Thursday - July 11, 2013
Perhaps A Real Gun Nut
Man Appears To Have Committed Suicide In Mahopec NY
Cops Find Big Weapons Stash In Basement
Machine Guns, Grenades, Explosives, “Military Ordnance”
We know how the media always exaggerates these things, and can’t usually tell a Howitzer from a slingshot. But photos show several crew served medium and heavy machine guns plus large assortment of possibly full auto weapons. Pardon the pun, but we may have dodged a big bullet here.
Man found dead in house with large weapons cache
NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) - Westchester County Police are investigating the shooting death of a gun hobbyist inside his house in Mahopac, NY.
The victim’s wife found Jonathan Orser, 41, dead after returning to their East Lake Blvd home on Thursday evening. The shooting does not appear to be suspicious, according to police.
Orser maintained a large cache of what appear to be fully automatic weapons, low explosive powders (ie black powder and smokeless powder for reloading ammo), hand grenades and military ordinance, said police.
Some of the ordinance in the house was taken to West Point where it would be disposed.
Surrounding homes were evacuated as a precaution during the removal through Friday morning.
“ ... improvised hand grenades, 20mm bullets, and more than 100 weapons ... blasting caps ... “ Oh, and the guy also had a TANK in his backyard. Which was properly registered. As some of the automatic weapons may have been registered or de-milled. (or perhaps all of them, we don’t know yet). And all the reloading gear is legit as well. But making your own bombs and hand grenades ... that’s a bit beyond the pale, even for a total End Times survivalist. Absolutely not legal. Pretty certain blasting caps are a big no-no as well. Unless they were dummies too, which are legal. We may never know.
Found in the 303 E. Lake Blvd. house Orser shared with his wife was a collection that included 14 unregistered handguns, improvised hand grenades, blasting caps, tracer rounds, buckets of gunpowder and other military ordnance, the removal of which required the bomb squad and an Army explosive ordnance disposal unit.
Orser was known in the neighborhood, particularly as the owner of a British amphibious tank he kept in his yard. Rich DiRusso, commander of the nearby Veterans of Foreign Wars post, has said Orser did not strike him as someone who would take his own life.
“He was a character,” DiRusso said. “He had a great sense of humor.”
More video here. Kudos to the cop and the Fox reporter for keeping it real, noting that the machine guns and assault weapons have not yet been proven to be fully automatic.
And some of those “unregistered” guns may have had C&R status - antiques in other words - which means that they don’t need to be registered, even in gun-phobic New York. It may turn out that everything they took out of his house was completely legal, but don’t hold your breath for that follow-up story or for his gear to be returned to the family if so. Hey, it isn’t even illegal to own 20mm ammo, as long as the “bullets” aren’t explosive.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/11/2013 at 11:00 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - July 06, 2013
Fast And Furious: the “gift” that keeps on killing
h/t to Doc Jeff
This happened back in January. Not sure why the story is only breaking now.
WASHINGTON—A high-powered rifle lost in the ATF’s Fast and Furious controversy was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year, according to internal Department of Justice records, suggesting that weapons from the failed gun-tracking operation have now made it into the hands of violent drug cartels deep inside Mexico.
Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, the police chief in the city of Hostotipaquillo, was shot to death Jan. 29 when gunmen intercepted his patrol car and opened fire. Also killed was one of his bodyguards. His wife and a second bodyguard were wounded.
Local authorities said eight suspects in their 20s and 30s were arrested after police seized them nearby with a cache of weapons — rifles, grenades, handguns, helmets, bulletproof vests, uniforms and special communications equipment. The area is a hot zone for rival drug gangs, with members of three cartels fighting over turf in the region.
A semi-automatic WASR rifle, the firearm that killed the chief, was traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun store in Glendale, Ariz. The notation on the Department of Justice trace records said the WASR was used in a “HOMICIDE – WILLFUL – KILL –PUB OFF –GUN” –ATF code for “Homicide, Willful Killing of a Public Official, Gun.”
Hundreds of firearms were lost in the Fast and Furious operation. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed illegal purchasers to buy the firearms at the Lone Wolf store in the Phoenix suburb and other gun shops in hopes of tracing them to Mexican cartel leaders.
