So… what’s a Level One?

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, I'm from the government, news, Obamazombies, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Mar 042014
 

10-year-old suspended for making fingers into shape of gun

As if the basic idea isn’t stupid enough, apparently the school-rule fascists have this sort of thing pretty well codified:

the reason for Nathan’s suspension as a “level 2 look alike firearm.”

Yeah.

What’s worse is that if this sort of nonsense continues, not only are the control freaks going to damage generations of kids with respect to firearms and *play,* they’re also going to mess with teaching physics. Anyone else here remember the Right Hand Rule?

Good for physics::

RHR

Good for statics & dynamics:

index

I can see it now….

Oh My God! He has a rocket launcher!!!

Right-Hand-Grip-Rules2
Oh My God! He’s got a detonator!

righthandrulex

 

Where things get interesting is when two inviolate areas of political correctness collide. What happens when this ban on “finger guns” runs into Sex Ed?

twointhe

 Posted by at 8:07 pm

Sprint

 awesomeness, history, nukes, rockets, weapons, youtube  3 Responses »
Feb 272014
 

Video of the Sprint missile, which was capable of blistering accelerations. To get an idea, at about the 24 second mark in the video, you can see the whole surface of the second stage begin to glow white hot.

[youtube kvZGaMt7UgQ]

Sprint was designed and built to defend Minuteman ICBM bases. It would do this by reaching out and tagging incoming Soviet warhead at a range of just a few miles; the Sprints warhead was a neutron bomb which would essentially trash the target by causing it to melt down. If you were unfortunate enough to be standing near one of the Minuteman silos when this occurred, you would very likely be in a world of radiological hurt. But the point was simply to make sure that the incoming warheads didn’t make it to the surface intact and do an underground burst which would trash the silos.

 Posted by at 12:49 pm

Storytime: “Orion Battleship Intro”

 blather, books, history, My Fiction, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Pax Orionis, projects, rockets, russian empire, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  5 Responses »
Feb 262014
 

So, a number of years ago I started working on “Nuclear Pulse Propulsion,” which was to be the End All Be All tome on this topic. Sometime into it, someone suggested that I take a page from Tom Clancy and add a little fictional vignette of a few paragraphs to the start of each chapter, to try to bring some aspect of the designs to life. It was a good idea, I thought, so I took a crack at it… and realized with my first attempt that it just wasn’t working. At least, not the way I was going about it. I started writing a yarn featuring the 4,000 ton “space battleship” pitched to the USAF. But several pages in, it became clear that I wasn’t doing well on keeping it to “a few paragraphs.” Also… it was getting fairly dire. Just as there are few stories you can tell about a Ohio-class boomer or a Minuteman III missile silo that feature them doing the jobs they were designed for, there seem few to tell about a spacecraft designed to fight an all-out nuclear war. And while, if written well, it could be an exciting yarn… it ain’t gonna be too damn cheerful, unless global annihilation is something you think is pretty awesome. So… I just sorta gave up on the idea.

 

In the past week or three I’ve gotten back into working on NPP, and dug up the Orion Battleship tale. And because why not, I’m posting a PDF of it. Keep in mind, this isn’t a polished piece. It’s not even a rough draft; it’s half a rough draft. There is no dialogue, there are no human characters. I had an end in mind, but just never got to it.

So, if’n yer interested in such things, HERE YA GO.

batlleship tale

 

And because I just got the plumbers bill for replacing the pressure tank and suddenly find myself in some need of cash…

 


Fiction Tip Jar



 Posted by at 11:46 am

*Top* men…

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, blather, history, Hmm..., photography, weapons  3 Responses »
Feb 242014
 

Holy crap:

Inside The Army’s Spectacular, Hidden Treasure Room

Usually when a headline uses words like “spectacular,” you can bet that the one thing the subject of the article is NOT going to be is… “spectacular.” In this case, though… wow.

In short, it’s a vast warehouse with carefully and properly stored and cataloged goodies from  a magnificent weapons collection, to battlefield bits and pieces (clothing, drums, bugles, flags, etc.), to one hell of an art collection… including a bunch of Hitler Originals.

And you can’t get in to see *any* of it. Because it’s all in storage awaiting a museum whose construction has not been funded.

Lots of amazing photos and anigifs at the link.

 Posted by at 10:21 pm

Journalismizationizing!

 blather, Forward!, Hmm..., news, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 172014
 

First, there’s the headline:

Study: Missouri murders spike after state repeals gun background check law

Then there’s the article itself, which claims that a study reports that after Missouri repealed a law that required that private gun sales (like, say, from neighbor to neighbor) have a state background check, the state has seen an increase in murders of 60 or so per year. The implication being that now that law abiding citizens don’t have to get a background check for guns, they are being inspired to murder more often.

