You can tune in a radio station today and listen to most types of music. When you listen you’ll hear “cutting edge lyrics”. Pushing the limits of what is acceptable. Wet Ass Pussy (WAP) won a People’s Choice Award and was nominated for MTV’s “Best Song of the Summer.”
From the 80’s there was “Dancing in the Sheets” (Did you hear that as “dancing in the streets? I did.)
Every wanna be and published rapper can use the “N-Word” as often as they want.
Shock radio is no longer shocking. Comedy where the comic drops F-bombs every other sentence are no longer shocking.
This generation didn’t invent risque or crude lyrics. There are traditional folk songs from centuries ago that are very explicit. If you listen.
Steeleye Span does it in a folk rock style. Maddy Priors voice is still wonderful.
Damh the Bard does an acoustic version.
The song was collected by Frank Warriner around 1930 but there are references going back to 1856.
Amid an unprecedented and unjustified attack on the firearm industry, Smith & Wesson President & CEO issues strong statement: pic.twitter.com/6NHztbGIe4
This is an image of an original SAA hammer that has been reworked to have new sear surfaces. The geometry is exactly the same as on the original Colt SAA. This is the classic fixed firing pin. It is solid and does not move.
There are three notches that the trigger sear can rest in. The first is sometimes called “rebound”. It is the deepest of the three. You should not be able to pull the trigger in this position. When in this position, the firing pin is away from the primer. It can not go bang from a trigger pull nor from striking the back of the hammer. To cause the firearm to go bang you have to strike the hammer hard enough that it breaks parts of the trigger or sear surfaces.
This is the recommended hammer position if carrying with a round under the hammer.
If you pull the trigger and the hammer at the same time such as the hammer rotates back enough to clear the first notch but not enough to get to the second notch and let go of the hammer there should not be enough force to fire the gun. No bang.
The next notch is the half-cock notch. Again the trigger is locked in place. You can not pull the trigger without breaking something. Striking the hammer does not cause the gun to fire. Hitting the gun doesn’t cause the gun to fire as the first notch will catch the hammer before it strikes the primer.
The hammer in half-cock can not be made to fire the gun without breaking things. If the hammer is pulled back and the trigger is pulled and the hammer is released before it gets almost to the final sear the gun does not go bang. Again, you have to pull the trigger to allow the hammer to fall all the way and with enough force to ignite the primer.
The final notch is the actual sear. At this point the gun is fully cocked. Hitting the hammer or gun will not cause the gun to fire. The trigger spring (not shown) will push the trigger sear back against the hammer and the hammer will catch on the half-cock or rebound notches.
In order for the gun to fire you must pull the trigger.
The final possible position is with the hammer fully forward. In this situation striking the back of the hammer firmly enough will cause the gun to fire.
This is the type of hammer the gun Alec Baldwin used to kill the camera woman.
Revolver with transfer bar
Here is a transfer bar system. This revolve has at least a full and half-cock notch. The big difference is that the front of the hammer is smooth. NO firing pin.
This is how many modern hammer fired firearms work. When the trigger is pulled a bar extends up to cover the back of the firing pin. The hammer is released as the sear is disengaged. The hammer falls and hits the transfer bar. The transfer bar strikes the back of the firing pin. The firing pin then impacts the primer igniting it.
When the trigger is released the transfer bar drops down. With the transfer bar down the hammer doesn’t touch the back of the firing pin. Hitting the back of the hammer just drives it into the frame. No bang.
This is a very safe arrangement. Even if the hammer was at full cock and the gun is dropped it will not fire as the transfer bar will be down.
It is “safe” to carry with a round under the hammer.
The issue with this style of SAA is it doesn’t look right to people in the know. That firing pin spur is very distinctive.
So which of these did Alec use? Neither.
He used a hybrid system. Instead of a fixed firing pin as shown in the top the firing pin is actually attached to a small spring and floats within the hammer.
When the hammer strikes with enough force the inertia against the firing pin causes it to continue forward to strike the primer hard enough to ignite.
This system has all the same safety features of the original SAA but with the added benefit that the firing pin does not touch the primer when the hammer is full down.
In addition this style requires the system to be more finely tuned. If the hammer spring is to weak compared to the spring holding the firing pin in place the gun doesn’t go bang. If the firing pin spring is to weak it is possible for the firing pin to touch a primer without the hammer falling from a full cock position.
It is also possible to fire this style with a strong enough strike to the back of the hammer in just the right angle.
What the FBI report said is that the gun was tested and the following was found.
The gun would not fire if the hammer was not all the way back.
The hammer would not drop unless the trigger was pulled.
The gun would not fire during normal drop testing. I.e. If the hammer was fully down, at half-cock or in the rebound notch it would not fire.
In order for this particular gun to go bang it would require that the hammer be fully cocked and the trigger pulled.
I have personally laid hands on all three of these types of SAA revolvers. With the revolvers I own I tested with a case with primer only in the chamber.
I believe that Alec killed that woman by pointing a loaded firearm at her, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
That is the first thing that came to mind when I saw this headline:
Joan of Arc will be portrayed as a non-binary character in a new production at Shakespeare’s Globe.
The French heroine, known for fearlessly leading the French in battles against English soldiers in the Hundred Years War, will be played by non-binary actor Isobel Thom in I, Joan.
A new production of I, Joan is billed as ‘powerful and joyous’ and ‘questioning the gender binary’.
But while it is yet to open at the world-famous venue on August 25, pre-publicity uses the pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’ when referring to the French historical figure.
A separate post on the history on the warrior-saint even does the same thing, declaring ‘whoever Joan truly was, perhaps the most accurate descriptor for them is simply “icon”.’
This afternoon the theatre defended itself and confirmed the titular figure ‘Uses the pronouns ‘they/them’ in the show – and insisted Shakespeare would have approved.
There is a purpose to this.
It is always Year Zero for the radical Left.
For the vast majority of society, there are and there have always been men and women.
We’ve always known that there is a tiny fraction that doesn’t conform to this norm, and they were generally on the fringes of society.
Even when the Left finds other gender nonconforming identites in the non-Westerm world, such as “two-spirit,” they were fringe groups. The much celebrated hijra of India are estimated to be at most 10 Million out of a population of 1.4 Billion.
It is the goal of the Left to normalize this abnormality.
So what they do is rewrite history, finding every tiny morsel of nonconformity to identify declaring that person to be one of them.
Making Joan of Arc transgender or gender nonconforming accomplishes that.
Another example is the famous Viking warrior of Birka. A Viking grave was discovered full of weapons and artifacts indicating the grave belonged to a great warrior. The skeleton in the grave turned out to be female.
Throughout history there have been famous female warriors. We have no idea why this woman was buried with warrior honors.
A decade or two ago, the trend was to make famous men of history gay or bisexual, such as Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare, and Leonardo DaVinci.
Their evidence is dubious at best, and usually falls along the lines of “he had a close friendship with another man and they lived together for a while.” Ignoring that social customs were very different centuries ago.
But being gay is passe, so now it’s making historical figures trans.
An academic writing for the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has argued Queen Elizabeth I may have been non-binary in an essay.
In an essay on the Globe’s website, trans-awareness trainer Dr Kit Heyam referred to the Virgin Queen with ‘they/them’ pronouns, saying: ‘Elizabeth I… described themself regularly in speeches as “king”, “queen” and “prince”.’
Leeds-based Dr Heyam, whose pronouns are they/them or he/him, compared Queen Elizabeth I to 10th-century English ruler Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, who ruled Mercia (what is now approximately the West Midlands) after the death of her husband.
Dr Heyam said Æthelflæd was ‘later described as “conducting…Armies, as if she had changed her sex”: to take on a male-coded military role was, in some sense, for Æthelflæd to become male.’
The writer and academic Elizabeth I chose to ‘strategically to emphasise their female identity or their male monarchical role at different points’.
Because this guy is totally objective:
This isn’t academic or historical research.
This is biased ideologues rewriting history to push an agenda today.
They are all Winston Smith, updating facts so that the LGBT party is always normal.
“Extreme Risk Protection Orders” ERPOs are designed to allow firearm rights to be removed from a person without the person having a chance to defend themselves in court. They can beg the courts to return their firearms and firearm rights after the fact, but a right delayed is a right denied.
The American Justice System is suppose to allow the accused to have competent representation, a chance to face their accusers, to know what they are accused of and to be judged by a jury of their peers. Red Flag laws turn that on its head.
For competent representation there must be an ability to have a lawyer. As the most recent gun legislation passed by the federal government says, you have the right to legal representation and the state can offer it to you, but the state doesn’t have to. You have to pay for that representation.
Due process is suppose to be protected by the a judge that signs off on the order. No judge is going to deny an request for an ERPO. If the judge gets it wrong and you are not a threat you are denied your rights for a time. Nothing bad happens to the judge. If the judge denies the ERPO and something happens to the person requesting the ERPO then the judge is going to be blamed. Humans are human and are going to act in their own self interests most of the time.
It costs the judge nothing to sign an ERPO thus they will.
If you want to hear a horror story, go visit Divemedic’s Blog regarding how he was falsely accused and had to deal with being a prohibited person for 3 weeks because of a lying ex. My story started with my estranged wife claiming she felt threatened because we were talking loudly and I took a couple of steps back away from her and put my hands in my pockets. Since she knew I carried a pocket knife she was afraid.
