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Simple Lesson

Elections, Gummint, The Gun Thing

By now, everyone should be familiar with has-been-Congressman Butt-Boy O’Rourke’s promise to take away our AR-15s and AK-47s at the Socialist Clown Car Debate the other night.

Needless to say, that provoked a response from firebrand Texas State Rep. Briscoe Cain, who tweeted “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis” (echoing the sentiments of probably every AR- and AK owner in the Lone Star State).

Whereupon Beta-Boy crawled into a fetal position and whimpered, “Anytime you have somebody threatening to use violence against somebody in this country to resolve a political issue, really for any reason, that’s a matter for law enforcement!” then promptly reported Cain to the Fibbies.

Pussy.

There are two lessons to be drawn from this.  The first lesson is that Commiesymps like Skateboard Jesus are always going to use the KGB cops to do their dirty work for them — whether it’s “investigating a threat” (LOL) or confiscating guns from the populace.  (We already knew that, but the lesson bears repeating.)

The second lesson, though, is for ex-Congressman Fake O’Hispanic and his ilk:

When you threaten gun confiscation — that is, having the police forcibly disarm citizens — then YOU are the ones threatening violence.

And provoking violence, as we all know, often begets violence in return.  At least after all this, nobody can say that the socialists haven’t been warned.

As have we.

Um, No

Gummint, The Gun Thing

From the poxy New Republic  (thanks, I’m kinda okay with the old one circa Calvin Coolidge’s time) comes this breathless statement:

It’s debatable whether even the most stringent gun-control measures would prevent mass shootings, and it’s doubtful that those measures would survive the Roberts Court’s scrutiny. But time and time again, these proposals reveal a troubling window into the mindset of the gun-rights activists who oppose them. That, in turn, only makes the case for enacting such measures much stronger. If the main reason you need an AR-15 is to murder civil servants and elected officials, you shouldn’t have it in the first place.

Well no, that’s not quite accurate.  We don’t want to own AR-15s “to murder civil servants and elected officials”, we need them to hold off government agents when they arrive at our door to disarm us — in clear violation of the Constitution (which, lest we forget, said gummint agents swore to uphold as part of their office-taking oath).

And by “hold off” I don’t necessarily mean “kill them” (it’s not murder  if they attack you first, BTW, no matter what un-Constitutional law they hide behind);  “holding off” also means making them a little more fearful of the consequences of their actions, and a little more reluctant to be statist bullies.

The Stalinist- and Nazi police forces could go door to door and disarm law-abiding gun owners in their respective countries without fear of resistance, simply because the KGB / Gestapo knew that people were either fearful, or willing to comply, or both.

That’s not the case in the United States, of course, because while that might be true in many — or even most — cases, there is a considerable proportion of gun owners in this country who will simply say “fuck you” to the government, and either ignore or else actively resist such efforts at universal disarmament of the population.  (And just to reiterate:  “resistance” is not “murder”, dipshit.)

And if that resistance “only makes the case for enacting such measures much stronger”, then I would respectfully suggest that this is similar to the situation where someone teases an otherwise-quiet dog into attacking, then shoots the dog “because it was vicious”.

If there was an active and heartfelt acknowledgment that while mass shootings and killings are admittedly awful, but the isolated incidents did not provide sufficient cause to disarm everybody, then there’d be no snarls of “molon labe”  or “bring body bags”  from the gun-owning population.

But of course, the statist politicians (mostly of the socialist ilk, but regrettably some so-called conservatives alike) are not going to let a good crisis go to waste, and want to use these crises to further their goal of totalitarian control of the general population.

That, Mr. New Republic, is what gets us angry and more likely to make those statements that have you pissing in your yoga pants.

As an adjunct to the above, allow me to suggest that anyone who doesn’t yet own an AR-15 but wants to own one (after the confiscationists’ statements last week), my research on “off-the-peg” ARs last week resulted in this consensus input:  go to Palmetto State Armory and see what takes your fancy.  Mine would be this one:

…or the AR-10, in a non-poodleshooter chambering (albeit more spendy) in the manly .308 Win:

 

Just in passing, I see that PSA also has a decent-looking AK-47 for sale at what seems to be a reasonable price:

 

…and for a hundred bucks more, one with a folding stock:

No prizes for guessing what I’d choose, of course, but that’s because I’m already familiar with the AK, even though I lost mine (honest, cross my heart) in that Regrettable Canoeing Accident on the Brazos River lo those many years ago.

