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Sometimes You’re Lucky

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So I got a new toy over the weekend.  This one is specifically going to be geared for competition.

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That is a shiny new XDm 5.25 in .40 S&W.   The reason it is bi-tone and in 40 is quite simple, “Because Race Gun”.

Now I have the title of this the way I do for a very good reason.  Especially for other USPSA shooters who may get a new toy.  I got to the range and showed it to a couple other shooters while still in the case before setup began.  In other words I showed it as pictured above.  Neither I nor the CRO I was talking to really thought anything about it at the time.  It was in it’s case, no one was actually handling it, all should be well.

Evidently not.  I got an email from the other RO after he was thinking about it last night and got a forwarded message from an NROI instructor on the topic.

The key is “was the trigger available”?  The answer for most cases is “yes” therefore DQ unless done at a safety table.

Currently I’m a bit lost because there is no rule in the rule book that would cover this that I can see.  The closest is 10.5.1 and 5.2.1, except the gun never left the case, it was just opened.  However according to NROI instructor if the trigger is visible you’re off to Dairy Queen.  I’m going to send an email off to get clarification on this one.  That said, be advised and be safe.  If you have an XDm and you leave it in the stock case to take to a match, don’t open it except at the safety table.  It could bite you.

Quote of the Day – Alexthechick (12/3/2012)

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I will not let you two demand that my blood be shed so that you can sit there and declaim your supposed superior morality to the world. No. You would rather I be dead. That is the logical conclusion of your positions. I will not die for you. No other woman should either.

Alexthechick – An open letter to Bob Costas and Jason Whitlock

December 3rd, 2012

[As I’ve said before this is why I get angry.  Our opponents can try and beat around the bush but the bottom line is they ultimately want to disarm people to make them easy victims.

The government wants to disarm the law-abiding because honestly, those are the only people who will actually bother to obey.  Criminals don’t, why would they?  They ignore all the other laws already what’s one more?

As Linoge recently said, they’re anti-rights cultists and fetishists.  Even more than that though, I think they have a serious hate for women despite their arguments to the contrary.  They merely use those arguments as a smoke screen to pluck at people’s heart-strings.

Ultimately though they would prefer a woman dead and raped in an alley than standing over the cooling corpse of her attacker.  Period, end of discussion.  If you want to argue that isn’t the case, explain how disarming women aids in accomplishing the latter and not the former. -B]

SSCC #465–Fort Worth

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During a rash of incidents involving Fort Worth police officers and alcohol, chief of staff Paul Henderson summed up the department’s frustrations when he declared: "We are absolutely fed up with dealing with this off-duty behavior."

That was in April 2010. Eight months later, despite mandatory alcohol awareness training for all police employees, two officers were arrested in a five-day period on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. A year later, another officer faced DWI and gun charges. 

Early Saturday, Henderson himself was arrested on suspicion of DWI when a Department of Public Safety trooper saw him make an unsafe lane change near the Interstate 30/20 split in Parker County, a DPS spokesman said.

Nothing says law enforcement like, “Do as I say not as I do.”  You lead from the front and obviously this individual felt he could lead from the rear.  In retrospect at this point we now see why his officers were drinking and driving.  If their boss does it, why can’t they?

State Sponsored Criminal #465: Paul Henderson

Because in reality you just want the general public to think you care, when in actuality you don’t.

via Bob S.

One of those nights…

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So yesterday Linoge responded to a tweet and I made a comment.  Well for some reason it got me involved in a Twitter battle along these lines.

We went around and around, literally.  He actually started re-tweeting his own comments he had previously made as if they were some how magically relevant.  What was most interesting though is he was your typical liberal.  By typical, I mean he fit with Joe’s analysis of the communist manifesto quite well.  What I did find quite interesting though was this tweet.

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That’s right folks.  This guy actually believes that if you get rid of capitalism you will get rid of all crime.  Delusional doesn’t even begin to describe this particular individual.  His response regarding women and rape later on was just as epic.

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That’s right folks, rape needs to be stopped by the honor system.  While I agree men shouldn’t rape women, I violently disagree that gun’s don’t equalize.  I did reply that he needs to explain how all these incidents weren’t an “equalization.”  He never did actually respond.  Overall he I don’t think he looked at a single link I posted.  He even disregarded the FBI UCR and called it NRA propaganda.  He argued that the tool did matter and that all these things were not related.  You see disarming victims would also disarm criminals and thus everyone would be on the same playing field.  He however did not accept my argument that it would reduce crime to a “Might makes right” scenario.

Overall it was a total waste of time.  Seriously I should have blocked him long before I finally did.  And last I checked he was still spamming me with replies.  What I will say though was I was humbled by this comment from Linoge:

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Growing up I never did have a lot of patience.  Even know there are times where my patience wears thin.  I will note interestingly enough there appears to be a gradient to how much patience I am willing to exert with a person.  I make that comment because it appears that my level of patience with a person seems to be directly correlated to the level of intellect I perceive them capable of.

For example I’m much more willing to deal with the endless why’s of a small child than trying to explain something fundamental to some who should understand it or has the capability of figuring it out for himself.

Well obviously I felt he was pretty low on the ladder at the beginning but eventually it was obvious that he was suffering from Peterson Syndrome.  Eventually I just couldn’t take it and blocked him.  I will applaud the other individuals who then picked up and continued to try and get him to think rationally.  I personally think it’s a lost cause, he does not have the ability for rational thought.

