The View From North Central Idaho

In Chicago, only criminals and aldermen are armed. Forgive me for being redundant.

Steve Chapman
November 22, 2009
Above the law--Armed pols: An unfortunate Chicago tradition
[It's worth reading the entire article.--Joe]

From Canada:

It would seem that Canadian opinion on gun control and registration is divided quite clearly between city and country.

Perhaps the solution lies in the old western movies we used to watch as kids.

It was very common for the sheriff to have a rule that when the cowboys came to town, they had to leave their guns at the sheriff's office.

I wonder if some form of that idea would not provide a mutually acceptable solution today? Perhaps municipalities could have the option of requiring that guns be registered and stored at police stations in town while rural folk would be free to keep them in their homes?

The feds would still run the registry which they will be doing for handguns anyway. Municipalities could opt in or out depending on the wishes of the majority of their citizens.

DAVID CADOGAN

I'm all for finding mutually acceptable compromises on divisive issues but this just doesn't make sense to me. Given that this is Canada I'll just ignore the fact that the government doesn't guarantee it's citizens it won't infringe upon this inalienable right.

The only rational reason I can think of for demanding people turn over their guns as they enter town is because of some mistaken belief that it will make people safer. So, apparently Cadogan believes people that would commit criminal acts or have careless accidents with those firearms are going to obey the law to turn their gun over to local law enforcement as they enter the city limits. If they believe a law requiring they leave their guns at the city limits will stop criminals from using guns when they commit crimes they why don't the laws against the criminal acts prevent the acts from being committed to begin with? It's already illegal but somehow making it "more illegal" changes things in their minds. I can only attribute this type of belief to some sort of mental problem.

Don't think for a minute that that Cadogan is an anomaly. Remember what Bill Clinton said:

I’m not at all sure that even a callous, irresponsible drug dealer with a 6-year-old in the house wouldn’t leave a child trigger lock on a stolen gun.

If it's not a mental problem then they must have some other motivation. What is that motivation? Do they believe the average person is so stupid to not notice what they are proposing is nonsensical? I think this might have been the case 20 or more years ago. Communication was not nearly as good and the Internet has made a dramatic improvement in the ability to expose stupidity and maliciousness. These days people like Cadogan, mikeb302000, Sarah Ibarruri (and here), and Maria Cramer are easily and quickly shown to be fools. So after they have been slapped down dozens or even a hundred times why do they keep trying the same type of foolishness?

There is a plausible explanation for politicians who advocate firearms restrictions. It increases their power and/or decreases the risks if they decide to go on a genocidal rampage.

But why do rather ordinary people do this? I keep coming back to mental problems.

Update: elmo_iscariot asks essentially the same question and proposes an answer.

Update2: Don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out why. In the big scheme of things it's not really that important. As I have said before it's just important that we defeat them.

You would think that someone who can spend $200 million of his own money to get elected mayor of New York City three times could afford copies of the U.S. Code and the Constitution. Not only does federal law stipulate the specific grounds for denying a person the right to arms, the Fourteenth Amendment states that no one shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law.

And while he is at it, he could buy a copy of another well-known publication, Webster’s Dictionary, and look up the word “obsession.”

NRA-ILA
November 26, 2009
Bloomberg Uses Ft. Hood Murders To Push Gun Control
Referring to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his probably illegal acts discriminating against gun owners.
[One does have to wonder about his motivation for attacking gun owners. Surely he knows there is no evidence showing firearm restrictions makes people safer. So what is his real reason? Does it further his political career that much? Is it because he can use the issue to get more new coverage and feed some narcissistic tendency?--Joe]

I made a sarcastic comment at Snowflakes in Hell and Bitter came back with this comment:

Joe, you’ve hit upon the next biggest factor making me question kids. Seriously, I don’t know that I want to bring kids into the picture if they are going to live in a mostly government-controlled world. I realize that this country has survived many other changes in the past, and many other generations have survived well enough. But if we’re headed toward the government taking over even larger chunks of the economy, I’m not sure I’d be bringing kids into a better life than I enjoyed. And that just doesn’t seem right.

I understand her point but there is more than one way to view the problem.

Another way to view it is that sort of attitude is creating the problem. See the movie Idiocracy (wonderful premise, good start, but a poor movie overall) for an extreme view of this type of thing taken to the limit.