Just note that PSA’s stock levels of all their products are, shall we say, depleted — so don’t shilly shally around.

Anyway, let’s just call this addendum a Public Service Announcement (PSA)… [groan]

Parallel Situations

Bad News

From Insty I see this, about the situation in Hong Kong:

Pro-Beijing agitators are attacking random passers-by and fomenting brawls and riots in the shopping malls where pro-democracy demonstrators gather to sing. The… police are cooperating with the pro-Beijing agitators, arresting pro-democracy demonstrators, but leaving the pro-Beijing agitators alone.

Now where have I seen this kind of thing before?  Oh, I know.

Just substitute “Antifa” for “pro-Beijing agitators” and “Trump supporters” for “pro-democracy demonstrators”, and you have… Portland.

Sighting In On The DOJ

Gummint, Hunting, The Gun Thing

I can understand why people are getting all bent out of shape about this atrocity:

Own a rifle?  Got a scope to go with it?  The U.S. government might soon know who you are, where you live and how to reach you.
That’s because the government wants Apple and Google to hand over names, phone numbers and other identifying data of at least 10,000 users of a single gun scope app, Forbes has discovered.  It’s an unprecedented move:  Never before has a case been disclosed in which American investigators demanded personal data of users of a single app from Apple and Google.  And never has an order been made public where the feds have asked the Silicon Valley giants for info on so many thousands of people in one go.
According to an application for a court order filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on September 5, investigators want information on users of Obsidian 4, a tool used to control rifle scopes made by night-vision specialist American Technologies Network Corp.  The app allows gun owners to get a live stream, take video and calibrate their gun scope from an Android or iPhone device.  According to the Google Play page for Obsidian 4, it has more than 10,000 downloads.  Apple doesn’t provide download numbers, so it’s unclear how many iPhone owners could be swept up in this latest government data grab.
If the court approves the demand, and Apple and Google decide to hand over the information, it could include data on thousands of people who have nothing to do with the crimes being investigated, privacy activists warned.

What I don’t  understand is why people would want to get this poxy app in the first place, because of all the things you’re going to do with your hunting rifle, zeroing the scope is one of the easiest.  No?  Allow me to explain.

Step 1:  Remove the bolt from your rifle so you can see clear through the barrel.

Step 2:  Wait for nightfall.

Step 3:  Line your barrel up with a light source (street light, neighbor’s porch light etc.) that’s between 50 and 100 yards distant.  (If the latter light source, try not to let your neighbor see you pointing a rifle at his house;  for some reason, people get upset by this.  Sit back from the window.)

Step 4:  Anchor the rifle down so that the rifle is straight upright (i.e. the vertical line of the stock is at right angles to the floor).

Step 5:  Install your scope onto the rifle, making sure that the vertical line in the scope points straight up and down (i.e. that it corresponds to the vertical line of the stock).

Step 6:  Make sure that you can still see the light source through the barrel, and then zero the scope’s cross-hairs onto the same light source.  Re-install the bolt.

Your rifle is now guaranteed to “print onto the paper”, i.e. your shots will all fall within a 6″ square at 25 or 50 yards.

Step 7:  Zero your scope onto the bull, trying to get a 1″ minute-of-angle (MOA) at the distance you will most likely be shooting at (or just use 100 yards, as most do, and make further adjustments in the field as needed).

Now I know that this may seem a lot more tiresome a routine than just holding up your phone to the scope and letting some system do all the work for you, but as we are all fast learning in today’s world, what makes things more convenient is often either part of someone else’s profit margin (e.g. automatic gearboxes) or else malevolent (e.g. self-driving cars and, to whit, this scope zeroing app).

Giving your data to someone else has always been fraught with risk.  With this Obsidian 4 thing, it seems as though Gummint has found a great way to identify a large proportion of gun owners, simply by leaning on a couple of phone companies (who are always at the beck and call of gummint bureaucrats anyway).  What makes things easy for you makes things even easier for Gummint, as it turns out.

Caveat emptor, my friends.

Oh, and fuck the DOJ.