Guns – Page 398 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Bonding Over the Second Amendment

With all the fun had yesterday getting caffeinated via Starbucks, I’m reminded of what a good time we gun owners typically have when we’re advancing our cause.

Reader Adam Z. recently pointed out the other day that the Philadelphia Friends of NRA dinner is coming up in March. Are there any Philly-area readers interested in coming out to have a good time again? If so, would you guys be interested in a table or two for gun blog readers?

It’s scheduled for March 27 at Cannstatter’s with doors open at 5pm and, assuming the typical schedule, that will mean dinner around 7pm. The Philly dinner is pretty well established, so they have some great games with far more prizes and games than the typical Friends dinner. Signal your interest with a comment that includes how many tickets you’re buying, and I’ll let you know when we hit the number for a table.

Remember, the Friends program is about the direct outreach side of NRA. These events provide funds for new shooter events, youth competitive shooting programs, and firearms training for women. Another thing that the Friends dinner funds are local Civil Rights Defense Fund cases. The local challenges to gun laws, whether by NRA directly or by people who have been unfairly prosecuted, are often eligible for funding or other assistance by the Civil Rights Defense Fund.

P.S. The much lower attended Bucks County dinner will be in the fall. I’ll be bugging you all before that one, too. If you want to minimize your chances of a fight over the NRA waffle iron, I suggest attending both dinners so you have a chance at both of them.

UPDATE: Reader Ed reminds us of another Eastern PA event on April 24 where doors open at 5:30pm. Anyone in the Bethlehem area interested?

How to CNC an AR-15 Lower from Delrin

UPDATE (From Sebastian): If you choose to make a lower from Delrin, you’re safest using Food Grade Delrin, which is highly x-ray detectable. While I believe ordinary Delrin should be dense enough to be detectable by the modern equipment used for airport screening, it is unlawful to make a firearm, the major component (which includes the receiver) does not show its true shape on the types of x-ray equipment commonly used for airport screening. Be careful about the types of plastic you choose. Jason did not mention this in the original post, but I am updating now as a warning. You are responsible for compliance with federal law.

After finishing the aluminum bolt together lower, I went back to trying to make a single piece lower out of Delrin.

The process described below is my third attempt. In the first two I had alignment problems which made the right and left sides not quite match up and gave an egg shape to some of the holes.

I also switched from PyCAM to Deskproto. While the people working on PyCAM have done a nice job so far, it needs more work. For the kind of things I do its just barely useable. Deskproto has all the things that drive me nuts in PyCAM fixed, and while its commercial, the cost, especially for a hobby license, is quite reasonable (less than an AR-15 parts kit) and it doesn’t use any nasty DRM, so after you’veÂ purchasedÂ it you don’t have to get permission from the mother ship to reinstall it or install it on a different computer.

In Deskproto, I added support bridges to the model that run through the buffer tube hole and magazine well.

This way I could use the outside edges of the Delrin block for holding down the part while machining the left and right sides, but don’t need to do extra machining steps later to remove the supports.

Update: The 3d model of the lower is originally from www.cncguns.com.

I used an inexpensive Chinese import band saw to cut the block of Delrin down to an appropriate size….

Continue reading “How to CNC an AR-15 Lower from Delrin”

Big Spenders

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day, and I’d like to recognize two big spenders in the Starbucks Appreciation Buycott. The first is Barron Barnett, who spent $72 dollars sending some coffee over to our troops. The second is Joe Huffman, who spent 132 bucks yesterday. [UPDATE: From Barron in the Comments “That wasn’t me, that was LC Scotty that dropped $75. I’ll be dropping about $90 on Via today at Safeway or online getting 3 of the 50 pack bulk boxes.”]

Lots of other bloggers participated, and if you leave a comment with a link to your post about it, I’ll update this post with your link. Since we had all that excitement yesterday, I need to get caught up on some work today, so I’ll be leaving you, otherwise, in Bitter and Jason’s hands until I manage to get caught up, hopefully later today. I’ll start off with the folks I have in open tabs. Didn’t get much blog reading in yesterday because I was too busy enjoying the sweet sweet tears of freedom haters who utterly failed yesterday.

No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money
Days of Our Trailers
When The Balloon Goes Up
Den of the Wolfman
Merlin’s Musings
Whipped Cream Difficulties
The Embedded Theologian
The Responsible Carrier
N.U.G.U.N.
The Eclectic Dragonfly

Starbucks and the Opposition

Thirdpower’s Starbucks Appreciation today was paid for by a surprising source. And he still had some money left over for some ammo. I have verified the check is authentic.Â I’ve known Thirdpower is a trustworthy source, but the idea that they’d actually cut him a check was so ridiculous, I just had a hard time believing it. I wanted to be sure it wasn’t an off color joke.Â It’s not a joke.

