Do Not Resist

Of course, the problem with making it illegal to resist unlawful arrests is that sometimes people are not who they say they are.

Ruger Rimfire Day

Yesterday, accompanied by a co-worker and a former co-worker, I took my Ruger rimfire .22s to the range. The Mark III was newly dressed up and needed some sighting in, and the 10/22 has new Ruger BX-25 magazines.

The Mark III

The Mark III with its original target grips.

I bought this gun used and it came with the standard Ruger wood target grips. However, I don't like them. I don't like the exaggerated thumb rest, and there's no way any lefty (such as my wife) would ever be able to shoot this gun with them. So I added some grips from Altamont.

Wood grips from Altamont in black.

I also topped it with a reddot from Mueller Optics. Sighting in the gun took about five rounds because I didn't have a proper rest, but once it was on target this thing worked great. This pistol was already a good target gun, so I'm very happy with the modifications... which worked pretty much without a hitch.

The Mark III with Altamont grips and a Mueller reddot.

I like the look too. All silvery and stainless steel with black appointments.

The BX-25 Magazines for the Ruger 10/22

I also spent a little time putting rounds down range with the new Ruger BX-25 factory magazines for the Ruger 10/22. In my experience, the other extended capacity magazines tend to jam if fully loaded.

Two BX-25 magazines from Ruger.

I only had enough time to put two full loads through each magazine. I did have one failure to feed on round two during the first load for one of the magazines. And that easily could have been something I did wrong as I was talking to my coworkers while loading the mag. But that's better than any other extended capacity magazine I have for the 10/22.

One thing I did notice is that the lips on these magazines get very dirty. That might be because they seat more properly. I don't know.

Build up on the lips of the magazine after only 50 rounds each.

Grassley Playing Hardball

According to Fox News, Senator Grassley is gonna start playing hardball with the Department of Justice over the ATF's Operation Fast & Furious, a mishandled op that saw over a thousand firearms transferred illegally to the Mexican drug cartels under the watchful eye of the ATF. Grassley, the ranking Republican of the Senate Judicial Committee, is threatening to hold up DOJ nominees if the DOJ and ATF don't start cooperating with his investigation into Operation Fast & Furious.

hat tip to Kublican

Rant of the Week

The Rant of the Week goes to Borepatch: Mitt Romney sucks, volume MXCII. I haven't listened to this week's Downrange Radio podcast with Michael Bane, and I'm still calling this the Rant of the Week. Its that good.

Athiests in the Army

See the Matt Bors comic.

Dems Vehemently Object to Patriot Act Extension

Or NOT!

Seems like when their guy is POTUS and they hold one of the houses of the people, its quite OK to use dirty tricks to extend the Patriot Act.

Not to worry... their story will be changing in 2012.

Spit Wad Suspension Upheld

Court approves suspension for 'spit wad':

A circuit court has approved a school's decision to suspend a 14-year-old honor student for the "violent criminal conduct" of shooting plastic "spit wads" at classmates.

Read the whole thing. This is just beyond stupid. It is insane!

Local Fair and Balanced Report on Guns

The last time I saw a local news story on firearms, it was nothing more than a reheated Brady Campaign press release. But local news house WUSA 9 (the CBS affiliate) has a well-balanced story on women taking to the gun range.

It pits the Shooting Divas against Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSVG).... which I think is a very good match up. On one side you have women, some past victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, protecting themselves. On the other side is creepy Ladd Everitt with nebulous arguments that something bad might happen if you own a gun. Let us see... people with real world experience being victimized vs a lobbyist with academic boogey-men scare tactics. Which will most people lean toward?

By the way, this is the same Ladd Everitt in the middle of the CSVG scandal for publishing personal identifiable information about his political opponents. So I guess when he says bad things will happen to you if you own a gun, he's talking about posting your name and address so the nutjobs can show up on your doorstep.

The WUSA 9 news producers were hooked up with the Shooting Divas by the lady behind the counter at NOVA Arms. Be sure to let them know your appreciation for helping the local news get the story right. Let's here it for the local gun store.

Both Pretentious and Lame

Welcome to the new home for the crazy!

I'll be moving the other content over as time permits, but most of the posts are here.

The other blog, BUS ERROR, will focus more on the programming and tech geek stuff. But it will still be there.

Picture for the Day

He wants to play with the toys in the big boy toy box.

