New Year's Eve

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I've often wondered why we make a big deal of New Year's. It's simply the calendar spinning over, and honestly there are other more auspicious days on the calendar that make more sense to re-start the year. Like the vernal or autumnal equinox, or the summer or winter solstice. Yet, today is December 31st and tomorrow will be January 1st, bringing with it the New Year. Yippee.

Milady and I were married on the summer solstice, more out of an accident of our schedules than anything else. At that time I was a cop on shift work and she was an RN on shift work. After we'd become engaged, we sat down with her work schedule and mine. The first convenient weekend that we were both off work was June 21st, and that happened to fall on a Saturday. We never considered the whole "solstice" thing at all. It was simply a convenient Saturday. A good time for a party. However, that accidental date makes it easy for me to remember my anniversary.

But, here we are at this non-auspicious New Year's Eve, and it is customary to celebrate that event by making a resolution. Here is mine.

I resolve to make no resolutions.

Tonite, Milady and I will slip off for a little entertainment. I'll put on slacks, a nice shirt, and a sport coat. Milady will, of course, dress better than I. She always does. We'll go to a place that has a champagne toast at the rolling of the clock, and we'll come home to sleep the sleep of the just.

Tomorrow, though, we'll host another couple, two dear friends with whom we've spend every New Years since I've known Milady. The menu is always the same. Baked chicken and pork chops over rice, blackeyed peas, cabbage, and cornbread. It is a traditional menu, reminding us to be frugal and humble during the New Year.

I don't have much problem with frugal, but humble is a problem.

Update:  A commenter reminded me that the summer solstice is in June.  HA!  And that's my anniversary, I really should remember that.  It's fixed above, and thanks for the reminder.

WOW! The GRPC is a real Who's Who of this civil rights movement!

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(Dollars to donuts they find my chubby butt hiding in the back and kick me out.....)
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27th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference
September 28-30, 2012
Hyatt Regency Orlando, Florida, Airport


FRIDAY, September 28, 2012—Regency Ballroom

7:00 p.m. Registration Table Opens

7:00–9:00 p.m. Reception with Cash Bar

Co-hosted by Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) and Second Amendment
Foundation (SAF)

Music by the patriot rock band Madison Rising



SATURDAY, September 29, 2012—Intercontinental Ballroom

7:30 a.m. Registration Table Opens

 Beverages hosted by Women & Guns Magazine


8:00 a.m. CALL TO ORDER

 Moderator—Julianne Versnel, publisher, Journal on Firearms & Public Policy, director of operations, SAF

 Color Guard—University of Central Florida, Air Force ROTC

 National Anthem performed by Madison Rising

 Invocation—Rev. Anthony Winfield, chaplain, Elmhurst Hospital Center, New York City



8:10 a.m. State of the Gun Rights Battle

 Welcoming Remarks

The Road Traveled—Joseph P. Tartaro, executive editor, TheGunMag.com, president, SAF

The Road Ahead—Alan M. Gottlieb, chairman, CCRKBA and founder, SAF



8:30 a.m. The Most Dangerous Election of Our Lifetime

 Maria Heil, board member and spokesperson, National Rifle Association



8:45 a.m. Federal Affairs Briefing

Mark Barnes, president, Mark Barnes and Associates

Jeff Knox, managing director, Firearms Coalition, gun issues columnist

Larry Pratt, executive director, Gun Owners of America

Joe Waldron, legislative director, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms



9:15 a.m. State Legislative Affairs Briefing I

 Hon. Sam Slom, Minority Leader Hawaii Senate, trustee of the Second Amendment Foundation

Sandra Barreras, Puerto Rico, Damas de la Segunda Enmienda

Jim Irvine, president, Buckeye Firearms Association

Richard Nascak, co-executive director, Florida Carry.org.

Patrick Shomo, president, Maryland Shall Issue Inc.



9:45 a.m. Beverage break hosted IAPCAR



10:00 a.m. State Legislative Affairs Briefing II

 Stephen Aldstadt, president, Shooters Committee on Political Education (SCOPE, Inc.) NY

Thomas Bolioli, secretary, Commonwealth Second Amendment, Inc.

Don Moran, president, Illinois State Rifle Association

Tony Montanarella, president, California Rifle & Pistol Association

Philip Van Cleave, president, Virginia Citizens Defense League



10:30 a.m. Global Gun Control: Down but Not Out

Gary Burris, founder, Lone Star Shooting Association

Sheldon Clare, president, National Firearms Association of Canada

Julianne Versnel, publisher, Women & Guns, director of operations, Second Amendment Foundation

Maj. Gen. Allen Youngman, USA (ret.), executive director, Defense Small Arms Advisory Council



11:00 a.m. “Stand Your Ground” Laws under Fire

 Eric Friday, Esq., counsel for Florida Carry

Jon Gutmacher, Esq., firearms instructor, attorney and author of Florida Firearms -- Law, Use & Ownership


11:20 a.m. Protecting the Right to Protect

Mark O’Mara, Esq., defense attorney for George Zimmerman



11:45 a.m. Q & A on Morning Panels



12:00 Noon Recess and break to prepare for box luncheon



12:15 p.m. Awards Luncheon Hosted by CCRKBA and SAF

Speakers:

U.S. Representative. Joe Barton (R-Texas 6th Dist.)

Ambassador Donald A. Mahley

Otis McDonald, lead plaintiff, McDonald v. City of Chicago

Awards presentations



1:30 p.m. Recess Break



1:45 p.m. Fine-Tuning Arms Rights in the Courts



 David Jensen, Esq., SAF counsel in Kwong vs. Bloomberg, Moore v. Madigan and Piszczatoski v. Maenza

 Donald Kilmer, Esq., counsel to CalGuns Foundation and SAF

David Kopel, Esq., research director, Independence Institute, co-author, Firearms Law & the Second Amendment

Dan Schmutter, Esq., legal counsel, Association of NJ Rifle & Pistol Clubs



2:15 p.m. The Second Amendment and the Legal Community

Bobbie K. Ross, Esq., Chair, Second Amendment Civil Rights Litigation Subcommittee, American Bar Association



2:30 p.m. The Realities of Self-Defense in Washington, DC

 Emily Miller, senior editorial page editor, The Washington Times and author of Emily Gets a Gun



2:45 p.m. The “Fast and Furious” Fiasco

 David Workman, senior editor, TheGunMag.com, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner



3:00 p.m. Beverage service hosted by KeepAndBearArms.com



3:15 p.m. Those Dangerous Gun-Free Zones

 John Lott, PhD, commentator for FoxNews.com and Wall Street Journal



3:30 p.m. Breaking the Establishment Media’s Stranglehold

 Robert Farago, publisher, TheTruthAboutGuns.com

Bob Harvey, host, Bullseye Radio Talk Show

 Fredy Riehl, editor and press coordinator, Ammoland.com

 Mark Vanderberg, Gun Rights Radio Network



4:00 p.m. How Gun Rights Are Really at Risk if They Steal the Election First

John Fund, senior editor The American Spectator and columnist for National Review Online



4:15 p.m. The 2012 Elections: A Nation at the Crossroads

 Alan Gottlieb, chairman, AmeriPAC, chairman, CCRKBA

 Stephani Scruggs, president, Unite in Action and national chair, The 912 Project

Kirby Wilbur, chairman, Republican Party of Washington, SAF trustee



4:45 p.m. Growing State Gun Rights Networks

Gene Hoffman, chairman, CalGuns Foundation

Brent Carlton, president, Commonwealth Second Amendment Inc.

Sean Caranna, co-executive director, Florida Carry.org



5:15 p.m. Which Case Will Be the Next RKBA Case to Go to SCOTUS?

 Alan Gura, SAF chief counsel and lead attorney, D.C. v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago and Ezell v. Chicago



5:30 p.m. Q & A on afternoon panels



6:00 p.m. Announcements and Adjournment



6:30-9:30 p.m. Reception with Cash Bar—Regency Ballroom

Hosted by Second Amendment Foundation and National Shooting Sports Foundation

Entertainment by patriotic rock band Madison Rising




SUNDAY, September 30, 2012—Intercontinental Ballroom



8:30 a.m. Registration Table Opens

Beverage service hosted by TheGunMag.com



8:50 a.m. CALL TO ORDER

 Moderator: Peggy Tartaro, editor of Women & Guns, board member CCRKBA



9:00 a.m. Growing the Gunowner Base in the Popular Culture War

Alan Korwin, author, After You Shoot, Bloomfield Press
Richard Mgrdechian, president, Madison Rising

 Neil Schulman, screenwriter, journalist, filmmaker

 Peggy Tartaro, editor, Women & Guns magazine, board member, CCRKBA



9:35 a.m. The Supreme Court: A Majority of One

 David Kopel, Esq., adjunct professor of Advanced Constitutional Law, Sturm College of Law, University of Denver

Joseph P. Tartaro, executive editor, TheGunMag.com, president, SAF



10:00 a.m. The Many Faces of the Second Amendment

 Rev. Kenneth V. Blanchard, pastor, firearms instructor, blogger

Doug Ritter, founder and chairman, KnifeRights.org

Erik Royce, founder, TruckerGuns Foundation

Linda Walker, board member, National Rifle Association



10:30 a.m. Is Patient Privacy Dead after Florida Court Ruling?

 Timothy Wheeler, MD, director, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the SAF



10:45 a.m. The Academic Front in the Gun Rights Battle

David Burnett, Students for Concealed Carry

Brian Patrick, associate professor of communications, University of Toledo



11:05 a.m. The Anti-Gunners’ Homeland Security Gambit

 Charles Heller, executive director, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Benjamin Smith, director of Strategic Affairs, Unite in Action, and contributor to Breitbart and Fox News



11:25 a.m. Countering Media Bias

 Don Irvine, president, Accuracy in Media

Malia Zimmerman, editor, Hawaii Reporter, director, Hawaii Rifle Association



11:45 a.m. Q & A on Morning Session



12:00 Noon Report of the Resolutions Committee

Genie Jennings, W&G columnist

Stephen Aldstadt, president, SCOPE, Inc.

Linda Farmer, Georgia gun rights activist

Jeff Knox, managing director, Firearms Coalition, gun issue columnist

Don Moran, president, Illinois State Rifle Association

Herb Stupp, Vice Chairman CCRKBA

 Miko Tempski, director, CCRKBA

Linda Walker, board member, National Rifle Association

 Robert Wiest, SAF board of trustees, Tennessee activist



1:00 p.m. Closing remarks and adjournment

 Alan M. Gottlieb and Joseph P. Tartaro

THINK... are your 'home defense' weapons really there for you?

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"I have a question" was the text I got one evening a short time ago.

Princess knew I was in an important meeting, so the text would not have come lightly. As we had just finished the goodbyes, I hit speed dial on the way back to my vehicle. "What's up?"

"I don't want you to worry, but I have a question. Is the gun in the XXXXXXX the same as the one in the XXXXXXX?"

"Huh?" I answered intelligently...

"Does it work the same?"

At this point, with a bit of anxious questioning on my part, I was informed she had heard a noise outside and, intelligent girl that she is, immediately armed herself. Not to go outside and play commando, but just as insurance while she went about her business in the home. I assured her the pistol she had next to her worked exactly the same as the one she had learned to shoot with, and was in exactly the condition she knew the others to be.

In this case.... ready to fire by one simple action. Pulling the trigger.

The conversation revealed a flaw in our home defense planning, and an inexcusable one on my part. You see, Princess is not a shooter.... but she's a bright lady and has learned to handle pistols well enough to use them for their intended purpose... self defense. Not as CCW, but most certainly around the home. She's more than demonstrated the capacity and willingness to handle (and use) weapons in her own self defense. She's a lot like the main character in 'Quigley Down Under' in that way, just after he used a Colt pistol to dispatch the evil bad guy. "Said I had no use for a pistol... didn't say I don't know how to use one".

So, it falls upon me, as the house expert, to see to home defense weapons (as well as plumbing repairs, dealing with the woodstove, and most of the dishes. In return, I never have to touch laundry... and I see that as a fair bargain).

Her question pointed out a problem. While *I* had plans, procedures, and safety checks... I hadn't made her aware of them in enough detail. With her not being a shooter, I had covered a few basics, assured her ability and judgement where safety is concerned, and left it at that.

My mistake, and one rectified as quickly as I arrived home. The noise? Some critter in the night perhaps, but never a threat or bother. She was just being careful. You can be assured... I announced myself before I walked in (g).

What I hadn't explained well enough to her was this; In my 'home defense weapon' plans, every pistol available (without unlocking something complicated) is in the same condition. In our case, having no children in the home nor adult visitors of questionable competence, we have weapons hidden well but still readily available. Each is in the same condition... round chambered, no external safety engaged, and ready to fire on pulling the trigger.

Each pistol is either a Glock pattern with a 'Safe Action', or has a long double action pull. They are highly unlikely to go off by accident, and are stored in such a way that their triggers are protected.

The idea is simple. If we need them, they are there right now, ready right now, and are safe until then. Nothing to manipulate under pressure, nothing to remember before use, no intricate puzzles to solve. Two of the pistols have laser sighting devices, but this matters little. They don't need to be switched on to have the weapons function perfectly.

The fact that Princess is a component of the plan, and is not a shooting enthusiast, has a great deal to do with the thinking behind it. Any defensive weapon in the home needs to be simple enough that she can use them well under extreme pressure. She's not going to remember to sweep the safety on a 1911 pattern, nor cycle the action on a pistol with an empty chamber. Her judgement can be trusted, and she's more than intelligent enough to keep her finger off the trigger till she needs to fire.... but she's not going to practice with any frequency nor build up instinctive muscle memory (In that... she's not much different from most of the police officers in this nation, who's shooting experience revolves around occasional mandated qualifications).

Long guns are different, and not part of any plans involving Princess. For the record, they too are stored in a specific condition. Chamber empty, safety off, ready to fire upon working the action. Guns locked in the safe? Totally different situation, totally different condition.

Should our home have children visiting, or if by chance we ever had adults staying with us who were not proven safe shooters, all would be locked safely away.

It's an important topic, and one worth considering thoughtfully. Each situation is different, and the people who occupy the home will cause any plan to be modified as required. Where a single person living in a secure area might simply leave a weapon in a nightstand drawer, another person might need something more secure, such as a coded safe. Once that's decided, further thought must be given to weapon condition. Round in the chamber, or not? Safety on, or not? Magazine in the pistol, or not?

Each situation is different, and each persons ability and training must be taken into account. Also, the possibility of split second decisions being necessary under immense life threatening pressure.... and how different people can react to that.

Are there children in the home? Is a break in while the homeowner is away a reasonable threat? Is a home invasion of an occupied house a reasonable threat? All these and more must be thought of ahead of time, and decisions made on dealing with them.

Most of all... most importantly... careful plans must be made in advance of trouble... and as I learned, everyone concerned needs to know what they are.


These are not idle thoughts... especially in a world turning more dangerous by the minute.   When things go bad in a hard way, there is seldom a lot of warning.  Do your planning now, and work your plan.





Thank for stopping in and spending time with 'Ol Carteach. If you are of a mind to, don't hesitate to click on some of the ads posted here and there on the site. You don't need to buy a thing, or even read them, but each click does throw a few pennies into the ammo fund.... and these days that's a lot!

