That’s immediately what I thought of when I saw this.
Coil gun revolver? Somebody tell Linoge.
Via hackaday
Category: Guns
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Robbery video with audio
A local Smoothie King was robbed this week and the owners have posted the surveillance video–including audio–to YouTube:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6NxolSOexk&w=420&h=345]The owners say that while still frames are nice, the audio is more likely to identify him. I’ll agree with that.
Watching the video, I don’t think the guy is actually armed. He appears to be wearing sweatpants and just ask Plaxico how well sweatpants work for Mexican Carry. When he walks in, he appears to have his right hand on the gun, in front and over his shirt. Later, he looks like he’s reaching behind him to get a gun, with his left hand. He might have an airsoft pistol just in case the employees needed a little more convincing, but I don’t think he had anything. It doesn’t take much to scare teenage girls.
He also appears to be pretty new at this. He begins by announcing the robbery as he enters the store. He allows one of the employees to briefly retreat to an office. He uses both hands to give the employees the plastic shopping bag he brought with him. He turns his back on them once he’s got the money. UPDATE: Not his first rodeo.
Oh, and to the employees: It’s probably not a good idea to tell a robber “I’m not authorized to do that” when he tells you to open the register.
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Clearly, we need ball bearing control
Not exactly something you could sneak around with, but I sure wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of this!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AySuafZ8to&w=560&h=345]Via hackaday
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Notes from the weekend
“Gone With the Wind” is a really, really long movie. I’d never seen it before and decided to remedy that. It took pretty much all day Saturday when you include the breaks we had to take for eating and letting the dog out. I now understand why he didn’t give a damn. I wouldn’t either.
Lowe’s and Home Depot will sell you primed interior doors, but not painted interior doors. This seems foolish to me. They also come with the hole for the doorknob cut, but you have to make the cuts for the hinges yourself. This is a PITA.
In related news, my office now has an unpainted (but primed) door with some really rough hinge cutouts. Previously there was just a door frame.
Taking Casey on two 2 mile walks, shopping at Lowe’s and Home Depot, and going to the grocery store in one day is a bad idea for someone who generally walks only 3 miles a day in total. Getting old sucks. I can barely walk today.
A friend of the wife went shooting for the first time on Friday. She and her husband went on a double date to an indoor pistol range where she shot his Glock 19. Her previous level of interest in guns was “He should leave a Post-It note on the shotgun with instructions on how to use it in case someone breaks in and I’m home alone. Otherwise, I don’t ever want to touch it.” Husband is new-ish to guns, brand new to handguns, and wants to get his carry permit. Based on the smiles in the pictures they sent us, she’s all-in now.
The Logitech Revue Review will be forthcoming, but here are my initial thoughts: Can’t really say it’s better than my Home Theater PC running XBMC, but for $99 shipped from Amazon it’s pretty awesome. Eventually this will move to the bedroom when we buy a new TV for up there.
I saw a really strange (and by that I mean totally awesome) recumbent motortrike. It looked like a custom-made machine. Chopper front end, V8 powerplant on the back, and the seat was maybe 4″ from the ground. Casey was in the car with me and she barked at the guy the whole time he was behind us.
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Gun Porn
Springfield Loaded Operator 1911
Click to embiggen.Note that the dust cover extends the length of the slide. And its a railfarm. Via reader Tac.
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New Shooter Report
A longtime friend and former roommate recently bought a house, and the wife and I decided to buy him a shotgun as a housewarming present. Knowing he wasn’t a gunnie, I had planned on something unscary like a double barrel 20 gauge. Not knowing if he would actually accept it, I told him of our plan–lest I end up with a 20ga side by side sitting in the safe for eternity.
His reaction: “No, you’re buying me a handgun.” Deal!
I took him to a couple of gun shows so he could handle some pistols and get a feel for what was comfortable in his hands. I took him to the range to try out a Bersa .380 when he decided he really liked the way a Walther PPK felt. Turns out that in Double Action mode, his trigger finger can barely reach the trigger on that style gun. Back to the drawing board, but now he had a good idea of what shooting a handgun feels like and what to look for when trying to find a new model. He put about 150 rounds total through 5 or 6 different pistols that day and thoroughly enjoyed it.
At the next gun show, we bought him a Kahr E9. The E9 is basically a K9 with plastic adjustable sites and plastic grips. The next day we went to the range and he got to shoot his gun for the first time:
I was very pleased with his performance since this was only the second time in his life he’d shot a handgun. He shot “minute of bad guy” at what I call front-porch distance (3yds) with a compact 9. I gave him some instruction on sight picture and grip, and showed him how to feel for the trigger reset in between shots. I also explained to him the need to get a sight picture after every shot and the importance of follow through.
After 150 rounds through his own gun that day, he’s hooked. He went home and bought two spare magazines online. He went back to the range the next weekend and shot another 150 rounds or so and came back to my house where I showed him how to field strip and clean his gun. This weekend he’s going back to the range again, this time without me.
He’s already talking about getting a carry permit and wants to observe some matches. He made a comment about buying a .22 so he could get more trigger time and I had to tell him to slow down. My advice was to buy a thousand rounds of 9mm and then see how long it takes to go through that. If it takes a year, there’s probably no need to buy a .22 trainer. If it takes 3 months, it might be a good idea.
Later, he told me that when we were roommates he was really nervous that there were guns in the house. Now, he wants a carry permit. I love it.
Oh, added bonus: Last weekend a friend from the TFA was there practicing for a match at Knob Creek. So Drew got to shoot a machine gun on his second trip to the range:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V-Wx8BKQL8&w=420&h=345]Like the man says, this is why we win. The anti’s can’t go to the anti-gun range or the anti-gun show. Our stuff is a lot more fun, too.
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It was bound to happen
In every state where Restaurant Carry has been proposed, opponents have screamed this would happen:
Patron arrested after putting gun to waiter’s head
The argument is that even though it is illegal to drink while carrying, waiters would be forced at gunpoint to serve alcohol to permit holders. Well, it looks like it only took two years for that to happen in Tennessee.
Oh, except the guy wasn’t drinking. Or eating. Or a customer at all. And he didn’t have a permit. And isn’t legally allowed to have a handgun in the first place. And this didn’t happen inside a restaurant.
So, other than that, this is a perfect example!
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The folly of “Posted Properties”
In a lot of states, there is a provision in the concealed carry law that allows property owners to prohibit legal concealed carry on premises. The gunny term for this is a Posted Property. Sometimes we just say “that place is posted.”
Here in Tennessee, TCA 39-17-1359 is what governs us.
It’s a bit chatty, but basically it says that if there is a “Circle-slash” graphic, or a text sign that says “AS AUTHORIZED BY T.C.A. § 39-17-1359, POSSESSION OF A WEAPON ON POSTED PROPERTY OR IN A POSTED BUILDING IS PROHIBITED AND IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE,” then you can be charged with a crime*. If you, as a carry permit holder, are caught carrying in one of these places, it’s a Class B Misdemeanor. The punishment? A $500 fine, and a Class B Misdemeanor on your record for the rest of your life. The fine is nothing, but having to answer “Yes” on those employment questionnaires that ask if you’ve ever been convicted of a crime will cost you a lot more in lost wages. This is why I don’t ignore these signs.
You may noticed that I threw the “if you are a carry permit holder” qualifier in there. The reason for that is if you are caught carrying a firearm in a place that is open to the public (like a business), and you don’t have a carry permit, that’s an entirely different offense. It’s also why we have carry permits in the first place, to exempt us from that law. In Tennessee, that law is TCA 39-17-1307. It’s a Class A Misdemeanor, which is just shy of a felony. Unless, of course, you’ve previously been convicted of a felony–in that case you’ve got another Class E Felony on your hands. Now, this law does not specify sentences so that’s up to the judge, but a Class A Misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $2000 and one day short of a year in the county jail.
So let’s say Bob and Jim are both carrying pistols. Bob has a carry permit, Jim does not. Neither has ever been so much as arrested for a crime. They each head to Toys R Us to pick up a Tickle Me Elmo. On the way in, they see the sign that prohibits weapons.
If Bob walks in, his potential marginal cost is walking out with a criminal record and a $500 fine. If he stays outside, nothing happens to him.
If Jim walks in, his potential marginal cost is only the $500 fine. Without the sign, he’d still be facing a criminal record (worse than Bob’s), a $2000 fine, and a year in jail–even if he stays outside.
The obvious question we always ask is, If Jim hasn’t been deterred by the potential of a year in jail and a $2000 fine, why would he be deterred by an additional $500 fine? That would be assuming that he was actually charged with both crimes, which I doubt would happen. The answer, of course, is that he wouldn’t, and only an idiot would believe otherwise. And in this example Jim is not intent on robbing, raping, or murdering anyone, nor has he been to jail before.
Which brings us to the real reason why posting is a complete joke:
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Mental note
When buying a new gun, take note of the slide mounted safety. When the firing pin mysteriously stops making contact with the primer, check to make sure an overzealous RSO didn’t engage the safety while you were putting up a fresh target.
I haven’t owned a pistol with a manual safety in a little more than three years. This morning I took possession of a Walther P22. After three rounds of shooting, it stopped going bang. The slide mounted safety on a P22 is just a simple hammer block, so when it is engaged, the hammer will fall but never touch the firing pin. Since I am not accustomed to manipulating a safety before firing, it didn’t occur to me that an RSO would engage it.
That a gun with its slide back and magwell empty is unsafe unless the hammer block is also engaged will forever remain a mystery to me. And if it’s a rule that they should do that for me, why didn’t they catch it the first two times? Or tell me?
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Gun Porn
At this month’s meeting of the Tennessee Firearms Association we had James Kay from The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society give a presentation on civil war arms, and a bit of history on the Battle of Nashville. I’m not an antique gun guy, but it was pretty neat. One thing I did not know before last night was that Union troops had cartridge firing repeaters by the end of the war. The other thing I didn’t know was that rifles shooting Minie balls had effective ranges out past 900 yds. Mr. Kay told a story of a General who’s last words were “He can’t possible hit us from that distance.”
I used to carry a Derringer as a backup gun. People laughed at me, until I showed them the round it fired:
I kid, I kid. That’s from a siege gun that could hit a barn door at 1600 yards.The top one in the picture below is (IIRC) a Springfield that was converted from flint-lock to percussion. The bottom one is a cavalryman’s carbine of some sort. Again, I’m not an antique gun guy
And the obligatory JayG bait:
ZOMG! Bayonets at the Golden Corral! EVERYBODY PANIC!
