One in a row....

I ran across a reference to this article on The High Road earlier this evening and felt that it needed some close attention:

Me & my AK-47

I have jury duty in the morning so I don't have time for a proper fisking right now, but I'll be back tomorrow night.

You might also be interested in these articles on a related subject:

Teen charged in Carrick slaying
Slain teen a living target
Slain boy led troubled life
Schools hoping to quell deadly feud
Family mourns as probe continues
Teen killed, 2 hurt in Carrick High shooting


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Here's a lovely one:

FBI director forming group to study gun law

Perhaps instead of "reviewing" laws created by the elected representatives of the people, they should spend their time making sure their background check system actually works. I'll go on the record as NOT supporting background checks at all, but if we have to have them we might as well have some that freakin' work.

Don't infringe upon my rights because you can't do your job.

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In contrast to the selfless valor of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, check out this load of crap:

Career day photo of soldier with gun puts school district in a bind

Apparently, freshman Shea Riecke brought a picture of her brother, Cpl. Bill Riecke USMC, to school where it was immediately siezed by the thought police. It seems that even pictures of guns violate their zero-tolerance/zero-thought policy. Heaven forbid a photograph of a big, bad, United States Marine holding a gun actually be seen in a school.

Perhaps they need to be reminded of this:

It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protestor to burn the flag.

- Father Dennis Edward O'Brian, USMC (often incorrectly attributed to Charles M. Province)

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From the Army Times:

Soldier to be awarded Medal of Honor

The Army announced Tuesday Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith will be the first soldier from Operation Iraqi Freedom to receive nation’s highest award for valor — the Medal of Honor........

.......The enemy attack was defeated. Sgt. 1st Class Smith’s actions saved the lives of at least 100 soldiers … and resulted in an estimated 20-50 enemy soldiers killed.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the MOH is being awarded posthumously. Sgt. Smith was killed by enemy fire during the engagement.

God bless America and all who defend her.

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I won't be able to go this year, but I think that Boomershoot is something I'm going to have to check out next time it comes around. I've been following Kirk, Benjamin, AnalogKid, and Kim as they have been getting ready and I've been bitten by the bug.

Unfortunately, I don't really have a good long range rifle. My AR-15's and Savage 10FP .223 bolt gun are great out to 400-500 yards, but after that the little .223 slugs really get pushed around by the wind.

The Savage .223 is easily the most accurate rifle I've ever shot. My best performance with it to date with it is a 5 shot, .43" center to center at 200 yards. The very first handload I tried for this rifle rewarded me with a 3 shot, .28" group at 100 yards. With 69 grain Sierra Match King bullets I can ring the 500 yard gong all day long, but I just can't seem to hit the 600 yard dinger consistently.

I guess I'll just have to build another rifle. Sigh.

Last Saturday I happened to stop in at my favorite gun store (big surprise), and was talking with the counter dude about long range shooting. After I finished ranting about Boomershoot, he told me about a long range practical rifle match that he was trying to put together. Jokingly I said, "In that case I'll have to have you order me a Savage 10FP LE-2 in .308."

He replied with the words that strike fear in the heart of my checking account: "I've got one in the rack. Wanna see it?"

Bastard.

This particular counter guy hasn't been at the store very long, but he's learned the trick to selling me a gun: hand me the gun and wait 30 seconds. If I still have the gun in my hands after 30 seconds, put a 4473 form on the counter and walk away.

The rifle is in the safe now, waiting for the Nikon 4.5x14 scope, Leupold 1 piece mount and rings, Bell and Carlson Duramax stock, and other miscellaneous parts to arrive from MidWay later this week.

Save me a spot at Boomershoot next year!!

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Here's an interesting article about fraud and our enemies: HCI and MMM have Changed their Name but not their Agenda

The Million Mom March (MMM, formerly the "Bell Campaign") was forced to move out of its rent-free offices in the tax-payer financed San Francisco General Hospital after self-defense rights activists including Jim March and Nadja Adolf discovered that the Million Mom March was illegally using publicly funded facilities and resources to run their organization.

