Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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It is beyond comprehension—ambitious candidates of an entire party—are campaigning on things the Constitution bans, and getting cheering support.

I certainly don’t advocate violence. On the other hand, like my armed countrymen, I vigorously support self defense and am prepared to act if desperate immediate proximate criminal trouble were to arise, God forbid. I’ve been through intensive training, classes, reading, for decades. I’ve written ten books on the subject—so far.

What I haven’t done is consider the dire threat politicians present to the nation, when they stoke the flames of revolution by doing precisely what the British did that got us there those many years ago. They have announced they’re coming for our guns. It is not subtle. It is not limited. It is not allowed.

Alan Korwin
November 10, 2019
THEY’VE GONE TOO FAR
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Right Wing Duck

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San Francisco recently passed Proposition H, which bans the ownership of guns in homes and businesses.

I for one am comforted by the fact that San Francisco has taken this safety measure. Now when some big dude meets you along a dark street, you’ll know that it’s not a gun in his pocket. The downside of course is that he’s really happy to see you.

Right Wing Duck
November 11, 2019
IMAO Time Machine: Proposition H – A fun look at gun control
[Note the phrase “Time Machine” in the title. Proposition H was passed 14 years ago on November 8, 2005.

While this quote has a high humor value it has a lot of truth in it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Antonia Okafor Cover @antonia_okafor

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Yes, the framers intended We the People to have “weapons of war”.

Where in the 2nd amendment does it say that civilians can have one form of arms and the govt can have the superior form?

If that were true then what type of equal playing field would that leave us with?

Antonia Okafor Cover @antonia_okafor
Tweeted on November September 23, 2019
[See also United States v. Miller 59 S.Ct. 816(1939).—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ben Rhodes @brhodes

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It’d be nice if one left of center billionaire recognized the glaring need for investments in progressive media platforms to counter the Fox-Sinclair-Breitbart-right wing propaganda machine.

Ben Rhodes @brhodes
Tweeted on November 7, 2019
[Delusions are often functional, but so are lies. Rhodes was part of the President Obama administration and knows how the “progressive media platforms” dominated and covered for their misdeeds.

Lies are an extremely strong indicator of evil intent. Respond accordingly.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Elizabeth Warren @ewarren

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Thank you, @BlackWomxnFor! Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I don’t take this endorsement lightly. I’m committed to fighting alongside you for the big, structural change our country needs.

Elizabeth Warren @ewarren
Tweeted on November 7, 2019
[I wonder what color the sky is in her universe.

We have long had hints she has mental problems. She once had the delusion she was of native American heritage.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Cowntess Of Austerity @_MoCowBell_

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Charlie should automatically be dismissed as irrelevant to the conversation. He apparently has an obsession with comparing guns to male genitalia. That’s a sure sign that he’s an ignorant, uneducated, demented leftist.

They are the only ones who view guns as penises.

Cowntess Of Austerity @_MoCowBell_
Tweeted on November 9, 2019
[I was tempted to post the tweet Cowntess is referring to. But this is better.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kathy Zhu @PoliticalKathy

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The only reason why the government would want to disarm you after 243 years is because they intend to do something that you would shoot them for.

Kathy Zhu @PoliticalKathy
Tweeted on November 7, 2019
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Labradar chronograph on sale

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My chronograph died a couple years ago and I went shopping for a new one. The radar based Labradar chronograph showed up in my search. At first I blew right on by it because it cost $600. I was expecting to pay something on the order of $100. But the more I looked around the more I thought about the radar unit.

No optical sensors to put up down range! I could go to the local indoor range and set it up in my stall and do my chronograph work rather than waiting for trip to Idaho or reserving the training bay to myself. It would also work under any lighting condition. Indoors I had to use special LED lights and cover the sensors to protect them from the flickering fluorescent lights. Even when I was outside if it got too late in the day there wouldn’t be enough light and I would have to supply artificial (non flickering) light. Set up and break down took time, especially with the extra lighting issues.

Another issue is that with the optical sensor chronograph you get the velocity for each shot at one particular distance from the muzzle. Labradar will give you velocities from the muzzle out to 100 yards depending on the size of the bullet. .22 caliber bullets, even under idea conditions, disappear from the radar at about 60 or 70 yards. It’s amazing it can do that well. For those with some physics and/or electrical engineering background think about the cross sectional area of the bullet and the length of the electromagnetic wave. How do you get a detectable reflection off of something that small from so far away? It’s amazing!

