Author Archives: Lyle

Anti gun-rights Microsoft?

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From the firearm blog.

This would help explain the trend toward cloud storage and toward not really owning, but renting your software. It appears that Adobe, for another example, now only provides the latest version of Photoshop as a monthly subscription service, so you’re not the owner, but the tenant, and they the property manager.

If you don’t have exclusive control of your software, user files, or your contact lists, etc., it could all be pulled out from under you, or used for other purposes via remote control by other people, at a whim. Same as your bank account now, by the way. The Endarkenment proceeds apace.

All guns are always loaded

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That’s gun safety rule one. Cooper said that it’s not a guide to behavior but rather a statement of condition. (For those unfamiliar, “condition” in this sense refers to the status of the gun, whether it’s loaded, or cocked, whether the safety catch is on, etc.)

That’s the problem with weapon “safety” isn’t it? If you keep a gun for self defense, and you treat all guns as though they’re always loaded, and it turns put that the one you need to defend your life is unloaded, you’re not at all safe. A gun is supposed to be dangerous! but only to your chosen target.

As a matter of personal taste I prefer the NRA rule “Always keep the gun unloaded until ready to use”. The guns I keep for defense are “in use” all the time and so they are loaded, whether on my hip or leaning in the corner.

I showed a couple how to load a percussion revolver the other day, by “loading” it with powder and bullets, but since we never applied caps to the cones, it still isn’t “loaded” because I won’t fire without caps. I’ll twirl it if I want to, and you can’t stop me, but I generally won’t twirl a loaded gun even it is single action with the hammer down and nothing you do to the trigger alone can ever make it fire.

We’ve come to a point where we’re making too big a deal out of “safety” and admit it– That’s because of lawyers and politicians (two of the more dangerous kinds of people on Earth if we take them too seriously).

Ultimately, “safety”, to the extent that it exists at all, is between your ears. You’re certainly going to die no matter what though, so cheer up! When people, perfectly well-intended, tell me to “stay safe” as an alternative to “goodbye” or “see you later” it sort of disappoints me. “Have fun” or even “be cool” would be better advice. None of the really fun and memorable, or productive, things I’ve done in life were particularly safe, but they always came off better in a state of coolness.

Here’s another important “safety” rule;
“All lawyers and all politicians are always loaded”

I do like that one. As Cooper said; “It is not a guide of behavior, but rather a statement of condition”, and furthermore it would explain a lot.

Double action!

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No, it’s not a porn video, though some moms may demand it.

Recently I read Col. Cooper on the subject of double action. His thesis is that DA means the gun has two action modes; Single action, wherein you thumb-cock the piece, and trigger cocking, wherein the trigger does the cocking and the releasing. Two modes of fire (thumb cocking and trigger cocking) hence the term double action. Therefore he said that the term “double action only” is nonsensical.
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Open letter to Eric Holder

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This, from Mike Vanderboegh, is interesting. It represents one of the stated ideas behind the second amendment back in the day– Something about keeping would-be tyrants “in awe”, presenting a force beyond that of any standing army, etc.

I’m not sure what good the letter could do, beyond letting Holder and Company know that we have a fairly good, general idea of what they’re up to, that we’re not all entirely intimidated, blind, cowed, distracted and demoralized. There may be some value in that and there may not, but there it is. I’ve done similar in the past, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again.

As for the possibility of violence; I do NOT believe that, at this point anyway, Holder and Company are the slightest bit intimidated. Not in the way the author may have intended. I believe it is likely, insofar as I understand the mentality or the occupying identity that drives them, that Holder et al are quite looking forward to violence, that they’ve been getting impatient waiting for it and can’t quite understand why we’re taking so long to get with it (and thus help them fulfill their plans).

It might be more productive to try to convince Holder & Company that they themselves are mere pawns, and that once their role is served and their usefulness expired they’ll be left in the lurch, or squashed like cockroaches, by those they currently serve, but that won’t dawn on them until it’s far too late for them. It almost never does.

