More E. German Goodies

Just a few little additions to the collection:

AK Mag pouch in Blumentarn and a dosimeter in rain camo (anyone know how to use this?)

Camo is fun.

Done W/ Sears Pt II

When it rains it pours.  Now it's the Kenmore fridge bought 1 yr and 2 weeks ago. Of course they won't cover it under warranty, the next available tech is in a week, and a half and if I 'reject' their estimate they'll charge me a $75 fee.

I'll be calling someone else in the morning.

Gun Ownership = 'Murder/Rape'

According to the so-called (get this) 'Gun Responsibility' side of the Oak Park, IL 'Gun Right & Responsibility Group (GRRP).

I suppose, using Ray Simpson's logic, one could make the argument that laws against murder and rape have a disproportionate impact on law-abiding citizens because they will obey the law while the murderers and rapists will ignore the law and continue to rape and murder. Can anyone seriously consider such a specious and absurd argument as a reason not to enact laws against murder and rape? I think not. It's also not a good reason to not enact universal background checks that prohibit the purchase of weapons by criminals, the mentally ill and minors.

Everyone who rapes or murders is intent on hurting someone. Not everyone who purchases a firearm (in fact rarely by percentage) is intent on hurting someone. So Mr. Heise has put firearm owners into the same category as rapists and murderers because he cannot fathom anything else to do w/ them. No one would 'seriously consider such a specious and absurd argument' because it is stupid. Noone is talking about 'murder' or 'rape'. We're talking about the ownership/sale of a product he doesn't like.  If he tries to use that argument for his proposals, he's nothing but an idiot.

The two things the anti-gun (let's just be realistic, eh?) side wants is 'Universal background checks' (which we already have) and "a prohibition against the future manufacture, sale and ownership of ammunition clips capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition." (which is unenforcable). So the ONLY people that their proposals are going to effect are those who are not breaking the laws which are on the books already.

These are the kinds of ditsh!ts we're dealing w/.  They've got no clue what they're talking about nor anything about guns but they have a moral conviction to 'do something'.

Rambo and Quinn, Sittin' in a Tree

F..A..L..L..I..N..G

There's chatter that a 'deal' on that mandatory 3yr for illegal gun possession in IL is in the works between the 'NRA' and Chicago Mayor Rambo. 

Emanuel’s Statehouse lobbyists are engaged in serious talks with the NRA and the more strident Illinois State Rifle Association (something Daley would never do and vice versa) to try to work out a compromise on legislation to force convicted gun violators to remain in prison a lot longer than they do now. Emanuel is said to be actively involved by phone.

Why is this general bill opposed? Because all the IL Dem leadership have long been in the tank for 'gun control' and would jump at the chance to use a poorly worded law to throw as many firearm owners in jail for as long as they could.  What would you expect from a DA who has openly stated "“I don’t believe that people should own guns,” and “I would favor a law that no one could ever buy a gun”?

Our dumb@ss governor is sure to piss everyone off by pushing for another standard capacity mag ban.

Why should we trust any of them?  (except the NRA lobbyist.  Him I trust.)

Simple Ideas For Simple Minds

Former Brady lawyer Dennis Hennigan put out a book lambasting 'bumper sticker arguments' by progun activists, most of which he made up on his own. 

Here's one from the gun banner side:


Yep. The NRA organized the gangs, shipped in the drugs and paid off the friends/family members to straw purchase guns to the city that had the strictest laws in the nation. 

Much easier to believe that than reality.  Hate is all they have.

Done w/ Sears and Other Musings

Work has been hectic lately. Long, stressful days so posting has been sporadic.

After a 10 hr day on Thursday, I come home to get the car loaded up so I can run back out to get set up for the weekend flea market. I walk into children acting up and a broken microwave, one we've had just over a year which itself was a warranty replacement for another that broke.  When I get home (again) two hours later, I discover that the microwave has those stupid torque screws w/ the pin in the middle so I'ld have to buy bits for it to see if I can fix it.

Friday. Another stressful day at work followed by going straight to the flea market. I get the bits but have absolutely zero sales.  When I get home, I disassemble the microwave to find it's not the fuse and I can't find which part is broken.

Saturday.  13 hrs plus at the flea market w/ dismally slow sales. I talk to the appliance guy at Sears.  The service center there is gone so my only option is to try and call the national hotline. Last time I did that, I fought w/ them for near two months to get the warrantied one replaced. 

