Author Archives: Joe

Bullets and bombers

Posted on by

Sebastian sent me an email this morning and suggested:

Apparently the Paris bombers had vests made of TATP explosive material. I was wondering if it might make a good post on the nature of the explosive, and particularly its sensitivity to bullets.

Good idea. I have written a little bit about TATP before but not in this context.

Sebastian also wrote on the general topic today. I would like to add that steel matches are excellent practice for making multiple head shots. In the right circumstances five head shots can be made in two seconds flat.

If you are in a shooting situation where your target is in close proximity to TATP explosives you should either make certain you don’t hit the containers or you are prepared to accept the consequences of a detonation. TATP is extremely impact sensitive:


Acetone peroxide impact sensitivity by JudyMaceo

GlobalSecurity.org says, “TATP is one of the most sensitive explosives known, being extremely sensitive to impact, temperature change and friction.” I have zero doubt about a TATP bomb detonating from a bullet impact.

In the case of a suicide bomber give serious consideration to a head shot. This is not just because of the reason above but because if you don’t shut them down in a fraction of a second they are likely to manually detonate it after they take a solid hit to anything but the central nervous system. Even then, a deadman switch could cause detonation as soon as they let go.

The range of the explosion is of course dependent upon the amount of explosives and the type of fragmentation jacket (which creates the shrapnel) used, and the objects between the bomber and innocent people. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this but it is better than no information at all:

A common security drill against suspected suicide bombers is to isolate the suspect to at least 15 metres (49 ft) away from other people, and ask him to remove his upper clothing (coat, shirt, etc.) in order to see if there is an explosive vest strapped under them.

Personally I would want at least this much range between them and me and I would take cover as low to the ground as I could. You will also have a fraction of a second between the time you pull the trigger and the time shrapnel arrives at your location. Use that time wisely.

Quote of the day—Jason Bournemouth‏@EczemaBoy

Posted on by

Of course I stand with #CocksNotGlocks. “Sex baaad! Violence gooood!” These little boys running around with penis extensions are pathetic.

Jason Bournemouth‏@EczemaBoy
Tweeted on October 13, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Via a tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Boomershoot 2016 registration

Posted on by

I keep getting asked about Boomershoot 2016. Yes. There will be a Boomershoot 2016. I’m (occasionally) working on the software to handle payment by credit card. I used Google Wallet for most of last year’s event but they discontinued that. I’m converting to PayPal but I just haven’t found the time to make much progress. I’m hoping that I will get it done over Thanksgiving vacation.

When I have it finished and tested I’ll let everyone know the registration dates.

Quote of the day—Brett

Posted on by

This won’t end well.

Brett
November 13, 2015
In regard to the ISIS attack on the people of Paris.
[Brett is an extremely smart guy I work with. His knowledge of physics, computers, geology, anthropology, statistics, history, politics, economics, banking, and just about everything is astounding.

At first I thought maybe he was one of those people who just pretends to know everything. But when off the top of his head he tells you the hour an earthquake occurred over three hundred years ago (21:00 on January 26, 1700) and you go looking and find out he was right you start to get a clue. I’ve looked up numerous numbers and things that I found incredible to believe or believe he could remember such details and found he was right. A few times he would report back to me with a correction on something before I got around to look it up.

One time he said a co-worker may be leaving the company soon. I asked why, because I was pretty sure I had all the same information he did in regards to this other person. He told me his son called him “the correlater”. “And?”, I asked. “It’s what I do. And that is what my son calls me sometimes”, he replied. “But why do you say this about our co-worker?”, I insisted. Before he could answer the co-worker appeared, we went silent, they walked up to us, and said, “I’m giving them on month. Then I’m out of here.” Brett looked at me with wide eyes and said, “See?” then expressed his sympathy for our co-worker’s situation.

Friday, as the news of the Paris attacks Brett became very sad and concerned. And repeatedly said, “This won’t end well.” Anyone could have said it and one would find it plausible if not exceedingly likely. When Brett says it then it takes it to a whole new level.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bruce Schneier

Posted on by

I have recently come to the conclusion that e-mail is fundamentally unsecurable. The things we want out of e-mail, and an e-mail system, are not readily compatible with encryption.

Bruce Schneier
November 12, 2015
Testing the Usability of PGP Encryption Tools
[Interesting observation. I tried to do encrypted email with some other people for a while and it didn’t last long. Things like searching for an old email was impossible. And the subject of the email was never encrypted so you would either leak a lot of information with the subject or you could decrypt just the one email you wanted to look at again.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Hillary Clinton

Posted on by

I was proud when my husband took [the National Rifle Association] on, and we were able to ban assault weapons… We’ve got to go after this. And here again, the Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment. And I am going to make that case every chance I get.