By tweaking the premise in Idiocracy just a bit one can hypothesis that high reproduction rates by those that believe government should provide "everything for free" will likely result in a cultural, if not genetic, disposition toward more dependency on and expectation of government control of the economy and personal lives. Low reproduction rates by those that believe in and desire freedom will exacerbate the problem. A slightly modified version of this argument is what Barb successfully used on me to convince me to have a third child. That is why we sometimes call Xenia our gift to the world.

But what of the individual? If freedom loving people are but a small minority of the population won't their lives be miserable? Not necessarily.

It depends on what the outcome is during their lifetime. If it is George Orwell's 1984 then I would agree with that point. But governments have a history of collapsing. Especially socialist and totalitarian governments. Food shortages, riots, and the break down of infrastructure favor intelligent and freedom loving people. My model of the world is that, ultimately, stupidity is self-correcting. And massive government intervention in the free market and free society is self correcting because it is so stupid. Those people demanding that government supply their every need and want will have higher death rates than those that are self-motivated and value freedom. It may be that within our or our children's lifetimes the freedom loving minority will become the majority essentially overnight because of the much higher death rates among the anti-freedom people as society collapses. Even if they do not become the majority in actual numbers they may have the majority of power. This is analogous to the U.S. being the world's sole super-power with just a small minority of the planets population. And that power came about for the same reason that I hypothesize it could happen again in a different context--because freedom creates prosperity and prosperity enables power.

If that comes about then those freedom loving people will be in a position to take over the world. It will be with an anti-freedom lesson extremely fresh in their minds that they form the next governments and economic systems.

I don't know what will happen. We have never had a situation like this before. In the past there was always someplace new to live. The east coast of North America then migration to California and "The Oregon Territories" provided freedom for millions in the last 300 years. But the "New World" is now occupied by parasites that crave security more than freedom and ensure everyone will receive neither. Where can we move next and escape our oppressors? Antarctica, the ocean floor, and space all appear to be such harsh environments that economic prosperity would be difficult or impossible. This may mean we can do no more than wait for the parasites to starve, riot, and burn themselves out.

I don't know if freedom has a chance of surviving and rising from the ashes and mankind will finally learn the lesson of why freedom is essential. But I do know that if we do not have children and raise them to value freedom then freedom will most likely be extinguished.

It boils down to "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" The pessimist is more often right because they can easily fulfill their expectations. The optimist may be wrong more often but progress, prosperity, and happiness are always the products of optimists and never that of pessimists.

Which are you?

I received an email with a link to LibertyStickers.com. There are so many good ones it's hard to choose but here are some of my favorites.

Note to family--I don't put bumper stickers on my vehicles so don't buy me any of these as a Christmas gift.

In quasi alphabetic order except for the first one which is so Kevin will be more likely to notice it.

Oh yeah? 100% of those killed with firearms were saved by no one using firearms.

Sarah Ibarruri
November 24, 2009
In comments to Why would any one in their right mind be against strict gun control?
[If she thinks this passes as a rational argument then as I said yesterday--she has mental problems.--Joe]

It turns out the external antenna isn't working. It could be a bad connection or cable. I just don't know for certain. I switched to the internal antenna on the station at the Taj and I got everything working. This probably will reduce the coverage at the shooting line but I can work on the external antenna problems some other time. Like next spring when the weather is a little warmer. Currently it's 36 F and my fingers are cold. And if I am going to be replacing cables I want to have warm enough weather than the rubber tape I use to seal everything up with will stick and be pliable.

I also mortared the concrete blocks for the "throne" into place.

I think I'm done with all the maintenance I want to do here. The next trip out will probably be to do some Boomerite mixture testing. If the weather is good perhaps son-in-law Caleb and I will come out on Saturday.

That is to say, they're inside the heated space in my home and it's heating season.  I can therefore use them all I want, or leave them on when I'm not using them, and it costs me nothing in energy use.  I wrote about this a while back, and Say Uncle has a post that touches on the subject.