No. No more Sears. Every appliance I've bought from them the last few years have been junk including a fridge and a washer (the dreaded F1 fault needing a $200 part). Their service and quality have gone down the tubes and I won't spend my money there anymore. The C-in-C picked up an equivalent microwave for less than it would have cost me to have Sears even look at my other one. 

People are worried. From what I've seen and heard at the last few gun shows, people aren't buying.  I originally put it down to just overspending during the scare earlier in the year but now I've seen the same thing at the flea markets.  People are holding onto their cash or just don't have it to spend on much extra stuff. 

On a more positive note, I did manage to squirrel a way a little for 'extra' and picked up some goodies off of Ebay.
An original East German Shelter Quarter in 'Blumentarn', one of my favorite patterns.  I've been trying to get ahold of one of these for my impression for some time.

Also from the Ukraine came a set of some of my favorite Soviet armor in 1/72 scale.

T-72, ZSU-23-4, BTR-70, BMP  These will look nice on my shelf w/ my WWII German collection (in a bigger scale though).

I have a few other cold war goodies on the way which will be for a later post.

Josh Sugarmann: "Disarm Blacks For Their Own Good"

How else can you interpret his continuing series of posts about how dangerous black people are that have guns? 

In 2011, the most recent year for which such data is available, black females were murdered by males at a rate of 2.61 per 100,000 in single victim/single offender incidents. 
Ninety-four percent of black women were murdered by someone they knew
93 percent of the homicides were intra-racial.

Josh also has some strange ideas about 'African Americans':

For African Americans as well as other women,

So either Josh believes ALL African Americans are women or else someone had to lay off their copy editor.

Either way.  Duh. 

Mom's Demand Lovin' Astroturf In Action

The same two women that testified at the CCW hearings and claimed FB 'likes' as 'members' are back again pushing for a bill that doesn't exist.

What they prove is that they really have no idea what is in the CCW law and only repeat talking points given them by their superiors. They claim that schools will have to post 'No Guns' signs at every door. 

Uh, no. That is only for businesses that choose to disallow self-defense. Schools are verboten w/o question. Sign or no sign if you carry in a school, you're breaking the law.

But they don't know that nor do they really care.  Those are 'facts' you see and 'facts' don't fit into an anti-gun activists' world-view.  But they've got lots of money to keep saying the things they do.

EIU Gun Forum: The Movie

EIU Gun Culture Forum Pt I

EIU Gun Culture Forum Pt II

EIU Gun Culture Forum Pt III

EIU Gun Culture Forum Pt IV

EIU Gun Culture Forum Pt V

EIU Gun Control Forum

Yesterday as soon as I got home from work, I saw an alert on a gun control forum at the local university.

Det. Captain Franz Plueckthun, commander of Undercover Operations of the Bavarian State Police, and Michael Tentler, consultant for the German BKA (FBI), will lead the discussion, according to a press release from the university.
In addition, Hafeez Muhammad, long-time resident and community activist of Chicago, will address the problem of gun shootings in Chicago.

First thought "Oh yeah, this is going to be balanced".  I got there early to set up and one of the organizers stated "I was wondering if one of you would show up". I was wearing my NRA hat, hence the comment.  By the time the forum started, it was about half pro-gun activists and half students (who were required to be there).

The moderator was Prof. Kevin Anderson of the PoliSci dept.

Det. Captain Franz Plueckthun spoke first. He stated that the post war laws barring civilian firearm ownership were established by the occupying US forces and had been tightened even more since then. German citizens know little about firearms except from TV. It's not part of their culture. Munich, where he's from, had zero murders last year and he says the lack of firearms are a big part of it.

Michael Tentler was next. He covered German requirements to get a firearm.  You need a state approved reason and there are multiple examinations involved.  (Mostly only hardcore collectors or hunters even try to obtain the license. From what I understand, it can take several years. -ed) He stated that gay marriage is a right in Germany like firearm ownership is here and that one doesn't always need to choose to use a right. Guns make it easier to kill your wife.

Mr Hafeez Muhammed was the surprise of the evening. While he did start out talking about 'gun culture' and violence, using stories of him playing w/ cap guns in the '60's and many of those today are now using real guns,  he specifically stated numerous times he was not there to attack the NRA or any gun owners and that the solution is to break the violence through education and economic reform since the majority (he said 75%) of crime is committed by and against gang bangers over drugs.

They did balance out the forum by having a very pro-gun officer from the Charleston PD (Lt Brad Oyer) present. He's a lifelong firearm owner, hunter, sportsman and NRA member. In Coles cnty there are more guns than people and a low crime rate.We have the right to KABA but need to be responsible and accountable.

Then the questions.

