Month: February 2010

Hey Mr. UPS Man

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Look what the UPS man brought to me:

1000 Hornady 9mm 115 grain FMJ RN bullets. This is Hornady’s “free gift” from purchasing their Lock-n-Load AP. Whoo!

16.5 lbs. of bullets.

I did some caliper measuring and comparison to the Berry’s 115 grain RN DS bullets. The Hornady are a hair more rounded and the Berry’s a hair more “pointed” shaped, but all really seems negligible. I’m going to use my 9mm plinking load recipe and load 100 of these for a trial run.

Speaking of which, I know I’ve been talking about needing to load 2000 rounds for a class in October, and that hasn’t changed. However, next weekend I’ll be taking AT-6 Pistol Workout and I think loading 500 rounds for that class would be a good testing ground. I’ll take 500 rounds of factory with me as well, just in case, and a backup gun, just in case. The 100 with the Hornady will be a part of that run.

If not for arms, where would civil rights be today?

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A little late in presenting this but given my giant computer snafu I have some time to catch up on my reading while I wait for files to move and copy.

David Kopel writes an informative piece on how the civil rights protesters of the 1960’s may have been non-violent, but they knew people wanted them dead. There was only one way for them to preserve their own lives: to have guns and let it be known they had them.

Later, I worked for years in the Deep South as a full-time civil rights organizer. Like a martyred friend of mine, NAACP staffer Medgar W. Evers, I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too, traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40 Winchester carbine.

The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing to use them kept enemies at bay. Years later, in a changed Mississippi, this was confirmed by a former prominent leader of the White Knights of the KKK when we had an interesting dinner together at Jackson.

[…]

We were opposed by white racist organizations (e.g., Nazi Party) and various youth gangs of many sorts. My staff and I received countless death threats, there were arson attacks on our offices, and, on one occasion, men with weapons came to my home and told my wife and children that they intended to kill me. (I happened to be at work.)

Again, I was glad I had many firearms and, again, we guarded our home and let this be known. We responded to hate calls on the telephone by telling the callers we were quite prepared for them.

For Salter, the right to own a handgun was apparently a crucial part of his ability to exercise his right to defend himself and his family, which was a sine qua non of his ability to stay alive in order to exercise his First Amendment rights to advocate for enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Yet in modern Chicago, decent law-abiding citizens are forbidden to own handguns. As I detailed in my amicus brief in McDonald v. Chicago (pages 39–45), many people find that a handgun is best choice for family defense, especially in urban areas such as Chicago. As the history of the Civil Rights Movement demonstrates, the denial of the constitutional right to own a handgun could endanger other constitutional rights, particularly the rights of community organizers.

Read more here.

Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope… nope, it’s gone.

/ hsoi

Everything is bass-ackwards in the UK these days, but this report gives a glimmer of hope.

Builder David Fullard, 46, leapt into action as the brute and a pal forced their way into his home and threatened to rape his girlfriend and kill his sons.

He grabbed the antique sword and sliced off the left lug of the yob – named Michael SEVERS.

Prosecutors said Mr Fullard went too far for self-defence and charged him with unlawful wounding. He faced up to EIGHT YEARS in jail.

A jury took less than 50 minutes to acquit him at Hull Crown Court.

I’m glad to hear he was acquited, but he never should have been charged in the first place. Went too far? That implies there’s a proper amount, so pray tell what is that proper amount for when someone breaks into your home, threatens to rape your girlfriend and kill your children (and torch your house)? Yeah I’d say you’re justified in fearing for the lives of yourself and your loved ones, and would have every reason, authority, and duty to fight back. That the yob only lost his ear means he got off easy.

In fact, he did get off easy:

Yesterday the two jobless thugs got six-month suspended sentences and 100 hours of community service after admitting affray.

So that glimmer of hope fades… a man who defends his loved ones could have faced 8 years in jail, whereas the attacker gets a six-month suspended sentence and 100 hours of community service. WTF?

Today is going to suck.

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I just bit myself, hard.

Day job has me as a software developer. I was testing out some changes to a window layout. This window allows you to configure automated tasks… so say, at midnight your computer will automatically execute whatever you told it to do. Well, I was just testing out the GUI changes but needed a task in the window so I created a dummy task. The task ended up being set to move basically every file in my home directory into my Documents folder. I didn’t set it that way, those are just all the initial settings when you create a new task. I didn’t care.. .it was just to be a dummy task for the GUI testing, right?

Only I forgot to remove the task before I stopped work for the day.

I get to my work computer this morning and about shit myself because I saw everything was gone.

Only no, it’s not all gone, it just moved some 97,000 files to a single folder.

Shit. Shit. Shit!

And the sad thing is, my Time Machine backups were turned off because last month it started to constantly choke on these particular files, and I couldn’t resolve the issue. So the last backup I have is a month old. But hey, if I had a backup from a few hours prior I could just blast it back and be done with it.

Damnit.

Well, I know what I’m spending today doing.

*sigh*

Berry’s Tour

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A guy goes on a tour of the Berry’s Mfg plant.

I use Berry’s bullets in my reloading, so that was neat to read.

And to boot, the blogger is a homeschooled kid. Try having field trips like that in public schools!

Home invasion defense handgun choice

/ hsoi

Via SayUncle I’m pointed to this 3 part series on home invasion defense.

The intentions are good, but I take issue with a few things.

From part 2

Handguns are more portable and easier to keep with you, and can be kept on your person if they are not too large.

If they are not too large? Can someone show me a handgun that is too large to keep on your person? OK, maybe some of those “pistol AR’s” or something like the Ruger Charger. But most of your traditional “full sized handguns” (think 1911 with a 5″ barrel) are able to be kept on your person. Concealed even.

Then in part 3:

Revolver manufacturers also make double action only (DAO) revolvers, such as the Smith and Wesson Model 640 at right. The advantage of the DAO revolver is the fact that the hammer is completely enclosed.

And how is a completely enclosed hammer an advantage in a home defense situation? It’s useful in a concealed carry situation, sure, but I’m unclear as to how it’s an advantage for home defense.

Semi-auto handguns come a a wide variety of sizes and functions. The Beretta Model 92 at right is the civilian version of the military issue M9. It comes in 9mm Luger caliber. The Model 92 is a double action/single action autoloading handgun. This means that the first cartridge is fired with a long DA (heavy) pull, and subsequent shots are fired single action (light). Pro – proven as the primary US military sidearm for over two decades, large capacity magazines. Con – fairly heavy.

Fairly heavy is a con? No, that’s a pro because being heavier will help with recoil management. The author also implies the DA/SA trigger is a pro. No, that is a con. Previously in the article the author says how the double-action trigger pull is a con of revolvers (for the correct reasons). If a double-action trigger is a con, it’s a con.

The author then goes on about a S&W 640 (snub revolver), and other small guns like a Sig P238 and Kel-Tec P3AT. He talks about how great they are because they’re so lightweight, portable, how they can be carried in a holster. Um…. I thought this article was supposed to be about home invasion defense? The choice of guns here is arguably more geared towards carry guns, tho I’d debate some of the selection there too.

While the author’s intentions are good, the article loses focus and even contradicts itself. The guns recommended are not good choices for home invasion defense. While I have my take on good tools for home invasion defense, if we want to talk handguns for home defense I’d have to err on the side of larger guns. You can shoot larger guns better. You’re not necessarily going to carry this thing around, so it’s not a consideration. While a self-defense situation on the street is likely to happen within 5 yards of you, a home defense situation could require a shot up to the longest distance across your house. In my house it could be 25 yards, and frankly I’d rather take a 25 yard shot with a full sized handgun that provides me with excellent sights and a long sight radius vs. say a snub revolver or pocket semi-auto with their crappy sights and miniscule sight radius. So big gun, proper gun fit, adequate caliber, that’d be my general guidelines for a home-invasion defense handgun.

Tactical – Even my kids think it’s silly

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Returning from the mailbox yesterday I started flipping through the latest Cabela’s flyer.

Tactical Turkey shotgun.

What the fuck is a TACTICAL turkey shotgun? To help you take out those Ninja turkeys? Has Al-Qaeda started recruiting gobblers? Or is this perhaps to help prepare for great turkey uprising, because they’re tired of the mass slaughter of their feathered brethren every November?

*sigh*

So Youngest overhears me spouting off about “tactical” and he asks what the word means. I explain what the word really means, then I explain how it’s become bastardized by marketing departments. How is making the barrel of a gun a particular length, tactical? How is making something out of black plastic, tactical? Giving it a pistol grip is tactical (so all handguns must be tactical by definition). We can’t forget needing a shoulder thing that goes up. Hell, you can make a pen tactical! Of course, CMMG understands how silly this all is, thus we have tactical bacon, black can of course.

Hrm. Does anyone make tactical toilet paper yet? It’d have to be black (natch), the tube would be made of plastic (not cardboard) and come with an ergonomic grip for ease of deployment. I’m sure if we could put a fart silencer on it that’d jack up the tacticalness.

Oldest and Daughter wandered over as I was explaining all of this to Youngest. My kids agree, it’s silly.

Updated: of course, earlier this morning I posted on the “tactical reload”. What makes it so tactical? Using the proper definition of the term, aren’t all reloads ultimately tactical? Bitch bitch bitch… 🙂

Texas Gov… decisions… decisions

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I was listening to KLBJ-FM the other day and the morning jocks were talking about Farouk Shami, Democrat candidate for Texas Governor. They were ripping on him and with pretty good reason. This guy might be popular in Houston but the majority of Texas is not Houston. Could he win the Primary? perhaps, but he’s not going to win the General. He better not.

Bob S. gives analysis as to why.

As for me…

Medina of course seems interesting and I do want to like her, but I fear voting for her will pull votes away from Perry. I may not like Rick Perry but I sure as hell don’t want Hutchison. I always prefer to vote for who I think is the best candidate and I despise voting to game the system. Well, I don’t have to make a decision yet.

Updated: TSRA has released their voter guide for the Texas 2010 Primary Election.

Perry: A+ and the endorsement

KBH: A+

Medina: A

Shami: ? (yes, a question mark)

The crazy thing? If you ignore the ?’s, most people on the list grade decently.

On the Tactical Reload

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Found at tgace’s blog and worth reposting to spread the word:

Clint Smith, of Thunder Ranch, on the tactical reload:

I too must agree here.

If your gun is working, why put it into a non-working state?

If your gun isn’t working, you need to get it back to working as fast as possible or transition to a backup gun.

If you must put it into a non-working state, you should ensure you’re in a position that can manage that. So you’re behind cover, you have a partner, you know you have time/opportunity, or you have no other choice.

I forget exactly where I read this, but I know the source is Tom Givens. Tom has had a lot of interaction with folks in gunfights, from studying fight reports, being involved in hundreds of post-fight debriefs, to 50+ of his own students being involved in a gunfight. He has yet to find a time when there was a need for that “ammo/magazine retention”, at least in civilian situations. In Tom’s classes he advocates the “speed reload”, which is dropping the magazine out of the gun and onto the floor and inserting a new magazine. You work to keep the gun running and keep downtime as minimal as possible.