True to his aesthetic form, though, I spent about a tenth as much time in front of Oleg’s camera as Better Half did, and when we left, he was muttering something about "advertisements" and "Appleseed" and even "magazine covers". No idea if any of them will pan out, but it will be pretty cool regardless.

One thing was consistent throughout, though: Ash may have his BOOM Stick, but I have a Happy Stick – very few people are capable of emptying so much as the five-round magazine out of the short-barreled Saiga without something approximating an ear-to-ear grin. WizardPC won the quote of the weekend when, after finishing a 20-round drum, I pointed out to him that he needed one, and his response was, "I need TWO!"

So here is a big ol’ "Thank you!" to Oleg for putting us up for a night and taking so many pictures and another one to everyone for coming out to the range on Saturday and Sunday; Better Half and I had a great time! 

(Image courtesy of the inimitable Oleg Volk.  "Vera" Saiga-12 short barrel shotgun constructed by Coal Creek Armory.) 

Why? Because of things like this :

Wikipedia has decided to delete the page titled ‘Forward (generic name of socialist publications.)’

Wikipedia wrote this morning that after reading many comments and “various good points made on either side,” they deemed that there is “little or no connection between the disparate publications of the same or similar name other than similar ideological outlooks.”

That seems awfully peculiar that this happens right now, just weeks after Obama’s campaign announced their slogan would be ‘Forward.’ The page has been up for almost a year and a half, so why now?

Crowd-sourcing facts can be useful, but has all the potential in the world of going sideways – it does not matter how many people agree that 2+2=5, they are all wrong, but in a world like Wikipedia, they may not be the ones who lose the edit-wars. In this specific case, the staff of Wikipedia (whatever the hell that means) are claiming that socialistic publications of the same name – “Forward” – have no “unity between them”, so there is no point in keeping a page listing and documenting all of them. Which would be fine, except, as the article indicated, that page has existed for a year and a half now, and Our Glorious President just a few weeks ago decided that “Forward” was going to be his new campaign slogan.

I guess “hope and change” rings kind of hollow these days.

Like the author of the article, I sincerely doubt that President Obama and his campaign staff were attempting to make an overt, or even covert, reference to socialism*, but I do think destroying a historical reference simply because a political entity decided to hijack the word smells suspiciously like the actions of the politburos of countries that used to be socialistic. He who controls the present, and all that…

(* – Me, I hear “forward” and immediately think of Pickett’s Charge, the Battle of Crecy, lemmings jumping off a cliff, or other… appropriate… events.)

(Courtesy of Snarky Bytes.)

However, being that this is a firearm-related weblog, and being that most of my readers are at least obliquely involved in the firearm-shooting sports, you all probably notice what is missing from most survival / prepper / bug-out bag lists and suggestions, with the CDC’s list being no different (though arguably the worst offender, given the motivation for that list); yup, you guessed it – firearms. In a “your life depends on it” scenario, firearms can not only be used for self-defense and hunting purposes, but also signaling, starting fires (if you happen to have a knife/pliers handy), and other potentially very important tasks.

In the end, guns are tools, and if a tool has the possibility of increasing my family’s life expectancy, you can bet your ass I am going to employ it.

So given the history of survival-related lists from major sources in the past, you can imagine my pleasant surprise at Uncrate’s Bug-Out Bag , complete with a Mossberg 500, birdshot and buckshot, a H&K P2000 handgun, and the appropriate 9mm ammunition. I might disagree with their choice of firearms (personally, I would have either gone with a 9mm carbine and 9mm pistol sharing magazines, a .22 rifle and a 9mm pistol, or a .357/.38 lever-action rifle and revolver chambered for the same), and I completely disagree with their choice of holsters*, but the fact that those tools were included at all does wonders for the normalization of the lawful use of firearms in our society.

Obviously, I do not think everyone should have to have a firearm in their bug-out bag or preparedness gear – if someone is not going to train or practice with the firearm, it is going to be less than useless for them when the time comes that they actually have to use it. Guns are not talismans, they are tools, and like any other tool, you have to know how to use it. However, I agree that any such kit would be incomplete without some nature of firearm, and I applaud Uncrate for getting people to think about that.

