I had earlier point out that the progressives weren't giving up without a fight. Their hard-fought victory over the military establishment and the consequent loss of it, even if partial, cuts deeply. They have so weakened the edifice that it is crumbling. The department cannot meet recruitment goals, needs warfighters for the national defense and cannot find them, wastes increasingly precious dollars on failed programs, and celebrates transgenders and LGBTQ. This crumbling of the edifice meets…… [read more]
For the past 10 years, a bunch of straight-shooting roughnecks from Colorado, New Hampshire, Arizona and California have been targeting feral hogs each spring somewhere special in South Texas. As a defense industry exec focused on advanced warfighter aiming and illumination technology, I’ve coached these hunters along the technology curve. The hog, coyote, bobcat, raccoon and jackrabbit body counts have significantly increased each year as the group embraces advanced night-vision technology and works on marksmanship with MSRs and bolt guns.
[ … ]
Good news, prices are dropping fast. You do not need to spend $5,000 or $10,000 anymore. I am having good success with a sub $3,000 384×488 thermal scope with a 50 mm lens assembly. Good luck and straight shooting at night.
Great. The picture associated with the article shows two guys with lights, NODs equipment, thermal imaging scopes, and PEQ-10s. How much does all of that cost?
It would be nice if some company could come up with a reasonably priced set of alternatives to all of this for those of us who aren’t millionaires or funded by the taxpayer.
The USMC scheduled an annual training for military lawyers earlier this month, at which the Battle of Gettysburg would be discussed. The instructor for one portion of that training was supposed to be Jay Lorenzen, an Air Force veteran who taught for 10 years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Lorenzen’s biography, provided to the military lawyers in advance of the training, included references to Christianity, including his affiliation with Campus Crusade for Christ, now known as Cru, and a couple of religious-themed courses he teaches in his spare time. Several of those lawyers complained to Mikey Weinstein, who heads up a secular, anti-Christian group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, that Lorenzen was going to teach about religion.
Nearly 300 female Marines have moved into combat-arms jobs that were, up until less than five years ago, previously open only to men. But only one female officer has led a Marine infantry platoon so far.
Now, the Marine Corps is calling on female lieutenants and captains to consider making a lateral move into the infantry officer military occupational specialty. The decision would require women to attempt the arduous Infantry Officer Course, which prepares Marines to lead grunts in combat.
Two female Marines have passed the course so far. Women have been allowed to attempt it since 2012.
The Marine Corps put out a service-wide message this week soliciting female company-grade officers to volunteer to go infantry. The Infantry Officer Course is typically open to second lieutenants just out of The Basic School.
The push aligns with a priority Commandant Gen. David Berger set in February to get more women leading grunt units. Berger told Military.com earlier this year that he’s not only open to extending the opportunity to first lieutenants and captains, but also women who left active duty before the restrictions blocking them from serving in combat jobs were lifted.
Yes, let’s push this as hard as we can so we can see more women with broken pelvises, torn cartilage and dysfunctional lower extremities.
The Marine Corps Commandant, General David H. Berger, is a loser and an awful man. He is unfit for duty.
With this kind of leadership, they deserve to become redundant to the army.
After #antifa were dispersed by police following the attack on the East Precinct, they tried to blind a woman at her home with lasers and attacked her.
After #antifa were dispersed by police following the attack on the East Precinct, they tried to blind a woman at her home with lasers and attacked her.
Antifa have gone into residential parts of the city after moving on from attacking federal courthouse. pic.twitter.com/mKcrgHixmC
This is remarkable video. The communists have found an effective weapon short of using firearms. So the question is necessarily posed, what can you do about this threat? The answer isn’t easy or clear short of deadly force (and this in fact may be the best option, but it may be difficult to effect that end for reasons we’ll discuss below).
Most of this post will be the result of studying I did on laser safety for a very specific examination, and it has been a long time since that study, so some of it will be incomplete, and some may be inaccurate. As readers stumble on better data, knowledge and analysis, feel free to post it here. I make no claims as to the complete accuracy of everything in this post. I offer it up as a starting point. I can follow it up with more information, but I’ll need reader assistance to do that.
To begin with, you need to understand the concept of optical density (OD) calculations. According the ANSI Z136.1-2007, a class IIIa laser is visible and limited to 1-5 mW. Nothing more powerful can be sold in the U.S. without special licensing (if the communists in Portland are using lasers more powerful than 5 mW, then this poses a special and expanded problem, even worse than I am assuming).
I could post calculations of OD, but it’s best simply to watch this short video if you want to pursue it (for folks who have an aversion to math, here is an online application that will do these OD calculations for you). Now listen carefully. He credits the blink, or aversion, reflex in his calculations. The blink reflex is 0.25 seconds. The blink reflex is also credited in laser protection eyewear for green light lasers (532 nM).
