Hearing Protection Act of 2017

This legislation has been introduced in both the House, as HR-367 with 78 co-sponsors and in apparently duplicate form in the Senate as S-59. Both bills have been referred to their respective Judiciary committees and the House bill will be sent on to the Ways and Means committee when it gets through Judiciary.

This bill has passed before but never made it to the Presidents desk that I'm aware of, that or the expected veto was not considered newsworthy under Obama.

Parallel processing like this should shorten the timeline to passage and this should hit Trumps desk in a reasonable time frame. 2 of the house bills sponsors are from Colorado, but it doesn't hurt to send encouraging e-mails to your congress critters.

The ramifications of the proposed new law would be to treat suppressors like firearms which means that commercially made ones would have serial numbers and home made versions would not. Being fairly easy to make, I anticipate the market becoming saturated with the things fairly quickly and the price plummeting.

QOTD - Immigration

Found at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical:

“If we are practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land.”

Dallas CAIR Director, Mustafa Carroll at a Muslim rally in Austin, Texas.

 As is noted at the link, this is widely unreported.

Mexico Offers Christo Contract For Wall Design

Sure looks that way from the sketches of the 100 ft high pink behemoth portrayed below:

The big orange block houses the prison and a factory for the prisoners as the Mexicans expect that anyone deported from the U.S. would never actually be sent anywhere south of the border. Perhaps they could get the Californians to finance part of this as their high speed train could run in the service tunnel under this thing.

Ammo Testing - Winchester Train and Defense

The fine folks at Wideners Reloading and Shooting Supply  sent me some ammo to test, compare, and contrast and I now have something to report. I got Winchester Train and Defend, .40 cal. FMJ 180 grain Training ammo, and .40 cal JHP 180 grain Defense version. Both claim reduced recoil.

I tested each one with the Chrony in both my Gen 3 Glock 22, and my Hi Point Carbine on the premise that if the powder was of the slower type, I'd see a big jump in muzzle velocity. As to the recoil I can say that they both had lower recoil than either the Blazer or Tul ammo I had on hand with similar bullet weights but more than the hand loads I normally use in competition. In all fairness, my hand loads are powder puff loads with 165 gr bullets and minimum powder so comparing anything to them would be unfair. Still, the Winchester stuff wasn't all that much worse, so yes, reduced recoil.

The training ammo delivered an average of 956 fps through the Glock with no problems at all. Through the 16” barrel of the Hi Point it went up to 1062. I normally get 250 fps increase from the carbine and this modest increase suggests to me that the powder being used here is quite fast and doesn't take full advantage of the longer carbine barrel.

The Defensive stuff came in at 922 fps through the Glock and 1024 fps in the carbine. Again the powder seems to be quite fast to not take advantage of the longer carbine barrel. No problems were encountered of any kind during this testing.

Of note was the spent brass with the Defense brass looking about like you would expect but the Training brass looking like it just came off the stamping die. No fooling, this stuff is so clean you could probably reload it right off the ground. I wouldn't, but it was amazingly clean. Whatever they're using for powder, I hope it hits the reloading market soon. The use of 2 slightly different powders would explain the speed differences.

Is Loving Story Weeth Happy Ending

To quote everyone's favorite fiddler of election results

Full story here.

Dog Walking

I am obviously walking my dog in the wrong neighborhood.

Or at least at the wrong time. Certainly at the wrong season, it's 30F out right now and that's the high for the day.

Have a great day!

You know who you are.

What Makes America Great

Found at Powerline, this is the kind of thinking that makes America both great and exceptional.

And it's the jackbooted foot of the Obama administration that gets this fellow arrested probably at the behest of the snowplow drivers union.

Talk, Talk, Talk

And no action. It says here that 28% of all federal workers are considering quitting after tomorrows inauguration.

Right. They will be joining the vast herds of Hollywood glitterati, lining up at the Canadian border crossings with tales of oppression and bottles of Perrier. Additionally I have it on unimpeachable authority* that Michael Moore will sprout wings and appear nude, playing a harp while hovering over the inauguration in a show of support.

*What? You expected me to name the source? Trust me he cannot possibly be impeached. Plus actually naming sources is so 20th century.

Sharpton Praises Obama

Of course he does. Without Obama's yeoman like work in the field of race relations, Sharpton would by now have been forced into retirement.

Abolish Rogue Agencies 2

When writing your congress critters this year, it is now much easier to add that little paragraph to the end of your missive about the ATF. Simply ask him or her to so sponsor or support HR-1329, Jim Sensenbrenner's bill which would largely dissolve the ATF.

At this point my big worry about this is that instead of abolishing an agency made up of jack-booted thugs, it would simply sweep them under the rug of the FBI where they would continue to be thugs but with snappier business cards.

Abolish Rogue Agencies?

Sure! Start with the EPA although there are certainly dozens more that no one would ever miss. With little enough effort enough agencies could be eliminated to balance the budget with money left over to pay down the debit.

Frontiers In Medicine - Smart Watches

Steven Green is noting on Insty that your smart watch can know you're sick sooner than you will.

I expect that one of these days I'll be out walking the dog when I round a corner and see an ambulance parked along side the road with 2 EMT's with the paddles ready, a gurney,  with a sign of the sort one sees at the airport with my name on it.

If I didn't need them before, I probably would after seeing this.

Smart watches will be issued to everyone by the government so at the first sign of your impending demise it can summon an ambulance, notify your insurance company, and should your pulse rate fall to zero, notify your widow and change your voter registration to Democrat.

Awards And Medals

Here's a picture of our soon-to-be ex president being awardsd a Distuingished Service Medal by a man he appointed to the job whose duties include awarding high honors to the man who appointed him.

This seemed a bit much to me even from a man who seems to love handing out fancy medals to his closest friends and supporters. Still, by contrast, here's another ex world leader sporting 4 medals

including the Order of Lenin. In some societies it's a plus to have government recognition of distinguished service to government awarded to government employees by government flunkies.

Could be worse. In Nork, the military sport so many medals they have to pin the over run onto their pants when their coats become completely filled.

Idi Amin had it easier, being a much larger man, found it easier to sport a large collection.

Perhaps in his retirement Barry can take up medal collecting.

Gun Law - Suppressors

Representatives Jeff Duncan (R-SC-3) and John Carter (R-TX-31) introduced legislation on January 9 that will eliminate the paper trail and federal tax on firearm suppressors. Basically this legislation would remove suppressors from the purview of the NFA 34 and make the items the equivalent of firearms. This means that you'd need a background check for your gun, and if purchased separately, another for the can. 

OTOH I suppose if you wanted to make your own can, you could do that in most states without asking federal permission.

No number is reported as being assigned to this legislation but it goes under the name of the Hearing Protection Act, so when dropping your congress critters an e-mail, ask them to co-sponser this. Protect your hearing! It's For The Children!

While you're at it you might also suggest that treating an accessory like a suppressor like a full-blown firearm might just be a bit much and think of the trees that would be saved by eliminating those parts of the bill that do this.

Don't forget to add a line asking that funding for the BATFEIEIO be eliminated, salaries for all its employees be reduced to the federal minimum of $1/yr, their buildings vacated and sold off, and any and all records associated with the agency be consigned to an incinerator immediately following a full and complete investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.

Update: The bill number is H.R. 367

Pelted With A Bunch Of Pink Pussyhats

Bear with me a bit.

Yesterday the Washington Post's commuters magazine had a cover featuring the upcoming Womens March on Washington to support/protest/do something, probably involving the impending regieme change.

The cover was doubtless supposed to express an uplifting aspect to all those women getting together, but the marketing babble seems to have completely overpowered the message of the actual image. So what does this image imply the women are looking for? Possibly manly men to replace the pajama boy that's been thrust upon them for the last 8 years?

Of course if you're closely involved, you understood the purpose of the march implicitly so of course that left me mostly out. Given the time of year and the recent events, the word "protest" is easily attached to images of tearful snowflakes, but so what? A friend of mine is involved in transporting and co-ordinating participants and has compared the job unfavorably to herding cats. I sent her a link to the above article along with my interpretation of the picture and asked, tongue in cheek if this might be a good place to pick up chicks.

