck of a step. And almost as impressive is the photographic technology that allowed for high-rez, high-speed filming of the round.

[youtube aWAySUnPjqk]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/video-navys-mach-8-railgun-obliterates-record/

 Posted by at 11:25 pm

Nukes!

 awesomeness, blather, books, drawings, history, models, new products, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, spacecraft, weapons  8 Responses »
Dec 032010
 

Still working the Orion pulse unit & M388 “Davy Crockett” nuclear projectile drawings, but they are now at a point where it’s not embarassing to show ’em. The pulse unit is from the General Atomic design for the 10-meter USAF vehicle, and had a yield of about 1 kiloton. The M388 used a version of the W54 warhead, and had a yield of only 0.01 to 0.02 kilotons. However, other versions of the same basic W54 warhead had yields of up to a kiloton. The Davy Crockett dialed it back for two main reasons:

1) Low yield like this means *really* filthy. The Davy Crockett was designed to make a mass of the foreseen Soviet invasion of western Europe through the Fulda Gap; nuking the bejeebers out of the troops and turning the region into a frighteningly radioactive wasteland was thought to be an effective way of slowing the tide.

2) The range of the M388: pathetic. Down to one slim kilometer. While one can survive a 1 kiloton nuclear blast at a range of one kilometer… one would not want to try.

The Orion was to use existing nuclear explosive designs in the early stages, so it’s safe to assume that the W54 – which, as it happens, was designed by the same guy who designed the pulse units – was the expected basic nuclear explosive. And a comparison of the pulse unit to the M388 shows that they compare quite nicely.

The interior of the M388 as shown here is a bit sparse. Oddly, the DoD is not especially forthcoming with technical information regarding the interior configurations of their nuclear weapons. Strange. Additionally, posted below are three half-ass decent photos… the best versions of ’em I could scrape off the Intarweb tubes. Even with actual units on display at the museums at West Point and Fort Benning (and an oddly painted one at Aberdeen), there are surprisingly few photos of this thing on line.

Anybody near Fort Benning or West Point, and have a camera?

Now, be honest: who *wouldn’t* want one of these hanging from the ceiling, or sitting on the coffee table? Or loaded with a big solid rocket motor and a chute? Or stuck on the end of a big-ass spud gun?

 Posted by at 2:27 am

Probably a bad idea: own your own nuke

 blather, models, new products, nukes, spacecraft, weapons  21 Responses »
Nov 302010
 

As previously mentioned, I’m working on the chapter in the Orion book on pulse unit design and development. In the course of doing so, I’m working ona  series of scale drawings comparing the external configurations of the known pulse units with a few relevant nuclear weapons, including the M388 Davy Crockett battlefield bomb. And it occurs to me that the 10-meter Orion pulse unit, at 13 inches diameter and 24 inches long, and just maybe the Davy Crocket, at 11 inches diameter and 30 inches long, would be things that I could make full-scale replicas of using the equipment I have. While it would be beyond neato to lathe these out of solid aluminum, fiberglass makes a lot more sense.

Replicas like these, full scale, would be kinda pricey (upwards of $300 for finished display items, probably). Would anyone be interested?

 Posted by at 3:11 pm

Pluto model: basically done

 aircraft, awesomeness, models, new products, news, nukes, projects, weapons  4 Responses »
Nov 232010
 

Still need to do some tweaks (don’t care much for the inlet yet, some suface details to add, pins & sockets for assembly to be added), but the parts of the missile itself are done.

Note that this will come complete with a  TORY-II reactor with controls. It will be visible from both the front through the inlet and the rear through the nozzle. The reactor will be a separate part from the fuselage halves, so it could in principle be displayed separately.

Now, the stand…

 Posted by at 12:01 pm
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