The WASR used in Jalisco was purchased on Feb. 22, 2010, about three months into the Fast and Furious operation, by 26-year-old Jacob A. Montelongo of Phoenix. He later pleaded guilty to conspiracy, making false statements and smuggling goods from the United States and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Court records show Montelongo personally obtained at least 109 firearms during Fast and Furious. How the WASR ended up in the state of Jalisco, which is deep in central Mexico and includes the country’s second-largest metropolis, Guadalajara, remained unclear.
What the heck is a “WASR”? It’s a Romanian version of the AK-47, built for export. It’s not very high quality, but it is inexpensive. Once the rifles are imported, the importer usually does a bit of machining and parts replacement, which allows the stock rifle to accept standard AK magazines, and puts enough “American” parts into it to qualify the things as “American made” or at least “American enough” to get around the import restrictions. A “GP WASR-10” is essentially a semi-automatic AK-47, though WASRs come in a couple of other chamberings (.22LR, 5.56 NATO, etc). There are umpteen plus 3 different manufacturers of the AK weapon; it’s been in production for something like 50 years now. AK collectors generally rate the WASR at or near the very bottom of the quality heap. Regardless, it still goes bang and is still a lethal weapon. And here’s a bit of news that shows Obama and Holder’s dumbshit idea put a whole lot of deadly in the hands of some bad bad people. And they’re still killing. But, as our former Secretary of State and next Queen By Appointment Hillary says, “At this point, what difference does it make?”
The ATF declined to discuss the matter; officials said they are still compiling an inventory of all the lost firearms for a complete account of the Fast and Furious operation.
Instead of being tracked, almost all the weapons were lost as they flooded across the border into Mexico. In all, some 211 people were killed or wounded by Fast and Furious weapons in Mexico, according to Mexican authorities. And on this side of the border, a Fast and Furious weapon was found at the Arizona scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was slain in 2010.
I’m sure it made a difference to the families of those 212 people.
The state of Jalisco is in south western Mexico, west of the capital of Mexico City. It includes the city of Guadalajara. It is roughly 900 miles south of the border towns of Ciudad Juarez/El Paso Texas. That’s the point of this post: DUH, these weapons have spread all across Mexico, and probably beyond by now.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/06/2013 at 10:38 PM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • Obama, The One •
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Permalink • Saturday - June 29, 2013
Guns? Whatever. Somewhere around here. I think.
The federal government’s oldest law enforcement group, the US Park Police is tasked with guarding federal monuments and acting as Forest Rangers in urban public parks. Funny, this group has a SWAT team. I guess just in case the raccoons start to riot or something. They also own half a thousand M16s. I guess just in case they have to fight a war at the Washington Monument.
But what these cops seeming DON’T have is gun control. As in the “hey, have you seen my machine gun? It was right here last year!” kind of gun control. Lost, stolen, strayed, or mislaid. Somebody has misplaced hundreds and hundreds of firearms. Oops.
The U.S. Park Police is failing to adequately keep track of its firearms, creating an environment in which weapons are vulnerable to theft or misuse, according to a government report released Friday.
Due to “a lackadaisical attitude toward firearms management” by commanders, investigators said they found “credible evidence of conditions that would allow for theft and misuse of firearms, and the ability to conceal the fact if weapons were missing.”
In a force of approximately 640 officers, the report says, hundreds of weapons were not properly accounted for. The auditors also allege that the agency has more than 1,400 extra weapons, including 477 military-style automatic and semiautomatic rifles.
The head of the Park Police officers’ union, Ian Glick, said there are shortcomings in the “antiquated system of weapon tracking,” but public safety was never put in jeopardy.
“None of these weapons were ever seized in a crime, or found on someone who shouldn’t have one,” he said.
No, perhaps not. Not yet anyway. Still, that doesn’t excuse the attitude.
The U.S. Park Police has lost track of a huge supply of handguns, rifles and shotguns, according to a report released Thursday on the law enforcement agency responsible for safeguarding the National Mall and critical American landmarks.
In the scathing report, the inspector general’s office of the Department of Interior faults staff at the agency for having no idea how many weapons they control and says the department has no clear policies or procedures for investigating missing weapons. The office said top managers, including the police chief, have shown a “lackadaisical attitude toward firearms management.”