(* – I actually wrote them an email about that holster… While firearms are a matter of personal taste and situational requirements, in that what may work in one environment may not work in another environment, “universal” nylon fabric holsters are almost universally bad. The last thing you want is your sidearm flopping around, or, worse, flopping out of its holster, and if you are going to carry around $400+ in silver coins, you can bloody well afford a fitted, functional holster. By the same token, you can afford a sling for the shotgun – or whatever your long gun is – but I forgot to mention that in the email.)

Kilrathi, Kzinti, Orions, Kitarans – all sapient, mostly bipedal, space-faring, warlike felinoid species.

Damned if I can think of a single dog-like space-faring species, though… I am sure there is some kind of anthropological / sociological statement to be made here.

Things like these:

• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act

• First President to Orchestrate the Sale of Murder Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels

• First President to issue an unlawful "recess-appointment" while the U.S. Senate remained in session (against the advice of his own Justice Department).

[...]

• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party

And those are just the "high" points – the whole list contains 36 accomplishments that no other President before Barack can claim.

Once again, we got the government we deserved… and the government we wanted.

(Courtesy of Life in 3D.)

Yeah, tell that to the British subjects:

Some London residents are getting troops and surface-to-air missiles on their rooftops for the Summer Olympics.

British security officials identified potential sites for the missiles on Monday and announced plans for security tests during the week.

The potential sites include Lexington Building in Tower Hamlets, the Fred Wigg Tower in Waltham Forest, Blackheath Common, Oxleas Wood, the William Girling Reservoir and Barn Hill in Epping Forest.

[...]

Around 700 people living at Whelan’s building in Bow — about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from London’s Olympic Stadium — have been contacted and warned that the weapons and about 10 troops are likely to be based at the site for around two months. London is hosting the Summer Olympics from July 27-Aug.12.

In the leaflet, the defense ministry said the venue offered an uncluttered "view of the surrounding areas and the entire sky above the Olympic Park."

In fairness, I have no idea who owns those housing structures, or if they are part of the "public housing" infestation slowly spreading across once-Great Britain, but, really, even if they were, when does putting SAM installations on top of them make sense? And if the buildings are privately owned, the owners have every right to tell the British government and military to pack sand; however, they may not have the legal ability to do so, and that is exactly where the Third Amendment comes in – it protects that right from governments who would just as soon put missile batteries on your roof.

No, quartering troops in your home is not exactly something that comes up all that often, but "uncommon" is not equivalent to "anachronistic", as The Police State Once Known as Great Britain seems eager to demonstrate**. So if the "gun control" extremists are this far off on their personal opinions regarding one particular Amendment in the Bill of Rights, according to their logic, why should I listen to anything they have to say about the others?

Oh… Right…

(* – One of the more-amusing observations about this particular "argument" is that the word "repeal" almost never shows up in conjunction with it. The "gun control" extremists want our government unencumbered from the apparent shackles of the Second Amendment, but they do not want to abide by the Constitution’s built-in modification clause and repeal the Second Amendment by passing another (just like what happened with Prohibition). Apparently "playing by the rules" is not a strong suit for these folks.

** – Of course, this incident is made all the more ironic by the fact that the Third Amendment is a direct outgrowth of the British Army’s behavior in the pre-Revolutionary Colonies. You would think they would have learned.)

While modern Baby Eagles bear the stamp of Israeli Weapon Industries, Ltd., and older ones (mine included) bear the name of Israeli Military Industries, neither organization is solely responsible for the fabrication or design of this handgun. In truth, the Jericho was based off of – and uses a great number of parts from – the Tanfoglio T95 pistol, more commonly known as the EAA** Witness here in the States. But our tale does not even end there; instead, the T95 was pretty much a straight-up clone of the Ceska zbrojovka CZ-75 handgun, with the most significant difference being interchangeable, easily-swappable caliber options (to allow for Italy’s stupid firearm laws, I would imagine).

The Israeli military (once the primary end user of the Jericho handguns) viewed this rather plagiarism-rife history as a Very Good Thing – the design was obviously tried and proven over the (at the time) 15 years of the CZ-75′s life – and while I am rather amused by the "take a good idea and run like hell with it" that seems to go on in the European firearm industry, I tend to agree with the Israelis for one simple reason: magazine commonality.