My case ended up in court and if I had taken the advise of council today I would be a prohibited person. I didn’t own firearms at that particular time.
Most ERPOs are granted ex-parte. The accuser is in the room telling their tail of horrors and you are just going about your business. You are not there, your lawyer isn’t there. There is nobody to stand up for your rights.
As they say, a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. It is much easier to get a judge to sign off on an ERPO.
You find out when the cops show up on your doorstep to server you with the ERPO and take your guns. More than one such raid has happened at O dark thirty. Just what a person in distress needs, to be waken from a sound sleep with load banging noises as people try to break into their home.
Red Flag laws, ERPOs are all about future crime. The idea is that by looking for indicators the people in power can decide who is going to commit a crime. Once they know that a crime is going to be committed, they can stop that crime by removing firearms from a person before the crime is committed.
We all know the line “The suspect was known to law enforcement.” In to many of these cases if law enforcement had done the right thing the animal would have been a prohibited person just by being committed or other criminal record. Unfortunately, to many of these animals are given a second and third and fiftieth chance before they commit their evil final act.
The people that do get caught up in ERPOs are often just run of the mill people who pissed somebody off. With the legal system more than willing to punish gun owners it is easy. If the person was suicidal the removal of firearms isn’t going to stop them. If they are intent on doing evil, they will find a way.
After some asshole killed a bunch of people in Buffalo New York, Governor Hochul signed an executive order requiring the state police to use ERPOs more aggressively, to expand their use of ERPOs.
Surprising nobody the number of ERPOs filed in the last three months exceeds the total filed for 2021.
Numbers I would like to see:
How many ERPO applications were turned down?
How many ERPOs were rescinded when the accused was seen by the judge?
How many people were negatively affected by an ERPO?
Accidental discharge testing determined that the firearm used in the shooting — a .45 Colt (.45 Long Colt) caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolver — could not have fired without the trigger being pulled, the FBI report shows.
With the hammer in the quarter- and half-cock positions, the gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger,” the report stated.
With the hammer fully cocked, the gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional,” the report stated.
With the hammer de-cocked on a loaded chamber, the gun was able to detonate a primer “without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly,” which is normal for this type of revolver, the report stated.
Okay, I’m now confused.
Quarter and half cock are supposed to be safe positions. The hammer is not supposed to fall from quarter or half cock when the trigger is pulled.
Hence why “going off half cocked” is a bad thing.
So did the gun drop the hammer from quarter cock and half cock when the trigger is pulled?
With the hammer down and striking the hammer causing a discharge tells me it is a live firing pin design. I’m flabbergasted that is made and imported into the US today. It’s certainly not a drop safe design which is why just about everyone has gone to transfer bar systems.
Yes, I absolutely know that under no circumstances should there have been live rounds in the gun or on the set. That was 100% the determining factor in this incident.
But ignoring that for a moment, what the media is reporting from the FBI makes me think that this gun was not a good gun to begin with.
A lot has changed in the firearms world since 1873, and a lot of internal design safties put in place since then are worthwhile improvements.
If this is a totally faithful reproduction of an 1874 Colt Single Action Army, I would be dubious of it.
Timney Triggers AR-15 3 lbs. Competition Trigger, Straight – 667S-ST
A few years ago a raider (a person who has only prepared by buying guns and ammo, no life skills or other skills) was bragging about how he was building AR-15s. He was so proud to show me all this special tooling he had (A barrel nut wrench). He made it sound like a big thing. Gee, he was building AR-15s.
A few years later I became much more interested in firearms. I started watching Forgotten Weapons to learn something. I watched a couple of AR-15 builds before YouTube took them all down. It made me start to actually take an interested in how the firearms I owned actually functioned.
Think about this stupid little thing for a moment, how does pulling a trigger back cause a sear to move downward to drop the bolt on a simple blowback open bolt gun. There has to be a linkage of some sort. Is the sear in front of the trigger or behind it?
The linkage in an AR-15 is actually pretty simple, in keeping with the linkage used in a Colt SAA. Pressing the trigger causes the trigger to pivot. A bar at nearly right angles to the trigger towards the front then moves downward. The hammer has a sear that rests against that bar. As the bar is pulled off the sear, the hammer drops firing the gun.
Simple.
You might know all of that. You might have looked inside your firearm(s) to see how it works. I had not. I just opened an AR-15 to verify that I had all the parts right and the functioning correct.
It takes a bit of curiosity to bother to learn all of that.
At one point I had an opportunity to shoot a Colt SP-1. This was one of the first commercial AR-15s. It was an M-16 with two modifications. No auto-sear and the third hole was not drilled in the receiver. It had a full auto selector switch, the M-16 bolt carrier and all the other magic parts.
And here is the thing, if you switched the selector to full auto it could slam fire. The fix was simple, replace the full auto selector with a semi-auto only and it would no longer slam fire.
Slam firing is considered a “not good” event. Even though there are many firearm designs that are intended to “slam fire”, I.e. any firearm that has a fixed firing pin and fires from an open bolt. For higher pressure rounds there must be a full lock up before the round is fired.
So what about the AR-15 platform? Is it “safe” if it slam fires?
Yes, it is. Assume for a moment that the firing pin in your AR-15 got stuck in its forward most position. You drop the bolt, the bolt strips a round from the magazine and pushes it into the chamber. The bolt head is in contact with the base of the round.
The round comes to a stop against the shoulder in the chamber, the bolt face is now pushing up against the face of the breech. The firing pin should be indenting the primer. But it isn’t.
The firing pin does not extend past the face of the bolt until after the bolt has rotated and the chamber is locked.
With the firing pin stuck in its forward most position the rifle will slam fire but only after there is full lockup.
It is a design feature.
Learning those types of things about firearm design is amazing to me. Because of that I became much more willing to detail strip my firearms. To look at how they function. What does this lever do? Why is this cut here? Why did they do this little thing here?
As you do more you learn more and you begin to see where things might have gone wrong. As an example, a friend gave me a long term loan of a semi-auto shotgun. It didn’t work very well but it did go bang when you pulled the trigger. It was only the semi-auto functioning that was questionable. I cleaned it and put it back together. It worked better but wasn’t reliable.
Then one day I had it stripped down and was looking at the piston. The more I looked at it the sadder the O-rings looked. I decided I was going to replace them. So I got out my picks to remove the O-rings so I could measure them and get the right replacements.
As I started to pick the O-Ring out it started to crumble.
It was then that I realized, those weren’t O-rings. It was carbon build up. My friend had never cleaned this shotgun after he acquired it. The carbon build up in the grooves had gotten so bad it was interfering with the functioning of the firearm.
Once I got the grooves cleaned and everything lubed and put back together, it functioned flawlessly. I had fixed a broken firearm.
Since that time I’ve repaired a few firearms. Nothing particularly hard, just had to be done. Replacing sights is something I do myself now, I didn’t originally. It was something I would have a gunsmith do.
Sometimes the AR platform is called “Barbie for men”. You can customize it however you want. You can put lights and optics on. Flare launchers, lasers, sound systems, chainsaws, bayonets can all be attached to your AR.
Not only can you customize the outside, changing the furniture and accessories, you can also customize the inside.
At the top of this post is a picture of a $250 drop in trigger. Open up your AR, push out two pins and most of the guts of the lower receiver spill out on to your workbench. Slide this trigger into place, push the two pins back into place and you now have a beautiful trigger with a straight trigger and a 3 pound pull. Beautiful.
Or you can pay $35 for a complete fire control group, i.e. the two pins are included. This is suppose to be better than a mil-spec mil-issue trigger, but it is likely almost the same thing.
There are a hundred different options out there.
There are just as many options for pistols. Glock replacement triggers. 1911 replacement hammers. Some 1911s have solid hammers, some have a cut out. You can get different triggers. All of these are things that allow you to make your pistol yours.
A pistol my local gun store was selling had loose slabs. Turns out that the previous owner was a competition shooter. He had added weights under the slabs which required longer screws. The local gun store had taken the extra weights off the gun but didn’t notice that the screws were too long. A simple set of replacement screws and the slabs are nice and tight again.
Ebony Scott being sworn in.
For the residents of Washington DC, they are soon going to be unable to buy replacement parts because of a judgement by D.C. Superior Court Judge Ebony Scott. She was appointed by Biden. Her previous career was as with the D.C Office of Human Rights. Then she went to work for the Mayor’s office. There were five judges sworn in at the same time. They all had their official swearing in pictures taken. In her picture she, the Chief Justice and the person holding the bible are all masked. There are no masks in any of the other swearing in images.
It appears she has all the right qualifications to make law from the bench.
No judge gets to decide what is and is not a firearm. That is decided by congress. And congress has made that law. A judge can say that according to the law as set out by congress something is a firearm, but that is based on the actual pieces of that are being evaluated. Not on her opinion of a companies speech.
Scott cited “Polymer80’s alarming belief” that the sale of its firearms is legal in the district as part of the reason the court granted the plaintiff’s request for a permanent injunction.
The law of intended consequences. Three times is enemy action.