And so the value in such letters or postings is, at best, that later on they’ll not be able to say they weren’t warned or didn’t have any choice. In light of THAT, maybe our efforts should include defining for such unfortunates a viable way out.

The motivation for evil

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is evil.

The REAL reason for the extinction

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The problem is obvious. You can have hunters from all periods of human history, and all periods in the future, all hunting dinosaurs. With only a few hunters from a given time paying exorbitant prices for their dinosaur safaris, that still could add up to billions and billions of hunters. Surely you see the problem.

Tam knows, but she’s not letting on.

Help free Sgt. Tahmooressi

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He served combat tours. He was in San Diego for PTSD treatment, took a wrong turn, found himself across the border, and has now been held in a Mexican prison for several weeks.

Sign the whitehouse.gov petition.

We bitch a lot about what’s wrong. Now take a few minutes to help set something right.

Wishful thinking?

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Clearing out my spam folder just now, I spied one from Senate Republicans out of the corner of my eye, way down the list. My first thought was that it said “Why we lose”, which would have been an excellent and highly relevant topic. In fact it said “Lyle, we are close.”

Actually, we are not close. “We” are not even on the right path and so we’ll never be close until we change paths. Since it was titled with a falsehood, and since they’re not going to address the all-important question of why we lose, there was no point in reading it.

That is of course assuming that “We” means “we Republicans” which in my case is big stretch. Since TR, over 100 years ago, “Republican” has meant “Progressive who must pander to conservatives and libertarians for votes, and who therefore hates his job”.

“Messin’ around shooting” with carry pistols

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My friends and I, as a natural matter of course, sometimes try our carry or service pistols at 100 or even 200 yards. It’s always seemed to me an obvious thing to try. Why wouldn’t you?

And so when Oleg and I were out “messin’ around shooting” at various rocks, dirt clods, sticks and whatnot at various random distances, we did some 100 yard pistol shooting with our carry pistols (a 9 mmP and a 10 mm Auto).

I haven’t commented on this phenomenon before, but I’ve noticed that the point of hold for 100 yards with a Glock 20 isn’t much different from that at 25 yards. It was when Oleg, without any prompting, made the same observation regarding his 9 mm carry pistol that it occurred to me to say so in a post. Well here it is.

Oleg was striking a roughly 8″ square plate at 100 yards with successive shots from his 9mm Glock.

I don’t know what utility this sort of pistol shooting might have in defense, but it is good to know you can do it.

At least read the book…

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…before you attempt to discredit Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Darwin’s theory is an excellent example of conroversy created out of nothing but gossip, speculation and misinformation.

Oleg Volk reintroduced me to Fred on Everything recently. Fred has some very good and provocative essays. This one however seems to have been written in a vacuum.

I think nearly every question or concern in the essay is addressed carefully and in detail in “On the Origin of Species”.

Also, Darwin was a religious man. I don’t understand the conflict between religion and science. It seems to me that they have the common goal (ostensibly at least) of furthering the cause of general understanding. The only way that conflict makes sense is if those individuals fomenting the conflict are more concerned with power and control than with the process of enlightenment (one cancels the other).

The best American is a stupid, silent American

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(that is to paraphrase the radio show host, Michael Savage)

Teacher gets suspended for showing kids his tools. Via the Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org).

Properly, that school would have all of its funding suspended until it publicly apologizes to the teacher and agrees to allow tools in the classroom.

Seriously; who doesn’t think there’s been a war going on against individual capability, productivity and self sufficiency in this country? If people are aware, knowledgeable, strong, confident and self-sufficient, who’d need our current nanny style government, after all? That would put 90% of our government right out of business, and we can’t allow that, now can we? “Oh no, Preciousss….nassty kids musst bow to our greatnesss, yesss they mussst. Make them crawl, we will…”

ETA; I wish people would stop using that word (liberal) to describe authoritarians. We CAN take the language back. That would be a great first step. Just use words correctly. It’s easy. Authoritarian. There; I just did it. See? I wasn’t hit by lightning or anything. Don’t be afraid. Go on; try it. It doesn’t hurt a bit.