Runnin' and Gunnin' on a Bum Knee

I've got a two-gun IDPA style match tonight at Blue Ridge Arsenal, but unfortunately my knee is not 100%. I can walk ok. Running, I can do it but not lively. Kneeling is painful. If these matches came around more often, I'd probably just bag it. But in NoVA, they don't. So I'll be walking the stages just to get some practice with the trigger.

I hurt my knee Sunday night at Judo class when the sensei took us "advanced" students aside to do what I believe to have been Harai Goshi. Instead of sweeping my partners leg during the throw, I planted my foot and just shoved him across my leg... at least that's what I think I did. Next thing I know we are both on the mat and my knee is not feeling so good. Live and learn.

Virginia Crime Lab F's Up Big Time

It looks like the Virginia crime lab, which touts itself as the premiere DNA crime lab of the country, screwed up DNA results in two... that's TWO... 2... II, capital murder cases: Top forensics lab botched DNA tests, audit finds.

Read the article. The whole damn thing is infuriating. A guy has been in prison for 17 years because of this screw up, and the lab circled the wagons instead of doing what is right. And... they have DNA evidence linking the crime to the real perpetrator but the police refuse to do anything about it because they still believe the original theory of the crime.

Blogger Boo Boo and Me

Blogger fell down and skinned its knee. I think all the posts are back, but some comments have been lost. No biggies as far as I'm concerned considering I don't pay for this service.

Besides, there wasn't much to post yesterday as I had the day off and had other things to do... like meeting some old co-workers from SunRocket at Charcoal Kabobs is Herndon. Very cool... they are both immigrants from India and are now U.S. Citizens.  One even has a govt security clearance.

And when in Herndon... I have to stop by NOVA Arms to see what they have. Tempted as I was, I didn't buy anything. I'll probably be running out to Clarks Brothers in Warrenton to find black powder supplies this weekend, perhaps tomorrow morning. If anybody is interested in meeting there, drop me a line.

Yet Another ATF Scandal

The ATF accidentally setoff a wildfire while trying to denote explosives in a county with a burn ban in effect.

So they detonate explosives and smuggle guns to criminal gangs. Aren't those the things we pay them to prevent? Seriously, how much longer do we citizens have to deal with these idiots.

Strength Training for Bearing Arms

Here's a YouTube video showing some exercises to reduce shaking while handling a gun (I assume handguns here). It's pretty interesting that most of these exercises are intended to build shoulder and upper back muscles, with a few for the triceps thrown in for good measure.

As one of the commenters on YouTube pointed out, the standing upright row is being done wrong by going too far. I was always taught not to do that past the point of your upper arms being parallel to the ground so as to avoid shoulder injury.

I posted on grip strength last year for helping in the reduction of shake. Not that I've been doing any of that stuff lately... though my GRIP Master does go with me on business trips.

SAF Sues Commonwealth of Virginia

SAF Challenges Interstate Handgun Sales Ban:

The Second Amendment Foundation today filed suit in U.S. District Court in Virginia challenging the constitutionality of federal and Virginia provisions barring handgun sales to non-residents.

The plaintiff is a resident of DC. She can no longer by a gun because the only gun store in DC is closing and federal and Virginia law prevent her from buying one on the other side of the Potomac. And the attorney being used is Alan Gura. I mentioned before that at the blogmeet last month, Gura talked about there only being one Gun store in DC. Now that it is closing and this law suit has been filed so quickly after, it would seem he was doing a little foreshadowing. Is it possible that SAF and Gura were holding back this filing until the circumstances were right? I think so.

Carry Rights Restored for Virginia Forests

From the Washington Examiner: Guns now allowed in Va. forests

There was a comment period on this awhile back, and the comments were overwhelmingly in favor of restoring gun rights. So this was kind of expected.

Note this paragraph from the story:

As the state's attorney general in 2008, McDonnell wrote an opinion that the Department of Conservation and Recreation did not have the authority to enforce the no-gun policy. But then Gov. Tim Kaine ordered the department to continue to enforce the law.

Our former Governor, Tim Kaine, is now running to fill the seat of retiring U.S. Senator Jim Webb. Kaine is not a friend of the Second Amendment.

Why Wring Your Hands Now?

