The “Captain†is Herschel Smith, who hails from Charlotte, NC. Smith offers news and commentary on warfare, policy and counterterrorism.
1 year, 9 months ago
Since Caleb is demonstrating gunsmithing techniques, I suspect this video will be demonetized by the communists at Googletube very soon.
But I found it interesting. I would have instinctively taken a torquing pass approach to those screws without having to be told so, just like the torquing passes you take for an engine head.
1 year, 9 months ago
Slate is mostly a worthless rag, but this one actually brings to light more than the author realizes.
The Bruen decision was a multi-faceted decision partly because of the way the votes separated. Sure, it got the votes it needed in the court. We know that Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch are reliable allies.
Barrett is another story. Because she hasn’t written much on this, who knows how she will decide when the time comes to make the hard decisions.
Roberts is apparently owned by someone who has pictures. Kavanaugh is the wild card.
He voted with the majority, but wrote his own decision – there would be no reason to do that unless he’s telegraphing the future to the other justices.
There are some difficult decisions coming up for them. Bump stocks will come up – and there is absolutely no question about the statutory language there. A device like that doesn’t meet the definition.
There are other decisions: pistol braces, the 5th’s recent decision on prohibitions for men of questionable moral character, and the most recent of course is the one concerning users of controlled substances.
Jonathan Turley gets it right in his analysis of the use of controlled substances and firearms ownership.
I particularly liked this observation from the court about reading discretion into the amendment to bar those deemed untrustworthy by the government:
[I]t would be odd indeed for the Framers to have incorporated such a trojan horse into the Second Amendment. The purpose of enshrining a right into the Constitution is to limit the discretion of a legislature. But if the United States’ theory is correct and all a legislature must do to prohibit a group of persons from possessing arms is to declare that group “untrustworthy,” then the Second Amendment would provide virtually no limit on Congress’s discretion. The Framers weren’t perfect, but they also weren’t fools.
In the end, none of this is about whether men of questionable moral character should be allowed to own firearms. The man in the instance of the fifth circuit case committed crimes against others. Prosecute him for those. Ownership of a firearm in this case is irrelevant. If they had removed his firearms and he was still committed to a life of crime, he could have converted to an arsonist.
In the end, none of this is about whether men who use controlled substances should be allowed to purchase firearms (as the judge pointed out). It’s about the degree of government control over the lives of men, and to what end that goes concerning abuses and exploitation by the government.
Gun control is about control. Nothing more, nothing less.
1 year, 9 months ago
From the comments:
“The guys at Vortex recommend not using loctite on scope bases and rings. They say that loctite acts like a lubricant on the threads and can potentially make you over-torque the screws.”
“PURPLE!!! Purple people!! Purple is for the smaller screws, like you see in firearms. Read the instructions. The blue is rated for certain sizes, as is the purple. So few know purple exist. It will save you many a headache. READ the instructions.”
And finally, this one.
“A vortex customer service representative recommended that I use clear nail polish as threadlocker and I’ve never looked back never had a problem. Handles vibration and heat like nothing and breaks loose with not much torque when actually trying to remove something.”
Nail polish is an interesting take. I wouldn’t have thought of that. Any takers here?
1 year, 9 months ago
Readers know I have been closely following this issue. Here’s an update on the Florida constitutional carry effort this session.
People who carry concealed weapons in Florida must complete a gun safety course, but that could change under a bill that has the backing of the state’s Republican leaders.
“Central to the idea of freedom is the right that we can defend ourselves against physical attack, as well as defend those that we love,” said State House Speaker Paul Renner last week after unveiling a proposed measure to allow “constitutional carry,” which would eliminate the requirement of a permit to carry a concealed firearm.
“All aspects of that permit would go away.”
The bill — HB 543 — would eliminate permitting requirements to carry a concealed weapon. Those include completion of a gun safety course and an attestation that the concealed carry permit is desired for lawful self defense.
If enacted, it would take effect on July 1.
At a press conference announcing the legislation, Renner expressed confidence that the measure wouldn’t pose a serious threat to public safety. “Anybody that’s a gun owner and uses guns knows that safety comes first.”
So this discusses the permitting scheme. What about open carry?
The bill reads as follows.
… specifying it is not a violation for persons authorized to carry a concealed weapon or concealed firearm without a license to briefly and openly display a firearm under specified circumstances.
Oh, so they’re throwing bones to the dogs who want to openly carry to make them happy, but “the only ones” are the only ones who are permitted to openly carry their weapons. “Briefly and openly.” Your shirt or coat tail can accidentally go above your firearm and when the only ones come to arrest you because of that Karen-call down at the grocery store, you can plead for leniency because you really didn’t mean it, and they can take the statement of Karen versus yours and see what a prosecutor will do with it. You can discuss it with the judge in court.
So they’ve queued up an abject failure as far as I’m concerned. Open carry is an essential part of constitutional carry. It isn’t constitutional carry if the state tells you how you must carry your weapons. The job isn’t complete. The job has been left undone.
As far as I’m concerned, they failed. This is a cheap trick to persuade the citizens of Florida that they respect their God-given rights concerning weapons.
I’m not impressed. I’m disgusted. Pffft …
1 year, 9 months ago
Coming on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Massachusetts’ top law enforcement official Andrea Joy Campbell has taken action in court to protect laws intended to keep residents from experiencing gun violence.
Campbell, according to a release, filed the briefs in lawsuits pertaining to handgun safety regulations and a case taking opposition to a motion to block the state’s assault weapon and large-capacity magazines ban.
“Under my leadership, Massachusetts will continue to lead …
What she really means is continue to violate rights as given by God, enumerated in the constitution, and recognized by the supreme court.
This caused me to go read her court briefs for a bit. I stumbled on this.
Further, the handgun must have a “safety device,” as defined by statute, that prevents the firing of the gun by an unauthorized user.
What exactly does that mean?
Such safety devices include, but are not limited to, “mechanical locks or devices designed to recognize and authorize, or otherwise allow the firearm to be discharged only by its owner or authorized user, by solenoid use-limitation devices, key activated or combination trigger or handle locks, radio frequency tags, automated fingerprint identification systems or voice recognition.” Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 131K.
Massachusetts must have passed smart gun laws while I was looking elsewhere. What a cesspool of communist overreach. If there are gun owners who still live in Massachusetts, I just have one question. Why?
I reiterate my smart gun challenge – the one that has never been accepted by any gun controller.
“Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns. Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.
Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again. Compare the state points. Then do that again with a revolver. Be honest. Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.
Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review. If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see. If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice. No one will take the challenge because you will lose that challenge. I’ll win. Case closed. End of discussion.”
Any takers?
1 year, 9 months ago
Mike does a very good job of the review in this video.
I was hoping that it was a hammer fired gun. It is. I wouldn’t have been even a little bit interested if it was a striker fired gun.
I also very much like the operating system, and the narrowness of the frame. It’s narrowness means that it would be easy and comfortable to conceal for IWB carry at the 3:00 position (my preferred position). I don’t appendix carry.
Finally, I like the price point. So this gun meets all of my criteria. But I will have to say that that gap he’s talking about between the slide and frame is similar to the M&P design. I’ve never picked up an M&P that didn’t have that same gap. Apparently, the S&W engineers prefer that design for some reason. Maybe someone who knows about this will weigh in.
I may have to look into this model.
1 year, 9 months ago
Glenn Reynolds post a link to hunting feral hogs from a helicopter in Texas. Bacon, Glenn says. Nope.
My hog gave me shoulders (what you would know as the ham), ribs and backstraps (what you would know as pork tenderloin). A lot of all of it. Feral hogs are too lean to give you bacon.
Anyway, feral hogs aren’t just a problem in the South as the link alludes to (” … an invasive species in the southeastern United States“). Where do they get these “journalists” anyway? That’s very old and outdated information.
Based on this report, I pointed out that “They reproduce faster than lethal removal can take them out, they’ll adapt to their surroundings, they’ll dig up the ecosystem to the point it looks like a rototiller came through, they’ll kill indigenous game, and they’ll come after humans too.”
They’ve adapted to the harsh, cold weather in Canada. If you consider these like any other animal you’ve ever studied, you’re on the wrong track. They defy your expectations. They’re warm weather animals. They’re cold weather animals. They’re nocturnal, and they eat in daylight too. They will come after you. They will even attack horses. On the other hand if they see a means of escape, they’re runners and refuse to “bay up” and even the dogs can’t catch them. They reproduce at a rapid rate, they’ll eat virtually anything. They destroy everything around them, and are costing millions of dollars in damages to farmers.
In fact, the Northwest is bracing for a hog invasion. They’ll get it too, of that you can be sure. Better journalists than the one cited above have begun to catch on.
Today, around six million feral swine run hog wild in at least 35 U.S. states, where they can grow more than five feet long and weigh more than 500 pounds. They’re adaptable creatures, capable of thriving in nearly any environment. For instance, the animals are also increasingly widespread on myriad Caribbean Islands and in Mexico, from the Baja to the Yucatán Peninsula, as well as Canada, where even deep snow and bitter cold can’t slow them down. (Read how feral hogs are moving into Canada and building “pigloos.”)
What’s more, females can begin reproducing at just eight months of age, and each can produce up to two litters of four to 12 piglets every 12 to 15 months. This allows the species to multiply rapidly and colonize new territory with unparalleled efficiency. Feral swine also ravage agricultural crops, and can harm people who corner them. But those outcomes aren’t what really worry experts.
It’s their diseases.
According to the USDA, feral swine can carry a litany of pathogens that could potentially spread to people such as leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, brucellosis, swine influenza, salmonella, hepatitis, and pathogenic E. coli.
But there’s another concern—new diseases we don’t even know about yet.
“Swine, in general, are considered a mixing vessel species, because they’re susceptible to human viruses, like influenza viruses,” says Vienna Brown, a USDA staff biologist with the agency’s National Feral Swine Damage Management Program. “And when those get into swine,” she says, they could “create a novel influenza virus.”
“So I would argue that our risk from swine is greater than it is from other, more traditional wildlife species, in part because of their gregarious nature, our proximity to them, and just sheer numbers.”
[ … ]
Scientists are also tracking how diseases move through feral swine in the wild. Officials in Great Smoky Mountains National Park started monitoring feral swine health in 1959, but it wasn’t until 2005 that it saw its first case of pseudorabies. Like ASF, this virus is not a threat to humans, but it can cause aborted fetuses in pigs and death in other animals, such as wild raccoons and opossums and even pet cats and dogs. (Learn more about the battle to control America’s most destructive species.)
“The prevalence increased from basically zero to roughly 20 to 40 percent, depending on the year,” says William Stiver, supervisory wildlife biologist for the national park. “But it’s certainly here, and we’ve watched it sort of migrate across the park through the pig population.”
Leptospirosis, which is caused by a bacterium, has also been found in the park’s feral swine. If left untreated in people, it can cause kidney damage, meningitis, liver failure, respiratory distress, and death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kill them when you see them. You benefit society when you do that. There’s the added benefit of good eating, but make sure to cook them well.
Prior:
Woman Killed by Feral Hogs Outside Texas Home
1 year, 9 months ago
New surveillance video obtained by Local 10 News shows Hollywood police officers dragging a 69-year-old condominium owner into an elevator after shooting him last year.
David Cottes later died from his wounds and exactly what happened remains a mystery to family members.
On Feb. 26, 2022, Cottes asked neighbors to call Hollywood police, because he thought someone was breaking into his condominium at around 8 a.m.
Cottes was a longtime resident of 3505 South Ocean Drive.
“He said someone was in his apartment, in his condo, he comes out with his gun licensed to carry and everything,” Christina Cottes, David’s daughter, said.
After police arrived to the 14th floor, they shot Cottes, the condo’s board president, in the chest.
[ … ]
Cottes said her family needs answers.
“Why they would they treat him in such a way or drag him into an elevator, they already have him handcuffed behind his back,” she said. “He’s wounded.”
Cottes’ family says it took more than 30 minutes to get him help and they want to know why.
“He’s asking for police to help,” Christina Cottes said. “When police come to help, my dad is dead.”
They said they weren’t allowed to visit David in the hospital before he died weeks later, so he took what happened to the grave.
“It’s been a year waiting for forensic and ballistics (evidence) because they want to see who shot first,” private investigator Victor Elbeze said.
There’s video at the link. He obviously has a sucking chest wound in the video. Quick medical help might have saved him, but it’s a safe bet the cops didn’t want him to be saved.
There’s more. He lived for three weeks after this shooting. The police prevented his family from seeing him. You heard that right. The cops wouldn’t allow the family of an innocent man they shot to pass away with his family around him (or hear his story).
As I’ve said before and will continue to say, you’re never in more danger than when the cops are around. If you love your own life and the lives of your loved ones, don’t call the cops. Solve your problems yourself. Getting the cops involved only ensures that some innocent person will be shot.
In other news, state troopers in Texas just got 1,080 HP Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat so they can run criminals down. No one has to wonder how dangerous it is for cops to participate in road races on the highways of Texas.
1 year, 9 months ago
This is in West Virginia, where John H. Bryan (aka, The Civil Rights Lawyer), has been a one-man wrecking crew for the corruption. Here are the relevant documents.
But you know this sort of thing happens everywhere. It’s just that John is good and persistent enough to root it out.
1 year, 9 months ago
“They blew me off.” It’s not the same MC today as even when my son served in Fallujah.
Hi @USMC. My dad will be 100 yrs old on 2/24. A Marine during WWII. 5 assault landings. We'd love it if a uniformed Marine came for a visit – say "HI" to him. Few WWII Marines are left alive. Sent a message thru the Marine Corp portal.
They blew me off.
Thanks pic.twitter.com/V273AE648O— Jim Thompson (@JimmySportToons) February 2, 2023
