Sebastian – Page 267 – Shall Not Be Questioned

A C183 Firearm? Or C183 Point-and-Shoot Camera?

The media, who know about as much about guns as a squirrel, are jumping all over the story about Adam Lanza having his own gun safe. Maybe he did, or maybe it was Nancy Lanza’s safe. Either way, a big thing they point to is this?

Investigators found more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition in the house, and a holiday card with a check “made out to Adam Lanza for the purchase of a C183 (firearm), authored by Nancy Lanza,” according to a search warrant.

What the hell is a C183? I’ve never heard of a firearm by this model.Â It is a 14 megapixel camera. Did some ignorant journalist see C183 and just assume it was a gun? Who determined a C183 is a gun? I’ve never heard of any gun by this model name, and it’s possible there is one I don’t know about, but it is definitely also a point and shoot made by Kodak.

Thanks to WR2A for the story.

UPDATE: It occurs to me if you misinterpreted a Z as a 1, it could be a CZ83.

Republicans Clamoring For Bill?

The Republicans are busy crafting an alternative bill, according to Politico:

One top Senate Republican aide called Grassleyâ€™s alternative bill â€œa break-the-glass kitâ€ in case Reid does round up 60 votes.

Bloomberg is doing everything he can to round up 60 votes. Yesterday Joe Donnelley caved to Bloomberg pressure, showing his office is willing to be run from Gracie Mansion, rather than from voters in Indiana. Who else is going to cave? Clearly there’s some concern the Democrats can come up with 60. They actually can’t do it without some Republicans, but they are clearly looking for those.

DoS Attacker Strikes Again

I have discovered and blocked our DoS attacker. He struck again this morning. I’m still trying to figure out whether I can prevent this for the future. It looks like the attacker would do a normal request, which just looks like ordinary traffic in the logs, then initiate a close with a FIN packet, then block the ACK from my server, leaving the apache process in a CLOSED_WAIT state. When I look at the traffic on the internet, the ack packet going out, and then get responded to with an ICMP packet saying the port is unreachable.Â I guess what I don’t understand is why retry the ack? It seems my server is trying to be too nice. If he blocks the ack it’s his problem. Call close and be done with him.

Obamacare Claims it’s First Gun Blogger Victim

SayUncle is losing his coverage. This is going to be repeated a lot throughout the country. I’m not unconvinced the idea wasn’t to smash the existing system so that people would beg for single payer.

Not Just About Guns

Clayton Cramer and Dave Kopel, along with Joe Olson, have collaborated on a new Second Amendment law review arguing that knives are protected by the Second Amendment as readily as firearms. Likewise, I think prohibitions on stun weapons and chemical sprays, which exist in some states and municipalities are likewise unconstitutional.

Ammo Thievery

A Bucks County man was arrested after attempted to steal ammo from the Hamburg Cabela’s. Locally, one of our gun stores was the victim of an ammo theft as well. I wonder if even the crooks are having a hard time getting a hold of ammunition. You’d think not, since criminals don’t tend to practice with guns, but it’s possible the less scrupulous are realizing there’s decent money to be had reselling ammo.

Freeganism?

A new term for a long and storied tradition of eating roadkill. Personally, I prefer my meat unseasoned by vulcanized rubber or fiberglass, and un-marinated by radiator fluid, but whatever floats your boat. Waste not, want not.

Influential Firearms

Perhaps because we’re Americans, we tend to revere Browning’s spawn, and for good reason. What other century plus design is still popular? And what other military has spent millions of dollars to fail to beat a machine gun design that’s nearly 100 years old?

The Germans, I think, are the other greats of gun design. The entire assault rifle, or Sturmgewehr concept is their own invention, and only copied by others. Additionally, I think the Germans are responsible for the most influential maschinengewehr designs of modern times, having had aspects of it borrowed or outright stolen for the variants of the MG42 still in use around the world today. Even the M60, still in limited service with the US Armed Forces is partly derived from the MG42, along with the FG 42. I have great respect for Browning’s designs, but it’s hard not to acknowledge the Germans have made stellar contributions to modern firearms technology.

On Polling and Passing the Buck

Cuomo is blaming Bloomberg and the Brady Campaign for the problems with the SAFE act. Sorry, no dice Guv, you own it. Apparently Bloomberg isn’t happy with this. You’d almost think gun control isn’t popular or something. Shouldn’t they be clamoring to take credit to the cheers of adoring citizens who are thrilled that we have such stalwarts as Cuomo and Bloomberg standing up for everyone’s “right to be safe?”

CBS News notes that polling support for stricter gun control is waning, and National Journal says the Democrats misread the polling on gun control.

The support for gun-control policies then is â€œreally high but shallow,â€ Hatalsky said.Â â€œPeople will support this and they think itâ€™s a good idea, but they donâ€™t feel super deeply about it,â€ Hatalsky said. â€œTheyâ€™re not convinced that it will necessarily work and that it will work to change their own lives.â€

I think that’s a big part of the picture, but I think another part of the picture is what’s known as social desirability bias, or telling pollsters what you think they want to hear. I also would argue there’s likely a consistent problem polling gun owners, because many of them likely will remove themselves from any survey that asks questions about their gun ownership or views on gun issues. We have a lot of evidence in regards to social desirability bias being at play in gun control polling from the times gun control has appeared on ballot measures. One of the early measures was in Massachusetts, where a handgun ban managed to get on the ballot as Question 5 in the 1976 election year. Dave Kopel writes about that here:

The final poll, a few days before, had showed Question 5 with a 10-point lead. Everyone anticipated a long night waiting for the election results. Everyone was wrong.

Handgun confiscation was crushed by a vote of 69 percent to 31 percent. Of the approximately 500 towns in Massachusetts, only about a dozen (including Cambridge, Brookline, Newton and Amherst) voted for the ban. Even Boston rejected the ban by a wide margin.

That’s not the only time. A few years later in 1982, in California, the birth of the modern ban with grandfathering, then called a “handgun freeze” made its way on as Proposition 15. We know from the Violence Policy Center itself, and from this Politico article that the measure had polling support ahead of the election, where it went down to defeat 37-63%. Before anti-gun folks start to claim that, “Well, those were bans, and no one is proposing that,” we accelerate ahead to 1997, with Initiative 676 on the ballot of Washington State, which would have mandated training for handgun possession, licensing, and trigger locks. Again, it was polling way ahead at least a month out from the election, but went down to defeat 29% to 71%.

I believe social desirability bias in polling is real, and is ignored at politician’s expense.

Filibustering Gun Control

Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are planning to filibuster any gun control bills that come before the Senate. I’ve heard various stories that the private transfer ban will be part of the bill, and I’ve also heard it’ll be voted on as an amendment. I’m not certain which is true, or even if Harry Reid knows what it’s going to be yet. Even still, the filibuster threat is welcome, and is even being condemned by the White House. If my understanding of Senate Rules is correct, I believe this would prevent the bill from even being brought up for amendments. I’m not sure I agree with Katie Pavlich that this is a “brilliant move,” strategically, because I’d honestly like to get some of these clowns on record, but it’s hard to argue against playing it safe.