I’ve stopped getting it

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I got it earlier. It made sense earlier. It was predictable. In the fall of ’08 when a certain someone was promising to Fundamentally Transform America, and Spread The Wealth Around, it made sense that people began buying guns and ammo in huge quantities, bracing for a new round of restrictions or worse.

That was six years ago. That’s longer than the time between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the A-bombing of Nagasaki, with all the design, procurement, tooling, production and logistics efforts involved in fighting and winning a highly mechanized, all-out war over most of the planet.

So why is there still almost no powder or 10 mm bullets on the shelves?

Yes, I’m venting, and yes I’m sitting on the sidelines complaining while doing nothing about it.

A twilight zone of my own making

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If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, right? Not necessarily.

Yesterday I got a letter in the mail, clearly and properly addressed to my company, from one of our out-of-state distributors. Inside was a copy of one of our invoices to that distributor.

This is all perfectly normal as far as it goes (it is common enough to send a copy of an invoice along with the check in the amount of that invoice) except that the check was missing.

I showed it to Stephanie, our bookkeeper, with a chuckle; “Oops, it seems they made a bit of a mistake there. No check. I guess I’ll have to call them…”

But since Steph is the one who prints the invoices and posts the payments, she looked at the invoice date and number, because each distributor and account status is familiar to her.

It turns out that it was not our distributor’s mistake, but our own.

It was a VERY recent invoice, you see. We had mailed ourselves one of our own invoices, by simply reversing the positions of the two address labels. The post mark being from a nearby town and dated one or two days earlier was another clue, only noticed after Steph had identified the problem, but who studies post marks before opening mail from regular associates?

Fortunately I didn’t get so far as calling the distributor to tell them about “their mistake”.

Spending time reacting to complete misinterpretations of reality. How much of our lives are spent doing that? That’s a much deeper, broader point, see.

Hm; now if we would take to sending ourselves the checks along with the invoices, maybe we could cut out the distributors and customers altogether. Then we could call ourselves The Federal Reserve or something.

The Progressive’s prayer

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Our Government in Washington,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on all the U.S., as it is in Washington.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into responsibility,
but deliver us from the constitution.

Psalm of the Progressive

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Obama is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Government maketh me to lie down in green pastures: case-workers leadeth me beside the still waters.

Government restoreth my self-esteem: bureaucracy leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for its name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no tea-bagger: for government art with me; government’s rod and staff they comfort me.

Government preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: government anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely welfare checks and subsidies shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in public housing for ever.

(OK, now I feel kinda icky)

Others could do better with the wording, but you get the point.

The Bundys speak directly

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Interview here. Horse’s mouth and all (not that I’m calling anyone a horse).

Peaceful, cool-headed, principled resistance always works best, but it only works when backed by a substantial, credible force. Doubly so when you’re up against un-principled, arrogant foes. A thousand militia, just being there, will drain the sense of impunity right out of an aggressor. A was said elsewhere;

“No more free Wacos.”

I still don’t fully understand this particular conflict, but it is clear that these people and their supporters have grit, and that’s refreshing to see.

I hope the militia had night vision, some fifties, and some form of aerial surveillance. It’ll be needed next time. This is how the peace is kept.

You probably thought Nagant was the first…

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…but here’s a revolver (a carbine in this case) patented in 1852, that wedged the cylinder against the barrel, to eliminate the cylinder gap while firing;

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rP3zZ4dK0Ks
It was also a lever action of sorts.

It came to my attention in comments here.

Previously, the Colt’s “Root” model of 1855 was the earliest true revolving carbine I’d known. Although there were repeating flintlock rifles and carbines from much earlier which used a revolving cylinder, the cylinder in those was advanced by grabbing it with the hand and rotating it manually. The flint versions that I’ve seen had multiple priming pans and frizzens, so they would have been a bit dainty in handling.

