From a FoxNew article on pro-gun Democrats comes the howler of the day courtesy of Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY):
“They’ve been very open about saying… ‘Carolyn, if the NRA comes against a bill, I gotta vote with the NRA.’ They’re not going to take that chance. I understand that,” said McCarthy of her Democratic colleagues. “Does it bother me? Of course, it bothers me because I’m not trying to take away anyone’s right to own a gun.”
And I’m sure she has the check in the mail as well.
Hoplocate.com has released an alpha version of a calculator which lets you calculate the cost of reloading your pistol ammo. I’ve played with it and it seems to work OK. I’m not sure how the recovery cost portion of the calculator works.
The calculator was developed by Robb Allen of the Sharp As a Marble blog.
H/T to Rob of the Personal Armament Podcast for the link
UPDATE: Robb explained the Recovery Costs for me. In his words,
The Recovery Costs section indicates how many rounds you would need to load in order to justify a cost. For example, I want to purchase a new barrel for the Glock that lets me shoot lead. Running the numbers for JHP’s, I get 50 rnds for $14. Lead bullets run $11.50 for 50.
I set the reloading items up for lead, then put $105 for the Item Cost in Recovery Costs, $14 per 50 in Ammo Cost, and see that I would need to shoot 2100 rounds before the cost savings paid for the new barrel.
The military has been working on a program to lower the weight of both the ammo and weapons carried by soldiers. Called the Lightweight Small Arms Technologies program, it is being run by the Joint Service Small Arms Program based at the Picatinny Arsenal. A summary of the goals of the program can be seen here along with an update here.
The video below shows both a live fire demo and a lab demo of the LSAT lightweight SAW.
The video below is from Military.com. It shows the only publicly available video of the field testing at Ft. Benning according to them.
According to the article in the Kitup blog at Military.com, development of the lightweight M-249 SAW-like weapon is almost finished. It fires lightweight cased telescoped (CT) ammo. Researchers have fired about 10,000 rounds through three prototype weapons. According to Kori Phillips, the program manager,
With millions of dollars in Army research investment, the JSSAP office says it will be ready to put weapons in warfighters’ hands by next year. Phillips said eight new SAWs will be built by AAI Corporation. She also said that the office plans to run an exercise with an infantry squad equipped with the new lightweight machine gun and 100,000 rounds of cased telescoped ammo.
While the new weapon looks much like the older M-249 SAW it “uses a rotating action and a novel feed system that fires a standard 5.56mm ball projectile and ejects the plastic case and link from its own port.” The engineers report that have completely avoided failures to feed and eject.
While the cased telescoped ammo is almost ready for actual use, there are still developmental problems with the caseless ammo.
While the cased telescoped ammo is almost ready for prime time, the more exotic caseless rounds still need some work, Phillips explained. Testers are having problems keeping the rounds — which are essentially hard, molded propellant with an embedded 5.56 mm bullet — from degrading in high heat. They’re also expensive, hard to make, and tough on the shooter…..Excessive smoke, inexact timing and other uncertainties have kept the weapon attached to a bench.
Another article at Military.com goes into more detail about the M-4 version as well. It is interesting to read the comments regarding the lightweight ammo. One commenter noted that if the weight of ammo is cut in half he would end up just carrying twice as much.
I stumbled across the Vuurwapen Blog today for the first time – and am I ever happy that I did!
Andrew, who runs the blog, has developed a calculator to determine what each thing you add to your AR-15 will weigh. For example, your basic M4 carbine configuration with a 6-position adjustable stock, Troy BUIS, Eotech 552 optic, Vortex flash hider, and a PMag full of 62 grain 5.56×45 ammo will weigh 8.525 pounds. If you decide you want the Vltor Clubfoot Modstock on it instead of the basic Tapco M4 buttstock, then the weight drops to 8.44375 pounds.
This tool is a great way to figure out in advance what hypothetical configurations will weigh without having to buy, assemble, and then weigh the weapon.
