Category: RKBA

Monday Links

June 17, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This week is a bit long. Reason starts us out.

First, a couple of articles relating to Hunter Biden’s conviction. One on the constitutional question of his conviction. I lean on the charge is bullshit, because I think the whole premise of banning people who might use drugs is bullshit. If they had convicted him on having the weapon on him while intoxicated, that would be a more reasonable charge. Anyways, this whole thing goes back to the infamous laptop, and we have an article on the media’s failure to own up to its mistakes on their coverage.

Reason covers the secret recordings of Alito done “Project Veritas”-style. The best descriptor of this story is that it’s a Rorsach test of your political priors.

Maybe charging teens with felonies for vandalism isn’t a good idea. Particularly if you’re going to ramp up the charges because you’re offended. Particularly in light of your failure to react the same when it wasn’t one of your sacred images.

On the good news front, preliminary UCR data shows deep declines in crime. More indications we’re coming out of the crazy that was the COVID lockdowns. I blame the lockdowns more for the sharp uptick in crime, and it looks like we’re trending back to baseline, at least in terms of crime.

Trump announced he wants to exempt tips from income tax. On one hand, I like this because it reduces the amount of bullshit reporting people have to do – or put them in jeopardy if they forget to do. On the other hand, I don’t trust Trump to get anything done if he’s elected (ask the gun lobby how much legislation they managed to get signed). On the gripping hand, I’m not sure I like the downstream impacts – either on the federal deficits or how wages will get structured in the labor market.

Let’s ban flavored vaping for the children! What do you mean teen smoking goes up in response? Is vaping a good habit to have? Probably not. Is it orders of magnitude better than smoking tobacco? Fuck yes. I swear, public health officials should be forced to take real economics. You know, the one where you learn there are no perfect solutions, only more optimal trade-offs.

Going on to other news.

I have a Ground News aggregation on how US soldiers are nine times more likely to die by suicide than combat action. Suicide is an epidemic in our society. Particularly for those of us who fear getting help will result in our guns or livelihoods being taken away. For gunnies, I’m going to recommend going to the Walk The Talk America site.

More Fulton County drama, but this time in the Young Thug trial. The judge wanted to jail the defense attorney for contempt after said attorney refused to disclose how he learned about an exparte meeting between the judge and the prosecution. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed that. Still, the defense lawyer made the baller statement of if the judge was going to throw him in jail, could he be jailed with his client so they could work on his defense?

The NYT reports on the FAA investigating how titanium used in Boeing and Airbus airliners came from a questionable Chinese source with fraudulent documents. One wonders how many more body blows Boeing can suffer before the company gets radically realigned.

Speaking of the NYT, the Economist did an investigation on if the NYT bestseller list is politically biased. To almost no one’s surprise, it is. (Paywall warning.)

AP reports that Armenia is getting tired of Russia’s shit and is withdrawing from their “security alliance”. Considering the recent series of conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, I’m concerned this is the first step before a major flare-up.

The Firearms Blog reports a San Antonio officer was put on indefinite suspension after he took home guns from a recent buyback.

A story going around the local stations reporting that half of parents who visit Disney end up in debt from the trip. Okay, yeah, Disney’s been jacking up prices for years. However, I look at this as more of an indictment of young families budgeting ability.

Let’s go on to some lighter items.

War is Boring looks at deploying military tech, including drones and helicopters, to deal with – feral hogs. I’ll be honest, going on a hog hunt is one of those things I’d like to do.

Finally, The Verge has a look at the Excel World Championship in Vegas.

Monday Links

June 3, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Let’s start off with our normal slew of Reason links.

Obligatory article on Trump conviction. Do I think that anyone else but Trump would have been brought to trial on this flimsy of a legal theory? No. Do I think this demonstrates the abuse a prosecutor can do with his powers? Yes. Do I think this could have all been avoided if Trump just kept it in his pants and not cheated on his wife? Also yes.

Obligatory article on the unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of the NRA. Again, give the government enough power, and officials will abuse it.

Oh look, Fauci was caught trying to evade FOIA. This happens way too often. And it only makes the news when it’s someone prominent.

Gorsuch rails against Florida’s use of six-person juries. This one I don’t understand. What does it matter if it’s six or twelve? But I’m willing to be convinced. Maybe a tiered system. Civil and misdemeanors use six, minor felonies use eight, and major felonies have twelve.

Jumping minimum wage up to $20/hr has bad effects. Shocked Pikachu face.

