No, that’s not an error– one thousand rounds.  To put this in perspective, I currently have 595 rounds of .380 ACP in my ammo bunker.  (And it’s a mix– Sellier & Bellot, Winchester, Aguila, Speer, RWS, Fiocchi and even some of the old Santa Barbara Toledo Spanish mil-surp stuff.)  1,000 rounds means I could stop hunting ammo… I’ll never go boom-less again…

So, instead of modifying the fire control to fire a two-round burst, (wait a second… the M-16A2 had a three-round burst setting) Colt made a rifle that fired two projectiles (of different weights) with reduced accuracy (two weights, two points of impact) from a specialized cartridge (reduced powder charge, logistics nightmares, non-standard).  Anybody care to guess why the ACR contest went nowhere?

So… thoughts?

Via a comment on another website, I found Lance Truscott Morrison– a Deputy Sheriff who does music.  Pretty good stuff.

Massad Ayoob has links to a group of podcasts and interviews (including John Stossel’s show from this week) concerning the case.

Joe Huffman quotes justice Scalia from the Heller decision.  To paraphrase:

We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves [them] a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns… [...] But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. [...] it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

Maybe we can take one more step towards true freedom today.

9 April 2010

Justice John Paul Stevens announces he will retire at the end of the 2010 summer session. Elena Kagan is named as a possible replacement at this time. [A]

5 May 2010

Evidence surfaces that Kagan (then the Dean of Harvard Law School) covered for professors when they plagiarized. [B]

7 May 2010

CNS News begins speculating who might be named to replace Stevens, and what their selection might mean for the balance of the Court.

10 May 2010

Obama officially announces Kagan is his nominee to replace Stevens.

CNS News runs a story about Kagan, noting that she is pro-abortion, dodged questions during her nomination for Solicitor General, and has worked in an advisory role for Goldman Sachs.

Kagan’s competence comes into question at this time, as transcripts of her arguing before the Supreme Court show that she lacked a fundamental understanding of the issue she was arguing. [C]

David Hardy posts on Kagan, noting she has little experience, and has rarely been published in law reviews.

11 May 2010

David Codrea posts an article questioning Kagan’s stance on guns.  In short– not great, but not awful, either.

13 May 2010

John Lott posts an article showing that Kagan used the phrase “not sympathetic” in reference to a court case regarding unlicensed concealed carry.

16 May 2010

Senator Sessions (R-AL) notes that Kagan (as Dean) made the job of recruiters at Harvard Law harder, calling it “no little-bitty matter.”

Newt Gingrich calls this “an act so unbecoming an American that she should be disqualified, from the very beginning.”

The same day, Chuck Schumer calls Kagan “brilliant” and “practical.”

17 May 2010

It comes to light that Kagan helped craft Bill Clinton’s strategy that kept partial-birth abortion legal.

The White House asks the Clinton Library to release papers relating to Kagan (including her emails).

Quotes from GOP members show that a filibuster of Kagan is unlikely.

A friend of Kagan says that she “is largely a progressive in the mold of Obama himself.”

18 May 2010

Since she helped craft the Obama administration’s defense of health care “reform,” Kagan might have to recuse herself from any Supreme Court health care case.

It comes to light that Kagan advocated campaign finance reform during the Clinton administration.  Ironically, this is the subject she showed little grasp of before the Supreme Court.

19 May 2010

During the period of time that Kagan tried to keep military recruiters off the Harvard Law campus, she was allowing Saudi recruiters for what is called Sharia-Compliant Finance onto campus.

In two law review articles, Kagan attacks the Supreme Court for denying pro-abortion groups federal money.

20 May 2010

The director of the Clinton library admits that she probably will not be able to meet the deadline to get all Kagan-related materials to Congress. [D]

18 June 2010

Documentation shows that while in the Clinton White House, Kagan made comparisons between the KKK and NRA. [E]

23 June 2010

The percentage of Americans opposing Kagan drops… to 42%. [F]

Sunlight Labs (part of the Sunlight Foundation) releases Elena’s Inbox, all of Kagan’s email from her time in the Clinton White House. [F]

Summary

In short, I’m with Newbius: “I think it is time to oppose her with every fiber of my being and urge my Senators to do the same.”  Obama has shown an utter unwillingness to choose a decent judge for any position– Goodwin Liu is the perfect example of this (reference: here, here, and here)– and I’d rather not see another Sotomayor on the Court.

Note: the title of this post comes from Robb.

References:

[A] Sebastian, 9 April 2010.
[B] John Lott, 10 May 2010.
[C} John Lott, 11 May 2010.
[D] John Lott, 20 May 2010.
[E] John Lott, 18 June 2010.
[F] Instapundit, 23 June 2010.

“Peasant, we’s heard you’s liked playing airsoft, so we’s gonna ban the crap outta that so’s ya’s can’t plays it no mo’.  Jus’ ‘member, we’s from the gub-mint, and we’s here to help ya’s.”

Just to re-cap, from the post where I first heard about this:

Basically, if the ATF claims these airsoft guns can be easily converted into real guns, they should just demonstrate the conversion, and put a couple of magazines through it.

