Gun Free Zone

Sorry about the site being down for the last few hours.

Our cloud provider had a server stop responding. It was enough “up” that it didn’t show down from the outside.

Our cloud hosting provider is Linode. I hope you can understand just how good they are.

My initial contact was that it looked like the load balancer was failing.

They did a thorough examination and determined that it wasn’t the load balancer, but something related to our configuration.

Given that our configuration is freaking stable, this did not make any sense.

These lead me to determine that the database server was not responding. This is not good.

This in turn led me to discovering that I had pods that were “stuck”. I attempted to manual stop one of the pods, and it just hung there.

The ticket was updated to “I can’t terminate pods.” The update I received was not helpful. It was talking about disks not attaching correctly, suggesting that I was attempting to attach the same drive to multiple machines.

This took me to attempting to log into the node. Something I should never have to do.

The node was borked. I took the reset hammer to it. It rebooted. Things are working again.

Linode did a great job working for me to help resolve the issue.

If you belong to the proper political group, you can cheat with hookers and snort or smoke your bodyweight in funky white powders and Lefty women will stand by you.

A medical examiner confirmed the cause of death Tuesday for Christian singer Mandisa Hundley, who was found dead in her Franklin home on April 18 at the age of 47.

Dr. Feng Li told The Tennessean an autopsy showed the Grammy-winning “Overcomer” singer died from complications of class III obesity. Her manner of death was listed as natural, Li said.

Cause of death of American Idol alum Mandisa revealed (tennessean.com)

And allow me to be a bit frank: She went out the easy way. Class III obesity is what used to be called morbid obesity which led to diabetes and heart issues. But what is worse is that you are one lower body injury away from being condemned to lay in bed and having to live with soiled underwear until somebody shows up to wipe you clean…at a cost.

Losing weight is a cast iron bitch, I know, I been there. But I have also seen what it does in others and the stripping of basic humanity it does to those that cannot move on their own anymore.

I’ve been there.

If that fat ass can do it, so can you.

A couple of YouTube videos went past my feed today. They were talking about the case of Morin v. Lyver, 4:18-cv-40121, (D. Mass. Mar 03, 2023).

After Bruen, some cases were GVR by the Supreme Court, these include Duncan and Bianchi. We saw the Ninth Circuit kick the case back down to the district level. It is now back at the Ninth Circuit, waiting for oral arguments.

We saw Bianchi get oral arguments shortly after it was GVRed. Then, just weeks before the merit’s panel was due to issue their opinion, the Fourth circuit decided to take the case en banc on their own.

Just nasty games in the inferior courts.

Morin v. Lyver is another one. In this case, the game was very different and the results much quicker. Without giving the 2A community a win.

Mr. Morin had jumped through all the hoops in MA to get his LTC back in the 90s. He held that license until 2018, when he went to renew, where he was denied.

It seems that Mr. Morin did a stupid. He traveled with his firearm without knowing all the restrictions. He was in DC, visiting one of the museums, when he noticed that there was a “no guns” sign. Being a law-abiding citizen, he went to the nearest security guard, informed the guard that he was carrying, and asked where the storage was for firearms.

The guard was very helpful in getting Mr. Morin’s firearm to safe storage. He called the police, who arrived and arrested Mr. Morin.

DC does not recognize MA LTCs, and a CCW doesn’t allow you to carry in many places.

Mr. Morin got off with a slap on the wrist of a misdemeanor charge.

When he applied for his renewal, the local authority, in charge of hearing the subject’s pleadings for their rights back, denied the renewals because Mr. Morin had “misdemeanor weapons charges.”

The district court heard the challenge, using intermediate scrutiny, decided the state had ample reason to disarm its subjects whenever it wanted.

The case was appealed to the First Circuit, which agreed with the district court. The state has a reason, that was good enough for them.

The Supreme Court held the case over until Bruen issued, then they GVRed this case.

In March 2023, the parties agreed on a settlement.

Mr. Marin would get his LTC back.

But that is all that happened. It looks like Massachusetts was afraid of what might happen in court. If the district court had followed Bruen faithfully, this would have been another nail in the coffin of gun permitting.

This weekend I thought I had finished all the machining on my toolholders. Yesterday, I had to remake the height adjustment disks. I had made them 1.12 in diameter, this interferes with the screws that hold the tool in place.

The size of the Aloris adjuster disk is 0.980. I remade the disks at 1.0. There is enough clearance now.

I’m waiting for the rest of my chemicals to arrive, then I’ll hot blue the toolholders, at which point they will be done.

There is still another 12 inches of steel for toolholders. When I was putting the three new ones into production, I realized that I did need to make some 5/8 toolholders.

I joyfully started the process. This was tramming the head of the mill. It was off 0.0005 over 8 inches. I didn’t adjust. I then had to dial in the vise. It was out less than 0.0005 over 6 inches.

First step, cut the bar to length, 6 and 6.25. With the new apron, my scale was where I needed it. Quick and easy.

The saw is cutting well, I’m using my spray bottle of water-soluble oil to keep everything nice and cool. The blade stops.

The pulley belt seems not to be working. Groaning, adjusting, realizing that some idiot had mounted the motor wrong.

I get everything “fixed” and put back, the belt rides up and off the pulley, yanking the motor around on its tensioning post.

I fight this thing for an hour in the heat. Give up.

Later, I went back for try number two. This time, as I’m watching the thing not work, I see brass shavings showing up on the face of the motor housing.

Everything is rattle loose. I’ve killed the damn motor. Frustrated, back into the house.

A replacement motor is going to run me $250. I do not have $250 for the shop. We talk about it at the dinner table.

The decision is to hold off until after graduation of the kids (high school), and I was going to beg you guys for a motor.

After dinner and a show with my lady, it is out to the shop to read the motor plate.

As I take the motor out of the saw, the step pulley is loose and comes off the motor shaft.

The set screw that locks the step pulley to the shaft has backed out. The damn thing was just spinning. There are things that still need to be fixed, but the panic is over.

Or maybe the one in charge of making sure donut shops are following health laws and taste standards.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Nearly a dozen Tennesseans were arrested after allegedly voting illegally, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

In late January, TBI agents began investigating reports of 15 felons unlawfully voting in Sumner County elections between 2020 and 2022, according to a TBI media release. Felons aren’t allowed to legally vote in Tennessee.

Agents determined four of the felons died before the start of the investigation.

Agents investigated the remaining 11 people, determining all had been convicted of at least one felony and registered to vote in Sumner County after their convictions. The felons completed documents that included language indicating they had not been convicted of a felony.

11 felons indicted for voting illegally in Tennessee (wsmv.com)

You probably have something or other similar happening in your state.  But they are still will not be given the necessary importance.