Month: January 2013

Taking the new sidearms out

Recently, I picked up an S&W M&P and an M&Pc in 9mm. I wanted to replace the Sig P225 and Beretta Tomcat I was carrying.

Good news, the pistols have great triggers. I had no problem keeping rounds on target. Or at least better than I normally do.

Bad news was that both of them kept throwing brass back at me instead of to the side like my others. Not sure if it’s something I’m doing or something with the pistols.

Overall, I’m very pleased with my new handguns.

Now, if I could just get enough ammo to fill all the magazines.

Women in Combat

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Panetta announced that some combat positions would be opened up for women. One of my co-workers asked me what I thought about this. Should we let women in combat?

I have radically changed my opinions on several issues after watching over a decade of war. One is that nation building is utter bullshit. It’s a lesson we should’ve learned with Vietnam, but we keep making it over and over. Another is that the traditional battlefield no longer exists. The battlefield is wherever the military is operating in theater.

So what do I think of women in combat? FSM, they’ve been in combat for a decade. One of my former roommate’s ex-girlfriends was a former Marine injured in Iraq by a mortar attack. Supply convoys have been ambushed and female officers and NCOs have been leading their troops in some nasty battles. They’ve already proven they can fight. So why not allow them into combat teams now? That way we can get the regs and training meted out before advances in power armor truly level the playing field between men and women.

My caveat to this is that I would expect a female infantry soldier to meet the same basic requirements as a male infantry soldier. To do otherwise would ruin unit cohesion at best, and put combat teams at risk at worst. I would also expect that women should either be forced to sign up for selective service, or more appropriately abolish this relic of a bygone time.

Differences Between Brothers

My brother and I share quite a few interests. Science, skepticism, atheism, and a whole lot of geek culture. Surprising to a lot of people who know me, is that my brother isn’t that big into guns or the RKBA movement. Conversely, my brother is big into cooking and can give long, in-depth explanations of technique and flavors, while I have little interest beyond what will taste good in my smoker. This leads us to get excited over different purchases. Such as his buying a sos vide machine, and my upgrading my sidearms.

Brother: I think you’d get more excited about the sos vide machine, since you get to eat the benefits.

Me: I think you’d get excited about the benefit of me having more ammunition if I have to protect you.

At least we have a good division of labor.

Friday Quote – Penn Jillette

Everytime something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people.

Penn Jillette

There was the temptation to use Franklin’s quote concerning liberty and temporary security, but that’s been overused to the point that it’s become background noise or such a canned phrase that you’d need a Turing test to determine if the user is human and not a spambot.

If there’s one thing I’ve become more and more annoyed with, it’s the idea that we can make the world safe for humanity. To put it bluntly, that is utter bullshit. There’s a risk for living on this planet. It comes from the flora, the fauna, other humans, the planet itself, and from the cosmos that the Earth lives within.

From my observations, humans thrive the best when they have the liberty to do as they see fit and a strong rule of law to ensure that they suffer the consequences for their actions. For their actions. Not for the actions of others. Collective guilt is one of the tools to divert power from the individual to the authority. To strip liberty under the auspices of the “greater good.” To make humans less than what they could be.

Currently, this quote rings true surrounding the current debate about guns. Yet, what about the other intrusions. Frank-Dodd, Obamacare, the PATRIOT act, Sarbanes-Oxley…the list goes on and on. With the crisis immediate, the people are willing to sacrifice their freedoms for the promise that the government will prevent such things from happening again.

But do we get our freedoms back when those promises are broken? Please?

When Panic Buying, Make Sure to Check the Box

So, just like a lot of us, I have been swept in buying what I can get my hands on. Right now, I’m trying to get a hold of a pair of S&W M&P 9mm pistols. I went up to the new gun store/range and they didn’t have my pistols in. Instead, I found a single box of ammo for my AR and quickly purchased it.

Fast forward to today. Since I have the day off, my friend and I went out to the new range since it will take anything up to .308 on the pistol range. I brought my S&W M&P-15, since I’d never actually put rounds downrange through it. First mag, no prob. Green tips, wonderful groups. Then I loaded the ammo from the box I’d purchased the week. Not only was there no boom, the bullet didn’t extract. This was a bit disconcerting.

So we when we got home, we popped off the upper receiver, checked the firing pin, and the had the bullet drop to the floor. My friend picked it up.

Friend: Well, there’s your problem.

Me: What?

Friend: This is .222 Remington, not.223 Remington.

Me: This is what I get for panic buying ammo. Maybe this means I should get a .222 rifle. You know, since I already have the ammo.

So the moral of the story: When panic buying, make sure to read the box!