It is interesting in a "You have to be f'ing kidding me" kinda way to see people all concerned about the legality of bin Laden's demise. From David Axe at War is Boring:

The legality of the bin Laden hit is neither a pointless question nor a purely academic one. Our laws are meaningless if we don’t respect them.

The time to have started to care about our government respecting its own laws was when they started killing American citizens and getting away with it. So yeah, questions about the legality of bin Laden's hit are pointless.

"Assault Clip" for Your 22

TBolt has the scoop. Ruger is now making higher capacity magazines the Ruger 10/22. While higher capacity magazines have been available for years from other manufacturers, the hope is that Ruger will do it right.

My experience with the Butler Creek Steel Lips and the TacSol mags is not good. Generally, I can put no more than 15 rounds in them otherwise I experience a jam fest.

I assume these would also work in Ruger's Charger pistol.

Chick and Bike

Ummm.... (from a blog dedicated to the subject).

A Mother's View on Gun Control

This is an old article referencing an older article on how a mom on the left side of the aisle became a gun rights advocate. It is good reading, and for me strikes at the matter of why I blog sooooooo much about gun rights (even though I'm a father, not a mother).

I've never ever been especially sympathetic with gun control arguments, but two years ago when I discovered just how much I have been lied to on this subject it infuriated me. There is probably nothing worse for the gun control movement than for the greater public to know the distortions that have been made so as to compromise their rights.

Rich White People

From a Washington Post article about Prince Charles, comes this from Phelim McAleer:

“Sustainability is an awful concept,” McAleer said in an interview from his Los Angeles home. “It’s rich, white people telling mostly brown and black people that they need to stay poor.”

His YouTube video, Prince Charles - HYPOCRITE



More over at Not Evil, Just Wrong.

The other day I went out to lunch with some co-workers, and someone spotted a Chevy Volt in the parking lot. A co-worker commented that they cost $40k but you get $5k back from the government, which prompted me to say, "Yup, subsidies for the rich."

Of course, that began an argument about what constitutes being rich because one of my co-workers doesn't think a $40,000 car is out of the ordinary. I ended it with, "Poor people can't afford to buy $40,000 cars... well, not with their own money."

Out of Character Lack of Overreaction

... or as we know commonly know it to be, reasoned judgement. A second-grader in Waynesboro found a Deringer in an abandoned house. Believing it to be valuable and a "treasure", he put it in his backpack where he kept it for days. After finally showing it to classmates, school officials were told and took it from him. Then the police were called, the police chief of which said "Cool, I always wanted a Deringer." (I just made that part up).

Anyway, the school superintendent didn't evacuate the school or call out the National Guard. While he won't say what the punishment for the child will be, he did say he would take into account the age of the child (he is, after all, just a kid) and the fact that no malice was intended.

Interesting Links for Wasting Your Time On A Friday

The City Limits - cool time-lapse video of multiple cities at night

One heck of a hairpin turn.

Anatomical Nesting Dolls.

And a very cool video of a wooden xylophone in the forest. I may have posted the link before, but it is still very cool.

No Brazen Stupidity, Just Galling Incompetence This Time

The ATF is involved in yet another cover-up.

$25 Million Reward

Turk offers a good suggestion of what to do with all that reward money for bin Laden's head on a platter.

Only The First Step

Philip Van Cleave notes that for once an anti-gunner got asked some hard questions by the media, and the results weren't pretty:

That caught Omar completely off balance and he proceeded to stumble through a non-answer, basically saying that "if it only saves one life..." and "this is only the 'first step.'"

Only the first step, huh?

Here's the usual retort I have when somebody tells me that some such gun control law is needed. "How do you know this law will help? There are over 20,000 gun control laws on the books in this country, so will this be the last one ever needed? Because if you ask for another one, doesn't that mean you were wrong the first time? Shouldn't you have to prove your law will work before you take away my rights?"

Stop The Music

Man Allegedly Kills Roommate Over Limp Bizkit CD

What's a CD?

UBL

How did we track him down? Coincidence? Or was that a feature, not a bug?

Here's the photo you really oughta see.

And... Seriously!?

George and Dorothy Morris

A must-read over at Snow Flakes In Hell by Bitter on George Morris, who lost his wife Dorothy in the Tuscan shooting.

You Are So Funny, Grasshopper

During last nights Judo class, our sensei was teaching a particular defense of an overhand striking attack. As the uke he asked me to strike him, but once he blocked the attack he lost his composure and started laughing. When we asked him what was so funny, he said to look on YouTube for the Jim Carrie self defense skit.



Perhaps I didn't bend my elbows.

DC's Only Gun Dealer To Shut Down

Charles Sykes will be temporarily shutting down C.S. Exchange, because he has lost his lease and needs to find new digs... which apparently isn't easy to do.

Funny thing is, at the blogmeet last month Alan Gura talked about just such a scenario. Its almost as if he were foreshadowing.

What maybe interesting is this could be the subject of another law suit, similar to the current one being funded by the Second Amendment Foundation. After all, why should Constitutional rights be denied just because the District of Columbia is an onerous place to do business. Shouldn't DC residents be allowed to cross into Virginia or Maryland to purchase firearms? And no, Gura didn't let slip any details of a new suit. But I wouldn't be surprized if a new one turns up over this.

That's About How I Feel About It Too

via Pundit Kitchen

UPDATE: And note this juxtaposition. While the British were busy celebrating the continued lineage of power that keeps them in bonds, Americans were busy celebrating the power that freed them from the very same.

40% Of Gun Sales Are Private

So says Patricia Maisch at the Huffington Post in an article insinuating that the NRA is responsible for gun deaths. Does that sound like bullshit to you? Because it does to me. She writes:

The problem is that forty percent of all gun sales are now made through private sellers.

The link provided for this amazing statistic comes from this story at The Roanoke Times. This story by Joanne Kimberlin states:

A survey for the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that private deals make up around 40 percent of all gun sales.

Notice how the estimate given in the Roanoke Times article shows up as fact at the Huffington Post. The Roanoke Times article gives no source for the statistic, but it is full of other whoppers such as 68% of Virginians wishing law-makers to make the "gun-show loophole" a top priority. Yeah right!

So I asked Google if it could find the source for this stat, and out popped this fact sheet from the Illinois Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Hmmm... no biased source there, huh? The Roanoke Times article was written in 2008 and the fact sheet was written in 2009, so the fact sheet is not the source for the Times article. But the fact sheet does list its source, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms by Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig of National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice.

This paper, written 1997, has a section on acquisitions for a survey taken in 1994 (so 17 years out-of-date now). On page 6, it states:

The predominant sources of guns, unsurprisingly, were stores (60 per- cent). Other important sources in- cluded family members and acquaintances. The 3 percent of re- spondents who indicated that they ob- tained guns "through the mail" (which is illegal for all but FFLs) may have misremembered or may have referred to a mail-order purchase arranged through an FFL.

100 - 60 is 40, so that's probably where the 40% statistic comes from. The problem with "forty percent of all gun sales are now made through private sellers" is that it leads one to believe no background check is conducted on the transfer (and "now" seems to make the reader believe it is a recent statistic). But as the paper clearly states in the same paragraph, respondents stated their answers as to how the firearms physically made it to them and not the technicalities of the background check.

The paper also has a chart listing the sources:

• Gun store: 43%
• Pawnshop: 6%
• Other store: 11%
• Gun show or flea market: 4%
• Through the mail: 3%
• Member of the family: 17%
• Friend or acquaintance: 12%
• Other: 4%

The first three figures add up to 60%, hence "the predominant sources of guns, unsurprisingly, were stores (60 percent)". But other sources where background checks probably or must be required are not in the 40%, such as "gun shows" and "through the mail". And note that this is topic is about firearms transfers, not gun sales. Not all transfers are sales.

Additionally, 17% are acquired through family members. If you read Patricia's article, the insinuation is that those 40% of gun sales are done by people attempting to avoid background checks, but a father handing down to his son a family heirloom is a perfectly acceptable private transfer.

So... other than this being an old statistic, and it is from a telephone survey and thus nowhere close to being a fact, and it is about transfers and not sales, and it doesn't include all transfers involving background checks, I guess scaring people with the fact that 40% of all gun sales go under the radar of the FBI is totally accurate.

The Duck over at Maddened Fowl has a post on this with simpler math from 2009 stats:

ATF estimates approx 16.4 million gun sales in 2009, 2 million being used guns, thats about 12% not 40%

That sounds a little more accurate to me, though The Duck is being forgiving. Even used guns sold through FFLs go through a background check, so the number is probably lower than 12%.