Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
$45 (SOLD)
Icelandic pattern knife made from tractor trailer leaf suspension spring. I have one similar to it and it’s a very handy blade. Another one I had went to a friend as a wedding present — that’s the great thing about custom knives, they make unique gifts. Since this is the last blade left, shipping would be only $10 within continental US.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Self-Diagnostic for Defensive Rifleman
Three rounds of ammunition, two dimes’ worth of office supplies and five minutes could tell you much about your degree of readiness.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
The boring reliability is why an SU16 is my go-to rifle.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Marko the Munchkinwrangler sums up the social effects of prohibitions in the most eloquent way.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Mass murderers use different methods (arson, explosions, knife attacks, shootings), but two coincidence just jump out at me. The first is that almost all mass murderers are men. The other is that they seek out locations where good people are disarmed by law.
Banning all men might be slightly impractical. Not disarming good people seems a lot easier to implement and very effective. It would be a good start.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
I’d like to get in touch with pro-RKBA people at those locations. Feel free to give them my email (olegvolk at gmail). This is time-sensitive.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Summary: don’t waste your time or your patience.
Casting: very poor. Certain characters, such as Thorin, were mis-cast.
Screenplay: terrible. Even having read the book, I found the plot disjointed and nonsensical. Logical connections between events were lost. The spirit of the book was lost. Lots of details and events switched around or added to the original story, none to good effect.
Pacing was atrocious, far too slow in most parts. It was like the arcade version of a Shakespeare play, with pointless and drawn-out swashbuckling at the expense of he plot.
3D effects: barely perceptible most of the time, distracting and ostentatious the rest. High frame rate looked no different from the regular 24fps version.
Music: OK, too much heroic orchestral soundtrack. Sound effects fake and mis-timed.
Visuals: spectacular to the point of becoming boring and repetitive quickly. The movie was more of a “visit beautiful New Zealand” tourist ad than a feature film.
Camera work: luckluster, with little use of closeups for detail.
Some people in the theater were fighting sleeps rather visibly. I won’t bother seeing the second part of it as no part of the experience was compelling enough to put up with the overall bad impression this production made. With the huge budget and big name actors, I expected a much better film. Lame.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
I was finally able to buy a 300/2.8 IS, so the f4 is now surplus. Asking $860 including shipping within continental US. B&H is asking $1350 for it new, $1050 used.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
I am currently in a Third World location with infrequent Internet access and much work to do when I have it. So updates and new photos will be up later, probably upon my return. The weather here is wonderful, the laws Medieval and the people don’t seem to notice either.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
I do not think that it will amount to anything in terms of gun control. When our side is voting with thousands of dollars in purchases and many hours of activism, training and lobbying, the other side has only talking and collusive propaganda through the mass media.
The real reason for the gun control talk — in my opinion — is to take the pressure off the administration on the economic front. Everyone has been very concerned about the depression, the coming higher taxes, the massive budget deficits and the attendant defaults on government obligations that they just had to counter-strike somewhere. Just like the Brusilov offensive designed to relieve the French at Verdun, this strategic foray into gun control might accomplish the short-term goal at the cost of squandering much political capital the Democrats have.
If the current administration tries to push gun control in extra-legal ways, then they would be just reaching for the laurels of Ceaușescu. I doubt that any of them would go to the wall for that goal, and the current propaganda blitz is no different from the leaflets the Soviets used to drop over the Finnish lines in 1939. Wishful thinking more than a threat.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Imagine a store with ten rifles in stock, average wholesale price $500, retail $600. One sells per week, on average. What should the store do when the customers buy five rifles in a day?
They would want to re-stock immediately or risk running out by the next night. Only they can’t re-stock at once due to delivery times, so they might up the prices to $700 to reduce the sales and still have inventory by the time new stock arrives. They may find out that the manufacturer of rifles now charges $700 wholesale — so the first five rifles sold at $600 didn’t even bring enough money to re-order fresh stock!