Unsurprisingly, magazine options directly from Magnum Research are both limited and expensive, with your only choices being "Kalifornistan-legal or not", and your only price being "stupid". However, since the Baby Eagle / Jericho is based off the Tanfoglio which is based off the CZ, well, what about those magazines?

Well, your options would be pretty good.

Back when I purchased my Baby Eagle, I knew next to nothing about handguns except for one small detail – I intensely disliked the Beretta M9 I was forced to carry and use in the military. However, at the same time, I knew that the "training" the military gave me (basically they sent you to the qualification test until you passed, and I passed on the first go-round) was sorely insufficient if I were ever called to actually use that firearm, so I decided I should probably snag something of my own to practice with on my own time. The Baby Eagle was my first firearm purchase, and owing to my relative naiveté at the time, I did not really understand – or care about – the "Legal for Sale in California" sticker slapped on the side of the case.

Looking back, knowing what I do know, I probably would have chosen differently, though it did turn out to be for the better when my military service eventually took me to Kalifornistan. Regardless, the time has more than come and passed for me to provide my very first firearm with the types of magazines it was designed to use, so I availed myself of three of the Mec-Gar Optimum 17-round magazines and one of the ProMag 30-round magazines… just because I can. From here on out, any pictures with multiple magazines in them will have the original Magnum Research model on the left, the Mec-Gar in the middle, and the ProMag on the right.

Upon (quite quickly) receiving the magazines, I sat down for a bit and compared them against their predecessors – after all, one does not exactly remove the hammer from a 1911 and drop it in an M9, so I had a bit of trepidation about using a magazine from one firearm in another firearm, no matter the other firearm’s particular lineage. However, as you can see in the following pictures, the only significant differences between the magazines occur at the baseplates (which do not exactly matter to the firearm they are inserted into, assuming the magazine is the correct length) and in the followers – the Mec-Gar has very slight differences with the Magnum Research version, and the Pro-Mag even moreso.

So then came the "dry-firing", so to speak. I took the Baby Eagle, inserted the new magazines, and racked the slide back to see if the magazine catch would function then pushed the lever down to ensure that would work as well. Satisfied that repeated tests turned out the way they should, I also ensured that pushing the magazine release caused the magazine to drop free, which it did in all cases. Finally, I loaded up the magazines with dummy rounds (you do have dummy rounds, right?) and cycled the slide repeatedly on each magazine to guarantee – as best I could in the comfort of my own home – that feeding and extraction worked as intended.

While I was at home, I broke out the trusty kitchen scale, and learned that the 10-round magazine weighed in at 3.5 ounces, the 17 weighed 3.125 ounces (!), and the 30 weighed an even 5 ounces. For reference, a single round of 117 grain 9mm ammunition weighs about 0.375 ounces, which should give you an idea for those magazines loaded. 

And that is about all I really could accomplish without having a good backstop, some live rounds, and a bit of sound insulation… so off to the range I went!

The end result was pretty straightforward – the ProMag unit is sold as a 30-round magazine on the site, but a 32-round magazine on its packaging, but so long as you only put 30 rounds in it, you will probably be ok. However, should you decide to see how far that little follower can be pushed into the magazine body and shove 33 rounds into it, you will be plagued with FTF (failure to feed) errors every other round for the first five or so. Personally, this does not bother me too much – like I said, I am not exactly going to carry these for self-defense purposes – but for those folks lucky enough to have a carbine that takes these magazines, you will need to bear it in mind.

However, given the less-than-stellar reviews ProMag magazines receive on average, I was not terribly surprised at the occasional hiccup. So what about the Mec-Gar magazines? Well, the first time through on all three of them, I encountered a single failure to lock back on one magazine, and a single FTE (failure to eject – in this case, a case stuck horizontally in the ejection port, so not a stovepipe), and that was it. After those slight issues, which I assume to be something of a "breaking in" period, all three magazines functioned flawlessly. The "anti-friction" coating (which honestly feels more like Teflon than anything else) allowed them to drop free seamlessly even when empty, the feeding never had a hiccup, and the baseplates line up almost perfectly with the butt of the pistol’s grip (Magnum Research on the left, Mec-Gar on the right). And I definitely love that the Mec-Gars had appropriately-numbered and -spaced witness holes down their right side; why this feature is not standard on pretty much every magazine in existence is beyond me.

