What journalist doesn’t get about “ghost guns”

Whatever the topic of the day is, there are some who will think they’re experts in it. While people have a right to their opinions and a right to voice them, I’m always amused by how idiotic some of the takes actually are.

This is especially true when it comes to “ghost guns.”

I put the words in quotes because, well, most of the people who sling the term want to use it because it sounds scary. Most don’t really understand much of anything about the topic at hand, only the talking points politicians and activists sling around.

Take this story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Clarence Page titled, “What the right doesn’t get about ‘ghost guns’”

In it, it shows that Page doesn’t get a lot himself.

An often-repeated story about W.C. Fields holds that as he approached the end of his life, a friend was surprised to find him reading a Bible.

“Looking for loopholes, m’boy,” he reportedly explained. “Looking for loopholes.”

That scene comes to mind these days as I hear the standard response given by the National Rifle Association, the Gun Owners of America and other gun rights groups to even the most modest attempts to inject a little sanity into our nation’s gun laws.

The latest example of loophole-seeking has emerged in the recent pandemic of “ghost guns.” I’m not talking about the spirits of deceased firearms. “Ghost guns,” as many have been learning, is a street nickname for home-assembled firearms. Their parts can be 3D printed or ordered over the internet and constructed at home like Ikea furniture to produce a full-fledged gun.

The bad news is in their illegality. Buyers of unfinished parts or components have not been required to undergo a background check, and their weapons have no serial numbers, which makes them virtually impossible for police to trace.

Except most guns used by criminals are virtually impossible for police to trace…at least, to trace in any meaningful way that helps to solve a crime. Most guns are illegally acquired in the first place, meaning the trace gives them a name and an address of someone who bought the gun, but they’re not the criminal.

With all this talk about tracing, you’d think crimes couldn’t be solved without it. Yet more than half of all firearms are stolen.

Now, Mr. Page, tell me how tracing will help?

But as stupid as that comment is, Mr. Page ramps it up to 11 with this nonsense:

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BLUF:
Either we are witnessing a cascade of unlikely events within a 60-day timeframe, or the institutions upon which Putin depends to stay in power–the security services, the military, and the oligarchs–are shaken by Putin’s War in Ukraine. The actions he is taking will either stiffen the resolve of those institutions…or it won’t.

6 Russian Oligarchs Commit Suicide in Mysterious Outbreak of Epstein Syndrome

Very few parts of Russian society have drawn more interest than the so-called “oligarchs.” These are incredibly wealthy men with political connections to Putin’s inner circle because, in the totalitarian kleptocracy that is Russia under Vladimir Putin, if you don’t have political ties to Putin’s inner circle, wealth doesn’t bring you power; it brings you a one-way trip to a Siberian labor camp.

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Obama Calls for Internet Speech Regulation

In a speech delivered at Stanford University, President Barack Obama called for more censorship of social media speech. He argued that without regulation, social media will have “frightening implications.”

“People are dying because of misinformation,” Obama said.

Obama continued to say that the “profound change that’s taken place and how we communicate and consume information,” is one of the greatest threats to democracy.

“Social media platforms aren’t just our window into the internet. They serve as our primary source of news and information. No one tells us that the window is blurred, subject to unseen distortions and subtle manipulations,” the former president noted.

Obama said that social media companies need to be regulated, including being held responsible for content posted by users.

“If we do nothing, I am convinced that the trends we are seeing will get worse,” he said.

“Without some standards, the implications of this technology for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order, are frightening and profound.

“Tech platforms need to accept that they play a unique role in how we as a people and people around the world are consuming information, and that their decisions have an impact on every aspect of society. With that power comes accountability and in democracies, like ours, at least, the need for some democratic oversight.”

Obama singled out former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and Russia’s President Vladamir Putin as people who have leveraged misinformation.

“Autocrats like Putin have used these platforms as a strategic weapon against democratic countries that they consider a threat,” he said. “People like Putin and Steve Bannon, for that matter, understand it’s not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions. You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. Is that to raise enough questions spread enough dirt? Plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe?”

Obama said he was not surprised to learn that Putin was accused of trying to influence the 2016 presidential election through social media.

“What does still nag me though was my failure to fully appreciate at the time just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories – despite having spent years being a target of disinformation myself,” he said.

“Putin didn’t do that. He didn’t have to. We did it to ourselves.”

Wellllll. It seems that Polk County Florida Sheriff Grady Judd isn’t alone in his thoughts about how to handle bunglers

Florida sheriff promotes gun safety course for residents to shoot home invaders: ‘We prefer that you do’

Florida sheriff says homeowners are ‘more than welcome’ to shoot intruders

A sheriff in Florida is encouraging residents to take gun safety courses after a homeowner fired multiple shots at an intruder on Wednesday, stopping the individual who allegedly broke into several homes.

Police arrested Brandon J. Harris, 32, who was arrested after allegedly breaking into several homes in Pace, Florida, and was stopped by a homeowner who fired multiple gunshots at him, according to the Pensacola Daily News.

Calls of the break-ins began to come into the sheriff’s office at around 4:30 p.m., according to police. Harris is being charged with attempted burglary with assault, resisting arrest, criminal mischief, attempted larceny, and several other charges.

Brandon J. Harris

Brandon J. Harris (Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office )

Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson said in a press conference on Thursday that one of the homeowners fired gunshots at Harris, and said that he was arrested after being cornered in a house that he allegedly broke into.

“Probably 20 deputies get there, the dogs are out, and he’s jumping fences and breaking into houses as he goes,” Johnson said. “One of the homeowners, he was breaking into their house, and they shot at him. So he continues to run, we finally corner him in a house that he broke into on Tom Sawyer and we cornered him in a bedroom.”

Johnson also encouraged other residents to follow in the homeowner’s footsteps and take gun safety classes, adding that they are “more than welcome” to shoot anyone who is breaking in to their house.

“I guess they think they did something wrong, which they did not. If someone’s breaking into your house, you’re more than welcome to shoot them in Santa Rosa County. We prefer that you do, actually. So, whoever that was, you’re not in trouble, come see us. We have a gun safety class we put on every other Saturday,” Johnson said.

The sheriff added that residents who take the course will shoot a gun “a lot better,” and maybe save taxpayers some money.

“If you take that, you’ll shoot a lot better, and hopefully you’ll save the taxpayers money,” Johnson said.

Johnson also described Harris as a “frequent flyer,” noting that he has been arrested 17 times before.

“You hear me talk about frequent flyers all the time. Our first interaction with this individual came when he was 13 years old. Since then, he’s had like 17 arrests,” Johnson said. “We sent him to prison for six and a half years for home invasion, and he just can’t seem to get the picture of crime does not pay.”

There’s an old joke:
Want a 5.56 NATO chamber? Fire 1000 rounds through your .223.
Nowadays, it’s less expensive to just have the throat reamed.

.223 Remington vs. 5.56 NATO: What You Don’t Know Could Hurt You

Is firing a 5.56 NATO cartridge in your .223 Remington chambered AR15 dangerous? Or do Internet forum-ninjas and ammunition companies selling you commercial ammo instead of surplus overstate the dangers?  Believe it or not, a real danger exists, and some gun owners who think they are doing the right thing may not be safe.

The Cartridges

The .223 Remington and 5.56×45 NATO cartridges are very similar, and externally appear the same.  But there are some differences that lie beneath the surface.

The 5.56 case has thicker walls to handle higher pressures, meaning the interior volume of the case is smaller than that of a .223.   This will alter the loading data used when reloading 5.56 brass to .223 specs.

Some 5.56 loads have a slightly longer overall length than commercial .223 loads.

The Chambers

The significant difference between the .223 Rem and 5.56 NATO lies in the rifles, rather than the cartridges themselves.  Both the .223 and 5.56 rounds will chamber in rifles designed for either cartridge, but the critical component, leade, will be different in each rifle.

The leade is the area of the barrel in front of the chamber prior to where the rifling begins.  This is where the loaded bullet is located when a cartridge is chambered.  The leade is frequently called the “throat.”

On a .223 Remington spec rifle, the leade will be 0.085”.  This is the standard described by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, Inc. (SAAMI).  The leade in a 5.56 NATO spec rifle is 0.162”, or almost double the leade of the .223 rifle.

A shorter leade in a SAAMI spec rifle creates a situation where the bullet in a 5.56 NATO round, when chambered, can contact the rifling prior to being fired.  By having contact with the rifling prematurely (at the moment of firing), chamber pressure can be dramatically increased, creating the danger of a ruptured case or other cartridge/gun failure.

The reverse situation, a .223 Rem round in a 5.56 NATO gun, isn’t dangerous.  The leade is longer, so a slight loss in velocity and accuracy may be experienced, but there is not a danger of increased pressures and subsequent catastrophic failure.

How serious is the danger of firing 5.56 ammo in .223 guns?  Dangerous enough that the SAAMI lists 5.56 military ammo as being not for use in .223 firearms in the technical data sheet titled “Unsafe Firearm-Ammunition Combinations.”

ATK, the parent company of ammunition manufacturers Federal Cartridge Company and Speer, published a bulletin entitled “The Difference Between 223 Rem and 5.56 Military Cartridges.”  In this bulletin, ATK stated using 5.56 ammo in a .223 rifle could result in “…primer pocket gas leaks, blown cartridge case heads, and gun functioning issues.”

However, the danger may be lower than SAAMI or ATK suggest.  In Technical Note #74 from ArmaLite, the company states “millions of rounds of NATO ammunition have been fired safely in Eagle Arms and ArmaLite’s® SAAMI chambers over the past 22 years,” and they have not had any catastrophic failures.

According to ArmaLite:

“Occasionally a non-standard round (of generally imported) ammunition will fit too tightly in the leade, and resistance to early bullet movement can cause elevated chamber pressures.  These pressures are revealed by overly flattened primers or by powder stains around the primer that reveal leaking gasses.”

What Do You Have?

So, if you own a rifle chambered for the .223 for 5.56, do you know for which caliber it is really chambered?

Many match rifles are chambered in .223 Remington (SAAMI specs) for tighter tolerances, and theoretically better accuracy.

Many of the AR-15’s currently sold on the market are made for the 5.56 NATO cartridge.  If you own one of these, you should be fine with any .223 or 5.56 ammunition.

However, ATK dropped this bomb in the bulletin on the .223/5.56:

“It is our understanding that commercially available AR15’s and M16’s – although some are stamped 5.56 Rem on the receiver – are manufactured with .223 chambers.”

So, even if your AR is stamped 5.56, is it really?  Check your owner’s manual or call the company directly and make sure you get an answer you feel comfortable with.

As if the confusion regarding the .223 vs 5.56 chambers wasn’t enough, there is a third possibility in the mix, that is being used by at least one major manufacturer.  The .223 Wylde chamber is a modified SAAMI-spec .223 chamber that allows for the safe use of 5.56 NATO rounds, but maintains tighter tolerances for better accuracy.

Yeah, yeah… What’s the bottom line?

Here’s the bottom line.  If you want to follow the safest possible course, always shoot .223 Remington ammunition.  The .223 Rem cartridge will safely shoot in any rifle chambered for the .223 or 5.56.

If you want to shoot 5.56 NATO rounds, make sure you have a rifle designed for the 5.56 military cartridge.  Shooting 5.56 in a normal .223 Rem rifle can result in bad things.

Suspected burglar shot by Geneva Co. homeowner

FADETTE, Ala. (WDHN) — Early Friday morning, a Wiregrass homeowner shot an intruder twice with a handgun — after telling him to leave and then a struggle between the two.

Authorities say the suspect was in the process of burglarizing the rural residence when the homeowner awakened to a sound from the back door.

Emergency responders arrived at a trailer off Audy Lane in eastern Geneva County’s Fadette community, just after 3 a.m. this morning.

Geneva County Sheriff Tony Helms says he and Geneva/Dale District Attorney Kirke Adams will gather all the evidence before charging the suspect.

“We worked the scene at the time, we’ve spoke to several witnesses there and several other locations and we’ve referred to the District attorney,” Sheriff Helms. “And determine what the charges will be. But at this time we don’t see any charges against the homeowner.

Sheriff Helms says once the suspect is released from the hospital he will be arrested and charged with the “Home invasion”

How the government covers for anti-gun media

I tend to be pretty critical of media bias. After all, I used to actually believe that media bias wasn’t really a huge thing, that those who saw it were really just upset that the news wasn’t biased in their direction.

Then I grew up. I saw all the examples of bias as supposed journalists went out of their way to push slanted reporting as hard fact.

Yet over at Ammoland, they’re looking at someone else’s bias, a bias that helps the media get away with stuff you or I never would.

A broadcast journalist using a hidden camera enters a gun show, purchases two “80-percent” gun kits, then goes to the state attorney general’s office where two agents help complete and assemble the guns before firing them on a range—allegedly violating state and federal gun laws in the process—while the camera records it all.

During a Sunday morning interview with a network news anchor, a nationally-known gun rights leader is challenged to discuss a 30-round magazine held by the anchor, on a show broadcast from the nation’s capital, where such magazines are known to be illegal.

A nationally-known broadcast journalist produces a special about gun control during which the video is edited to make it appear several gun rights activists are speechless when asked how felons or terrorists might be prevented from purchasing guns without background checks.…

A look back over the years suggests a pattern of “gotcha” journalism that seems to invariably get a pass, and gun rights activists are calling foul, as there is the perception that news agencies are using the First Amendment to undermine the Second Amendment. Grassroots activists contend that if private citizens did the same things depicted on screen, they would almost certainly face prosecution.

In other words, it seems government officials are heavily biased as well and are benefiting the media when they conduct actions that would destroy anyone else.

Time and time again, some in the media have outright broken laws, broadcast it, and gotten away with it because they’re advancing the narrative that certain parties in the government actually agree with.

For example, Katie Couric got away with deceptively editing a “documentary” so it appeared gun rights activists had no answer for a question because the judge argued it “demonstrated the sophistry” of the plaintiffs. Yet to call the actual response–the one Couric removed and pretended didn’t exist–sophistry is to take a position on the validity of those arguments.

That’s an act of bias that has no place in a courtroom.

Yet time and time again, government officials–either law enforcement or in the courts–have taken a side.

That means it’s imperative that such officials be targeted for removal from office. Lawsuits, campaigns, petitions, whatever it takes, we need to hold these people accountable for their blatantly biased actions in favor of a blatantly anti-gun media.

Duh.. Violent crime increasing the most in high crime neighborhoods

Mapping gun violence: A closer look at the intersection between place and gun homicides in four cities

The rise in gun homicides in the United States is having reverberating political ramifications at the federal, state, and local levels, with many elected officials falling back into “tough on crime” policies to curb the violence. This punitive turn can be seen in President Joe Biden’s proposed federal budget, in which he calls for “more police officers on the beat” and allocates an additional $30 billion for state and local governments to support law enforcement. Many local leaders are mirroring this approach, centering their gun violence prevention strategies on increasing funding for police and rolling back criminal justice reforms.  

What these enforcement-based approaches fail to recognize is that the recent rise in homicides is more nuanced than it appears. Rather than a widespread dispersal of gun violence within cities, the increases in gun homicides are largely concentrated in disinvested and structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods that had high rates of gun violence to begin with. This geographic concentration is a persistent challenge, not a new one—and it requires targeted solutions to improve outcomes in disinvested places rather than reverting to the old “tough on crime” playbook. 

This piece takes a deeper look at patterns of gun violence in four cities—Chicago, Nashville, Kansas City, Mo. and Baltimore—and finds that each city’s gun homicide increases were driven predominantly by increases in neighborhoods where gun violence has long been a persistent fixture of daily life, alongside systemic disinvestment, segregation, and economic inequality. These patterns point to the longer-term need to address the place-based factors that influence violence and invest in the critical community infrastructure that has not only been proven to make communities safer, but can also help them thrive.

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BLUF:
The concept that an openly armed person is a provocation to attack appears to flow from a simple premise on the left: A person doing something a leftist does not like is a provocation to attack them. It is part of the broader philosophical abandonment of the rule of law.

Evidence for this theory exists in the left’s theory of speech from any opponent. Speech from an opponent is considered to be violent, and worthy of attack. Violence, from the left, on the other hand, is considered to be speech………..

Defining open carry of weapons as a legal provocation is Orwellian word manipulation.

Is Carrying a Gun Provocation to be Attacked

In the law of self-defense of almost all states, If a person is attacked, and reasonably fears for their life, they may legally defend themselves with deadly force. A small minority of states require a person to retreat from the situation if they can do so in complete safety.

In all states of which I am aware, a person may not use deadly force in self-defense, if they provoked the attack with the intent of using deadly force.

It is not legal to start a fight so the person who started the fight can kill someone who they provoked.

Mere possession of an openly carried weapon is not a legal provocation to attack.

The Left has been floating the idea that mere possession of a weapon is a provocation. They contend the sight of someone in possession of a weapon is sufficient provocation for a person to attack the person who possesses the weapon.

This creates a bizarre world where mere open possession of a weapon is sufficient to justify a deadly attack on the possessor. Apply this to the police. They almost always carry a deadly weapon, openly.

This concept is contrary to common sense and the experience of thousands of years.

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Arizona Judge Throws Out Lawsuit to Erase Gosar, Biggs, And Finchem From Ballot

An Arizona judge dismissed a lawsuit Friday that sought to bar three Republicans from appearing on the November ballot because they took part in the rally at the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, before the Capitol riot.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury determined the plaintiffs did not have the grounds to sue in the case as they requested but refrained from ruling on the merits of their allegations.

“Congress has not created a civil private right of action to allow a citizen to enforce the Disqualification Clause by having a person declared to be ‘not qualified’ to hold public office,” Coury wrote. “This ruling neither validates nor disproves Plaintiffs’ allegations against the Candidates. The Court expressly is not reaching the merits of the factual allegations in this case.”

The lawsuit was brought forth by lawyers from a voting rights group who contended Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Andy Biggs, and state Rep. Mark Finchem should be prohibited from running because they violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The provision bars elected officials in Congress from engaging in an insurrection or rebellion.

Neither of the three individuals is known to have participated in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, but the lawsuit claimed they advocated to overthrow the United States government and cited their presence or involvement in the preceding rally as evidence.

Similar lawsuits have targeted key Republican figures such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who gave testimony Friday in a case aimed at taking her off the ballot for similar reasons. Some activists in North Carolina have tried to get Rep. Madison Cawthorn booted from the ballot as well, but a judge tossed out a major case in that venture last month.

Gosar noted the case against Greene when he took a victory lap on Twitter following Coury’s dismissal. Both Gosar and Biggs are running for reelection in the House during the midterm elections. Finchem is running to become Arizona’s secretary of state.

In his ruling, Coury included a footnote that emphasized that Gosar and fellow defendants could be subject to future legal scrutiny for their involvement in the events of Jan. 6.

“To be clear, it is a mistake to conclude that the Court is opining that the Candidates’ involvement in the events of January 6, 2021, never can be subject to any judicial review. This decision should not be misconstrued in this way,” he wrote. “Irrespective of this decision, there ultimately will be a different trial for each Candidate: one decided by Arizona voters who will have the final voice about whether each Candidate should, or should not, serve in elective office.”

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. —JAMES MADISON

When ‘reality’ rears its ugly head

Biden launches $6 billion effort to save nuclear power plants, to help combat climate change.

The Biden administration is launching a $6 billion effort to rescue nuclear power plants at risk of closing, citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change.

A certification and bidding process opened Tuesday for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy told The Associated Press exclusively, shortly before the official announcement. It’s the largest federal investment in saving financially distressed nuclear reactors.

Owners or operators of nuclear power reactors that are expected to shut down for economic reasons can apply for funding to avoid closing prematurely. The first round of awards will prioritize reactors that have already announced plans to close.

The second round will be opened up to more economically at-risk facilities. The program was funded through President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure deal, which he signed into law in November.

“U.S. nuclear power plants contribute more than half of our carbon-free electricity, and President Biden is committed to keeping these plants active to reach our clean energy goals,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “We’re using every tool available to get this country powered by clean energy by 2035, and that includes prioritizing our existing nuclear fleet to allow for continued emissions-free electricity generation and economic stability for the communities leading this important work.”

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Biden made a 5,000-mile Earth Day round trip in AF1 to announce ‘climate friendly’ US military.

“Finally, the president who took an Earth Day flight on Air Force One from DC to Seattle and back wants us to know that he’s not driving his Corvette very much for environmental reasons: ‘I have a ’68 Corvette that does nothing but pollute the air, but I don’t drive very much.’ You can’t make this stuff up.”