Range Report: 100m Edition

A rainy day at the range today.  On a positive note, I had it to myself, and could call a cease fire whenever I wanted!

Aguila (Mexican) 55gr.:

Pretty typical.  It’s grouping wasn’t particularly bad, but for some reason it shoots way to the left of anything else I’ve ever used.

There’s a metaphor in here somewhere . . .

Black Hills Seconds 55gr.:

My goal at 100m is a four-inch group, and this met it.

DRS FMJ1F 55gr. reloads:

Still a top performer.  But DRS only reloads what it can get, and I haven’t seen them offer this again.

MFS (Russian) Rem SP 62gr.

Blech!  Definitely not worth the $.50 per round.

PMC Bronze 55gr.:

Never been more than a plinker.

PMC X-Tac 55gr.:

Wow!  That’s tighter than it did at 50m, suspiciously good for what’s always been one of my weakest performers.  I may have got it confused with something else.  That was the last of my stock, though, and I don’t plan on buying more

Precision Cartridge “Range Pack” 55gr.:

Plinker.

The Brass Kings 55gr.:

Not sure what to make of this.  An excellent 3-shot and two way outliers.  Wish I could make it shoot 1-inch groups every time!

The Brass Kings “Metal Piercing” 62gr.:

Not worth the $.57 per I paid, but I can’t help wonder if I got my ammo confused again.

WPA (Russia) “Military Classic” HP 62gr.:

Mmm . . . You may remember that this shot low at 50m, but it surprises me that it’s shooting low at 100m.  Normally, .223 sighted in at 50m should be still arcing upward at 100m.

All in all, a pretty good day shooting.  Everything did better than it has historically; perhaps I’m making marginal improvement as a rifleman?

I’m SO not ready for this . . .

My oldest wore high heels for the first time the other day.

Oh.  My.  GOD!!!

Range Report – Leftovers Edition

Another day shooting, another bunch of pictures.  Many of these will look familiar.

Black Hills Seconds 55gr.:

That was a little better than last time, I think.

Dallas Reloading Service (DRS) FMJ1F (a.k.a “Lake City”) 55gr.:

That was not as good as last time, not even close.

PMC Bronze 55gr.

Suspiciously good.  My bet is that this is actually the DRS, plus the missing round from this one:

Precision Cartridge “Range Pack” reloads 55gr.

A good shooting instructor would be able to diagnose a technique problem when the rounds are lined up like that.  Hale?

PMC X-Tac 55gr.

Same kind of top-to-bottom pattern.  I had a few leftover from back when it was really cheap.

Sellier & Bellot (Czech) no 2914, 55gr.

I finally shot the last of that.  It was never a consistent performer.

The Brass Kings reloads 55gr.

This is a new one, picked up at the gun show for $.31 per round.  At that price, it’s hard to complain.  Good plinking ammo.

The Brass Kings “Metal Piercing” reloads 62gr.

Their 62gr ammo is tighter, but at $.51 per, not really worth the extra cost.

WPA (Russia) “Military Classic” HP 62gr.

Wolf’s Russian steel case continues to come in strong.  This variant was only $.38 per, not a bad price for 62gr. hollow-point.

MFS Rem SP (Russia) 62gr.

Assuming the wild shot in the upper right is my fault, the grouping here isn’t bad.  But I paid a premium for this stuff, so I don’t really think it’s worth it.

PMC Precision 75gr.

Slightly worse than usual; maybe I was getting tired at the end of the day.  It’s still my favorite ammo, although the lowest online price I can find is $1 per.  I could get this for $.75 per a year ago.  I suppose I should be grateful I can get it at all.

I think I’m ready to try 100m again.  Note to self:  crank the sights four clicks to the right.

The Seventh-grade Social Hierarchy

Even though I am only in seventh grade my school has a complex social hierarchy. 

• At the top we have the popular kids.  This group consists of cheer leaders and the foot ball players.
  

• Next we have what is known as semi-populars witch consists of some of the sports teams and my group.
  