A couple of Ground News aggregations.

That deputy who shot an airman who answered the door with a gun? Yeah, he’s fired. Now to see if he’s prosecuted.

China convicted 14 pro-democracy Hong Kong protestors.

Now on to other news stories.

You think you know how SEO works for the Google algorithm? Probably not, according to some leaked documents.

An article on Exo-Squad. That was such a great cartoon.

Here’s an interview with one of the creators of Magic: The Gathering.

NRA Finally Starting to Heal?

May 29, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Last week was the NRA Annual Meeting. The big news wasn’t the guns introduced – which I didn’t hear much about. It was how the leadership elections played out.

The best sources are John Richardson’s No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money blog and Stephen Gutowski’s The Reload. Both have the blow by blow of the elections and the fight over moving the headquarters from Virginia to Texas. (That one got spicy fast).

The TLDR. Although the establishment managed to elect Bob Barr as NRA President, the First and Second VP slots, as well as the EVP/CEO slot went to reformers. Moreover, the new EVP/CEO, Doug Hamlin has started shaking up things and reminding the NRA staff that they are there for the members. That they need to regain the members’ trust.

Those are very good first steps. The revelations of the previous regime’s shenanigans resulted in plunging membership (and revenues) as well as soaring legal bills. Extremely bad for an organization to continue being a going concern.

I am cautiously optimistic. I’m going to watch to see what Mr. Hamlin does over the next six months. If he continues to make these kinds of reforms, I’ll rejoin the NRA.

Monday Links

May 27, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day weekend. There will be a bit of tab clearing since we didn’t have a links post last week.

I’ve got a slew of Reason articles to start.

A look into how bad science is keeping bad regulations around nuclear power. We need more nuclear power. Because we need more power. Because we need to reduce our dependence on oil. Not just climate change, but because of the politics and other environmental hazards of oil.

A look at how zoning regulations empower the people we don’t want to have power.

Surprise, surprise, the real reason for self-checkout bans is not the stated reason of stopping theft. Incentives matter, and that doesn’t change once the issue becomes political.

No, Super Size Me was not a documentary. It was a bullshit publicity stunt that did nothing to address what it purported to address. Other than getting Mickey D’s to change it’s branding.

NYT says that looser gun laws caused the spike in homicides. Um, yeah. Keep thinking that.

This one about a New York man being convicted of building guns made the rounds of the gunblogs, but here’s Reason’s coverage. The judge telling the defense the Second Amendment doesn’t work here was surprisingly unsurprising.

Now on to other sources.

From Ground News, we have an aggregation of Uvalde parents suing Meta, Microsoft, and Daniel Defense because the bad guy was on Facebook, played Call of Duty, and used a DD rifle. I’m kinda glad the plaintiffs are pulling in Meta and Microsoft, as they can slap down those better than Daniel Defense.

From 404 Media – all those nifty northern lights that folks were able to see earlier this month? Yeah, that same coronal storm caused issues with tractors talking with GPS, which has resulted in issues with planting. Which will definitely have some downstream effects in the food supply chain.

Nature published an op-ed decrying climate scientists being climate activists. This has been one of the big problems with doing anything about climate change. The moment you step out of being a neutral dispenser of information to a partisan, whatever information you provide is degraded. Either because a swath of the population will no longer believe you, or your information becomes shaded. Because incentives matter.

Ars Technica has an article on a company that had its Google Cloud account completely wiped out. Including the backups. Fortunately, the company had backups other than Google, but it’s an interesting case study.

Via The Brother, here’s the transcript from a talk Bert Hubert delivered on Cyber Security and war.

From the local TV station, we have an article about a homeowner who killed an intruder, by stabbing him, after the intruder shot her in the face. In a fight for your life, don’t stop until you can’t fight anymore. Or the threat is stopped.

Monday Links

April 29, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Reason links first:

Another reminder that cops have no duty to protect you.

Gasp, politicians helped killed the Amazon / iRobot deal. Can I tell you how much this annoyed me?

The Supreme Court is taking a look at another case of the ATF’s flexible rule making. This one involving so-called ghost guns. Or as we refer to them, unfinished parts.

FCC is bringing back net neutrality. Because we have to solve a problem that has never happened.

And the FTC is banning non-compete agreements, even though that may be beyond their powers. Okay, I can understand non-competes where you could bring trade secrets to a competitor. I can also understand wanting to stop non-competes being blanket issued on all employment contracts including fast food workers. Still think this should have been passed by Congress, not the FTC.

