Author Archives: Joe

And the winner is

Posted on by

Last month I had a photo caption contest and I have selected a winner. It is Defens with:

Fetch the stick, Feinstein!

I found this particularly amusing and applicable because one of my motivations for Boomershoot, and in particular the posting of the recipe for Boomerite, was because of a law that Senator Feinstein wrote and got passed many years ago. That law made it illegal to distribute “bomb making instructions”. We don’t use “the ‘B’ word” at Boomershoot. We make “reactive targets”. In part, Boomershoot is about mocking Senator Feinstein.

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

Posted on by

If you want to know where social Marxism (collectivism) is headed, this is it: the labeling of individualistic philosophies as dangerous thought crimes and tribal communities as time bombs waiting to explode in the face of the wider global village. They desperately hope to conquer the world by dictating not only national boundaries and civil liberties, but the very moral code by which society and individuals function. They wish to bypass natural law with fear, fear that the collective will find you abhorrent and barbaric if you do not believe exactly as they believe. Individualism will one day be the new misogyny.

Think of it this way: If an undoubtedly forgettable movie like “Furious 7″ can’t even portray a fictional step away from the abyss of collectivist cultism without a prophecy of doom from Reuters, then is anyone really safe from these lunatics?

Brandon Smith
May 13, 2015
Collectivists Hate Individuality, Tribalism And ‘Fast And Furious 7′?
[No one is ever completely safe from any lunatic. Even a completely sane person might make a careless mistake and run over you in a crosswalk.

But Smith was asking a rhetorical question after painting what appears to be pretty accurate picture of the collectivist cult mentality. A clear statement of the problem is the first step in solving the problem and Smith appears to have done a good job in this regard.—Joe]

Boomershoot 2015 email

Posted on by

After Boomershoot I don’t want to even think about it for a while. Unless email requires a response from me I just let it set in my inbox. I finally got around to looking at the collection and thought I would share some of it.

From Cat:

Hi Joe,

I had a fantastic time at my first Boomershoot!
Thank you and your crew for making this event happen, and for supporting the 2nd amendment.
I hope to be back next year!

The BBQ was amazing!

She also shared a picture of the fireball:

boom

From Matthew:

Enjoyed the opportunity to come with the guys and get to shoot.
Enjoyed meeting some of the other shooters, great folks!!!!!!

From Grete:

Joe,

It was a great experience!

See you next year!

From Greg and Bob:

It was the most enjoyable event we’ve been to. The weather was perfect and our shooting neighbors were friendly. It was great. We did not have any issues during the event. The fireball was amazing, the targets exploded and the BBQ was excellent. Looking forward to next year.

From Joe:

Dear Joe,

Thanks again for this wonderful event. I have been coming for many years and each time is the best time I have all year. Looking forward to next years event already.

You and your crew give a great party!

From Bill:

Joe, I had a great time throughout the weekend.  Great people, food and scenery. Something I will do for next year is site my riffles better (add scope).

Mark your calendars. Boomershoot 2016 will be April 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.

Ammo matters

Posted on by

I went to the range today and tested various ammo in my Ruger 22/45.

This target was made shooting five rounds offhand at 25 yards with CCI Standard Velocity ammo:

WP_20150606_12_57_38_Pro__highresCropped

This is the same target after I fired another five rounds with Federal “Target Grade Performance” “Auto Match” (AM22) at the same range:

WP_20150606_13_01_21_Pro__highresCropped

Other people also report accuracy issues with the Federal ammo and others report problems with reliability.

I shot more groups at seven yards with similar results. The Federal was far less accurate than the CCI. I shot some old CCI Blazer at seven yards. The one flyer was my fault. There are four rounds in the hole that looks like only two shots:

WP_20150606_13_17_36_Pro__highresCropped

I shot some more rounds through my new STI DVC. The following are five rounds at seven yards:

WP_20150606_13_43_40_Pro__highresCropped

WP_20150606_13_54_46_Pro__highresCropped

WP_20150606_14_01_19_Pro__highresCropped

I then tried some handloads that used 180 grain Rainer Restrike JHP bullets. The results were terrible. I moved the target to 25 yards to see if there was some key-holing or something. Only one bullet was on the paper! It looked like a normal hole so I moved the target to 10 yards and saw what I was expecting:

WP_20150606_14_07_42_Pro__highresCropped

It’s most obvious with the top hole. See the “grease mark” out to the right of the hole? That’s from the bullet striking the paper nearly sideways. Notice the other holes with the asymmetric tearing? Compare those holes to the holes from the factory ammo. The factory ammo has symmetric holes. The Rainer Restrike handloads are unstable in my gun.

