Uncle pointed out a few days ago that ballistic glass could be penetrated by a 12 gauge shotgun slug. Alcibiades pointed out in the comments this site.  But holy polycarbonate penetration batman, do you see what a 45-70 government round does to it? I remember a few years ago the antis pointed out that a .50 BMG could penetrate bullet proof glass, and showed it easily stopping an AK-47 round. Interesting that one of the oldest metallic cartrdge loads is capable of doing the same thing. It seems for penetrating ballistic glass, the best option is to be heavy. I guess this comes back to what Joe Huffman said about momentum mattering more than energy.
Year: 2008
Thinking about Government
A government which has the power to do unlimited good, has the power to do unlimited evil. GeekWitha.45 tries to explain that to one of his acquaintances. It’s a good read.
Big Tim Sullivan
Gun Legislation & Politics in New York has some interesting background on Tim Sullivan, who’s legacy is the Sullivan Act in New York City, which was one of the early gun control laws that appeared in the United States. It still lives on today, as a fine piece of “common sense” gun control brought to you by Irish gangsters.
Pennsylvania Pessimism
This article takes exception to Pennsylvania’s generally dour outlook on its future.
But if ever there were a case that documents what the economist Joseph Schumpeter described as “creative destruction,” it’s what happened in Pennsylvania. Steel and other manufacturing industries were indeed shattered by competition from the globalized economy that was just emerging. But new industries that nobody could then have imagined took their place, and they provided new jobs, year after year.
Employment in Pennsylvania reached an all-time high in January 2008, and then fell slightly in February. People there fear that a steep recession may be coming. But as of February, the last month for which statistics are available, unemployment Wall-Street-Layoffs in Pennsylvania was just 4.9 percent. Since January 2003, the state has added a total of 178,000 new jobs, according to the state government.
Where did all these jobs come from? According to the article, technology and health care sectors, bolstered by our state’s large number of universities. The big problem with this outlook is that, while unemployment may be low, young people are still leaving the state for opportunities elsewhere. Pennsylvania’s chief problem is a high tax burden, and a regulatory environment that’s still mired in the obsolete industrial era policies. If Pennsylvania wants to be truly dynamic, it has to find ways to cut taxes, and reign in state government.
Latest Poll on Second Amendment
Youth Rifle Programs
You actually get good articles on the shooting sports in local papers outside of Philadelphia. I think this is actually true of most areas. This is an area of the country where high schools still have rifle teams.  But there are still ninnies:
The event was moved after State College Area school board members refused to grant space at Mount Nittany Middle School, citing the district’s no-weapons policy.
The board’s decision in January disappointed leaders of the Tussey Mountain club, who wanted to hold it in the club’s hometown. It also sent a message to local shooting aficionados who think the sport deserves respect and support from the public.
School boards are elected, and we should get to work on putting people in there who will restore the rifle program to the middle school. In these communities, there’s probably enough support for youth shooting programs to put significant pressure on the school board to change their policy.
Shooting the E-Postal
Tonight I took my Mk.III Hunter to the range to shoot the e-postal match for this month, after screwing up the rules the other night, and shooting 20 rounds at the flies. Tonight I was shooting better anyway, so it all worked out.
For the bullseye targets, I loaded two at a time. First two shots were so spot on, I thought I had missed the target clean somehow, wondering if my sights had gotten knocked way off center. I didn’t manage to reproduce that feat again, but I managed the 9 ring on the initial shot 3 other times. My follow up shots tend to be not as good, which I attribute to not taking enough time between shots. Bullseye target score 84.
For the flies, I did 7 out of 10. Trick was being slow and deliberate. I loaded no more than one round at a time into the my Ruger Mk.III to force myself to not rush. Hung on the target good and long until movements dropped down, then broke the trigger. Jerked at the last minute on three of them, but such is life. Grand total score of 91 out of 110 possible.
I’m using a factory gun. I think the Mk.III could stand to have a lighter trigger. I’m also using a cheap chinese no-name holosight on top, which gets the job done, but has issues with distorting the zero if you don’t have the dot right in the middle of the glass. It also enjoys drifting from zero, which is obnoxious.
Speaking of Suicides
You can actually find out what states have the highest suicide rate per capita here. By the looks of it, Montana, Nevada, Alaska, New Mexico, and Wyoming are pretty depressing places to live, since they are 1 through 5 respectively. Rounding out the bottom? New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland and Hawaii.
Is it really a surprise that the states VPC mentions have high rates of suicide using a gun, given they have high rates of sucides? Also, how else are you going to kill yourself in Montana and Alaska? There are few high bridges, few trains, no tall buildings. I mean, I guess you could smother yourself in honey and go try to find a grizzly, but seriously, this is about as surprising as finding out that New York leads the nation in suicidal dives off tall buildings, or that San Francisco leads the nation in bridge suicides.
That’s not even getting into whether taking things away from people because they might kill themselves with it makes sense as a public public policy measure. I don’t think it does. I suspect most Americans would agree.
CSGV Blog Reasoned Discorse, Part III
Both blogs have approved more comments. They only seem to be approving comments that they feel like responding to, so pretty clearly they aren’t willing to engage in unmoderated, or even reasonably moderated debate on the subject. One of my posts not approved questioned their statistics. I’ll give them credit, their moderating policy is smarter (from their point of view) than the Brady’s. Make it look like you have comments, and only let the people see the comments that make your argument look good. Let’s take a look at some of their claims:
Phelps, that’s actually not true. If you look at CDC data for 2005 and analyze the states by gun death rate per capita, the states with the highest per capita gun death rates are (in order): Louisiana, Alaska, Montana, Tennessee, Alabama, Nevada, Arkansas, Arizona, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wyoming. There’s not a state in that group with tough gun laws. Interestingly, the bottom six states with the lowest gun death rates per capita are: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Hawaii (lowest). All states with tough, smart gun laws.
Except they are conflating gun deaths with gun violence again. What they are referring to is a VPC study using CDC data. The problem, again, is these statistics include suicide by gun, which is going to be higher in areas where guns are more common in homes. Would CSGV feel better if people threw themselves in front of trains instead? If you remove suicides, Alaska, Montana, West Virginia, and Wyoming all have homicide by gun rates lower than the national average, and in the case of Alaska, Montana and Wyoming, far lower than New Jersey or New York. And keep in mind this is just gun homicide, not overall violence.
There’s an old saying, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” There is a correlary here that should go “Beware of gun control groups bearing statistics.”
UPDATE: Sailorcurt shows some of the samples that haven’t been approved. Pretty clearly they aren’t going to let through any argument they can’t refute. At this point, I’ll go back to ignoring them, since pretty clearly before the pro-gun folks came along, they had no commenters.
The Things We Carry
Hat tip to Professor Kerr for pointing out this interesting photo montage of the things people carry around with them. There is a Glock among the pictures. I have to wonder how many of these people who are carrying around half the contents of a Radio Shack around with them every day would suggest that we were all stark raving mad for thinking carrying a firearm for self-defense is really no big deal.
As I’ve told people, if they made little pocket sized fire extinguishers that could put out even a large raging fire, I’d probably have one in my book bag. I already keep a conventional fire extinguisher in my vehicle. It just makes sense to be prepared.
UPDATE: Countertop shows his entry. John Moses Browning would be proud.