• Then we have the normal kids this group of people is the biggest.
  

• Last we have the losers a rather small group of people.
  

This is the seventh grade social caste system.

I myself am lucky enough to be semi popular. My group is the biggest we out number the popular kids by a few.  the reason we are semi popular is because two of my friends.  One of them is Regina.  She is the person to know if you want to know what's going on.  if it weren't for Insanis the crazy person in our group she would be more popular than the popular girls.  that's why they hate her.  she has the ability to upset the balance.  the other influential person is Jucunda. everybody likes her, even the populars. 

In my group of about 20 kids I am part of the inner circle.  anything that happens I will be one of the first to know  very little information is held back.  its an advantage that I have made use of many times.

Basically we are well known by all but I'm just glad that I have friends.  My dad didn't.

Pissing Away the Yogurt

From the inbox:

From: LEADERSHIP
To: PEONAGE
Subject: FW: Chobani Greek Yogurt (contains hemp seed- do not use)

I'm sending this email to inform you of a food item that needs to be avoided called Chobani Greek Yogurt. It contains Hemp Seeds which according to AFI 44-121, para. 3.2.2., studies have shown that products made with hemp seed and hemp seed oil may contain varying levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an active ingredient of marijuana which is detectable under the AF Drug Testing Program. In order to ensure military readiness, the ingestion of products containing or products derived from hemp seed or hemp seed oil is prohibited. Failure by military personnel to comply with the prohibition on the ingestion of products containing or products derived from hemp seed or hemp seed oil is a violation of Article 92, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)."

Please pass this information on to your personnel so they can avoid getting a potential positive drug use for THC.

Drug Demand Reduction Program Manager

First some background.  My only dogmatic assertion with respect to the legalization of drugs is that, on the grounds of simple humanity, cancer patients ought to be given access to marijuana.  Other than that, I’m mostly agnostic about how the costs and benefits of the War on Drugs, but I also don’t want to be much bothered by it personally.  By this I mean that while I don’t have any a priori objection to drug laws, I have substantial objection to the militarization of police tactics, the weakening of Fourth Amendment protections, and the apparent ability of the War on Drugs to wag the dog of the regulatory state.

Which brings us to the present case.  The email doesn’t say specifically, but if Chobani Greek Blueberry Power yogurt has any psychoactive effect, the internet doesn’t seem to know about it.  Rather, the “military readiness” issue is that, consumed in sufficient quantities, Blueberry Power will show up as THC during random urinalysis.*   So the motivation is strictly to protect the integrity of the testing protocol rather than concern over any actual impairment.

The government overreach implicated in banning a harmless product because its testing regimen isn’t good enough to distinguish yogurt from mind-altering substances is apparently lost on the people who make decisions about such things.  It doesn’t seem to occur to them that if their testing is inadequate, it ought to be incumbent on them to devise a better test rather than further regulate our lives to serve the defective test.

* Add random (as opposed to “for cause”) urinalysis to the list of things about drug abuse prevention that I oppose.  I am skeptical that “military readiness” is served by having enlisted men watch officers take member in hand and pee in a plastic cup. 

Tax Dollars at Work and Play

I had free Tai food the other day.  And all I had to do was endure an hour of anti-White racial agitation to get it.

Mai Nguyen is the founding director of the Asian/Hispanic/Native American Center at Wright State University and the founding president of Ohio Consortium of Multicultural Centers in Higher Education (OCMCHE).  In reckless disregard for irony, Ms. Nguyen, a refugee from Vietnam, has made a nice living for herself giving lectures on how evil White people treated Asians.  Waylaid by an Asian friend, I found myself listening to one of these lectures at the government’s Asian Pacific Island something-or-other.  Hey, free food!

The bête noire of the Ms. Nguyen, is – wait for it – immigration restriction, and in particular the Immigration Act of 1924, although she does take time to discuss the WWII internment of Japanese.  Her narrative was one of immigrant flows from a succession of Asian countries, each in turn provoking nativist backlash and restriction.

Several thoughts come to mind.

