Category Archives: Unfiled

So Joe and I spent a bunch of time doing a video on Sunday.  Our goal was to spread the benefits of carrying a concealed weapon.  The gun grabbers immediately decried us as mocking victims, laughing, and otherwise disrespecting those who have been died or injured in violence.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Joe’s family, as well as my own, have both been affected by violent acts.  Sadly as seen in the video, those family members did not have the tools with them at the time to effectively defend themselves.  My parents however did have a firearm when violence came to their door.  Our goal is to decrease the number of victims of violence.  We don’t care what tool is used in the violence, we just want fewer victims.

Well the real reason they are so upset is because they’re seeing the final nails being drilled into their coffin.  One by one.

In just over 36 hours our video has over 3 times as many views as the Brady Campaign video.  We have three times as many views as what they could get in 2 weeks.  The video of their speakers in San Fransisco have only 12 views.  (Note I clicked into the videos to verify the view count.  At the time of this writing that first video has 1154 views.)  Just search YouTube for “Too Many Victims“.  Even their video to start this viral campaign only has 1572 views.  None of their videos has any “Likes”, heck they don’t even enable the feature on their videos.  For comparison, our video has 99 likes and 7 dislikes.

When a bunch of unfunded bloggers, who on their own free time, can take your own viral marketing campaign, turn it on its head and surpass your efforts you have to ask yourself, “Am I still relevant?”  When the efforts of 4 people derail an entire political campaign can you still say, “People will listen to us.”

The wonderful thing about the internet is it makes it really hard to hide how irrelevant you are.  It also makes it even easier to collect the numbers and prove how irrelevant you are.

This is why.  I can think of nothing else to add.

OMG

Joan Peterson – A response to this video.

[My immediate thought was, “Staying up finishing that last night and all the murphy problems were totally worth it.”  Overall the thread where this quote is found is filled with some of the idiocy that is the anti-rights movement.

Let’s go through these shall we!?  First up is the two comments from Heidy Waddell.

You’re calling us dumb when you don’t even seem to be able to understand the statement.  Let me break it down so that even a 5 year old could understand it.  A vigil remembers the victims, nothing more.  A vigil does nothing to stop violence.  A candle will not stop violence.  However the Brady Campaign and CSGV are using the remembrance of the victims as a political tool to disarm the law abiding that they would be rendered defenseless. 

As for extremely low or non existent defensive gun uses by citizens, you don’t search for the same things on the net as I do.  See here in  the real world we see defensive gun uses regularly, JayG even has a running count.  My parents both had defensive gun uses, but since a single shot wasn’t fired you probably won’t count those.  The instances such as the woman who defended herself from two thugs looking for drugs after her husband died.  There are also plenty of instances of how depending on the police doesn’t work.  Just because you’re willing to die while waiting for someone else to arrive with their gun doesn’t mean the rest of us are as willing.  You have no right to tell someone to be a victim.  I cannot force you to carry, however you have no business forcing someone to be disarmed.

Next Up, Jami Regs.

Really, uneducated hillbillies?  Joe, the last shooter has a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering.  I have a BS in Electrical Engineering. The man in the still frame has at least a BS in Mechanical Engineering.  There was absolutely no alcohol on the range.  I rarely drink and when I do it’s on a special occasion and even then in a very limited amount.  As for the 2nd Amendment being ridiculous, obviously you don’t think that any of those above should have been able to defend themselves.  Again, being a victim is your choice, a choice you do not have the right to force upon others.  I don’t care if everyone else in the country went nuts tomorrow with their guns and shot up different places.  I didn’t so stop trying to tell me I can’t carry or defend myself.

CSGV’s first comment. 

How does what we’re doing not relate to the 2nd Amendment?  We were partaking in a nationally recognized shooting sport.  What part of the language of the 2nd Amendment do you not understand?  We have the right to keep and bear arms.  We were using those arms lawfully and safely.  No one was shot, no one was injured, but according to the CSGV that must mean our arms are defective.

Jane Thorne-Gutierrez, first comment.

Militia has not taken on a new meaning.  See US Code, Title 10, Subtitle A, Part 1, Chapter 13, Section 311.

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are—

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Now that we have that little statement out of the way lets nail your high violent crime rate comment to the wall.  Oh wait, you wanted just the straight crime rate, so in other words you’re inflating your statistics to argue against guns by including crimes where guns weren’t involved?  I have a better idea.  Lets look at the murder rate internationally.  What’s that, the US has a murder rate less than the world average? Less than Mexico which has very strict gun control.  Including “crimes” in which there is no victim to boost your statistics doesn’t really count.  Besides, correlation does not equal causation.  I’ve proven the Brady scores have 0 correlation with violent crime and Linoge has shown that crime rates are not affected by gun ownership either.  Please provide me solid facts on how law abiding gun owners increase violent crime, because all I see is feelings and “if you have a toaster you’re more likely to be attacked by a toaster” arguments.

CSGV’s second comment.

Thank you for admitting the truth.  CSGV doesn’t care about violent crime, they just care about “gun deaths.”  If all gun deaths were destroyed but the overall crime rate increased, CSGV would be pleased with the outcome.  Joan even admitted that she would prefer a higher crime rate for 0 gun deaths.  In this world 20 murders per 100k is ok if they’re done with a knife, but 5 murders per 100k is bad if one involves a gun.  The dumb is strong with this one.  Besides, the “gun death” statistic is stupid and pointless as it pretends that other forms of death and murder are some how less relevant.

Jane Thorne second comment.

So gun control would have stopped all of these deaths and murders?  Gun control would have protected the woman who shot her attacker who had a knife?  Gun control would have protected the woman who attempted to strangle her?  That comment is 100% fail.

CSGV Round Three.

Guns in the civilian market are extremely efficient at armed defense.  The arms available are quite efficient and provide a force multiplier that allows a small petite woman to defend herself from a line backer.

John Donnaruma

See the response to CSGV’s second comment.  Gun Violence is a BULL SHIT metric.  Why is someone who’s raped at knife point different from someone who was raped at gun point?

Jamie Gronko

Quick Draw Match.  WTF!?  Also I went through the video and pulled the stats and scores.  Incase you missed the stage description:

An explanation of the stage design is important. The brown target in the distance represents a “bad guy”. The white targets represent innocent people. When scored only hits on the bad guy counted and hits on the innocent were heavily penalized. When the scores have been reported I’ll make anther post. I think I might have won this stage. I had a good time with five A-zone hits, one C-zone hit and no hits on the no-shoot targets.

The instructions to the shooter were:

Start position: Facing up-range holding a candle with both hands. Gun is in a concealed carry state.
Course of fire: Upon signal drop candle, turn, draw, and engage T1 with six rounds. Comstock scoring.

This stage design was to simulate the January 8th 2011 shooting in Tucson. It was this event which the Brady Campaign wanted to bring attention to. This was to stimulate political interest in more gun laws.

Credit for the stage design goes to Bob N. (shown in the video preview above).

So we had a single “bad guy” surrounded by “good guys”.  We had to turn 180 degrees, draw, engage with 6 shots, and not hit any of the friendly targets.  No shooter took beyond 10 seconds from the buzzer to the last shot.  Every shooter scored at least 1 hit in a critical zone.

Joe engaged the whole stage in 4.18 seconds, scoring 5 A hits (critical zone), and 1 Charlie hit to the minor zone.  Joe practices regularly and competes regularly.  He qualifies under your “trained” statement.

I have not been able to shoot pistol however as often as I would like.  The last time I was really able to practice was over a year ago.  I am not proud of that statement, but it is what my finances have allowed.  I had never shot USPSA before and overall my formal defensive pistol training is minimal.  My score for that stage was 6.44 seconds from buzzer to last shot fired.  I put five rounds through the A zone (critical hit) and one shot through the D zone (minor hit).  Where I struck the D ring I glanced the edge of a no shoot, when I say glanced we’re talking less than an 1/8th  went in the white.  It still counted as me hitting a no shoot, however that person would live to see another day had it been real.  All of those no shoots were potential victims had that been a mass shooter.  To put it in further perspective there is a LEO that shot that stage.  He shot it in 7.57 seconds, scored 1 A, 1 C, and 2 to the D zone, there were some unhappy victims too.  I don’t know what you were judging our performances next to, but no one in that stage was really pathetic. The bottom line is, it shows we have the means and capability of stopping a mass shooter. 

