Category Archives: Id10t Error

Quote of the Day – Robb Allen (3/14/2013)

  By Barron | March 14, 2013 - 14:38 | , , , , ,
2 Comments

These are the people who consider themselves more enlightened than you or I and who think they have what it takes to rule your life. It’s like watching a retarded kid scream about how your tying your shoelaces wrong and then gets confused over the Velcro straps holding his sandals on his hands.

Robb Allen – Ignorance can be deadly
March 14th, 2013

[And it isn't just one or two people who seem to think like the person who wrote the provoking tweet either.  Look at this recent tweet that came across twitter.

Don't worry I responded as my snarky self.

After which he couldn't take it and promptly banned me.  Not unexpected given their prevalence for reasoned discourse.

Honestly I think Robb nailed our opponents with that analogy. -B]

Over Dependence on the State…

  By Barron | March 2, 2013 - 21:54 | , , ,
4 Comments

The money quote again:

EMS Dispatcher: Or are we just going to let this lady die?

Nurse: Well that’s why we called 911.

And the woman died, why because the nurse refused to do CPR stating that they called 911 and that will save her… Much like people claiming 911 will save you from your rapist or other violent attacker.

I don’t know how that nurse can sleep at night.  Company policy or not, I’ll sacrifice my job if it means saving someone’s life.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, waiting for help isn’t a solution to your problem.  In this case, waiting cost this elderly woman her life.

Quote of the Day – Joe Biden (2/28/2013)

  By Barron | February 28, 2013 - 13:42 | , , , , ,
2 Comments

I said, “Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” Most people can handle a shotgun a hell of a lot better than they can a semiautomatic weapon in terms of both their aim and in terms of their ability to deter people coming.

Joe Biden – Field and Stream Interview

February 25th, 2013

 

[I don't know how many times I need to say it, but seriously folks do not take any of the advice this man is offering.  He obviously does not know what he's talking about and does not have the slightest clue when it comes to the laws around self-defense.

All I have to say is yeah Joe, and then you find out it was your kid running up to the door afraid of the same noise you heard.  How many different times can you give a rule 4 violation as good advice?  Seriously, WTF Joe? -B]

Joe Biden is Running His Mouth Again

  By Barron | February 20, 2013 - 06:00 | , , ,
5 Comments

So our illustrious Vice President made another stupid statement today proving he knows absolutely squat regarding firearms, usability, self-defense, and legal use of force today.

“If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barreled shotgun.” “You don’t need an AR-15, it’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use,” he stressed.

“I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, put that double-barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house,’” he said, and urged viewers, in closing, “Buy a shotgun, buy a shotgun!” 

Blink…

Oh my word, where do I start with all the problems in just those few little lines.

First and foremost, unless you are the Vice-Presidents wife who gets automatic State Sponsored Criminal status when doing something stupid, do not do what he recommends.  Firing a warning shot is a great way to end up in prison.  Firing at people outside your house, again not the brightest of ideas.  And the idea that the AR-15 is harder to use and a shotgun is easier is false.  In so many way’s it’s actually not that funny.

Let’s just look at it straight from the math point of view of recoil shall we.

  • A Benelli Eagle II firing 12 gauge 1 1/8 oz loads is approximately 22 ft-lbs of recoil.
  • An AR-15 is approximately 3.2 ft-lbs of recoil.

Tell me, which one of those is more manageable to shoot and use?  Also note the example shotgun is semi-auto which will lower the recoil as well.  Not to mention there’s a lot of design in that shotgun to lessen the recoil compared to your standard double barrel.

Moving forward, part of his argument is that shot spreads meaning you don’t need to be as precise with your aim.  Tell me, are you going to be shooting 25 yards in your house?  Maybe if you had a mansion like Joe you’d get that kind of range but for the most part most houses aren’t big enough to pattern.  Further each shot throws 8 projectiles into the wild, 8 projectiles you are responsible for what it hits.  So in his 2 shots he fires 16 projectiles yet he would restrict my magazine capacity to 10 shots.

So I need some help.  I am looking for a volunteer in the Palouse area, preferably female.  The requirements are as follows:

  • General lack of familiarity with firearms.
  • Willingness to learn.
  • Willing to be recorded for a response to Biden’s lies. (See below for details.)

I will not be tossing you behind a double barrel shotgun, my shoulder gets that honor.  No instead you will get free general firearms safety training, along with a 1 minute intro into the AR-15 platform and it’s use.  That training and a short course immediately after is what will be recorded for the response to Biden’s lies.  There is no requirement to interview or give your opinions though that would be appreciated.

Further I will provide a rifle and ammunition to attend local Appleseed event.  I’m also more than willing to pay for you to get the necessary training for you to obtain your Idaho, Utah, Oregon, or Arizona concealed pistol license if you are interested.