I finally spent the money. I rationalizing that it would save me a lot of time and I would have a lot faster turnaround during my load development. Plus I could use the down range data from a single shot fired to compute the ballistic coefficient of bullets that I didn’t have factory data for (think pulled military surplus bullets).

It was a little awkward to use at first. Then they came out with a free app for my phone. That made a huge difference in the usability of it. I am extremely pleased with it.

In a little over two years I have fired 1836 measured bullets (a few more were fired but weren’t detected because of setup error) resulting in 134 different series.

There is a single .CSV file (easily read and worked with in Excel) for each series giving the typical statistics at preset ranges and a different .CSV file for each shot fired with the velocity measured every two milliseconds. For a 1000 fps bullet this means you get the velocity of that bullet every two feet until it disappears from radar view. This is very cool!

Yesterday I received an email from Labradar saying the unit is on sale for $499.95 from November 9th until December 2nd. Details here. You need an external USB power supply. They sell one or you can get a USB charger from Amazon or elsewhere. I recommend getting their tripod. It’s sturdy and short enough you can shoot prone with it. I’m a little annoyed they don’t have more internal storage. If you have an old SD card laying around (or a smaller card with an adapter) use that. Even a couple of megabytes will be way more storage than you would ever use in a single session.

Quote of the day—Prosper

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There are zero reasons to believe a gun offers personal protection against a felon or any protection against any attack. Normal people don’t have the disregard for life to pull the trigger against a threat. The felon enters the scene prepared to shoot at the slightest resistance. Guns are virtually useless for personal protection.

Prosper
Posted at Democratic Underground on November 2, 2019
[Interesting. Apparently in this world view the police and military are not “normal” people. Nor are the thousands of ordinary citizens who fire their guns in self-defense each year. I think the more likely case is this is a troll.

If someone with children tries to make a such a claim ask them if they would be unable to shoot someone about to beat their young child with a club.

If they have no children of their own then ask about a mass shooter at a children’s school. Do they think they would be unable to pull the trigger if the alternative were to run away and/or watch a dozen or more children be killed?

If they are unable to pull the trigger when confronted with murderous evil in action then it is they who are not normal and should be treated as such.

Continuing on a different path…

Even if we were to grant the absurd proposition that 90% of the population can be characterized in this fashion there is still a problem. The statistics of the masses cannot justify denying the individual their right to defend themselves using the most effective tool for the job.

This type of person belongs in a collective of some sort. They apparently have no concept of the individual or individual rights.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Keith Finch

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No law can limit the methods available for a motivated person to do violence unto others sufficiently enough to justify the infringement of natural civil rights through prohibition, even if democratically agreed upon. The people lose and nobody gains anything except an illusion of safety. That illusion will break every single time it is tested with even the most remote bit of competence.

Keith Finch
November 2, 2019
A Constitutional Case for… Gun Control?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—bakerjrae

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Dear Politicians,

We are not buying all these guns just to give them up.

image

bakerjrae
T-shirt design
[We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joy Behar

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They should not tell everything they’re going to do. If you’re going to take people’s guns away, wait until you get elected — then take the guns away. Don’t tell them ahead of time.

Joy Behar
November 4, 2019
Joy Behar: Don’t tell Americans before you take their guns
[Behar was discussing failed 2020 presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke.

Good advice. A little too late. But good advice.

But then, it appears that these days if a candidate has a ‘D’ after them name gun confiscation is their game plan so one should just automatically assume the worst regardless of how public they make their gun confiscation plans.—Joe]

Quote of the day—NitramLand @NitramLand

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We are taking your guns. Period. The tide is turning rapidly. The NRA is toast. As soon as trump is gone, guns are gone.

NitramLand @NitramLand
Tweeted on October 27, 2019
[Who’s “we”?

And as if the NRA and President Trump were protecting gun owners from him and others like him. It’s more like he and his unindicted ideological coconspirators are being being protected from us by the presence of the NRA and a president who gives lip service to the 2nd Amendment.

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

Quote of the day—David Miranda @davidfsmiranda

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You know you don’t need to worry. You have lots of guns 🙂 you’re a big man with your store-bought dick replacements.

David Miranda @davidfsmiranda
Tweeted on March 18, 2019
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

If you look back on his tweets near this time it’s a near constant string of insults at gun owners. Tweeting from Portugal gives him so much credibility too.

Yeah, he really should expect to win hearts and minds with that attack plan. It shows too. He has 55 Twitter followers.—Joe]

Quote of the day—johnd

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Most gun owners are responsible and law abiding, until, one day, they aren’t.

johnd
November 2, 2019
Comment to Most “black market” guns in America are purchased legally across state lines
[So, what’s your point johnd? Is your claim that all guns should be banned because some gun owners are not responsible and law abiding? Careful what paths you enable.

If you successfully convince the public that only the government should have guns, completely eliminating a constitutional protected right, there are almost no barriers to what the government can do.

All car owners are responsible and law abiding, until, one day, they aren’t and drive drunk, fall asleep at the wheel, or send text messages and drive into someone else.

All women are responsible and law abiding, until, one day, they aren’t and kill their kids, embezzle money, sell illegal drugs, or become a prostitute.

All homeowners are responsible and law abiding, until, one day, they aren’t and don’t pay their mortgage, burn the house down for the insurance money, or use it to cook meth.

All people are responsible and law abiding, until, one day, they aren’t and you should lock them up or send them to the camps before they aren’t on whatever whim you can think of.

No thanks. I’ll keep my guns. I draw the line here.—Joe]

What color do you want?

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I use two different color bullets to indicate major (black) and minor power (blue) factor loads. I’ve loaded a fair number of red bullets as well. I just noticed that Eggleston Munitions has 16 different colors available now:

EgglestonBulletColors

Wow. What to do with another color (or 13)…. Maybe white for extremely low power loads for new shooters. But what about the rest? Christmas presents for the kids?

Quote of the day—Beto O’Rourke

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My service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee. Acknowledging this now is in the best interests of those in the campaign; it is in the best interests of this party as we seek to unify around a nominee; and it is in the best interests of the country.

Beto O’Rourke
November 1, 2019
Gun control advocate Beto O’Rourke drops out of US presidential race
[Certainly it’s in the best interests of the country if he never sees political power again. I would prefer that he be given a fair trial, convicted, then sentenced to hard labor. But this is good enough for now.

Although, I will kind of miss the opportunity to collect more “No one wants to take your guns” quotes.—Joe]

.40 caliber Black Bullets International BC estimates

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I couldn’t find Ballistics Coefficients on the Black Bullets International web page so using data from my chronograph over the range of 0 to 25 yards I made some estimates for the .40 caliber 180 grain and 200 grain bullets.

I came up with 0.199 for the 180 grain bullet and 0.179 for the 200 grain bullet. Yes, the heavier bullet has a lower BC.

I’m a little skeptical of this although I suppose it could be possible. The two bullets look like this with the 180 grain bullet on the left.

image

The lube groove on the 200 grain bullet may increase the drag enough to account for the unexpectedly low BC.

Does anyone else have data that verifies or refutes my estimates?

Rolf Nelson has a new book out

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Rolf Nelson, of The Stars Came Back fame, has a new book out:

His blog post about it is here.

In an email he told me:

I just hit “publish” on another book, a YA book aimed primarily at boys / young men ages 10-18. Nominally S/F adventure  fiction. Same universe as my original story.

…

“Komenagen” is the name for a fictional future planet/nation’s “coming of age” trial/challenge.

Guns and shooting don’t really play a roll, but it definitely favors small government and personal responsibility.

Quote of the day—Joseph G.S. Greenlee

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The necessity for this Court to clarify the role of history in defining the right is illuminated by so many outcomes depending on whether the reviewing court considers history. Disregarding history and merely interest-balancing Second Amendment rights has allowed the Second Amendment to be singled out for special—and specially unfavorable—treatment. Many courts have boldly admitted doing so, offering justifications that this Court has previously rejected. Until this Court reinforces its precedents, lower courts will continue to treat the right to bear arms as a second class right.

Joseph G.S. Greenlee
Counsel of Record
Firearms Policy Coalition
October 30, 2019
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE FIREARMS POLICY COALITION, FIREARMS POLICY FOUNDATION, CALIFORNIA GUN RIGHTS FOUNDATION, MADISON SOCIETY FOUNDATION, AND SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS
[This is an Amicus brief before SCOTUS in Brian Kirk Malpasso, et al., Petitioners v. William M. Pallozzi, Superintendent, Maryland Department of State Police

Things are moving in the courts. It’s a good sign that gun owners are choosing the cases to back.

I believe this is our best chance for making progress on the gun owner rights front. I and, through matching funds to 501(c)(3) corporations, my employer donate thousands of dollars every year to FPC and SAF.—Joe]