Extra perspective, the Tuscon shooter fired 33 rounds in approximately 15 seconds.  Add 2 seconds to our times for being completely flat footed.  I have 6 shots on target just after he’s half way through.  Would you rather he continue his murder spree unabated?  Even with an injured civilian, injured is better than dead.  Well in you’re book that’s not true, but frankly I’d rather survive to see my wife again.

The thing about firearms training is it doesn’t take a lot to be good with a firearm, extra practice doesn’t hurt and you’ll improve, but anyone can do it.  You call it pathetic because you are envious of our independence and freedom.

Lastly we have Joan:

I’m glad I could contribute to your pants shitting hysteria.  Again totally worth it!

Also if the video is so horrible, why have 87 people liked it, but only 5 disliked it?

-B]

Daddy Bear has immortalized me, along with a bunch of other gun bloggers in a poem.

That’s just freaking awesome!  Go check it out.

And it was in the middle of a field in the middle of no where.

There is a long list of different people who did something over at Weer’d’s place.

Spent most of the day with Joe again working on a project.  I’m finishing it up now and beginning the uploading process.  Pay attention here in the future and his place or mine.

I’m probably not going to get any other free ice cream out tonight.

The Brady Campaign announced an effort to hold a candle light vigil in honor of the victims of “gun violence” today.  Weer’d came up with the idea of holding a vigil for all victims of violence.  Weer’d suggested we do this by having us post pictures of a candle with our defensive arms.

First up is a friends S&W 5906.  He didn’t have a good camera and lives down the street so he came over tonight and we just did all the arms at once.

A candle does nothing to stop violence.  It does nothing to protect this mans family from harm.  This pistol however provides him, as well as his wife, an effective means to fight off a stronger attacker.  This provides them an effective means to ensure the safety of their children.

I followed that up with my standard open carry arm.  A 5 inch Kimber Custom Classic.

Away from the house, that arm is the equivalent of a portable fire extinguisher.  It is used for when evil decides to appear.  Evil doesn’t call in advance to let me know trouble is coming.  It is a tool that I can carry with me to help protect myself and my wife.

This shotgun is one of the two defensive long arms for the house.  I normally carry my 1911, but when something goes bump in the night this is one of my go to weapons.  Enough power I know that those who wish to do me violence will stop in their tracks after meeting the lead.

The AR-15 makes a fantastic home defense weapon. With the weapon mounted light, it’s higher accuracy and higher capacity provides me the largest advantage against those who would wish to do me or mine violence.  It will protect my wife and my self equally well despite who has shouldered it.  Hence the Husky and Cougar both in the image. 

Lastly there is this image.

The most significant of the bunch.  That revolver, my wedding present to my wife, provides her the ability to stand up to any attacker who would do her violence.  That revolver allows her, despite her disability, to say NO with such force that they will lack the capacity to do violence to another.  She has the ability to stop the violence against her and in ending that violence she has the ability to ensure the safety of others by preventing violence against them as well.  She carries it with her, today on her birthday, to ensure that she can stop violence when it comes her way.

That’s the thing with firearms.  While they can be used in violence, they can be used to stop violence.  They can do so without a shot ever being fired.  The gun grabbers though would beg to differ.  They seem to think a criminal will stop if you light a candle and hold it.  Both of my parents had defensive gun uses without a single shot fired.  Violence stopped in it’s tracks at the presentation of overwhelming force.  Overwhelming force from the potential victim of the attacker.

Remember, there are victims of gun control.  When a mass shooting happens in a gun free zone everyone’s a victim of gun control.  Those candles forever burn in my mind as a reminder of them, and why I vehemently support the second amendment.

Again please email me any pictures you would like posted: vigil.picture at the-minuteman.org

So I went out to help Joe with some testing today.  Last weekend there were some problems with boomers and testing needed be done to figure out the exact cause of the failures.

Joe and I stopped by the Taj and picked up some equipment however Joe forgot the keys to the magazine and we had to leave the targets that were stored to test how they react over time.

Once over at Mecca we began to mix explosives.  I noticed but didn’t think anything of it that the dust from the bin of KClO₃ was less than usual.  Our first experiment was 4 control targets using our standard production methods and baggies with 8 other targets using different packaging methods.  We laid out the first 6 targets.  Two of each.  Loaded up with 62 grain JHP and started on the right. 