There's more. Lots more.

This may be old news to the experienced 2A activists out there, but it was new to me. Read it and pass it around.

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I just went swimming in the sewer. Well, not really, but that's what it feels like. Actually I was surfing around the Brady Campaign website, where I found this little gem mixed in with their 10 year old statistics:

The scourge of gun violence frequently attacks the most helpless members of our society - our children.

The Brady Bunch and their partners in crime, the Million Mom March, like to say things like that. Here's one from the MMM:

All children have the right to grow up in environments free from the threat of gun violence.

But is it really "for the children?"

According to this site, the average annual expenditures for the Brady Campaign/MMM during the years of 2000, 2001, and 2002 was $5,001,358.

If they really wanted to "help the children," they could have gone to the Children's Hunger Relief Fund and used that money to help feed one child every day for a year for $55. Their $5 million would have provided food for 90,933 children for a year.

I ask again......is it really "for the children?"

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I haven't spent much time at The Ten Ring, but I think I'll have to after reading this post:

Why are Democrats against the Right to Bear Arms?

Notice also how, after having dispensed with good and evil, they then project those attributes onto inanimate object like guns. They seem to believe that guns actually cause people, who as we have seen no longer have any responsibility for their actions, to act violently. To them, it is the availability of guns that cause crime, not the actual criminals. So we get repeated calls for more gun control and outright bans and when these fail, they will come up with some other external factor, because no one is responsible for their actions.

Good stuff!

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Alphecca has posted the Check on the bias for this week.

Excellent reading....as always.

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John Lott has another excellent article at NRO: Disarming Facts

Good intentions don't necessarily make good laws. What counts is whether the laws ultimately save lives. Unfortunately, too many gun laws primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals.

Go read. I'll be here when you get back........


Hat tip to Alphecca for this one.

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ABC and MSNBC have both posted the following story: Arm teachers, NRA official suggests

I like the idea......it sure beats cowering in the corner hoping that the SWAT team gets there in time. The concept has certainly worked well in Israel.

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Your thinking assignment for tonight is to compare and contrast these two news stories:

Immokalee rancher charged with starving 120 cows

IMMOKALEE, Fla. - A fourth-generation rancher who said he ran out of money to buy feed for his livestock has been charged with 120 felony counts of animal cruelty, authorities say.

Three arrested bringing water to Schiavo

Just before 11 a.m. on Saturday, three men were taken into custody when they tried to force their way past officers guarding the driveway of Woodside Hospice to take bread and water to Ms. Schiavo as a symbolic gesture.

The three - led by James Gritz, a former Green Beret commander from Nevada known as Bo - were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges, police officials said.

Meanwhile, this asshole wears a bullet proof vest and is moved in secret to keep him safe.

Wouldn't it be nice if Jessica Lunsford and Terri Schiavo received as much protection and care as a rapist/murderer and a bunch of cows?

My only consolation is that Terri and Jessica will have a special place in Heaven, while John Couey and Michael Schiavo will have a special place reserved for them in the deepest pits of Hell.

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Francis at Eternity Road has an excellent essay on the fear of equalizers.

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400 rounds later.....

Today started out cold, cloudy, and raining so the crowd at the range was a little thin. I did get to have two other people try the MWG magazines in their rifles as well as using them in all 3 of mine. Except for one minor issue, the magazines performed perfectly all day in every rifle.


Test equipment


The only issue with these magazines is a common problem with reduced capacity mags: lack of follower movement when full. These mags hold 5 rounds...no more. After the 5th round is loaded, there is absolutely NO follower movement left. Why is this a problem? It means that the magazine cannot be seated in the rifle if the bolt is closed. With the bolt closed, the rounds in the mag have to be able to move down in to the magazine for the magazine catch to fully engage. This happened with both magazines in all 5 rifles ( 1 DPMS, 1 Bushmaster, 2 Ameetec, 1 Armalite ) that were used.

It's not a big deal for range or hunting magazines - normally they are inserted with the bolt open and everything works just fine. The only reason to insert a fully loaded mag with the bolt closed is to "top up" or perform a tactical reload in the middle of a shot string. If I'm doing a tactical reload on an AR, I'll be using a 30 round USGI magazine. These 5 round mags are for the range or for hunting, and for that they work just fine.




Brianna testing the MWG magazines


I haven't taken either of the mags apart (I suspect that I would destroy it), but I imagine that the "closed bolt insertion" issue could be corrected by shortening the leg on the follower slightly. Not enough to allow loading a 6th round, but enough to allow the loaded cartridges to move down into the magazine.

Other than that very minor issue, the magazines performed perfectly all day long. Feeding was 100%, both with M193 mil-spec ball ammo and reloads using 68 grain Hornady match bullets. Bolt hold open after the last round was 100%. The mags both dropped free from every rifle except the already mentioned tight Armalite magwell.

One shooter said that one of the mags seemed to sit slightly higher in his rifle ( DPMS ), causing the bolt to drag slightly when feeding a round. Not enough to cause a mis-feed, but enough that he noticed. Nobody else (including me) noticed this in the other rifles.

If you're looking for range or hunting magazines for your AR-15, I highly recommend these magazines from MWG.

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I got a telephone call tonight just before dinner.......it seems that Brianna has been bugging her Mom all week about going out to the range again. According to her mother, Bri has talked about it every day. Oddly enough, I'll be at the range tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I heard Brianna cheering in the background during the phone call.

She wants a gun of her own for her birthday. I may just have to dip into the 'young shooters fund' and come up with another 10/22.

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The 5th edition of the Carnival of Cordite is up over at Technogypsy. I don't have an entry in this one, but I'll try to get something together for the next go around.

I'm going to have to spend some time with Technogypsy ...... his views on children and gun safety seem to match up pretty well with my own.

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As Kevin mentioned a couple of days ago, the guys at MWG magazines are fast! The "blogazines" arrived in today's mail.



MWG 5 round AR-15 magazines


The mags seem to be quite well made. It appears that they are injection molded and then "machined" by hand to the final size. The front and back portions of both magazines show evidence of either a very fine file or a sandpaper block being used to remove excess material.

I tried them in 3 different AR-15's this evening.....one Bushmaster CAR upper / Ameetec lower, one Rock River Arms A2 upper / Ameetec lower, and one Rock River Arms A2 upper / Armalite lower. Both magazines operated the bolt hold open latch properly on all 3 rifles.

Both magazines dropped free of the Ameetec lowers when the mag release button was pressed, but only one mag would drop free from the Armalite lower. The other mag required a slight tug to free it from the Armalite lower after the mag release was pressed. I do not think this the fault of the magazine. The Armalite lower seems to be on the tight end of the scale for magazine well size. I have 40 USGI mags, and over half of them have had to be modified so that they will drop free from that particular lower.

Loading both magazines is a snap. The shells pop into place easily and without any binding of the follower. Unloading is also easy. The mags cannot be used with a GI stripper clip because there are no slots in the sides of the mag body for the stripper clip guide to snap into, but on a 5 round mag it's not that big a deal.

The only complaint so far is a minor cosmetic one: there is a small sprue on the front of each mag left over from the molding process. This sprue does not affect the operation or use of the magazine in any way. It wouldn't take much time to hit that sprue with the file or sandpaper used for the final sizing of the mags, and it would improve the overall look and feel of the unit. I know I'm being nitpicky, but I don't like my mags to snag on my shirt. I'm a "no sharp edges" kind of guy.