First off was what you'ld expect. A pure Godwin. I'm not going to even give it any more time.

Next up was Don Huskey who runs local gun shows and firearm training. He stated back in '79 he was stopped by German police armed w/ sub-machine guns.  The response was that there was a terrorist threat/scare at the time.

Most of the questions were actually statements and along those lines.  The students started getting frustrated by it.

 One good question was what, if anything did the German police take from the US.  They stated the 'broken window' theory from NYC.  When asked to explain, it was the theory that a single broken down house can lead to neighborhood deterioration and the mindset that goes w/ it.

Other good ones were on the legalization of the drug trade, how to get jobs that pay more than drug dealing and whether the more homogenous nature of Germany is partly responsible for lower crime. The answer to the last one was that Germany is not homogenous, that there are many Turks and E. Europeans in the country and there is issues w/ integration.  (I remember my great aunt talking about having issues w/ the Turkish immigrants decades ago).

 A student brought out the meme that all guns started out legally and that we seemed to be blaming black people.  The black students here are more afraid of the locals than we are of them.  Why do we 'need' guns to protect ourselves.

Then came the boom.  Took awhile for the moderators to get control.  An older resident stated that he has watched Chicago gangs try and get holds here.  Chicago based students (who think of anything south of I-80 as 'Southern Illinois, I did for awhile) did not like that.

A point that one of the German officers made was the cultural differences. In Germany, residents expect the gov't to take care of them. 

Overall the forum was much better balanced than I anticipated. One of the German officers, however, was convinced you could go into a Wal-mart and buy an M-16 no questions asked, a belief apparently encouraged by German media.  I will add video to this later.

Illinois Gun Bills Up

From ISRA:

HB3646 – DANGEROUS BILL – Bans Concealed Carry in any restaurant that has alcoholic beverages on the menu. Drastically reduces your choices on when and how to protect yourself. This bill is a foot in the door to create a growing list of places where you will be prohibited from protecting yourself and your family from dangerous criminals.

HB3669 – DANGEROUS BILL - This bill eliminates “safe haven” provisions for areas near schools – meaning that you could not even have a firearm locked in your trunk if you drive on to ANY property controlled by a school district. Once again, this bill would severely limit your self defense options and would make you a felon for doing nothing more than possessing a firearm. Under this bill, you would have to leave your defensive firearms at home if your plans called for you to enter any lands controlled by a school district. The real purpose of this bill is to pave the way for sweeping prohibitions on concealed carry that would make self defense impractical and a serious legal risk for most Illinois citizens.

HB3675 – DANGEROUS BILL – This bill would severely increase penalties for persons found to be carrying firearms in restricted areas. This bill is designed solely to scare law-abiding citizens out of carrying defensive firearms. This bill in no way targets gang-bangers or other violent criminals.

SB2594 – DANGEROUS BILL – This is another bill that would prohibit carry in restaurants that have alcoholic beverages on the menu.

HB3651 – GOOD BILL – This bill lowers the burdensome 16-hour training rule to a more reasonable 8-hour requirement. This bill also eliminates the re-training requirements for carry permit renewals. In short, this bill undoes that anti-gunners’ attempts to discourage people from applying for carry permits by easing burdensome training requirements.

HB3650 – GOOD BILL – This bill provides for concealed carry reciprocity between Illinois and dozens of other states.

HB3649 – GOOD BILL – This bill reduces the exorbitant fees the State Police plan on charging people for permit applications. The state should not be allowed to price-gouge citizens who want to defend themselves. This bill would make fees more reasonable and thus allow greater access to self defense for Illinois citizens.

NAC Heavy (and Sneaky) Armor

Last week I posted some PE forces done up in various patterns.  This week I went and picked them all up and added were a NAC OGRE Ninja and an OGRE Mk VI.

How do you make an armored vehicle the size of a school 'stealthy'?  LOTS of electronics.  Even w/ those a 'Ninja' motif was obligatory:

 It started out as all black but that just was too bland. My painter added a touch of color onto the 'conning tower' ( a dark grey), the missile tips (dark blue) and a hint of red to the exhaust vents in the back.  Much better.

Next up (but not last) is Bertha, The Mk VI:

The biggest OGRE ever built. Able to crush large buildings w/ a single push. Guns, missiles, armor, AI.  Camo pattern is ATACS-FG. Can you hide something this big w/ camo?  No, but it looks cool.

Next up will be a Mk IV in Multicam, a unit of Missile Tanks, Mobile Howitzers, and Infantry in Tiger Stripe and some supporting buildings.