Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—Brian Malte

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We used to fall into this trap as advocates when reporters would ask, ‘What would have stopped this shooting?’ We’d be trying our very best to say, ‘This policy would have.’ And that was the wrong answer because it’s not true. There’s no one policy that’s going to stop any shooting—it takes a multitude of solutions. Many times our movement would play into the NRA’s defeatist…attitude.

Brian Malte
August 21, 2019
Trump Thinks Background Checks Won’t Stop Shootings. He’s Wrong.
[Although isn’t not in the form of a direct quote Malte is also credited with:

For their part, gun control activists have learned that it’s better to steer clear of the debate over what caused a particularly horrific shooting, explains Brian Malte, who was a senior official at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence—now known as Brady United—in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre.

What I conclude from this article is significantly different from what the author and those interviewed conclude.

What I conclude is that they admit to knowing that the “solutions” they push in response to a mass shooting could not possibly have prevented those deaths. They push for them anyway.

They are admitting they are not stupid. They are admitting they are not ignorant. They are admitting that it is a deliberate infringement of the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms with no possibility of reducing the harm they claim to be so concerned about. They are admitting they are evil.

This can and should be used at their trials.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ammo.com

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There was, predictably, very little meaningful blowback on the United States Marshals Service or any other parts of the federal government. The Ruby Ridge Task Force delivered a highly redacted 542-page report. And the six marshals involved in the initial shootout were given the highest commendations awarded by the United States Marshal Service.

Ammo.com
August, 2019
Siege at Ruby Ridge
[A similar thing happened with the Waco massacre. The ATF agents who attacked and killed innocent people were given medals and a memorial was created for the agents who died when their victims fought back.

I would like to suggest justice would have been better served if their estates, including their viable organs, had been auctioned off, the proceeds given to the survivors of the Branch Davidians, and then their heads mounted on pikes in front of ATF headquarters for a few months.—Joe]

He should have asked Kim Rhode

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Randall of xkcd.com ponders an interesting question and misses the, to me, obvious answer:

A wedding-photography drone is buzzing around above you. You don’t know what it’s doing there and you want it to stop.

Let’s suppose you have a garage full of sports equipment— baseballs, tennis rackets, lawn darts, you name it. Which sport’s projectiles would work best for hitting a drone? And who would make the best anti-drone guard? A baseball pitcher? A basketball player? A tennis player? A golfer? Someone else?

If I could have any sports professional to clear the skies around my property of private drones I would engage Kim Rhode. Some number 7-1/2 shot, launched at a fairly high angle, wouldn’t be much of a risk to neighbors or their property but it would permanently neutralize small drones.

Quote of the day—The Babylon Bee

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An exhaustive new study from the CDC reveals that the leading cause of gun violence in America is your political opponents. Researchers looked at a number of potential causes of gun violence such as mental health, family situation, cultural shifts, gun laws, rap music, videogames, sugar consumption, and the actual gunman, but by and large, the most prominent cause of gun violence was what most already suspected. The fault lies with those who you disagree with politically.

TheBabylonBeeGunViolenceCauses

The Babylon Bee
August 5, 2019
Study Shows Leading Cause Of Gun Violence Is Those You Disagree With Politically
[Yes, it’s satire. Still, a disinterested observer could listen to both sides of the issue and arrive at the above conclusion.—Joe]

Probably not a hunting license

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H.R.5087 was introduced February 26, 2018 but I just now got around to looking at it and discussing it with some people.

It has some “interesting” provisions:

This Act may be cited as the “Assault Weapons Ban of 2018”.

…

The term ‘semiautomatic assault weapon’ means any of the following, regardless of country of manufacture or caliber of ammunition accepted:

“(A) A semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and any one of the following:

“(i) A pistol grip.

“(ii) A forward grip.

“(iii) A folding, telescoping, or detachable stock.

“(iv) A grenade launcher or rocket launcher.

“(v) A barrel shroud.

“(vi) A threaded barrel.

“(B) A semiautomatic rifle that has a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds, except for an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition.

“(C) Any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle but not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun.