I'll take both mags and all 3 AR's to the range tomorrow ( sheesh...the sacrifices I make for you people) and try them out. If tomorrow is a typical range day there will be 10 to 15 other AR's on the line, and I intend to pass the MWG mags around like a sorority chick at a frat party. ( Hey! Watch it! This is a family blog! - Ed.) I'll try to get a list of the firearm manufacturer and type of ammo used by each person who tries the mags and put up a summary table of their reactions later this weekend.

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I'm too tired to write much at the moment, but this is to important to ignore. Go visit Publicola and read what he has to say.........

I've got an entry in the comment section - more will follow here.

Go now. Read. Think. Act.


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It was a strange looking table. She had heard it called a "bench" but the only "benches" she had ever seen were in the park. In her eyes, it looked more like an overgrown school desk. It had a large top covered in white carpet, with a seat placed at an angle to the top surface. It loomed in front of her, large and forbidding. Her pale blue eyes glanced around the small crowd that had gathered, trying to find solace in the faces of the strangers. The old man with streaks of grey in his hair that had brought her to this unknown place, full of noise and smoke, smiled slightly and nodded his head at the odd looking table.

BOOM! She shied away as an explosion from her right shattered the silence. Would it be like that?

BOOM! Another explosion came from her left, this one so close that she could smell the acrid smoke.

Timidly, she walked the last few feet and sat down at the table. The old man was saying something now, but in her excitement and fear the sound of his voice seemed to be muffled and coming from far away. He smiled at her again, and gently guided her hands to the thing on the table. The thing was made of a strange, dark colored metal. It had an ungainly looking handle made of a white material that reminded her of her teeth when she smiled. She wasn't smiling now though....her lips were pursed in grim determination. The old man had called the thing a "Colt" but she thought of it simply as "the cowboy gun."

The old man was speaking again, this time pointing at a notch cut into the top of the gun, then at a piece of metal that stuck up at the other end, and finally at a big black circle on a piece of paper hanging a few feet away. She tried to follow his directions, but she couldn't seem to stop her hands from shaking.

The old man reached out and put his thumb on a piece that stuck out of the gun and started to move it.

"Click"

"Click"

"Click"

"Click"

It sounded like a bomb preparing to explode. The old man stood behind her now, with his hands hovering a few inches above hers. What would happen when she did it? Would it hurt? Would it break her fingers? She had seen what these things can do on TV and in the movies. Would there be an explosion? Fire? Smoke? Would anyone scream? Would the police come? WHO WAS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF HER? She tried to make her finger move, but it wouldn't. She gripped the white handle even harder, so hard that her small knuckles stood out from the back of her delicate hands.

Turning her head slightly and closing her eyes against the anticipated fury, she moved her finger. Time seemed to stand still. The piece of metal began moving....moving....moving....finally coming to rest. She expected to soon see blood pumping from her shattered wrist, twisted bones covered with ragged flesh torn from her body by the violence she had unleashed. The mighty Colt Frontier Scout bellowed forth with a horrendous pop and twitched slightly in her trembling hands.

She sat still for a moment, slowly realizing that she had survived. She opened her eyes and saw the smiling faces of the strangers gathered around her table. Some patted her on the back, some spoke to her, some simply smiled and nodded. The old man gently took the cowboy gun from her hands and did something to it, causing a small cylinder of brass to fall onto the table. After he put the gun down, he knelt next to her and pointed to the black circle on the piece of paper. It had changed.

It now had a small hole, .22 inches in diameter, precisely in the center of the black.

The old man asked her if she wanted to do it again, and with a shy smile she said "Yes."

There was no fear now, just enjoyment. She would fire many other guns that day, some loud, some quiet, some large, some small, but none of them were as exciting and scary as The First.

Later that day, as the sun slipped behind the mountains and silence again settled over the desert, the young girl looked at the old man and said the magic words.........

"That was fun, Uncle Len. May I come with you again next weekend?"


And so begins the saga of Brianna, age 10, the newest member of the Buckeye youth shooting team.

