Comment Of The Day

You may have read about the active shooter event at Topsail High School in Pender County, NC that turned out to be a malfunctioning hot water heater. It made many news sources this morning.

One reader on the Firearms and Politics email list had this comment about it.

Don’t relax yet. David Hogg is claiming that the water heater was funded by Russian money funneled through the NRA. Film at 11.

After this week, we need something to laugh about and especially if it is at the expense of the gun prohibitionists.

National Vodka Day? Nyet!

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October 4th in National Vodka Day. I’m old enough to remember when vodka came in one flavor. Now you can get flavors ranging from birthday cake and bubble gum to virtually any flavor of citrus you could come up with.

I’m not a vodka aficionado. It serves its purpose in some cocktails like a Bloody Mary but that is about it. I’m more of the opinion of author Fred Minnick as expressed in his tweet today.

Moreover, as Liberty Pole Spirits makes clear in this tweet, there never was a Vodka Rebellion. I think the primary purpose of vodka was to keep the serfs from rising up and even that failed.

Headline Of The Day

The headline of the day comes from an online story in American Handgunner magazine.

American Handgunner Guide To Picking Your Nose

It actually has nothing to do with your body parts and everything to do with the shape of your handgun bullets. Stuff like wadcutter, semi-wadcutter, flat nose, and round nose bullets when you are talking about cast bullets with others for jacketed bullets.

As Tank Hoover notes in this article:

As you can see, a lot of thought is involved in picking your nose for getting the best results. Besides nose style, we’ve yet to discuss alloy hardness and bullet lubes for cast bullets. Then there’s the choice of plain base or gas checked bottoms. Powder Coating, of which I’m a firm believer in its attributes, is another option.

Jacketed bullets have far less options than their cast brethren. Besides nose-styles, cannelures are about the only other option. Cannelures are useful for crimping bullets into place, while non-cannelure are used for taper crimped bullets used in semi-autos, where the cartridge seats on the case neck.

Who would have thought there was so much involved in picking your nose, let alone, the right bullet, to get the results you want and need? There’s nothing wrong with being picky — if you’re after certain results.

It is a good article with a great headline.

Humor On The Bench

Earlier this month, recently seated Judge Don Willett of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote his first opinion in case involving sentencing enhancements. Judge Willett when he was Justice Willett of the Texas Supreme Court was well-known for his humorous tweets on Twitter. Indeed the Texas House of Representatives named him “Tweeter Laureate”. Given this background, you might expect his opinions to have a bit of humor woven into them and you wouldn’t be wrong.

The case of US v. Maturino involved an appeal of the sentence received by Victor Maturino. Mr. Maturino thought he was buying 144 live grenades for a Mexican drug cartel. What he got was 143 duds and one live grenade. The other surprise for Mr. Maturino was that the ostensible seller was an undercover BATFE special agent who promptly arrested him when he handed over $35,000 in cash and took possession of the grenades (and other NFA items). The judge in the trial court gave Mr. Maturino an enhanced sentence because of the number of grenades involved in the illegal transaction. The appeal contended that he should have only been sentenced based on the number of live grenades he actually bought as opposed to the number he though he was getting.

The 5th Circuit rejected his appeal in an unanimous decision concluding that the trial court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines including an enhanced sentence was correct.

Judge Willett concludes:

Victor Maturino requested 144 high-explosive grenades; he received 143
non-explosive grenades. This is a sentencing appeal, though, and what matters
for sentencing is what Maturino
actively sought, not what he actually bought.
Summing up, the sentencing court properly counted the number of firearms
involved in Maturino’s offense and did not miscalculate his sentence under the Guidelines. Maturino’s plan for live grenades fell short, but close counts in
horseshoes and hand-grenade cases.

All I’m going to add is that Judge Willett is an American treasure and I’d love to see him as a Justice on the Supreme Court.

“Calling for gun control while Hitler is in the White House makes you sound suicidal”

Comedian Lou Perez has produced a YouTube video entitled, “7 Things You Should Know Before Talking About Guns”. It is something everyone who is advocating for gun control should watch before opening their mouths.

