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Washington, D.C. Metro To Start Random Bag Searches
Oh, won’t this just be fun?? You want to touch that bag?? You better back up, son!! “Based on programs now successfully used in New York and Boston, Metro Transit Police will randomly identify carry-on items for inspection at station entrances.” Randomly identify? I’m sorry, isn’t that profiling? Thought that was a bad thing? Why don’t they just go ahead and have metal detectors? Kids can’t even go in school without going through one, you can’t get on a plane without going through a metal detector, I can’t get in the courthouse without going through it, so why are we playing around with “random” bag searches? Further, “Anyone who refuses to submit their carry-on items for inspection will be prohibited from bringing those items into the station,” the statement says. And it’s not just for the subway riders, this goes for Metro bus riders, too. Welcome to Washington!!  Folks, I’ve been a bit slow because for some reason I’ve just been flat out tired. Work’s been busy and I haven’t really been all that creative by the time I get home. At least I remembered to take some pics yesterday  14 December 2010 - Panorama - Sunset over Las Vegas, NV
 14 December 2010 - Panorama - Sunset over Las Vegas, NV
 14 December 2010 - Panorama - Sunset over Las Vegas, NV
 14 December 2010 - Panorama - Sunset over Las Vegas, NV  14 December 2010 - Panorama - Sunset over Las Vegas, NV
Here’s hoping you have a great week if I don’t get back here before the weekend  The White One Project - Keeping history alive A good friend of mine down in Florida recently told me about a cool project he’s volunteering time to help out with. While we continue to lose men who fought in World War II, we’re also losing the tangible items from that terrible chapter in history which serve to remind some and educate others. Some people are trying to keep that history alive and fresh in the minds of people who otherwise might not know about it.  Restoration progress on FW-190 F-8 'White One'
As everyone who’s read this blog for any amount of time knows, I’m an aviation fanatic I’d also really like to see a FW-190 fly someday. The people of the White 1 Foundation are working to make that a reality which is something I support. This aircraft and the others flown by the Luftwaffe in World War II weren’t inadequate – they were excellent machines. Many of the pilots were highly skilled. The philosophy of the government which created and used them may have been flawed, but that’s a separate issue. Seeing, hearing, and just experiencing this aircraft serves to show that no matter how good the enemy was, we still came together to win in the end.
This same philosophy goes for me, too. Anyone who thinks the Nazi swastika on the tail of this aircraft or my featuring an image of it here is some sort of agreement with the National Socialists who were defeated in World War II would be sadly mistaken. I have no sympathy with any cause which seeks to promote the superiority or preach the inferiority of anyone based on race, gender, creed, color, national origin, or any other factor. I see people as individuals and base my evaluation of them on an individual basis. If you’d like to support the White 1 Foundation, you can click here to go to their website Weisse Eins (White 1), a Focke Wulf FW 190 F8, W Nr 931862, has a rich history and saw action while serving with JG 5 in Norway. The aircraft was last flown during the famous Battle of Fordefjord on February 9, 1945. It came to rest on a snow covered mountain after its pilot was forced to bail out. In September 1983, it was recovered and displayed at Flesland airport, for the Royal Norwegian Air Force Aircraft Museum. Several years after that, the aircraft was sent to the Texas Air Museum for static restoration. It is now located in Florida. When the Focke Wulf Fw 190 – White 1 takes to the air, we will be treated to sounds rarely heard since the end of WWII. This is because White 1 will be powered by an original BWM 801 radial engine. There are very few working 801s left today and none are currently flown.  At the Ocean Yes, I’m complaining about the cold AGAIN. It may be a whopping 26 degrees outside right now, but that 13 degrees (yes, I said THIRTEEN) wind chill is what’s kicking my butt. And it’s noontime right now with these temperatures. Tonight temperatures are to be n the teens, with west winds 15 to 25 mph and gusts to 40!!! Oh, boy, can’t wait! At least if I was at the ocean, like in the picture above, it would be a tad warmer and I’d be a WHOLE lot happier! And, yes, I know that people in — oh, I don’t know, say, Alaska are probably colder, but they expect to be freezing their butts off up there! Go ahead, Brent, and tell me it’s warmer up there! The recent Heller and McDonald decisions by the Supreme Court have pretty much ended debate as to whether or not entire gun bans are OK under the Constitution. It has now been clearly stated that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. Just so everyone’s clear, let’s review the Second Amendment. From the National Archives:
Notice that it is the right of the people, not some group of people the Government designates. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer seems to think they really didn’t mean that. From Fox News:
To which I’d ask Mr. Breyer if he would restrict the First Amendment the same way? Would it be OK to limit the people to manual printing presses? How about the fourth or fifth amendments? Should certain places be allowed to disregard the need for a search warrant or to compel the people to testify against themselves? Maybe Justice Breyer should consider getting on a boat and going to someplace like Cuba or Venezuela that shares his values rather than having the people go somewhere that respects their Constitutional Rights. Let’s face it – Guns are expensive. It’s a fact of life that I find truly lamentable in light of the variety of firearms I would love to purchase. Yes, some guns are more affordable than others, but it’s not like anyone’s just giving them away, right? Actually there’s a huge list of firearms giveaways that I found a while back over at a blog I’ve recently started reading – Weapon Blog Well, what are you waiting for?! Go and get some free firepower Today was a very good day – I got to shoot my new rifle for the first time  11 December 2010 - My new AR-15 from New Frontier Armory - Beta C-MAG courtesy Infinite Arms While it may look complex, my AR-15 is actually very simple compared to some other examples out there.  11 December 2010 - My new AR-15 from New Frontier Armory - Beta C-MAG courtesy Infinite Arms The lower receiver is the part that is legally considered to be the firearm. It houses the fire controls (trigger, hammer, and safety) and is where the stock, pistol grip, and magazine are attached. My lower came from PlumCrazy Firearms and is really advanced technology. PlumCrazy makes their lower receiver out of polymer and goes as far as making the hammer, trigger, and safety out of polymer as well. With so much polymer, the entire lower receiver assembly including the stock and pistol grip weighs just 1.5 pounds. I haven’t had the chance to weigh another lower on a scale, but the PlumCrazy is quite a bit lighter. Another advantage of a PlumCrazy lower receiver is its price. A complete PlumCrazy C-15 receiver assembly with the pistol grip, stock assembly, and fire control group installed and ready to be fitted with an upper receiver retails at New Frontier Armory / Infinite Arms for $129.99. MSRP for a similar assembly varies by manufacturer, but to give you an idea of the range I searched and found that Bushmaster’s MSRP is $370.00, DPMS shows $359.95, and Stag Arms suggests $290.00. All are top notch equipment, but I haven’t found any way they’re superior to my PlumCrazy, so I’ll just enjoy the light weight and low price  11 December 2010 - My new AR-15 from New Frontier Armory - Beta C-MAG courtesy Infinite Arms. While the lower receiver is the legal firearm, the upper receiver assembly is just as important if not more so. The upper receiver is the part that contains the bolt and bolt carrier and is what the sights, hand guards, and barrel are connected. My upper was built at New Frontier Armory and is a true marvel of value and engineering. The barrel on my upper is a 16″ stainless steel match unit from Black Hole Weaponry which features three groove polygonal rifling for excellent accuracy. The hand guard is an aluminum Yankee Hill Machine diamond rail. It’s a “free float” system that doesn’t touch the barrel which increases accuracy. The diamond rail has four Picatinny rails for mounting a wide variety of accessories. This particular rail is “specter length” which covers the gas block that where the gas from the fired round is tapped from the barrel to operate the action and is capped off with an end cap which is also made by YHM. The flash suppressor is a YHM Phantom 5C2 which prevents a large muzzle flash at night to preserve the shooter’s night vision. The Phantom 5C2 has no downward facing port to minimize dust being kicked up by firing when prone.  11 December 2010 - My new AR-15 from New Frontier Armory - Beta C-MAG courtesy Infinite Arms Last, but by no means least are the sights. I chose Magpul MBUS (Magpul Back Up Sights) for their combination of function and value. At about $95 for a set of these folding sights, you might think they’re expensive but other options generally start at $200 for a set of front and rear sights. As I said, these are folding sights and as the name implies they were intended to be backup sights for someone whose optical (red dot, scope, or holographic) sight has failed for whatever reason. They’re made of polymer just like the Magpul PMAG magazines. Some people say they’re not good enough to go to war with. I’m not too worried because I’m not going to war with this gun  11 December 2010 - My new AR-15 from New Frontier Armory - Beta C-MAG courtesy Infinite Arms The magazines I’ve chosen are Magpul PMAG units, but we’ll get into those in a later post. Adam from Infinite Arms offered me the use of his Beta C-Mag and I accepted  DSCN11 December 2010 - Sighting in the irons - Yes, I need some practice I started sighting in on the left hand target and the rounds were hitting way high in the beginning. This target was only 25 yards away, so the rounds should be hitting a bit low to be correctly sighted for 100 yards. I’ll work on the sights more the next time I go out The right hand target was mainly shooting for fun – I was doing