The factory has similar problems. Springs, barrels, magazines, sights and other parts have jumped in price, but the factory still owes deliveries contracted earlier at lower prices. The factory costs — not just parts but also staff overtime — just went up. They have to scramble to keep up.
In a situation like the current rush, the manufacturers cannot expand production much because the demand will drop off eventually, either because their products become illegal or because the threat of restrictions abates. So they have to make do with limited staff and equipment, with rising cost of parts and supplies. If they don’t keep up, they lose market share. If they regulate the demand by adjusting wholesale prices, they may alienate some dealers. The same is true for the retail stores, some people will object to the so-called “price gouging”, a Communist term if I ever heard one.
Without cash flow to keep the entire very long chain of production going, we’d have shortages. What would you rather have, rifles available at $700 or unavailable at $500? And the same question applies to ammo, gasoline and other scarce goods. A person with five rifles in the safe will balk at the higher price tags, a person who has none might spend the extra $200 and become armed. Thus those in more dire need get what they need — through the magic of “price gouging” also known as free market.
This process self-regulates. Raising the price too much loses market share, but people should be free to ask whatever they please. After all, they own the goods in question and it’s their right to part with them or withhold from sale. Instead of selling gasoline at higher price to passing strangers, a gas station owner may choose to close shop and give away the product to friends and neighbors, gaining more in good will and favors owed than he would in cash under a price control regime. The motorists fleeing natural disasters or merely passing through would run dry and really be in trouble. Had they been able to offer a more realistic price for the suddenly scarce gas, they would have had a choice of taking the offer or leaving it. Under price controls, the choice is gone. Forcing the sale at the point of government bayonets simply ruins the business slightly slower as the funds for re-stocking the next day’s goods would be lacking. This pattern has been tried world wide and brought us such “prosperous” countries as North Korea and Cuba. Let’s not try it again int he US. It didn’t work in 1971-73 and won’t work now.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
What happens when some legislator votes for a gun control bill to make it into a law? Adding restriction on gun ownership makes violent crime more frequent. It makes defensive weapons more expensive. And it puts a few people in harm’s way, often without any actions by them. A person doesn’t have to know that some minor item in their home has become illegal by administrative fiat, but a SWAT team would no-knock the residence anyway, kill his pets and destroy his kids’ hearing with flashbangs. What do you think will happen then?
Most people have friends and relatives. Not everyone is young enough to still be afraid of prison. Grandpa might lack the agility to hunt the SWAT team members involved, but would have no ethical problem with using his deer rifle on those he would hold responsible for the raid against his kids and grandkids. That would be everyone who voted for the enabling legislation, and the person who gave the go-ahead on the local level. Friends would regard everyone from the enforcement agency to the legislators as targets of opportunity. The chances of one of them finding an opportunity over the next few years would be considerable. Rifle, IED, an “accidental” vehicle strike or gasoline at every office entrance would do.Those who’d rather not risk going after hard targets could do in individual local gun control supporters many of whom helpfully advertise with bumper stickers.
Most people won’t do this. But harm enough families and the small percent who would become numbers distinct from zero. Anyone perishing in the attempts becomes a center of a new epicenter of resistance. At the end, we have a civil war or — much more likely — certain people being handed over for the new Nuremberg trials. Obama administration proved its lack of loyalty to their own already. So think long and hard before voting for gun control — your political masters would set you up as the fall guy as soon as it becomes convenient. You won’t rate Secret Service protection to blunt the full force of your compatriots’ vented ire.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Turns out that vampires are now real. Stakes won’t work on them because of armor, and other means may be at the defender’s peril because they have official backing. Curious to see how long it will take before the first legal challenge. Also curious why Americans aren’t shunning DHS the same way they shun klansmen.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Supposedly, some totalitarian regimes bill the families of executed criminals (or dissidents) for the bullets used by firing squads. Probably an urban legend, but our great leader and his friends in congress are trying to top it.
