Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Hoarding ammo

Readers of this blog might assume I'm clairvoyant on the subject of the ammo/ammo component shortage. I'm not, but something has begun to bother me about the duration of the shortage: it's affecting preparations for all sorts of nasty eventualities that a careful person might prepare for.

The critical ammunition compnenents are, of course, primers and powders. Since some powder is still out there, the most critical component is primers.

I'm going to make room in my gun safe for all my primers. I don't put ammo in there now, only a few loaded magazines. The primers have been kept in a less secure location in my shop, while the safe is in a locked and alarmed house, in a secure gun room with it's own alarm in the safe-closet.

Readers would be advised to treat their supplies of primers as an irreplaceable valuable as I'm doing now.

The First Shot of the Second Revolutionary War

...may have just been fired, by the Obama Administration.

First, go read Joe's excellent explanation of ITAR, the vehicle by which the Administration hopes to kill both the First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution.

For the first time, yesterday ITAR was implemented against a "Joe Sixpack", not a firm dealing in arms, or export of computer technology, just a guy with an idea on how to use evolving technology.

The Joe Sixpack in this case is the Printed Gun Guy.

Several things to disregard:

• The Printed Gun Guy is a jerk. Comes across as one, anyway. He's about on a par with the Open Carry folks who DO TRY to intimidate others with the sight of big scary guns. Ever hear of an O/C guy openly carrying a Kel-Tec P3AT?
• Cody Wilson claims to be advancing this 3-D Printer technology for the purpose of spreading Anarchy. Goodness, we all need more of THAT, don't we?
• The "Printed AR" that Wilson developed is a POS. It fell apart in this test after 6 rounds fired, and is a huge danger to the firer. It would be lawyered out of existance if it was sold on the open market.

Given that Cody Wilson and his "WikiGun Project" is apparently in full-failure mode, why couldn't the Feds have just let him fail, or perhaps sued him for making/spreading the use of a dangerous product?

But no, the Feds jumped the shark.

They trot out ITAR, which they claim, (read Joe's blog) gives them the right of control over ANY information or process that offers ANY chance to arm or improve the armaments of an enemy. That position, were it to become tested in court and be the Law of the Land, would negate the First AND Second Amendments to our Constitution, and thereby, make the Federal Government into a prima-facie dictatorship, controlling thought, speech, dissemination of information and of course, all guns.

I repeat, ALL guns. It also means all training with guns, accessories for guns, ammo for guns, etc.

If the Feds can claim a non-battleworthy POS like the WikiGun (or the data set to build it) could possibly be considered of value to an enemy, then ANYTHING is of value to an enemy. For that matter, since the basic society of the USA is superior to the basic society of any of the shitholes we call our enemies these days, you could, by extension, say that US society itself is of aid to the enemy.

If this is an isolated case, just an inept Administration's way of trying to snuff out a concept that has the potential to obsolete the entire National Firearms Act (if properly applied, which it isn't in this case), then fine, it will soon cease to be of importance.

There is, however, a huge danger that this Administration will expand on their use of ITAR as an anti-freedom tool, and in that case, make a note of it, History fans:

May 9th, 2013, the Federal Government fired the first shot in the Second Revolutionary war. That shot hit it's intended target, which the Federal targeting mavens had wrongly guessed would pre-emptively end the fight for freedom.

If we see more of ITAR though, there will be more shots fired, and they likely will NOT be fired from POS plastic guns or lawyer's processes, they will be fired from real rifles, at important targets ON BOTH SIDES.

Do you want real Gun Control, Mister Obama? If you do, just leave us alone. Our guns already ARE under control, and will stay that way. Loss of control for YOU, Mister Obama, will stem from trying to erase our gun freedoms. Only an Idiot fails to see that, and you're supposed to be a smart guy, not an idiot. 

Fox snooze

...makes a big deal out of some yahoo who claims to be the inventor of "printed guns". Guy is a blowhard, and it's unlikely he invented the technology of 3-D printers, or figured out the data set to run the printer to make an AR-15 lower or one of his so-called "Liberator" (stolen name) "Wikiguns".

He did appear on Fox snooze though, and insisted that they call him an "anarchist".

I can think of better names: plaigarizer, intellectual property thief come to mind. Raving ego-maniac is a given. Pro-gun spokesman is NOT given. This guy has less to do with defending the Second Amendment than my pet cat.

The opposition does seem to have suckered in on the "invisibility quotient" of the "Wikigun" pistol. Look, airport scanners can detect liquid, for Christ's sake, of course they will see the "Wikigun". Didn't we go over this whole basket of over-ripe tripe 25 or 30 years ago with the Glock pistols? Haven't the scanners improved markedly in the meanwhile?

Go away, Wiki-archist. you are boring us, and please don't think you've counted any coup by getting a few idiot Democrats to rise to your bait. I could put a fresh egg in the microwave, explode it (yes, they go boom if you throw the energy to them without breaking the egg-sac first) and say I had just discovered that chickens can lay explosive eggs, put a vid of it on You Tube and the idiotarians in the (D)onk Party would try to ban chickens.

No, the "printed gun" is not the end of Gun Control.

Remember that Gun Control is not about controlling guns, printed or not. it's about controlling PEOPLE with guns.

B.A.M. Day

Okay then, just paid the taxes. Bought some gimme-gimme almost 1,000 40-oz beers or so...

Don't have enough left over to buy a decent gun, so I am declaring April 15th to be Buy Assault Magazines Day.

So, I bought some EEEVIL Glock hi-caps, and some EEVILLER rifle hi-caps (I only listed the Glock because it's already registered as it was my last duty weapon and cops always have to Register their duty and carry-off-duty guns).

So, if you can't afford to actually buy a gun for this B.A.G. Day, at least buy some EEVILL magazines. Each one you buy causes DiFi and Chuckie Schmuckie to lose a few more brain cells from implosion....

Another CTD growl

Check out this ad, particularily the .223 ammo price that is supposed to be such a bargain.

Has my memory totally gone south, or is that ammo price somewhere north of twice as high as it was last Fall? A buck and a half a round for .223? WTF, over?

Also, a 20-round box of TulAmmo 7.62X39 used to sell for under $5, if memory serves, so that stuff has tripled in price.

None of this affects me personally, since I still don't have a rifle in the poodleshooter caliber, and I already have a, ummmm, "sufficient" quantity of 7.62X39, but just for shits and grins, perhaps CTD would like to show us an invoice or two thousand and ease our suspicious minds that they are not the proverbial pirates they seem to be.

Ammolert: 12-ga 00B

Here, at J&G Sales. Two rounds for a buck is a decent price, even a bargain, and there ain't many of those these days. Feed that Saiga S-12 what it wants to eat and spit.

Read it and weep

Weep for your lost hobby of shooting practice. Weep for the fact that your compadres, and patriots everywhere, will not be able to practice much with their guns. Weep again that few will be able to afford the new prices of guns.

Item: Note this CDNN advert. There is actually an AR-15 advertised in it! Good. That means that the pipeline for ARs is beginning to show some life. The Bad news? The reason you have that crying towel in hand? Look at the price. Last November, this same AR was selling for half that price, if I recall. In that short period of time, inflation is NOT a factor.

Item: Look at the Cheaper Than Dirt advert. Note the ammo prices. Defense loadings for 45 ACP at $1.75 per round? You've got to be kidding me. I USED to be able to buy Federal Gold Medal Match for .308 Winchester for that. In the same advert, PNW practice ammo for the 45 ACP is a seventy cents a round. I'm supposed to expend $200 bucks for a modest practice session?

What's going to happen here is that people are not going to practice. When they don't practice, bad habits creep in to their gun handling techniques, and bad habits + loaded guns = accidentally DEAD people. A rising gun accident rate, of course, is fodder for more gun laws, range restrictions, etc.

If there WERE any reloading components available, we could see just how much price-gouging is involved in this apparent doubling of the price of ammunition almost overnight. I'm sure that there's some gouging, but I can't quantify it. I'm guessing that everyone in the industry figured out that that they can hide behind "the law of supply and demand", which law is not really even definable because of so many other economic factors, regulations, tarriffs, etc. Every time I get on my gunny High Horse about price gouging, some commenters will try to remind me of "the law of supply and demand".

I remind those who tolerate this price-gouging that the "law of supply and demand" is outdated, has been replaced by engineered markets, etc, and doesn't apply any more, to ANY commodity. Need more proof: look at pricing in the Oil Business. With per-barrel prices hovering in the low $90s, gasoline ought to be selling for the low $3 range, maybe $3.25. Instead, it's edging up toward $4. Why? Because they can.

So, why have gun and ammo prices doubled in 5 months? Because they can. Just don't give me "supply and demand", because I might have to point out to you that your trousers are aflame.

Charge what the market will bear....

Who was the famous 19th Century tycoon who, when asked about what we now know as "price gouging", said, looking down at the reporter, "Charge what the market will bear..."

The essence of Capitalism, right?

For those of you who have been trying to find an E.B.R. they are now showing up in quantity, as if the pipeline never shut off lo these past couple of months.

Except, prices have almost doubled.

Now, you don't suppose these gun dealers simply closed their vault doors, shut off the supply, and waited until political advice told them their guns would not be banned by the Feds. The resulting "Obama Gun Rush", which I find easy to identify with other scalawags besides Obama, seems to have abated. Now that the E.B.R.s have reappeared, suddenly, POOF, like magic, with 75% to 100% markups, we are supposed to rush out and buy them.

Here's a clue: leave them in the stores. The resulting oversupply will quickly force the price back down to last-year levels. The extra time you now have can be spent eyeballing your local Legislators to see if they have become anti-gun Terrorists and will ban the very rifle you just bought. You might want to make other choices in long guns.

For those of you who read this and say, "whatever", how would YOU feel if gasoline went up to $7.00/gallon by May? Yep, you'd feel gouged.

 

Biden's Advice, and it's NSFW

These two women have taken Veep Biden's advice and armed themselves with trusty shotguns.

Perhaps we were too quick to criticize Uncle Joe, because the women look to be very happy and at ease with their choice of weapons.

Pictorial proof below the fold. Don't go there if at work, the proof is definitely NSFW. You've been warned.

Enquiring minds want to know...

...when did Olin quit making .22 LR ammo? Just curious how old this CMP stuff I ran across really is.