This one is rather different from the room-clearing and military operations on urban terrain (MOUT) in so much of Iraq.  But it’s not too different from the footage of the battle where Travis Haley was making successful kills at 600 meters.

The battle is long range, and a collection of forces (US Army, Blackwater, Spanish troops) are defending a FOB when it came under attack from Sadr’s fighters.

The first scene is in daylight, with some slower targeted shooting and also some use of crew-served weapons, while the second (and more interesting) scene is a night battle where they are making big use of fires targeted by use of an M203.

The Intercept:

The secrets are hidden behind fortified walls in cities across the United States, inside towering, windowless skyscrapers and fortress-like concrete structures that were built to withstand earthquakes and even nuclear attack. Thousands of people pass by the buildings each day and rarely give them a second glance, because their function is not publicly known. They are an integral part of one of the world’s largest telecommunications networks – and they are also linked to a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. In each of these cities, The Intercept has identified an AT&T facility containing networking equipment that transports large quantities of internet traffic across the United States and the world. A body of evidence – including classified NSA documents, public records, and interviews with several former AT&T employees – indicates that the buildings are central to an NSA spying initiative that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory.

The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.”

My oldest son Josh says “They didn’t even mention 33 Thomas St. in NYC.  AT&T is a government entity.”

Yes, like Google and many other companies.  It wouldn’t be a problem if [a] the FedGov didn’t spy on its own people, and /or [b] FedGov couldn’t find willing corporate partners in this endeavor.

When men reject God, they must created a god in their own image, but assign him attributes of the only true God in order to have a replacement.  Thus, all of their philosophy is based on theft.

In this case they are erecting a totem of omniscience, helped and assisted by mankind because their god is dead.  The state is usurping the true authority of God, because only He can be or should be omniscient.  This is evil in all of its manifestations and applications, and those who do it or help them walk in wickedness.

FedGov is wicked.  AT&T is wicked.

Shooting Sports USA has an interesting article on changing barrel lengths and the necessary adjustments to everything else.  I confess I had never thought of most of that.  There is this interesting deliverance of their testing.

Accuracy testing with a six-inch barrel resulted in an approximate 30 FPS drop in velocity when the same barrel was shortened to five inches. Surprising to some, accuracy actually improved by ⅜ inch (.375) with the shorter barrel. This was likely due to a balance of velocity and stabilization.

I’ve got a trip into the bush coming up soon and this is the rig I’m carrying.

I like the 5″ barrel and the weight added by the tactical light and the Wilson Combat magazine.  To me it assists in stabilization versus shooting .45 ACP from a 4.25″ barrel (which takes me a little longer to recover sight picture due to muzzle rise).

Stephen Halbrook:

For 20 years now, a well-meaning law professor has been peddling the fiction that the Second Amendment – guaranteeing the right of Americans to keep and bear arms – was adopted to protect slavery. He first proposed this in a 1998 law review article and trotted it out again in a recent New York Times op-ed.

The trouble is: It’s untrue. Not a single one of America’s founders is known to have suggested such a purpose.

When the Redcoats came to disarm the colonists, the American patriots relied on the right to “have arms for their Defense,” as stated in the English Declaration of Rights of 1689.

In 1776, Pennsylvania declared: “That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves, and the state.” Vermont copied that language in its constitution, which explicitly abolished slavery. Massachusetts and North Carolina adopted their own versions.

When the states debated adoption of the Constitution without a bill of rights in 1787-88, Samuel Adams proposed the right to bear arms in Massachusetts’s ratification convention. The Dissent of the Minority did so in Pennsylvania, and the entire New Hampshire convention demanded recognition of the right.

There was no connection to slavery in any of these historical antecedents.

In his articles, Professor Carl T. Bogus of Roger Williams University speculates that George Mason’s and Patrick Henry’s demands in the Virginia ratification convention could have been motivated to protect slavery. Not so.

Mason recalled that “when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised … to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

And Patrick Henry implored: “The great object is, that every man be armed.” The ensuing debate concerned defense against tyranny and invasion – not slavery.

New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island joined in the demand for what became the Second Amendment. The right to bear arms had universal support.

I’ve seen those claims before and dismissed them as the trivial contrivances they are.

The problem is that men tend to see history through their own eyes and the context they have in post-modern America, even if that isn’t the way historical studies works.

It’s also very difficult to understand American history without the framework of continental Calvinian doctrine and polity, and an understanding of the proper relationship of the three institutions ordained by God, i.e., state, church and family (Gary North also includes economics, or in other words, the market).  You can add the fourth if so inclined.

Balance between institutions means implementing covenant in all of its blessings and curses.  It means not allowing one institution to usurp the authority of God over the other institutions, and that necessitates something like the second amendment.

It wasn’t anything so pedestrian as slavery that created the second amendment.  It was a necessary doctrine in a nation to be founded on Biblical principles, albeit imperfectly.

Honest men understand that and use it as a framework to understand American history.  Dishonest men and imbeciles make up their own shit just because.

Shreveport Times:

A Shreveport police officer is under an administrative investigation after he accidentally fired his department-issued gun while teaching two summer interns about gun safety.

Cpl. Marcus Hines accidentally fired his department-issued .40-caliber Glock handgun around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, June 20, while inside his office, according to a police report.

