Month: March 2011

Burglary suspect in Houston shot by CHL holder

/ hsoi

Anti-gun folks keep touting that concealed handguns only lead to more crime, more violence, that there’s no proof they actually do anything good to stop crime.

So I offer you this recent news item:

HOUSTON – A burglary suspect was shot in the stomach Tuesday after a couple caught him in the act, police said. (h/t Tim)

Police said the man was going office to office on the fourth floor, looking for things to steal, when insurance business-owner Sherri Jones found him rummaging through her purse. Jones confronted him, but she said the suspect threatened her. That’s when her husband intervened.

Investigators said Gary Jones warned the suspect he had a concealed weapon, but the suspect continued to struggle with him.

“He told him, ‘I have a pistol I don’t want to have to pull it on you,’ and the guy just kept on and kept on until he said he just wasn’t gonna take a beating anymore,” said Terry New, a witness.

[…]

New added that he thought Tuesday’s incident showed the importance of the concealed handgun license.

“The police can only do so much to protect us,” he said. “Sometimes we have to take matters into our own hands and this was one of those times.”

[…]

11 News Legal Analysis Gerald Treece said the shooting was justified in more than one way.

“Justification in self defense, justification in defense of his spouse, and the fact that a crime was being committed,” Treece said.

 

Introduction to Range Safety and Etiquette

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I went to the local indoor range yesterday but the range wasn’t quite open since they were finishing some welding. So I sat outside on a bench (beautiful morning), pulled out my iPhone and checked my email.

An email from the National Shooting Sports Foundation came in and it was telling about the release of their new YouTube video on indoor range safety. Nicely timed. 🙂

One little nit. He suggests using both ear plugs and ear muffs for children. I would drop the “for children” qualifier. The noises are just as loud and do just as much damage to an adult as it would a child, tho likely a child has more hearing to lose and is going to be more sensitive to loud noises. I always recommend folks use both muffs and plugs at indoor ranges because it makes a big difference. Be sure when you use plugs that you insert them properly (you don’t just squish them into your ear). Furthermore with children, their ear canals may not be deep enough to accept adult ear plugs, so you may need to trim the back-end of the plug a bit so that plus muffs won’t leave the child uncomfortable; yes it may reduce the capabilities, but better than the child complaining or worse, removing their muffs to relieve the pain. I also noticed the man in the video had ear muffs that were very small and thus likely have a low NRR. You should strive to have the highest NRR possible. You don’t need fancy electronic muffs; they don’t cancel noise, they just amplify sound so you can better hear people talking, but then they’ll cut off the amplifier when they hear a sudden loud sound… so any noise reduction is just from the passive muffs themselves. You can buy high-NRR-rating passive muffs for about $20. Small price to pay to help preserve your hearing. Plus, the more you reduce that noise, the less likely you are to flinch. Want to develop a good flinch? shoot at an indoor range with minimal hearing protection.

Apart from that, I thought this was an excellent video on not just gun safety and range safety, but specifically indoor range safety.

Random homeschooling stuff

/ hsoi

I recently joined a mailing list about livestock guardian dogs, and many people on the list of course own farms and ranches. Came across this website for the Red Falcon Ranch and lo, they are homeschoolers. What was interesting to me was seeing their particular approach, because certainly we overlap, but they have some different takes on a few things which I think could be useful for us.

Elsewhere I found this fun little blog called Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Because yes, that’s how a lot of the world looks at us. Fine with me, I’m used to going against the grain and having people stare at me; if all you want to look at is the surface, just shows how shallow you are. *shrug*

What brought me to the WUH webpage was this: The Public School Parent’s Guide to Homeschool Parents. It hit home because yes, so much of the critique and criticism of homeschooling surrounds the children, so it was nice to see something about the parents. She’s pretty spot on and I think even-handed in her treatment of the matter, giving fair insight into the mind and life of a homeschooling parent.

Fr. Frog on 6.8 SPC

/ hsoi

Fr. Frog has a lot of great stuff on his website.