Hillary Clinton
On or before October 1, 2015
[I find it very telling the Democrats are competing on who can have the most repressive gun control plans: Ranking The Democratic Candidates On Gun Control, Because There Are Actually Big Differences In Their Policies. These people are opening saying they want to ignore the Second Amendment. What if they were opening saying they were going to ignore the 13th Amendment? This is the party of the KKK and so it isn’t surprising they found another civil right they are opposed to when they lost that battle. They are courting the 21st Century version of KKK vote. This version doesn’t have the courage to personally face those they wish to victimize. They want the government to disarm us and do the victimizing for them.

See also Hillary Clinton to Receive Gun Control Award and Leaked Audio: Clinton Says Supreme Court Is ‘Wrong’ on Second Amendment.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Interflon Fin Super update

Posted on by

About three months ago I wrote about a gun lubricant which I was rather pleased with, Interflon Fin Super. Today I received an email which said, in part:

We have been informed by the Head Office of Interflon in the Netherlands that there is an issue with selling Interflon products directly to consumers online, because the Licensing Agreement that Interflon has with DuPont for the use of Teflon in their products limits them to selling these products to the professional market only. Selling to consumers is in breach of this licensing agreement and we have been asked to take the offering on Amazon offline immediately.

…

We will be taking the product off line by the end of this week and will no longer be selling directly to consumers. The product will still be available to professional buyers such as gun clubs and gun stores.

I haven’t seen this in any gun store so I immediately went on line at Amazon and ordered what I figured would be a lifetime supply for me. I don’t know if they will actually ship it but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Quote of the day—Ron Lowe

Posted on by

Australia is a shining example of what can be done and how well gun control can work.

Ron Lowe
November 10, 2015
Reader input: Australia points the way on guns
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Trinko

Posted on by

In the end, liberal identification with criminals leads to the police knowing that the politicians don’t have their backs and to a reduction in effective crime control. It’s not an accident that liberals disagree with Giuliani’s “Broken Window” policing philosophy, since liberals don’t seem to care about the victims of “petty” crimes.

We need to tell the American people, our friends and neighbors, the truth that liberals aren’t like honest folk instead liberals identify with criminals and therefore support laws that favor criminals over victims and society.

Tom Trinko
October 31, 2015
Why Liberals Identify with Criminals
[H/T to Ed Driscoll.

There is far more to this than Trinko elaborated on in his post. In The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, 1918-1956 by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn there is extensive reporting of how the criminal class was the natural ally of the communists because the criminals would steal from and murder those with property. I.E. those who bettered themselves above the “common person”. Also political heresy, ideas contrary to communist thought, was considered more dangerous than thieves and murders to the communists and were treated as such.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mark Keefe

Posted on by

An Australian acquaintance was recently visiting the United States. This was a man who had served in the Royal Australian Regiment in Vietnam, and had never committed a crime in his life. And he recounted, one by one, his guns that were taken from him—which included some that had been in his family for generations—and he told me in no uncertain terms, “Don’t let them register your guns, Mate. Because once they do, they can come for them anytime they want.”

aussie_gun_claw

Mark Keefe
October 12, 2015
Keefe Report: “Don’t Let Them Register Your Guns, Mate”
[I have nothing more to say publically on this matter at this time.—Joe]

We told them so

Posted on by

For at least ten years gun owners, the police, and many others have been saying “ballistic fingerprinting” will not and cannot work (many of the links are dead but in January 2005 they were active, I include them anyway to give a hint at the number of people who were in agreement the system was doomed to failure):

Millions of dollars and over a decade later the Maryland legislators finally admitted what we have been saying all along:

Millions of dollars later, Maryland has officially decided that its 15-year effort to store and catalog the “fingerprints” of thousands of handguns was a failure.

Since 2000, the state required that gun manufacturers fire every handgun to be sold here and send the spent bullet casing to authorities. The idea was to build a database of “ballistic fingerprints” to help solve future crimes.

But the system — plagued by technological problems — never solved a single case. Now the hundreds of thousands of accumulated casings could be sold for scrap.

…

But the computerized system designed to sort and match the images never worked as envisioned. In 2007, the state stopped bothering to take the photographs, though hundreds of thousands more casings kept piling up in the fallout shelter.

And now we all get to say, “I told you so”:

Quote of the day—Texano713 @ Texano713

Posted on by

@_Tom_Bishop #cocksnotglocks

Texano713‏ @ Texano713
Tweeted on October 12, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Via a tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Preventing gun violence

Posted on by

Via email a few weeks ago from “longtime reader” Mike H. we have Taking executive action on guns, McAuliffe bans firearms in most state offices:

After facing resistance to new gun-control measures in the General Assembly, Gov. Terry McAuliffe used his executive authority Thursday to bolster prosecutions of illegal gun sales and ban firearms in most state offices.