My only real complaint is that I did not purchase these things years ago – it certainly was nice to be able to fire more rounds before having to swap or, worse, reload mags.

So, speaking exclusively from personal experience and only in relation to Mec-Gar and ProMag magazines, CZ-75 magazines will work just fine in Baby Eagles / Jericho 941s, and being able to shop from that particular pool of accessories gives you a lot more flexibility than you would have had otherwise. They may not have worked flawlessly out of the box, but no actual modifications to the magazines were necessary, and one should never adopt a piece of hardware into your "duty rotation" until you have thoroughly convinced yourself that it does, in fact, work, ameliorating the need for a "break-in" period. I am not entirely sure what other parts are common between the two platforms, but at least now you can stock up on normal-capacity magazines (something everyone should be doing both because they can and because f*ck you) without breaking the bank.

(* – Now that Magnum Research has been acquired by Kahr Arms, they import a new, improved version of the Baby Eagle, conveniently known as the Baby Desert Eagle II, incorporating better sights, a different slide release lever, and a under-barrel rail. I have every reason to believe these newer firearms are simply the next generation upgrade of mine, and most parts (including magazines) are probably interchangeable.

** – Dear EAA: frames suck. If you need any help bringing your webpage up to the 21st century where interested people can directly link to individual pages, let me know.)

(Obligatory Piss-Off to the FTC: I purchased all of the magazines used in this review with my very own money. I reviewed them because I wanted to settle the question as to whether or not CZ-75 magazines work in Baby Eagles in as public and as plain a fashion as possible, so other folks would not labor under the belief their only magazine options were limited and expensive. Given that this review is not in the "for hire" category of this site, you are respectfully invited to kiss my shiny white arse.)

I literally have nothing to add. Well except that. And this.

(Courtesy of Alan.)

I understand the need to exaggerate and embellish a little to make “good” television shows – after all, reality can be somewhat boring from time to time, and you want to ensure the people watching your show today continue watching it tomorrow and the next day.  So you tweak a few little details: you have targets explode when they are hit with nothing more than standard full-metal jacket rounds, you add gas cans in extreme circumstances to get that Hollywood-esque fireball effect, and you generally hype your firearms until they are the most awesomest thing ever.  I get it, and I can deal with it for the most part. 

What I cannot abide, however, is outright lying, and in your most-recent episode, you lied, twice, in easily verifiable fashions, on network television. 

First, this is not a “high-explosive” round for a 20mm cannon/rifle: 

As anyone with a modicum of military experience (or access to the internet) would be able to tell you, all-blue ammunition is indicative of training rounds, which are completely, entirely inert, as explained quite nicely here:  “Projectile Type: Target Practice (TP), Color of Painting:  Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue.”  For those more visually oriented, this *.pdf has a nice listing of all the main 20mm round types, and note how none of the “SAPHEI” (Semi-Armor-Piercing, High-Explosive, Incendiary), “HEI” (High-Explosive, Incendiary), or “MPT-SD” (Multi-Purpose Tracer, Self-Destruct) rounds are colored blue; in fact, if I remember my training accurately (I was never stationed on an actual “shooter” in the Navy), all high-explosive rounds have to have yellow somewhere on their round. 

So, yes, Rich Wyatt lied to his gunsmiths (who should have known better, and thus may have been in on the lie) and the American public when he set that round down on the bench, and he lied to the customer and the American public when that not-at-all-explosive round “blew up” the pile of brush at the end of the episode: 

Yeah.  No.  Nice display of remote-detonated pyrotechnics, though. 

But it went downhill from there.  Grenade launchers are tightly-controlled and regulated by the National Firearms Act as “Destructive Devices”, and grenades themselves are likewise controlled by the same piece of legislation – a background check, $200 tax stamp, and increasingly long waiting period is necessary to purchase both the grenade launcher and every single grenade.  So you can imagine my surprise when Gunsmoke and American Guns made it seem like they sold Niki Jones of Austin Sure Shots a “grenade launcher” over the counter without all of the necessary paperwork and time. 

Only it was not a grenade launcher.  It was this: 

And that, as the video clearly shows, sure as hell is not an “M203 Grenade Launcher”; in truth, that is a Spikes Tactical 37mm Flare Launcher.  As in non-explosive.  Non-lethal.  Non-regulated.  Not much more than a signaling device.  And completely incapable of creating a detonation like this: 

Hell, your average grenade launcher does not make booms like that. 

So in the end, why does this bother me so much?  Well, at the most basic level, I hate lies – there is rarely a need to break the truth this far, and the story, in this case, would not be greatly diminished with just straight-up honesty*. 

However, my dislike goes even beyond that.  Gunsmoke is now actively feeding and catering to the “gun control” extremist hysteria that anyone can simply walk into your average gun store and walk out with a grenade launcher capable of leveling a city block.  I may hate the incessant drama-llama-ing in Sons of Guns, but at least they periodically touched on the requirements and regulations NFA-controlled firearms are subject to, and did not make their transactions seem like over-the-counter nothings. 

Yes, 20mm rifles are “Destructive Devices” under the National Firearms Act, and require the purchaser to jump through all of the necessary hoops (none of which were even mentioned). 

No, civilian-legal 20mm ammunition cannot do what they showed in the television show, not even if he could get his hands on some HEI rounds. 

Yes, grenade launchers are also regulated under the NFA, and require all kinds of paperwork to transfer, as do their active ammunition. 

No, that was not a grenade launcher. 

No, that device could not have created that explosion. 

No, your average real grenade launcher could not have created that explosion. 

But now anti-rights cultists will have “definitive proof” to point to when they start screeching about how dangerous these “grenade launchers” we can supposedly buy over-the-counter (and you can buy flare launchers over-the-counter) can be, or how destructive 20mm rifles can be (and they are destructive, but not that destructive).  Thanks, idiots. 

In the future, how about you just stick to reality?  Guns are fun enough on their own without you gratuitously inflating their capabilities to the point of ridiculousness, and we have enough trouble with “gun control” extremists spreading misinformation and lies without someone like an actual gun shop helping them out by feeding them ammunition.  Stop that. 

Sincerely, 

Me.   

(* – Though, that said, I am not entirely sure where the “avalanche control engineer” can actually get HEI rounds for his 20mm, or that they would be sufficient to induce avalanches.) 

Sure, this particular model is comprised of nothing more durable than ABS plastic, acrylic, brass, and some probably-cheap kind of metal for the slide, but that is just a question of what materials you use and whether or not you are willing to pay for them and the cost it takes to mill them properly, not whether or not it is possible. CNC milling firearms has been going on for a damned long time now, and is so common and available that you can even purchase "80% receivers" that are not legally firearms, mill them out in the comfort of your own garage, and never have to serialize it with the BATFE so long as you do not sell it.

Of course, all this assumes you actually have a CNC mill, or at least a drill press, and while the former can be stupidly expensive if you are not careful, it is not like they are difficult to come by, and they are not regulated or controlled in any way, shape, or form. Which basically means that if someone had the money, they could make a fully-operational, live-firing version of the above model from the comfort of his or her own home, and no one need be the wiser (the only real hitch, even to today, is properly-rifled barrels, but if you designed that thing to accept a barrel from a pre-existing firearm, it would not be too hard).

"Gun control" is the technologically and sociologically backwards belief that you can somehow shove the figurative Djinn of Information back into his metaphorical lamp once he has been released, and that you would be morally justified in doing so. Thankfully, the carbon world has been so heavily influenced by the internet now that it, too, has started viewing censorship as damage and routing around it, to the point where people who live under some of the tightest "gun control" regulations in the world can still get within only a few steps of fabricating actual firearms in their own basements/garages.

Now we just need to work on the "moral justification" part of the equation – book-burning went out of style centuries ago, and yet that is exactly what "gun control" extremists would have us do in order to keep certain types of firearms out of the hands of law-abiding American citizens. After all, with a set of blueprints, a hunk of metal, and a mill, I could create my own "assault weapon", and that would hardly sit well with those petty tyrants if they are ever successful in passing another ban on them. The only way to stop me from doing so is to either make it illegal to own mills / drill presses (yeah, like that is going to work), or do their best to destroy the information that allows me to build the firearms in the first place.

Book burners and their sycophants have no business dictating American policy or abridging the rights of others, and examples like this just prove how futile their medieval mentalities truly are. Technology marches on, and those folks who plant their heels and cry and moan about the "dangers" of it are only accelerating their inclusion into the dustbin of history.

(Courtesy of The Firearm Blog.)

Take, for example, Penny Bernath, writing on Twitter under the rather appropriate screenname of @penny_bernath, and claiming to be a "red state liberal". A week ago, she penned the following tweet:

Randi Rhodes show: #NRA #GunViolence #RWNJ‘s on yesterday’s murders in Arizona. randirhodes.com/main.html

… and I could not help but to respond:

.@penny_bernath Apparently Randi is an idiot – the shooter in Arizona ran as a Democrat. Nothing #RWNJ about him. #NRA

For those not in the know, "RWNJ" is an abbreviation for "Right-Wing Nut Job"; however, the problem is that the Arizona shooter is about as far from "right-wing" as you can possibly get – he was a proud supporter of and activist for the "Occupy" failure, he previously ran for sheriff as a Democrat, and he had previous ties to neo-Nazism (a blatantly left-wing, socialistic organization). But, hey, Penny is not one to let the facts get in her way:

@linoge_wotc eh.. change the wording to Nut Job then. Headline should still read angry man with gun exercises his 2nd amendment rights. #NRA

Sure… the headline could read that… if you wanted to lie:

This is false. #2a doesn’t protect a non-existent "right" to murder. RT @penny_bernath exercises his 2nd amendment rights. #NRA

Unfortunately, Penny’s response should have indicated to me that any further attempts at conversation were useless:

@linoge_wotc exactly.

I disagree with her, and she thinks my disagreement proves her point? Uhm…

Predictably, her derangement went steadily downhill:

@linoge_wotc Tragic gun induced violence. Innocent people got in the way of his constitutional right. Where was their right to life/liberty.

The answer, of course, is somewhat simple:

Being infringed upon by a loony leftist murderer. RT @penny_bernath Where was their right to life/liberty.

Just because someone is infringing on your right does not mean you no longer possess that right, and this applies to both people infringing on your rights and governments. The shooter in Arizona unlawfully, unjustly, and amorally chose to ignore other people’s rights to life, and he was unquestionably, without-a-doubt wrong in that decision. But he had no "constitutional right" to infringe on their rights, his decision had absolutely nothing to do with the tool he chose to use, and his actions did not destroy those other people’s rights… only their lives, unfortunately.

At this point, the reason for this post became apparent:

@linoge_wotc again.. Shooter’s politics hardly matter in the reality of lax gun laws. Common sense matters. Life matters. Fk the #NRA

Such eloquence… Such turning of a phrase… Such a witty mind. *headdesk*

Anywise… Oh. I see. So the "shooter’s politics hardly matter" once you learn that the shooter is actually more aligned with your side of the fence than what you believe to be my side, so it is time to start… backpeddling:

@penny_bernath So the shooter’s politics mattered when he was a rightie, but not a leftie? How… transparent of you.

And how predictable. Damned near every single time some deranged nutjob takes it into his mind to go shoot up a joint, the leftists / "liberals" / "progressives" / etc. come flying out of the woodwork decrying the "right wing" "hate machine" for fueling / creating / encouraging this avatar of their alleged animosity, and holding him up as an example of how all "right wing" types are potentially evil / murderers / etc. But when that narrative gets flipped on its happy little head – even on the very person they were decrying as being "right wing", as in this case – those self-same lefties are suddenly of the opinion that the political leanings of the murderer in question "hardly matter".

I am not sure which is worse – their non-stop flailing about with fallacious stereotypes, or their rank hypocrisy.

One thing is for certain, though: they do not like being called on either:

@linoge_wotc Well you know us liberals… we believe in transparency. Are you done being rude yet? Or do I need to block you? Your choice.

Oh. Right. Sorry, I forgot – calling lefties on their blatant abuse of logic and reason is "rude". How inconsiderate of me. Or something:

.@penny_bernath So, wait, you fallaciously stereotype & don’t apologize for it, & I’m the one being "rude" by pointing that out? *giggle*

Unsurprisingly, Penny did end up blocking me, after I explained to her that I would be weblogging all of this. I guess I cannot blame her – I would not want my rank hypocrisy and bigotry exposed to the world either, which is why I do my best to keep away from such shortcomings of character.

If you will allow me to be perfectly honest for a moment (which you will, since this is my weblog), I do not give a damn what a criminal’s particular political leanings are – one person’s actions cannot be used to determine the potential actions of millions of other people. Period. I do not care if a mass murderer has the exact same social, political, and economic leanings as me, or Penny; the criminal’s actions and decisions have absolutely no bearing or predictive capabilities on what she or I will decide to do with our lives.

But, then, I tend to believe in these little things called "free will" and "individual responsibility". On the other hand, Penny, with her obvious attempt at shifting her own personal responsibility for blocking me onto me when the truth is it was her decision to make, obviously does not… which may be where the disconnect lies.

If that is not terribly clear (and, unfortunately, it is not), she set it on her desk, as visible here: 

Well, as I might have mentioned before, Dragon Leatherworks produced that fine piece of leather craftsmanship… but here is the cool thing:  Starting on 01JUN12 (June 1st, 2012, for you non-military types), Dragon Leatherworks is going to start producing Abby Sciuto’s Lunchbox for you to buy, complete with a certificate of authenticity!  The only catch is that they will only be producing 500 lunchbox, so if you want one, you are going to move fast. 

As I have said before, I do not really watch the show, so I cannot say as though I know a great deal about the characters, but I am given to understanding that Abby is quite popular amongst certain fans, so feel free to spread the word wide and far… so long as you get your order in, of course! 

Look, so long as everyone involved is legally an adult, consenting, and not being hurt against their wills, it is simply none of your business – or the government’s – who is boinking whom, who has signed a contractual agreement with whom, or any of that nonsense (up to and including who is ingesting what kind of chemicals/substances). As soon as someone other than the voluntarily participating parties are being detrimentally harmed in some specific, measurable, quantifiable fashion, then you can start sticking your bureaucratic, officious nose in where it might possibly belong.

Until then, piss off.

The government simply needs to get out of the "marriage" business, in its entirety – yes, I know full well what that could mean, but damned near everything short of whatever tax benefits you might receive for being married can instead be handled by properly drafted and executed contracts, powers of attorney, and other legal documents between the involved parties. So long as those parties are consenting, and so long as their religious shepherd (if applicable) is likewise amenable to the situation, who the hell are you to deny them a basic human right (the freedom of association, to be specific) on account of their anatomies being more alike than not?

And, for that matter, how are your objections any better, or any different, than those raised by pre-1967 bigots who pulled nearly identical stunts about mixed-race marriage? You do realize you just made them your ideological brothers, right?

(Amusingly (at least if you do not pay attention to the actual, core issues), it is only through my pro-self-defense activism that I was able to reach this conclusion. After all, the right to self-defense is a natural outgrowth of both our rights to life and our rights to choose, and I cannot adequately defend and respect the former without doing the same for the latter two. Likewise, the right to enter into consensually enter into contracts with other persons of legal age (And what is marriage, in the eyes of the government, except a contract?) is a direct outgrowth of that right to choose, and, as such, it would be internally and logically inconsistent of me. I try to avoid that.)

I am, however, slightly disappointed that no one seems to have caught on to – or at least commented on – the subtext in the second one…

Anywise, as I said in comments over at Borepatch’s, rights do not need a reason to be exercised, and to expand on that point, if someone is asking you for a reason, you can rest assured that person is searching for a way to deny you that right.

Well, I am very happy to say that my box from 5.11 arrived today!  What’s that you say?  “They weren’t supposed to ship until 01SEP?”  Well, I guess I knew how to pull a few figurative strings, huh? 

So are you ready to see how things turned out? 

….

….

….

….

Well, here you go: 

What?  I never actually said the kilt was in the box!  There was a code for a free hat with any purchase over $XX, and darned if I am not a fan of “free” things.  I am, however, somewhat amused that they actually forked over the necessary money to ship this thing to me – FedEx, at that – ahead of the actual kilts… 

And speaking of The Avengers, if you want a belt like what Agent Nick Fury wore in the movie (as seen on the right), speaking from experience, Endeavor Stitchworks makes ones that are pretty darned close. I have been wearing mine for over a year now, and have been quite satisfied indeed.

For those curious, the buckle on the belts is (or is meant to look like, in the movie’s case) a AustriAlpin Cobra Quick Release, which is basically a load-bearing (up to 21kN/4800lbs for some models), bad-ass, tough-as-nails version of the ubiquitous side release buckles you find on everything from backpacks to paracord bracelets. Seems appropriate for the character.

Interestingly, while I could not find any pictures of it online, it would appear as though Fury also uses Cobra buckles on the leg straps for his drop-leg holster rig. Might as well be consistent, I suppose.

One belt certainly will not make you as much of a bad-ass as Agent Fury is, but it does make a pretty good place to hang your holster.

(And, yes, I notice these kinds of things in movies. Sue me.)

(Obligatory "Screw You" to the FTC: Yes, Endeavor Stitchworks did provide me one of their 1.5" Cobra Gun Belts for review purposes a year ago; I wrote that review, and that was the end of our business relationship. This post is written solely because I like the product, and there was a convenient congruence with a recent movie.)

(All that said, damnit, Joss, STOP THAT.)

Really, I have no particular use for a 30-round magazine for my Baby Eagle (no carbines take its magazines, I would not carry such a magazine (where would I put it?), and the damned thing weighs a ton when fully loaded regardless) but some halfwitted petty totalitarians decided that us “average” Americans should not be allowed to purchase/own such a device, so I adopted the attitude that founded this country and proceeded to make it great: screw you, I am doing it my way. 

I wonder if anti-rights cultists will ever understand that small quirk in human, and, specifically, American, psychology… how many previous non-gun-owners or “hunting” gun owners went out and stocked up on “assault weapons” before that ill-fated and completely useless ban was enacted?  How well did firearm sales uptick before the last election, when a candidate with a strong anti-firearm stance stood a very good chance of winning, and did? 

The more folks scream about something, the more interested other folks get in it.  This is not hard to grasp. 

Speaking of thought process failures, my owning a normal-capacity magazine / “high-capacity magazine” hurts precisely no one, but “gun control” extremists do not seem capable of comprehending the differences between malum prohibitum and malum in se crimes, and the general stupidity of trying to regulate an inanimate device, or, worse, people’s actions, on the basis of the former.  On the other hand, if I am ever faced with 25 pipe-wielding thugs trying to bash through a storefront’s windows and assault the customers, you can bet your ass I want as many rounds on me as I can possibly carry. 

Interestingly, if I were to load up all three of those “smaller” magazines, and have one in the pipe, I would be carrying two more rounds than your average box of ammunition can hold, which is the ultimate plan once I secure a holster and mag carrier for the Baby Eagle.  The 30 was literally just for fun. 

Maybe I am missing something, and maybe there is a rational explanation for all of this, and in either case, I will be more than willing to revisit this post, or completely retract if if someone can provide those absent details.  But, for the time being, here is how it is. 

Back on 05APR12, I placed an order for one of their Yugo Type 1 AK Pistol Grips in Walnut for my new Vera.  As you can see, their online storefront clearly shows 17 units in stock at the time of writing this post.  Shortly after placing the order, I received an order confirmation email from Weaponeer.net indicating that they had received my order and would be processing it shortly. 

Since then… nothing. 

In fairness, my credit card has not been charged; however, they have not responded to an email I sent to the address that sent me the invoice (gary (at) weaponeer.net), nor the email address they say to contact them at (boss (at) weaponeer.net), nor have they responded to a direct message on their forums (and, yes, I had to go out of my way to create an account on their forums to try to contact the admin account). 

Look, folks, I am trying to give you my money, and you are making it damned hard for me to do so. 

Unless you are willing to wait – apparently forever – for your product, I would recommend finding a source other than Weaponeer.net, which is rather unfortunate, honestly.