So, did the ATF test the gun like this?  From the third page of the ATF’s letter:

To determine if the submitted sample (as modified) is capable of expelling a projectile … [t]he test fire was conducted a total of three times…

Wait, wait, wait… how was the gun modified?  Well, the lower was Dremeled into shape, an M16 hammer, hammer pin, hammer spring, buffer and buffer spring were put in, and then an AR-15 upper was put on and held in place with a drift punch in place of the front retention pin.  In other words, As long as you have access to a whole bunch of parts off M-16s, you can assemble an Ar-15.  With a crappy airsoft lower.  Or, to quote a commenter over at Uncle’s:

My water glass can be converted into a machine gun.

You take the glass and replace it with a machine gun, take the water and replace it with ammo.

Voila, machine gun.

There’s “massaging the evidence,” and then there’s “we took it to the massage parlor down on Riverside and got it a happy ending.”  This is the latter.  To recap: if you have access to parts from an M-16,  an AR-15 upper, drift punches and a Dremel tool, you can create a machine gun.  Kinda.  Sorta.  Maybe.

Oh, and they have re-defined transfers, too.  Now, your favorite gun writer will have to fill out a 4473 to get an evaluation gun.  It’s almost like they’re trying to clamp down on us gun owners, isn’t it?

Funny story. I tell my GF I want a gun because I follow this blog, but she tells me she doesn’t want me carrying it around her. She argues that pepper spray or a taser would be equally effective. Thoughts?

Weer’d responds here with some videos and facts.  His points, in short: tasers and OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray are nice, but they only for cops.  As to why, I’ll quote Weer’d himself:

You see as a civilian I have one dichotomy when it comes to personal defense. Deadly force, and no Force.

Which ties in with something Bob S. wrote:

What level of violence is acceptable when fighting back against a criminal intent on harming me or mine?

I answered in the comments with something I’ll expand here, the “Axe Theory.”

The philosophy of the Soviet General Staff is no different from that of the horsemen (The Magnificent Seven –ed.) whom I had watched riding the desert. `If you want to stay alive, kill your enemy. The quicker you finish him off, the less chance he will have to use his own gun.’ In essence, this is the whole theoretical basis on which their plans for a third world war have been drawn up. The theory is known unofficially in the General Staff as the `axe theory’. It is stupid, say the Soviet generals, to start a fist-fight if your opponent may use a knife. It is just as stupid to attack him with a knife if he may use an axe. The more terrible the weapon which your opponent may use, the more decisively you must attack him, and the more quickly you must finish him off. Any delay or hesitation in doing this will just give him a fresh opportunity to use his axe on you. To put it briefly, you can only prevent your enemy from using his axe if you use your own first.

[...]

Many years passed and I became an officer serving with the General Staff. Suddenly, as I studied American theories of war, I came to an appalling realization. It became clear to me that a modern American cowboy who is working up to a decisive fight will always expect to begin by spitting at and insulting his opponent and to continue by throwing whisky in his face and chucking custard pies at him before resorting to more serious weapons. He expects to hurl chairs and bottles at his enemy and to try to stick a fork or a tableknife into his behind and then to fight with his fists and only after all this to fight it out with his gun.

This is a very dangerous philosophy. You are going to end up by using pistols. Why not start with them? Why should the bandit you are fighting wait for you to remember your gun? He may shoot you before you do, just as you are going to slap his face. By using his most deadly weapon at the beginning of the fight, your enemy saves his strength. Why should he waste it throwing chairs at you? Moreover, this will enable him to save his own despicable life. After all, he does not know, either, when you, the noble hero, will decide to use your gun. Why should he wait for this moment? You might make a sudden decision to shoot him immediately after throwing custard pies at him, without waiting for the exchange of chairs. Of course he won’t wait for you when it comes to staying alive. He will shoot first. At the very start of the fight.

This is why police officers draw their weapons.  This is also why so many people who try to use “less than lethal” force end up in hospitals… or the morgue.  If you have a good tool, use that good tool.  If a guy is attempting to beat down your door in the middle of the night, don’t try to build up to things… go for broke.  After all, he might get phased when you crack him over the head with a frying pan… or he might get pissed off and hurt you.

Remember, most DGUs result in no shooting.  Which of the following is the better scenario:

1. You are exiting a Quickie Mart one night when a rough-looking gentleman in a T-shirt and shorts accosts you for your wallet.  Observing that he is holding a knife, you pull your OC spray and dose him.  He begins to fail about, and then charges you and stabs you.  You end up in the ICU with multiple knife wounds.

2. You are exiting a Quickie Mart one night when a rough-looking gentleman in a T-shirt and shorts accosts you for your wallet.  Observing that he is holding a knife, you draw your sidearm and aim it at his center of mass.  He holds his hands up and surrenders, and you hold him until police arrive.

I know which one I’d rather participate in…

For humor: here’s how scenario one would play out, and how I feel about OC spray.

Yes, this is a joke. A funny joke, but a joke.

(H/T Weer’d)

…

Who in the hell thought this one up?  Are the engineers at Taurus using a dartboard to select calibers now?  Hey, it’s not like .380 is hard to find… OH, WAIT, IT IS.  When I first saw this at Uncle’s, I thought it was a (tasteless) joke.  No, they’re serious– a revolver that’ll fire low-powered ammo that’s hard to find, will be useless without moon clips, and they stopped making a 9mm revolver to make this.

Great job, Taurus!  What’s next, a short-barreled .410 revolver for concealed carry?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take a walk before this music begins I go all Charlie Baileygates…