The audience was comprised mostly of Asians (though not entirely; I surprised at the number of Caucasians in attendance).  Since they had security clearances, they were, to a man, American citizens in good standing.  So whatever our restrictions on Asian immigration, those restrictions were definitionally not offenses against these Asians or their ancestors.  So why should they be upset?

But of course, I’m not that naïve.  I know exactly why they’re upset:  they racially identify with the greater transnational Asian community.  On the one hand, in the context of the present state of American culture and politics, this is entirely understandable.

On the other hand, it aggravates the perils of immigration under our present circumstances.  Leave aside the problematic implications of celebrations of ethnic pride for American unity in general.  Here we have a group of people who, by virtue of their above-average intelligence, orderliness, and industry, have been quite successful here in America.  Yet instead of celebrating that success, nor even opposing the real and ongoing discrimination they face in most college admissions to the benefit of blacks and Hispanics, they instead nurture hatred against its historic (i.e., white) majority because, once upon a time, we tried to keep our own country.

What’s in this for me and my children?  How does it benefit them to allow immigration to enlarge a group that is growing in both economic power and hostility to whites?

Mmm . . . I’m not sure that the usual people will like the potential application of this logic.  Forget I said anything.

The Thai food was catered.  Thai food isn’t really to my tasted, but you can’t argue with free.  Our plates were prepared by young Thai girls of limited English proficiency.  I spoke with one:

How long have you been in the U.S.?

Five years.

How do you like living here?

Eh . . . [Non-committal head movements.]

This was obviously a family restaurant.  I’m curious as to her visa status, or indeed her lawful presence here.  I’m also wondering how much personal choice she had in coming or remaining.

Another Range Day

Grrr . . . I managed to accidently delete the photos of three targets from the shooting session, including a new one:  WPA Military Classic (Wolf, I think), a 62 gr. hollow point I picked up for $.39 per.  But here are the ones I didn’t delete.

PMC Precision 75 gr.:

Still my best performer.  I like shooting this match-grade ammo as it tells me that my lousy performance elsewhere is the fault of the cheap ammo.  The downside is that I haven’t seen this ammo available at any price in a while.

PMC Bronze 55 gr.:

I’d like to count the one in the bull’s eye as a double hole.  Yeah, that’s it . . .

The Brass Kings (reloads) 55 gr.:

My first time shooting this.  Not sure what to think.  One of the holes on the left probably belongs to PMC precision when I accidently shot at the wrong target.  The two on the right may be sloppy shooting.  We’ll have to see how it holds up.

MFS SP 62 gr.:

I only squeezed off two rounds before a cease fire was called, although if these turn out to be representative then it’s not worth its relatively expensive price.

We’ll keep trying . . .

Just For Fun

school is always very amusing.  some people are espetialy funny here are quotes from them


"This is Sparta!!"  "No this is Athens!"  "Oh, it is?  Oh darn"

"I've snapped...like a glow stick" "ok Regina you have to calm down and do math"  "Like a glow stick!!"


  "Oh no I seemed to have dropped my extremely poisonous spider!  Oh well what harm could it do!"


"you know if I was born in France.....I'd be French!"   "Oh, bravo."


"But I like the mushrooms, they make me feel special."


"you know if you took all the people in the world and stretched them across the equator end to end most of the people in the world would drown."


"If you took all your veins out of your body and tied all their ends together, you would die."


of all these quotes there's one more that takes the cake its the one that occurred between jocus and I.

"Come here Aquilla."      "Why?"      "Because."      "should I trust you?"       "Right on this red line."       "Ok so what is it?"       "Would you like a cookie?"       "No thank you jocus."       "I think you would like a cookie."       "No I'm pretty sure I don't."       "I'm pretty sure you do."         "No I don't."    "Yes you do."      "No I don't."         "Would you like chocolate chip or double chocolate chip?"         "I don't want a cookie."  "What about gingerbread? strawberry shortcake?"        "I don't want a cookie!"       "How about a cupcake?"       "I don't like cupcakes."       "What about cake?"       "I don't like cake."       "At least have a loaf of bread."       "No."       "It's banana chocolate chip."     "No."

 This went on for 5 minuets. Meanwhile ludus  was laughing so hard he was choking.

Nothing like a bit of silliness to brighten up a day.

Illegal Imigration in SS

A few days ago my SS teacher asked a fun question.  "please think of three ways to set our country back on track"   My partner  furor came up with these three things.

1. get rid of Obama.
2. stop paying the government.
3. use the money to start paying of the debt.

When our SS teacher came by and asked what we had so far she told him and he said to come up with something else.  Furor turned to me and said "Aquilla you come up with something!"  "Me? but my ideas are evil."  She just looked at me.

So when my SS teacher told our group to share what we had I promptly said, "I think we should stop illegal immigration and take our troops out of Afghanistan because we finished what we went there to do and instead use these troops to defend our border."

Everyone stared at me and there was not a sound in the room.

My SS teacher broke the silence "Why do you think that illegal immigration is a problem."

I thought quickly and came up with some reasons using what we had been learning,  "One they decrease the overall health of our country two the cause unemployment and three they are contributing to inflation."
 More stunned silence, then my SS teacher said thoughtfully, "You might have a point."


All in all I'd say this was worth it if only because I got them all to think.

Full Faith and Credit

From Volokh, quoting Blackwell v. Haslam:

This appeal involves the Full Faith and Credit Clause and firearm rights. The petitioner was convicted of felony drug offenses in Georgia. The State of Georgia granted the petitioner a full pardon for his crimes; his Georgia pardon expressly restored his right to possess a firearm.

The petitioner now resides in Tennessee. A Tennessee statute provides that it is a felony for a person who has been convicted of a felony drug offense to possess a firearm, and it does not make an exception for persons who have been pardoned for their crime. The petitioner filed this declaratory judgment action against the State of Tennessee, seeking a declaration that, because he received a pardon for his drug offenses in Georgia, he can purchase or possess a firearm in Tennessee without violating the Tennessee statute.

The trial court held in favor of the petitioner, concluding that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution requires Tennessee to recognize Georgia’s pardon in full and to permit the petitioner to carry a firearm in Tennessee. The State of Tennessee now appeals.

On appeal, we consider the public-policy exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause. We hold that Tennessee’s public policy on the restoration of firearm rights for a convicted non-violent drug felon is not entirely inconsistent with Georgia’s public policy, so the public-policy exception to full faith and credit is not applicable in that situation. However, Tennessee public policy proscribes the restoration of firearm rights for a convicted violent drug felon, contrary to Georgia’s public policy allowing the restoration of firearm rights for all felons, violent or not. This Tennessee policy implicates public safety so as to warrant application of the public-policy exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause under the appropriate circumstances....

As one of Volokh’s commenters pointed out, this case rather directly implicates the recognition in traditional marriage states of gay marriages procured in other states.  I don’t want to seem naive here:  our lawless judiciary will reason on gun control and gay marriage as necessary to get what it wants on gun control and gay marriage.  That said, it’s pretty obvious that traditional marriage states have public policy exceptions to gay marriage, and their option to preserve marriage against other states is specifically granted in what remains of DOMA.

Harassment Geo Markers

From FoxNews:

Gun Geo Marker app tries to locate homes, businesses of gun owners

A new Android app asks users to expose the home addresses of gun owners they deem “potentially unsafe” -- and share that information with the world.

Although I am plenty annoyed with the media sport of publishing list of registered gun or CCW owners, I will concede that at least these lists have the virtue of being verifiable public records.  Publishing our names may be a wonton violation of our privacy and a ham-fisted effort at intimidation , but at least in my case its hardly a secret, and if there has been an actual case of victimization (burgled guns, say) traced to the publication of these lists, I’m not aware of it.

But the Gun Geo Marker app is not only not verified, it is specifically libelous:  they want people to identify “unsafe” gun owners, and neither their app nor the website allows its targets to appeal or contest that designation.