"Not unless you want to be pelted with a bunch of pink pussyhats," she replied.
Here's one now:

A better name for these might be pussycat hats but if wearing them helps differentiate the Toms from the Tabbys, then whatever. Maybe the Tomhats will be black with yellow eyes on the front.

Keeping it light and seeing the humor.

Boulder CO To Become A Sanctuary City

Poking a finger in Trump's eye, Boulder has voted to become a sanctuary city where illegal aliens from anywhere in the world can squat without fear of reprisals except that...

The only big problem with this gesture of magnanimity is that Boulder, both city and county, is rapidly turning into Colorado's next gated political districts. The median cost of a house in Boulder county is currently $475,800 according to Zillow, and the going cost for an average domicile in the city of Boulder is $1,067,213. So come ye huddled masses yearning to be free and don't forget that the suitcases you drag along with you had better be stuffed with US $100 bills. The average illegal alien living in boulder, city or county is more likely to be a fugitive drug lord than someone working in the lawn care industry.

Broomfield city and county, which broke away from Boulder county a few years ago, is now to be officially known as the Servant's Quarters.

Gun Sales - The Final Numbers

Note the light blue line for 2016, on schedule to set new records across the whole year, up until we find ourselves with a president who sees criminals as a bigger threat than law abiding citizens.

The final total was 27,528,694 which, using the NSSF's fudge factor, suggests that we bought some 19,545,372 firearms last year. Congratulations to us! Now go buy some ammo and get better at shooting them. Lessee, that would be a minimum of 977,268,637 rounds.

Fake News, All The Time

My favorite source of fake news is the National Weather Service. In their defense, they constantly revise their reports and by the time the weather disaster is over, they've generally got it called perfectly.

For this reason it's generally more important to follow the forecast trend than it is to just look at the forecast and move on. They've been calling for sub-zero temps and snow for about a week now so it seems pretty likely. As of this morning it looked like 3-7 inches starting Wednesday night and ending Thursday. Now the TV folks are saying this storm is going to make itself at home around here until Friday evening with accumulations up to a foot depending on what suburb you live in.

By Monday we're supposed to be back to 60 degree highs. "'Tis a privilege to live in Colorado." as the local fishwrap used to proclaim.

By way of getting ready, I've finally gotten around to replacing the rubber blades on my blower. This is a medium duty, single stage MTD with the spiral metal auger with rubber edges attached. 5 fasteners per long blade and two little ones in the middle. Now you would think that all those fasteners would be identical wouldn't you? You'd be wrong! There are 2 large(ish) sheet metal screws, 3 smaller sheet metal screws, and one large headed pop rivet (WTF) on each blade.

I tapped the pop rivet holes and replaced them with 1/4" machine screws so now at least the blades can be replaced with ordinary tools, but really! Who thought 3 different fasteners were needed here? I gather that MTD is just one iteration of a company with pretty good products that has changed hands and names a number of times. After a while you begin to understand why.

Not to be dissing the product, it works fine, just has a couple of quirks. It also has one of the better ideas I've seen on snow blowers, an electric starter. And not one of those battery jobs that's dead every winter when the first snow hits either, but a 120 volt job that will crank the thing at full chat until it fires off. If you shut it off for a few minutes out at the end of the sidewalk, no fear, the rope starter works fine on a warm engine. Full marks on that starter. More gas tools should include this, especially lawn mowers.

Chili Cures Cancer!

Well, sort of and under some rather narrowly defined circumstances, but don't let that slow you down. The general gist of the article I can agree with especially the part about capsicum being effective against some forms of colon cancer. I can attest, after possibly over medicating myself a time or two, that the chilies definitely take a scorched earth policy toward anything in your intestines, all the way to the bottom. Think of any discomfort as the residue of the funeral procession for the possibly malignant cells.

John Ross For ATF Director

In keeping with Trumps inclination to nominate agency heads whose primary qualification is an urge to dismantle the agency in question, Mr. Ross, author of the best selling book Unintended Consequences, has volunteered to serve as Director of the ATF for the princely sum of one dollar per year.

Given Mr. Ross' inclinations toward the Agency, I suspect his entire tenure is likely to cost the country about $1, that covering the time it will take to reduce the place to rubble and import the salt to sow the debris with.