In an executive order signed during a morning news conference in Richmond, McAuliffe established a task force that will direct state resources toward gun prosecutions, ordered the Virginia State Police to create a tip line to let people collect rewards for reporting gun violations and enacted an immediate ban on openly carried guns in executive branch offices.

“Gun crimes are not acts of God,” McAuliffe said. “But for too long, certain politicians and lobbyists have told us that gun violence in America is some sort of natural phenomenon, something we cannot do anything about. Today, we are gathered to recognize that we are not helpless to gun violence, that we can prevent it.”

Really? McAuliffe is “recognizing” he can prevent gun violence? Citation needed.

Is he also going to “recognize” he can prevent religious violence by restricting religions?

I’m in agreement with Matt Irwin.

 

Quote of the day—Matt Irwin

Posted on by

Any politician who wants gun control should not only never make office, but should be banned from politics for life.

Matt Irwin
November 6, 2015
Comment to McAuliffe Attempts To Claim Virginia Loss Wasn’t Because Of Gun Control
[Of course. It’s no different than they wanted to implement speech, religion, or book control.—Joe]

Quote of the day—M-1

Posted on by

On September 13, 1994 the Democrats passed the most restrictive federal gun control law in US history. On November 8, 1994, the Democrats suffered their second biggest defeat ever. As a result of a 54-seat swing in membership from Democrats to Republicans, the Republican Party gained a majority of seats in the United States House of Representatives for the first time since 1952 and a majority of votes for the first time since 1946. It was also the largest seat gain for the Republican Party since 1946.

In January 2014, Obama and the Democrats led the charge in further restricting our Civil Rights as numerated in the Bill of Rights by trying to pass an even more oppressive gun-control law than in 1994. On November 4, 2014, the elections resulted in the largest Republican majority in the entire country in nearly a century, with 54 seats in the Senate, 247 (56.78%) in the House, 31 governorships (62%), and 68 state legislative chambers. Moreover, Republicans gained their largest majority in the House since 1928, the largest majority in Congress overall since 1928, and the largest majority of state legislatures since 1928.

I pray the Democrats are so stupid to try it again!!!!!!!! Then you will only be able to see the Party named Democrats in the history books.

M-1
November 6, 2015
Comment to Democratic pollsters: Don’t blame gun control for Virginia loss
[There is more than a little exaggeration in the conclusion but I suspect a fair amount of truth too.—Joe]

Evolution is interesting

Posted on by

From Why Hillary Clinton Thinks Gun Control Can Win in 2016:

Seven years ago, when Hillary Clinton was fighting a grueling Democratic primary battle against then-Sen. Barack Obama, she boasted of duck hunting and championed the Second Amendment. Clinton’s campaign in Indiana sent around negative mailers pasted with rifles, accusing Obama of being weak on gun rights. She talked of learning to shoot a gun as a child.

 

“You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me how to shoot when I was a little girl,” Clinton said in April 2008. “It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of who they are.”

Now she says:

Today, Clinton’s calculus has changed. She has come out this campaign in favor of gun control measures with a vigor that surprised even some Democrats, targeting minorities and urban voters.

…

 

Clinton is helping shape the national debate about firearms, calling for a “national movement” to “stand up to the NRA” and lambasting Republicans for voting against gun control legislation.

I guess this must be “evolution” in action. I can’t imagine it is because she sees the potential for campaign money in taking a different position.

Quote of the day—Italian Rose

Posted on by

Whatever you do when talking to gun owners use simple sentences and talk slow avoiding big words.

Italian Rose
October 12, 2015
How to argue about gun control
[This is what they think of you.

I say, “Just let them just keep thinking that.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jacob Schuman

Posted on by

The fact is, the widespread availability of guns is a significant, but often overlooked, cause of persistent inequality in the United States. Focusing on the relationship between guns and inequality will allow gun control advocates to argue that restricting firearm access is an essential step towards achieving social justice and economic empowerment.

The first way that guns drive inequality is by making life more violent and less stable for people living in economically disadvantaged communities.

Jacob Schuman
November 4, 2015
The Equality Argument For Gun Control
[He has it exactly backwards. Guns enable a civil society.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Conor P. Williams @ConorPWilliams

Posted on by

Let me reiterate that I am ok with mass gun seizing. And a national handgun ban.

Conor P. Williams @ConorPWilliams
Tweeted on November 2, 2015
[Via a tweet from Robb Allen.

Mr. Williams, May you live in interesting times. Molon Labe.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chris Knox

Posted on by

I’ve proposed a similar Godwin corollary to Godwin’s Law which I have none-too-modestly dubbed “Knox’s Law.”

As an online discussion of gun owners’ rights grows longer, the probability of an ad absurdum argument involving nuclear weapons approaches 1.

Ecclesiastes 1:9King James Version (KJV)

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Chris Knox
November 2, 2015
Comment to Quote of the day—Darcy @brooklinegirl
[And so it shall be. We now have a Knox’s Law category.—Joe]