But wait! Andrew doesn’t stop there with his calculators. He also has developed a balance calculator that helps you determine the center of gravity of your AR-15. It helps you determine how the weigh will shift if you change various parts. He has a 3-part article that discusses weight and balance in AR’s.
If you have an AR-15 and you plan to modify it, you should bookmark these calculators. While you are at it, bookmark the Vuurwapen Blog as well.
I have got to go to either Knob Creek or this show! I have never fired anything full auto but one of these days…..
It really starts to get interesting at the :46 mark.
H/T SoldierSystems.net
The Chicago Sun-Times ran a very interesting investigative piece today. Entitled “Why they won’t stop shooting in Chicago”, it examines the aftermath of an April 2008 weekend in Chicago where 40 people were shot, seven fatally.
So what has happened to the shooters in the two years since that weekend? Nothing.
So far, not one accused shooter has been convicted of pulling the trigger during those deadly 59 hours from April 18-20 of that year, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.
Only one suspected triggerman — a convicted armed robber caught with the AK-47 he allegedly used to blow away his boss — is in jail awaiting trial.
Six of the seven murders remain unsolved. In three other cases, the victims know who shot them but won’t testify against the shooter. They don’t want to get labeled a snitch or rat in the neighborhood.
Last year Chicago PD detectives cleared 18% of the outstanding non-fatal shootings from 2009. However, almost half were due to “exceptional” circumstances. Exceptional means that the victim won’t testify, the prosecutors don’t want to go to trial on the evidence, or, if luck would have it, the shooter is dead. This means that about 91% of the shooters during 2009 were never charged with a crime.
“The certainty of punishment is very, very low in Chicago, and that’s going to embolden people,” said defense attorney Thomas Needham, who was a top legal adviser to former police Supt. Terry Hillard. “It’s going to lead to less fear by the people who are going to consider shooting. That’s very alarming.”
Part of the problem is that the victims are not choir boys and may have criminal records themselves. Police and prosecutors acknowledge that this makes their case in court tougher. Also, as some privately told the reporters, the police and prosecutors work harder for innocent victims than for those that have been involved in past criminal activity.
While Mayor Daley continues to mouth off about the violence being due to guns, the reality is that most criminals know they can get away with shooting someone in Chicago. If victims won’t testify, police don’t investigate, and the State’s Attorney avoid prosecutions, the shooters walk. And as long as that continues to go on, the violence will continue. Only when their is certainty of punishment will it start to abate.
I suggest reading the whole article to get the victim’s full stories.
On Thursday of this week, Clayton Cramer, blogger, historian, software engineer, and gun rights activist, announced that one of his blogs, The Armed Citizen, was being sued by RightHaven LLC for copyright infringement. In response, he closed down that blog and his personal blog.
Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell has covered this quite extensively. He has stories here, here, here,and here. Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, has put up stories about it as well. Copyright lawyer Ron Coleman has an interesting analysis on his blog Likelihood of Confusion. In the comments section are a few comments from Clayton Cramer with more details on the case.
Wired Magazine has an extensive story about RightHaven LLC and their “business” plan. In an interview with RightHaven’s CEO, Steve Gibson, his business plan is to buy the copyrights to newspaper content and then turn around and sue bloggers for copyright infringement. The article says that,
Gibson’s vision is to monetize news content on the backend, by scouring the internet for infringing copies of his client’s articles, then suing and relying on the harsh penalties in the Copyright Act — up to $150,000 for a single infringement — to compel quick settlements. Since Righthaven’s formation in March, the company has filed at least 80 federal lawsuits against website operators and individual bloggers who’ve re-posted articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, his first client.
Now he’s talking expansion. The Review-Journal’s publisher, Stephens Media in Las Vegas, runs over 70 other newspapers in nine states, and Gibson says he already has an agreement to expand his practice to cover those properties. (Stephens Media declined comment, and referred inquiries to Gibson.) Hundreds of lawsuits, he says, are already in the works by year’s end. “We perceive there to be millions, if not billions, of infringements out there,” he says.