Hines told the department that neither he nor the two public information office interns — a 21-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man — were injured.

Hines’s work assignment is to serve as a department spokesman. Calls to him Thursday evening regarding the incident were not returned.

According to police reports, Hines and the interns recently returned from watching the department’s special response team receive tactical training when Hines began to discuss department-issued weapons and gun safety.

During the conversation, Hines unholstered his gun, removed the magazine and then removed a round from the chamber. He was telling the interns how one should always point the gun in a safe direction when it fired, said Chief Administrative Assistant Ben Raymond in a statement.

The round penetrated the carpet of Hines’ office. Police later removed round fragments near Hines’ desk and took photos of the scene, police said.

After the gun went off, Hines followed police protocol and contacted a supervisor. Hines was then taken to Willis-Knighton Work Kare for substance-abuse screening, police said.

Hines told police he was trying to make the weapon “safe” when the gun went off.

I know.  It just went off.  I hate it when that happens to me.

But here’s a tip that’s helped me a lot.  Take those dumb ass ear buds out when you’re on duty and trying to keep life safe for folks.

David Codrea:

Who thinks the Bloods, the Crips, the Latin Kings, MS-13, Vatos Locos, the 18^th Street Gang and all the others will have their activities curtailed in the slightest? Gun-grabbing Opposite Day “progressives” are sticking it once more to the “law-abiding” and creating even more incentives for a dangerous black market (and attendant “turf wars”) to flourish.

It’s always the peaceable men who suffer under the yoke of bondage.  It’s almost like they’re trying to turn otherwise peaceable men into fighters.

And I’m assuming that since New Jersey is such a safe place anyway, criminals won’t benefit from this, will they?

Thanks for the well-wishers on Friday.  Nickel summary: The host had a card that had been hacked.  The bank told us that most accounts would roll over to the new card without a problem since it was the same number (just different security code).  Most did.

The hosting company didn’t.  So we had to give them new bank information and then the site was put back up.

Money.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Via WRSA, this.

By means of RFID, the receiver is well-suited to act as the “custodian” of a firearm’s history by recording within an RFIC tag’s IC any pertinent information of any components that are part of the assembly. Information can be stored within any RFID IC that also contains programmable memory in addition to its UID. The storage of information occurs within the RFID tag, whose IC also has a programmable memory in addition to its UID.

[ … ]

An initial investigation identified the area covered by the pistol grip (which is typically nonmetal material) as the optimal location for the RFID tag. This area offers sufficient structure to house a small RFID tag flush-mounted on the surface. As such, the pistol grip can be installed without issue or any need to change the firearm assembly procedure. The pistol grip also provides added protection for the RFID tag.

I’m sure this will all work out real well.  I’m sure that no one will drill out the chip.  In fact, I’m so sure of it that the first company who tries to market something like this will go out of business the day they announce it.  There will be no need to drill out chips because no one will buy their product.

Gun owners have a long memory and almost never forgive.  Come to think if it, there’s this nugget.

The author would like to thank Stephen Rogg of Shawsheen Firearms for his help in keeping us safe at the firing range.

So who is Stephen Rogg anyway?  I’m wondering how long Shawsheen Firearms will continue to exist.  Traitors aren’t just those who sell their soul to the state.  It’s all of the helpers and quislings too.

American Rifleman:

The review was positive all around, just like mine of the CMMG PSB .45 ACP.

What I find particularly interesting is that they found that the 16″ barrel supplied a non-trivial additional muzzle velocity compared to pistols.

What I would like to do is get a chronograph and meter velocity with the full length carbine barrel, my CMMG PSB and my 1911s, with standard ball ammunition, PD ammunition, and the faster .450 SMC round.

Alas, that all takes money.

Daily Camera:

Boulder’s two gun stores will not be able to issue certificates to owners of assault weapons that are grandfathered in under the city’s ban on the guns, which took effect last week.

The decision came after a brief discussion among City Council members Tuesday night as they considered tweaks to the ordinance outlawing the sale and possession of assault weapons, bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. Boulder, the council and several city officials are being sued in two separate cases challenging the measure.

Five amendments were proposed. On an 8-1 vote, council passed three: Removing an exemption for 30-round handgun magazines that are legal under Colorado law; allowing competitive shooters to travel through Boulder with assault weapons; and clarifying the language so that any individual not allowed to possess firearms under state and federal law could not receive a certificate of ownership.

Council member Mirabai Nagle was the lone dissenting vote. She opposed banning high-capacity handgun magazines that are legal under state law, grandfathered in via a 2013 measure.

“The gun community is not going to turn in their 30-round magazines,” she said, “so we just turned a bunch more people into criminals.”

She also voiced discomfort with disallowing gun stores from issuing certificates of ownership, which she argued would boost compliance. The rest of the council was swayed by arguments from the city attorney and police chief that background checks at private dealers would not be sufficient.

So here’s the picture.  The Form 4473 you signed and the background check you had when you bought the weapon just isn’t good enough.  They want another one, or in other words, they don’t just want another background check.  They want law enforcement to perform a more comprehensive system of checks that will ensure that you’re on a registry to own your “grandfathered” weapon.

And they say that they don’t really want a gun registry!  This whole thing is an exercise in nullification anyway, and the Boulder Council should be thrown out for their violation of Colorado law.

Never register your guns.  Never throw away your magazines.