Or maybe not. I kinda prefer the enemies of my rights to sound like the blithering idiots that they are.

One correction – “assault rifle” is more than a description of how a gun looks. He confuses that – like most in the media – with “assault weapon” which is a made-up term by Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center. An assault rifle is a select-fire rifle of intermediate caliber with a detachable magazine. A very early version would be something like the Sturmgewehr 44 which fired the 7.92×33 Kurz round.

H/T Legal Insurrection

Did They Really Have To Tell You This?

I’m reading over the list of items that are prohibited in your luggage when flying. I was trying to decide whether my camera batteries needed to be in my carry-on or checked luggage. In the category of things I learned while looking for something else come this from the TSA.

Can you believe that? Hand grenades are banned on planes even if they are in your checked luggage. They also listed dynamite as being banned. No word on C-4 or Claymore mines but I’m assuming they are a no go as well.

What Can I Bring?

Planning ahead and packing properly can facilitate the screening process and ease your travel experience at the airport. Know what you can pack in your carry-on and checked baggage before arriving at the airport by reviewing the lists below. Even if an item is generally permitted, it may be subject to additional screening or not allowed through the checkpoint if it triggers an alarm during the screening process, appears to have been tampered with, or poses other security concerns. Read about civil penalties for prohibited items.
For items not listed here, simply snap a picture or send a question to AskTSA on Facebook Messenger or Twitter. We look forward to answering your questions, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET weekdays and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekends/holidays.

The final decision rests with the TSA officer on whether an item is allowed through the checkpoint.

Flammables 


Hand Grenades



  • Carry On Bags: No
  • Checked Bags: No


A Most Sensible Suggestion

Joe Huffman who blogs at The View from North Central Idaho and who is the man behind Boomershoot has made a most sensible suggestion given the events yesterday in Alexandria.

I would like to suggest that congress drop baseball as the annual sport competition between Democrats and Republicans. If this had been practice for a three-gun match or even a IPDA, USPSA, or steel match fewer innocent people would have been injured.

He’s correct, of course. If any of these members of Congress had been armed with even a pistol, it would have brought more force to bear on the shooter and ended things sooner.

Where I see problems arising is trying to get the sides to agree on what rifles are OK to use, how large a magazine is allowed, etc. For example, given how many Democrats are pushing for restrictions on standard capacity magazines, would there be an agreement that only California-compliant 10 round magazines could be used?

One way to get around would be to make it a NSSF Rimfire Challenge sort of event. Rimfire means no arguments on whether it is a “high powered assault rifle” or merely a rifle firing an intermediate cartridge with ugly cosmetics. It would by definition not be “high powered”. Moreover, the rulebook allows magazines to be restricted to 10-round capacity so that eliminates that argument. Finally, since from what I can tell, all the targets are steel plates of one non-human form or another, no one could bring “you’re a racist” accusations by saying that black human silhouette targets actually represent African-Americans.

Do I think congressional Democrats and Republicans will make the switch from baseball to action shooting? No but it is fun to speculate about it.

Monday Morning Humor Or Look What I Found Cleaning The Garage

Now that the Complementary Spouse and I have finished cleaning out my late mother’s house for the soon-to-be new owner, we have been working on a place for all the stuff I thought about keeping. Thus, we spent a good part of this past weekend cleaning our garage and reorganizing stuff.

In the process I found this old cardboard IDPA/USPSA target. I’m not sure if it was mine or just one I picked up at the range. (Yes, I know that whomever this belonged to needs to work on their grip as the shots were grouping low and left.)

The Complementary Spouse suggested hanging it outside of our front porch as a bad guy scarecrow as that big center mass hole might give any thug, home invader, or other miscreant second thoughts.

That’s an interesting idea but I’m not sure what Massad Ayoob or Andrew Branca would have to say about that. As it is, the target will be going to our local recycling center and not to our front porch.

Tweet Of The Day

Reflecting on the results of the presidential election in France wherein Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen in a run-off, David Burge – IowaHawk – tweeted this.

I don’t know how he comes up with this stuff but damn that was good.