Ammo matters. It matters a lot.

Quote of the day—F. A. Hayek

Posted on by

There can be little doubt that man owes some of his greatest suc­cesses in the past to the fact that he has not been able to control so­cial life. His continued advance may well depend on his deliber­ately refraining from exercising controls which are now in his power. In the past, the spontane­ous forces of growth, however much restricted, could usually still assert themselves against the or­ganized coercion of the state. With the technological means of control now at the disposal of government, it is not certain that such assertion is still possible; at any rate, it may soon become impossible. We are not far from the point where the deliberately organized forces of society may destroy those spon­taneous forces which have made advance possible.

F. A. Hayek
October 1, 1960
The Case for Freedom
[The size and scope of our government has penetrated to depth in our society far beyond what Hayek could have reasonably foreseen in 1960. The banning of certain toilets, shower heads, and light bulbs is just the tip of the iceberg. The use of “eminent domain” to take your property and give it to another, the banning of larger than average soft drinks, and the banning of firearm accessories are just the tip of the same iceberg. The thousands of pages of law and regulations churned out each year are just the tip of the same iceberg.

Our vehicles license plates are scanned by police cars as they drive by, our cell phone positions are tracked, our phone call metadata is stored for use against us, the IRS has been weaponized and is used against political opponents, and drone are ready and able to drop a bomb on your location if the administration believes you to be a threat to national security.

It is easy to argue that “the deliberately organized forces of society” will destroy, or essentially has destroyed, the spontaneous forces of which Hayek speaks. Furthermore it is not farfetched to claim the only viable option at this point is to protect yourself and those close to you as best you can and prepare to rebuild from the ruins of the coming collapse.

I hope we can learn from what I fear is a lesson of staggering magnitude. Then, if the time comes, we must rebuild upon a foundation of solid political and economic philosophical principles. The works of Hayek are almost certainly part of that foundation.—Joe]

Front sight problems

Posted on by

I’m not the only one to recently have problems with the front sight of their new gun (H/T to gonxau):

He also had problems with the rear sight. I’m not up to 500 rounds yet so I may have problems as well by the time I shoot that many rounds in my new gun.

Slightly off topic… I should soon have some microscope pictures from the gun barrel that died in April. The reason why it split is apparently quite unusual. Assuming I have permission I’ll share everything after I get the pictures.

Quote of the day—Varad Mehta

Posted on by

The solution to violence is supposedly to lay down arms and swear a truce. But when one side’s arms drip with ink and the other’s drip with blood there is no peace to be had. “We will stop drawing cartoons” and “we will stop killing you” are incommensurate concessions.

Those who think they are equal, that the pen is mightier than the sword because the sword only wounds the body while the pen wounds something greater because intangible—the soul of society or some ineffable value like justice or safety or dignity—will always implore us to let the wookie win because they take the enemy at his word. But safety of this kind is not really safety because its maintenance is not in our hands but theirs.

Varad Mehta
June 4, 2015
Don’t Let The Wookiee Win
[Via a Tweet from Gay Cynic.

Those who demand others to refrain from the exercise of their right to free speech because of the threats from violent criminals should think about the lessons they are teaching. What they teach is that others should become violent criminals to get their way as well.

What I find most perplexing is that those who insist we submit to the demands of these criminals are those least able to deliver violence should their lessons be taken to heart. Hence they are attempting to create a world where they would be the first to become slaves to those able to deliver violence.—Joe]

Quote of the day—George M. Lee and John R. Lott

Posted on by

CCW permit holders are so law-abiding that they compare favorably even to police officers. According to a study in Police Quarterly, during the period from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2007 there was an average of 703 crimes committed by police per year, with 113 involving firearms violations.6 With about 683,396 full-time law enforcement employees in 2006,7 that translates into about 102 crimes by police per hundred thousand officers. Of course, this compares very favorably to the U.S. population as a whole over those years, with 3,813 crimes per hundred thousand people – a crime rate that was 37 times higher than that for police.