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after holiday update

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Well, panic buying was and is in full swing, but deals are still out there to be had. I cam into 5 BHP NYS legal mags for 15 bucks a pop, and had to snap them up. Also got an 80% receiver for a heck of a price, though I'm not sure when / if that will ever happen. If it does, I'll be sure to document the process very closely. It might be a great platform for a 300 AAC blackout build. Who knows.

HiPoint 995 9mm Carbine

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Ah farmers. I was raised adjacent to a dairy farm, and am very familiar with what we in CNY call 'a barn gun'. Barn guns are (in my experience) universally in horrible condition, and live rough lives of neglect and hard service. Our dear neighbor, whom we affectionately call The Farmer, brought me their current barn gun, and it is far and away in the best condition of any such gun I have ever seen.

This particular barn gun is his son's HiPoint 995 TS, a handy little 9mm carbine that works quite well. The gun pointed naturally, and had a tough but serviceable trigger. 
My task was to take this little 995 and see if I could find some adequate replacements for the variety of missing screws, and see if I could tackle the seemingly growing rust problem. Missing were the rear sight screw, both front sight screws (we were able to find the front sight) and a few bits that the picatinny rail mounts to inside the dust cover. 

before cold blue

The rust was superficial, but fairly prolific. I contemplated how best to tackle the refinish, and thought about hitting the receiver cover with a rattle can of high temperature BBQ paint, but instead thought I would try to preserve some of the existing finish, and set out to cold blue the cover to match.

This way, I wouldn't have to strip off the remaining blue, and could preserve at least some of the gun's original look.

The bluing on the 995 was quite thin, and despite the gun's robust design, the 'finishing work' left much to be desired. I will say the stock is surprisingly ergonomic though, and I see why people grow so fond of these little shooters.

My spare parts bin netted me a variety of functional screws, the thread pitch of which I have no idea. The carbine really isn't bad to disassemble, though there are a few versions of it floating around- and the pins on the receiver plate differ between vintages. I believe this is the newer style cover- but frankly I am not certain.

To prep the surface for cold blue, I sprayed it down with WD-40, and went at it fairly aggressively with 0000 steel wool. Once all the rust was removed, I polished with a paper towel and rinsed well. I then polished again with a paper towel, rinsed one more time, and dried the cover.

after cold blue was applied

I applied a liberal amount of Birchwood Casey Cold blue, and polished between coats with steel wool, rinsing each time. I did 4 coats with 1 minute of bluing each, and got a fairly even coating when everything was all said and done. Frankly I was pretty pleased with how the gun came out.

I contemplated removing the front and rear sight and throwing on some spare magpul flip-up knock-offs I have, but I know they would survive in the harsh farming climate for all of a week before being re-appropriated as a hammer, wrench, or impromptu nail backer.

Instead, I did my best to replace all the missing screws, and lock-tite them in place to hopefully extend their life span from several months to several years. I urged The Farmer to order some spare magazines, as I am

after cold blue was applied

willing to bet a dollar that too will go missing before the spring thaw.

Overall these little guns are very easy to work on, and very fun to shoot. Adjustments with the repaired sights showed respectable accuracy at 25 yards, and is both minute of coyote and minute of pigeon easily to 50 or so yards. Possible further, but we didn't have a chance to shoot it at distance.

I was impressed at how good the sight picture was with the stock sights, and actually liked having the charging handle on the left. As mentioned, the trigger was rough- but really was usable in a carbine. If it were a pistol, it would definitely need work- however you can be a little more forgiving in a rifle format.

Realistically, I'd give 2 c-notes for one of these guns in good condition. Gunbroker has a number of these for sale at impressively high price gouging prices, and Buds is sold out - but frankly I just don't see this as anything more than a 200 dollar gun at best.

If one were looking for a PCC for more money than that, I would take a hard look at MechTech carbines. If one had more money to spend than that, then I would just build a PCC rifle on an AR or similar platform; or maybe try to track down an older ruger or marlin carbine.