There are some qualifiers though.  A dishwasher dumps warm water outside the heated space, as does a clothes washer.  A dryer dumps hot air outside the heated space too, but you can leave your television or oven on all day and it costs you no extra energy useage.  If the appliances or the incandescent lights aren't heating your home, the furnace takes over and uses that same amount of energy anyway.  I submit that using the appliances more may actually save energy.  Here's how I got there; at least in my case, the furnace ducts are under the house, outside the heated space.  Some of the losses from that extra-hot air running through the ducts under the house might be avoided by keeping the heat generation all inside the house.  There was also a chapter in my college physics book that explained how inductive loads may be getting you some free energy, because of the way the metering works.  I forget how that happens, but if it's true then over-use of motors and transformers (florescent lights or anything that uses a power supply transformer) as opposed to relying more on the resistive loads in your electric furnace may be saving on your energy bill.  Though that particular difference would be very small for a single home, IIRC the physics book says that this difference, this un-billed energy, is significant on a large scale.

If you want to save energy this heating season, using CF bulbs, turning off your lights, and using super efficient appliances (with the above caveats) isn't the way to do it.  Not during the heating season.  Tightening up the house, adding insulation, using a heat recovery system on your dryer vent, etc., using less hot water (assuming that water's being dumped outside the heated space) or turning down the thermostat, will save energy.  Otherwise, don't let ignorance and simplistic thinking influence your lifestyle.

Someone mentioned last time that some of the light from your evil incandescents (or any other lights) is being lost through your windows.  True, but the visible light is a small fraction of the total output unless you’re using LEDs.  In any case it's the energy you don't see that's being lost in far greater quantity through your windows, and that loss takes place whether or not your lights are on.  Use double or triple panes, and close your blinds at night.  We use opaque (to visible and IR) venetian blinds.  My friend, who I helped build a house on the Yukon/Kuskokwim delta, had a large, triple pane picture window with an insulated door that swung down from the ceiling and had magnetic seals like a refrigerator door.  The house also has 18" to 24" of insulation in the walls and floor (double framed) and more in the ceiling.  We had to insulate the house from the tundra underneath too, to keep the tundra from thawing in summer.  That was an interesting project, but now I have digressed.

In an article describing Bloomberg's latest attempts at infringing upon a specific enumerated right they gave the article the headline "Bloomberg Keeps Spotlight on Illegal Gun Control".

I have to wonder if that was just sloppy writing or if it was a deliberate pun to subtly point out what he is proposing is probably unconstitutional.

I'm inclined to think it was just sloppy writing but these are professionals with layers of editorial oversight.

[smirk]

If you found that amusing, you don't need to explain anything else about why you are obsessed with guns. I think you've explained it all.

...

If you didn't, then you wouldn't find guns amusing and fun. You'd admit that being obsessed with contraptions whose purpose is to murder, is not an amusement or a fun activity.

Sarah Ibarruri
November 24, 2009
In comments to Why would any one in their right mind be against strict gun control? (and here).
[And that is what they think of you. They believe the purpose of guns is to murder (I guess that is why the police carry them). They believe anyone who desires to own guns has a desire to murder. And that is why they think it is acceptable to have men with guns (the government) prevent you from possessing a gun.

It is my belief she has mental problems.--Joe]

I just finished a quick reading of the Brady brief in McDonald v. Chicago. The short answer as to the question, "What are they up to?" is:

This Court should conclude that regulations of firearms are not subject to strict scrutiny, but instead are subject to a deferential, reasonableness standard of review.

They have apparently concluded McDonald et. al. will win and are trying to minimize the damage to their goals.

What I find most interesting is this:

The policy implications of such a ruling could be devastating, given the demonstrated success of reasonable state and federal gun laws in reducing the use of guns in crime and saving lives. Reasonable gun laws such as licensing for gun dealers and owners, registration, background checks, and safe storage laws have been associated with reduced risk of gun deaths and criminal access to guns.

Contrast that with this:

I am not arguing here that higher rates of gun ownership cause higher rates of crime, violent crime, or homicide. Such causation is difficult to show because so many other factors bear on the incidence of crime. For instance, simple cross-national comparisons of gun availability and crime do not control for the degree to which various countries impose legal restrictions on firearms. It also is difficult to sort out whether high levels of gun ownership lead to high crime rates or whether high crime rates lead to high levels of gun ownership.

Dennis A. Henigan
Vice President for Law and Policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Founder of its Legal Action Project.
Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy, page 107.

On one hand the Brady Campaign claims the thousands of restrictions on gun ownership have "demonstrated success" but they also claim they don't, or perhaps can't, know if high gun ownership rates cause crime. And of course their "demonstrated success" stories are highly contested. Even the CDC says, "Evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these laws."

As usual, it's half truths that give them traction.

Update: Sebastian points out more half-truths that are far more substantive than my find.

