The Stories and Novels By Derek Ward
I found this Reader’s Digest article via Active Response Training. I’ve only recently started using ride sharing services, so I took a look.
Most of the scams are drivers asking for cash to double dip the fare. The biggest takeaway from this was if you’re paying through the app, and the driver demands cash, report him/her to the company. I would also recommend that you listen to your intuition. If something seems off, end the ride or don’t get into the car.
At the NRA Annual Meeting, there was a new group of protesters led by actress Alyssa Milano. They don’t want guns in private hands to prevent “gun deaths”. Of course, she has no problem with all guns in private hands, particularly when they’re protecting her.
My issue with these people who demand we give up our weapons is that they can’t connect their need for security with the same need by others. I will be the first to admit that high profile people like actresses and politicians have a need for armed security teams. They face unique threats that I don’t. However, that does not mean I do not face just as lethal threats in my environment.
I want Ms. Milano to be able to have the security she needs to protect her from the threats she faces. I just wish she would understand that I should be able to have the means to protect my life from the threats I face.
Springfield Army tells Dick’s to fuck off. And so does the NSSF. It looks like the final straw was Dick’s hiring anti-gun lobbyists. I’m surprised more of the firearms companies haven’t done this, particularly after how Dick’s fucked over Troy after Sandy Hook. Maybe some will follow SA’s lead.
Hillsborough County extends waiting period to five days to do something. Can a waiting period save lives? Maybe for suicides, which to be fair, is the biggest segment of “gun deaths”. For criminals and mass murderers (but I repeat myself), this won’t stop a damn thing. What I find annoying is that a Republican dominated council in a Republican heavy county let this pass without a fight.
NRA insurance banned in New York. The anti-gunners demand we carry liability insurance and then attack any firm that would offer it. That’s a feature, not a bug.
Democratic Congress critter wants to spend $15 billion in paying off gun owners to turn in their Evil Black Rifles And then go after those who didn’t take the bribe. I half-wonder if these politicians make these proposals knowing that they have now choice in passing. Just to virtue signal without having to worry about messy details like coming up with the funding or sending police after gun owners.
NRA Annual Meeting in Dallas:
Trump tried to make gun owners forget his administration is not only not fulfilling the promises made on the campaign trail (cough, national reciprocity, cough), but actively working against us.
A restaurant takes the opportunity to covertly virtue signal.
Gun control crowds smaller than usual. No sign of the Parkland kids or any of the usual heavy hitters.
One of the big stories in advance of the 2018 NRA Annual Meeting is that Glock is celebrating its one millionth Glock 43 and is giving it away. That is a milestone for Glock and a pistol that’s been on the market for about three years. Here’s the fun part.
For years, the figure bandied about is 300 million guns in private hands. That figure is from before the sun setting of the AWB, much less the explosion from the Obama election. Let’s just go from the end of the AWB in 2004. That’s almost fifteen years. Exactly how many millions more firearms have been produced and sold in those fifteen years?
I’ve heard some estimate America is passed the billion mark, but I think that’s too high. That would require almost 47 million guns per year. My personal estimate is that we’ve doubled the number of guns in private hands.
And the anti-gun folks really think they can peacefully confiscate six hundred million guns?
So, in case you were unaware, I have recently paid off my car loan. That freed up some cash in my budget. Being a believer in the Dave Ramsey system, that additional cash is probably going back into savings. Still, there are some guns I saw during my latest excursion to the gun store.
There’s a bunch more I want. I’d love one of Ruger’s new pistol carbines, but I wish either Ruger or someone else would make a magwell that would take M&P magazines.
Ah well. Dreaming is easy. Budgets are hard.
One of the big complaints from the gun control side is the restriction on the CDC from researching gun violence. What the law prevents is the CDC from doing research to promote gun control. The reason was simple – we shouldn’t be politicizing something like the CDC.
“But the CDC would be an unbiased source!” Really? Then why would they fail to publish all of the data they collected in the nineties about firearms used in self defense.
Oh look, the data shows that DGUs far outstrip felonious uses. And at the same rate Gary Kleck estimated during the same time period – about 2.5 million uses a year. Other, more recent, studies are showing about 100,000 DGUs annually.
If Congress decides to give into pressure and remove its current restrictions on the CDC for studying gun violence, then it should also mandate that ALL research paid for by public funding be published. Including the raw data sets before a researcher decides to “massage” it with some bizarre statistical tool or another.
Reason put out this article earlier this week on the dangers of Silicon Valley’s burgeoning ideological conformity. Let’s look at the first couple of paragraphs:
When it comes to software, Silicon Valley understands the threat of monocultures. If 100 percent of computers run the same code and malware authors discover an exploit, 100 percent of computers will be vulnerable to the same attack. Fortunately, the way to reduce such risks is straightforward: Increase diversity.
Alas, this insight seems limited to software. Technology executives have yet to fully recognize the risks posed by the potent political monocultures forming inside their own companies.
The problem is that so many who push “diversity” fail to understand what they need to diversify. For these tech companies – and other places pushing diversity for diversity (cough, universities, cough, literary circles) – they are mistaking the biological for the mental. In essence, they are saying because they have both golden labradors and chocolate labradors, they are diverse – and they don’t see the problem when large numbers of their dogs die off. For tech companies, the biggest threat from this failure to recognize they are not really diverse is going out of business because they’ve alienated enough customers.
However, the same issue is impacting the RKBA. I keep hearing how we do we get more women, POCs, young people, etc. involved in the gun rights battle. Too many times, I see the RKBA making the same mistake of substituting outward diversity with inward diversity. You can’t invite people with one breath, and with the next demand they immediately conform to every thing you believe outside of RKBA – such as God, abortion, economics, and/or the current issues of the day.
We’re not breeding stronger livestock, so we shouldn’t be looking for biological diversity. We’re trying to breed stronger ideas, so we need ideological diversity.
The Wall Street Journal decided to examine the smart gun issue. It seems the authors of the piece can’t figure out why no one on in Silicon Valley is willing to fund smart guns, and dismisses the concerns of gun owners and RKBA activists.
For example:
For decades, firearms companies have refused to sell smart guns because of glitches in some early models, as well as a backlash from conservative gun-rights activists, who fear the technology will prompt state legislatures to mandate it broadly. The activists say their fears were confirmed by a 2002 New Jersey law requiring all handguns for sale in the state to have smart-gun technology once it became available. (emphasis mine) Smith & Wesson’s parent company said last month it was still wary of making smart guns.
Excuse me, but this isn’t a case of activists making an unsubstantiated claim. I would call that empirical evidence.
Further, the authors have to pull out that this would stop a highly publicized event:
But in theory, a gun with a fingerprint reader or RFID technology might stop murderers like Adam Lanza who used guns purchased and stored by his mother, and to a greater degree prevent accidental shootings and suicides.
Did they even read how this tech was supposed to work? First, Lanza’s mother took him with her shooting. Are you telling me that an RFID reader or fingerprint scanner would have stopped someone already granted access? About the only one of these claims that has some merit is accidental shootings. My problem is that: 1) the situations prevented are already rare and 2) the lives saved may be outweighed by the number of lives lost because tech failures preventing people from defending themselves. Oh how can you quantify that people would be put in danger by tech failures? How many times has the fingerprint scanner on your phone failed to read in good conditions? How many times have you had to rescan a badge for entrance because the reader was being temperamental?
Here’s my take on the smart gun issue. I’m a geek and I love technology. However, I don’t trust governments not to abuse any advances in smart gun tech to restrict the rights.
Last Friday, I went to my first pistol competition. There was some doubt as to whether I would go to the competition or not. I get this weird anxiety when facing new situations, and it makes me want to stay in my nice, safe home. Even more when I’m doing something alone. Yay introvert brain. Fortunately, I have a very supportive girlfriend and brother who encouraged me to go, and told me that if it weren’t for prior commitments, they would have come to watch. This from my girlfriend who is still somewhat uncomfortable around my pistol. So, it was with much trepidation that I belted on my holster and mag carrier and went out to my first pistol competition. My goal for the night was simple – finish and not DQ.
When I got to the range, the RSOs shepherded us into a classroom for the safety briefing and for us to begin setting up. There were about twenty of us competing. For at least a quarter of us, this was our first match. So, I don’t feel so bad about not realizing one big thing. The flyer said I needed 100 rounds of ammo, OWB holster, mag carrier, and three magazines. I didn’t realize that was the minimum requirements until I saw some of the other participants belting on four or five spare magazines. Fortunately, I kept extra spare magazines in my range bag. Unfortunately, no extra mag carriers. I loaded up five magazines – one for the pistol, two in the mag carrier, one tucked in my belt, and one in my pocket.
After sign in and getting our scorecards, the twenty of us were walked through the course of fire. Most of the targets were standard IPSC silhouette targets, and scoring was raw time plus additional time for hits outside the A-rings, for procedurals (breaking the rules), and for failing to complete. After Stage 1, the participant could chose to go to Stage 2 or 3.
Stage 1 - Center of the bay. Engaging four targets at about fifteen yards through three ports - each target shot twice through each port, for a total of twenty-four rounds. Port one was shoulder height, so I would be able to shoot that without changing stance. Port two was about stomach height, and I would need to crouch to shoot through. Port three was about knee height, and I would need to kneel for that one.
Stage 2 - Right side of the bay. Engaging three targets at five yards - each target shot five times, for a total of fifteen rounds. Target two had half the torso blacked out to represent cover. Target three only had the head available.
Stage 3 – Left side of the bay. Engaging two clay pigeons as poppers at fifteen yards. No round restrictions, but the clays must be at least 75% destroyed before the stage was considered cleared.
So how did I do? Well, I succeeded in not DQ’ing.
On Stage 1, I think I got a bit of buck fever. One miss, a few D-rings, and the rest split between C-ring and A-ring hits. Even though I kept telling myself I would need to reload on the third port, it was still a surprise.
Stage 2, I settled down some. Three misses due to hitting the blacked out parts of target three, but two B-rings, three C-rings, and the rest A-ring hits.
On Stage 3, I emptied the remaining half of my magazine for some chipping away at the pigeons. Reloaded and fired three more times. I pulled the trigger the fourth time and click. I reached up to rack the slide, and it didn’t want to budge. So, I let the RSO know, and I ended up with a failure to complete and a raw time of 129. My diagnosis on my equipment failure is a hard primer and me not yanking hard enough on the slide to clear the round. I’m basing that on the fact that when I handed my pistol to the RSO, he cleared it without issue.
The good – I had fun and was glad I overcame my anxiety. Drawing and reloading was smooth and easy.
The bad – Accuracy needs to be dialed in for small targets.
The ugly – I need to spend more time on malfunction drills. I also need to avoid IMI ammo for competitions. My M&P does not consistently work with that brand.
I played hooky from work and took my mom to the range. Some tidbits: