Weapons Man

What goes up, must come down. Because gravity is not just a good idea. It’s the Law.

In this corner, flying the black flag, you have the ravening whelp of miscegenation between Ba’athist butchery and Islamist idiocy, The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, aka ISIL, ISIS and Da’esh.

According to a notably focused and clear analysis by Laura J. Keller of Bloomberg, Colt’s bonds’ rating has been dropped from an abysmal CC to D, as low as ratings go, sometimes called in the finance world “D for Default.”

North Jersey is a remarkable little corner of the planet. Cheek by jowl with some of the most expensive real estate in America are some of the nation’s most down and out losers. The drug addicts are mostly invisible to the Wall Street nabobs who sleep well in Jersey — at least until one of them breaks into a nabob’s house and steals his stuff. (Many of these addicts, though, are too disorganized and dysfunctional to successfully travel a few miles and conduct a residential burglary in a wealthy area. Instead, they steal from other poor people nearby).

The face of bughouse cray-cray: Shaynna Sims smirks at the mugshot machine.

In comments to our last on the Pennsylvania State Police’s gun-registry-that-is-not-a-registry-because-it’s-so-fulla-holes, we were challenged by a Keystone State resident who doesn’t recall filling out the PSP form. Here’s what we’ve learned.

Some days there’s a bit too much news to deal with, and it’s all bad news.

We have been watching Colt as Monday night was a deadline for bondholders to take up Colt’s decidedly unappetizing bond swap option, or the nearly-as-bad prepack option.

We never heard of Samy Kamkar until this Wired article, by Andy Greenberg, hit. Samy’s little gadget is not only a successful automated exploitation of a common combination lock, it’s also a successful exploitation of everybody’s (including our!) fascination with 3D printing… and mischief.

People say having guns in the house is risky. This is silly, of course: getting shot with guns is what’s risky. In the house, they just sit there.

Before we get to the shell of a historic mini-sub that made a brief appearance on eBay last week, we should take a look at the history — always noting that We Are Not Frogs and, just as importantly, We Were Not There, so all this is subject to revision by those who do have inside information — if they ever feel like talking, which they haven’t, much, to date. (Contrary to popular opinion, not every SEAL gets a book agent’s contact info engraved on the back of his shiny new Trident. Most of them clam up as well as their fellow quiet professionals in other branches).

We have written, and written, and written yet again, about the Pennsylvania State Police’s awkward relationship with service pistol selection, training, and employment.

After a ten-year experiment with the moral equivalent of King Canute’s chair, one of the most anti-gun States in the Union is about to sing the final dirge for what anti-gun groups still promote as an “anti-crime” technology — not because it solves crimes1 but because it inconveniences and punishes gun owners. Inconveniencing and punishing gun owners was fine with Maryland politicians, but the inconvenience and punishment to the state’s budget for a non-usable technology: a ballistics imaging database, into which all guns passing in lawful commerce in Maryland were to be entered.

The Iraqi flag increasingly marks Shia militia under Iranian command.

Caleb at Gun Nuts Media posts an interesting question: are too many looky-lous admitted with media credentials? The SHOT Show is months away, but it’s not too early to start thinking about it. After all, anybody who’s been on the trade show cycle knows that planning for next year’s is already underway as exhibitors wrap up this year’s.

We’ll cover the usual subjects: Guns, Usage and Employment, Cops ‘n’ Crims, Unconventional (and current) Warfare, and Lord Love a Duck! In the past, these stories would have been dropped as they timed out. Now, we’re trying to have better “tab discipline.” Yeah, we know — rotsa ruck with that.

These are not the murder weapons. In fact, they’re handmade tools from the Contemporary Makers blog; we just liked the picture. Gee, what is the difference between a practical tool and a murder weapon?

Jade Helm logo — we bet they regret the motto now.

The G36 saga keeps spreading its Sturm und Drang around the fraught world of German politics.

Just for the record, NSFW is not some super-secret SEAL team that wannabees always tell chicks they’re part of. It means Not Safe For Work, as some of the language and, what do they say — adult themes? — in this video are.