Another interesting bit of trivia is that Colt’s had a fully enclosed frame revolver (meaning it had a solid top-strap) long before the Remington/Beals, but Colt’s didn’t bother using the idea for their famous Navy and Army models, and they continued making “open top” revolvers right up into the 1870s. To put it another way; there wasn’t really all that much difference in the open top design compared to the enclosed frame designs when using the relatively low pressure black powder charges typical in a handgun of the time.

And let it not be said that the American founders could not have foreseen the repeating rifle or pistol as a fighting weapon. Many veterans of the American Revolution survived well into the 1840s, ’50s and even ’60s, and they didn’t suddenly cry out, “Waaait a minute!– We never expected anything like THIS!!! We’d better re-write that there second amendment thingy, and right now too…!!!” The Colt Patterson revolver came out in 1836 (an “assault weapon” of its day if there ever was one) and I don’t believe anyone in the Supreme Court suddenly re-thought the whole thing about the right to keep and bear arms now that we had concealable, practical, multi-shot firearms. The Colt “Walker” which was far more powerful and fired a bigger and heavier bullet came out in 1847.

Firepower!

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Here is a three-barrel revolver. It has three firing pins and a firing pin selector (barrel selector) switch at the back of the frame. You cycle through six (of 18 total) rounds, then select another barrel and fire six more. Thus in three full revolutions of the cylinder you have fired all 18 shots. Open the Smith & Wesson type break action for reloading. Apparently the idea didn’t catch on, as this is reportedly the single example of this gun. For one thing it wouldn’t be cheap, plus even in its small caliber (32 or 380 ACP – I forget) it wouldn’t be convenient to carry due to its bulk and weight. You can look it up if you want more information, but that’s just about it.

More on registration

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This should have occurred to me much sooner. The world is unstable. Trouble in the Middle East is growing. Putin’s Russia is pining for a return of the “Glory” of the Soviet Union while radical Islamists pine for a new global caliphate, and China is a rising military power. The U.S. Continues to commit economic suicide. We’re well on the way to becoming a full-on surveillance state, with global information sharing.

You’re homosexual and you want to get married, thus putting your name on a list (a database) of homosexuals.

As gun owners and supporters of liberty, we know well the dangers of registration and lists, as they almost always lead to confiscation or something else unpleasant.

Just sayin’. Once the novelty of this great idea of “gay” marriage wears off, there’s nothing left but the long term implications. Communists, socialists, Progressives, Fascists and jihadists aren’t known for their respect of basic human rights, whatever they may have you thinking right now. And they all love lists, and the more detail the better. Lists are power to them. And they all consider the Earth to be vastly over-populated already.

As a white, male, heterosexual business owner, employer and father who has guns and openly advocates liberty, I’m already a target of just about everyone else on the planet. I’m already out of the closet, so to speak, and so I’m not afraid to say this. Someone had to.

I’ve never been all enthusiastic, eager and giddy about being added to yet another list in someone else’s database, speaking just for myself. Some friends of mine, a man and a woman, just got married, and kept it off record as much as possible. In their minds it’s none of the state’s bloody business. Maybe later you’ll be glad to have read this. I don’t know.

‘Cheeze-grater’ forends

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I’m hearing it more and more; some version of “I don’t want rails all around my (AR or AK) forend because they’re so rough on the hands”. I’ve had people tell me that over the phone, and when I suggest rail covers they pretend they didn’t hear me and continue on as though I’d said nothing. Key-Mod and other slick-sided forends, or even wrap-around fabric jackets, are the proposed answer. I don’t understand it fully. Those who are now in their 20s were of single-digit age when we first started selling rail covers, and rail covers of several types, materials and sizes were a well-established and readily available item before we started selling them. Apparently no one is doing enough marketing to even make people aware of the existence of the rail cover. I had always figured they were an obviously necessary component to any multi-railed system. Maybe we’ll have to start marketing rail covers as a “New Product!” in order to get people aware of them all over again. Next I suppose someone will come out with a “New!” insert for the Key-Mod forend that will fill the un-used slots, protect them from dings, and provide a nice gripping surface.