Bang, dead center, nothing.  Move to the next one. 

Bang slightly off, bang it’s low, bang it’s high, bang dead center, nothing. 

Bang dead center, nothing. 

Bang dead center, nothing.  Now at this point we’re moving on to the normal production control targets.

Bang dead center…. Nothing. I’m thinking, “what the hell is going on!”

Bang dead center, again nothing.

At this point Joe and I inspect the targets, they didn’t even begin to detonate.  We talk and think well maybe the ethylene glycol absorbed moisture, the bottle is almost empty.  We also realize it’s pretty cold and maybe that’s a problem.

We head back inside to mix up a new batch with fresh ethylene glycol and warm up the targets in front of the heater.  We continue discussing the problems while mixing up the new batch.  I realize that cold can’t be the problem.  A year ago we were detonating with it about 15F out.  At this point we both agree it must be the glycol.

We finish up the targets and take them out to test.

Bang, nothing.

Bang, nothing.

Bang, nothing.

Bang, nothing.  Bag is sitting there because it wasn’t a full square hit.  Throw the bag into the air by shooting the crap out of it.

Glycol is out.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!  What has changed!?  We mixed them at Mecca, but how could that cause the recipe to fail?  We go inside again and continue discussing the problem and I start staring at the potassium chlorate.  Finally I ask Joe, “where’s all the dust?”  Normally there’s dust everywhere, this time there’s no dust! 

We start feeling the potassium chlorate focusing our attention on it.  Did it absorb moisture, it’s certainly possible and the texture certainly isn’t right either.  How can we heat it up to dehydrate it?  Finally we decide to head over to his parents place to make use of the stove.  An hour later, the KClO₃ is certainly dryer, but the texture isn’t right and there certainly isn’t enough dust still.

We decide to split the amount and make two batches.  Both with the straight freshly dehydrated KClO₃, one that has been further ground in mortar and pestle.  A second that has been unmodified and left at it’s current size.  We finish mixing up the batches and have two of each target with a 5th super boomer from the excess left over from each.

We take the boomerite out back and lay them out for testing saving the mix box for later.

Bang, box shredded nothing.

Bang, nothing.

Bang, nothing.

Bang, nothing.

At this point I’m becoming a bit annoyed and disappointed.  I have no clue what’s left.  Joe mentions we could try a V-max bullet.  I’m up for that but my concern is, the past three years I’ve used these 62 grain bullets without a problem.  Joe goes and grabs his V-max mag and I set up the targets left over from the first batch and set up my super boomer.

I tap the mag and charge.  Swing on the first boomer and bang.

Nothing. (expletives run through my mind.)

Bang.   Nothing!

Bang.  Nothing!

Bang. Nothing!

What in the hell is going on.  The last boomer fell over.  I flip on the safety, walk the 25 yards and put it back up right.  Walking back at about 10 yards I say F-it, I’m far enough, it’s not going to blow anyway.  I’ll go entertainingly close.

Bang…….. BOOM!

Immediately I feel my face stinging.  I have a wall of smoke rolling towards me.  I walk back and smile at Joe and say, “Well it worked that time!”  At this point I start rubbing the corner of my lip.  I took a bunch of prills to the face and arm.  Joe even 25 years away said he was feeling the prills.  I clear my weapon and notice something.  This folks is why you wear eye protection!

You can somewhat see it on the other side of the lens too.  Some of the mud bounced off of me and landed on the other side of the lens.  I had mud on my glasses too.  At this point Joe and I both agree that it’s probably the KClO₃, but we don’t know how to quantify it.

We clean up and decide to head back to Joe’s place to do some analysis.  We examine the KClO₃ under a microscope.  I think we found our problem.

I’ll give you a hint, the three items above are KClO₃, normal sugar, and flour.  Guess which is the KClO₃.

If you guessed in the middle you’re right.  Normally the KClO₃ is like powdered sugar or flour.  Doing some research we discovered the Mil-Standard and it appears they have different sizes.

Now we need to try and establish, empirically, which size we need for Boomerite.  Joe’s ordering a flour mill to try and grind the KClO₃ smaller, we’re all ears if anyone has any other ideas on grinding it smaller.  Joe has video of the testing and hopefully he posts it here soon.  I want to see that explosion from his point of view.