Defense Distributed is selling 30-round AR-15 magazines for $50 a pop. Not especially newsworthy, except that these magazines are 3D-printed. I have no idea if they are any good or not; they look reasonably rugged, if somewhat lacking in detail. Also lacking springs, which you provide.
Why would someone buy one of these? Collectors value, perhaps… the very first commercially available 3D-printed firearm magazine.
And ya gotta love the name.
Nork Foreign ministry released a statement saying they’re going to nuke the US as a pre-emptive strike. Yeah, good idea. Takes inane saber-rattling to a whole new level.
Of course, if the Norks nuked the US, or nuked South Korea, or just invaded South Korea… even with the current US administration, North Korea would get leveled. And perhaps – just perhaps – that’s the goal. Get the US to flatten North Korea, surrender, then the US has to rebuild the place. And a post-war reconstruction could hardly produce a country worse off than one that has been under Communism for nearly 70 years. Kim Jong Etc. was edumacated in the west, so he must know what a craphole his nation is; it’s just barely possible that he might actually want to make the place better. And losing a war against the US would do it. The current terrible infrastructure would get built into something modern; the economic and cultural cancer that is collectivism would be replaced with capitalism (even Obama could not prevent that); the “excess population” would be reduced. North Korea five years after losing to South Korea and the US would be an infinitely better place than North Korea today.
Sadly, it’s perhaps just as likely that they’re crazy enough to think they could win.
One of the anti-Constitutionalist legislators in Colorado trying to ban standard magazines and conventional firearms turns out to have a criminal record. How good of an idea is it to allow criminals to write the laws, especially where it impacts the ability of the people to defend themselves against criminals?
Triumph of form over function:
[youtube 0F-VVjqarZE]
It is simply two metal blades held apart by nylon spacers and hooked up to a stun gun. While definitely impressive looking, as a *sword* it would be a disaster. Two blades like that simply would not cut worth a damn.
An improvement – an expensive improvement – would be to sandwich a non-conductive ceramic core between conductive thin metal blades, forming a single-edged solid blade of composite construction with a sharp ceramic edge. The tip of the blade would remain pretty much non-functional for stabbing, since the metal “prongs” would probably have to not have ceramic between them, but it’d be useful for chopping.
To my reading this section of the US Code would seem to permit lawsuits against, say, legislators who pass laws that infringe on Constitutionally protected rights. So why isn’t Diane Feinstein tied up in the courts 24/7?
Every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, Suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
This might perhaps be a legal remedy against the gun grabbers: sue the bejeesus out of them, individually, repeatedly, non-stop, until they either change their unConstitutional ways or are left destitute, unable to afford personal bodyguards or 16-ounce sodas.
EDIT: Whoops, looks like legislators are granted “absolute immunity.” Feh. But municipalities are not, nor are individual employees of the government. So, sue any city government, cop, sheriff or agent who tries to gungrab. A few lessons of *that* where ATF guys lose their homes to plaintiffs’ lawyers, or a few city halls get transferred to the NRA to be turned into firearms museums, might put the kibosh on unConstitutional gungrabs.
This Colorado bill bans any magazine that can be converted to hold more than 8 shotgun shells. But the standard tube-fed shotgun can be easily modified with an extender to hold more than 8 shells. Thus the standard pump shotgun would be illegal.
Not mentioned in the article… there are shotgun shells of shorter than standard length, such as the 1.5 inch long Aquila minishells. Where you might get 6 standard length shotgun shells in an unmodified tube magazine, you might get 12 of the minishells in the same tube. Thus a pump shotgun that was built to *not* be extendable may very well still be illegal under this bill.
Additionally: for virtually every pistol caliber, there is a “snake shot” load readily available. So where a fifteen-round pistol magazine might at first glance appear legal under this new law, the ability to load it with snake shot would mean it would be illegal.
Additionally: you can keep your pre-ban shotgun, so long as you maintain constant possession of it. This means that if it breaks, you cannot give it to a gunsmith to fix.
I am unwilling to assume that this sort of thing is due to the gun grabbers *not* having thought things through. It seems far more likely that this is what it is… a way to ban far, far more than they claim on the surface.
Colorado, which used to be a bastion of freedom until it was invaded and taken over by Californians, is looking to pass a bill banning standard capacity magazines. Ironically, one of the prime suppliers of such magazines is Magpul, which is located – at least for now – in Colorado. Ever since the left started to gleefully dance on the corpses of children in hopes of dumping on the Second Amendment, standard capacity magazines have been impossible to find, as people have been buying them up. Magpul has ramped up production, but even so they have not been able to keep up with demand. The result of that may be that Coloradans might be banned from buying standard magazines before they even got a chance to buy them. So Magpul has come up with a good idea:
Verified Colorado residents will be able to purchase up to ten (10) standard capacity AR/M4 magazines directly from Magpul, and will be given immediate flat-rate $5 shipping, bypassing our current order queue.
If you’re not a Coloradan, your order may be delayed due to filling Colorado orders first. I don’t think too many people will be upset about that… everyone accepts that you take care of the people in most immediate need first.
In short: the Democrats in control of Maryland have decreed that a new anti-gun bill shall be passed. It bans standard capacity magazines and Scary Black Rifles. But Beretta has a factory in Maryland, and employs a lot of people (and of course provides business for subcontractors); so exemptions for Beretta have been written into the law. But Beretta knows that Maryland is just not working out, and is pondering leaving. The are beginning to get machines in place to start production on the ARX-160 semi-automatic rifle, which would be illegal for the subjects of Maryland to own under the proposed new law. While it would be legal for Beretta to manufacture those firearms and sell them out of state, a good point that I’d never considered before was raised. If, say, a citizen of Texas were to buy an ARX-160 and it developed a flaw while under warranty, the normal approach would be to send it back to the factory. But under the new legal regime, it probably wouldn’t be legal for Beretta to send it *back* to the owner. The guns they sell out of state are still Beretta property when they leave, or belong to firearms dealers with truckloads of licenses and red tape; under Maryland law, a civilian-owned ARX-160 would be simply illegal.
As I said, there’s always room in Utah for a good gun manufacturer. Heck, they could take over the ATK facility next door.
The Mk 3 bomb (“Fat Man”) was scaled incorrectly, so I fixed that and added some more, including the rarely illustrated Mk 2 plutonium gun bomb, casings for which were built and tested, but the bomb itself cancelled prior to construction since it wouldn’t have worked. The Mk 2 is somewhat provisional, based on some not-excellent photos.
Box fed, full-auto, high-capacity, high-powered assault crossbow. Out of Britain, no less.
[youtube BSjCY2kGyfI]
Note for those who might think this is more spectacular than it actually is: the flexing of the bow is converted into the kinetic energy of the bolt. The electrochemical energy in the battery is converted into the mechanical energy required to pull the bowstring back. With every step there are losses. But even at 100% efficiency, you still can’t get more total energy out of the bolts than you have in the battery to run the system. So while it’s cool – and I do indeed want one – a *gun* remains a more efficient energy storage and kinetic-energy-conversion system.