As Sebastian reported yesterday it appears we may have another major attack on our gun rights coming up. I'm of the opinion our allies in D.C. should suggest amendments to the bill to include terrorist list checks before people are allowed to become members of a religion, or maybe in a different political climate before being allowed to not have a religion. And of course, since ideas are more powerful than guns they should take the advice of Joseph Stalin and check their lists before allowing people to express their ideas as well. 

Given that Stalin and the former Soviet Union are now drawn into this I can point out that Dr. Strangelove is apparently alive and is now contributing to the war on the other side. The enemies of freedom are now claiming the U.S. government needs to Close the Terror Gap.

I think Strangelove's "mine shaft gap" made more sense.

As reported by Kevin, Say Uncle, Sebastian, Dave Workman, and probably others there was "Another victory for zero tolerance" (as Workman said it) recently. A kid was suspended from school for following the rules. Or just as accurately the principal did not follow the rules and punished a kid.

I could say a whole lot about this but ten years ago Fritz Sands said it sufficiently well in two sentences that ten paragraphs by me would be wasted effort.

If you would not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.

Ben Franklin
[Or both.

Boomershoot, this blog, the software I have written (some used by 100s of millions), the hardware I have designed (10s of thousands of units shipped), and my children are my attempts.--Joe]

I find it interesting that pro-gun people have heated internal debates about the NRA being "too soft" or GOA being ineffective, etc.

It turns out the anti-gun people have similar problems and internal debates. Dennis Henigan from The Brady Campaign, devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 3: "But What You Really Want ...") in his book Lethal Logic. In part he complains the VPC (see pages 79, 80, and note 9) causes them problems because their advocacy of total handgun bans can be effectively cited as evidence that a "slippery slope argument" is valid. Henigan claims the Brady Campaign does not advocate a total ban on handguns. I will give him the point that Pete Shields (chair of the National Council to Control Handguns, which later became Handgun Control, Inc., which later became the Brady Campaign) saying in 1979 that the ultimate goal was banning handguns is insufficient evidence that the present day goal is the same as it was 30 years ago.

This doesn't explain why they supported the ban on guns in Washington D.C. But it may explain why they are filing a brief in support of neither party in the Chicago Gun Case.

But if the Brady Campaign wants to appear as moderates and neutralize the slippery slope argument they need to reign in some of their allies. Case in point is what is being said in California about Jerry Brown filing a brief in the Chicago case arguing the 2nd Amendment should be incorporated:

In July, before the court agreed to take the case, Brown went so far as to file his own friend-of-the-court brief asking that Chicago's gun ban be overturned - arguing that if the court doesn't act, "California citizens could be deprived of the constitutional right to possess handguns in their homes."

His stance has angered a number of gun control proponents.

Julie Leftwich, legal director of Legal Community Against Violence, said this isn't simply about Brown defending the Second Amendment - it also marks a dramatic turnabout from the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Bill Lockyer, a staunch gun control advocate.

"Jerry Brown hasn't shown leadership in the legislative arena related to the issue of gun violence prevention ... and he hasn't sponsored or weighed in on any significant gun bills," Leftwich told The Chronicle's Carla Marinucci.

It's possible Leftwich hasn't read Brown's brief (I haven't either) but if the article cited above is correct then Brown is merely trying to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms in their homes. Leftwich apparently is opposed to this. Has the Brady Campaign contacted Leftwich and company to asked them to tone it down? She's hurting their cause, right? If they haven't then their silence is very telling.

Even if the Brady Campaign leadership is opposed to the banning of handguns and they only want "reasonable regulations" they risk making themselves obsolete if they were to get everything they want. At that time they would have to either adopt new, more extreme goals, or existing "extremists" such as the VPC and company will rise to power in their place.

This is the reason why the Brady Campaign's claim of the Heller decision will make gun control legislation easier is false.* In essence the "slippery slope argument" was working and if that end goal was unobtainable they believed they could make progress toward something that, only coincidentally, was in the same direction (such as gun registration). But those extremists will always exist. If the Brady's were to fall from power because of near complete success in their present goal either they would change their goals or others would fill the power vacuum. Hence the "slippery slope argument" will always be valid.

500 rounds of 9mm is cheaper, faster and also allows for a few entertainment kneecappings.