I just noticed he has a page all about the 6.8 SPC. It’s not too long of a read, giving some history of development and discussion of ballistics. This is why I like 6.8 SPC.

Reading that makes me itch. I have not had time to get to the reloading bench (what with my Hsoi Enterprises work as of late). Last thing I did was prep a bunch of .223 brass. Zeroing the Aimpoint, talking with a friend about attending an Appleseed, it all makes me itch for wanting to get to rifle reloading. My desire to load .223 is merely for reloading practice. My ultimate goal is to make 6.8 ammo. I want more hours in a day! 🙂

Motörhead Day!

/ hsoi

Austin Mayor just declared today, March 8, 2011, Motörhead Day. HA!

Be it known that

Whereas,

The Live Music Capital of the World welcomes the band Motorhead to our City for one of the many stops on its US Tour; and,

Whereas,

Motorhead, founded by Lemmy Klimister [sic], recently celebrated its 35th Anniversary of making music that has received worldwide recognition; and,

Whereas,

Motorhead’s current tour coincides with the US release of its latest album “The World is Yours;” and,

Whereas,

We extend best wishes for a great show in Austin and continued success for the band;

Now, Therefore,

I, Lee Leffingwell, Mayor of The Live Music Capital of the World, do hereby proclaim  March 8, 2011, as Motorhead Day in Austin

No, I’m not going to see them tonight. Schedule didn’t permit. 😦

Back from the range

/ hsoi

Went to the local indoor gun range today. Got their early and had my plans foiled: the range wasn’t open yet. Last night they had a lot of welding and rebuilding going on. They redid all the target rails. They are more heavy duty, no more wobble. Everything was tight and solid. The welders were finishing up so the range opened up a little late, but it was worth it.

What was the reason for the range trip? I got my Aimpoint CompM4s. Had to get it mounted and zeroed.

Everything was to be zeroed at 50 yards. This is part of that Revised Improved Battlesight Zero. With the irons I could only do so much since the rear is just a flip-up BUIS so no elevation adjustment, and of course the Aimpoint is a different beast. But the key was using a 50 yard zero, thus giving me that “ideal battlesight trajectory” from 0 to 200-250 yards.

I started with irons and some 55gr. FMJ Georgia Arms Canned Heat. Ensured things were on paper, then turned to Hornady TAP FPD .223 Rem 75gr.. A few adjustments and things were looking as good as my eyes would get them. Once that was all set, I put the Aimpoint on. I’m using their QRP2 mount, with the spacer. It’s certainly good enough. Yeah, a Larue mount would be cool, but that’s more money I don’t want to spend right now. Aimpoint’s is good enough.  I repeated the same process, starting with the 55gr. FMJ. The Aimpoint was close to zeroed from the factory, shooting about 1.5″ left and a hair high. I didn’t bother adjusting the scope with the FMJ rounds since they were on paper and close enough. Put in the TAP, a bunch of tweaking, and she’s about as good as I’ll get. I say that because with that 2 MOA dot, there’s only so accurate you can get. I did try a few things to help, like turning the brightness down as low as I could get, which helped. Usually I use one of their fluorescent red sight-in targets, but I thought maybe black would allow the dot to show up better. It didn’t really, plus it made it harder to see my holes. So back to the red targets. And overall the grouping and accuracy was good given the limits of the system I was working with.

I’m pleased with most things. But yes, most.

I noticed a lot of the holes in the target weren’t clean round holes. Were the bullets keyholing? Possible. I’d need to shoot at 100 yards but didn’t have enough time or ammo today to try. I think those 75 grain TAP bullets might be pushing the limits of the 1:9 twist of this barrel. But the interesting thing was I also noticed the 55gr. bullets were making similar holes. Nothing was a full-profile keyhole, just you might notice a little “tearing” on one side of the target more than the other. I’m not sure. The target was also moving some due to the air circulation system, maybe that. I need more research.

Bottom line: I’m happy with things. I really like the Aimpoint. Both eyes open, point and click. Just put the dot on what you want to shoot and press the trigger. So nice.

