Guns in the news

 news, politics, weapons  8 Responses »
Apr 212018
 

A couple things:

CDC, in Surveys It Never Bothered Making Public, Provides More Evidence that Plenty of Americans Innocently Defend Themselves with Guns

In the late 1990’s, the CDC did a high-quality survey with this question:

“During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?”

The results indicate an estimated 2.6 *million* defensive gun uses per year. This means in a post-gun-ban era, 2.6 million more successful crimes per year… and quite possibly many more since criminals would know they have a free hand.

Also:

Legally Armed People Have a Murder rate similar to Japan

Concealed carry license holders in Michigan have a murder rate of 0.43 per 100,000. The murder rate in Japan is 0.42 per 100,000. Wisconsonite CCL holders have a murder rate of 0.19 per 100,000. The overall US average is 5.3 per 100,000. For Australia it’s 1.0per 100,000.

Legally armed Americans (at least in these two states) are as non-murderous as the disarmed Japanese and substantially less murderous than the disarmed Australians. All without having to be enmeshed in a culture built on shame and tentacle porn.

 Posted by at 9:25 pm

Let me sing you the song of my people

 aircraft, awesomeness, weapons, youtube  10 Responses »
Apr 192018
 

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT.

 

I’m on record with being impressed by the A-10, and I think the USAF should have built a bunch more of them. And so should the US Marine Corps. And the US Army. But they didn’t, so… shrug. There it is. Anyway, impressed as I am, the shots of the A-10 trying to tear up a *motionless* Hummer are a little disappointing. A whole lot of rounds that hit *around* the target, but not *actually* the target.

 Posted by at 1:49 pm

I shudder to imagine…

 Crazy, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, Meh., news, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  16 Responses »
Apr 102018
 

… how terrified the Mayor of London would be if he saw *me* walking down his street:

And as part of The Dark Lord High Baron Mayor of Londons effort to clean the streets of dangerous weapons, they got these:

Scissors? A file? Pliers? Really? REALLY? I carry a multitool at all times. I carry a modest pocketknife at all times. And when I go for a walk, I take a walking stick (friggen knees… bah) that I made from a garden tool handle and a hammer. And sometimes I carry concealed. Why? because I want to, that’s why, and that’s all the reason any free man needs to do anything that neither picks another mans pocket nor breaks his leg. So what is it that they have on the streets of London if not free men?

 

 

 

 Posted by at 1:45 pm

High Power Rifles

 awesomeness, Hmm..., weapons, youtube alternates  4 Responses »
Apr 082018
 

Recently (last few years) it has been popular to call the AR-15 a “high power” rifle. Which is funny, given how relatively *low* power it is compared to a lot of battle and hunting rifles. The 5.56 mm round used in the AR-15 develops in the range of 1,700 to 1,800 joules muzzle energy; the 7.62-51 mm round in the obsolete M-14 rifle gives you 3,300 to 3,500 joules. The 30-30 Winchester, introduced more than 120 years ago and used in hunting rifles, gives you around 2,500 joules (I had a 30-30 once upon a time, and when you pulled the trigger on it… you knew it). The .50 Beowulf round used in modified AR-15s develops 3,200 to 3,900 joules. Heck, the .50 Action Express round used in *pistols* develops 2,000 to 2,200 joules.

But then there are the weapons described in this video that develop up to 57,000 joules (the 14.9mm SOP round is still supersonic FIVE KILOMETERS downrange). Yimminy.

(note: irritating commercial for a video game is built into the beginning of the video.  Shrug. Errybody gots to get paid, I suppose.)

 Posted by at 7:49 pm

“Unfairness” is the whole point

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Meh., news, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  1 Response »
Apr 072018
 

He-Was-A-Good-Boy defense incoming:

Family member of teen burglary suspect killed in Wagoner County break-in speaks out

So, three teenagers carried out an armed home invasion and discovered, each and every one of them, that the liberals lie when they say that the AR-15 is not a useful weapon for home defense. All three shot, one dead. The grandfather of the dead one, rather than bemoaning the bad genetics, bad wiring or bad parenting that led to Lil Dickens deciding to take up a life of crime, is upset that the AR-15 gave the homeowner an unfair advantage.

“Brass knuckles against an AR-15, come on, who was afraid for their life,” said Schumacher.

I don’t care if they were unarmed. You invade someones home, the people who are *supposed* to be in the home have every right and every expectation to feel afraid for their lives. The train of thinking that leads a person to believe they have the right to invade someone else’s home is the same train that goes to murdertown.

Did Lil Dickens deserve to die? Perhaps not. On my evening walk tonight I saw a skunk dead at the side of the road, a victim of an automobile. Did it deserve to die? No. Both Lil Dickens and the skunk made bad decisions that put them int he wrong place at the wrong time. But the skunk didn’t know any better. It committed no crime, but the simple cause and effect of the situation did it in. The universe did not cry out, speak up, care or even notice either the skunk or the criminal meeting their ends.