The ANSI Z136.1 Standard bases the “blink reflex” MPE on an exposure on 0.25 second exposure. This yields an MPE of 2.5 mW/cm2. When this irradiance is spread over a “worst case” 7mm pupil opening (0.4 cm2), the total power entering the eye can be then computed as follows: Power = (2.5 mW/cm2) x (0.4 cm2) = 1.0 mW. This suggests that laser pointer type devices might be limited to an output of 1 mW (Class II).
In some darkly lit environments, and at some wavelengths, a 1 mW pointer power is perhaps an option, but in rooms with a high ambient light level and if operation is at the longer 670 nm wavelength, 1 mW is just marginal for visibility and, therefore, 3-5 mW is generally required for better visibility. Note that if the exposure is raised to a maximum of 5 mW (Class IIIA), then an eye filter with an optical density of 0.7 would be required for protection in the event of an intrabeam exposure of 0.25 seconds. This suggests that caution is needed when the pointer emits near the 5 mW power level!
When they speak of optical density, remember that lasers emit radiation, and just like radiation emitted from the nucleus of an atom (laser wavelengths are emitted from the electron shell), it is attenuated exponentially (or in this case, log base 10 will describe the effectiveness of eyewear). You don’t stop it – you just attenuate it.
OD1+ = 10% gets through
OD2+ = 1% gets through
OD3+ = .1% gets through
OD4+ = ..01% gets through
This video shows you how poor the cheap eye protection purchased from EBay and Amazon might behave.
It’s up to you. You can opt for the cheaper stuff being marketed to military and law enforcement, or you can purchase ANSI Z136.1 rated and tested eye protection marketed for industrial laser safety use. Either way, remember that in all cases of which I’m aware, no eye protection can enable you to stare directly into a laser nonstop with no aversion response (or maybe a better way of saying it is that the OD calculations would show an extreme level of protection that no one sells to be able to look at a laser nonstop). All eye protection design assumes the blink reflex of 0.25 seconds.
Also, it may be that wearing this eye protection isn’t conducive to good vision at night and in a threatening environment where you need all of your faculties and senses. In the case Andy Ngo links above, the lady under threat has perhaps dozens of green light lasers pointed at her, little time to respond, and the communists are gleefully taking video of the suffering of the innocent.
The best bet in case of threat from visible lasers is to not be around those who would threaten you. If you do happen to be in proximity of those threats, then remember that looking into an array of lasers in order to try to effect self defense isn’t advised, even if you are wearing eye protection. Blink. Be averse to this threat. Get away from it.
This is a serious threat folks. Being tactically careless or thoughtless in dealing with the threat isn’t recommended.
Listen up, LEOs. Also, listen up “journalists” everywhere. I’ve seen ridiculous discussions everywhere about open carry and the alleged “difficulty” of ascertaining whether that is brandishing or “carrying to the terror of the public.”
Open carry is just open carry. It isn’t brandishing. It isn’t carrying to the “terror of the public.” This example below is brandishing and carrying to the terror of the public.
Open carry is most often engaged by patriots or people who just want self protection and don’t want to stick a gun into their pants.
Below you’ll see an example of brandishing, and that crime is being committed by communists. But it’s all okay, since they are, you know, communists, and most journalists are communists. And most LEOs just don’t care about protection for anyone but themselves and the communists.
The sad part is that if I had been the driver, I would have simply found another way to my destination rather trying to go through the hoard of communists. I have no fear of the communists, but I do care what the state does to me given that they have the power of the pols and courts behind them.
Isn’t that a sad commentary, and doesn’t that say a lot about the state of the state?
Ryan Whitaker was sitting at home with his girlfriend playing video games when he was killed by police.
A noise complaint from an annoyed neighbor resulted in cops shooting and killing a man within five seconds of him opening his front door.
Ryan Whitaker opened the door holding a gun in his right hand which is legal in Arizona but it made the cops fear for their lives.
However, the cops never gave him a chance to put the gun down which he appeared to be trying to do when one cop shot him in the back three times.
“Why did you guys shoot him?” Whitaker’s girlfriend, Brandee Nees, yelled as she stepped into the doorway.
“He just pulled a gun on us, ma’am,” Phoenix police officer Jeff Cooke said.
“Because it’s dark and someone just knocked on the door,” Nees responded.
When Phoenix police officer John Ferragamo asked Nees if she and Whitaker had been fighting, she told him they were only playing video games.
“Literally we were making salsa and playing Crash Bandicoot so there may have been some screaming from PlayStation but it wasn’t domestic violence or anything,” she said.
The incident took place on May 22 after an upstairs neighbor called police to complain about the noise.
“I gotta get to work tomorrow and I’m getting no sleep,” said the neighbor in the second 911 call he made to police at 10:44 p.m.
When the dispatcher asked if the verbal argument has turned physical, he said it had turned physical but sounded as if he was just saying that to get police to respond quicker.
“It could be physical,” he said. “I could say yeah if that makes anybody hurry on up. Get anybody here faster.”
