Category: Guns

Monday Links

August 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments

This is going to be one of those heavy weeks for links.

Let’s start out with probably the biggest media story – the new indictment against Donald Trump. The Dispatch has had the best take on the whole issue thus far.

What may actually be the more important story is Fitch downgrading the US credit rating from AAA to AA+ (Reuters article). Of course, Reason explains why this is a function of our current governmental disfunction.

In that same vein, Reason examines the broken budget process.

Sticking with Reason, here’s a couple of gun-related articles. First, an examination of how New Zealand can’t keep its registry of gun owners private. Second, a law professor advocating officials hiding behind qualified immunity to enforce unconstitutional gun laws.

Keeping in the RKBA vein, John Richardson discusses the latest push to rebrand gun control as “gun responsibility.”

From Ars Technica, an article about Reddit not having to reveal user names who discussed torrenting.

From Vox, an article advocating using “windfall profits” from AI companies to fund a universal basic income. For the entire planet. Let me be clear – when you use the term “windfall profits,” your whole proposal sounds uneducated.

From The Atlantic, an article debunking the common wisdom on learning styles.

From Cato, a fun little game called “The Green Card Game.” Can you navigate the current immigration system?

From Your Observer, a local library is offering teens a course on “Adulting 101.”

Whew! We need some light items.

First, you can now watch the first season of the original TMNT.

Second, T.REX Arms has done a bunch of detail scans to make holsters. They’re offering those scans up for other companies to use.

This last one you just have to watch.

Monday Links

July 31, 2023 / / 0 Comments

A couple of Reason links about cops. This is how you get BLM.

Police destroy a man’s business and stick him with the bill.

Arizona law limiting recording police struck down by judge.

From ABC, an article about the lack of infrastructure for recharging EVs. Something to consider if you’re looking to get one.

From The Verge, an article about a new tool that can do a lot of wireless tasks.

Still confused about large language models powering the new chatbots? Here’s a primer.

From Active Response Training, here’s a trick when practicing live fire with your weapon-mounted light. I started doing this after noticing the carbon scoring on my original Streamlight.

Monday Links – Catch Up Edition

July 24, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Due to drama in the Ward household, I haven’t posted Monday links for a couple of weeks. So, this is mostly tab-clearing out some articles.

Let’s start with the normal Reason links.

Police keep harassing the wrong David Sosa. He sued and was joined by eleven other David Sosas. This falls into the police need to have more attention to detail and not just take the easy road. Particularly when it comes to detaining the wrong people.

Tennessee student makes Instagram posts poking fun at the principal and gets suspended. The student sues.

Finally, a judge has ruled that the ATF overstepped its authority by saying inert items are “gun parts”.

Going on to other articles.

The civil trial against the coward Scot Peterson continues – and apparently requires a live-fire reenactment. Article from local tv.

The NY Times’ Wirecutter section has an article on what you need for birding. I only add it to the links because the author neglected any dog treats. Which based on his history and his infamous viral moment, you’d think he would include.

From PC Gamer, an article that 87 percent of old games are unplayable without resorting to piracy of some sort. Umm, yeah. Blinks in City of Heroes.

From the Washington Examiner, an article regarding a study that disputes all the claimed benefits of the transition to electric vehicles.

FIRE explains that the current brouhaha over Jason Aldean’s little ditty is an excellent example of the Streisand Effect.

Finally, from The Verge, a new self-transforming Grimlok toy is being released. It looks nifty, but not $1,500 nifty.

Monday Links – Tab Clearing

July 10, 2023 / / 0 Comments

This is going to be a bit long and scattered. That’s what happens when I have a couple weeks’ worth of links.

Let’s get the obligatory Reason/Volokh Conspiracy links out of the way.

The FDA is lying about vaping. Is it better than not smoking? Nope. Is it better than smoking? Oh hell yes.

CBO is projecting huge deficits. This is my shocked face.

Welcome new rent control, same as old rent control. I swear, it’s like no one understands how this is a bad thing.

Let’s go on to some gun-related articles.

First, Tam has a post about psychologists and guns.

TFB has one about a federal judge slapping down ATF – on how it defines what constitutes a firearm.

Gun Digest has an article on debunking revolver myths.

The coward Scot Peterson has been acquitted. Which, to those of us who know that the cops have no duty to protect, is unsurprising.

Here’s a couple of think pieces.

From Mike Munger, an article on the good versus the perfect. It’s not what you think.

From Ben Thompson, an analysis of the latest kerfuffle between the FTC and Amazon.

Our final link is from Active Response Training on medical care for cats.

Monday Links

June 26, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Surprisingly, this week only has one Reason link.

An article on how insurance – both government and private sector – are driving up the cost of healthcare. This is my surprised face.

And now for some random tab clearing.

From Active Response Training, Greg presents the “bag trick.”

From Bearing Arms, an article about an Indy defense attorney blaming gun owners for criminals not getting charged. Cam is skeptical, and so am I.

Heard about this on the “Word and Numbers” podcast. Pew has a calculator to see where you stand in global income rankings.

I was concerned what would happen to the 1632 universe with the death of Eric Flint. Apparently, there’s a new online magazine to continue the franchise.

The Brother sent this my way. An article on how maps shape how we see the world. It’s always surprising just how big Africa is.

Monday Links

June 19, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Y’know, there are weeks I think I should just rename this feature the Monday Reason Links and Other Stuff. Yeah, it’s going to be that kind of week. As long as you count the Volkh Conspiracy (since they’re publishing under the Reason banner).

First, California is killing fast food jobs. This is my surprised face.

Second, on the Free Range Kids front, an article about a mom confused how her kid made friends with another kid she didn’t know. Or, as us Gen X folks used to call it – summer vacation day.

While the Florida legislature was busy playing right-wing social justice this past session, they also decided to play the crony capitalism game with their dealership friends.

I first heard this story over at Borepatch’s place, but now it seems the esteemed Eugene Volkh is asking Amazon some pointed questions about booting a guy off his account and making him unable to use all of his Echoes. This is of some concern due to the fact that Ward Manor’s smart home environment is Echo-based. However, I also have a backup – read “manual” – system if Amazon decides to play silly buggers.

Last Reason article explains that over half of Protestant churches have at least some reliance on armed citizens for their security. While I am not a church-going person, I do want parishioners to be safe in their chosen house of worship. I will always recommend churches, synagogues, mosques, little storefront pagan meeting spaces to discuss and have a security plan. It needs to be more than “call 911 and wait for police.”

Semi-switching gears as we leave Reason territory:

Massad Ayoob has some thoughts on Daniel Perry’s indictment in New York.

Also, Rand has a meta-analysis on studies regarding effectiveness of firearms safety training requirements. TLDR; not enough rigorous studies to make a determination.

And for our light item this week? A new Babylon 5 animated movie is coming out. I should really introduce The Wife to B5.

Monday Links – Lots of Links

June 12, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Sit back, this is going to be a long one this week.

First, let’s start out with a bunch of Reason links.

Here’s an article on the recent Trump federal indictment.

No, Adam Smith was not a progressive.

Critics of lockdowns were muzzled.

Firing professors for the political views is unconstitutional – left-wing views edition.

SPLC is still overcounting hate groups.

Finally, the Biden administration is still refusing Second Amendment rights to cannabis users.

In other gun news, the deadline for pistol brace owners to submit the proper paperwork or be considered felons as passed. According to The Reload, only a quarter-million did so. In the best case, that’s 250,000 out of 3,000,000 – or about 8%. However, using industry numbers, it’s more like 250,000 out of 40,000,000 – or about 0.6%.

Now that the serious stuff is out of the way, let’s go on to our light items.

First, here’s some teasing that there’s a new Macross animation in the works.

Speaking of Macross, here’s an article that AnimEgo is going to crowdfund a release of the old Macross II anime from the nineties.

From The Brother, we have the top 10 finalists for Illusions of the Year.

Also from The Brother, we have an Ars Technica article about Redditors using Stable Diffusion to create working anime QR codes.

Forensics Failure – Ballistics Edition

June 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Over the past decade, I’ve been reading more and more about how forensic science isn’t well, scientific. It’s not replicable and rife with false assumptions. Listening to The Reload podcast, I heard the latest salvo – an article from Radley Balko about forensics firearms analysis.

Last February, Chicago circuit court judge William Hooks made some history. He became the first judge in the country to bar the use of ballistics matching testimony in a criminal trial.

Um, what? Why? Because the judge was skeptical about the claim that a specific bullet can be matched to a specific gun.

But as with other forensic specialties collectively known as pattern matching fields, the claim is facing growing scrutiny. Scientists from outside of forensics point out that there’s no scientific basis for much of what firearms analysts say in court. These critics, backed by a growing body of research, make a pretty startling claim — one that could have profound effects on the criminal justice system: We don’t actually know if it’s possible to match a specific bullet to a specific gun. And even if it is, we don’t know if forensic firearms analysts are any good at it.

Considering I am supposed to be reporting for jury duty next month, this is going to be fun to bring up during questioning.

Monday Links

May 29, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Happy Memorial Day! We’re going to start off with several Reason articles.

First, the face of teachers’ unions during the COVID pandemic only taught for three years, but is expected to get a full pension. I’m of the opinion that if you’re working for the union, the union should be dealing with your benefits.

Next are a couple items on the reshuffling of the political parties. I’ll let the headlines speak for themselves. The left-right spectrum is mostly meaningless and the rise of right-wing progressivism. Just as the labor market is in flux, the political market is similarly in flux. Fun times.

Finally, an article from The Volokh Conspiracy discussing a recent Florida Supreme Court decision that loading and openly carrying a gun on your property is not criminal use of deadly force. Although, if you’re having to face multiple attackers on your property, it may be more prudent to have your weapon already loaded. Or get behind cover to load and wait for the police.

In the vein of self-defense, we have an article from The Hill about a “prank robbery” going horribly wrong when the pranksters came across an armed civilian. And this kind of outcome won’t slow down these kinds of pranks. Because the dumb fucks think it won’t happen to them.

Now for our light items.

I think this is probably vapor-ware, but this Extreme Tech article depicts a “laptop” with six monitors, dual AMD Epyc “Genoa” 96-core CPUs, and 24 DIMM slots for up to 6TB of DDR5 memory. And it weighs 55 lbs. Um, yeah. There’s part of me that wants one in a kind of morbid fascination way.

Finally, we have a Variety article on Weird Al. Because Weird Al.

Monday Links

May 22, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Well, this week’s links will probably be all over the map.

First, let’s start with an AP article on Disney scrapping a billion dollar project because of DeSantis fighting with them. Y’know, I hear a lot of gunnies decrying when certain states use their power to compel companies to do gun-prohibitionist things. Or when they chase companies out of states with ridiculous regulations. Shoe. Other foot.

Speaking of Disney, this article from Techradar, states that when Disney merges their Disney+ and Hulu services, they will probably shrink the available library. One of the tech podcasts I listen to was commenting that the Streaming War is over, and now the Great Streaming Consolidations will begin with the survivors. Guess I should watch the Willow television show before it disappears.

It’s not Monday Links without Reason articles.

First is Reason’s take on the Durham report. When a report like this makes a stalwart like National Review’s Andy McCarty think hard on if the FBI is salvageable in its current state, then it’s a damning report. IMHO, it’s high time to, at the very least, split the FBI’s intelligence role off of its law enforcement role.

Second – can Uvalde’s authorities not do things to prove how incompetent and authoritarian they are? From the article: “Adam Martinez’s youngest son was at Robb Elementary on the day of the shooting—though thankfully he was physically unharmed—and, like many other parents, he became a vocal critic of the police department. However, in retaliation for his criticism, the school district banned him from school property—and school board meetings—for two years.“

A couple of other headlines that grabbed my interest.

From Insider, a Michigan teen used a slingshot to stop the kidnapping his sister. The suspect was apprehended with wounds consistent with being hit by a slingshot.

From CNET, a new company is going to be offering free 55-inch televisions. The catch? It has another screen to just for ads. Maybe other stuff too.

Finally, a light item.