Let this be a lesson: if you do something terminally stupid, you could well die and no great force is going to swoop down and protect you from your stupidity. At most Nyarlathotep may be momentarily fractionally amused.

 Posted by at 10:38 pm

UGEtube

 Hmm..., news, politics, weapons, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  1 Response »
Apr 072018
 

The Utah Gun Exchange’s alternative to youTube is up and running:

UGETube.com

which then slides over to

https://videos.utahgunexchange.com/

Not a whole lot of videos as yet, as might be expected, but it should be interesting to see what happens if YouTube goes ahead with their distinctly anti-American plan of banning firearms related video and channels.

Also unsurprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be a convenient means of embedding videos from UGETube into the blog by simply pasting in the web address of individual videos; gotta paste in HTML text.

So… let’s see what happens. I’ve got not particular interest in UGETube other than they are reasonably local; as mentioned before there are already YouTube alternatives out there, and more will come. Natural selection and the invisible hand of market forces will hopefully determine which ones succeed, which ones fade.

 

 Posted by at 12:00 am

Pop goes the Sarmat

 awesomeness, nukes, rockets, russian empire, weapons, youtube  4 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

Tell me this ain’t impressive lookin’:

This is a test of the launch system of the Russian RS-28 Sarmat superheavy ICBM, capable of hurling 10 heavy MIRVs or 15 standard ones or up to 24 light warheads. Keep in ind that the American Minuteman III ICBM carries a grand total of *one* warhead. It’s likely a fractional orbital system, meaning that it could actually put its warheads into low orbit, where they’d rather suddenly drop from the sky as required. Additionally, it could launch over the *south* pole, bypassing whatever remains of the North American early warning system.

Note the tuna-can-shaped little booster used to shove the ICBM up out of the silo before main engine ignition.

 Posted by at 2:51 am

One of those really bad ideas I’d kinda like to see ’em try

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Hmm..., politics, weapons, wisdom, ಠ_ಠ  5 Responses »
Mar 302018
 

John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

Former (fortunately) Supreme Court Justice Stevens wants to repeal the Second Amendment. The chances of this happening are slim, to say the least. Two thirds of the House *AND* the Senate would need to ratify an amendment; then three-fourths of the *states* would need to buy off on it. This would seem to be an unreachable goal for the purposes of reducing civil liberties, but it’s never a great idea to tempt fate. Who knows what hijinks might be afoot to help push such an idea forward. Still, it would be interesting and constructive to see just such an effort hit the House and Senate, to see who would actually vote in favor of such a thing.

There are forever people yammering on about a new civil war (which would be just about the worst thing imaginable… an actual American civil war would probably result in the US losing Alaska to the Russians, Hawaii and the west coast to the Chinese, the south west to the Mexicans, and the battered remains forever impoverished and reduced to the status of just another failed state, at the whim of greater powers who don’t now and never did give a rats ass about the high falutin’ ideals that the Americans were up in arms over). And while for the most part I think the great majority of these people are just bloviating, if somehow the Second Amendment was repealed – or the First, for that matter – my estimation of the chances of an actual civil war would go up *substantially.*

Consequently: anyone voting to repeal the Second would be essentially voting to initiate another civil war. They’d be voting to destroy the United States. They’d be voting to end the great experiment in democracy and freedom. With Europe soon to fall into a new dark age, Russia turning inward and dumb, China becoming a giant national socialist nightmare… anyone voting to repeal the Second would be voting to end western civilization, to preclude western values from making it to Mars and beyond, to turn the dream of the future over to monsters.  If history remembers anything, it would remember these Senators and Congressmen alongside Vidkun Quisling, Ephialtes, Klaus Fuchs and Benedict Arnold.

 Posted by at 1:28 am

Censorship drives innovation

 Hmm..., news, politics, weapons, youtube  7 Responses »
Mar 262018
 

As YouTube bans firearms demonstrations, Utah firm launching its own pro-gun video platform

The Utah Gun Exchange is a “Craigslist of the 2nd Amendment,” a place to sell guns & stuff, and YouTube cannot stand that, so the Utah Gun Exchange is getting kicked off YouTube. Consequently the UGE is creating their own video platform, UGEtube.com (it’s not up and running yet).

A lot of other companies getting booted from YouTube are doubtless looking at creating their own alternatives to YouTube. It will doubtless be one heck of a mess for a while… a hundred different channels with different formats and protocols, all competing. But it seems likely that as time goes by the various competitors will merge together. It is just barely possible that a few of the freedom-friendly YT alternates will succeed and take a chunk of YT’s market.

 Posted by at 11:04 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries