Back in the beforetimes – pre-pandemic – which I can hardly remember these days, I was getting interested in the smaller calibers. I found myself a cute turquoise Ruger 10/22 Takedown and was considering trying some metallic silhouettes at my gun club.
I got as far as mounting a scope on her, but never got sighted-in. Then Ms Rona came to town.
Over the ensuing two and a half years I was pretty pre-occupied with practicing medicine, survival gardening, and trying not to catch the plague. You may laugh now, but I’m in primary care with snotty nosed children breathing right in my face on a daily basis. It wasn’t as high risk as say ER or ICU, but I was directly exposed nearly weekly there for awhile. It was stressful.
All gun club matches were cancelled because many members were retirement age and above, and thus high risk. Even if the matches weren’t cancelled I wasn’t going to go. I constantly worried that my exposure at the office would result in me getting someone else deathly sick. I didn’t have the leftover energy to go to the range by myself, so except for a ladies shotgun gig last summer when things were looking hopeful pre-delta, I mostly haven’t picked up a firearm in 2 1/2 years. (I did hunt with crossbow though) With all the other stressors I kind of lost interest. Don’t judge me. We have all coped in whatever ways we could, myself included.
But since the clouds are parting now I was looking for ways to pry myself out of my malaise. Lo and Behold, an email arrived from my club, announcing the restart of smallbore silhouette matches! These are non-sanctioned matches just for fun and the next one is happening in about a week.
Well, I scuttled down to the basement to find my 10/22 because it had been so long that I honestly couldn’t remember if I had mounted a scope on it or not. I had, and then the “oh yeah” came back to me. I had put it on, but that’s as far as I got.
The email said that ammo needed to be “standard velocity” only, so 1100 fps or less. All I had were high velocity “Bucket O’Bullets” type which were also purchased in the beforetimes. I previously used those for steel matches with my CMMG AR adapter set-up.
Given that, now that the ammo shortage is easing a bit, I went shopping and found myself some Norma which I knew was a reliable brand. They came in right at the cutoff of 1100 fps. Score! I was worried that much lower than that and my semi-auto wouldn’t cycle. I know that a lot of smallbore match people use bolt actions, but the email said to bring whatcha got, so that’s what I’m doing.
Right at the cut-off!
I happen to be on staycation this week, so I’m hoping to get to the range to get sighted in and shake off the cobwebs before the match. I’ve at least got a small goal now, though I have zero expectations for how I will perform at the match. I honestly want to just go plink and get back into the shooting routine. Hopefully this will help me find my lost mojo again. Fingers Crossed.
Nightstick is a little light company that’s slowly making a bigger and bigger splash in the world of affordable lights. In a world of Olights, more companies should try to be Nightstick. While I’m a Cloud Defensive man, the Nightstick SFL caught my attention. I’m always on the lookout for shotgun lights. I’ve experimented with the Streamlight TL Racker and the Surefire DSF and found both to be quite nice.
The Nightstick SFL, or Shotgun Forend Light, replaces your pump with a dedicated light system. That’s nothing new. Streamlight and Surefire did it, but the Nightstick SFL offered a few features and changes that caught my attention. First, the 120-dollar price point makes it fairly affordable. Second, 1,200 lumens of light outperform the DSF and TL Racker. The 1,200 lumens are backed by 10,315 candela, and Surefire and Streamlight both beat the Nightstick in candela.
Another feature is the option of a laser. Visible lasers on long guns are a little silly, but on guns like the Shockwave and TAC14, they provide hours of enjoyment and make instinctively shooting the gun fairly easy. Nightstick also designed the grip of the SFL to be incredibly ergonomic and highly textured for a sure and easy grip. I tried it out at SHOT, and Nightstick happily agreed to send me a model, and they did just that.
The Nightstick SFL – Lights It Up
Nightstick created the SFL for the Remington 870 and the Mossberg 500 series. This includes the 590 and Shockwave series. I went with the 590 model, and it ships with a spacer so it can function with both the standard length action tubes and shorter tubes. The Nightstick SFL packs a punch with an IP-X7 rating and a 2-meter drop rating.
Nightstick includes the tube wrench and batteries, too, making it easy to install. Unscrew the old pump, reinstall the new light, screw it back on, and boom, you’re done. Once installed, the light looks somewhat bulky but handles well. The palm swell fits the hand nicely, and the aggressive texturing allows you to get a rock-solid grip on the light and pump.
The thing with these shotgun forend lights is that they have to double as both a good light and a good pump. If it half-asses either route, you get a crap design. The palm swell of the Nightstick SFL helps make it a very effective pump and allows you to get a good, tight grip on the light. If you use the push/pull method of recoil mitigation, you’ll appreciate the SFL.
You can shove that dang thing forward with ease and push it forward to help control the gun as you pull rearward on the stock. I use a good stiff push, and my hand doesn’t slide off the pump or slide forward. Even if it did, you could install the optional pump strap that comes with the Nightstick SFL.
Shiny and Bright
The Nightstick SFL casts a big wide beam made of bright white light that sits more on the cool spectrum. It is a light designed to fill a room, and to do so, and you get a big wide light head. That big head casts a wide beam with a fairly focused hot spot. While the light will fill your peripheral vision with white light, and that hot spot will blind a threat, chew through a photonic barrier, and give you a little extra range if you need it.
The beam has a fairly effective range when you take the light outside. It stays well within shotgun range, and at 50 yards, I can tell you the colors of my various gongs. Out to 100 hundred yards, I can see a man-shaped target, but I couldn’t tell you much more than that.
For buckshot tasks, the Nightstick SFL does a fairly good job of giving you the light necessary to identify and deal with a threat. I set up a fairly standard handheld light and aimed it at myself. This created a photonic barrier and the SFL shined right through it. It beat back the light and allowed me to see clearly what was shining alight at me.
I turned on my barn lights and placed a target on the dark side of the barn. I stood on the other dark side and blasted the light through the overhead photonic barrier, and the Nightstick chewed through it. Spotting the target wasn’t a problem.
Laser Life
Admittedly lasers on pumps don’t offer the most stable, easily zeroed platform. The laser moves a fair bit because the pump moves. It isn’t much of a problem for close range, and on a PGO firearm, you’ll have more problems than pump slop. Even so, I can bust a clay pigeon at 15 yards from the hip every time I try.
On a PGO, it would be a fair bit of fun, much like the Crimson Trace Laser Saddle. The laser on the SFL is fairly bright and very easy to see, even in bright daytime situations. At 20 yards, the little light shines bright. If lasers aren’t your thing, the SLF comes with a light-only option that’ll save you a few bucks.
Fit For Defense?
While the Surefire series will likely rule the duty market for many years to come, the Nightstick SFL offers a very bright and capable light that works well as both a pump and a weapon light. It’s perfect for home defense and perfectly suitable for your nightstand gun, and it is priced well for its potential.
Keith and Jack are flying without Caleb today, and they take on the tough question of why the idea that you should be 21 to buy a gun is a ridiculous idea.
California Governor Gavin Newsom shares his reaction to two mass shootings over the weekend in Texas and Ohio during a press conference, Monday, August 5, 2019, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. On his left is Mark Ghilarducci, the director of Cal OES and on his right is Xavier Becerra, Attorney General of California. Image via Sacramento Bee, SacBee.com
SACRAMENTO – With the country still reeling from the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 children and two teachers dead last week, California’s nation-leading record on gun safety provides a pathway for states seeking to rein in gun violence.
Find more statistics at Statista Find more statistics at Statista
Wow. Really leading the way there, California. Literally just using your population to pad that death toll per capita of violent incidents. If your policies worked so well, I’d expect better results. Like, at least have fewer incidents than Texas if you are going to throw Texas under the bus as the bad example.
From the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC): “Compared to citizens of other states, Californians are about 25% less likely to die in mass shootings. Between 2019 and 2021, the state’s annual mass shooting homicide rate of 1.4 per one million people was lower than the national average of 1.9.”
According to this list, sorted by dates. You picked three years where you didn’t have a mass shooting with 10 or more deaths. Convenient since you’ve had 23 with four or more deaths, nearly double that of any other state. When I look at the deadliest shootings too, same list at the link, I see a lot of California right next to Texas. So are we arguing some policy that California put into place rendered shootings less dangerous in California? Texas has seven 10+ deadly casualty incidents to California’s three, true. But Texas only has 13 total 4+ deadly casualty incidents (the chart doesn’t include 1966, University of Texas) to California’s 23.
California banned ‘Assault Weapons’ in 1989 but two of its three worst mass shootings happened after the ban. California’s deadliest shooting was with two 9mm weapons and a pump action shotgun, so much for 5.56 rifles being the problem we need to solve.
New York also has three 10+ deadly casualty incidents. Two of those occurred with handguns.
The deadliest school shooting in the history of the country, the third deadliest mass shooting, occurred with a pair of handguns, a 9mm and a .22.
So where is the consistency in logic? Is California or New York actually better off, or is Newsom just lying with statistics again? By mischaracterizing outlier extreme violent events in a certain way, and selective timelining, it can certainly look like your policies are working instead of it being blind dumb luck that nobody got that angry again in your state.
So congratulations again to Gavin and California. Ranked #1 in Gun Safety, with the most mass shootings and the most school shootings in history.
Do you want to see the President of the United State claim he isn’t targeting law abiding gun owners, but then do exactly that?
Do you want hear him use the “Do something.” excuse and then claim nothing was done when states enacted all kinds of rules, like the S.A.F.E Act, that didn’t work?
Do you want to hear the President wax poetic about an assault weapon ban that will stop mass shootings, like in California where it hasn’t stopped mass shootings?
Do you want to hear him claim that there have always been limitations on weapons and then drag out the National Firearms Act? Because 1791 and 1934 are pretty much the same year obviously. Also that just taxed machine guns to get gangsters for tax evasion, not exactly the hallmark of safety legislation.
“We regulated machine guns 90 years ago and its still a free county.” – Joe making something he believes is a point, I guess. Not commenting on the fact Machine Guns didn’t become new production illegal until 1986, just taxed. Or that the posterchild school mass shooting, Columbine, happened during the Assault Weapon Ban he wants back.
“This isn’t about taking away anyone’s rights, its about protecting children.”
Okay, then do that. Put physical security experts on the ground at schools and cut them a check to make upgrades. Put them in contact with the local LEs to see what the problematic regional concerns are. Build out a plan.
Dammit, Joe.
You cannot be free of the consequences of another’s actions. It is literally impossible. So no, we do not have that “freedom” because it isn’t a freedom. It may be a reasonable expectation in society, and it is. But it isn’t a right. Freedom from consequence is not a right. The right to “feel safe” is not a right. It cannot be secured by the actions or restraint of governments.
“Guns are the number one killer of children.” Nope. Accidental injury is. Rolling in the teens to age 17, 19, or even 21 into “children” and both homicide and suicide rates shift that rate. But the motivations and free agency of an 8 year old and 18 year old are entirely different.
But use kids as your political prop I guess, not like decency and honesty has stopped you before…
More “school age kids” died from guns than police or military combined, he states next. Hmm. Where Joe? Where? In school? What where these school age kids doing when they died? Who killed them? Bet most of those deaths were in the 15+ age range and tied to criminal activities instead of a more “school” related event, am I right?
I am.
Go ahead, Joe. Keep oversimplifying and misidentifying the problem with politically charged information bracketing that has nothing to do with motive. I’m sure that’ll work this time since it has literally never worked.
NPR hasn’t been my favorite news source for awhile, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be paying attention to them. They have an aggressive anti-gun bent but that just means they are going to be a very loud source of information on anti-gun legislation. That is a topic I do want to know about. Yesterday New York passed a bill to raise the legal age to purchase semi-automatics, because their assault weapon ban failed them, to 21. The Governor, Kathy Hochul, has indicated she will sign the bill and make it law and has supported its passage.
New York, California, and Illinois love their marathon to infringement. They’ve never seen a gun control measure they hate, regardless of how absurd. It is a sad state (or three) for the nation that we are looking at alarmist solutions.
Raising the Age
I will give some credit here. Of the bad ideas that won’t actively hinder a motivated outlier, this one at least has a few points of factual merit.
From the psychological and reasoning developmental aspects of humanity, 21 is more mature than 18. The age of 25 has been posited as the pinnacle developmental point for modern humanity where our social learning, cognitive strengths, and reasoning powers top off their final major growth spurt. We can obviously keep learning as adults, experiencing new things, new ideas, and adapting to new changes in our environment. But biologically are body is out of its tutorial phase where we are absorbing all the information to build or social responsibility structure and have, in theory, a pretty good grasp on things.
Most people’s late 20’s are where they end up in serious “getting my shit together” mode while the early 20’s and late teens tend to be far more awkward puppy with too big of paws, but in a societal setting. We dump adulthood (most of it) right into the middle of this cognitive growth period, actually the early third, and tell a ton of kids their on their own.
So, from a stratospheric analysis of the concept, making the age for adulting 21 has merits. Notice I say adulting, and not just firearm purchases. If we’re serious and want to do this, do it for everything.
Voting, 21.
Military, 21.
Unrestricted Driving, 21.
Smoking, 21.
Fill the time gap with community or trade education so that at 21 we have a crop of well educated burgeoning professionals who can support themselves with skilled labors. Associates degrees and all manner of trades can be covered in that timeframe with some room to get started working.
But no, New York is not doing that. New York isn’t changing how they see the adult developmental arc, they are trying to remove a method of injury for outlier events. They are doing so poorly. For the specific events they are trying to defend against, motivated killer, the rule won’t do anything. The two of the last three high profile mass killings were by 18 year old perpetrators, but the third was a 45 year old. A man who was actually outside the majority arc for all violent activities. He killed his surgeon, some other staff in the office, a bystander, and then himself. How does this law prevent that event? Those deaths?
The reason the law fails to achieve its goals, and why it should therefore be crafted differently or discarded, is because it addresses the wrong issues. We don’t have a problem with AR-15’s. We have a problem with an on edge society finding the most convenient method of injury to get their violence on, and outliers who believe doing so solves their problems. Changing the age neither solves the problems nor treats a symptom. It just looks like it does on paper. Its a placebo. It is public safety theater even more than the TSA.
Banning semi-autos to those under 21, or requiring a license, or any other inane method of window dressing public safety efforts will fall flat again the next time the next person chooses a remotely convenient method of injury to get their mad on. Like, hooray we made it more illegal to murder a bunch or people. Go us.
Banning Body Armor
So you want to yank back all of the protective panels parents bought for their children since the state has proven time, and time, and time again that they can’t stop these events? You want to ban the one piece of genuine extra protection a parent can give their student?
Why? Body Armor panels aren’t magic. They are an extra few seconds of safety and injury avoidance. Yes, that can be used by an evil person just as well as a good person. Body armor is just as inanimate as a firearm.
However, like firearms, body armor is already out of the bag. It isn’t serialized or trackable. How do you propose making it illegal to be armored is going to be any more effective than making it slightly differently illegal to be armed is? Are we hoping the motivated killer is going to listen to that part of the law? Are we actually just hoping that the next determined individual just magically, through the grace of raw chance, was prevented from buying armor or a repeating firearm, didn’t acquire them any other way, and is able to be interdicted by the police effectively?
That’s a bunch of very perfectly aligned stars, my lawmaker dudes…
Microstamping
Another state looking at this pipedream technology that will slowly squeeze legal firearms out of existence. That’s it, that’s its trick and gun controllers aren’t shy about admitting they will settle for a slow ban. A slow ban that they can put more pressure into every time it fails to do the thing it can never do, stop the free agency of a killer.
Microstamping doesn’t work, that’s why the approved handgun list keeps dwindling in California. What is microstamping going to do anyway? Oh yay, a partial and illegible imprint of the serial number on the brass case. It isn’t GPS coordinates to a killer. California’s last 10 years of violence still hover at about a 45% clearance rate on cases, up and down a point or two. Did microstamping move the needle at all? Doesn’t appear to have, it simply banned handguns slowly to make it more palatable. The violent portions of California are still violent and the peaceable are still peaceable. Meanwhile people flee the state because you can’t afford to stay.
New York already requires people to be 21 to possess a handgun. Younger people would still be allowed to have other types of rifles and shotguns under the new law, but would be unable to buy the type of fast-firing rifles used by the 18-year-old gunmen in the mass shootings in Buffalo and at a Texas elementary school. -NPR
Look, a repeating firearm that 18 year old’s will still be able to buy.
It took precisely zero seconds of effort to find a lethally effective and legal workaround for this rule. We don’t even need to discuss the illegal ones. We act like we are damming a river, when in reality its about as effective as shutting a screen door underwater to try and keep out a little bit of bad water. It’ll matter less than a fart in a windstorm to the next motivated bad actor. We are focusing our time and efforts in the wrong places. We aren’t tackling the motivations for violence by encouraging good living. Instead we continue to politically profit off cheap divisions and wonder why kids have more stress and less hope today.
Those were the words used recently by the CEO of JPMorganChase to describe what is coming. When a guy like that uses words like that, we are in deep doo-doo.
Whatever it is you need to do to get you and your family ready for a potential shit-storm, you need to do it. Now.
There is nothing we can personally do about gas prices. There is nothing we can personally do about the stock market. But if you haven’t already been stocking up on shelf stable food and other necessities in case of job loss or other calamity, I don’t know what else to say to convince you. The head of one of the oldest and biggest banks in the US is telling people to “Brace yourselves”.
This is serious. He’s saying that oil could go to $150 – $175 a barrel. (currently $116 a barrel). If that’s true, the suck hasn’t even gotten started yet. The skyrocketing price of fuel will impact absolutely everything else, but especially food prices.
If you haven’t planted a backyard garden or some containers on your balcony already, you really should do it. It’s not too late. In some areas the growing season is just getting started. YouTube and the rest of the interwebs are chock full of ideas for beginner gardeners in virtually any kind of situation. Some of the gardeners that I enjoy are:
When I find a good article I print it out and save it in a garden binder for future reference. I’d always rather have a back-up in print for just about anything – even recipes. I have a binder for that too. The internet may not always be around when you need it.
Some of my suggestions for easy and cheap crops to grow at home (if I can do it, so can you) – corn, beans, and squash, tomatoes and peppers, onions and garlic, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, sugar/pie pumpkins, leaf lettuce, kale, and spinach. Almost all of those can be dehydrated for long-term storage as well. Pick something easy and get started. Preferably a couple months ago, but now is better than nothing.
Stock up on food. Grow some of your own food. Make connections with a local cattle farmer. Make friends with someone who raises their own chickens and eggs. Get a chest freezer. Get a dehydrator. Learn to can. Hunker down and be frugal. Cook at home. You can’t eat ammo.
An Aero Precision rifle has successfully completed a series of rigorous testing procedures required to meet National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standards for law enforcement. Following that process, the rifle was evaluated with a 10,000-round endurance test.
The weapon experienced zero malfunctions during the 10,040 round NIJ assessment, even in extreme conditions that fall outside normal use.
Evaluation to NIJ Standard
The evaluation process of the Aero Precision rifle was conducted by a West Coast law enforcement agency and included the following phases:
• Initial 60-round test fire sequence • 12 hour Freezer period with subsequent 30-round test fire • 12 hour Oven period (120° Fahrenheit) with subsequent 30-round test fire • Water submersion with subsequent 30-round test fire • Sand submersion with subsequent 30-round test fire • Six (6) position drop test with five (5) rounds fired after each drop.1 • Initial zero with optic and iron sights2 • Final zero conducted with 3-round zeroing shots near the end of the endurance test with an acceptable zero of 2.75 in.
Every AR15 upper from Aero Precision, stripped or complete, is engineered, built, and inspected to the highest possible standards.
Endurance Test
• The test consisted of 10,000 rounds fired in 1,000 round increments. • The rifle was cleaned and lubricated prior to the beginning of the test. • It was subsequently lubricated in 1000-round intervals. • The firing schedule for this rifle consisted of 150-180-round increments from various shooting positions and firing rates. • There was an 8-12 round cooldown period between firing cycles utilizing a 4’x4′ industrial fan. • The gas rings of the rifle were replaced at 6,040 rounds. • A final zeroing test was conducted at around 9,960.
The Aero Precision rifle completed both the NIJ Standards and Endurance Test with zero (0) operational problems.
Aero Precision AR15 lower receivers are among the most sought-after in the industry.
1The charging handle lever on the port side broke during the drop testing sequence and the flash-hider and pistol group came loose. None of these issues impacted how the rifle functioned. Loosened parts were re-tightened.
2The T&E optic failed during the drop test; no effect on the rifle test. A second T&E optic also failed. A third T&E optic was used during the endurance firing sequence.
More from Aero Precision
In addition to complete rifles, Aero Precision is known for offering a range of AR 15 kits for people who want to build (or upgrade) their own rifle.
On the federal level they are going all in, throw everything at the wall and see what stick. They have Republicans under more pressure than they have ever been able to bring to bear with 3 killings and a media hot after anything that can be thrown onto this narrative wildfire.
Ban “high capacity” magazines
Attack so-called “Ghost Guns”
Expand the NFA
Implement government mandates on how you store your guns
“Assault Weapon” Ban
We’ve seen actions at the state level too in recent days. California looking to stop ‘precursor’ parts from being sold and Illinois banning non-serialized firearms entirely, and immediately, with HB4383. The states are moving faster on this than the federal side. I also expect to see more extreme and sudden moves on the states who are going to move. The usual suspects of states doing the most to crush their citizens civil rights in the name of protecting them.
HB4383 was a particularly harsh and sudden end to something the has been legal federally for ages. It cancels all non-serialized firearms in the state. You can no longer buy an 80% receiver and if you have one, 180 days after May 18th, you will have to have it serialized. States with anti-gun biases are cracking down harshly but the best defense in most of the legal conundrums is prior legal ownership. Some items, like unfinished unserialized frames and receivers, are not grandfathered but that is going to be a hard thing for even anti-gun politicos to get to stick. Pen stroking felons into existence doesn’t go well.
Be prepared to firmly, but politely, remind your Senators and Congressional Representatives that these actions have no logical basis for their implementation and that emotional reactions that only negatively impact the innocent are not going to magically sweep up all of the future guilty. They won’t stop any of the future guilty in fact, we are moving the wrong social influences in order to positively induce change. Our society is discontent and disillusioned with the petty squabbles of their elected leaders and instead of strong statesmen and stateswomen they see bickering aged toddlers.
Added into this quagmire of under informed lawmakers, oh how I wish that was an oxymoron and not the standard operating procedure, we have “News” organization publishing garbage like this.
Not even most high explosives are designed to blow targets apart. The AR-15 doesn’t blow targets apart, it puts a 5.56mm diameter hole through them or breaks against the steel plate that the target is. Paper or steel, it doesn’t blow them apart.
If we want to put this into context of living targets, it still doesn’t blow them apart. It is a moderate power high velocity rifle round that can deliver a lethal wound to the lungs, heart, or central nervous system. That descriptor covers every. single.firearm. It can deliver a lethal wound to the lungs, heart, or central nervous system. The ‘size’ of that wound is not as devastating as its placement or how long it takes to be treated. That is how the injuries work.
Anti-gunners are in full burn it all down mode… for the children. Of course.
The latest out of the mouth of the “most votes EVAR” guy has rational people shaking their heads … again. “9mm rounds blow the lungs right out of the body”? There goes Commander Cabbage making word salad … again.
From the interwebs
Uhhhh, no. I’m only a pediatrician, but even I can guarantee that this is a falsehood.
“A .22 caliber lodges in the lung?” Uhhh, a .223 – like the “assault weapons” round you mean? So, is Commander Cabbage saying that a 9mm pistol round is more “dangerous” than a .223 “assault weapon” round???? I know that dementia isn’t contagious, but this clown makes my brain hurt.
Also stolen from the interwebs.
And it’s not just the Cabbage-in-Chief. Freaking NPR recently claimed that an AR-15 can decapitate a person. I just can’t even. Gawd forbid they find out about shotgun slugs. Remember that nice “safe” shotgun that you are supposed to fire into the air on your back porch to scare away intruders?
We are ALL saddened and outraged by recent mass shooting events. But I am sick unto death with being blamed for the deeds of evil men. I am also sick of the LIES that the media and politicians use to leverage children’s blood for their political gain.
“For the Children” has become not only a rallying cry, but a mantle of self-anointed holiness amongst many. I’m running into it more and more in social media as well as in supposed “professional” circles. Do not question or resist those wrapped in the holy mantle of children, for they will rebuke you with their blessed swords of emotional nonsense.
To borrow a term from one of my favorite authors, these “Screeching Harpies of Tolerance” demand obeisance and obedience to their every pronouncement. Especially in my professional circles any pushback at all, any disagreement or failure to toe the party line is received as persecution of the “defenders of children”with the resultant implications that you and your questions (or gawd forbid- resistance) are evil incarnate and you want more children to die.
I love children. I’m a children’s doctor for crying out loud. Do not even try to hang this evil on me or those in the 2A community. And do NOT try to word salad your way out of difficult questions, either.
Seriously, can no one educate these idiots and liars? The sad reality is they don’t WANT to be educated. That would expose their falsehoods and their craven partisan plots. And the really sad part is that the portion of the general public who know nothing about firearms believes these lies and distortions. Commander Cabbage and his cronies are feeding them poisoned word salad on the slow death march to totalitarianism and they don’t even know it.
Law enforcement personnel stand outside Robb Elementary School following a shooting, Tuesday, May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills) via CNN
Timelines are important. They establish who did what, when, and we can interpret what was known when, and look for the places that were exploited to commit the act or what allowed an event to transpire. This is true for earthquakes, hurricane damage, fires, gas leaks, and violent events.
No, we don’t need to talk about the absurdity of trying to ban and sweep up all assault weapons or magazines. No 9mm handguns don’t need banning either (though that would make 30 Super Carry way more popular) and the vagaries of ‘Red Flag’ laws are still highly problematic from both an accuracy standpoint and a civil rights standpoint.
Border Patrol agent who finally went in and reportedly killed the shooter after being frustrated with lack of action by police after 80 minutes of failing to stop the massacre. He took a bullet in the hat and scalp which grazed him.
Reportedly Border Patrol agents that stormed the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas to take down the shooter did so after becoming frustrated by local police telling them to wait. A new timeline from DPS Director McCraw shows that the shooter was actually in the school for 80 minutes before law enforcement stopped his attack.
The timeline of events are going to be the keystone piece in putting together effective changes in security and deterrents against killings. There were failings, we need to be honest about that. We need to address the failings that allowed the shooter the access.
We can’t screen for evil, we can’t filter out crazy, and we can’t read minds. So we have to focus on the things we can influence. This timeline may be further updated as the authorities in charge of investigating the incident put it all together
The school’s onsite building security policy failed when the exterior door was left propped open. It has been argued that the officers failed in their duties to their community, maybe not in a legal sense since the Supreme Court ruled they have no duty to protect, but certainly in the moral sense that officers are present to protect and serve their community. I do not expect an officer to act in a suicidally rash manner, but rapid logical decisiveness, yes, I do expect that.
11:28 am: The shooter crashes a pickup truck into a ditch behind the school. He is carrying a semi-automatic rifle. He opens fire on two people outside a nearby business who escaped uninjured.
I am not certain what time the shooter’s grandmother called 911, there are indications from the family that he and his grandmother fought over his purchase of the two rifles. This begins the first point a location could be communicated about the shooter after leaving his grandmother’s residence.
11:30: First 911 call about a crash and shots fired outside the school is made.
Location communicated, response begins.
11:33: Shooter enters the school through a propped-open door, enters two connected fourth-grade classrooms — which two entrances that lock from the inside — and begins firing.
This is the critical failure point.
We can be critical of the actions of the Uvalde officers and what they did inside and outside the building all we would like to, I want to do so fairly, but this event is the critical failure point. Not the cops, a teacher. Unlocked access into the school building. The shooter will now be able to use the locking designs against responders, which he did.
Now the teacher, who I assume could not feel more horried of their contribution to the situation, did not kill those children or co-workers. To suggest so is cruel and unnecessary, it does nothing to help. But they did provide the means of entry, the path of least resistance into the building.
I do not believe the school was a deliberate target, I could be wrong but it does not appear that this was planned out in any manner prior to the triggering event with his grandmother. Robb Elementary was the target of opportunity once the shooter made the decision. The locked exterior door would have slowed the shooter and officers were only 120 seconds behind him.
That blocked pathway could have made all the difference in the world.
11:35: At least three Uvalde Police Officers enter the same door as the shooter and go directly to one of the doors to one of the classrooms. Two are injured by gunshots from the shooter. Those three officers were followed by three additional Uvalde police officers and a county deputy sheriff.
Here the shooter begins to use the school’s geometry against responding officers. Officers, contrary to many reports and early anger, did not wait outside the school, they pushed and were engaged by the shooter. Officers outside the school were tasked with preventing parents and bystanders from becoming additional casualties. This is a crucial but thankless task, don’t allow people to add to the injured list by rushing in and going down themselves.
At this point however, the shooter has shut the classroom doors and the officers did not possess the key to pursue. This is a security concern that needs addressing. If fire departments have key access to buildings around the community to help with fire suppression and medical incidents a similar system can be implemented for critical buildings like schools where a master key can be safely stored. That key access would have given the officers the option to breach quickly behind the shooter.
That option would have carried several other risks, including getting shot as the officers are moving through the doorway. Since that ended up happening once BORTAC got on seen and pushed the breach with keys, early responder access is a security measure we must look at implementing.
12:03: At least 19 officers have gathered in a hallway outside the classrooms.
12:03: The first 911 call is made from inside one of the classrooms by a person identified by McCraw as a female “student/child.”
12:10: The person makes another call and advised the operator that multiple people were dead.
12:13 – 12:16: The student makes two more calls and says there are eight to nine student alive inside the classroom she was in.
12:19: Another 911 call is made from a second unidentified person, “who hung up when another student told her to hang up,” McCraw said.
12:43 and 12:47: The initial caller makes two more calls and asks the operator to “please send the police now,” according to McCraw.
12:51 pm: Border Patrol tactical agents unlock one of the doors with a key received from a school janitor, breach the room, kill the suspect and begin escorting children out.
The time to stop the shooter was outside at 11:33, by having the door closed as I had (wrongly, it turns out) assumed was a well enforced standard practice nationwide at schools. You might not be able to stop a shooter cold if the exterior of the door can be broken in some way to get to it open, shoot out the glass for example as appears to have happened at the interior classroom door, but unhindered access is what allowed this to develop in the manner it did.
From reports I’ve seen the shooter rushed the teachers as they were trying to lock him out and one of them died in the attempt at the classroom.
Officers needed and did not have the means to expediatantly follow the shooter, they could not keep pressure on him and force him to react. Once he was shut into the classroom pressure eased and he was able to act as he choose within that space, killing 21 people.
Access didn’t happened until BORTAC showed up, apparently defying the orders of the onsite Uvalde OIC, and moved to kill the shooter.
A student reported that the shooter killed another student who cried out in response to an officer on the outside of the school shouting if anyone needed help.
But the short of all of this is that people failed. People failed to keep certain security measures in place in the moment when they were needed. Casualties happened that should have had more steps between them and the line of fire. People died because the safety layers weren’t there to give Law Enforcement the time they needed and then they were playing catch up.
“We instill a strong propensity in self-reliance in a variety of skills: Marksmanship, SUAS, Observe and Detect, and Communications. Utilizing broadly available commercial technologies to enhance skills: from Lasers, Night Vision, Ballistic Software, and Commercial off the shelf drones.”– CR2 Solutions
Two things that are a must on the battlefield, communication and gaining entry. While we have many practical firearms instructors, a little less number of precision shooting instructors, we have a very small amount of civilian instructors that teach those skills. Our operators have a craft to keep sharp and there are only a few groups giving opportunities to do that. CR2 Solutions, a company derived from two former sniper instructors that are not only very skilled in Precision Rifle, but also in alternate communication methods and covert entry. During 2022 CR2 has hosted Mojave Repeater “RTO Basics” and will be hosting Cloaked Entry Co “Covert Entry”.
CR2 and Mojave Repeater
“Based out of Twentynine Palms, CA. Putting extended range off-grid communications solutions into your hands for disaster preparedness, emergency response, tactical scenarios and more.” Mojave Repeater
CR2 Solutions hosted Mojave Repeater who held the “RTO Basics” two day Class. It took place in Columbus, GA and covered many techniques that are needed to properly communicate in the battlefield. It was a very field driven course. From CR2 about what took place, “To planning a mission requiring a comms shot over 15 kilometers of highly vegetated mountainous terrain. To successfully executing that mission with individual team movements navigating an upwards of 8 miles.“
This class specifically covered: Signal Theory / Wave Propagation Radio Programming Radio Etiquette & Reporting Comm / Signal Planning LOS Analysis PACE Planning Hands-on & Practical Application
CR2 and Cloaked Entry Co
“It started off in 2018 when we picked up a clear lock from a local gun show. We figured out how to pick it and the rest was history. For the last 3 years we’ve practiced, we’ve learned, we’ve been humbled, and we’ve become apart of a community filled with like minded individuals. Cloaked Entry Co was created to teach like minded individuals which include law enforcement, first responders, military, and the prepared citizen.”-Cloaked Entry Co
Another very important skill..covert entry. On June 18-19 CR2 will be hosting Cloaked Entry Co in Columbus Georgia. This class is made for beginner all the way to very advanced.
Topics that will be covered: – Legality – Philosophy of use – Tools – Anatomy of locking mechanisms – Standard pin-tumbler format of a lock (Masterlock, Yale, American, Brinks, Schlage, Kwikset, etc.) – Decoding lockboxes – Attack unshielded locks – Improvised tools – Bypassing tools
https://www.cloakedentryco.com/
While most of it looks classroom, it does look like you’ll get outside and face some real entry problems class dependent.
I will talk some on NRAAM later, but overall that was just a fun show to look at the things that we already know about thanks to the internet. The protestors were protesting protestilly, Beto beto’d, too. It was all rather incoherent and angry.
I understand that. Incoherent and angry is a natural emotive state after tragedy and trauma. But the fact that is the natural state cannot be used as an excuse to make atrocious policy decisions. I am not saying this as a pro-gun person, I am saying it as someone looking at the deeper logics of building security policy. Guns aren’t magically the answer here. Guns are also not the root of the problem. Guns can, and need to in various ways, be part of the solutions while they will also continue to be part of the threat.
Policies failed in Uvalde. People failed. The guns that have been around for a century had very little to do with it, other than being the most convenient method of injury.
But here we are blaming the method of injury and ineffectually screaming about the rules governing certain versions of the method of injury, or who should and shouldn’t be allowed to purchase the method of injury. The serious discussions about the human failure points and the realities of physical security are drowned out. Holding Uvalde’s Law Enforcement decision maker accountable for holding off on entering the classroom or holding the staff accountable for propping the external door open and giving the shooter unhindered access inside the school building.
But no, we get posts like this.
If you look at the video above an off quoted physician who was interviewed here, the transcripts miss the part that I have highlighted at 2:37…
The part where she states that AR-15 rifle rounds travel at 3 times the speed of light. Now, admittedly, this could be an honest gaff and she meant sound, which is true roughly at 3,000 fps. But look at the NPR post now. Decapitation by an AR-15. Like this is either factual or a useful piece of information. If AR’s could decapitate there’d be a lot more headless corpses in the middle east.
Joe Biden was quoted this weekend stating 9mm (the little pistol round that the FBI blamed for how long the North Hollywood shootout took to resolve) would pull people’s lungs out of there bodies. Why are we exaggerating damage? Isn’t the actual lethality of these guns enough to report accurately on their own?
When satire is more realistic than reality…
Answer: Nope. In context firearms aren’t that dangerous. That doesn’t make them not dangerous, but in scale they have their place right about where motor vehicles are. The difference being firearms deaths are overwhelming deliberate, homicide or suicide. Deaths related to alcohol, vehicles, etc. tend to be consequential or accidental instead of deliberate. I say consequential because poor habits like distracted driving or intoxicated driving are deliberate choices but their intent isn’t to cause harm, that is simply the result. I’m reserving accidental for more genuinely unintended circumstances where a stack of poor behaviors and patterns were not present.
These quotes from ‘authority’ are merely the latest examples, of an absurdly incalculable number, that these “experts” aren’t experts in this field, and shouldn’t be relied on to be.
The Doctor, Dr. Comilla Sasson, later went into how these weren’t ‘normal bullet wounds’ she had been treating. I want to put her into contact with literally any battlefield trauma surgeon, medic, or Corpsman. Because yes they are. Handgun wounds are just more common domestically so she would overwhelmingly be treating those in an ER and not a middle caliber rifle wound.
Good policy requires facts.
My first question in the event wasn’t how did the shooter get the gun(s). That honestly doesn’t matter. It usually turns out there are no disqualifying convictions or adjudicated mental flags in their background, so there is no legal way to deny someone without a history to base that upon. Pre-crime isn’t a thing. What we fail to ratio properly when something like this happens is just how many similar incidents there are where ‘red flag’ behaviors are present, but they those people end up doing nothing wrong. They were just venting their spleens in a dumb manner. Being angry is not a crime.
Are we suggesting going to mass conviction of massive groups, instead of guilty individuals, in the off chance we might catch a killer? That is an absurdly dangerous logic stream. I’ve done the math. There is a way to do it. It is horrific. The math does check out though. Meanwhile, gun controllers math never checks out. It all relies on the perfect compliance of all involved. If we had that we wouldn’t need the policy in the first place. Utopia fallacy.
But let’s go back to Dr, Sasson’s comment. Even given the difference in injury capacity between a handgun round and a rifle round, there is a notable one, when you put those differences into the context of an unopposed shooter those physical differences in individual injury power mean almost nothing. An unopposed shooter with a lever action .22lr is potentially as lethal, in scale, as one with an AR. An unopposed armed individual with any variation on a modern firearm is a problem. An unopposed armed individual with any weapon or improvised method of injury is a problem.
Why?
The environment determines the casualty count more than the weapon. How close are how many people to the killer when the killing starts and when are they first effectively opposed? Killer with a handgun, killer with a shotgun, killer with an AR-15 or similar rifle, all will be primarily limited by their environment first. Killer with a car, killer with a bomb, killer with arson, same limitations. The target environment sets their risk ratio.
So why are we still okay with listening to fools tell us to fire two blasts in the air, or that 9mm blows the lungs out of somebody, or a newscast showing a 12 gauge shotgun shooting a watermelon to demonstrate what an AR-15 does? Rather, why are anti-gunners okay with it? When in a similar circumstance where they would be under the gun, proverbially, for misinformed claptrap shaping policy, they would be just as livid about the nonsense?
We see them change their tune every event. We see them target the thing they might be able to get thistime. And we know from all the nations of the world it will never be enough until the ban is total. We also know from around the world that won’t dent the murder rate, assaults, or anything else by much since social factors guide those and not weapon access.
Why the lies?
I think the answer is manyfold.
Firstly, Emotion > Reason. The emotive response feels the most empowering because it is raw and makes it feel like you can solve the issue. It absolutely sucks to reason this security question out, with the safety of our kids on the line, and come to the realization over and over again that there is a hard limit to what we can do. There is a hard limit and some hard consequences to certain pathways. That is all compounded by the fact that some of the solutions are unpopular and will be ignored because of it, that other solutions are merely window dressing, and that still others are already theoretically in place but are subject to the failings of human error, and still more are entirely unworkable for the mere logistics and risks involved.
That last one would be any manner of “effective” gun ban, so pretty much all of them with no grandfathering. A full prohibition on private firearms ownership, or at least on repeating firearms. The consequences of this would be catastrophic. If even .01% of gun owners resisted violently we are talking an estimated 10,000+ deliberate violent encounters that will cause casualties. If each of those caused one death, on either law enforcement’s side or because of law enforcement, it would increase the homicide rate by over 50%. If even 1% of gun owners went quiet about their collections and kept them, we’re talking about 1,000,000 occurrences and, given averages, about 8,000,000 firearms.
And we have gun controllers who would absolutely, unhesitatingly say, “Go ahead. Kill them.” Because they only see an enemy in their emotive state, not other people. They are doing the very thing they accuse others of and making a subhuman distinction, whether it is ‘Republican’ or ‘Gun Owner’ or ‘Trump Voter’ or whatever. They have segmented a subhuman class that it is okay, because of their personal beliefs about the beliefs they ascribe to the subhuman class, to oppress, ignore, or even condemn to death.
Classic humans, our loudest and angriest are usually the most tribal while claiming not to be.
Ultimately we have no indication that ban and confiscatory activities would have anywhere near a 99% peaceful efficacy rate. We also know they would not be effective, these events are already exceptions. We are the third most populous nation on the planet yet it keeps being pointed out that if we were the UK or Germany then we’d be the UK or Germany, like those societies didn’t evolve the way they did with a very bloody century prior and represent smaller societies incomparable to our large multi layered and multi-geographical one.
You realize that California, with its political and societal choices, would rank as the 37th largest country in the world on its own. Between Ukraine and Iraq just above and Afghanistan and Poland just below. Five vastly different territories with vastly different societal mixes and social problems.
Back to Dr. Sasson.
“Those are the wounds where you think – gosh – this isn’t a regular bullet wound,” Dr. Sasson said.
Dr. Sasson has never (or rarely) encountered a rifle wound before in the ER. That is good. That means it is rare that a major ER hadn’t seen it. It needs to stay rare.
Go to any combat trauma surgeon treating people coming out of war zones and a rifle wound could be comparatively mild. IEDs are far more horrific and accounted for more casualties. I pray we don’t get to a point where those injuries start showing up.
I’m not commenting any of this to mean that a gunshot wounded child isn’t a horrific situation, it is to keep in scale that injuries don’t need to be politicized and aggrandized above their scope. Injuries need to be treated. Likelihood of injury needs to be decreased in logical ways and with logical means. A ban is not logical, it is emotive window dressing with no chance of efficacy and a high chance of further problems.
Preventative doesn’t mean prevented.
We like to use the term preventive medicine, but that is a misnomer in many ways. It isn’t preventive, it is mitigatory. We lower the chances of an occurrence through best practices, habits, and behaviors. With all that though, nonsmokers and people without another serious chemical exposure still get lung cancer. Lower rates of it, sure. We know the mitigatory practices work well, but they aren’t perfect. We also don’t have perfect ways to prevent broken bones, lacerations, amputations, concussions, heat injuries, allergies, or the common cold. It is all mitigatory.
We seem to think otherwise when it comes to evil actions however, that if we just ban enough things we can stop the evil actions of a free willed individual from being effective. We also seem to think we can do so without crushing human rights and making no errors on the part of the state, but only in this discussion. We could have the discussion tomorrow about the negative effects of drug laws on minorities, but switch drug to gun and all of sudden the same negative impacts are for their own good.
We can’t prevent mass shootings, or other variations of mass casualty violence, we can mitigate their efficacy in spaces we can exert environmental control over. I cannot prevent someone from driving a bomb loaded truck up to a building (and neither could the government when McVay attacked allegedly in retaliation for Waco and Ruby ridge) but I can put some steps in place to make that more difficult give people less reasons to do so.