There were many interesting comments to this article in Wired. One was from a former employee who said, “I used to work for this guy. In my opinion he is a legal opportunist and a sociopath. And also in my opinion all the comments prior to mine are accurate descriptions of his moral character, or lack thereof.” Another comment was from an attorney which I found very interesting.
Steve Gibson, according to another Las Vegas attorney, has been “working on” developing Righthaven for years. Why? As I understand it from those who practice in intellectual property because there’s an automatic attorney’s fee provision in the copyright statutes. So, Steve Gibson has become a “douchebag” and a pariah and a bottom feeder and a stain on the profession, but he will also become very wealthy for doing very little. There’s lots of other professions that should be culled because their members take care of themselves and their pocket books at the expense of the greater community. For what it’s worth, I also understand from intellectual property attorneys in Las Vegas that Steve Gibson was a total “douchebag” well before he concocted Righthaven. So, if you want to stop these “nuisance” law suits (and that is truly what they are), and keep the likes of Steve Gibson from lining their wallets, petition your federal delegation to update the copyright statutes to: 1) mandate a “take down” letter before any lawsuit can be filed, with penalties attached to plaintiffs who file before doing so; and 2) delete the automatic entitlement to attorney’s fees. In the meantime, quit cutting and pasting and you will prevent Steve Gibson from earning additional money to get rid of that second chin.
Now that we know who is RightHaven LLC and their business model, just who is Stephens Media LLC? According to Wikipedia, the company started in Ft. Smith, Arkansas as Donrey Media Group. Upon the death in 1993 of its founder Donald Reynolds, Donrey was sold to the Stephens family of Arkansas. The Stephens are best known for their privately held investment bank and wealth manager, Stephens, Inc. In terms of wealth, the Stephens family is ranked second in Arkansas only to the Walton clan. Not only are the Stephens wealthy, they are well connected to both Democrats and Republicans. They had connections to both Bill Clinton and the Bush family. Now that is connected.
The newspapers owned by Stephens Media LLC are listed below by state. As the Wired article notes, many of these papers will be using the “services” of RightHaven LLC. As for me, I plan to never link to any of these papers. The only paper they own in North Carolina just happens to be the newspaper from the town where I was born. The only regret that I have is that I will be missing out on some of the columns by Vin Suprynowicz. Oh, well,
Arkansas
Hawaii
Missouri
Nevada
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Washington
UPDATE: I found this article today about RightHaven suing someone for using material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal in which the article was based on his own research. Jeez!
Copyright enforcement outfit Righthaven has filed some questionable lawsuits in the past, but really outdid itself in a case against Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor.
That lawsuit, one of several filed on Friday, alleges that Curtis infringed copyright by reposting an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Problem is, that article was itself based on an annual survey conducted by Curtis of ticket prices for entertainment shows.
Today’s Washington Times features an editorial about the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty. They call it a threat to both the First and Second Amendments of our Constitution. Of course, they are right. The editorial follows on the heels of a report released by the Heritage Foundation on the UN and “arms control”.
Theodore Bromund, one of the authors of the Heritage Foundation’s report, is quoted as saying that he thinks micro-stamping will be included, that there will be some sort of gun registration and licensing system, that this licensing system will cover both guns and ammo, and that there may even be restrictions on trade between private individuals.
The Washington Times takes a dim view of the whole thing as well as the role of the Obama Administration in it.
Any U.N. Arms Trade Treaty will undermine freedom around the world. The right to bear arms is an individual’s protection against oppression anywhere. It took herculean efforts by George W. Bush’s administration to thwart this U.N. power grab a few years ago. Unfortunately, we now have a left-wing White House working to make this dangerous treaty a reality.
As a follow-up to his YouTube hit “I Like Guns”, Aussie singer Steve Lee has released “I’ll Give Up My Gun”. I love the refrain line – I’ll give up my gun when the ocean runs dry. Good on ya, mate!
H/T to the Firearm Blog
I got this in my email today addressed to my mother – who has been dead for two years. I guess when donations are down you’ll do just about anything to stay afloat.
What a bunch of losers!
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