I think I’m going to go spend time with the wife.  The wife that woman hating bastard would rather disarm to force her to live in fear than carry a weapon to conquer evil.  As A Girl said:

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He seemed to think that anyone who carried a gun was living in fear.  He could not comprehend that fear for many of us comes from being forcibly disarmed and at the mercy of those strong than us.  For that he is evil incarnate.   The following concept from A Girl he most definitely couldn’t comprehend.

You, you who hate guns, you gave me nothing.

No hope.

No tools.

All that was offered me was a life of fear, of resentment, of bitterness, of dependence…

The gun community has offered me hope and strength, and courage.

They have taught me to have belief in myself.

That, that is why I am so willing to go to the mattresses.  It is that reason I am willing to exert time and patience in trying to force people to admit what they are and what they are attempting to do.  I love my friends and family and I will fight for them, even die for them if necessary.  I think I can spend 30 minutes on twitter expressing to the scum sucking coward how he actually hates women is time well spent.  Especially when I think about what it would mean for some of my friends.  Even more than that, those  who sadly end up walking that same path in the future.  By god I want this path available for others to help them move on.

I don’t want anyone to have to depend on the kindness of a criminal to survive, I just want them to be able to depend on themselves.

SSCC #464–Williams

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The man, a transient from California who was intoxicated and combative, had been arrested at a local market, Nixon said. The man made threats of violence and struggled with officers.

Nixon stated that a chokehold on a handcuffed person, even when the person is combative, is against the department’s policy. Nixon said that when he went to suspend Starcevich to conduct an investigation into the policy violation, Starcevich resigned in late October.

Other officers saw the incident and did nothing.  The officer resigned after he discovered he was going to be suspended.    The other officers are currently under investigation for other issues.  Evidently this problem runs deep.  As I’ve said before, incidents like this merely indicate a much bigger problem.

State Sponsored Criminal #464: John Doe

Because by all means make sure that as little impact occurs when an officer does something wrong.  Make sure he can bow out gracefully and go repeat the mistake someplace else.

Quote of the Day – Anonymous (11/29/2012)

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Reverse Reactive Power is a quantity defined by the IEEE and we know it is real and exists because the lights are on.

Anonymous – Discussion during a meeting

[We spent more time arguing about this subject than should have been allowed, the instigator just wouldn’t let it go.  He couldn’t understand the subject at hand and felt that the usage of the words were wrong.  Never mind every last power engineer in the room was saying it was perfectly descriptive of exactly what was required for the specification.

For an idea of how bad it was, I was waiting for the meeting to get physical as the instigator became very aggressive about his issue and ignoring the responses because he didn’t understand it.  The person running the meeting was becoming notably upset at the unnecessary delay to moving forward and the fact he was ignoring the responses.

The person couldn’t grasp the concept of directionality coupled with reactive power.  To him it was imaginary it didn’t exist, current either leads or lags.  He couldn’t understand that while it was imaginary in a mathematical sense, it was real, and it results in things such as heat and other issues.  What really got him though was the idea that power has a direction.

Finally one person restated, yes I said restated, that the IEEE has defined this term explicitly and finally justified his point at the end by noting that the fact lights over our heads were working and so obviously Reverse Reactive Power does exist.

It was about this time I was doing everything I could to suppress laughter.

There are days I both love and hate this job.  I will say I’m saving that quote and will paraphrase it when I find a situation like this again.

We spent lunch working on educating him on all the details of what it was, how it was measured, and why there was a direction involved.  He was a bit better but was still a little confused.  I will say it was probably a good thing I was my father’s son instead of my father in this little incident.  I will say I heard his words in the back of my head, the phrase “You obviously have the intelligence of a banana slug” flashed through my brain in my father’s voice.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s smart and sharp, but he knows jack about power, power systems, and what goes into protecting them.  Truly smart men recognize what they may not know and listen instead of insisting everyone else is wrong.  Especially when the others can mathematically show and prove their point.* -B]

*Geek out moment, Reactive Power is explicitly a mathematical quantity.  It is the complex or imaginary portion of Apparent Power.  Forward and reverse is applied merely to indicate the direction of power flow relative to a location.  For example which direction is power flowing in a power line?  To people in this industry directionality is what makes the world turn.  You need to know if the fault is in front or behind your monitoring equipment.  Well if you’re looking at the output of a generator and you see power flowing into the generator (reverse), that’s not a good thing and very rarely intentional.  Something is going to get very warm if you don’t do something soon.

SSCC #463 – King County

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From the bench, Judge Arend noted, “Defendant King County’s lack of effort and pattern of deliberate indifference with respect to producing responsive information to Plaintiff Harris is reprehensible. This reckless indifference in its failure to produce these three documents – documents that were indisputably relevant – is the functional equivalent of intentional misconduct. Through its callous indifference to the court rules and their discovery burden, Defendant King County deceived the plaintiff and it deceived the Court.”

Go read the story, it’s heartbreaking and down right dispicable.  The fact the officers will not be held personally liable is most sickening.
State Sponsored Criminal #463: John Doe
Because by all means slam someone’s head into a brick wall.  The state will pick up the tab when it ends up you were dead wrong.