For Tam

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For Tam

She’s been waxing poetic about this gorgeous piece of steel created by Cylinder & Slide, but notes that at the $8k custom build price,

If a factory tooled up to produce them, however, they probably wouldn’t cost a lot more than a decent 1911, although they’d have to make up for lack of volume with higher prices, since they’d have to recoup tooling and setup costs over a smaller production run. Springfield or S&W could probably bring it to market for a bit over a grand, street price.

Well, it’s not the same gun, but Cylinder & Slide has this for sale:


It’s right pretty too.

And it’s only $2,995.

OK, So Where Do I Get Magazines?

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Today’s hunt was successful:


So any suggestions on where I can get good magazines for it?

According to the serial number, my example was manufactured in 1973. It is blued, it is beautiful, it still has the magazine disconnect, and the trigger pull is heavy but not creepy, with a clean break. The sights are rudimentary. I think this will be going to Cylinder & Slide for some work.

After I get the M14.

Quote of the Day

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There is a very strong possibility that the Court of Appeals will rule against us, not on the merits of the case (which is very strong), but because finding that the Second Amendment is incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment against the states is a decision above their pay grade. – Clayton Cramer in his post Chicago Gun Case

And I think he’s more than probably right. I’m reminded of 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski’s dissent in the denial to re-hear en banc the Silveira v. Lockyer case, specifically this part:

As an inferior court, we may not tell the Supreme Court it was out to lunch when it last visited a constitutional provision.

Even when it was.

There exists Supreme Court precedent that says that the right of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose’ is not protected against state infringement, but only against infringement by Congress – i.e.: the Federal government (U.S. v. Cruikshank, 1875). Cruikshank was decided after ratification of the 14th Amendment, and while it violates the specific, written intent of that amendment, it has never been overturned by the Supreme Court, and it has been used as precedent in an 1886 case, Presser v. Illinois.

And inferior courts may not tell the Supreme Court it was out to lunch when it last visited a constitutional provision.

So don’t be surprised if the 7th Circuit finds against us; be stunned if they don’t. Because that will force the Supreme Court to revisit Cruikshank, and I doubt seriously the 7th Circuit has the testicular fortitude to do that.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

15. Where would you retire to? Retire? I will probably get killed in the early battles of the coming revolution. – Dale at Mostly Cajun from his post Potpourri

There were a lot of good ones to choose from, but that was the winner.

Challenger

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On the cold, crisp, clear morning of January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off from launch complex 39A at Cape Canaveral, and exploded one minute and thirteen seconds into its flight. I first wrote about my recollection of that event here in 2005 in my post This is Why I Read Blogs. Here’s the pertinent part, edited for accuracy:

As some of you may know, I grew up on Florida’s Space Coast. My father was a Quality Control engineer for IBM, working on the Instrument Unit (guidance system) for the Saturn V rocket. I got to see all of the manned missions up through Skylab launch from just across the Indian River, except for Apollo XVII – the only night launch. I watched that one from my front yard in Titusville.

There were two dawns that day.

Consequently, I’ve been a space exploration enthusiast from a young age. I try to watch all the launches, or at least listen to them on the radio. I remember listening to the launch of the Challenger early in the morning here in Tucson, and thinking – as the station broke for a commercial – “At least this one didn’t blow up on the pad.”

Morbid, I know, but I’m also an engineer. I wasn’t then – I had just graduated from college in December and didn’t have a job yet – but that’s been my orientation for most of my life. I knew that each manned launch was a roll of the dice, a spin of the cylinder in a big game of Russian Roulette, and that NASA had become just another government bureaucracy. (And I also knew just how close we had come to losing three men in Apollo 13 because a series of small, innocuous errors had cascaded into a catastrophic failure in a system that was almost neurotic in its quest for safety.)

It was just a matter of time.

Still, I was shocked when they came back from commercial to announce that Challenger had been destroyed in a launch accident just a minute after liftoff. I knew that all seven of the astronauts were dead. I knew that the “teacher in space” wasn’t going to get there, and that a classroom of students had to be devastated by that realization. Many, many classrooms, but one in particular.