The potential for mischief is significant, but not as large as it could be.  The app doesn’t allow the user to flag a particular address, but only the place where the user happens to be standing at the time.  So I can’t flag someone across town; indeed, the zoom function is limited to the phone’s surrounding area.  I can see all of Φ’s lily-white little burg, but not much else, and I can’t pan around.

Still, the political agenda is specified on their website:

[Y]ou should not be concerned merely because your neighbors are a member of any national gun advocacy organization. The actual threat – just to cite the best known org – that the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its kin present to you and your children is political. This can be seen clearly in their consistent opposition to gun safety laws that would, for example, require parents to properly secure their guns, allow prosecutors to bring charges against people who allow kids to play with loaded guns, or when they help pass laws prohibiting doctors from asking children about guns in the home in an epidemiological attempt to help prevent children from shooting other children. In spite of all of this this, you should recall that the NRA also provides high quality safety training as a public service to its members, and that this increases general gun safety. It is safe to say that serious NRA members and their homes should normally be of no concern to you, even as their political radicalism helps makes the gun violence epidemic worse. Even if it is likely – and it is – that an NRA bumper sticker indicates that a gun is stored in the home, you might also notice that such owners have already self-identified to the public, and most certainly have nothing to hide. It may be redundant to place an electronic mark near their property when they are already marking themselves.

Um . . . okay.  So what places should be marked?

Unlocked, loaded, or carelessly stored weapons

Note that while people who keep loaded firearms in their home should not necessarily have their location marked as a gun owner of concern, studies do show conclusively that guns in the home greatly increase the chances of death by gunfire for the owner, family members and visitors. This is especially the case with guns kept unlocked and loaded for “personal safety.” Bear in mind that guns for personal safety can be maintained safely. Also note that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that owning a gun for personal safety is a right protected by the second amendment. Nevertheless, unlocked, loaded or carelessly stored weapons should generally be treated with concern by friends, neighbors and visitors. The locations of such careless owners should probably be marked so that others can make an informed decision.

I’m not sure what to make of a paragraph bracketed by “should not necessarily” and “should probably”.  Too bad the writer doesn’t elaborate on how personal defense weapons are to be “maintained safely” if not unlocked and loaded.

There are a number of cases in which a decision about whether or not to mark the location is much less obvious. People who stockpile large arsenals or numerous assault weapons for reasons other than collecting are likely a concern. Bumper stickers or other public displays supporting gun ownership are not a problem, but when combined with radical anti-government propaganda and/or representations of paranoid political beliefs or support for terrorist organizations, these owners and their locations may well be worth marking. Again, such gun owners may or may not be of concern, and your decision may relate to how “out of place” or unstable the situation feels.

Terrorist?  Because terrorists wear bumper-stickers?  No, the real target here is obviously the TEA Party and conservative-libertarians in general.

Happily, my house hasn’t been marked yet.

UPDATE: On further attempted use, the Harassment Geo Marker is off the air amidst much whining about mean mean gun owners.

Impositions

From The Blaze:

Hobby Lobby Just Scored a Major Victory Against Obamacare

Jun. 27, 2013 3:18pm Becket Adams

DENVER (AP) — In a health care decision giving hope to opponents of the federal birth-control coverage mandate, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Hobby Lobby stores won’t have to start paying millions of dollars in fines next week for not complying with the requirement.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver decided the Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain can proceed with its case and won’t be subject to fines in the meantime.

So . . . not that major a victory.  Just not being penalized while they have their day in court.

The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that allowing for-profit corporations to exempt themselves from requirements that violate their religious beliefs would be in effect allowing the business to impose its religious beliefs on employees.

Right.  Kind of like how the Obama administration stood up for pharmacy employees who objected to dispensing abortifacients. 

Except . . . oops.  In that case, the Obama administration was all in favor of employers violating their employees’ religions beliefs.

Fun fact:  The Windows Live Writer spell checker is telling me that the word “abortifacient” doesn’t exist.