Author: azrifleman

Quote of the Day

Yesterday I was perusing the local battery store ((One of these days I will find a battery they don’t have in stock, but so far no luck.)) with my friend Louis. As is my custom, I was openly carrying my Glock 19 in a Blackhawk SERPA holster.
While we were browsing around, I had a brief conversation with the employee:
Employee: “What kind of gun is that?”
Me: “It’s a Glock 19.”
Employee: “Cool. Who makes it?”
Me: “…Glock.”
He was then a bit puzzled, as like many non-gunny folks, he was not aware of the different model numbers, and always thought that such guns were only referred to by caliber (e.g. “Glock 9,” “Glock 40,” etc.). As he seemed genuinely interested, I answered his questions about the different models.
In addition to being a useful crime deterrent, open carry also provides the opportunity to meet and hold conversations with other folks on the topics of firearms.

NRA Appeals 7th Circuit Ruling

From the NRA press release:

Today, the National Rifle Association filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of NRA v. Chicago. The NRA strongly disagrees with yesterday’s decision issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments.

Sebastian beat me to it, but I blame being at work for being slow. 🙂

Perspective

I’ve recently been reading The Huffington Post ((Why? Maybe my blood pressure was too low. I dunno.)) and find it amusing how people on both sides of the political aisle view politicians on “their side” and “the other side” in much the same way.
Many of the commenters seem to believe that, on the topic of health care reform ((“The government will pay for everything.” without mentioning where the money will come from.)), the current Democrats in office are “Republicans lite.”
From my discussions with Republicans, many people believe that on many issues, Republican politicians are “Democrats lite.”
I’ve seen and heard any number of uncivil words written and spoken by members of both major parties directed against members of their opposition.
While people may disagree, sometimes vehemently, on various policy decisions, I think people need to find a bit of perspective: in the end, we’re all citizens of this great nation, and we all want what’s best for it. The Founding Fathers disagreed on many things, but they were able to work out their differences as best they could. Is it too much to ask that today’s citizenry do the same?

Thoughts on Incorporation

First off, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the internet. If I’ve seriously screwed something up, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

  1. After the 9th Circuit ruling, the Second Amendment is incorporated in some, but not all, states. One of these is California (when do the lawsuits start again?). Personally, I’d love to see the oppressive anti-rights laws there overturned, whether about guns or not.
  2. After the 7th Circuit ruling, the circuits are now split. This is evidently a Bad Thing(tm), and it’s likely that this issue will go to the Supreme Court.
  3. The pro-rights side won the Heller decision by a narrow margin: we got 5-4 for a revolver in the bedstand, but it was too close for comfort.
  4. After Heller, we’ve had the momentum on our side. The anti-rights groups are on the defensive. Let’s keep it going.
  5. If Sotomayor gets appointed to the Supreme Court, all is not lost: the overall makeup of the court would remain the same for the reasonably-foreseeable future. If we could swing Heller, it’s likely that the Supreme Court would rule similarly for incorporation, particularly when it’s pretty clear that gun control doesn’t really do much to prevent crime.

Honestly, I don’t see how one can argue against incorporation of the Second Amendment (or any other amendment, for that matter) with a straight face. I find the very notion absurd: the right to keep and bear arms extends directly from the natural ((As I’m not religious, I don’t believe in “god-given” rights.)) right to self-defense that any living organism possesses, why should it only apply to certain people living in a specific, arbitrary geographic area of the US?

Electronics Repair

Knowing how to repair things is one of the more important tools a prepared person can have. While increased miniaturization and performance of electronics has resulted in many devices being cheaper to replace rather than repair, there’s quite a few things which one can do to keep ones electronics in top shape while also saving a bunch of money.
Take, for example, my Garmin StreetPilot c330 GPS unit. It’s served me well over the last three years, though after enduring a blazing Arizona summer (or two), the internal lithium-ion battery was no longer able to hold a charge.
Garmin wanted $150 for an out-of-warranty replacement of the battery, which I thought was a bit hefty, so I did a bit of research online. It turns out that the battery was an “18650” lithium-ion battery, which is available at a number of retailers, including the local BatteriesPlus store. Fortunately, the local shop also had a model (PDA-210LI) of the battery which included the necessary plug to fit the circuit board of the GPS unit. While it was a bit pricier than the bare battery, it made life quite a bit easier.
Installation was rather easy: I simply needed to de-solder where the wires from the original plug (which was permanently connected to the battery) connected to the internal speakers and solder the speaker wires from the new plug to those same points. After that, it was a trivial matter of plugging the battery in and closing everything up. The battery charged up as expected and runs the GPS just fine.
This particular problem was quite simple and required only the most basic knowledge of soldering, but it ended up saving me $120. Oftentimes problems found with electronic devices are fairly simple (blown fuses, dead batteries, worn-out wire, etc.) and can be repaired using inexpensive, off-the-shelf tools (e.g. a soldering iron) and basic knowledge.
In addition to saving money, knowledge of basic electronics (and their repair) can be quite fun.

Just One Question

I don’t know how I missed such a classic post for so long, but I only recently discovered Joe Huffman’s “Just One Question” post.
Rather than attempt to argue and refute the anti-rights positions (essentially all of them have been argued and refuted numerous times over the years) and fall into the trap where they define the playing field ((This is often the case when arguing with people about so-called “assault weapons” — just using the term means that they’re defining the argument.)), Joe attempts to bring such people into his field, where he asks:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

He notes that this tends to shut down such arguements quite nicely.
I’m going to have to use such a question in the future, as I’ve grown fatigued with debating anti-rights individuals, all of whom trot out the same, tired arguements. Rather, I think I’ll just offer them what I always do: a brief overview of safe gun handling, followed by an all-expenses-paid trip to the local range to try out shooting. It’s a lot more fun, less stressful, and gets me out in the fresh air.

Treasure Trove

As mentioned previously, I’m back in the San Francisco Bay Area for a bit, and have been spending some time at my parents house.
We’re having guests over for a barbecue tonight, so I was volunteered to locate, assemble, and erect the badminton net that was somewhere ((To quote my mother, “Nothing in this house gets thrown away.” Nothing important, that is — trash and whatnot is, of course, discarded, but pretty much anything of use is squirreled away somewhere.))? in the “wine cellar((A small, dark room in the basement which contains, for the most part, the plumbing connections between the house and the municipal water and sewer lines. It also has stuff like Costco-sized packages of toilet paper, cans of paint, and old Boy Scout camping gear. When I lived here, I kept a locking gun cabinet in thise room as it was probably the least likely place a thief would look for guns. To the best of my knowledge, no wine has ever been kept there. ))”
While searching for said net, I stumbled across a small treasure trove: a medium-sized cardboard box filled with .30-06 Springfield brass, mostly PS-headstamped Korean mil-surp which I used to shoot from my M1 when ammo was cheap and plentiful, and a bunch of solvents and oils used for gun maintenance. I always wondered where that gallon of Ed’s Red and the quart of Hoppes #9 went, and now I know.
Yes, it might seem odd that I equate a box of brass and some jars of chemicals with “treasure,” but that’s the type of person I am.
Alas, I’m flying back to Arizona with only carry-on bags, so the brass and chemicals will have to remain here until the next time I drive out.

On Plumbing

I’m back visiting my parents in the SF Bay Area for a few weeks, and while I’m here they asked me to repair a broken PVC sprinkler pipe in their backyard.
As with most things, it’s easier said than done. Theoretically, it would have involved cutting out the broken section of old pipe, cutting the new pipe to fit, then joining them with the appropriately-sized couplers and some PVC primer/cement.
Practically, attempting it that way resulted in me covered in mud, swearing, and having a bad time of it. The lack of flexibility in the buried pipes meant that I couldn’t effectively join the pipes, as the replacement part had to be long enough to complete the pipe, while being short enough to fit between the couplers. As I couldn’t move the pieces of pipe buried in the ground, this was remarkably difficult and time-consuming (read: several hours spent covered in mud and swearing like a sailor).
Fortunately, some bright person had invented a telescoping coupler that resolves this very issue — one cements one end of the coupler to one pipe, then extends the telescoping part such that one can then cement the other end to the other pipe. A greased o-ring seals the whole assembly and prevents leakage.
Total cost (including the telescoping coupler, primer and cement): $10.
Total time fixing the broken pipe with the telescoping coupler: 10 minutes.
I’m not a very good plumber, but as with any challenge, I learned a lot and will be able to better address such issues in the future. Issues that will likely strike a (soon to be) newly-married person living in a condo.
Also, PVC is some remarkably nifty stuff. It’s also really cheap (about $0.10/foot) and, other than having immovable pipes buried in the ground, easy to work with.

NRA Annual Meeting (May 17th, 2009)

Saturday night consisted of reviewing some of my notes from the day and getting ready for Sunday.
On Sunday, I decided to be a bit adventuresome and take the metro light rail train into downtown Phoenix, so as to avoid the high parking fees. After getting horribly lost (which included driving through a shady looking trailer park whilst looking for parking — they need better signs) for a short period, Louis and I arrived at the train station, parked, and were off to the convention center.
Once there, we met up with a few other bloggers at the NRA Press Office and went out to lunch. Going off memory, we had Sebastian and Bitter, Eric, Mike, Bradford, and a couple other folks who I seem to have forgotten (sorry guys!).

From left to right, we have Sebastian, Bitter, Eric, Mike, and myself.
After experiencing the silliness of Arizona gun laws relating to carrying in establishments that serve alcohol, we had a tasty lunch, and most of us (Jason was going back to the airport) headed back to the show.
I really wanted to ask the Ruger reps some questions about the SR-556, but they were quite busy when I first checked, so Louis and I perused the exhibit floor and managed to get our hands on some things that we didn’t get to see the previous day, including the FN SCAR:

The SCAR had some different ergonomics than the AR platform (which I’m used to), but still seemed to be reasonably lefty friendly. One notable feature was the folding stock — a simple button-press released the stock, which folded around to the right. It snapped into a notch on the brass deflector and so could be secured in the folded position. The stock didn’t end up blocking the ejection port when folded, and since no operating parts were in the stock the gun could be fired while folded. Very cool.

One booth was run by a few skilled craftsmen who made very tiny, functional pistols. The gentleman (whose name I can’t recall) from the Pennsylvania Firearm Owner’s Association who was walking around with us mentioned that on Saturday the booth had a tiny, fully working 1911 that fired itty-bitty cartridges, but that exhibitor was not present today. That would have been really interesting to see.
Finally, I saw a break at the Ruger booth and struck. Fortunately, my questions were not terribly time-consuming, and I got most of them answered in just a few minutes.
Moving on, we found some very cool rifles at the Bushmaster booth — I’m very familiar with the solid, triangular front sight post on AR-pattern rifles, and I’ve seen and used various flip-up iron sights, but I’ve never seen the two combined into a flip-up, triangular front sight post:

This sight was remarkably rigid when extended and was quite compact when folded. The only problem I could see was that there wasn’t any sort of detent that would keep the sight folded — if one were to bump or brush the front sight against something, it’s possible that the sight could flip back up. There wasn’t a detent to lower the sight, but it required force applied in a specific manner, so I don’t think it’d be likely to fold down on its own. This particular front sight post also included a bayonet lug, though they have models without the lug if one wishes.
One can buy such a front sight assembly from the manufacturer here.
The .410 Shotshell/.45 Colt Taurus Judge revolver is an impressive beast, yet still fit comfortably in my hand. I’d really like to give this revolver a spin at the range sometime.
The Glock booth was near the Taurus booth, so we handled a few of the 4th Generation pistols and spoke with some of the reps.
Louis and I then went and lusted over the shinies at the CZ booth, where I was happy to learn that I could order a left-handed CZ-452 American direct from CZ, have their custom shop replace the ordinary barrel with the 16″ pre-threaded barrel found on this model, and have it sent directly to my FFL for pickup. Basically, I’d have a lefty, 16″, pre-threaded 452. Since I love shooting my .22s suppressed and have ammo that’s just barely subsonic out of a 16″ barrel, this is excellent news indeed. They gave me a card and asked me to call in the next week or so to work out a price.
We then headed over to the Leupold booth, where we got to play with their scopes. Compared to the other optics available at the show, the Leupold ones were far and away the brighter and clearer. Louis is an astronomer, and so has developed a great eye for optical aberrations and flaws…and found none in the Leupold optics, while detecting a few minor things (mostly chromatic aberration) in scopes from other brands like Nikon.
While their scopes are made in the US, I was a bit dismayed to discover their laser rangefinders are made in China. Even so, the different models were extremely consistent when ranging to the same object (the far wall of the exhibit hall), and were within one yard of each other. Several of the models took into account the elevation angle, showing both the actual range and the range that one should set one’s sights at when shooting at that angle. Very neat.
A few of the Leupold scopes also had illuminated reticles, and several of those went to eleven (( From This is Spinal Tap. )).
After Leupold, we briefly stopped by the Dillon booth and ogled their progressive presses. Alas, while we were doing so, 5:00pm rolled around, and an announcement was made that the annual meeting was over, and would people please make their way to the exits.
In conclusion, while I didn’t get to see any of the various meetings and presentations made by the NRA (with the exception of the one on Jeff Cooper, who was a truly amazing man), I did get to meet with several of the vendor reps, get some information about new products they were offering, handle many of their products, met with a bunch of gunbloggers, and generally had a great time.
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make next year’s annual meeting and Blog Bash, but I’ll definitely make an effort to do so.