But concealed carry permit holders are even more law-abiding than that. Between October 1, 1987 and April 30, 2015, Florida revoked 9,793 concealed handgun permits for misdemeanors or felonies. This is an annual rate of 12.5 per 100,000 permit holders – a mere eighth of the rate at which officers commit misdemeanors and felonies. In Texas in 2012, 120 permit holders were convicted of misdemeanors or felonies – a rate of 20.5 per 100,000, still just a fifth of the rate for police.

Firearms violations among police occur at a rate of 6.9 per 100,000 officers. For permit holders in Florida, it is only 0.31 per 100,000. Most of these violations were for trivial offenses, such as forgetting to carry one’s permit. The data are similar in 24 other states.

George M. Lee
John R. Lott
June 2, 2015
BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE CRIME PREVENTION RESEARCH CENTER
IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLEES JEFF SILVESTER, ET AL., AND SUPPORTING AFFIRMANCE
JEFF SILVESTER, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
vs.
KAMALA D. HARRIS,
in her official capacity as the Attorney General of California,
Defendant-Appellant.
[This makes it extremely clear that if you are concerned about private citizens legally carrying guns in public then there are a limited number of nonexclusive conclusions that can be arrived at regarding your concerns. Which of the following best describes you?

  1. You are far more concerned about the police carrying guns.
  2. You are not concerned about people legally carrying guns committing a crime with them. Instead you are concerned about those people using them lawfully. If you are a rational person we must conclude you are a violent and/or evil person afraid of being legally shot.
  3. You were ignorant about the crime rates of people who legally carry guns and will now cease advocating in support of more restrictive laws regarding the carry of firearms in public.
  4. You have crap for brains and don’t care what the data is.

Other options exist but they appear to be variations of the themes I have already enumerated. Or did I miss some?—Joe]

When satire is indistinguishable from reality

Posted on by

From Ken White we have a Leaked Northwestern University Email States Rules For Title IX Investigations which includes this among other things:

Classes on the American court system, civil rights and civil liberties, and criminal justice may continue so long as professors emphasize to their students that they are participating an an anthropological study of a profoundly sexist and cisgender-biased system and that no positive normative judgment is intended.

I’m in complete agreement with commenter AddictionMyth who said:

I understand that satire is protected by the First Amendment. But this was insufficiently parodic to avoid being confusing. At least, I didn’t laugh. Not once.

The engineering mindset

Posted on by

On Saturday Barb and I were going out for the evening. She was trying to decide what to wear and:

Barb: I don’t like anything I put on.

Joe: That’s an easy problem to solve.

Barb: ??

Joe: Take everything off.

For some reason Barb didn’t see this suggestion nearly as helpful as I did.

I think the issue is with her problem statement. I should work with her on that so that in the future we won’t have these sort of misunderstandings.

Orange is a special color

Posted on by

The anti-gun people were asking that everyone wear orange yesterday to support them. As with Sebastian, I didn’t see anyone wearing orange all day. But an interesting observation was made by Miguel and CCRKBA. Miguel is rather subtle so I’ll use CCRKBA’s words to provide the detail for those anti-gun people who are little on the slow side:

Today’s nationwide effort by the Michael Bloomberg-supported Everytown for Gun Safety to promote the wearing of orange garments in an effort to push the gun control agenda at least uses a color so many of Bloomberg’s former colleagues are already wearing, in prison, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms observed.

“We’ve been watching social media throughout the day, and we’re stunned that the organizers of this event chose the same color that many prison inmates, including several ex-members of Bloomberg’s other group, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, are wearing every day of the year,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “At least they’re sticking with a color familiar to so many anti-gun politicians.”

Two Bloomberg-supported groups, Everytown and Moms Demand Action, along with other gun control organizations – essentially the entire gun prohibition lobby – are endorsing and participating in today’s “wear orange” effort.

“When this publicity stunt was launched,” Gottlieb observed, “the organizers tried to peddle this as an adoption of the color that hunters wear for safety in the field. What they didn’t expect, however, is that millions of hunters and gun owners are now fighting back, reminding the gun grabbers on social media that orange is also the color of prison jumpsuits.

