Month: July 2023

Application Review: Hornady Android Ballistics

Short answer: 2 out of 5 stars.

This is obviously somebodiessomebody’s work of love. Like me, they are more interested in the data than the user interface.

This leads to a user interface that is barely useable.

There are times when you press on a sentence which acts like a button. These are often small with gray text. In other locations, the same text is on a button.

There is an option to “save” all over the place, but what are you saving? How do you get it back?

In the 4DOF calculator, if you select what you think is a cartridge, it will set the ballistics of the bullet, but not velocity.

The default dashboard has a couple of widgets to let you slowly set the range to target and wind conditions. If you want a table instead, you can click at random until you click on the clipboard/grid in the lower-right corner.

This gives you an option to change the interval between data rows and the total distance you want calculated.

If you like the numbers, press “set”. Do not press the “cancel” button. If you press cancel, it will take you back one screen. You need to click set, which will give you the table you are interested in.

This table is the 2 stars above. It uses either the G1 or G7 drag curves, it uses all the variables you provide. There is time of flight, drop in inches, MOA offset and everything else you could want.

It has a “save” feature. I don’t know where it saves the data nor how to access it, nor how to print it.

Even if the features I’m looking for exist, this app is too clunky to use.

I’ll go looking for an online replacement soon.

I’d actually prefer to get gnuplot doing this for me. I have the G1 and G7 curves, it is just a matter of entering the correct formulas.

Welcome to the ‘Boro. Don’t play stupid games.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) — According to authorities, a 21-year-old said he was protecting himself when he shot and killed two men who were allegedly assaulting him outside a Murfreesboro fast-food restaurant overnight.

The Murfreesboro Police Department said officers responded to reports of shots fired at the Cook Out restaurant on Memorial Boulevard just after 1 a.m. on Saturday, July 8.

Police said they found 31-year-old Tony Fuller with a single gunshot wound, who was pronounced dead at the scene by Rutherford County first responders. Meanwhile, Fuller’s 18-year-old brother, Jacob Hawkins, was also shot, but he died shortly after being taken to the hospital.

According to officials, the preliminary investigation shows Fuller and Hawkins initially approached the car, with the 21-year-old man inside, at a McDonald’s drive-thru on S. Rutherford Boulevard, but the driver quickly left the scene to get away from them.

2 men dead after shooting in Murfreesboro, TN; Accused shooter claiming self-defense (wkrn.com)

We preach heavily about Avoidance, De-escalation and deterrence, but sometimes some people are too dumb or to emotionally invested on doing harm that we may have to resolve to defend ourselves.  The shortest distance from both locations is 4.7 miles  and 9 minutes away according to Google maps.

 

Investigators said the brothers spotted the same vehicle in the Cook Out drive-thru line, so Fuller and Hawkins approached the car before the three men began to argue. The brothers reportedly started assaulting the 21-year-old while he was sitting in the backseat, so he took out his gun and fired, hitting both of them.

The alleged shooter was one of the people who called 911 to report the shooting, police said.

Even though the motive behind the fight and the deadly double shooting is still unclear, authorities said the 21-year-old is claiming self-defense.

“There were several bystanders, who didn’t know any of those involved, who voluntarily told detectives what they witnessed, and some provided video,” said Criminal Investigations Division Crimes Against Persons Unit Lt. James Abbott, “The witnesses’ account is consistent with the shooter’s claims and with the evidence we collected at the scene.”

As far as having to shoot a human being, this seems to be a happy gathering of evidence and witnesses who support the self-defense claim.

And now for another point that needs to be made: Never Talk To The Media.  I checked two other sources and both repeat most of the same story, but one closed the article with this idiocy:

A motive for who started the fight has not yet been determined. Charges have not been filed against the shooter at this time, with further investigation needed before a conclusion can be reached.

Two men killed in shooting outside of fast-food restaurant in Murfreesboro (newschannel5.com)

 

Whatever may had happened earlier at the McDonalds, it has no relevance on reason why the defensive shooting happened because that particular event was over when the shooter left the McD’s. The two “victims” chose to look or found their target and decided to re-engage with violence. This is a brand-new situation separated by 5 miles and 9 minutes of space and time which could have been used to calm down and think rationally. But I am willing to bet that Ego got mixed with whatever outrage they felt (and intoxicants?) and ended up costing their lives.

And yes, it is accurate that further investigation will be done to render a final report and recommendation, but this outlet makes it sound like the narrative is a lie or not the desire outcome which I suspect is to put the citizen in jail for the crime of self-defense.

Lessons learned.

This is an easy problem to fix

Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger’s death penalty could cost taxpayers $1 MILLION more than life in prison if he’s convicted

Seeking the death penalty for accused Idaho killer Bryan Kohberger could end up costing taxpayers an additional $1million, if he is convicted.

The Latah County Prosecutors’ Office informed the court in late June that they would seek the death penalty because the killings were ‘especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity.’

Convicted killers on death row typically rack up significant medical bills as they await execution for decades – all at the expense of taxpayers, plus the cost of their eventual execution.

According to the Idaho Statesman, Gerald Pizzuto, a 67-year-old death row inmate who has been on death row in Idaho since 1986, has cost taxpayers $1.3million, largely in medical costs for a slew of conditions.

The state’s longest-serving death row inmate has been held for more than 40 years, running up a $1.5million tab.

Furthermore, legal delays and a shortage of lethal injections have kept killers on death row for an even longer time, prompting Idaho to bring back the firing squad earlier this year.

This is entirely the result of the stupid way we carry out the death penalty.

We fuck around for decades before we execute someone.  The two examples they use have been on death row for 37 and 40 years.

That’s bullshit.

Here is my proposal.

After a death penalty sentence, the convicted is given one year to gather any new exculpatory evidence or evidence of a mistrial. A panel of judges does an automatic review of the original trial. If there is nothing new that can challenge the original conviction, the execution is carried out the next day.

Death is achieved by a massive overdose of fentanyl from DEA impound.  Fentanyl seized from drug traffickers.  A good bust will capture enough fentanyl to kill millions, there is more than enough in inventory.

It’s painless. The condemned will pass out, stop breathing, and die.

No money spent on drugs and no extended prison sentence. Problem solved.

 

They want to bring back the LEO ONLY mags

 

She was a Postal Inspector who then became a CIA Officer.

Her statement was then backed up by a Marine Officer turned Congressman.

These people love the idea of government agents outgunning civilians.

There is no evidence at all that magazine capacity bans have any effect on crime.

Even the idea that: “the bad guy can get bum-rushed when he reloads” us fallacious.

These people simply enjoy having privileges that ordinary citizens don’t have.

It’s no surprise that the people who exempted themselves from insider trading so they can make millions on a government salary like having guns and magazines that you cannot.

My replacement for the Thin Blue Line flag

We’ve seen police hide in the Conductor’s Cab of an NYC subway car and watch the the window while a serial killer with an APB stabbed a passenger.

We watched how an entire Sheriff’s Department set up a perimeter around a school shooter rather than engage.

We watched how a few hundred cops stood around in a school hallway and listened to children scream rather than engage and active shooter.

Then we watched how a cop mag dumped in a golden retriever with a wagging tail that was running away from him, in a quiet suburban neighborhood, in front of a bunch of children.

The common thread is that all these officers wanted to go home safe at the end of their shift.

That’s it. Collect a paycheck and go home at clock-out time.

Fine, but there are a lot of jobs where that can be done. But nine of them are jobs that ostensibly protect and serve the community.

There us no Thin Blue Line.

There are just people with qualified immunity who want to go home safe at the end of their shift.

This is the new flag of American law enforcement.

Pathologized disagreement

https://twitter.com/BikeThisCity/status/1675701347138834432?s=19

 

The Soviets knew that they couldn’t throw everyone who disagreed with them into a prison for treason.

A hero soldier who won medals or a popular apparatchik couldn’t easily be dismissed as a traitor.

So the Soviets had a method of dealing with these people who disagreed with the new edicts of the party.

They were crazy.  They were diagnosed with Sluggish Schizophrenia and institutionalized.

They were sent to mental hospitals instead of gulags, although those weren’t that different.

The overall message was that disagreement with the party was either treason or insanity.

The guy in the picture above bought a big truck.

I don’t know why, and I have no desire to speculate.

There are people in the comments who are saying “maybe he pulls a trailer or hauls lumber.”

Those are irrelevant. Cars are like guns in that I believe you should be able to buy what you want.

I have a Ram 2500 because I wanted it. I like it. It was my money and I spent it in something I enjoyed.

That’s enough justification in a free country.

For that reason, Emily here believes that I need therapy.

I disagree with her position and therefore I am mentally unbalanced.

Give her enough authority and she might even decide that I need to be institutionalized until I see the errors of my way.

These people are no different than the Soviets, they just don’t have enough power to do all.the things the Soviets did.