Fade in
EXT – Day – Landing Pad D9
Tajemnica is on the pad, aft ramp down toward the building across the street. Helton sits on the ramp, a long piece of grass between his teeth, looking like he’s waiting. For once, it looks fairly peaceful and quiet. The ship and cargo deck look clean and orderly, with minimal gear or equipment around. The day is overcast, no sharp shadows. Continue reading
We Americans do love our killin’. Lots of dead bodies, one or three at a time, every day… Of course, Europeans like their killing, too, but they tend to do it every twenty years or so, and by the millions. Personally, I prefer the Etsy model to the Wal-Mart model. I mean, when you think about it, our killing is more European… artisinal. To say nothing of the carbon offsets you’d need to buy to run a mass crematorium these days.
Tam
May 11, 2013
Overheard in the Office…
[I have said that Tam is no longer eligible for QOTD because she would dominate nearly every day but I’m making an exception in this instance. Genocide is high on my list of things to know about and prevent.—Joe]
Fade in
EXT – Day – Cargo Bay ramp
Tajemnica hovers above the landing pad on top of Seymore’s office. Lag and the guard stand, motionlessly, facing each other, waiting, Lag with his rifle still held casually. The door to the building slides open, and Helton and Allonia (a modest trickle of blood coming from the cut on her temple) come trotting out and hop aboard the ramp. Lag looks at her, concerned. As they hop on, Tajemnica lifts and starts moving away.
Continue reading
3D printing is a technology of liberty, and its rise is now unstoppable. The control freaks in Washington will, of course, try to ban certain types of data or criminalize certain types of CAD plans (i.e. criminalizing data), but their efforts will be useless. They are obsolete. 3D printing turns information into physical reality, and information is ridiculously easy to smuggle anywhere at the speed of light.
Mike Adams
May 10, 2013
Fabrication power to the People! Why no government can stop the 3D printing revolution
[Adams and many others exaggerate the liberty aspect.
Yes. Information is extremely easy to smuggle. But there are a lot of limitations to what can be built. I also believe there are ways governments could essentially put an end to the untraceability of printed guns.
I expect that within a year or two governments will attempt forbidding the sale of printers that do not have a means to trace parts back to the printer. With 4473 type “registration” the government could then trace a printed item back to the purchaser of the printer.
There could even be attempts at full blown registration of 3-D printers. The current excitement on both sides of the gun control issue will then be considerably dampened.
From talking to people that have connections into the industry it appears the industry is aware of such potential and as a group tend to have high end tailor-made Wookie suits. This could make things more challenging for the government.
We live in interesting times.—Joe]
On Saturday Barron and I did a simple test on the Boomerite packaging. It was hypothesized that the heat from heat shrinking the plastic wrap was causing evaporation of the ethylene glycol. We put a thermocouple temperature sensor just inside the cardboard box and applied the heat shrink plastic bag as normal. There was less than 1 degree F rise in temperature.
We applied heat until the plastic melted. The temperature just barely raised. That means it’s not the heat.
There are two remaining hypotheses:
It will probably be the middle of June when I go back to Idaho to do the tests.
*Just two weeks before I had served papers for legal separation on my wife of 35+ years. This year I was feeling much better and one guy told me that I looked terrible the year before and that this year I “looked ten years younger”. He also asked, “Is the new woman you are with (Barb L.) just as smart as you? I confirmed his suspicion that she is a smart cookie.
INT – DAY – Tajemnica bridge
Helton, Quiritis, Bipasha, Cooper, Allonia, Lag. Everyone but Lag looks tense and worried. He looks patient. Continue reading
@adamsbaldwin Right to free speech is needed. Guns are not. Put your dick-extensions down and evolve.
Paul(@pauljchambers)
Tweeted on January 6, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
The only focus and obvious intention of releasing the search warrants is to focus the narrative on the firearms instead of the actual legitimate questions about the murderer and his history and things that can actually be evaluated and fixed without endangering the rest of us in the process.
But this did not stop the media from talking about a ‘startling arsenal’ which consisted of only a few firearms and a mediocre amount of ammunition.
The media has apparently once again changed the definition of ‘arsenal’ to be 6 firearms, since that is all that was found. 1 shotgun, 3 rifles (two of which were bolt action) and 2 pistols. If this is an arsenal, than just about every gun owner in the state possess an armory.
Already we have reporters talking about ‘hundreds’ of rounds of .22LR ammunition, when .22LR ammunition is most commonly sold in its smallest divisions in 550 round boxes. In actuality, there were only 1026 rounds of center-fire rounds of ammunition, spread across 7 different types of firearms, 161 of those were shotgun shells. Over 300 rounds of the ammunition were calibers that there was not even a matching firearm for, and therefore they had no way of utilizing.