I watched the footage of the liftoff, now splayed in endless grisly loops on every network – all of which had previously declined to show the launch live and interrupt really important stuff like “Good Morning America.” I watched as the flame bloomed out from a Solid Rocket Booster joint, impinging on the huge external fuel tank, and said, “That’s what killed them. What the hell caused that failure?” I watched the Satan’s horns of the SRB exhaust tracks as they trailed up and away from the epicenter of the blast. And then I watched it all again.

Over and over.

Later I discovered that the engineers at Morton Thiokol had tried to get the launch scrubbed, knowing the problems that cold weather caused in the O-ring joint seals of the SRBs, but they had been told to “take off their engineer hats and put on their manager hats” in order to make a launch decision. The launch had been delayed too many times, and President Reagan would be making his State of the Union address that night, with a call to Crista McAuliffe – Teacher in Space.

I decided right then that I didn’t ever want to be a goddamned manager.

I still don’t. (No offense, boss! Somebody has to be, just not me!)

Here’s seven reasons not to “take off your engineer hat”:


Never forget them.

Here’s a Shocker

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Here’s a Shocker

An op-ed from the Richmond Times-Dispatch (via Instapundit):

Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: January 24, 2009

Recently, the state Crime Commission deadlocked over whether to recommend closing the so-called gun-show loophole. The issue has become a perennial at the General Assembly, which is considering the matter once again this year. Once again, legislators should vote no.

Licensed firearms dealers — those who buy and sell guns as a business — are required to conduct background checks on prospective buyers.

The “loophole” in question refers to the fact that individuals selling guns from their own private collection do not have to — either within gun-show venues, or in the parking lot, or in their own homes.

Which is no “loophole” at all, but . . .

Gun-control advocates often muddy the issue by referring to “unlicensed dealers” at gun shows, of which there are indeed many. They sell holsters, flashlights, hunting knives, T-shirts, books, gun safes — even jewelry. But an unlicensed dealer who sold guns as a business would invite felony charges under federal law.

And some have. That’s part of the BATFE’s job – and one they don’t seem to do very well.

Gun-control advocates also suggest, albeit with scant evidence, that gun shows supply a significant share of the weapons used in crime.

Federal data indicate otherwise. (My emphasis.) According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, “Firearm Use by Offenders,” only about 1 percent of guns used in crimes come from gun shows. (Again.) In fact, most crime guns — 57 percent — come from just 1 percent of licensed dealers. Federal and state law-enforcement agencies should come down on those renegade dealers like a ton of bricks.

It would appear. Another thing the BATFE is tasked with, but they’d rather pursue companies like CavArms for technical violations that were A-OK on Wednesday, but verboten on Thursday. This is another topic unto itself, but to continue:

Another study, by the FBI concerning attacks on law-enforcement officials, found that 97 percent of the offenders had procured their weapons through illegal means. (Again, my emphasis.)

Private sales among the hunters and target-shooting enthusiasts who frequent gun shows are simply not a significant source of weapons used in crimes. Gun shows, then, are not the real issue — except to those who recoil viscerally at the sight of large numbers of firearms in one place.

Referring to a “gun-show loophole” muddies the issue by implying, falsely, that individuals can sell or buy guns freely and without background checks only at gun shows. In fact, they can do so many places.

The real issue, in fact, is incidental firearms sales by private individuals — whether at gun shows or anywhere else.

Now there is an argument to be made that any such sales should be more tightly regulated, perhaps even recorded and reported to the authorities — just as home and car sales are. Over time, that would amount to de facto firearm registration. Some gun-control advocates say that is not their wish.

But given the weaknesses in the case for closing the gun-show loophole, one has to wonder.

No we don’t. Not any more.

Remaining emphasis is also mine. And there’s your QotD in bright red. Kinda shocking to read in an MSM outlet, but it is Richmond, VA.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

From Thomas Sowell:

What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending?

They are buying what politicians are most interested in — power.

In the name of protecting the taxpayers’ investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.

There’s much more at the link. Go read.