some rapid fire and double taps, so I wasn’t worried about pinpoint accuracy My shooting done, I headed back down to New Frontier Armory / Infinite Arms to return Adam’s magazine and pick up a bit more ammo  11 December 2010 - Panorama - Last light on Las Vegas, NV  11 December 2010 - Panorama - Sunset on Sunrise Mountain  11 December 2010 - Panorama - Sunset seen from the Clark County Shooting Park  11 December 2010 - Panorama - Incredible color in the sky over Las Vegas, NV Sunset tonight was especially gorgeous. High, thin clouds lit the ground with a rose colored half light after the sun dropped behind Mt. Charleston and covered the Las Vegas valley in shadow. As I said at the beginning, today was a very good day Have a great Sunday everyone This past week was long and busy at work. I put up a few posts, but was mostly out of steam for editing and posting pics although I did take them. Time to catch up  6 December 2010 - Last glow of sunlight over Mt. Charleston Monday – What a day. Seriously busy at work and I was just too tired to do much of anything except head over to New Frontier Armory / Infinite Arms to pick up a couple of small items. At least I had a decent sunset
 8 December 2010 - Panorama - Color in the sky at sunset Clouds like these are rather rare around Las Vegas so this was a welcome sight  8 December 2010 - Transferable MAC-11 in .380 with a suppressor  8 December 2010 - Transferable MAC-11 in .380 with a suppressor Most of the machine guns you see in the videos from shooting in the desert are post ’86 dealer samples. In order for a machine gun to be legal for a private citizen who isn’t a licensed dealer or manufacturer, it must have been registered to a private citizen prior to 19 May 1986. This is one of those guns That’s it for this post, but there’s more to come tonight Bea Arthur was in the Marine Corps. Via This Ain’t Hell from The Smoking Gun. Wow! http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=21461 So I get an AR-15 on Sunday and what should I find online by Wednesday? How about a way to add some serious fun to the gun without any permanent modifications? Converting my semi-automatic AR-15 into a full-auto machine gun would be a seriously bad idea. The BATFE doesn’t take kindly to that kind of thing and they’ll gladly find room for you somewhere that isn’t Club Fed. No, they’d send me, you, or just about anyone but a licensed manufacturer to a real federal pound me in the @$$ prison. Sure, I could buy a registered and transferable full auto rifle, but that would cost at least $10,000 which is money I really don’t have. The sucky thing about that is that firing a full auto AR-15 is a real hoot as you’ve seen in some earlier posts. What’s a guy like me to do?  Slide Fire Solutions SSAR-15 Here’s what I’ll likely do sometime in the future The way the SSAR-15 works is that you connect it to an AR-15 rifle where the stock would normally go. After disengaging a catch, you can hold the stock and pistol grip against your shoulder with your finger on the trigger. As you pull the receiver and barrel of the rifle forward, it fires as the trigger is pulled. As described above, the recoil pulls the front part of the gun back and allows the trigger to be reset. If you keep pulling forward, you’ll keep firing and you just have to stop pulling forward to cease fire. Another benefit of the SSAR-15 is that it allows some people to shoot again who might otherwise not be able to. If someone like a wounded veteran has lost the use of their hand, they can use a prosthetic device to grip the pistol grip of the rifle and cover the trigger. Using that prosthetic to hold the rifle against their shoulder, they would only have to pull forward on the rest of the gun to fire.  The Slide Fire Solutions SSAR-15 is BATFE approved! Anytime you come up with a cool new idea relating to guns, it’s a really good idea to have it evaluated by the BATFE’s Firearms Technology Branch. They decide if it’s a firearm in and of itself, a machine gun, suppressor, or just a part of a weapon that wouldn’t be regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934 or the GCA of 1968. Slide Fire Solutions has done just that and they’ve got the letter from the BATFE to back up their claim that the SSAR-15 is just a part and not a machine gun. While it may or may not be legal where you live due to local or state law, the federal government thinks it’s just fine for you to purchase You can order the SSAR-15 online at Slide Fire Solution’s website, but I hope there’ll be one coming soon to a dealer near me Have a great night everyone and shoot safely Hat tip to The Firearms Blog |
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We’ve had a few clouds in the sky lately which has given us a bit of color 
I love seeing aircraft that have a rich history no matter what that history is. I got to see the only flying Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter in the world a couple of years ago at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, CA. I haven’t seen it fly… yet. Someday I’ll fix that.
I posted a picture of it Sunday night after I took delivery, but I wanted better circumstances for any further pictures. The Clark County Shooting Park worked out pretty well for that and a little help from Infinite Arms helped out, too