Colorado told HOA’s they can’t ban home businesses.

Now, on to the Ground News aggregations:

A quarter of adults over 50 say they don’t expect to retire.

The feds don’t think Putin ordered Navalny’s death. Okay, fine. But I’m good with using the felony murder rule.

Ukraine pulled its new-to-them Abrams tanks after losing some to drones. We are seeing the rules of warfare change on the fields of Ukraine and in the streets of Gaza. I doubt that tanks have been supplanted, but they will have to learn how to survive.

A company wants to build submersible superyachts. It reminded me of a wild-eyed scheme that The Brother and I once had to turn old Soviet Typhoon-class boomers into luxury cruise ships. You know, because they already had a pool built into them.

Now on to some other stories:

One of the local stations reports that the last big owner of Clearwater properties not tied to the Church of Scientology has sold out to someone with ties to Scientology. Clearwater is pretty much the company town for the Church.

John Richardson reports that Marion Hammer’s contract with the NRA has been quietly canceled. I’m kind of unsympathetic to someone who helped loot the organization that I dutifully paid into for many, many years.

The Verge has an article on Home Assistant. Ward Manor currently runs the Echo ecosystem for its smart home needs because they’re relatively cheap and easy to use. I’m not against switching to something that would work just as well without getting Amazon’s ads and curated articles pumped in.

Angry Staff Officer has another great article mixing science fiction properties and modern military theory.

Time for light items.

For ten grand, you too can have a robot dog with a flamethrower.

Space Battleship Yamato is celebrating its 50-year anniversary with new sequels.

The Quintessential Quintuplets are coming out with a new movie.

Monday Links

April 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Some of these are a little older, as I haven’t had the links post for the past couple of weeks. So, this is also kind of a browser tab dump.

The Reason segment:

Colorado decided not to join the blue wave in expanding the types of “sensitive places” where concealed carry would be forbidden.

Congress wants to limit credit card swipe fees. When they did that for debit cards, a bunch of companies dumped their rewards programs. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see brand new fees put in place.

Voters push back on sales tax to build stadium. I wish this would happen more. Particularly since the Tampa Bay area is looking at least one new “community-financed” sports arena in the next decade.

Now on to Ground News aggregations:

Several dead in a “mass stabbing” in Australia. While I can’t say a CCW in that instance would have helped the situation (although it has in the US), I wish that the Aussies had that option.

Anti-vaxxers are threatening elimination status of measles. Sweet FSM, it’s like everyone wants to drag us into the before times. I blame both sides for their bullshit on the COVID vaccine now spilling over to much more deadly diseases.

Zimbabwe has a new idea for combating rampant inflation – back their currency with gold. I’m not a gold bug, but I like the idea of taking some of the power away from central banks to artificially inflate the currency by “adding some zeroes.”

Microsoft learned from it’s Internet Explorer fight and is unbundling Teams from Office before getting dragged into litigation. Which is stupid, but unsurprising considering the recent state of activist regulators.

South of me, a house had some orbital debris fall through the roof. I don’t think most folks understand exactly how much space junk there is up in the orbitals that we’re going to need to clean up.

Now on to other stories.

WSJ has a story on the coming legal battles as to who’s responsible for what AI’s say and do. Note: paywalled.

The Verge is reporting that AI gun detectors installed by NYC as a pilot program resulted in an 85% false positive rate. H/t The Brother

War Is Boring analyzes the recent brouhaha over tweet from the Navy showing one of its captain’s requalifying on an M4. Let’s just say the picture was embarrassing enough that the tweet was deleted after everyone roasted it.

Speaking of service arms, TFB reports Taiwan has a new service rifle. Surprise, it’s an AR-pattern weapon.

More gun stuff. The Reload reports on the administration’s new “rules” regarding who needs an FFL. I use scare quotes because of they’re still fucking vague and leave too much open for interpretation by prosecutors and agents. Who, I don’t really trust to interpret.

DeSantis signed a couple of bills that worry me on the civil liberties front. One bans the use of civilian review boards of police in favor of the sheriffs/police departments appointing their own review boards. Um what? I can understand getting pissy about anti-cop activists worming their way onto those boards, but how is letting the cops review do their own reviews a way of holding them accountable? The other penalizes folks who “get too close” to first responders. It looks like it’s aimed at people video recording public servants doing public work.

Here’s a couple of critiques of the media.

The Freepress has an article from a long-time NPR reporter describing the change at NPR from “left-leaning” to “left-activist,” and the resultant loss of trust from the citizenry.

Almost as if to prove the point, NotTheBee has an analysis of a recent WaPo article on a Chicago Police shooting. Sweet FSM, there’s enough police misconduct, you don’t have to push a story claiming a man who opened fire on cops is some kind of martyr.

Monday Links

April 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments

There was some temptation to do a bunch of April Fools links, but in all honesty, I didn’t have the time to set that up. Maybe next year.

Let’s do our Reason segment.

DeSantis signed a bill mandating age verification for social media. There are some things that I think are good ideas, but don’t trust the heavy hand of government to do. Getting kids under the age of fifteen/sixteen off of social media is one of those things.

We keep hearing how long it will take to fix the Francis Scott Key Bridge. One of the reasons is a protectionist law? Cue shocked Pikachu face.

A court decision reaffirms the Second Amendment rights of public housing tenants. Who often are the folks most in need of those rights.

We end Reason’s segment with a trio of articles about squatter’s rights.

Stossel illustrating the problem.

Court cases on if laws surrounding squatter’s rights should be considered takings.

Finally, how big of an epidemic are squatters?

In case you were curious, no, I’m not big on squatter’s rights. If you’re occupying my building or land without a contract in place, I should be able to have you arrested for trespassing.

Now on to other items.

From Ground News, the people pushing a new geologic epoch because of all the damage humanity has done have been denied.

An article on drone swarms and the possible irrelevance of the Air Force. I learned a new term – air littoral space. Drone swarms are definitely going to change the battlefield.

Tam has an article over at Shooting Illustrated on the impact Glock has had on the pistol market. It was certainly the right product at the right time, and it certainly ushered in what I would consider the modern sidearm.

We end on a sad note. The passing of Louis Gossett Jr.

Monday Links

March 11, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Reason links first:

Reason’s coverage of the Supreme Court dismissing Colorado removing Trump from the Republican Primary. It would have helped the case if Colorado had something like a conviction or an impeachment to hang their hat on. It would also help if we hadn’t enshrined private corporation – which is what the Republican and Democrat parties are – elections as part of our political process.

Argentina’s radical president has shuttered the state media outlet for being a propaganda outlet.

New York is sending in the National Guard to patrol NYC subways. I have a real problem with bringing in soldiers to perform a police function outside of martial law or a natural disaster.

Alabama passes legislation to protect IVF after their Supreme Court ruling. You know, if Congress would follow this example, we would have a better functioning federal system. But, why would Congress do their job when they can foist their responsibilities on the executive and judicial branches and prance around like peacocks.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is now requiring climate disclosures. This is an agency that needs to be reigned in. I think a lot of the SEC’s bullshit has been flying under the radar due to the FTC’s louder bullshit.

Georgia gave luxury car maker Rivian a bunch of incentives to build a factory – which the company now has put pause on. Cue shocked Pikachu face.

Now for some Ground News aggregations:

Heather Guitirrez Reed, the armorer on the movie “Rust”, guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Administration is going after credit card late fees. Funny. When Biden was the senator from Deleware, he wasn’t this vociferous about “junk fees”. Again, if this is important, why is it coming from the executive instead of Congress? Lastly, cue unexpected consequences in three, two, one…

The national debt is rising at an increasing rate. Rising interest rates aren’t helping, but again, a dysfunctional Congress is not helping.

Washington State Court dismisses challenge to state law allowing suits against gun makers. Lawfare and PLCAA invocation incoming.

Now on to other news stories:

Heroes who tackled gunman at Chiefs Superbowl rally are honored. Gentlemen, you have my utmost respect for your courage.

Five SAS troops are under arrest for murder in the shooting of suspected suicide bomber. On the face, this sounds very bullshit. The prosecutor better have some strong facts on their side.

New Jersey AG is invoking the state’s microstamping law after saying the tech was viable. Sure, let’s do something completely worthless to make gun owners’ lives more difficult. Must be a day ending in “Y”.

S&W released the newest version of their budget AR. Why am I putting this in? Because when I bought my first AR, it was the S&W M&P-15 Sport budget rifle. It was a great starter rifle, and I don’t expect this new one to be any less of a good deal. Plus, I love how the arms industry has advanced that a budget AR is now what an intermediate one was when I bought mine.