“Historical evidence indicates that this indifference is a product of years of inattention to administrative detail and management principles,” deputy inspector general Mary Kendall wrote to Jonathan Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service, in a letter that accompanies the report.
Glick Calls Glitch on Glocks
While the tracking system has its failings, he said, “all the weapons are accounted for. Every weapon, every stick of ammo, everything is accounted for. But it’s not accounted for in the National Park Service weapons inventory computer system.”The National Park Service declined to respond to Glick’s specific assertion. But it said it has immediately ordered a complete weapons inventory, to address the “significant, systemic firearms management problems” identified in the report.
Oh, so it’s merely utterly inept record keeping. Come on, who has time for that? We’ve got to guard this giant granite statue of some guy on a horse! You never know where terrorists or graffiti artists will strike next! Lock ‘n load! Oh wait, can’t find my gun. Screw it, just buy some more.
Yeah right.
You citizens though had better keep your guns properly stored, segregated, and secured. With all appropriate permits. And no more ammo than we think is sufficient. And heaven help you if one gun goes missing two whole days and you don’t report it to the authorities.
Boy am I getting tired of the daily government scandals that boil down to “Are you stupid, or evil? Or both?” It’s like they’re our overlords and have no accountability whatsoever.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/29/2013 at 10:48 AM
Filed Under: • Government • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Friday - June 21, 2013
Let me Try Again
I had a whole post, my take on Left vs Right and the “urban youth” “gun violence problem” in Milwaukee. Point versus Counter Point. 91% of the shootings involving one ethnic group, 77% of the fatalities. Did my whole analysis, decided that this is a Crab Bucket culture, and that the only thing any kind of infinite, never ending Great Society assistance is going to do is make a bigger bucket for more crabs. Depressed, threw the whole thing away.
So here’s a story from the other day that’s only nearly as depressing. A father and son team was on trial for being pimps and running hoes. Well, for “sex trafficking”, whatever that means. In direct and to-the-letter violation of the Mann Act, they were keeping prostitutes in Allentown PA and commuting them (right past my home) to New York City to work. Crossing state lines for immoral purposes*. They admitted they were pimps, and all their hoes testified. But they testified that they were well treated, and were happy to turn tricks for their Mack Daddys. So the judge let them off, instead only finding them guilty of “promoting prostitution”. Whatever that means. What, did they put up a billboard by the side of the highway? Happy Hookers, Exit 7?
And just how “not guilty” were these two? The judge also found them and 4 others guilty of money laundering the profits from their “promoted” illicit business. Each of the “professional masseuses”, tattooed with ownership data even including a bar code, brought in a half million a year yet had no money or assets of their own. We’re looking at millions here, at a hundred bucks a trick.
Prosecutors had hours worth of wiretaps where the two would threaten their hoes with beatings if they didn’t bring in the green. But they was all just a big loving family, so never mind.
This will make you heave:
Defense attorneys called the mixed verdict a victory. They said they would appeal the convictions.
The loving relationship between pimps and prostitutes “was vindicated,” David Epstein, the son’s attorney, said outside court. “It’s a moral victory as well as a legal one.”
Link 1 and Link 2.
This is another indicator of feral barbarism, just like the Milwaukee story I decided not to write about. This is slavery, cut and dried. No gray area at all.
I think it’s Line In The Sand time: It is my studied opinion that no cultural group that ignores, accepts, permits ... no, GLORIFIES the dehumanization of women through their use as owned property - livestock - through illegal prostitution has any right whatsoever to talk about freedom or equality. If your group uses “pimp” as a verb that means anything positive [aka “pimp my ride”, “pimp my crib” “pimp my bride” “dat’s so pimp!"] then you have neither nor do you deserve either. Period.
Well Duh, Drew. That’s The Golden Rule, pretty much. Only maybe backwards.
No, there’s no point in mentioning that the judge is an idiot. You’ve got pimps who say they are pimps, you’ve got hoes kept as property branded with owner’s ID saying they are hoes for those, a multi-million dollar operation run across 3 states (New Jersery, the Pass Through state) ... but this isn’t sex trafficking.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/21/2013 at 07:31 AM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • Racism and race relations •
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Permalink • Saturday - June 15, 2013
No Gunz Fer Yew Crazy Peeple
My goodness, what an amazing syzygy. In reaction to any number of recent mass shootings, while most efforts for stricter gun control have failed, the argument that better screening for mental wellness has gained plenty of traction.
Problem is that it’s government, and their wholly owned minions, who get to decide what bughouse nuts "unwellness" means. And it was just a couple of weeks ago we all had a little chortle over the “caffeine addiction is a mental illness” story. That comes on top of things I’ve heard from people in the medical profession that say that no psychiatrist ("in his right mind”, pardon the pun) is going to sign off on anyone ever as being mentally fit enough to own a firearm.
And now? Forget those lowered bars that now say that 1 boy in 10 has autism, or 1 kid in 5 has ADHD or some other mental problem, or that the list of established syndromes gets bigger by the day.
Forget all that. Because now the CDC is saying 1 in 4 adult Americans are ALREADY crazy, and nearly half of us will loosen our screws at some point.
[ I’m using common terms to generalize on the whole mental illness topic. There are plenty of people with real, significant mental conditions, and I’m compassionate towards them. And I’m sure they and their families prefer some sort of specific medical terminology, and they deserve it. But I’ve had my fill of PC blunting reality until it becomes meaningless, so I’m going old school on terms to make my point: if you lower the bar down into the mud then we all qualify, and that’s pure crap. I humbly beg your pardon if this offends your sensitivity. On the other hand, lipstick on a pig and all that.]
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention says that at any given moment about a quarter of American adults are mentally ill and that over the course of their lifetimes about half of all Americans will develop at least one mental illness.
A CDC mental-health fact sheet--Mental Illness Surveillance Among U.S. Adults--says that “published studies report that about 25% of all U.S. adults have a mental illness and that nearly 50% of U.S. adults will develop at least one mental illness during their lifetime.”
The fact sheet also notes that the authors of a 2011 CDC mental health surveillance report pointed out that “currently, no surveillance efforts at the national or state level are directed toward documenting anxiety disorders.” The authors thus call for “initiating national-level anxiety disorder surveillance activities.”
You read that right. Now we need a whole new army of government workers, to watch us all at all times. “surveillance activities”. And who better for that than experienced government trouble spotters, like Child Services and social workers?
In addition, says the agency, “mental illness is associated with increased occurrence of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, asthma, epilepsy, and cancer.”
The CDC said: “Mental illness also is associated with use of tobacco products and alcohol abuse.”
Hey you! Yes you, the fatty at the bar lighting up a Marlboro! You’re a triple nutcase, turn in your guns!
Up until now, the process has been unidirectional: you can’t have a gun if you’re already known to have a history of mental illness. But the next step, the “common sense” step that ought to prevent all those mass shootings done by whackos, is to turn the process around: prove yourself right in the head first, and then you can be armed. And with this opus from the government gods of medicine, such a scheme would disarm nearly the whole nation. Because you’re already nuts, or probably soon will be.
On the other hand, if we’re all crazy, doesn’t that make us all sane, since the majority by definition has to be normal?
Huh. Will you look at that? I saw the link to this article at a news feeder sight, and realized immediately that this was another branch of government in the Obama Regime playing politics. And that gun control was the likely result. I went and read the comments, and damned if just about everybody didn’t figure that out instantly as well. So let’s scratch the CDC off the short list of government agencies we can faith in for being above politics, just like we gave up on the FBI, CIA, DEA, EPA, DOJ, IRS, BATFE, ICE, SCOTUS ... they’re all sold out.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/15/2013 at 09:35 AM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • Health-Medicine •
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Permalink • Friday - June 14, 2013
Your Daily Suck It
From Breitbart, a short essay on gun maker Smith & Wesson’s historic stock dividend -
It is hard to judge who Smith & Wesson should thank most: Gun-grabber President Obama, murdered-child-exploiter Piers Morgan, or insufferable-sell-out Joe Scarborough.
Or maybe the gun maker should just send a big fat bouquet to all of the media:
JournOlist HQ
Hollowed-Out Volcano Lane
Water Carrier, DC 66666
Hey, maybe you can get some Obamacare for that burn.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/14/2013 at 07:09 PM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Tuesday - June 11, 2013
Minishells!
Want more capacity in your 12 gauge shotgun? Try carrying shorter shotshells. The fairly new minishells from Aguila are only 1 3/4” long, half the size of modern super magnums. They carry about half the load at about the same velocity, so they also have half the recoil. They cost a lot less too. And generally work in most guns, although they may not be hefty enough to make gas autos cycle.
There is a birdshot round, a “buck ‘n ball” home defense round, and even a slug round. The slug round fires a 7/8 ounce lead bullet at 1200 feet per second, and while this is quite light and bit slow for a shotgun slug, it’s still about the same kinetic energy as a .44 Magnum AND a .357 Magnum. With a much bigger hole than either one.
Pretty neat. Should you be so lucky as to own one of those Keltec Bullpup pump shotguns, which can hold 6+6+1=13 3” rounds, you can use minishells and get 12+12+1=25 rounds. That’s a whole darn BOX of shells in one loading. Shells that are just right for short range work too.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/11/2013 at 01:04 PM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Monday - June 10, 2013
What, again? Again??
I dunno ... Sudden Jihad Syndrome again? And/Or a mental patient with illegal access to firearms?
A fifth victim in the Santa Monica shooting rampage has died, the family confirmed on Sunday. Marcela Franco, 26, was taken off life support at a hospital on Saturday night, said her cousin between sobs. She was shot along with her father, Carlos Navarro Franco, who also died on Friday, when a gunman shot at the SUV they were riding in near Santa Monica College.
They were picking up books for summer classes at the college when they were shot, the college’s president said. Marcela Franco was a student at Cal State Dominguez Hills and had registered to attend Santa Monica College this summer.
They were among six fatalities, including the gunman, in Friday’s shooting rampage. The suspected gunman has been identified as John Samir Zawahri, according to Santa Monica police.
The suspect’s father, Samir Zawahri, 55, and brother Christopher Zawahri, 24, were killed in the rampage, their bodies found in their burned home, Santa Monica police confirmed on Sunday.
The entire ordeal lasted about 13 minutes, Santa Monica Police Sgt. Richard Lewis said Saturday.
Below is a rough timeline of the shooting rampage, based on information provided by Lewis at a news conference Saturday afternoon.
- 11:52 a.m.: Police receive report of shots fired in the 2000 block of Yorkshire Avenue. First responders arrive to find a home engulfed in flames and a female driver suffering from a gunshot wound.
- he gunman carjacks a female driver at gunpoint and orders her to drive. They travel down Pico Boulevard toward Santa Monica College.
- Two people are later found dead in a back room of the house. The fire is believed to have started in the front of the 1,000-square-foot home, Santa Monica Fire Department Chief Scott Ferguson said. It is not yet known what time or how the fire started. [ victims are Zawahri’s father and brother ]
- 11:56 a.m.: Witnesses report seeing and hearing shots fired at a Santa Monica Big Blue Bus at Cloverfield and Pico boulevards.
- 12:02 p.m.: Police receive calls of shots fired at Cloverfield Boulevard and Pearl Street.
- A 68-year-old man is fatally shot while driving a red Ford Explorer near Lot 1 on Santa Monica College campus. His passenger is also shot. [ this turned out to be Carlos Franco and his daughter Marcela]
- The gunman scrambles onto campus, dropping a bag later found to be filled with magazines and a handgun. He heads toward the library.
- 12:05 p.m.: One of three police officers involved in a gun battle with the shooter announces over his radio that the gunman has been killed.
And just like that it was over. And aside from the shooter’s name, that he was a mental patient at some point, the name of the victims, and that this happened the day before the shooter’s 24th birthday, that’s about all we know at this point. My God, it took me longer to research and write this post than the entire event itself.
Some pro-active defenses, not of the shooter but against the expected media circus ... which oddly hasn’t happened yet, and Freepers wonder why. And of course our government says “lone shooter, no connection to any terrorist network, not terrorism”. Guess they have to phone records to know, right? Nothing to see here, move along, entirely a random coincidence that the killer is of some sort of Eastern ethnicity (Lebanese?)
But anyway ... Clayton E. Cramer at PJ Media covers all the bases: in theory it was impossible for Zawahri to have an assault weapon, or a handgun, or that huge bag of 30 round magazines ...
According to news accounts, the killer used an “assault-style weapon.” Unsurprisingly, the 24-year-old killer had a history of mental illness, a run-in with the police, and had been hospitalized at some point in the last few years (although it remains unclear if this was voluntary or involuntary). As regular readers of my columns know, this is the heart of the mass murder problem, not just in America, but in Europe and Canada as well.
But how could this happen? California has had an assault weapons ban since 1989, progressively tightened over a decade. This law has been on the books, and enforced, since the killer was born. The only lawful way for a Californian to possess a high-capacity magazine is if he owned it before 2000 – when the killer was eleven years old. California passed a firearms-transfer background check requirement that took effect on January 1, 1991, which checks not only for felony and violent misdemeanor convictions and pending charges, but also for involuntary mental hospital commitments. Even if you are only held for 72 hour observation and then determined to be not crazy enough for longer term treatment, you are ineligible to possess a firearm for five years. The shooter was 24– unless he was hospitalized between 18 and 19, he could not have legally purchased any firearm. You can’t drive across the border into Arizona or Nevada to legally buy a gun; federal law prohibits such transfers unless your state of residence allows such transfers — and California does not.
So we are again left with the question: how did the killer get this gun? It would seem as though he broke a stack of laws, without much of a struggle
Another day, another mass murder, another passel of laws that just don’t work. Welcome to the New Normal. I don’t like it one bit.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/10/2013 at 11:07 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • Guns and Gun Control • Terrorists •
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Permalink • What, again??
My fault I guess; I didn’t watch the news all weekend. Only thing on TV I saw was the depressing weather report and the less than spectacular season finale to Game Of Thrones. And they blew it: looks like we’re right up to page 792 in the 3rd book, right before Jeoffry’s wedding. Cheap bastiges; THAT was where to end season 3, with a bang - and a big thud - and happy campers everywhere, and the entire story shifts radically after that. But no, the penny pinchers at HBO are sticking with their cheap cheap cheap 10 episodes per season format, not even a 2 hour finale episode, so it’s all over for another year. And we’re stuck with little king stinky bottom and his unbeddable bride piggy puss for at least 2 episode next Spring. And Season 4 ought to finish with Tyrion and his father in the “Where do whores go” scene. Twang!! Bah. We’ll never get there at this plodding rate. These big shot TV guys sure know how to lose an audience. It’s like they do it on purpose. They killed LOST this way, they killed Fringe this way, they’re doing their best to kill Dr. Who this way, and Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones too. Remember when TV shows were 20 or more episodes per season? Like everything else, they’ve been downsized.
Oops, this wasn’t supposed to be a Gripe About TV post. Redo From Start! Out of Cheese Error!!
Posted by Drew458
on 06/10/2013 at 10:45 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Monday - June 03, 2013
Will He Won’t He, Will He Won’t He, Will He Won’t He Sign The Bill?
Obama Urged to Sign Arms Trade Treaty Immediately
Advocacy groups here are stepping up a campaign to pressure President Barack Obama to quickly sign on to a new United Nations treaty aimed at regulating, for the first time, the international small-arms trade.
The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), adopted by the U.N. in April following on years of preparation, opens for country signature on Monday. It passed with just three “no” votes, coming from Iran, North Korea and Syria, and will require the ratification of 50 countries to come into effect.
“The U.S. has said that it feels its export control system is one of the best in the world, and that it would like to see those standards replicated in the ATT,” Clare Da Silva, legal advisor on the ATT with Amnesty International, told IPS.
She says she is confident that the United States will sign on, though it most likely will not be on Monday.
“There is nothing in this treaty that requires the U.S. to do anything differently,” Rachel Stohl, a senior associate at the Stimson Center, a think tank here, said at a panel discussion Friday. “Rather, the issue here is simply the symbolism of saying that [the U.S.] is committed to this on an international level – that’s really important.”
Lawmakers urge Obama to reject UN international arms regulation treaty
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have banded together to urge President Obama not to sign a landmark international arms regulation treaty, as the U.N. measure opens for signature Monday.
The president has already voiced support for the treaty, which the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved on April 2. It would require countries that ratify it to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and components and to regulate arms brokers, but it will not explicitly control the domestic use of weapons in any country.