“At least we’ll see the anti-gunners coming from a long way off,” he chuckled, “but we can’t be sure if they’re just misguided protesters, or jail escapees. In either case, we’re advising our members to not let anybody wearing orange get too close today.

“What is truly deplorable,” Gottlieb added, “is that this effort tries to send a subliminal color-coded message, linking crime and violence to legitimate hunting and recreational shooting. Maybe next year, the gun prohibition lobby should just wear black and white stripes.”

It’s no wonder they chose orange to represent their people. It’s what so many of them wear on a day-to-day basis.

Quote of the day—Paul Barrett

Posted on by

More than nonlawyers would expect, the justices are fair-weather textualists, demanding strict adherence to congressional language when it suits them and inferring hidden implications when that’s more convenient.

Paul Barrett
June 1, 2015
What the Abercrombie Bias Case Might Mean for Obamacare
[Not only more than what we expect but far more than what we can tolerate.

When they are inconsistent we don’t know what the “law” is at the time you make your life choices. Can you really call it “law” when it depends on the whim of someone in a black robe a thousand miles and years removed from the scene and time of the “crime”? In order for the law to be just it must be knowable at the time you make your choices.—Joe]

Security theater in the news

Posted on by

Via Bruce Schneier and Tyler Durden:

An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.

The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.

According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General’s report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.

…

In addition, the review determined that despite spending $540 million for checked baggage screening equipment and another $11 million for training since a previous review in 2009, the TSA failed to make any noticeable improvements in that time.

That money is a total waste. It’s nothing but security theater. Let the airlines handle their own security, or lack thereof, any way they want instead of the government continuing to infringe our rights and waste our money.

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

Posted on by

Hoplophobia continues to take a huge toll on the nation, distorts the political climate, and costs lives as innocent people are disarmed or subarmed (inadequately armed due to infringing laws) to help salve the irrational fears of its sufferers. The White House had no comment.

Alan Korwin
May 31, 2015
Medical Hope for Hoplophobia Sufferers
[Of course they had no comment. As with all people with personality disorders they don’t think there is anything wrong with them. And if something goes wrong they cannot see that they made any contribution to the problem.

In addition to consideration of a test for voters I think consideration should be giving to tests for public servants. Hoplophobia sufferers would be immediately disqualified.—Joe]

My first gun class

Posted on by

I was looking for something else and found the certificate for my first gun class:

NRAPersonalProtectionCertificate

The instructor, Carl Zmuda, now, 20+ years later, frequently attends Boomershoot.

Quote of the day—Jesse Hattabaugh ‏@arkanciscan

Posted on by

@wallsofthecity Well whip out your dick then chief and let’s get some data

Jesse Hattabaugh ‏@arkanciscan
Tweeted on January 17, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Good to know

Posted on by

Via Bruce Schneier.

The terrorist risk is low in the U.S. compared to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and even Europe:

According to the index, which ranks world cities by the likelihood of a terror attack based on historic trends, 64 cities around the world are at “extreme risk” of a terror attack.

Of these, the majority are in the Middle East (27) or Asia (19).

Some 14 are in Africa, where the rise of Boko Haram and al-Shabaab as well as political instability have increased risk.

Three are in Europe – Luhansk (46) and Donetsk (56) in Ukraine, and Grozy (54) in Russia – while Colombia’s Cali (59) is the only South American city on the list.

The British city most at risk of terror attacks in Belfast (91), followed by Bristol (178), Cardiff (313), Manchester (398) and London (400).

And:

According to Verisk Maplecroft, Paris (97th and ‘high risk’) has experienced one of the steepest rises in the ranking, reflecting the severity of the terrorist attack in January 2015 that left 17 people dead. The risk level in Paris is representative of a wider trend for Western countries, including Belgium, Canada and Australia, where the level of risk in key urban centres is substantially higher than elsewhere in the country, in part due to the significant PR value attached to such high profile targets by militant Islamist groups.

I know someone leaving for South America soon and it’s good to know they probably won’t have terrorist issues on top of the high crime rate risks.

Finding bugs

Posted on by

I’ve sometimes searched for a week or more trying to find a bug. But nothing like this:

After more than a month of tireless research and testing, we have finally gotten to the bottom of our ZooKeeper mystery. Corruption during AES encryption in Xen v4.1 or v3.4 paravirtual guests running a Linux 3.0+ kernel, combined with the lack of TCP checksum validation in IPSec Transport mode, leads to the admission of corrupted TCP data on a ZooKeeper node, resulting in an unhandled exception from which ZooKeeper is unable to recover. Jeez. Talk about a needle in a haystack…

Another guy at work says we will probably be using ZooKeeper in the project we are working on. I’m glad these guys found it before we ran into it.

The problem occurred when the system received a single corrupted network packet.

New gun

Posted on by

Yesterday I picked up a new gun to replace the old one which died at a match on April 19th.

IMG_2953Adjusted

It’s another STI. This time a DVC Limited. Again it’s chambered in .40 S&W.

I didn’t realize it but this gun was just introduced at Shot Show this year and they are hard to get. I was going to get another STI Eagle but I saw this on the STI website in mid March and called around trying to find one.I asked the local gun shop if they could get me a good deal on one and after calling their distributors and STI found they could not. Only authorized dealers can get them. There are only three dealers within 100 miles of me. One told me I could get delivery in September. Another told me delivery “by the end of the year”. Another dealer told me they were on sale if I ordered by the end of the month and I would get it “in April or May”. It would have been nice to just “go pick it up” but April or May was a lot better than September or the end of the year. And getting it below MSRP was a big bonus. I ordered the gun and then less than a month later the STI I purchased in 1997 and carried almost daily died.

Getting the gun was a big thrill and I checked the holster fit before I getting in my car. It fit both my competition holster and my IWB carry holster. It was a little tight in the carry holster but not a big deal. I loaded it up and it felt so good to have a STI on my hip again.

WP_20150530_13_57_49_Pro

I had been carrying my Ruger P-89 in the Alien Gear IWB holster but after a few hours it was uncomfortable. And when I bent over to lift something the gun would pop most of the way out of the holster. I used to have Kramer holster for it but couldn’t find it.

I stopped off at the range before coming home. I shot factory ammo which I had known to be accurate in my old STI but it was a huge disappointment in this gun.

I bought a different brand in a different bullet weight and tried that. Still horrible.

I was about to give up and go home and decided to just empty the magazine. The last couple of rounds went about six or eight inches right of my point of aim on a target 21 feet away. Oh! I need to check something.

I tipped the gun to the left as I brought it closer to look at it and the front sight fell off:

WP_20150530_15_16_42_Pro

That happened with my first STI after a few hundred rounds when I first got it.

I put a 0.004 shim of plastic under the front sight and carefully tapped it into place just like I had done with my first STI.

I went to the range again today and the results were much better. I adjusted the sights for a 25 yard zero and tried it again at 7 yards.

This is five rounds, off hand, from 7 yards away with some of my Montana Gold handloads:

WP_20150531_14_46_55_Pro__highresCroppedAdjusted

This is five rounds, off hand, from 25 yards:

WP_20150531_14_47_05_Pro__highresCropped

Okay. That’s more like it! Most of the group dispersion is probably just my aging eyes in the relatively low light of the indoor range and the tremors in my hands and arms.

It’s been many years since I could get groups like that with my STI Eagle. I had been wondering if it was my aging fire control system or the gun. I’m pretty sure I can say it was the gun. The slide to frame fit on the Eagle was never very good. The gunsmith who assembled the kit had deliberately put it together with loose tolerances for reliable carry. After 40K rounds through it the tolerance probably increased enough to make the difference that I suspected were aging of the flesh rather than wear of the gun.

The first thing I did with the DVC Limited, assembled by STI, was check the slide to frame fit. I cannot detect any movement at all. It has to be on the order of 0.001” or less gap. Same with the barrel. No detectable motion when I try to wiggle it.

I’m very pleased now that the front sight is staying in place. I can’t wait for the next match.

Quote of the day—Chris Goodman

Posted on by

Ban all guns…. our country shouldn’t have guns… Guns free country.

Chris Goodman
May 30, 2015
Comment to Administration preps new gun regulations
[There is a difference between a ban on guns and having a gun free country. But people like this don’t have the mental processes to think it through even when you explain it to them with everyday examples.

But the one thing to remember about this is that you should never let someone get away with telling you than no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]