In sad news, Warner Brothers is shuttering Rooster Teeth. Hell, quotes from “Red vs Blue” still crop up in my everyday banter. And I’ve restarted watching “RWBY” when The Wife and I go to the gym. I really hope someone picks up the IP and continues the good work.

Monday Links

February 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Surprisingly, just one Reason link this week.

New York’s child protective agents bully parents to allow warrantless services.

I have a bunch from Ground News.

The administration is considering delaying the conversion to EV’s. While I think electrics will overtake internal combustion engines, prematurely forcing the issue will not help their adoption.

A privately-owned robot landed on the moon. Well, that’s an interesting wrinkle in the space race.

Alabama’s AG comments on their recent Supreme Court ruling on IVF. Great, you’ll use your prosecutorial discretion. How about getting the legislature to fix a bad law?

On a similar vein, the US Supreme Court’s approval rating falls to 40 percent. If there’s one thing that’s been coming out of recent decisions is that if Congress was doing its job instead of being a parade of wannabe talk show stars, then maybe the executive and judicial branches wouldn’t have to fight it out in the courts.

On to other news.

From Bloomberg, the US and 11 other countries did yeoman work to take down one of the biggest ransomware hacker groups. I am supremely unmotivated to feel any concern for the discomfort of the cyberbandits.

There’s been a brouhaha among the WorldCon community who run the “prestigious” Hugo awards. Seems they catered the Chinese government to censor or keep out works that could be critical of the regime. Cue Shocked Pikachu face.

Delta is offering “eclipse” flights so passengers can watch the total eclipse in April. Although I am highly interested, I have other trips that require that cash.

The Telegraph has an article on Finland opening 300 new shooting ranges to bolster defense. I mean, what could happen by getting a bunch of Finns interested in marksmanship?

Finally, an article from Active Response Training on “The Bag of Doom.” Interesting idea.

Monday Links

February 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This is going to be a combination of current stuff and backlog from when I wasn’t posting the links. So, buckle up.

We’ll start with Reason, of course.

Cop hears acorn hit his car and empties his service weapon into his cruiser. Which was occupied. The deputy has resigned, but based on the available information, he should be charged. Why? Because I don’t doubt that if I made that kind of mistake, I’d be up for attempted manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, and whatever else the prosecutor felt like throwing at me.

A think piece on why the US government shouldn’t be giving additional funds to Ukraine and Israel. I need to write a longer post on these. Because I have conflicting feelings on both of these situations.

Moving on to a couple of Ground News aggregations.

Justice Department issues damning report on Uvalde Police response to shooting. “No urgency.” The police had no urgency to engage the murderer. But if I give up my guns, I can just depend on the cops. When we have so many examples of them not.

Hardly any plastics are recycled. Plastic recycling is one of those bullshit “feel good” things that governments and NGOs push, but are boondoggles for the “recycling” industry. You know how I know? Because the manufacturing industry wasn’t pushing for recycling like they did with aluminum or glass.

Now on to other stuff.

Ars Technica has a story about private-equity owned hospitals having worse outcomes.

From War Is Boring, an article on lawmakers proposing a bill to ban civilian militias. Of course, it would impact firearms instruction. And it goes against voluntary association.

From Bloomberg, Amazon backing out of its purchase of iRobot. Because regulators. Which is annoying, because part of the reason we upgraded to iRobot was Amazon’s purchase would make it easier to get parts on subscription.

From Brian Niemier, an article on why Brandon Sanderson has issues with Audible. Which mirrors things I’ve heard on writing podcasts. Which annoys me because I listen to more books than read books.

From FEE, an analysis showing guns are used more times in self defense than people die in car accidents. Self-defense uses are more common than people know.

From a local station, Tampa had a loose kangaroo.

Here’s a New Yorker profile on the Advisory Opinions podcast and its host Sarah Isgur. I listen to this podcast to get the legal nuance skipped over by most talking heads.

Shooting Illustrated says Pennsylvania State Police will now field Walther PDPs. I certainly didn’t expect that.

And now for our lighter items.

The Drive has an article on a company converting old trucks to diesel-electrics. I find this concept intriguing.

Anime Herald has an article on Carl Macek’s impact on anime.

CBR has a listicle of the most “iconic” mecha.

Angry Staff Officer uses the Harry Potter world to demonstrate the principles of raiding. I lover ASO when he uses fiction to demonstrate good and bad examples relating to real-world military actions.