But then… someone at Fark.com decided to actually check the numbers.

  2014-02-17 12:26:12 PM

Magorn: Federal law would not apply to the transfers in question:
After the law was repealed, unlicensed sellers were no longer required to perform background checks before selling their guns.
I’m calling statistical shenanigans, though.
Here is the year, population, # of homicides, and rate for Missouri from 1997 to 2012 (last year I can find data for):

Year    Pop.         Hom.   Rate/100k
----    ---------    ---    ----
1997    5,481,193    387    7.06
1998    5,521,766    372    6.74
1999    5,561,950    329    5.92
2000    5,607,285    332    5.92
2001    5,641,142    399    7.07
2002    5,674,825    348    6.13
2003    5,709,403    319    5.59
2004    5,747,741    369    6.42
2005    5,790,300    417    7.20
2006    5,842,704    384    6.57
2007    5,887,612    382    6.49
2008    5,923,916    474    8.00
2009    5,961,088    402    6.74
2010    5,996,092    435    7.25
2011    6,008,984    385    6.41
2012    6,021,988    390    6.48

Data sources:
http://www.mshp.dps.missouri.gov/MSHPWeb/SAC/crime_data_violent_crim e_ 960grid.html (homicide numbers)
http://mcdc.missouri.edu/websas/estimates_by_age.shtml (population numbers)
Rate is calculated as (homicides/population)*100,000, rounded to nearest hundredth.

There seems to have been a significant jump in homicides in 2008, just after the law changed.  That may or may not be related, but the subsequent 4 years after (2009-2012) don’t seem very different at all from 2004-2007, the years prior to when the law took effect on August 28th, 2007 (majority of 2007 was “need a permit”)

In fact, the average rate from 2004-2007 is 6.67 per 100k, and from 2009 to 2012 it’s 6.72, less than 1% higher.   I’m not even sure if that would be a statistically significant increase.

If the homicide rate had stayed up in the 8 per 100,000 range, or even consistently about 7 per 100,000, I’d say “Yeah, looks like there might be something to this, warrants further study”.  But they didn’t.  They dropped right back down to near the average, and it only took me a few minutes to figure out with publicly available data that there is something funny going on statistically.
 Posted by at 2:08 pm

“Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft”

 blather, Forward!, I'm from the government, Obamazombies, politics, weapons, wisdom  5 Responses »
Feb 152014
 

So, in the wake of the Newtown massacre, New York state rushed to pass some feel-good, do-bad anti “assault weapon” laws aimed specifically at getting rid of the AR-15. What’s the end result? Companies making money by selling bits and pieces that will make your AR-15 law-compliant, but in no way affect the operation of the weapon.

Such as:

The AR-15 Receiver Spur

The New York State SAFE Act states that a “pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon” is one characteristic that defines a rifle as an assault weapon.  If this is the sole characteristic that defines your AR-15 as an assault weapon, The AR-15 Receiver Spur remedies this issue.

spur

——————————-

If you want to go a little further, Stag Arms sells a butt stock/grip replacement that keeps full functionality yet puts you in compliance:

—————————

Or do it yourself:

[youtube 9xHsjxDqrrg]

[youtube GUich0PXxdA]

——————————

The point: these laws accomplish *nothing* in terms of “making children safer” or any such rubbish. What they *do* do:

1) Inconvenience some gun owners

2) Persuade other gun owners, previously law abiding, to become criminals.

I think #2 there bears some thinking about. As with many drug laws, what these anti-gun laws do is convince many decent folk that breaking the law is the best option. And once you have done that… you, as a legislator who wrote and passed this law, have contributed to the breakdown of respect for the legal system as a whole.

I believe a case can be made that laws that are passed that serve no purpose but to increase lawlessness are, at their heart, treasonous laws.

 Posted by at 12:17 pm

Is Shall-Issue coming to California?

 awesomeness, news, politics, weapons  2 Responses »
Feb 132014
 

Maybe…

Court strikes California law restricting concealed weapons

Not just any court, but the *Ninth* Circuit Court of Appeals has admitted that “The right to bear arms includes the right to carry an operable firearm outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense.”

Neat! Now, presumably the state of California, which has so far claimed an overpowering need to keep defensive firearms out of the hands of people who are not rich celebrities or the politically connected, will take this case to the Supreme Court.

 Posted by at 6:33 pm
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