This is hardly an ‘arsenal’ or shocking. In fact, most shooting sports enthusiasts would go through this amount of ammunition in a normal day at the range, although it would likely be a short day at the range.
Richard Burgess
PresidentConnecticut Carry, Inc
March 28th, 2013
Newtown Massacre Search Warrants Released — Governor Malloy uses redacted, pointed release to further his agenda
[I carry over 1000 rounds of center-fire pistol ammo to the range in a small can for a typical practice session. I probably won’t shoot it all in one session but 1000 rounds, even of center-fire ammo, just isn’t that much. The smallest quantity of components for reloading I purchase is on the order 2500 to 5000 depending on the component.
The media outlets that report things this way either have crap for brains or an evil agenda to trample on the rights of gun owners. Having dealt with some of them I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now and call it crap for brains.
The complete irrelevance of the mainstream media can’t come too soon for me.—Joe]
We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.
Sandra Cunningham
New Jersey State Senator
May 9, 2013
[H/T Sebastian who said,
You know what would help prevent gun owners from always being paranoid that gun control activists and politicians were after their guns? Not actually being after our guns.
There is a reason why I have conditions whereby I might be persuaded to visit New Jersey.—Joe]
For some reason I put together another AR. I’ve had a pretty nice Colt’s Match HBAR for years, but I thought a light carbine would be good to have around for kids, new shooters and such. My daughter might want it at some stage.
This new one is cobbled together from nearly as disparate a set of parts as is possible. I think every parts group is made by a different company. The aluminum, railed gas block, for example, was knocked out on an old Bridgeport mill by Some Dude in Moscow, Idaho– I had to mount it on the lathe and trim it down a bit to make it clear the floating handguard, which is a used piece off of Some Other Dude’s AR. It’s all assembled as a mock-up right now. Mostly new parts, some of the metal being in the white. I wanted to proof test it before taking it all apart again, bead blasting it and giving it a finish of some kind.
Since none of the working parts had ever fired a cartrige before, I cranked off four rounds with the carbine held at arm’s length, one-handed, into a hillside (the thought had come to mind that the thing could blow up, and if it was going to do that I wanted it to happen far away from my face). Perfect function. All ejected cases ended up in a nice tight group off to my right, too.
After putting a few shots on paper at 25 yards, I took it out to 100 to get a good zero on the TX30 reflex sight. Here’s the 100 yard target. I fire two-shot groups for initial sight-in. One-shot “groups” would probably be OK for starters, but I like to get some sense of how I and the rifle are working together. The first 100 yard group is the one holer at the top of the paper, on the “1L” line. I’d thought that the TX30 had 1/3 MOA clicks like an ACOG telescope, so I over-compensated, putting the second group near the bottom of the paper. The TX30 has 1/2 MOA clicks, and the fact that the target was stapled to a log and was slanting back quite a bit accounts for the larger apparent error. Splitting the difference with a few “up” clicks, and a couple clicks left, the third group was pretty well dead on;
I have a padded steel rifle rest and some shooting bags, but I’m using them less and less. If you can’t use your vehicle, a stump, a tree branch, a rock, the ground or your knee, what kind of shooting are you practicing? In this case I was mono-podding, holding the 30 round magazine in my hand and resting the hand on the hood of the pickup. It works well enough. The truck bumper is OK too, or the tail gate, or a front tire steered over to one side. The tip of a longish snowshoe can make a decent place to rest your knee in a kneeling position… There are lots of options, so you can haul around less stuff.
Three consecutive two-shot groups of around 1 MOA and less. I be happy for now. Don’t ask me to repeat it. It was getting dark so I called it a day and let the dog out to romp around for a bit and get wet and smelly before the ride home. Ultimately I think I’ll want a solid 200 yard zero for this reflex-sighted carbine.
Dealing with “issues” while shooting is a good thing. In this case it was failing light, mosquitoes, my dog which hates gunfire (he ended up inside the pickup, and his moving around made the pickup, which I was using as a shooting rest, move just a little bit while aiming) and the fact that I’d ended up out there with no spotting optic so I had to trot the 100 yards back and forth to determine shot placement. That and there were people driving up and down the road, which was close enough I didn’t want to fire while people were so close and make them nervous. So I’m looking around, listening, swatting bugs, dealing with the dog, hurrying, and huffing and puffing a little. It’s an exercise in being very still while immersed in little stresses and distractions. That’s part of why I like rifle shooting so much. It’s wonderful. Sometimes it works out great and other times you chalk it up to learning. This time was like a dream, but I’ll have to figure out what happened to my 20×60 binocs.
