Saturday, April 01, 2017

Nope! No AR15's in Pennsylvania Deer Season!

Pennsylvania has decided that semi-automatic rifles (aka: AR15) are NOT legal for big game hunting.

Deer Hunters Relieved Over Semi-Automatic Weapons Law Change | WNEP.com:

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Game Commission made a last-minute change and decided not to legalize semi-automatic rifles for hunting big game like deer, black bear, elk, and turkey.
I agree with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The .556/223 is an underpowered caliber, deliberately designed for "war", where a wounded foe is better for the aggressor than a dead enemy ...  a wounded warrior hopes he has two buddies to get  him to medical help.

I've never been a fan of the .223 and its kin, because it is a wimpy  cartridge and over-touted; it is best suited for small game like woodchucks and prairie dogs

(ASIDE:  I own a .22-250 which is MUCH more effective even on small game, but much more powerful than the .223 cartridge.) 

MEAT:
I've hunted deer and antelope, and I'm a firm believer that a cartridge of at least .25 caliber is most likely to bring a quick and humane end to their life as fauna, and immediate transformation of their body into a locker.  Yummy!  (No .. Antelope does NOT "taste like goat"!)

I've served in Viet Nam, where wounded prisoners were brought in, and those were almost invariably 'wounded', not killed, by the 5.56mm/AR16 .. unless it was a "Head Shot".

Conclusion:
I agree with the Pennsylvania Game Commission that the 5.56mm/.223 caliber is not an appropriate (or at least a "controversial"  cartridge) for medium-size game such as deer.

Certainly, the .22* cartridge is not optimal for Elk, which are closer in size and vitality to a horse, than to a deer.

POSTSCRIPT:
Now, if the AR15 frame is presented with a more powerful cartridge than the .223/5,56 cartridge, I think that an overly broad definition of the term "AR15" is premature; that frame is capable of accepting more powerful cartridges (if only barely' the AR15 is not a "robust" frame, after all) and for the folks in charge in Pennsylvania to (apparently) have made such a broad statement is to accept that .
That's all I have to say about that.

On the other hand, I'm dumb as a stump and if you read down this far ... you already knew that.

How Many Guns Will YOU Let ME Have?

Editorial: How many guns do you need? - Daily Press:
In 1993 ..., quote:
Gov. Douglas Wilder signed into law a limit of one handgun purchase per month. That restriction lasted 19 years, until it was repealed by then-Gov. Robert McDonnell in 2012. Mr. McDonnell had voted in favor of the legislation as a delegate in 1993 but campaigned on a promise to repeal it, citing his "duty to protect the Second Amendment."

The problem with that logic is, there is no reason sensible gun laws cannot co-exist with the Second Amendment, which cites the need for a "well-regulated militia" and ensures "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." 
The problem is, some people focus on the right to bear arms and ignore the phrase "well-regulated." The most oft-cited rationale for the right to bear arms is self-defense, and it is hard to imagine that people here feel unsafe if they can only buy a dozen guns in a calendar year.
[endquote]



The "problem"  with the quotes (above) is that the author assumes that the 2nd amendment was written for purposes of self-defense.

It wasn't.

It was written so that The People might be armed in defiance against a government which attempts to ignore the Espoused Rights .. Dictators.

Tyrants.

The Other Side Of the Coin Is:


In truth, it has nothing to do with "Self Defense", although today it seems reasonable that this is t he most frequent usage of personal weapons.


When we accept the 'common' interpretation of History, we lose track of the protections which our fore-fathers had wisely (but perhaps too confident of our character) chosen to provide as our Legacy.
Gov. McAuliffe is attempting to reinstate that limit (of how many guns we may be "allowed" to purchase in a designated time frame) it by attaching it as an amendment to a bill that has already passed in the General Assembly, but which has not yet been signed into law, pertaining to concealed carry permits. There is little chance the GA, the majority of which is Republican, will accept the amendment — even if it takes the original bill down with it.
(No, I'm not confident that I understand that paragraph. Do you?)

The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is only tangentially related to "Self Defense".

The primary purpose of the Second Amendment is to provide "The People" a means to resist an Government which has grown too big for its britches and attempts to impose unilateral laws and regulations which undermine the rights of The People.

Translation: They expected us to fight for our rights .. in much the same way as did they.

Concealed Carry Permits are also tangential to the 2nd Amendment, which neither expresses nor implies any restriction on how one is "allowed" to 'Keep And Bear Arms'.

The thing about the Constitution is that it was deliberately designed to limit the powers of The Government; the Amendments were intended only to specifically affirm the rights of The People.

Politicians imposed their bias on a law, and now the confusion allows  them to impose their bias on the civil rights of their constituents.


Legacy:


My father told me how my family survived The Great Depression.   He took the family lever-action .30-30 hunting, when there was no hunting season, and killed a deer which fed his family for the winter.

He was an "outlaw' in the face of the law-abiding, but perhaps I may owe my own life to the deer he poached "four score and seven years ago".   It fed his family; it fed my mother during a dreadful winter.

(Well, perhaps not quite that long ago, but close.  The Great Depression can't be far enough behind us to allow us any comfort ... Americans Starved during those year.  My mother could have starved, had not my father decided that "The Law" wasn't the most important thing.  And I might never have been borne, which would have been a great tragedy!  Yes, people experienced hardships from the Depression; and many children were "still-borne" because Depression Women starved.  My fathet told me stories of dressjng  deer in a closed garage in Elgin, Oregon for fear of Game Wardens who would have confiscated the carcass ... because my mother needed meat.)

But the Tyranny of Need is greater than the Tyranmy of Law.


TODAY... nobody starves.  We have social services which provide food even to those who have not the gumption to get off their haunches and do whatever-it-takes to feed their family.  
Or they desert their "partners", because they have no appreciation for the concept of a "family".
The state feeds their family ... which is, I believe improvement on The Great Depression.

What do we give in return?

How many of our rights, how much of our Proud Independence, do we concede when we admit that we cannot take care of ourselves?  When we cannot feed our family?

The Government gives to us those bounties which we need to survive.

What do they take from us in return?




Wednesday, March 29, 2017

For people who don't have time to sharpen their own knives

This is what we call "Progress"

Knife Robot - First Knife Sharpener with Serious Edge over Competition:

Finally, a company has taken the guess work out of knife sharpening and eliminated dull and misaligned blades with the patented automatic Knife Robot, the world’s first no-hands, no-holding, no wasting time knife sharpener. Pre-orders for both versions of the Knife Robot are available at Indiegogo until April 5 for all 2017 orders.
Small problem.  It costs a bundle, it's "on spec" (meaning they're not even building the machine until they get enough orders to justify setting up a manufacturing process, and you can't expect delivery in less than a year.   At least.

Yeah, but it's going to look GOOD, gathering dust on your countertop waiting for you to use it every year or so.

I think they ought to throw in a free plastic dust cover, so you don't even have to dust it.  That would be a REAL labor saving feature!



Monday, March 27, 2017

What if you were offered the chance to use your computer shoot people ... really?

To promote gun control, the creatives at Publicis Russia wanted to see what would happen if they put firearms in the hands of everyone. So, they made an online simulation that let anyone aim and shoot what they were told was a real gun at a courtyard full of people.

Publicis’ Disturbing Gun-Control Stunt Let People Shoot at Strangers, and Think They’d Killed Them:

Publicity Stunt or Real-Time Experiment in Terror?

Or just really, really sick.

This is not an effort at promoting "Gun Control".   It's just a method of using the most bizarre human behavior to make the rest of us doubt our own moral fiber.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
William J. H. Boetcker

Sunday, March 26, 2017

In Your Dreams, Joe!

Vice President Joe Biden said recently that he "could have been elected President" except that his attention at the time was on the death of his son.

Joe Biden: ‘Do I regret not being president? Yes.’:
Former vice president Joe Biden told an audience at Colgate University that he could have won the 2016 presidential election, but he chose not to run because he felt he couldn't give "one hundred percent attention and dedication" to the job after the death of his son. (Colgate University) A year and a half after giving up a 45-year-old dream to become president, Joe Biden told an audience on Friday that he could have beaten Donald Trump, had the death of his child not intervened.
With all respect to Mr. Biden, his family, and appreciating the tragedy they have experienced, Joe Biden could never have been elected President.

"Leading Democrats" who had a LESSER chance of a successful bid for POTUS would include Feinstein, Franken and Schumer.

Frankly, we've elected clowns to the white house too often.

But the American Electorate are like smokers .... we're trying to cut back.  
At least this term ... "he's OUR clown!"