An interesting conversion just approved by the Israeli Police. Would require a tax stamp here, though.
Month: December 2012
Another View on Chicago Senator Trotter’s Gun Oops
I meant to get this up yesterday, but my workstation died, and John Richardson beat me to it. We had reported a bit tongue-in-cheek about State Senator Donne Trotter getting caught with a pistol at an airport checkpoint a few days ago, and noted he was a C-, which for Chicago is to say he’s not a raving gun hater. CCRKBA jumped immediately though, which in light of this from NRA’s lobbyist in IL, may have been ill advised. A lot of people on our side are very black and white in how they approach political actors: either they are with us or against us. In the actual mechanics of passing bills, it’s never that clear, and a vote for your immediate legislative priority is a vote whether it comes from an A rated politician or a C- rated politician. Politics can sometimes make for strange bed fellows.
ATF Looking to Regulate Ammunition?
NRA has attended some meetings, and it would seem ATF is poised. This must be what Wayne has meant by “It’s going to come fast, and hard.” They are taking public comments until December 31st. I’d suggest sending something, even if it’s not remarkably thoughtful. Let them hear from us.
Whitlock Fakes Backpaddling, Then Doubles Down
In his latest column, he admits to being “inarticulate” and “off message,” suggesting he was tired when he said the NRA is the new KKK, but basically does not apologize for the remark, and even doubles down:
We can’t see this or even have a discussion about it because the propaganda-political-lobby-machine, the NRA, has hoodwinked America into believing handguns make us safer. The NRA, like the KKK, has brainwashed us through fear and division.
We had a discussion about guns, and your side lost. Furthermore, when you insult NRA, you insult its members as well. When you suggest we’re dupes, you’re calling us weak minded fools who can’t think for ourselves and who blindingly believe and accept everything NRA says or does. When you say “NRA capitalizes on and promotes racial fears and ignorance,” how are you not saying NRA members are ignorant racists.
You’re standing by what you said, Jason Whitlock. It’s still condescending and offensive. You weren’t inarticulate or off message. You let the world know what you really believed, and what you believe is that NRA members are racist, ignorant dupes. That shows your own ignorance more than it does ours.
The Date That Will Live in Infamy
From our visit out to Hawaii a few years ago:
Putting Your Faith in the Political Party
I saw this tweet from a liberal Philadelphia blogger a while ago, and I have to admit that it’s interesting to ponder. Granted, unlike the blogger who would appear to view it as a good thing to have the most senior (aka most entrenched and least accountable) members of the political parties choosing their candidates, my thoughts about this are a bit more like, “Oh my Lord, hell no. No way, no how would I trust any political party leadership to be the only source of my choices.”
House results show why we need party-list PR. Names of House candidates shouldn’t even appear on the ballot, just party names.
— Keystone Politics (@keystonepol) November 7, 2012
Now, I realize that many third party supporters would argue that happens already. Except that it doesn’t happen at all for House members. Even in special elections where party officials pick the only nominees to appear on the ballot, the voters still get to decide on the actual person they vote for in the end. They see a name running for Congress and they actually make their decision to vote on whether to send that exact person to represent them in the House or Senate.*
I’m appalled enough by the button on Pennsylvania voting machines that allows people to blindly vote by party instead of making the effort to even look at what is on the ballot, but this is like an extreme of a voting tradition that Clayton Cramer described in the comments to that post:
In the 19th century, big cities in the East were so awash in illiterate immigrants that the Democrats made sure that party symbols were on ballots.
I think what baffles me is that I don’t understand why some people want to encourage such extreme low information voting. I’d like to encourage people to be more involved in civic life, not make it so that they don’t have to give a passing thought to any issue or election.
Continue reading “Putting Your Faith in the Political Party”
Different Gun Cultures
I have to admit that it’s not every state where you can find people randomly driving by an Olympian posed with a gun on the side of the road and not have someone call the cops.
This image was shared by Pennsylvania native Jamie Gray, winner of the gold medal in women’s 50-meter three-position rifle this year, as she visited the new test range set up by Eley in Texas.
Some Commentary on 3D Printing v. CNC Milling
There’s some discussion about 3D printing over at The St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Jason and I have spent a good deal of time exploring both possibilities, since he has both a rudimentary hobbyist-grade 3D printer and an inexpensive and workbench sized CNC mill. We started off trying to print a magazine for an M11 submachine gun. One issue is that extruded ABS from a printer is a lot less rigid than the thermoplastics that are often used to make magazines, so the walls needed to be a lot thicker than on a production magazine, which reduced capacity and reliability. We still haven’t gotten around to trying to live fire a magazine.
Then Jason did an AR-15 lower receiver that uses a modified, bolt-together design to make it easier to mill than a standard lower. This actually works quite well. There’s also an M1911 in the works, but until Jason gets his Delorean back on the road again, that’s on hold.
There really isn’t a comparison between the two techniques. Hobbyist grade 3D printing is currently not up to the task of making guns, and is barely up to making plastic copies of plastic magazines. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before, one has to be careful in one’s selection of plastics to avoid legal issues when using plastics in firearms. CNC machining works fine, however, and is within reach of hobbyists. Jason is not a skilled machinist, and yet still managed to add a bit to his collection. That’s not to say that CNC milling doesn’t require any skill: it does. There’s also a good bit of trial and error that a skilled machinist would likely avoid, and aluminum isn’t cheap. The real promise of 3D printing over CNC is that 3D printing takes relatively less skill, at least in theory, but the technology is not quite developed yet, and metal 3D printed parts are still at a price point beyond that of a hobbyist.
UTAS UTS-15
This shotgun looks like a Turkish manufacturers’ answer to the Kel-Tec KSG. Like the KSG, it has a three-position selector to choose between the right magazine, left magazine, but a big and nifty difference, I think, is the fact that the middle position on the UTS-15 causes the firearm to alternate between tubes, whereas in the KSG it blocks both magazine tubes. As Hickok45 shows, it makes it easy to alternate between different loads. I’ve heard of reliability problems with the KSG as well, which makes me wonder how the UTS-15 compares in that department.