All in all, a good better gun that seems reliable and is fun to shoot, but not one I would really go out of my way to track down or own. The finish is just too rough, with too marginal a trigger pull. That being said, the 45acp HiPoint would definitely catch my attention more than the 9mm version. We can argue PCC ballistics, and the 9mm does benefit greatly from the 16in tube (more so than the 45) but I guess if the difference is between a 9 shot or 10 shot gun, I would just assume have a larger round and 1 less on tap than deal with a smaller (albeit flatter shooting) round.

Video Project Progress

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Well, I *finally* have all twelve tapes on hard-disk, a process called "Ingest" in the biz.

I had some real hair pulling moments doing this, as somewhere along the line, the audio settings in Windoze got changed, and seven of the twelve tapes recorded without sound.

ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

After I re-recorded them and stopped the capture, Premiere Pro would hang up with a "Conforming XXXX.AVI" message, and the progress bar indicating it was saving to disk never budged. After a few minutes of this, the program would stop responding, and die.

Took me most of a day, a lot of head scratching and book reading (Yes, I *do* RTFM), and prowling the Adobe Premiere Pro forums, but I figured it out. The bit rate between what Windoze had the sound card set to, and what Premiere Pro was using, didn't match, causing a huge problem that Premier Pro tried to correct, by transcoding the audio (part of the "Conforming" process) to the bit rate used for DVD.

WELL.......if the bit rates are different enough, it can take forever to resample the original audio stream, and convert it to the new rate.

And in some cases, it simply can't be done without causing big "holes" in the data stream, which the program won't accept, and so you spiral down in flames, waiting for the job to finish.

SO, now that I have all the tapes *properly* recorded to disk, I assigned the "In Points" and "Out Points" to each of the 18 "clips" I made from the twelve tapes. The "Ins" and "Outs" are simply the points at which the video starts to play, and are used to eliminate the first few crummy/bad/distorted frames of video that the camcorder produces when it first starts to record. They're used for other things, like selecting where you want to do other stuff, but for now that's how I'm using them.

Now "all" I have to do is to assemble the clips in a sequence, add the transitions ("Fade To Black" stuff) between the clips, make sure the completed sequence will fit on a DVD, and save each sequence as a "Project".

That will complete the editing portion of the project, and I can go on to "author" the DVD using Adobe Encore, and then burn the DVDs for my brother-in-law. He says his kids, now fully grown with their own children, have never seen the tapes.

The reason I built a studio-grade PC hardware and software suite, was that I wanted to be able to capture HD video from the Component Video jacks on the back of my DirecTV box, back when I had DirecTV.

I literally bought EVERY "consumer grade" video capture device on the market, and tried them all. Some of them has S-Video inputs, and a couple had "component video" inputs, and they ALL used USB to connect to the PC.

They ALL sucked, producing at best, video that looked like a VHS tape.

So, I bit the bullet, and bought a Matrox RT.X2 video capture card, which came bundled with a full version of Adobe Premiere Pro.

While this is still a top-notch video capture and editing system, times have changed, and now there are little stand-alone boxes that will actually do HD video, and they cost a whole lot less than what I paid for my hardware.

But then again, we're paying about the same for 40MB fiber-to-the-home as I was for my dual ISDN lines that gave me 128kB back in 1997, and those dollars were a whole bunch bigger.

CWII Waiting In The Wings?

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The Silicon Graybeard had some links to some very interesting reading.

The first is a great piece over at Free North Carolina, and the other a piece over at Angry White Dude's place.

Go over to Graybeard's place and RTWT, as he's much better at writing about this stuff than I *ever* will be.

MY take on things?

I don't really know what will happen, but if Big Brother starts pushing too hard, I think we'll see a lot of Matt Bracken and Vince Flynn "Term Limits" stuff start to go down.

One thing to keep in mind, is that even if you back off a rattler after you've annoyed him, he still might strike.

And since the dunderheads in power are too stupid or too ideologically driven to back off......