Last Saturday, I had a combined movie viewing/birthday party for Dwight and myself. Here’s Dwight’s report on the event, and here’s a picture of the cake, and the object depicted on the cake, which should seem familiar:
One is a beautiful object filled with things that will kill you if you don't treat them with respect. The other is a gun.
My copy of Michael Totten’s The Road to Fatima Gate came in today. Since I’m also an insane book collector (and since he does good work), I got an autographed copy. (One book collector gripe, Michael: If you’re going to send out autographed first editions in a USPS Priority mailing envelope, you should really use bubble wrap to protect it. Signed, a guy who has a business selling collectible books on the side.)
Also, since I can’t resist a good meme, here’s a picture of the book in the now-traditional style (click to embiggen):
Regular readers will no doubt recognize the gun.
A confluence of events (a cold, doing my taxes, and a miscellany of more minor concerns) has cut into my blogging time, so it might be a few days before my roundup piece on Libya is ready to see the light of day (and I may have to skip the usual This Week in Jihad as well). So here are a few bits of local news, including some on the the 2012 Senate race, to tide you over:
With snow and ice here in Austin, it’s been a bit of slow day. And what better for a slow day than some slow-motion gun porn?
I chanced across one of these researching information on the Lugar for a story I’m writing, and thought it provided a nice view of the Lugar’s feed and ejection mechanism, giving viewers a chance to see how it differs from the M1911’s mechanism for accomplishing the same thing. So I concentrated on videos that show mechanism cycling rather than bullet impact.
(None of these are my videos, I collected them off of YouTube, so I can’t take any credit (or any blame for the musical choices).)
The Lugar:
Here’s a M1911 Commander 45:
Here’s a cutaway animation of how an M1911 works:
Sig Sauer 22 and 9mm
Here’s real slow motion of an M16 and an M1911:
A Tanfoglio Gold Team (not sure the caliber, but similar vidoes have been for .38 Super):
Here’s a Thompson submachine gun (one of which I fired once upon a time):
A whole bunch of different guns:
Finally, here’s a dad teaching his son to fire a gun for the first time. His three year old son. On a minigun. BEST DAD EVER!
In nice, tight, one-inch groups.
(Hat tip: The Right Side of Austin. )
Over on NRO, Robert VerBruggen offers some sage advice for journalists on how write about guns without making yourself look like an idiot. Especially important is his second point: “If you’re going to write that a certain kind of gun is particularly dangerous, consult someone who knows something about guns first. Brady Campaign spokesmen don’t count.” The need for this point was painfully apparent with so many commentators describing Jared Lee Loughner’s Glock 19 as some sort of exotic killing machine, when in fact it is a very common type of semiautomatic pistol used by millions of law-abiding Americans.
Or to put it in terms that a New York Journalist might understand: Imagine if I wrote that “Every condo in Manhattan gives their owner a two-car parking space,” or “All Hispanic New Yorkers are of Mexican ancestry.” You’d howl about how ignorant I am of New York. Well, that’s exactly the you seem to the rest of the country when you write about guns.
However, I fear VerBruggen’s advice will fall on deaf ears. Many journalists in deep blue cities like New York or San Francisco seem to regard guns as inherently evil objects, and view learning about them with suspicion. They seem to wear their ignorance as a badge of honor, much like Manhattanites who brag that they’ve never visited a flyover state, or even left the island.
Ignorance can be cured, but not willful ignorance. Many journalist would rather be wrong than Right.
The good news is Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is alive and able to communicate. Sadly, Federal Judge John Roll, appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the bench in 1991 is dead. Roll received death threats over his ruling in an illegal alien case in 2009.
Did accused shooter Jared Lee Loughner assassinate Judge Roll for political reasons?
Hell no. Loughner killed Roll and five other people because he was a violent, unstable lunatic, and more and more evidence is coming out to that effect. As Arizona Senator John Kyl put it: “It’s probably giving him too much credit to ascribe a coherent political philosophy to him.”
Despite that, the far left is still trying to pin this on Sarah Palin. I suspect that will work out for them almost as well as their “the Tea Party is racist” meme.
Sometimes people do commit horrific acts of violence for easily-identifiable ideological reasons. Maj. Nidal Hasan’s Ft. Hood shooting spree is a classic example. Jared Lee Loughner’s shooting spree is not.
The evidence is now in, and what little seems to be known about accused Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner from people that knew him was that “he was leftwing” and “liberal in wanting to change the way the world was run, we both wanted to. He took it to an extreme I never would’ve.”
Does that mean that Arizona Democratic Congressman Gabrielle Giffords was shot by a “left wing extremist?” No. When you read his manifesto, you see that his political leanings, such as they are, were not “left” or “right” so much as “completely farking loony toons batshit insane.” His manifestos jump from subject to subject more quickly than a jittering tweaker flips channels on a TV remote. To paraphrase an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton contest, ideas seem to tumble around randomly in his head, making and breaking connections like a load of laundry in a dryer without Cling Free. They have some of the same quality of argument as Time Cube Guy: It’s less that his manifesto is wrong than that you can’t actually understand what he’s trying to say.
(Boing Boing has even more of his manifestos up, and the Time Cube Guy vibe only gets stronger. Except for the fact that Gene Ray never killed anyone…)
Loughner’s liberalism didn’t make him crazy, his crazy made him crazy.
I mean, how crazy do you have to be to expelled from a pre-algebra class? “Solve for X.” “Admit it! X is a total lie!!!! There is no X, only Zuul!”
Which makes it all the more galling how quickly The Usual Left Wing Suspects tried to pin his deeds on the Tea Party in general and Sarah Palin specifically. Never mind that military terminology has been in politics for a long time, or that liberals have done the exact thing they’re now jumping on Palin for.
Every time anyone even remotely connected to conservative causes commits a violent act, the nutroots and their media enablers are quick to label them a “right wing extremist,” but anyone with demonstrable left wing sympathies is a “lone nut.” (Indeed, they’re pretty blatant about it.) Indeed, one of the most famous assassins in American history was a known communist sympathizer who defected to the Soviet Union, but you never hear Lee Harvey Oswald described by the media as a “left-wing extremist.”
And don’t forget that the far left’s open and oft-stated desire to assassinate George W. Bush. Thus the attempt by prominent liberals to make Loughner a Tea Partier is more than a little contemptible. But such contemptible behavior is no longer surprising; it’s merely what they do.
(Hat tips to Instapundit (more than once), Powerline, and a few random Fark posters.)
Here is part of the alleged manifesto of accused Gabrielle Giffords shooter Jared Laughner (which comes from people doing screen caps of his purported videos):
Hello, and welcome my classified leak of information that’s of the United States Military to the student body and you. Firstly, I want you to understand this from the start. Did you know grammar is double blind, listener? Secondly, if you want to understand the start of revelatory thoughts then listen to this video. I’ll look at you mother fuckin Anarchists who have a problem with them illegal illiterate pigs. :-D If you’re a citizen in the United States as of now, then your constitution is the United States. You’re a citizen in the United States as of now. Thus, your constitution is the United States. Laugh. I’ll let you in on their little cruel joke that’s genocidal. They’re argument is appeal to force on their jurisdiction with lack of proof of evidence. Each subject is in question for the location! The police don’t quite get paid correctly with them dirty front runners under section 10? Their country’s alliances are able to make illegal trades under section 10. Eh! I’m a Nihilist, not someone who put who put trust in god! What is section 10 you ask? If you make a purchase then it’s illegal under section 10 and amendment 1 of the United States constitution. You make a purchase. Therefore, it’s illegal under section 10 and amendment 1 of the United States constitution. We need a drum roll for those front runners in the election; those illegal teachers, pigs, and politicians of yours are under illegal authority of their constitution. Those dirty pigs think they know the damn year. Thirdly, tell them mother fuckers to count from 0 to whenever they feel a threat to stop their count. We can all hope they add new numbers and letters to their count down. Did you run out of breath around the trillions, listener? Well, B.C.E is yet to start for Ad to begin! What does this mean for a citizen in any country? Those illegal military personal are able to sign into a country that they can’t find with an impossible date! How did you trust your child with them fraud teachers and front runners, listener? Did you now know that the teachers, pigs, and front runners are treasonous! You shouldn’t jump to conclusion with your education plan. The constitution as of now, which is in use by the current power pigs, aren’t able to protect the bill of rights! Do you now have enough information to know the two wars are illegal! What is your date of time, listener? Fourthly, those applications that are with background checks break the United States constitution! What’s your riot name? I’ll catch you! Top secret: Why don’t people control the money system? Their Current Currency(1/1) / Your new infinite currency (1/~infinte) This is a selcte information of revoluntary thoughts! Section 10 – Powers prohibited of States No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress. No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. Each subject is unlocatible!
If that is indeed his real manifesto, then the only political faction he seems to belong to is The Republic of Loony Tunes. It seems like something more from an Ionesco play or a Monty Python skit than a political assassin.
Nothing to add except linking to this Radley Balko bit, which pretty much sums it all up.
This year is the hundredth anniversary of John Moses Browning’s Colt M1911 automatic pistol, the basis of pretty much every automatic handgun. The design is so successful that, to the untrained eye, a .45 automatic manufactured today will look very much the original 1911. Here, for example is my own Kimber .45, purchased in the mid-1990s:
Compare this to the original M1911, and the even closer (and only slightly revised) M1911A from 1926:
The M1911 deign has really stood the test of time. You’d be hard-pressed to find a device of similar complexity still in common use today that hasn’t undergone radical modification. Hats off to the far-sighted shade of John Moses Browning.