Still, gun-rights supporters on Capitol Hill warn the treaty could be used as the basis for additional gun regulations inside the U.S.
Last week, 130 members of Congress signed a letter to Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry urging them to reject the measure for this and other reasons.
“As your review of the treaty continues, we strongly encourage your administration to recognize its textual, inherent and procedural flaws, to uphold our country’s constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership, and to defend the sovereignty of the United States, and thus to decide not to sign this treaty,” the lawmakers wrote.
In truth, the Small Arms Treaty would have no power in the USA unless it was also ratified by the Senate. Which is highly unlikely. They really do like their jobs and their fancy homes. And such ratification would immediately cause about a third of the nation to feel it was suddenly at war with the UN. A good number of them feel that IOTUS signing the treaty would be an impeachable offense, completely unconstitutional (ie “what part of shall not be infringed don’t you understand??") and perhaps an act of treason. And I agree. Like the Law Of The Sea Treaty, and like Kyoto, the UN’s Small Arms Treaty is bad for freedom, and bad for America. Which is why the leftys love it.
But it is just a tiny bit amusing to see how the various media networks show their true colors, running either Story A or Story B but not both.
Will he, won’t he, will he won’t he, will he won’t he sign the bill?
Posted by Drew458
on 06/03/2013 at 01:41 PM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • Obama, The One •
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Permalink • Friday - May 24, 2013
Drawing and cupping and seating, oh my
And annealing, and micrograin analysis, and proper work hardening. And swaging, and extrusion, and precision machining. A video from Swedish cartridge maker Norma on how ammunition is made. It’s some very precise stuff. It’s in English, but you don’t really even need the voice-over. Factories are always fun to watch in operation if you don’t have to actually work there.
Norma ammunition is top quality stuff. The cartridges shown in the video sell for a bit more than $2 each; $41.99 for a box of 20, when available.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/24/2013 at 02:02 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Stand By Me
County sheriffs have asked to join the federal lawsuit challenging New York’s tough new gun restrictions, calling some provisions vague and impossible to enforce fairly.
The New York State Sheriffs’ Association and five individual sheriffs are asking U.S. District Judge William Skretny to add their position to the record. They support gun rights advocates seeking to block enforcement of new bullet limits for magazines and the tighter definition of assault weapons.
The sheriffs agree with the New York affiliate of the National Rifle Association that the law, passed after the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, is unconstitutional because it will prevent citizens from keeping commonly used firearms for home defense.
“The Supreme Court has confirmed that the Second Amendment protects arms typically possessed by law-abiding citizens, and identified that the right of self-defense is ‘core’ protected conduct that is at its zenith in the home,” the sheriffs’ brief said. “At a minimum, laws that criminalize the most common rifle in America today - a rifle that is often selected precisely for its self-defense capabilities - impinge upon that core right. The same is true of laws banning standard-capacity magazines.”
The law bans magazines with a capacity of more than 10 bullets and generally prohibits loading them with more than seven. It defines assault weapons as semi-automatics with detachable magazines and a single military-style feature such as a pistol grip. The old definition required two such features.
The law also requires New York owners of an estimated 1 million guns, including popular versions of AR-15 rifles now reclassified as assault weapons, to register them by April 15. Since Jan. 15, it has been illegal to sell or buy those guns in the state.
Good. I hope about 5 million New Yorkers also sign on. It’s crap, throw the whole thing out.
Stupid legislators. Don’t they know that it is in their own best interest to put a bill of that magnitude up for a vote from the citizens? And to at least read the darn thing before signing it into law? But no, this was another piece of closed door, late night legislation. Literally. Done in the dark of night. Which is when all the rats are put scurrying.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/24/2013 at 11:51 AM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Thursday - May 23, 2013
On Taget But Off On A Tangent
Scelping, bouching, helical welding, Hausse pendulums, roll forging, trunnions, and wootz ... new terms added to my vocabulary today, and all related via this mysterious remark: Drew is off ironing out the kinks of the Griffen and the Phoenix on the road to Damascus.
Meanwhile, and only tangentially related, here’s a bit of modern tech that sort of excites my bullshit meter. I think there is a lot more to the story than what we’re being told here. But I could be wrong.