This has me thinking that the proprietor of National Gun Victims Action Council is crazier than a shithouse rat.Â I really do kind of feel bad for the guy. It’s difficult for a parent to get over losing their kid.

UPDATE: It is my understanding that I was mistaken about the incident described previously. His son was murdered in San Diego by a mentally deranged man.

Brady Denying the Boycotters?

It’s a shame Peter Hamm is no longer with the Brady folks, because I could totally make a great joke here, but several people have informed me of the fact that the Brady folks are denying the boycott. This is perhaps an indication that Dan Gross is bringing some semblance of sensibility back to the Brady organization. Brady would now, at least, seem to know a lost cause when they see one.

In the mean time, the Brady discontents who have spun off into NGVAC are sadly reduced to begging celebritiesÂ for a retweet, and failing that even begging their own friends for some Twitter love, only to encounter crickets.

If they weren’t attempting to shred the Bill of Rights, I’d really feel sorry for them. I honestly question the mental stability of the proprietor of NGVAC, given the behavior today. I know when I’ve been beaten, and hope in that instance I’d have more grace and dignity than has been displayed today by some of our opponents.

For those not keeping track of Facebook, the event has passed 24,000 and is closing on 25,000. If you haven’t been to Starbucks today, it’s not too late!

UPDATE: When will the Coffee lobby come clean about their sales figures!

Interesting Fact from the Lucky Gunner Shoot

I had no idea that we had a TV star among us at last May’s Lucky Gunner machine gun shoot. That’s probably because I vaguely recognize that “The Bachelor” is some kind of TV show, and even if they had told me that the girl over there was “Kacie B,” my response would have been “Oh… Well, Kacie is a nice name.” I guess if you’re a TV celebrity, hanging around geeks like me is probably the safest way to escape your celebrity status. This is what I get for not having Cable, I guess, or even a good antenna.

UPDATE: I am informed that Kacie B. is a current and active contestant on “The Bachelor.” Goes to show you how much attention I pay to TV :)

Boycott Fail

The media is started to pick up on the utter failure of the anti-gun Boycott of Starbucks, with articles appearing in the Hawaii Reporter and Loudoun Times about our BUYcott. What I find very telling here is this:

That article hasn’t been up that long and it already has close to 20,000 likes. The numbers don’t lie. The anti-gun Boycott has accomplished nothing but driving more sales to Starbucks then they otherwise would have had. For those not following along on Twitter, I can report to you that the other side is becoming positively unhinged, prompting one person to win the Internets:

In the mean time, our opponents are resorting to the only argument they have left:Â dick jokes. More of the same over at Joe’s.

Double Standards

Weer’d has discovered one of our opponents in the Gun Control movement is into swordsmanship. A perfectly fine hobby, as far as I’m concerned, but Weer’d notes:

Donâ€™t see a lot of swords around these days. One reason is many places restrict the carry of them. Another big reason is theyâ€™re really good for only one thing, killing. Back in the day swords in a similar design to his were issued to ARMIES!

Worth noting that the entirely of the Western world, and a good part of the Eastern world, was largely conquered with this:

This was the most sophisticated killing machine known to man up until he dawn of the gunpowder age. It is as much meant to kill as any firearm, and it is unambiguously a weapon of war. I find it amazing that an advocate of gun control, who practices swordsmanship, can’t understand why people who practice another martial art, shooting, get a little upset when you demean them, ridicule them, and try to limit their access and freedom to exercise their chosen hobby.

A Little Starbucks Appreciation

Bitter I went today. I was going to post my receipt, but I forgot to ask for one. Oops. Either way, we pumped 15 dollars into the Starbucks economy today. If Facebook is to be believed, there will be around 23,000 people that will join me.

Feel free to post a link or picture of your appreciation today, and don’t forget to let Starbucks Corporate know that you appreciate them staying out of the great gun debate. I’d also like to note that while the red velvet whoopee pies are good, they are no substitute for the full size red velvet cupcake, which I miss.

Why Support Self-Defense?

Justice Stephen Breyer encountered a machete-wielding intruder in his vacation home last week, so you’d think that he’d be a little more inclined to support the right of self-defense a bit more than he did in the days when he heard the Heller and McDonald cases. I doubt you’ll see him come around based on the history of which recent SCOTUS justices have been attacked and how they voted in the above cases. Fox News gives us an AP report with this background:

The last time a justice was the victim of a crime was in 2004, when a group of young men assaulted Justice David Souter as he jogged on the street in Washington.

In 1996, a man snatched Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s purse while she was out walking with her husband and daughter near their home in Washington.

In other words, experiencing an assault or robbery doesn’t seem to make them any more inclined to vote for a meaningful individual right to bear arms for defense.