This new light carbine is pounds lighter than my scoped HBAR rifle. I think it’s going to be one of my favorite shooters. I’d never “built” an AR before, and even though I’d had my Colt, and a Rock River, apart many times it was surprising to me how easy it was to cobble one together from parts. A fairly small child could do it, with a little bit of instruction.
Fade in
EXT – DAY – Harbin’s mortar pit
The dull rumbling drone of many quiet engines and big wheels dominate the background. It’s full daylight. Sabot is hunkered down in a corner, head down, asleep. Harbin is looking carefully over the edge of the pit. He slowly lowers his head down. He kicks Sabot’s boot gently. Sabot startles, pops his head up, looking around wildly for a moment, then settles down realizing where he is, then perks up at the sound. He looks at Harbin with a question on his face. Harbin nods. Continue reading
After looking at the letters you pointed to I would recommend that you take down any files you have posted and let the commodity jurisdiction request process take its course.
My Lawyer (who wishes to remain anonymous)
May 9, 2013
In regards to the files linked to in this post.
[It’s an interesting state of affairs when lawyers don’t want it to be known they are involved.—Joe]
I came across a Beatles song I’d never even HEARD of before. A gun song from The BEATLES?! Happiness is a Warm Gun, from the White Album. Hmmm… Looking at the lyrics, it’s clear they were pretty clueless about what they were singing about. Of course, being as it was released in 1968, perhaps not so surprising. There were a LOT of things done then in popular culture that made people say a all kinds of seriously weird and disjointed stuff. Can’t say they are not musically talented, and on a technical basis interesting. Also can’t say it’s a very good song as a song, IMHO, but here it is to you to make your own opinion of.
Hopefully, no-one needs much of an intro to the Beatles, but for the younger crowd, that was who Paul McCartney played with before Wings. For the whipper-snappers who don’t get that joke, never mind, just look them up.
I spent some time investigating ITAR in regards to the files for 3-D printing of weapons. It’s interesting stuff. The implications are huge.
I am not a lawyer although one or more of my sources for this post are. But none claim expertise in this area because it is such a specialized field. One source did claim “I know something about this”. The following may be a too broad interpretation of the law and the legal experts in the field will have to give us a more factual read.
The U.S. Department of State Directorate of Defense Trade Controls is the agency we have concerns about. Their mission is stated as:
The U.S. Government views the sale, export, and re-transfer of defense articles and defense services as an integral part of safeguarding U.S. national security and furthering U.S. foreign policy objectives. The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), in accordance with 22 U.S.C. 2778-2780 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) (22 CFR Parts 120-130), is charged with controlling the export and temporary import of defense articles and defense services covered by the United States Munitions List (USML).
The documents of particular interest in figuring out the implications appear to be these two:
One of my sources ran up against ITAR due to being an NRA Firearms instructor. The NRA recently sent out a notice to instructors telling them not to provide training to foreign students. This is because, according to the first document above:
§ 120.9 Defense service.
(a) Defense service means:
(1) The furnishing of assistance (including
training) to foreign persons,
whether in the United States or abroad
in the design, development, engineering,
manufacture, production, assembly,
testing, repair, maintenance,
modification, operation, demilitarization,
destruction, processing or use of
defense articles;
(2) The furnishing to foreign persons
of any technical data controlled under
this subchapter (see § 120.10), whether
in the United States or abroad; or
(3) Military training of foreign units
and forces, regular and irregular, including
formal or informal instruction
of foreign persons in the United States
or abroad or by correspondence
courses, technical, educational, or information
publications and media of
all kinds, training aid, orientation,
training exercise, and military advice.
(See also § 124.1.)
In the last few months the Department of State is taking a much broader interpretation of this and other sections of U.S. code and applying it to gun owners, manufacturers, and instructors. There are two hypotheses for the change. One is that John Kerry is driving the change. The other is that is part of what Obama was talking about when he said he was working on gun control “under the radar”. The failure to get any gun control through Congress could have inflamed him enough that he sent out the word to find ways to punish us for our success in blocking him.
The law was intended to apply to people selling and providing real militarily useful products and training to our Cold War enemies. Things like night vision equipment and training on tank warfare or repairing high performance jet engines were valid things to be concerned about. And even though rifles that were particularly well suited for winning NRA High Power competition and training for doing better at USPSA matches could have military application the people at the Department of State ignored that. They were concerned with the nation states of the world that declared us their enemies rather than the “right-wing NRA domestic terrorists” who taught Home Firearm Safety classes a few times a year.