First time firing a gun? There’s help at hand – a new “self-aiming” rifle can help even a novice hit the target at long range on the first go. But the technology has its critics, who see it as a serious threat to public safety.
Just weeks after the firing of the world’s first 3D printed handgun, a smart rifle that allows the user to accurately hit targets up to 900 metres away has gone on sale in the US.
Made by TrackingPoint, a start-up based in Austin, Texas, the new $22,000 weapon is a precision guided firearm (PGF). According to company president Jason Schauble, it uses a variant of the “lock-and-launch” technology that lets fighter jets fire air-to-air missiles without the pilot having to perform precision aiming.
The PGF lets the user choose a target in the rifle’s sights while the weapon decides when it is the best time to shoot - compensating for factors like wind speed, arm shake, recoil, air temperature, humidity and the bullet’s drop due to gravity, all of which can affect accuracy.
[field report] Steve lines up on his target downrange—a gently swinging metal plate with a fluorescent orange circle painted at its center—and depresses a button to illuminate it with the rifle’s laser.
“Good tag?” he asks, softly.
“Good tag,” replies the spotter, watching on the iPad. He leaves the device in my hands and looks through a conventional high-powered spotting scope at the target Steve has selected. The wind stops momentarily. “Send it,” he calls out.
Steve pulls the trigger, but nothing immediately happens. On the iPad’s screen, his reticle shifts from blue to red and drifts toward the marked target. Even though I’m expecting it, the rifle’s report is startling when it fires.
A second later, the spotter calls out, “That’s a hit!”
Steve has just delivered a .338 Lapua Magnum round directly onto a target about the size of a big dinner plate at a range of 1,008 yards—that’s ten football fields, or a tick over 0.91 kilometers. It’s his very first try. He has never fired a rifle before today.
After the target has been tagged, the scope’s reticle changes to a large blue “X,” and the weapon can be fired. To actually send a round downrange to the target, you depress the weapon’s trigger. This doesn’t cause the weapon to immediately fire, though—the reticle turns red, and while keeping the trigger held down, you must align the reticle with the tagged pip. Once the pip and the reticle coincide, the weapon fires.
...
Behind the optic assembly is an entire ARM-powered embedded system that knows everything there is to know about the characteristics of the rifle and its ammunition. The tracking scope also contains instrumentation to make it aware of ambient conditions, including temperature and humidity and atmospheric pressure, the incline and cant of the weapon, and its compass heading. The only thing you need to manually enter is the wind speed and direction, using a control on the top of the scope.
Phew, for a couple of minutes there I was afraid that shooting skills were about to become completely unnecessary. Judging the wind is an art; the wind blows at an angle to your shot and never blows steadily. A moderate crosswind can push your bullet 20 feet off target at 1000 yards.
And of course the hoplophobic Luddites are quick to set their mouths to rapid-fire mode, not bothering to notice that these guns weigh 3 to 4 times as much as a typical hunting rifle, cost as much as a mid-size car, and require the shooter to get on target and hold the shot for up to 10 seconds (or more!), all of which make this technology a bit less than optimal for your typical mall shooter upper (not to mention that the whole concept is only necessary or useful at extreme ranges) ...
Matthew Lang at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, says the danger arises when the rifle falls into the hands of those who are neither hunters nor military snipers. “If it starts to find its way to individuals that plan to use it for other purposes, there will be a lot of time and money spent figuring out how to secure any public area if the number of possible snipers has significantly increased.”
But if you’d like to see what you’d see through the scope if you owned one, and how the system works, there’s an app for that.
Ok, that was my tangent on my own tangent. No word yet as to what happens when this self-aiming rifle gets mated to those new self-aiming bullets. Now I’m going back to learning more about antique metallurgy.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/23/2013 at 10:02 AM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Wednesday - May 22, 2013
Some Girls Have All The Fun
Model Rebecca with a wood furnished AR-15, for Appleseed. Part of the ever larger series of pro-2A photographs by Oleg Volk. Yummy. I want one.
Yes, it’s a left handed cheek piece. Yes, Theo ran a similar picture. “ever larger series”, get it? My pic also shows off just how cute the model is. Volk has snapped her lots of times.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/22/2013 at 01:58 PM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • Guns and Gun Control •
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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