I also rotated my carry ammo, shooting what I had on me and replacing it with new stuff. Boy, you go from shooting plinker reloads to shooting 124gr. +P, and it sure feels different in your hands. 🙂

It’s paying off

/ hsoi

So I’ve only been doing it for a couple of weeks, but paying myself first sure feels good.

I’m getting things accomplished, and the day job isn’t suffering either. I feel a bit more balanced, and more things are getting cleaned off my plate. Heck, my email inbox doesn’t require scrolling any more to see the complete contents! 🙂

Yes it requires a higher level of discipline. I can’t keep doing “my work” all morning lest “their work” suffer, so I have to watch the clock and cut myself off. Or I may have to portion and schedule tasks because that task will take two hours to do so it’ll have to wait for tomorrow. I also have found that I’m spending less time on less important things, like keeping up with Facebook. Heck, I’ve given up almost every game on there… well, to be fair I only played Mafia Wars (yeah yeah I know) and Poker, but MW isn’t fun any more and was just a huge time sink. I haven’t touched it in a while now. And poker is poker… no big deal there, I’ll keep that one indulgence (along with Angry Birds on my iPhone). But that I’m doing less of the less-productive stuff is also good. Oh sure, I still make time to play with Wife, Kiddos, and dog (went out and had a nice cigar yesterday evening in the backyard with Wife and Puppy; finished reading book 2 of the “How to Train your Dragon” series to Daughter). All work and no play is closer to how my Dad operates, not me. 🙂

But I’m happy with how this is going. The real test will be if I’ll still be in this mode 3-6 months from now. I’m going to try.

And because of this mode well… I’m going to do something fun later this morning. I’ll report back later.

Breaking into a garage, and how to prevent it

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

A while ago, someone sent me this video on how to break into a garage with a coat hanger and a few seconds:

It relies upon a few things:

  • A garage door with an automatic opener
  • The automatic opener has the pull to release the door from the opener’s track
  • The door has windows, so the person can see what they’re doing. Someone with enough practice and experience could probably do it without a window, but certainly being able to see what you’re doing makes it a lot easier.
  • The door is likely a daily opener, thus there’s no cross bars or other physical devices that prevent the door from opening.

They straighten out the hanger but for a little hook at the end. Wedge the top of the door just enough to fit the hanger in. Hook the hanger on the door release, and pull. Ta da.

There are some things you can do to make life more difficult, like not having windows. If you have windows, covering them or making them harder to see through is better than nothing. If the door is not a daily opener, like for a shop, consider using cross bolts or other hard and fast means of securing the door.

But there’s also something else you can do: zip ties

Wonderful idea… if you have a second hole to put the zip tie through.

I have Genie garage door openers and there’s no second hole. But thankfully, the big black plastic housing has some airspace in the front, in the area just above the release lever. A few seconds with a drill, a hole through the housing, and viola.

She loves texting

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Daughter loves texting.

Wife and I have been conservative in our mobile phone use, which parlays into our choice of service plans. Once Wife got her own iPhone (instead of the old crappy phone we once had), then her friends learned about it, Wife started to receive and thus send lots of text messages. The same happened to me, I blame Jay. 🙂  Originally we did AT&T’s minimum 200 msg/month plan, but I quickly realized that as each month passed we got closer and closer to our limit.

I caved and went for the Unlimited plan. It was only $5/month more, so why not.

I’m glad I did.

Daughter LOVES texting.

My father-in-law had a triple bypass surgery a couple of weeks ago. Wife and Kiddos have travelled up to be there, help out, etc.. I would go, but there’s work and well… Sasha is still a high-maintenance dog (we’re working on this, another topic for another time). So since they are gone and I am home, Daughter misses her Daddy.

She makes up for it by texting.

She uses Wife’s iPhone and folks… I’ll tell you this girl can type. I think texting is improving her spelling, her typing speed, everything. Plus, I think it’s great that she finds it a fun way to be close to Dad even when she can’t be close to Dad.

At this point what I want is an iPhone service plan that doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg. 😉