The law was written before the Internet and personal computers existed and some of the concepts that made sense then are absurd now. In the mid ‘90s we had the battle over encryption technology being declared an export restricted munitions. This was ultimately decided in favor of freedom under the First Amendment (the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Bernstein case and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Junger case). I don’t see why the present issue wouldn’t fall under the same protection and it might. But being right and being able to fight it to the end in court are two different things.
My sources seem to think the biggest concern is that all firearms instructors, “Mom and Pop” FFLs, and of course libertarian college students with a mischievous streak (borrowing and mangling a phrase from Paul Barrett) will be required to pay the $2000+/year license fees to register with the Department of State. This would be even though there was no technology, products, or training being exported. Just that you’re “in the business” could make you subject to the restrictions and require that you register with the Department of State and pay the annual fee. The government wouldn’t have to directly “stop the signal” in it’s entirety. There a million different signals and they only have to make examples of a few people and most others would want to avoid the hassle and “would lead more compliant lifestyles”. There is very little profit to be made in being a martyr for the cause. The 3-D printer issue could just be noise and a distraction to a much bigger concern.
Ultimately the courts and Congress can probably get most of this straightened out on the side of freedom. If they don’t freedom will be lost to faceless bureaucrats not “blue helmeted elk” that you can shoot at as they go door-to-door confiscating your guns.
In the mean time an enraged narcissist who didn’t get his way with the legislature could conceivably apply the regulations to people posting YouTube videos on how to grip your pistol.
… “Streisand Effect”?
I knew you could.
Details of the topic are here, here, and get it while it lasts here.
Update: Over 45% of my entry page views in the last hour have been for the 3-D printer files.
Never be so trusting of a government to protect you that you give up your own means of self defense. A good government will never try to render its citizens defenseless—an evil government always will.
Aaron Zelman and Richard Stevens
2001
Death by “Gun Control:” the Human Cost of Victim Disarmament
[Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Fade in
INT – DAY – Kat’s office in BLDG 1701
She sits at her desk, Councilor Darch on her computer screen. He’s a very thin, almost cadaverous, with intense eyes, perfect hair, and immaculate shirt and jacket. THe office behind him looks lavish and large. Continue reading
Following the lead of Robb and Barron I’m hosting the files to produce firearms on a 3-D printer.
One of the risks to “the signal that cannot be stopped” is that the signal could be subtly corrupted without the possessor knowing. Therefore I am computing and including the hashes of the files so that you can verify it has not been corrupted. Of course someone could corrupt the hashes posted on this blog post to match the corrupted files but I have saved copies of the hashes in a secure location for later comparison. Contact me if there is a concern the hashes have been tampered.
To compute and verify the hashes I used File Checksum Tools (free and quite functional).
The Defense Distributed file pack is here. Hashes:
The Liberator is here (removed upon the advice of My Lawyer). Hashes:
The ATF just Tweeted a link to a Q & A .PDF about 3-D printed guns.
I put a copy here.
The short version is:
Yes, it’s legal without a license as long as it is not an NFA item. If it does not have a rifled barrel then it might be classified as ‘Any Other Weapon” which is an NFA item.
Summary of who can and how to get a license to manufacture.
It seems a reasonable response once you suspend disbelief enough to allow that the ATF is more constitutionally permissible than a BRAS (Bureau of Religion, Assembly, and Speech).
Update: There are some questions (and this is why I was deliberately vague above) about what constitutes an AOW. From 26 USC § 5845:
The term “any other weapon” means any weapon or device capable of being concealed on the person from which a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosive, a pistol or revolver having a barrel with a smooth bore designed or redesigned to fire a fixed shotgun shell, weapons with combination shotgun and rifle barrels 12 inches or more, less than 18 inches in length, from which only a single discharge can be made from either barrel without manual reloading, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire. Such term shall not include a pistol or a revolver having a rifled bore, or rifled bores, or weapons designed, made, or intended to be fired from the shoulder and not capable of firing fixed ammunition.
It is my NON-LAWYER reading of this that since neither the current nor WWII Liberator fires a shogun shell they do not qualify as an AOW even though the barrels are not rifled.
EXT – DAY – North hill-top
A grassy hill-top with a some scrubby bushes. Hunkered down between and behind some of the bushes are six men in camo uniforms, small packs and equipment around them on the ground. One of the men has binoculars and is watching the refugee center.
Continue reading