All the proposed restrictions on guns and confiscations of property affect the surviving families of the school shooting victims just as such as they affect the rest of the Americans. So our government is out to victimize the same people who have already been harmed by the murderous nutcase. The nutcase, by the way, was enabled to inflict disproportionate harm by their mandated so-called “gun-free zones”! “So sorry your kids died, now give up your guns!” Who needs Communist China for the symbol of modern evil when Washington is so much closer…
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
The push to restrict magazine capacity focuses on the apparently magic number “ten”. Reduce Americans to ten-round magazines and no more mass murder, they claim. Let’s look at where this leads.
Ten rounds has been the standard capacity for military rifles for a long time. 1895 Lee-Enfield held ten, as did the Soviet SVT and the German G43 rifles. Post-WW2 SKS, FN49 and SVD held ten also. No one would claim that they aren’t formidable weapons even today. So why stop at ten if the goal is to reduce capability of any rifleman?
The first military rifle designed for high-velocity smokeless ammunition, the 1886 Lebel, held 8 rounds in the magazine. So did the first rifle with detachable box magazine, the 1888 Lee-Metford. As did the “finest battle implement ever designed”, the US M1 Garand. Nobody can claim that these aren’t suitable for bloody mayhem in the wrong hands, so could we claim that fewer than 8 should be the limit.
That brings us to six rounds. The Italian WW2 Carcano (including that which was used to shoot JFK), the superb Swiss Schmidt-Rubin, the American M1917 and many Mannlicher bolt actions held six. Too many still?
Five, do I hear five? That would be the capacity of Mauser, Springfield, Mosin, P1914, MAS38, Arisaka, Krag, Winchester 1895 and many other guns that were front-line military weapons until the 1950s.
Four? No, that would give us certain Winchester and Remington sniper rifles in common military use since the Vietnam War. No anti-gun legislator would admit sniper rifles suitable for civilian ownership. The substantial similarity of a deer hunting rifle to the military sniper rifle is purely coincidental, of course.
Maybe three would be the magic number? French Berthier infantry rifle with a three-shot magazine was widely used through WW1. So the real number would probably be two. At which point anit-gun propaganda would harp on the similarity to double-barreled dangerous game guns and the few remaining gun owners would end up with single-shot low-power guns grudgingly permitted after much red tape…until the next confiscation. It’s a lot easier, you see, to go after people reduced to pre-1850s defensive technology. Not that the gun-banners would go after us in person — even a musket or a pike in steady hands scare them — but they would send their uniformed thugs with modern guns. That scenario played out in Soviet Russia, in Communist China and more recently in Venezuela. Once the gap of arms between the government and the people is great enough, such minor matters as civil rights cease to matter much to the rulers.
The mostly disarmed British subjects may still possess a few guns of limited specifications, but they lost the right to use those for self-defense. Storage, transport and other uses are so severely restricted as to make the remaining arms of minimal use. That’s the end game for the American gun banners — but they won’t live to win it. Their demented numerological plots matter less than the million defensive rifles sold this week. Those gun purchases are the true vote — with money, personal time and effort — that will override the hateful propaganda broadcasts and the squawking in the bully pulpits of the legislative sessions.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Most violations of the myriad of Byzantine laws and regulations are prosecuted as felonies. Having an 11-round magazine in a state that forbids anything over 10 opens a person for prosecution. If that prosecution succeeds — a lifetime disenfranchisement AND a lifetime prohibition on gun ownership! If the prosecution does not succeed, at least the victim suffers a massive legal defense expense in money, time and stress. That is why the gun laws go into so much seemingly pointless trivia.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Any gun control will be viewed as the fault of the Democrats. The electoral fallout from that would push the Democrat social agenda back by many years. So what do liberals want more, gun control or all those other changes, such as gay marriage?
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Nominally a part of the US but an upper-tier third-world location in reality.
(Photo by Tatyana Volk)
