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Weekend-Monday links

  • Department of Homeland (Achtung!) Security decides that it’s okey-dokey for the Department of Homeland (Achtung!) Security to continue suspicionless searches of our electronic devices.
  • Why do people never get it? If store shelves look like this after a single snowy weekend, how are they going to look when something really serious hits? (H/T JB)
  • Sheesh. I think we need an adorable dog picture here for a little sanity break. (This one is also H/T JB — but not the same JB 🙂 )
  • Surely some of us have lefty friends who are nevertheless pro-gun. (Yes, they still exist.) Here’s a bumper sticker you might want to encourage them to adopt.
  • Apparently those 3D printed AR-15 mags are rapidly improving.
  • Apparently we are not yet done with the Obama-as-gun-nut meme.

ObamaGunTeleprompter_0213

14 Comments

  1. water lily
    water lily February 10, 2013 11:08 am

    Ha ha, really love that teleprompter photo!

    Those bare shelves are a symptom of our idiocracy. I’m really sick of that not-prepping-then-ranting (about lack of goods) mentality, and that includes my own family in NY, who I questioned the day before the storm hit. The answers I got were laughable, that is, if they weren’t so pathetic, and then of course was the predictable after-ranting. I almost hung up on one of them.

    I posted that article about suspicionless border searches on FB, and I got a lib ranting over the illegal immigration issue. When I replied that the article wasn’t about illegal immigration, but about violating the fourth amendment, (duh) I got the usual deer-in-the-headlights silence. Then I remembered what you said about not bothering to talk to furniture, and I deleted the post.

    Love the dogs-in-pants photo.

  2. Pat
    Pat February 10, 2013 11:29 am

    The gun-nut photo of Kent State shooting got to me the first time, and it gets to me again now. Though the first time was somewhat worse -Obama was pointing toward the students, not away from them in the scene. But Kent State was one of those pics that live in my memory, and was a real a-ha moment concerning who was the true enemy.

  3. Jim B.
    Jim B. February 10, 2013 12:59 pm

    Wake me when those 3-D printers can produce those gun mags in hard plastics or polymers tough enough to go through several hundred thousands, if not at least a couple millions, rounds going through.

    Then the weakest link will become getting the metal springs for under the followers.

  4. EN
    EN February 10, 2013 1:04 pm

    Those store shelves are too much to think about. How much stupidity exists in America??? Anyone??? Like Sandy, these morons pretty much had a week to prepare. Naturally they waited until the last moment.

  5. Woody
    Woody February 10, 2013 1:40 pm

    Jim B. Look at the current state of the art in 3D printed mags as disposable, easily replaceable, feeding devices. Use em up and print more. Eventually they will get good enough to meet your standards, Making the metal springs is easy. Get the appropriate size music wire. Make (or print) a mandrel to wind the spring on and you are good to go. After a little experimenting you could turn them out by hand in wholesale lots. When your disposable mag is used up salvage the spring or just make a new one for a few cents.

    I really don’t get why so many gun people are so down on 3d printing. Sheesh! It’s an emerging technology. Wait a few minutes, it’ll get better.

  6. jed
    jed February 10, 2013 1:56 pm

    I hadn’t considered Oreos, bottled cappuccino, and piss beer as part of my survival stash. I must be missing something. OTOH, if it’s possible to survive for a week or so on a variety of canned vegetables, canned meat, peanut butter, cheese, and dried potatos, I’m doing OK.

    At the moment, the point of the 3D printed magazines is political, not practical. If I were doing it for actual use, I’d design it for attaching metal feed lips at the top, or as something which could convert a 10-rd mag to higher capacity. Spring wire isn’t hard to come by.

  7. clarence
    clarence February 10, 2013 3:50 pm

    if anyone is interested, http://defensedistributed.com/ is the address for the project. the site hosts the design files for printable weapon parts.

    clarence

  8. anonymous
    anonymous February 10, 2013 4:02 pm

    Wake me when those 3-D printers can produce those gun mags in hard plastics or polymers tough enough to go through several hundred thousands, if not at least a couple millions, rounds going through.

    “Look at the current state of the art in 3D printed mags as disposable, easily replaceable, feeding devices. Use em up and print more”

    What Woody said.

    Think single-use plastic watter bottles, not Magpul P-mags. When you can create an unlimited number of standard capacity magazines on demand — let’s even make them eco-friendly bio-degradable — how many rounds do they really need to last?

    I doubt U.S. troops in World War II went scouring the beaches of Normandy and Bastogne for the 8-round clips ejected from their Garands. If it would have been cheaper to make those clips only durable enough to use once, it would have been done.

    And today’s military already considers the M-16 magazine a Class IX disposable/expendable item. They’re cheap pieces of aluminum. They’re not designed to last hundreds of thousands of rounds, much less millions. Hell, even the M-16 itself isn’t designed to last that long without major overhaul.

    Todd Greene, of pistol-training.com, once wrote that (scroll down to comments)

    The generally accepted number in the gun industry, based on various surveys of gun-buyers over the years, is that on average, a handgun purchased in the United States will be fired less than 50 times. For every internet poster who own ten guns that have each been fired 1,000 times, there are dozens and dozens of people who walked into a gun shop, purchased a pistol and a box of ammo, and never once took that gun to a range. Those people, obviously, don’t read and post on forums and gun blogs.

    Ask anyone who’s worked at a gun shop and I guarantee they’ve had customers complain about having to buy A WHOLE BOX of ammo when the gun only holds 15 (or 8, or whatever).

    When I worked at SIG, there was serious discussion about producing a pistol that came PRE LOADED with 15rd in a non-removable mag. The gun could be made of very cheap material because it only had to survive 15 rounds of fire. It was rejected on technical capability grounds, not because there would be a lack of demand.

    We will soon be at the point where it will be technically possiblefor anybody to make such a gun at home.

  9. Jim B.
    Jim B. February 10, 2013 7:13 pm

    Guys,

    I know the tech will eventually “be there”. The materials needed to make the mags in the first place is still weak and most likely fast wearing. Just need to
    upgrade to use more than one kind of plastic. But in the meantime we can “practice” so we know what to do once those tech and materials finally becomes good enough.

  10. R.L. Wurdack
    R.L. Wurdack February 11, 2013 6:21 am

    It hadn’t occurred to me before, but in all my 60 years at the traps I can’t remember having seen anyone in a polo shirt and 501s. Where does he put the hulls and how does he reload?

  11. MamaLiberty
    MamaLiberty February 11, 2013 7:02 am

    I bought a large, clunky electronic calculator in the early days. I think it cost nearly $60. and did absolutely nothing except the three basic arithmetic functions. It did happen to do those VERY well.

    Fast forward to the amazing universe of small, accurate, and very cheap gadgets that can so almost everything but eat and sleep for you now.

    If nobody had bought the clunky prototypes, we wouldn’t have that universe of wonders to use today.

    To paraphrase Heinlein… It IS time to railroad.

  12. MamaLiberty
    MamaLiberty February 11, 2013 7:04 am

    Ok, four basic arithmetic functions. Add, subtract, mulitply and divide. Mental block… I always hated long division. LOL

  13. Jake MacGregor
    Jake MacGregor February 11, 2013 8:02 am

    (ahem) … okay, I held back Claire for a day …BUT

    They kept their dog pants on!

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