Phil
November 23, 2009
RNS Quote of the Day: 11/23/09
[If it were only that easy to solve the problems in Washington Phil would need several semi-trucks to haul all the donated ammo to D.C. with him.--Joe]

If this woman had to wait a week to possess a gun she would likely be dead now--instead of her stalker:

The quotes of most interest to me are from the police dispatcher, "It's only been two minutes." And "They are almost there."

When seconds matter the police are only minute away.

I got a chance to use my STI in competition again today. It had broken and I had been whining about being less than happy with both of my competition guns.

At a Steel Challenge match today my STI Eagle performed flawlessly and most of the time I did my part properly too. I placed second:

Bold Cells denote stage winner.

Yeah. I know. Some of the best competitor stayed away because of the snow and cold but I figure that makes them losers anyway.

My first chronograph was something I bought about 15 years ago from an estate sale and it was old then. It died a couple years ago and the new one I bought was a CED Millennium. Because there were times in which the light started getting low that I had problems getting readings with my old chronograph I splurged and got the Infrared Screen Set with the new unit. Today I was glad I did.

I had used the IR screens  in near total darkness just to test them and got good results. But today it was just very dark and cloudy from the snow storm coming in. I put 10 rounds from my .40 S&W over the screens and got good readings but when I tried a .22 LR there was nothing. Rats! I really wanted those numbers too. I have been thinking there is something I could try to make Boomerite a little more sensitive and the normal .22 LR ammo I use for testing (CCI Stingers) hasn't been in any of the local stores (I now see it is available some places on-line). I wanted data on some other ammo to see if I could replace the Stingers. CCI Velocitor was the prime candidate and I didn't want to make another trip to the range or waste time getting chronograph data at the Boomershoot site.

I got out the inverter (every vehicle should have one), plugged in the IR screens, and every shot recorded a velocity.

I'm now very happy with the chronograph and IR screens.

In my rifle the Stingers clock in with muzzle velocities of about 1605 fps and the Velocitors at about 1320 fps. But from looking at my notes it appears that the Velocitors should detonate the targets at 25 yards even though they are quite a bit slower than the Stingers.

Statists in office are tragically ill personalities. They are control freaks on steroids. Without the delusion that the people are stupid, officials have no personal sense of purpose. Without official recognition of our sovereignty over them, officials have no sense of purpose. Officials are not smarter than the electorate, they're meaner and more cold-blooded than we are, but not smarter. They are not better informed than we are: they ignore liberty truths and are informed of nothing by comparison. The truth is that officials have only that authority which we grant them. We retain all supreme authority in this country, and it is this which they ignore against the interests of the United States herself. Without crisis, manufactured by them or not, there is no sense of purpose for them. The truth is that they are truly unneeded for so many programs.

John Longenecker
November 22, 2009
Safer Streets 101: Saying No to socialism and gun control.
[I'm reminded of something closely related which I said a couple years ago.--Joe]

Those behind the badge don't believe more restrictions on honest gun owners is a reasonable, practical or constitutional response to acts of terrorism. As a retired officer, I know that America's men and women in blue want to fight terrorism, to stop terrorists; not waste time keeping records on innocent gun owners.

Jim Fotis
November 19, 2009
Law Enforcement Alliance of America Executive Director

You would be a fool to compete with Xenia.

Professor D.
November 16, 2009
Professor of Art History at the University of Idaho
This was to a student that got 87% on a test and whined to the prof that Xenia won a bet on who would get a better test grade. Xenia got a 112%.

A 34-year-old research scientist at the Bristol Initiative for Child Health recently announced that she is the (formally) anonymous blogger known as Belle de Jour --Diary of a London Call Girl.

To me the most interesting part of the revelation is the following:

Dr Magnanti, who studied anthropology and maths in Florida, was completing a PhD at Sheffield University's department of forensic pathology when she became a call girl.

Realizing she had no objection to having sex for money, she contacted an agency and worked as a prostitute from 2003 to late 2004, which she said was 'so much more enjoyable' than her shifts in another job as a computer programmer.

This reminds me of another woman I met at a party about four years ago. Let's call her 'N'. She was middle aged but very physically fit. After only a sentence or two you knew she was smart and not just an empty head on a pretty body. Talking about what kind of work we did it came out that she had been an engineer for many years, traveled all over the world for her job and finally got tired of it and quit. After a few months she started thinking about what kind of job she wanted to have. She was pretty sure she wanted a career change but wasn't sure what she would like to do and have the time and interest to go to school to get the required training. She was sitting in the park with a female friend of hers who finally asked, "If you could do anything you wanted for a living what would it be?" N answered, "I would like to get paid to f**k." And her friend answered, "So darling, why don't you? How do you think I worked my way through medical school?"

And so it came to be that N started her new and very profitable career without any formal training. She told me she had been doing it (pun intended) for a few years and was making more money than she ever imagined. She mostly lived alone although she had a steady lover that she spend most of her non-work nights with. She had a home in Bellevue Washington (generally an expensive part of the Seattle area) and was in the process of putting on a 10,000 square foot addition to the house. Part of it was her new "playroom".

She said she was 40 years old but she let slip the age of her parents and I didn't think anything of it until I saw the alarm in her eyes as she quickly added, "They became parents when they were much older than most." I did the math and didn't say anything but I then noticed the wrinkles in the hands and a few other places. I suspect her true age was really in the early fifties.

Out of curiosity, knowing full well that Barb wouldn't approve a budget item like that, I asked what sort of rates she charged. IIRC it was $400 for 90 minutes, $800 for four hours, or $1400 for the entire night. Weekend trips to exotic and interesting places would have discounts. She guaranteed she could be taken to company Christmas parties and the like and never embarrass you. Among other things she frequently did international travel with her clients as they traveled on business without their wives. She was very picky about her clients and never had more than about five or six at a time.

She painted a quite favorable picture of her new career and when I expressed my envy she told me she had a male friend trying to get into the business but most of the women were significantly overweight and wanted some sort of elaborate fantasy date that consumed nearly all of what they were willing to pay. Hence although he technically was paid to have sex he didn't make any money on it.

Another woman I know, let's call her "T', did some similar work for a while but had a different result. She was about 30 years old, very pretty, behind on her rent, and food was starting to become an issue. So she started putting on "girl-girl" shows for an old retired mobster with a lot of money. He apparently only had the capacity to watch rather than participate "in the action". T got something like $600 for an hour which she had to split with the "playmate" who was a friend of hers. Occasionally some guy would participate in the show with some simulated sex and would get paid some token amount.

T was quickly able to pay her back rent and put some food on the cupboards and decided to expand her clientèle. This ended up not being such a good idea.

She told a few married or attached men friends who had made passes at her that she was available for a price with confidentiality guaranteed. Some of them took her up on the deal and something unexpected happened. Once these men friends had paid for her services they treated her much different than they had before. They treated her like crap. The did not value her smarts and friendship anymore. It was about as friendly a transaction as one would have with a candy machine. After a few months she packed up her stuff and left the state.

I told N the story of T and asked if she had anything like that happen and she said no. Her clients were all gentlemen all the time. Perhaps it was because they knew she wouldn't stand for it. It was a sellers market for her product and it wasn't a problem to "fire a customer" and find a new one.

Life just isn't fair. Not only would I never be able to find high paying customers I'd be willing to service but Barb would be certain to find some reason why it wasn't a good idea no matter how much I enjoyed my new job.

The point of the exercise today is to show you that have never before seen some explosives at work.

Believe it or not, everything you saw on T.V.--not 100% correct.

Lt. David Woosley
November 2009
Bomb squad
Chattanooga Police Dept.
Video: ATF explosives demonstration
[Yup. The Boomershoot staff has learned a lot about explosives. Enough to know that it would be closer (but really correct) to say that 100% of what you seen on T.V. is not true.--Joe]

We've wanted to design an optic mount for the M1 Garand rifle for years, and people have been asking us for one, but it always seemed like there was something else we had to do.  Well, here's our M1 rifle optic mount prototype.  I think it's going to be designated the M12 optic mount.  You saw it here first.

I don't know how many people have told me that their "old eyes" can't make use of the iron sights like they use to, or that it would sure be nice to have a simple way to mount a scout scope or dot sight on a Garand, etc., but it's been a lot.

If you're not familiar with the M1 rifle, it has to be loaded from the top, and when the clip of ammo you shove into the magazine runs empty, the clip is ejected forcefully out the top when the last shot is fired.  That means you can't put an optic over the top of the receiver, 'cause it gets in the way of loading and ejection.  Some M1 rifles were used with scopes mounted off to the left side, but few people like that arrangement.  It works, but you need a special mount and I understand you have to drill the receiver on your classic rifle, plus your manual clip eject button ("clip latch") is there on the left side.

This new mount replaces the handguard just in front of the receiver, clamping solid to the barrel with steel clamps and screws similar to the UltiMAK M8 for the M-14 rifle.  This is the prototype, and is left "in the white".  The production units will be anodized and finished in black.  It sits low enough to co witness (use the iron sights without removing the optic, right through the optic, in case the dot fails) with most tubular dot sights which also means you need no comb riser to get a decent cheekweld.  On this example (a vintage Springfield war horse - Thanks Mr. Devoe) I can center the dot in the Aimpoint Micro, with the rear iron sight all the way down hard, and the rear aperture is completely out of the way, yet I can still aim with the irons if I want.  It's as if the rifle, mount and Micro sight were all made for each other.  That's the way we like it.

[shameless self promotion = "off"]

I'm not putting it on our web site just yet, because we have more tweaking to do, and a lot of other things before it goes into production.  This post is just what the title says.

The M1 rifle is fascinating for several reasons.  One reason is that the gas port in the barrel (where high pressure gas is bled off to operate the action) is right near the muzzle, under the front sight, so the operating rod goes full length form the charging handle to the front sight.  We were talking here the other day about how much machining went into one of these rifle, and how many were made in a short time.  Amazing.  Its design led to a whole family of long guns, including the M-14, M1A, Mini-14, Mini-30, and the M1 Carbine shares some things in common with it.  Back in the day the M1 was state of the art, but today it would be considered on the high end of heavy for a battle rifle, it holds a small number of rounds in the magazine, doesn't lend itself to "tactical reloads" very well, but it sure is a lot of fun, and its .30-06 cartridge packs a punch.  And look how pretty it is.  Just..just look at it.

I'm sure that wasn't their intent but it's nice of the VPC to put up a website and do the research to prove our point.

Sebastian shows us the VPC is misleading if not outright lying.

Joe Waldron on the WA-CCW email list points out:

85 deaths in 2.5 years, by 5,000,000+ CCW holders. I'd be willing to bet rogue cops have killed far more, per capita (6-8 times as many CCW holders as sworn police officers). 35 deaths/year on average, that's one murder per 142,000 CCW holders.

Contrast that to what the overall murder rate is in this country, 5.4 murders per 100,000. So, the average CCW holder is (5.4/100,000)/(1/142,000) or 7.668 times less likely to murder someone than your average private citizen. And that's not correcting for the exaggerations pointed out by Sebastian and the conservative numbers used by Waldron (it's actually 34/5,000,000+ or 1/147,059+). So the real number is probably on the order of 10 times less likely.

Thank you VPC.

SlaughterHouse’s illegitimacy has long been all but- universally understood. It deserves to be acknowledged by this Court. Because SlaughterHouse rests on language not actually in the Constitution, contradicts the Fourteenth Amendment’s original textual meaning, defies the Framers’ intent, and supplies a nonsensical definition for Section One’s key protection of civil rights, overruling this error and its progeny remains imperative. No valid reliance interests flow from the wrongful deprivation of constitutional liberties. The reliance interest to be fulfilled remains Americans’ expectation that the constitutional amendment their ancestors ratified to protect their rights from state infringement be given its full effect.

Alan Gura
November 16, 2009
On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Seventh Circuit
McDonald, et al. v. Chicago
PETITIONERS’ BRIEF, page 8
[In 1873 the SlaughterHouse cases gutted (pun intended) the 14^th Amendment shortly after it was passed. This miscarriage of intent has been a thorn in the side of civil rights activists ever since. Hence, the McDonald case appeals to both conservatives and liberals for different reasons. Expect an overwhelming victory at the Supreme court for this reason.

The slaughter houses north of New Oreans were responsible for terrible pollution and disease and a solution was required. But the solution was inappropriate and should have been struck down. But just like some disgusting violent criminal who gets off because of an improperly worded search warrent or other technicality would be an outrage so it was with the Slaughterhouse case. The decision went the wrong way and, in essence, the 14^th Amendment was nullified.

This sort of thing is why it is very important to have good "poster children" for the cases you take to the Supreme court. Alan Gura, The Second Amendment Foundation and company have put a lot of effort into finding the ideal "poster children" for this case. I've been promised an interview with one of the plaintiffs (they read this blog) and have been lazy in following up on that. I have all of next week off and plan to get it done sometime before I go back to work.--Joe]