That, at the end of the day, is all we can effectively do. We can make it more difficult to successfully access a space and we can work to make society more harmonious.
We’ve been atrociously bad at the second one and it matters the most. Two eighteen year old kids felt the need to mass kill their way to solution in their lives. Do we honestly think that our social environment didn’t shape that? That us being at each other’s throats politically, that rewarding negative behaviors, dishonestly addressing social topics, and teaching kids over and over that doing the right thing has no reward but doing the wrong thing with intent might get overlooked if it is too inconvenient a behavior to correct wouldn’t screw with kids heads? Are we satisfied with the stressful environment we are raising children into for no other valid reasons than shallow political clout?
We, honestly and objectively, are living in the best time in human history. With every flaw, every problem, and every tragedy we have and will face in our lifetimes, it is still better than we have ever been. We need to stop letting that slip away simply because we can here about bad events in near real time. We need to stop deluding ourselves into thinking we can solve, in absolute terms, everything. We need to stop letting politicians run and win on those impossible promises.
In a previous article we talked about the origin of Pendleton Whisky. Created to fully envelop the American West. Now, we focus on giving back to a group of people who often exhibit the same ideals and culture as those in the American West, our Military men and women.
Whisky Honors Veterans From the United States Armed Forces with Limited Edition Bottle Release
Pendleton Whisky continues a strong tradition of celebrating veterans with a limited-edition military bottle released on Armed Forces Day and a $100,000 donation to the Bob Woodruff Foundation.
HOOD RIVER, OR, May 21, 2022–Pendleton Whisky, the iconic Western whisky brand, continues a tradition of standing with veterans from the United States Armed Forces by releasing the fourth iteration of the limited-edition military appreciation bottle. Born in the iconic western town of Pendleton, Oregon, and named for the revered Pendleton Round-Up rodeo, Pendleton Whisky celebrates the spirit of the American cowboy and is committed to supporting both United States veterans and the great country they protect.
In addition to the limited-edition bottle, Pendleton is committed to a $100,000 donation through the proceeds of sales to the Bob Woodruff Foundation. An organization dedicated to helping service members, veterans, and their families create healthy, positive futures. The Oregon-based whisky brand will release a limited run of the Military Appreciation bottles that will feature military embellishments including the common military term, “Got Your Six,” which means “we’ve got your back.” Each bottle will be filled with Pendleton Whisky’s Original whisky which features glacier-fed sprig water from Mt. Hood, Oregon’s tallest peak, giving it an uncommonly smooth taste and rich, complex flavor.“ Pendleton Whisky’s military appreciation bottle showcases the brand’s commitment and homage to U.S. Armed Forces and their families across the country,” said Bob Woodruff Foundation CEO Anne Marie Dougherty. “We are proud to continue this long-standing relationship with Pendleton and work with them to support military veterans and their families through a variety of challenges.
“Serve One Forward” On Memorial Day
”In addition to the limited-edition bottle and commitment to the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Pendleton will be launching the “Serve One Forward” campaign that will allow people to join Pendleton in giving back to veterans of the United States Armed Forces by purchasing a drink for active duty or retired service members at select bars across the country from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Purchased drinks will be displayed via tear sheets and veterans will have the opportunity to thank the person who ‘served one forward’ via Instagram. Check with your local bar to see if they will be participating. The Pendleton Whisky Military Appreciation bottle will be available at retailers.
Visit Pendleton Whisky online at www.pendletonwhisky.com or at @PendletonWhisky on Facebook and Instagram for more information.
About the Bob Woodruff Foundation
The Bob Woodruff Foundation (BWF) was founded in 2006 after reporter Bob Woodruff was wounded by a roadside bomb while covering the war in Iraq. Since then, BWF has led an enduring call to action for people to stand up for heroes and meet the emerging and long-term needs of today’s veterans, including suicide prevention, mental health, caregiver support, and food insecurity. To date, BWF has invested over $85million to Find, Fund and Shape™ programs that have empowered impacted veterans, service members, and their family members, across the nation, reinforcing the message that BWF has ‘Got Your Six’.
Stories of success and innovation from BWF’s network of partners can be found at gotyour6.bobwoodrufffoundation.org. For more information, please visitbobwoodrufffoundation.orgor follow us on Twitter at@Stand4Heroes.
Two Service Members Who Were Impacted by the Bob Woodruff Foundation
Brandon
Brandon Davis served 8 years as an Army infantryman during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He reenlisted after struggling to make the transition back to civilian life following his first deployment, and suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during his second tour.
Brad
Retired U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant, Brad Lang, received a Purple Heart after sustaining an injury resulting in the loss of both his legs during a 2011 Tour of Duty in Afghanistan.
To Buy a Bottle and Learn More
Pendleton Whisky is now available in store to purchase. Who has made an impact on your life that has served? Who may have lost someone close to them that doesn’t want to be alone this Memorial Day?Who could you yourself pour some out for..In this industry especially we have many men and women that have given it all for our Country. Give back to them.
The DSX-D Duty Suppressor System from Maxim Defense was built to optimize quiet performance in a suppressed weapon system. It provides superior direct thread suppression to weapons chambered in 5.56, 7.62, and 6.5 Creedmoor.
Duty is built for the world’s most rigorous demands; this suppressor is designed to be the most robust and strongest suppressor in the category. It has been repeatedly tested with SOCOM tables across various calibers and barrel lengths, down to 8.5″ 5.56 NATO with M855 ball ammunition. It has survived with no damage or significant changes in sound reduction.
The DSX-D Duty Suppressor in black from the side.
DSX-D: Duty Suppressor System
The DSX-D Duty Suppressor was explicitly designed to minimize the violent cyclic rate and gas blowback of a suppressed weapon system like the AR15.
The suppressor consists of a three-piece MonoKore design that adds 7.25″ to the muzzle of your rifle. It is rated for full-auto (with an 8.5″ barrel restriction) in the following calibers:
► 5.56mm
► 7.62mm
► 6.5 Creedmoor
DSX-D Suppressor being equipped onto a rifle.
Increase reliability and longevity with host firearms due to low gas blowback and low gain in host weapon cyclic rate compared to other more traditional suppressor designs.
Drops sound to well below hearing safe levels. The specific reduction amount is based on weapon configuration, ammunition, barrel length, and atmospheric conditions.¹