“(D) A semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and any one of the following:

“(i) A threaded barrel.

“(ii) A second pistol grip.

“(iii) A barrel shroud.

“(iv) The capacity to accept a detachable magazine at some location outside of the pistol grip.

“(v) A semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm.

“(E) A semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

“(F) A semiautomatic shotgun that has any one of the following:

“(i) A folding, telescoping, or detachable stock.

“(ii) A pistol grip.

“(iii) A fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 5 rounds.

“(iv) The ability to accept a detachable magazine.

“(v) A forward grip.

“(vi) A grenade launcher or rocket launcher.

“(G) Any shotgun with a revolving cylinder.

“(H) All of the following rifles, copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon thereof:

…

“(K) All belt-fed semiautomatic firearms, including TNW M2HB and FN M2495.

“(L) Any combination of parts from which a firearm described in subparagraphs (A) through (K) can be assembled.

“(M) The frame or receiver of a rifle or shotgun described in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), (F), (G), (H), (J), or (K).

“(K) All belt-fed semiautomatic firearms, including TNW M2HB and FN M2495.

“(L) Any combination of parts from which a firearm described in subparagraphs (A) through (K) can be assembled.

“(M) The frame or receiver of a rifle or shotgun described in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), (F), (G), (H), (J), or (K).

It also defines “high capacity feeding devices” as devices capable of holding, or being easily modified to hold, more than 10 rounds.

“(w) (1) It shall be unlawful for a person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, a large capacity ammunition feeding device.

It does provide for grandfathering existing firearms and accessories.

Minor off topic question, does such as thing as a semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine even exist?

Discussions at the range concluded that you didn’t need to squint very hard to read it as something other than the intended “Assault Weapons Ban”. If the courts were to rule the law constitutional then it would also double as a license to hunt politicians.

I could see that being the outcome, but I expect there are other sparks more likely to ignite the tinder before this bill runs it’s course. I’m thinking letting Antifa run wild is likely to “flip the switch” before the enactment of gun bans and the multi-year court delays does the trick.

USPSA stage first for me

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Yesterday I participated in a USPSA match at the Marysville Rifle Club. One of the stages was a first for me in a couple ways. The first part of the stage was fairly ordinary. You started in a shooting box and upon the start signal you drew your gun and shot three targets partially hidden behind a picket fence. From there you had to go maybe 75 feet forward and around a corner where a second set of targets became visible.

This was the most interesting portion of the stage:

20190818_132112

There were two targets in the open, one on the extreme left of the picture above and the edge of one almost visible on the extreme right of the picture above. There were two targets visible behind the green door (no relation to the movie), and two targets visible from underneath the barricade to the left. Still nothing particularly unusual.

The interesting part of the stage are the targets in the distance on the right. There are three paper targets behind a sheet of black plastic (soft cover). In front of two of the targets are Mini-Poppers*. These targets are about 25 yards away. You can’t see most of the paper targets because of the soft cover, you have to shoot the steel targets down to get good access to the paper targets, and you have to shoot these fairly distant targets from below a barricade. Going prone left you with the problem of shooting the two targets to the left at almost a 90o angle and while prone I was unable to get enough elevation to hit the distant targets and still be stable. I, and many others, squatted or kneeled to shoot below the barricade. Being a tall person this pushed my aging flexibility to the limit and a little beyond. My back felt a little odd for the rest of the day but is almost normal now.

I have never shot a stage where soft cover was the only way to get good hits on a target. I have never shot a stage where my flexibility was a limiting factor. Also unusual was that I was also the only person, out of 70 shooters, to get all 26 A-Zone hits.

My time of 29.98 seconds put me at 6th place out of 20 shooters in my division and 33rd out of 70 shooters overall.

Here is how the stage (and match) winner shot it in Open division in 19.30 seconds:

* See here for a picture of one. Official dimension are as below:

image

Quote of the day—CO Independent @COIndependent1

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YOU NEED TO GROW A PAIR AND STOP GETTING YOUR LACK OF MANHOOD FROM A FIREARM. ITS A PIECE OF METAL, IT DOESN’T DEFINE YOU

CO Independent @COIndependent1
Tweeted on August 5, 2019
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

H/T to less fat Dave @BigFatDave.