If you are interested or know of someone who might be interested, please contact me.

Quote of the Day – Reed Exhibitions(1/24/2013)

  By Barron | January 24, 2013 - 09:30 | , , , , ,
5 Comments

“It has become very clear to us after speaking with our customers that the event could not be held because the atmosphere of this year’s show would not be conducive to an event that is designed to provide family enjoyment. It is unfortunate that in the current emotionally charged atmosphere this celebratory event has become overshadowed by a decision that directly affected a small percentage of more than 1,000 exhibits showcasing products and services for those interested in hunting and fishing.”

“ESS has long been proud to participate in the preservation and promotion of hunting and fishing traditions, and we hope that as the national debate clarifies, we will have an opportunity to consider rescheduling the event when the time is right to focus on the themes it celebrates.”

President of Reed Exhibitions – Announcement Postponing ESOS

January 24th, 2013

[Let me translate for you.

It has become very clear to us after our customers have responded with such unity and clarity that our actions have destroyed this event.  Our taking a political stance obviously destroyed the family atmosphere and our goal to drive a wedge in between different parts of the sporting community has failed spectacularly.

We failed to understand or realize that gun owners and sportsman alike understand that they must hang together or must most assuredly hang separate.  In our attempt to double down on stupid after early negotiations it has become obvious that it has destroyed any reputation our show had remaining.  We were merely trying to discriminate against a few vendors and did not expect the majority of other vendors to stand up for them.

“ESS has long been proud to manipulate the preservation and promotion of hunting and fishing traditions to try politicize and destroy things Reed finds unacceptable.  We will have an opportunity to consider rescheduling the event because we know there are some still willing to do business with a bunch of political hacks.”

Bitter has more on the shutdown of the show.  Honestly I am glad to see the show shutdown but the political front is starting to heat up.  Time to write back in, though I must say we need to watch and watch closely.  I'm not sure what the best approach is, but if we're going to get stuck with something, we need to get something out of the deal.  They have cake they can give up and by all means if they want compromise, lets make it a real one. -B]

At least some stupidity lasts…

  By Barron | January 22, 2013 - 13:35 | , , , , ,
2 Comments

For those of you who have never seen it, I present you the Carolyn McCarthy incident.

Well I was searching for it for someone at work and discovered this:

Yes, that’s right folks, if you Google “Shoulder Thing That Goes Up” US Rep. McCarthy is displayed as the person you’re looking for.  I do find something satisfying about her ignorance being placed front and center.  I just wish if you searched for her name the first result was that video.

Never fear though because sling swivels are now on their way to replace the shoulder thing that goes up!

This is why we find our selves in the predicament we’re in.  The media is either grossly or willfully negligent and the general public believes everything they say without fail.  This would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that I’m sure some politican is going to hold this up in a legislative session and say we need to ban it!

Never mind the fact that grenade launchers are destructive devices along with each and every grenade.  I personally have never seen one in the civilian market, even with all the gun shows I’ve been to.  I’ve never seen a real RPG either.  Yet this same group of media and journalists that label a sling point a bayonet mount says they can be obtained at gun shows.  Remember though, we’re supposed to trust them because they have done careful research and are “educated” on the topic.  When I was 4 I could have done a better job of identifying the different parts and the associated terms for a firearm.

Smart Guns–An Engineers Perspective

  By Barron | January 14, 2013 - 21:10 | , , ,
7 Comments

So yesterday the “smart gun” meme was fluttering everywhere.  A long debate ensued on twitter.

image

 

So I made a couple of comments and it seems that people have no clue how innovation works or how engineering works.  This isn’t surprising because these are the same people who think Steve Jobs just magically gave birth to the iPad and iPhone.  Remember these are the same people who came up with ideas like this.

Laugh if you want, but someone needs to figure out how to harness the energy in earthquakes

Seriously. I’m no engineer so I can’t even begin to think about this in real terms, but just imagine if that energy were somehow able to be captured and stored for use.

Go read the post it’s worth it.  So now on to our current problem, “smart guns”.

There is one serious problem with the concept and idea of smart guns, they are doomed to fail from the start.  Period, end of discussion and I will explain.  The whole premise of a firearm is rooted in one simple undeniable fact:

When you pull the trigger it must go bang.  No exceptions.

Now we all realize that no system is 100% reliable though most guns are exceptional in their reliability and quality.  Here is the Glock 17 Gen4 stress test by Pistol Training.com.

We will use the round count of 53,526 rounds and 9 stoppages for our calculations.  That gives the Glock 17 Gen 4 a reliability of 99.9831857%

That is a failure rate of 0.0168%.  That’s right folks a MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of approximately 5947 rounds.  Of note this is a sigma of 1 since we only have the numbers for a single unit of test.  Also of note though is for the most part regarding firearms, this is a must have level of reliability.  For many it is considered a “standard” to meet or exceed.

So now we have a starting point for reliability.  Here’s where we run into a problem.  No matter what you do you cannot improve the reliability, you can only degrade it.

Lets say we could make a device that operated with the same reliability as the firearm but attached to the weapon, what would happen?

We’ve cut our reliability almost exactly in half!  Let me explain.

Rgun = (1-0.016…%)  Rsafety=(1-0.016….%)  Rtotal=Rgun * Rsafety  Rtotal = 99.9663743%

Or a failure rate of 0.03362568%

So how many failures is that in the same 53,526 rounds?   17.9984

But again, we are talking about a device who’s sole purpose is to go bang when you pull the trigger.  A device that must be reliable because the failure of the weapon can result in the loss of life for the operator.

While none of these numbers seem terribly large, this is why you have not seen any company pursue this path.  In order to maintain existing reliability you would have to double the reliability of the weapons well as have an additional safety with equivalent reliability.  This however is impossible because there are many other factors that come into play regarding an additional safety and reliability.

The biggest is ease of use.  You know why police and the general public like Glocks?   Because they are unbelievably simple to operate and maintain.  Any additional safety will increase the complexity of operation, period.  There will be required to be some sort of user interaction with the device.  Say it’s a palm print scanner?  What happens if during a hasty draw you don’t get a solid grip on your weapon?  Normally this wouldn’t matter, it would just be more uncomfortable during recoil.  This safety will fail, it cannot properly identify the user and as it’s design is to prevent the weapon from going bang, it will do it’s job.  Biometrics are unreliable as it is and have been extensively in the realm of high end research for a while.  How does this magically change overnight?

Next up, battery life.  The system will have to be running 24/7 365, actively scanning and giving a pass/fail return to the firing mechanism.  Some could say, “well just use a pressure switch.” Except the level of processing required and initialization lets say you get that down to a half second.  That’s an extra half second before your first shot, it didn’t go bang when you wanted it to.

Don’t forget tin whiskers, humidity, temperature, SEU, electromechanical components failing due to the shock, and I could continue down the list.  The idea you could match the same reliability as a mechanical device is laughable but I used it here because it’s the best possible outcome.

This is why we don’t see the military or law enforcement pursing these types of technologies.  Think about it, Law Enforcement should be all over funding and pushing manufacturers to develop this as a reliable technology.  It is the perfect solution to weapons retention and preventing a criminal from taking an officers duty weapon during a scuffle.

Yet no one does it?  The answer is said plainly above, reliability.  The firearm has one critical function, that is to go bang when told to by the operator.  Anything that is designed to interfere with that function is a massive risk and will increase the probability of failure.  In the event of failure the death of the operator is quite possibly going to occur.  Especially since you pointed a firearm at someone, you have indicated willingness to use lethal force.

So tell me again how science fiction will solve the issues of the real world?  Further comparing safety features on cars to guns is a non-starter.  The reason is simple, no safety features are allowed to conflict with the primary inputs from the driver.  Any feature that might possibly interfere is placed in parallel and designed to fail open.  For example, ABS cannot operate on it’s own, it must occur with a brake signal.  In the event of an ABS system failure, the brakes will still work, but can lock up.

Now it is true that there are features now such as emergency brakes that will improve reaction time.  It is also of note in those vehicles you can override the system again cutting it from the loop.  There are extensive diagnostics testing that system specifically to remove it from the loop in the event of failure.  Why? Because slamming your brakes on the freeway at 60 MPH in the middle of traffic is bad and a liability for the manufacturer and engineer.

Tell me, given the above information, how can you create a gun that will still fire when the safety fails if the safety’s sole job is to keep the gun from firing.  If that’s the case, anyone could just disable the safety so what’s the point?

As an engineer my job is to make things, safer and reliable.  I would refuse to work on a project relating to a “smart gun” because honestly it can not accomplish either of those two things.  Safer in this case applies to the operator, not the target.  When the operator pulls the trigger it must go bang it’s what’s safest for the operator.

In closing if this is such a reliable and fantastic idea, why has it never been implemented anywhere else with extensive reliability?  We do not even see biometric identification in cars?  It would be of no where the inconvenience to have to swipe your thumb again to get your car to start as your firearm not going bang when you need it to.  You would have much more space for the processing equipment, less requirements for shock, overall it’s a better more likely environment, yet we don’t see it implemented.

Again it comes down to reliability, when I turn the key on my truck, I expect my ignition to turn over.  I do not expect it to fail because my truck doesn’t realize I grew a beard and look different.  I do not expect it to fail because I sliced my finger and have to wear a band-aid.  Just the same, I want my gun to go bang even if I’m wearing gloves.

The idea of smart guns is purely science fiction and that is not going to change any time soon.