Dr. Doolittle

We discussed the issue of doctors being nosy about guns in two previous YGN posts.

Today I find this article about how that issue is impacted by 0bamacare:

If Your Doctor Asks You About Guns, Do You Have to Answer?

The takeaway: the language of the so-called Affordable Care Act protects the rights of doctors to poke their nose where it does not belong, but it also says that the patient is not required to answer:

“”Most people will think they have to answer. They don’t need to answer under the law,” he [Judge Napolitano] explained.”

Interesting.

(More)

Smart Guns Redux

A company in Georgia is claiming to have technology to make Smart Guns viable.

Computerworld: Smart gun company aims to begin production soon

“According to Miller, had smart gun technology been available to Nancy Lanza, she could have programmed her guns so that only her fingerprint could have activated them; she could have enabled her son to shoot them at a firing range and disabled them upon returning home, or she could have enabled them for her son to use all the time, Miller said.

(more)

Open Carry Zealot

Another day, another dumbass carrying around an AR15, looking for a confrontation:

Attention Whore Alert

“He has over a dozen such videos of him getting confronted by the Oregon police while he carries his AR-15 .”

It gets better.  He describes himself thusly:

“I am a Constitutional guardian and activist, at the same time a Libertarian that will defend the Individual rights of Life, Liberty, and Property against Tyrannical and Collectivism. I am a Oregonian, but support the separation of Oregon to create the state of Jefferson. In the state of Jefferson we will make a new Constitution that resemble the USA Constitution, but with more Individual rights with a dictionary that describe the meaning of the Constitution. I am also a extreme Firearms, Freedom of Speech, and Property Activist”

Sigh.  One of those.

And after a deluge of negative comments (shocka!), he posts this rambling, incoherent, foulmouthed reply.

Listening to this guy’s words makes it obvious that he is semi-literate, defiant and an all-around embarrassment to the gun rights movement.  Eventually, one of his infantile stunts will get someone killed, and all responsible gun owners will be lumped in with this assclown.

UPDATE:

More OC douchery from the same nitwit.

Following Trends

A couple of recent gun trends have me puzzled.  Not at the trends, which are simple enough concepts.  But the fact that they are trends at all is baffling.

Zombies.  It started as an offshoot of the zombie trend in entertainment.  “What gun would you choose to fight zombies?”  It was an interesting enough hypothetical, and it spawned plenty of lively discussions on the merits and flaws of various guns.

But then the trend bought a boat, hunted down the biggest shark it could find, and jumped over that shark.  Zombie targets?  Sure, I get it.  Why not?  I have shot at plenty of non-bullseye targets over the years.  It’s fun to break up the monotony.

Soon came Zombie Ammo from Hornady.  Zombie Knives from Gerber and KaBar (and a zombie pistol bayonet too!).  Zombie Ammo Cans.  Zombie red-dot scopes from EO-Tech, and traditional scopes (from Leupold!) with Zombie reticles.  Zombie gun cleaning kits. “Zombie Green” rifle stocks, pistol grips, and firearm finish.  A Zombie reloading setup.

The manufacturers wouldn’t design and sell these products unless they had a reasonable expectation that they would sell.  But to whom?

The other trend?  Bump-fire.  If you don’t know what it is, you can read wikipedia’s definition, or watch a video of it.

Using  a sliding stock to provide rapid-fire capability to semi-auto AR-15 rifles does, in fact, let a shooter use up their ammo faster.

What effect does it have on accuracy?  Not a positive one, since the gun would be moving more than it needs to, and the sight picture would be shifting its plane of focus.

How effective is bump-firing while the shooter is moving?  Probably not very effective, since maintaining solid contact between the stock and your shoulder while moving is a challenge even for a non-sliding stock.

I mean, if someone wants to modify a gun to horse around with bump-firing, they can knock themselves out.  As long as they don’t ask me to pay for their ammo.  But the concept seems like a solution without a problem.

Range Rules

(Updated) We have posted about range rules before, specifically the issue of ammo restrictions and brass retention policies.

Another set of rules that many shooters encounter is restrictions on the amount or frequency of shooting.

While it is common for publicly-accessible ranges to exclude full-auto weapons, certain ranges take the principle farther.  Some ranges limit the number of shots you are supposed to take without a pause between them (a “5-shot rule” or a “no rapid fire/double-tap rule”).  Others limit the number of rounds you put into the magazine.  One range (according to a commenter in this post by SayUncle) doesn’t allow semi-auto rifles to be fired with a magazine inserted!

(more)

Yep, still here...

Yes, I know we have been quiet lately.  New jobs & new people in our lives have conspired to slow down our blog output.  We are working on getting back into the routine.  Rest assured, I will deliver a brisk spanking to at least one of the responsible parties.  (No, not you, Crapgame.  Sorry.  I mean, I’m sorry if that disappoints you, but I am not sorry that I won’t be doing it.  OK, I am just going to shut up now.)

In the meantime, some random musings:

(more)