We have SCOTUS decisions. They have childish insults.—Joe]

New shooter introduction advice

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I recently received an email from Robert Z. asking three questions:

I have a couple of coworkers interested in shooting and I wanted to get your advice:

1) I have an orange gun – do you teach them the basics (grip, stance, 4 rules) before going to the range or you do it there?

2) most of the time you seem to have a private bay, is this something for VIPs only or any regular Robert can reserve? I live in Redmond, too, and I think it is well worth the money as you may end up with someone shooting some cannon next to you and the new shooter will start flinching from that.

3) how do you select what firearms you start with?

Here are my answers:

1) If I have the chance I teach them with my blue gun before going to the range. But most of the time I don’t have that opportunity.

2) I have an early Platinum membership which allows me to reserve Bay 3 at West Coast Armory (Bellevue) a couple times a month at no charge. The present day Platinum memberships don’t have that benefit. I think, with some membership types, you can still reserve it for a price. I think it’s something like $80 for two hours. Call to find out for certain.

3) I always start them out with a .22 pistol (when available, suppressed). I do this even with people that have some firearm experience. It makes it easier for the student as well as the instructor. You both have a much better chance of seeing the shooter jerk the trigger and other common beginner mistakes. And with new shooters they can concentrate on the stance, grip, sight alignment, and trigger pull without the recoil. The recoil will dominate their attention instead of the other things. Once they have the fundamentals working fairly well let them have a few shots with a centerfire to experience the recoil. Handling recoil is its own topic and should only be worked on after the student has the fundamentals as almost second nature. They can get there with dry fire or they can shoot a similar number of rounds (a few hundred) with a .22.

Quote of the day—Milo Yiannopoulos @m

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The First and Second Amendments mean exactly what they say. You should be able to express whatever you want and you should be able to own any kind of weaponry you want and can afford. End. Of. Fucking. Story.

Milo Yiannopoulos @m
Via Gab on August 5, 2019
[I think a good case can be made on restrictions for libel, slander, and incitement to riot/violence. But those exceptions doesn’t make for a good sound bite.—Joe]

They have admitted their guilt

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Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, recently admitted they structured their “newsroom” to bring down President Trump. When they failed with the false Russia conspiracy story they came up with a different plan and restructured accordingly.

See New York Times chief outlines coverage shift: From Trump-Russia to Trump racism

They have admitted their guilt. Why isn’t this being treated as libel and the New York Times and staff sued into oblivion?

Quote of the day—Annie Oakley

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I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies.

Annie Oakley
[H/T to Alex of Ammo.com.

I should have posted this on Oakley’s birthday, last Tuesday, August 13th. Which also happens to be my dad’s birthday. But, I wasn’t reading all my email and missed this one until last night.—Joe]

New shooter report

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On August 2nd Ry brought Henry, his nephew from Illinois, to the range. Henry had shot a fair amount with Airsoft guns but never a real gun. As usual, I started him out with safety rules, grip, stance, and sight alignment on a suppressed .22 from about 10 feet away. This was his first shot (from a video by Ry):

image

Most of the time he was able to keep them on the target. He tended to have a bimodal distribution of his shots. They were either good or way off. I gave him the gun with an empty chamber when he expected the gun to be loaded. The bobble of the gun showed both of us he was not holding the gun steady as he squeezed the trigger. More dry fire helped.

I moved him on to shooting multiple targets. One shot per target. After he seemed have that down fairly well I removed the suppressor and brought out the timer. The pressure of the timer showed and on nearly every run of five shots he would miss one of the targets.

20190802_164456

I told him each miss was a three second penalty, as it is in Steel Challenge matches and told him to remember the mantra, “Trigger prep, sight alignment, squeeze, follow-through”. The hits got better and then his times improved with some strings being in the mid fours.