The cops arrived eight minutes later and knocked on the door with one of them yelling “Phoenix police” before both of them stepped off to the side, making it impossible for anybody to see them through the peephole. When Whitaker opened the door with the gun to his side, the cops shined their flashlights in his face, blinding him before noticing the gun.
“Whoa! Hands! Hands! Hands!” Ferragamo yelled as Whitaker lowered his body with his left hand in the air and his right hand appearing to be putting the gun down.
Cooke then fired three times, shooting him in the back.
And just like that, he’s dead.
If cops ever wondered why they’re hated by Antifa and patriots alike, look no further than this example. The tell-tale sign of a problem is that the victim was shot in the back.
In … the … back. As he was trying to get on the floor. Video is at the link.
There are two criminals here. First, the 911 caller should be charged with a false police report. Second, the cop should be charged with homicide.
Not fired, not investigated by internal affairs, not hidden from public view, but charged and imprisoned. The video proves what he did. What more is there to know?
Many, including gun owners and NRA members like myself, will note that in many ways NRA has brought this down upon itself. It also shows why I’ve maintained LaPierre is hanging on for dear life in spite of calls for his resignation before members will donate any more money. There’s no way he can front the legal bills he’ll be incurring on his own.
We’ll now get a chance to see for ourselves how high-powered the NRA’s top lawyer, William Brewer, a Democrat, really is.
It happens everywhere there is money, power, lack of accountability, and free rein on power brokers. It happens in state, churches and business.
The NRA ha aided and abetted the enemy for far too long, and their ratings system is meaningless for pols. The bylaws have made the board powerless to stop it, and Wayne spends NRA money on big homes, suits and pretty girls.
Could we just wish for a scoreless time at the end, humiliating to both parties?
Jacobs tells ABC11 that his friends in the ammunition industry cite the shortage of primer as being a major factor. The primer is the chemical or device that is responsible for making the bullet combust, according to Jacobs. This key ingredient is manufactured in Italy, a country devastated by COVID-19 in recent months.
“That created this huge backlog in the need for primers,” Jacobs said.
As a result, many shops are needing to raise ammo prices. Jim’s Gun Jobbery has had to raise theirs by 100 percent.
“The manufacturer or distributor has, you know, increased the price, and so, we have to turn around and market up, in order to not lose money,” Jacobs explained.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard primers as the critical path component for the ammunition supply problem.
A Michigan weapons maker is seeking to halt imports of what it says are cheap Chinese knockoffs of its battery-powered pistol sights.
Trijicon Inc. filed a patent complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission on July 29, saying that Holosun Technologies Inc., of Los Angeles County, is working with a manufacturer in China to sell “red dot” sights that replicate features on which Trijicon has held a patent since 2013.
While the Trump administration has made intellectual property protection a key plank of its policy towards China, patent cases such as Trijicon’s are subject to detailed legal procedures. Ben Langlotz, a gun patent attorney with Langlotz Patent & Trademark Works LLC not working on the case, said there are multiple patents on red-dot sights, spanning a variety of characteristics.
Trijicon claims its sights have housing with increased durability and easier use. The technology is used in Trijicon’s Specialized Reflex Optic, which has a recommended retail price of $749. The most expensive Holosun sight referenced in the complaint goes for about $471, its website shows.
Trijicon, whose biggest source of revenue last year was from federal law enforcement agencies, said in its complaint said that its sights are used by hunters in competitions and for target shooting. The market for guns and related products has boomed amid rising social unrest in the U.S. this year.
Trijicon also filed a mirror suit in federal court in California, but that’s likely to be on hold until the ITC case is done. Agency investigations typically take 15-18 months, while a typical patent case in district court lasts two to five years.
I have mixed feelings about this. First of all, if Holosun did in fact steal trade secrets or infringe on patents, they deserve to be shut down in the U.S. Theft of intellectual property harms not only investors, but workers as well. It has gone on for far too long and should be stopped.
I hope the facts are carefully presented and the judge circumspect. Because on the other hand, I despise that Trijicon’s main customer is law enforcement and not the general public.
I also despise the fact that Trijicon is so expensive, and for that reason alone I’ll probably never have a Trijicon scope or sight (Here, to compete with the Trijicon RMR, I hope that Vortex can come up with a pistol red dot sight better than 3 MOA and do better on price point). Competition is as sacred as intellectual property rights. Theft should not be tolerated, but competition should be encouraged. It would seem to me that the notion that a patent can hold property rights to dots, reticles and magnification is absurd.
So let’s say that Holosun had stolen holographic sight technology from EOTech, that would be a clear violation of law. To the best of my knowledge, only EOTech so far can make claim to holographic sights. Correct me if I’m wrong about this.
Here is the California docket and complaint, and here is the patent in question.
Good for him. However, I do have one question for James. You say you support the notion of the law barring felons from purchasing firearms.
Would you hold this same position if they declared your political views a hate crime and forced you to spend a year in prison under a felony charge for believing what you do?