It's quite fascinating to watch the British "experiment" in gun control go down in flames. As violent crime skyrockets, the people are starting to realize that disarming the law abiding citizens only serves to make life easier for the criminals.........and they're talking about it more and more. Take this for example: Give us all guns

We should all be allowed to own guns, and, when our livelihood or property is threatened by criminals, we should be allowed to use them.

Wake up America! They're trying to get theirs back......we must keep fighting to keep ours.

MOLON LABE

Here's a neat article from ESPN Outdoors: Teaching kids about arms and safety may be more
effective to reduce violence than 'zero tolerance'

The safety and success of programs like Archery in the Schools, the Scholastic Clay Target Program and other similar efforts, suggests that giving kids a chance to develop maturity by learning to use guns and bows in an adult, responsible manner, is a much more positive approach than trying to operate on the fantasy that you can erase all aggressive energies out of them — a practice that may conceivably create more anxiety and tension.

Go read the rest.......

My attempts at starting a firearm safety class at my kids' school didn't get very far. It turns out that the Peoria school district has no policy on firearm safety classes. Not a policy against them....not a policy for them.....no policy at all. It's a hot potato that they just don't want anything to do with.

But wait! What's that coming over the hill? It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Senate Bill 1271 !

SB 1271 allows school districts and charter schools to offer the Arizona Gun Safety Program (Program) as an elective, one-semester course where a pupil that has demonstrated the ability to safely discharge a firearm is deemed to have satisfactorily completed the course and will receive a certificate of accomplishment. Additionally, SB 1271 establishes minimum Program requirements.

SB1271 was passed the Senate K-12 Education committee 8-0, was passed by the Senate 30-0, was passed by the House K-12 Education committee 7-1, and is ready for it's third read before the House.

Find your representatives HERE and let them know what you think.

I noticed a link posted by Kevin at The Smallest Minority about some new AR-15 magazines that he just received. Apparently the guys at MWG Company are giving away 2 free mags to bloggers who will post a link to their site and write about the mags. I've been looking for some reliable 5 round mags for my AR's for range use and so that I can legally hunt with them here in Arizona.

I'll go one better than simply posting a link as asking for my free mags......I'll post a full evaluation of the mags after I receive them. I've got 3 different AR's I can try them in, plus access to about 20 more through my club. I'll pass them around at the range and see how well they work in as many different brands of AR's as possible and then post the results.

Gun control in not-so-great Britain does seem to be working.....nobody was shot in this incident: Beheading on streets of London. Perhaps the onlookers should have tried to give the axe weilding murderer a hug in addition to pleading for him to stop.


A person with a firearm and the will to use it could have made quite an effective plea. How many more of these incidents need to happen before someone on that side of the pond remembers "how it used to be?"

After I recovered from the moonbat attack Saturday afternoon, I spent Sunday in much more enjoyable surroundings......a Boy Scout camp. I had been asked to give a short class on firearms safety and shotgun shooting to the scouts of Troop 99, so Sunday morning I loaded up the car with shotguns, ammo, safety glasses, earplugs, and all the various shooting stuff that I cart around and drove 60 miles out of town to their campsite. They're quite a fine bunch of kids. Everyone paid attention to the lecture and responded well to my questions and suggestions. After the standard 45 minute "Introduction to Safe Firearms Handling" and a demonstration of what a 20 gauge shotgun will do to a gallon jug of water (just to be really sure I had their attention), we began shooting.

I was working by myself with a large group of kids, so I limited the shooting portion of the program to one shooter at a time and requested that only one gun at a time be out of its' case. If the kids wanted to use their own gun instead of the ones I had that was just fine, but mine were put away before they uncased theirs. Call me chicken, but before I turn my back on a group of inexperienced shooters I want to make damn sure they're unarmed. I even assigned one of the parents as the "truck monitor" to make sure that nobody messed with the cased guns or ammo while I was busy coaching. Everyone understood and agreed that it was a good idea in that situation (20 kids, 6 guns, 1 instructor).

About half way through the group of kids, I heard a young voice from behind me say "Look what we found. Can we shoot this one?"

Think about that for a second. I'll repeat it just to be clear: "Look what we found. Can we shoot this one?"

The young man I was coaching had just fired a shot, so I took the empty gun from him and turned to see just what was going on. One of the boys who had already shot had wandered off and returned with a very rusty, very short, sawed off pump shotgun. It had been chopped at both ends and had a crude, home made pistol grip replacing the butt stock. It was covered with dirt and rust, and appeared to have been outside for quite a while. The young man carried the gun (muzzle up, finger off the trigger, action open.....he had been listening) over to the scout master and handed it to him.

I thought the poor man was going to have a stroke.

A round of intense questioning determined that the two boys had been exploring away from the camp and had found the shotgun next to an abandoned truck, surrounded by beer cans. No, they didn't see any skeletons, bones, or dead bodies and no, there weren't any other guns around the truck. Even though we were dealing with Boy Scouts, the "scene of the find" was investigated and found to be as they had described.

After everyone calmed down a bit, I took the opportunity to praise the boys for their safe handling of the gun, and to mention that even though they had handled it properly it would have been better to leave it where it was and bring an adult to the gun instead of bringing the gun to the adults. I didn't come down on them too hard though, because they did handle it safely and they did bring it to the person in charge.

Several parents approached me afterwards to say "thank you" for the shooting experience and the safety lecture. Having the kids actually find a gun in the desert within an hour of the safety lecture really drove home the point to parents. Kids need to be taught how to handle guns safely.

I couldn't have scripted a better demonstration.

Last Saturday my family and I made our annual trek to the Renaissance Festival. We had a fine time, enjoying the food, games, crafts, displays, entertainment, and the scenery.

Sidebar: Attention ladies! Please remember that being able to fit into the dress does not mean that you should wear it in public!

Anyway......on our way out, we passed by a chocolate shoppe that employed an outside salesman. For those of you who haven't been to the Faire, the outside salesman are generally a scruffy looking dude whose idea of preparing for work is to skip bathing for a week. As we passed this outside salesman he interrupted his cries of "Free chocolate!" to ask me how I felt about the Pledge of Allegiance. I can only assume that he did so because I was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Old Glory on the front with the Pledge written in the stripes of the flag. His first question to me was: "How do you feel about the words 'under God'......in or out of the pledge?"

I replied that "under God" should be part of the Pledge. I was then treated to a well rehearsed, 5 minute diatribe on how the "right wing Christians" are "forcing their beliefs" on the rest of the people. He hit all of the talking points in his speech......tolerance, George W. Bush, Iraq, the 1st Amendment, organized Christians are destroying the United States, there is no God.......you name it. If it has been mentioned on Democratic Underground, this guy touched on it.

After he wound down, I began asking questions. The first was this: "You seem quite interested in the idea of 'tolerance,' yet you seem unable to actually practice tolerance for anyone who doesn't agree with you. Why is that?"

He sputtered, mumbled and fumbled for a few seconds, and then I followed up with: "Do you get paid to be here?"

"Well, uh, yeah." was his brilliant reply.

"Do you keep the money?" I asked.

"Sure." He was confident now. These were easy questions. He was a smart boy...he could handle it.

"Have you ever read what's on the back?" He was totally unprepared for that one. After a few seconds of terror, he gathered his wits and replied with this gem of Democratic brilliance:

"That's different. I'm not going to be broke and homeless just because something is written on the money."

I let him smile at me for a second and then said, "That's the difference between us. I would fight and die for what I believe in, but your principles are only important to you when they're convenient."

His reply was to walk away and start yelling "Free chocolate!" at the crowd again. After having spoken with him, I'm not so sure that he was really an outside salesman. It very well could have been a political statement.

I was going to begin this post with "I'm back!" but I figured that would simply generate a chorus of "You were gone?" emails from both of my readers.