I moved him on to low powered .40 S&W loads. At first he did almost as well as with the .22. Then there were more and more wild shots. More dry fire was required. After he seemed back in control I turned him over to Ry as I prepared to leave (Barb and I were headed to Mount Rainier that evening). Ry had his own set of toys and Henry started out with a fully equipped 9mm:

20190802_173243

I picked up my brass and gear and left while Ry and Henry finished out the last 20 minutes or so we had the bay reserved. Ry later send me video and a picture he had taken of Henry with an AR:

IMG_1713

The next day, while Barb and I were hiking nearly over 6500 feet above sea level on Mount Rainier, I got a message from Ry, “Thank you for yesterday. Henry can’t stop talking about it.”

Another shooter has joined the community.

Quote of the day—Elie Mystal

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You don’t communicate to them, you beat them. You beat them. They are not a majority of this country — the majority of white people in this country are not a majority of the country. All the people who are not fooled by this need to come together, go to the polls, go to the protests, do whatever you have to do. You do not negotiate with these people, you destroy them.

Elie Mystal
August 11, 2019
MSNBC Panelist On Most White People: ‘Destroy Them’
[H/T to Matthew Bracken.

Good to know. I will prepare accordingly.—Joe]

New shooter report

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This is way late but better late than never.

Last month daughter Kim and her husband Jacob had some friends visit Idaho from Utah. Most of them had never shot a gun and wanted to learn. Kim was thrilled I was going to be working on Boomershoot stuff that weekend and brought them to me to learn to shoot.

A couple locals had more gun experience and also showed up to participate. I originally expect people would arrive around 4:00 and maybe leave by 6:00. They arrived about 1:30, but, whatever. That worked for me as well.

It was a hot day and we put up a small shelter to give us some relieve from the sun:

DSC_0910

I did the usual by starting them out with safety rules, grip, stanch, and a suppressed .22.

DSC_0619

As you might expect, one of the more experience people needed a little more coaching to unlearn bad habits. The only pistol she had ever shot was a 9mm. She confess that when she pulled the trigger she always closed her eyes. Her hits on the target reflected this. With a little extra dry fire and coaching we got most of that cleared up and her targets looked much better.

Continue reading →

Boomershoot 2020 prep

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Last weekend I was at the Boomershoot site doing some preparation for Boomershoot 2020 (May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd). Among my tasks I created a new site for the opening fireball. The opening fireball for Boomershoot 2019 was a little too warm for comfort. So I found a location further away from the spectators and built a sand platform similar to the one for Boomershoot 2019. It also happens to be in a location with much better visibility from the web cam.

Had you been watching the Boomershoot Live web page you would have seen this as I worked on it:

P19081208553910

The sand platform serves two purposes. One is to raise the explosive targets high enough they can be easily seen by the shooter from a safe distance over the grass and ground. And the other reason is safety. Many years ago the site had farm buildings on it. Every once in a while we find scraps of metal from old machinery and things like door hinges. Making craters with explosives in this soil risks discovering such scrap metal in the form of a projectile. Putting the sand below the explosives eliminates this risk.

20190812_095912

20190812_095854

Another task I worked on was replacing the air filters at the explosive production facility. One of the reasons we had excellent detonation rates this year was the quality of the KClO3. It is much finer than than what we obtained from our previous supplier. This had it’s drawbacks as well. The three little air cleaners were overwhelmed by all the dust in the air. Here are the filters:

20190811_074542

I think I need a better means of dust control for next year.

I’m a skeptic

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Via a suggestion from Haunt Fox @Haunt_Fox I looked at a research paper claiming to show:

These findings illustrate the shooter bias toward both human and robot agents. This bias is both a clear indication of racism towards Black people, as well as the automaticity of its extension to robots racialized as Black.

See also Robots and Racism: New Study Suggests That Humans Apply Racial Biases, Stereotypes to Black and White Robots.

The study presented test subjects with a series of 128 images. Half contained a gun held by a person or robot. The other half had some other object being held. Half of the robots and people had a dark skin color and half were white. The test measured the response time of test subjects to make shoot/no-shoot decisions and their accuracy in making those decisions.

I found it “interesting” the researchers did not break out the supposed discovered bias by the various racial identities who participated in the study. Only seven subjects out of 163 in Experiment 1 identified as “Black or African American” so I could be persuaded this isn’t an adequate sample size. But 19 out of 172 subjects in Experiment 2 identified as “Black or African American”. I would think this should be a sufficient sample to test one or more additional hypothesis.

For example, were “Black or African American” people also biased against people and robots with dark skin tones? If these participants behaved essentially identical to “White, Caucasian, or European American”, “Hispanic or Latino American”, and “Asian American” participants then I would be strongly inclined to believe there was some aspect of the testing that caused what appeared to be the bias against dark skinned people and robots rather than actual bias. That is, unless it is claimed “Black or African American” people are also biased against their own race. From reading the study this could be true but it wasn’t made as clear as I would have liked it to be.

The authors did not mention doing this sort of validation of the test procedure and did not supply us with the raw data so that we could do this validation for ourselves. It would seem to me this is an obvious check on the validity of their experiment. If the racial identity of the subject did not correlate with the time required to make a shoot/no shoot decisions but there was a consistent bias toward shooting more quickly at black people and robots then doesn’t that strong imply it is an artifact of the testing rather than a bias of the subjects?

One could easily conclude they did not provide that information because it contradicted their predisposed conclusion. The study may well demonstrate the prejudice of the researchers rather than the prejudice of the study participants.

So, what could have the experiment measured rather than a racial bias? As suggested by Haunt Fox:

Just looking at the images of the targets it seems to me there are some serious visual-contrast issues that might prove major confounders.

The researchers supplied eight of the 128 images they used. Here are two of them:

image

image

As Haunt Fox observed there are significant contrast differences. The accuracy rates were generally slightly lower for the black people and robots. If the pictures above are representative then this is as expected. But if rapid identification of the gun in a low contrast situation contributed to time differences I would have expected the lower contrast images to take longer. This isn’t making sense.

I wonder about the 120 images they didn’t supply. Did they have contrast issues that were even worse and have some sort of bias not displayed in the pictures supplied? Were all the guns black? What about some chrome colored guns? Could an association of a dark skin colors with the presence of a gun have been created?

I’m skeptical this study tested what they claimed they were testing. I think there is a good chance they demonstrated their and/or test procedure bias rather than a “clear indication of racism” toward dark skinned robots.

Quote of the day—Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

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The Supreme Court is not well.  And the people know it.  Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be “restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.”  Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
August 12, 2019
BRIEF OF SENATORS SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, MAZIE HIRONO, RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, RICHARD DURBIN, AND KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS
[See also Senate Dems deliver stunning warning to Supreme Court: ‘Heal’ or face restructuring and Gun-control backers concerned about changing federal courts.

This is in regards to the case of a law that said you are not allowed to take your gun out of New York City to compete in a match or to protect yourself at a second home, or while camping or traveling. That SCOTUS might rule against this law is proof, in their minds, that SCOTUS is “not well” and must be “restructured”.

What if a case went to SCOTUS regarding the 13th Amendment and the respondents were afraid the decision would conclude the 13th Amendment meant what it said? Could one also conclude this was also evidence SCOTUS was “not well”?

I conclude the Senators are “not well” and this brief should be used at their trial.

This is what they think of the 2nd Amendment.

This is how you get a civil war.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kurt Schlichter

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You can’t put anything behind you with these people, because there is nothing to put behind you. It’s all a lie. You are not a racist. Your guns won’t hurt anyone but criminals and aspiring tyrants. And the leftists know it. They know they are spewing skeevy slanders, and if you give in on this one – handing over your AR-15 and hanging your head over prejudices you don’t possess – the libs and their newsprint lackeys will just club you with another set of grievances that you can only atone for through further submission.

It will never end. They will always hate you. Always. Nothing you can do will change that. Nothing. So get used to it and invite them to pound sand.

Kurt Schlichter
August 8, 2019
They Will Still Hate You Even If You Disarm
[Via email from Chet.

Stand up to them and tell them the adults are in charge. Temper tantrums from people that act like two year old’s and insults from people that act like they are in Junior High will be dealt with appropriately.—Joe]