Oopsies and limitations…

Posted on by December 4, 2017

And of course it’s the far left states…

First up- Hawaii!

It appears HPD just ‘might’ have overstepped a bit…

The Honolulu-Star that covers medical marijuana news questioned how police officials apparently accessed the Hawaii State Department of Health’s database of cannabis patients to compare against the agency’s list of registered gun owners, and if the move was legal.

‘Supposedly’ that database is ‘confidential’…

Full article, HERE.

And next up- Kommiefornia…

Defender Outdoors (Texas based ammo retailer) has sent out the notice that all sales to California via the internet will cease 17 December. This is all because of Prop 63, being pushed as a ‘Safety for All’ proposition.

For the first time in California history, residents will have to go to a licensed dealer and undergo a background check when buying ammunition, says the company in a statement, pointing to the success of Proposition 63 which criminalizes the private transfer of ammo in the state.

Full article, HERE.

And the rest of the story-

Of further note, California will prohibit its residents from bringing ammunition into the state, bypassing taking delivery through a licensed dealer. Ironically, these new laws do not impact sharing ammunition in person with your friends and shooting partners…you just cannot sell it to them.

If you do sell to your buddy, do you become a felon? And what about those folks that go to Nevada or Arizona to shoot? And bring ammo they didn’t use back? Will THEY by arrested? What about competition shooters who are sponsored by ammo makers?

SO many questions…

Proposition 63 supersedes AB 962 and applies to all ammunition sales and summarized as follows:

Effective January 1, 2018

  • Licensed sellers will conduct and process all ammunition sales
  • Unlicensed sellers will have to conduct ammunition sales through a licensed vendor much like private party firearms transactions
  • Ammunition obtained from an out-of-state seller must initially ship to a licensed ammunition vendor for delivery to the purchaser upon completion of a background check

Effective July 1, 2019

  • Sellers will not sell or transfer ammunition without conducting a background check on the buyer
  • California law requires ammunition sellers to record, maintain, and report to the DOJ records of ammo sales in a manner similar to that of a firearm purchase

Proposition 63 does allow ammunition sales at shooting ranges without the purchaser undergoing a background check and without a sale record provided the ammo remains inside the facility.

Finally, a little recognition!!!

Posted on by December 2, 2017

PSA- For all the veterans that did not retire out of the military!

VA Announces Rollout and Application Process for New Veterans ID Card

WASHINGTON — Today the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that the application process for the national Veterans Identification Card (VIC) is now available for Veterans — yet another action honoring their service.

This has been mandated through legislation since 2015 to honor Veterans, and today’s rollout of the ID card fulfills that overdue promise.

Only those Veterans with honorable service will be able to apply for the ID card, which will provide proof of military service, and may be accepted by retailers in lieu of the standard DD-214 form to obtain promotional discounts and other services where offered to Veterans.

“The new Veterans Identification Card provides a safer and more convenient and efficient way for most Veterans to show proof of service,” said VA Secretary Dr. David J. Shulkin. “With the card, Veterans with honorable service to our nation will no longer need to carry around their paper DD-214s to obtain Veteran discounts and other services.”  

The VIC provides a more portable and secure alternative for those who served the minimum obligated time in service, but did not meet the retirement or medical discharge threshold. Veterans who served in the armed forces, including the reserve components, and who have a discharge of honorable or general (under honorable conditions) can request a VIC.

To request a VIC, Veterans must visit vets.gov, click on “Apply for Printed Veteran ID Card” on the bottom left of the page and sign in or create an account.

Veterans who apply for a card should receive it within 60 days and can check delivery status of their cards at vets.gov. A digital version of the VIC will be available online by mid-December.

Folks, this is well worth it, especially for those who can use a little more help getting things done. An upside is that this card should also allow you to get discount benefits at places like Lowes, which gives either a 5 or 10% discount to veterans on EVERY purchase!

Gun raffle winners…

Posted on by December 2, 2017

Notification has begun for the winners, and it’s a little bit of a slow process, as each one has to pick their choice of package, before I can notify the next one… So if you’re further down the list, be patient please! I WILL get to you!

Once we get all of them answered, we’ll post the final list.

Thank you again to all who participated, either as donors of the great prize packages, or those folks that donated over $18,000 to help Andi regain as much of her health as she can.

And we have winners!!!

Posted on by December 1, 2017

As as usual, I don’t have an email for one of them… Paging Doug Dewitt, Doug Dewitt to the white courtesy phone please…

And an ‘oddity’ of truly random draws is you get truly random results, hence we have two double winners…

Having said that, here are the winners in the order they were drawn. As we contact folks, we will move down the list and list of remaining prizes.

Jim Hambleton

Doug Dewitt

John Sage

Brian Dumire

Paul Neubauer

Larry Lambert

David Brehmer

Roy Zesch

Lois McArdle

Larry Lambert

Pat Patterson

John Harrison

John Amdor III

Kirk Conover

Roy Zesch

And a special thank you to William Simons, he was actually drawn 4th, but said in his email to draw someone else if he came up. Kudos to you, sir!

Thanks again to all who donated, we had 154 individuals enter the raffle with a total of 1551 entries.

Doug Dewitt, white courtesy phone… Need your email! 🙂

$18,517 of $25.0k goal!!!

Posted on by November 30, 2017

74%, we definitely gave it the old college try…

We have closed the gun raffle, but the Go Fund Me for Andi will remain open, HERE.

As a reminder, the raffle packages are as follows:

Note: All guns are used, with the exception of package 15 which is new.

  1. Taurus .44 Magnum pistol
  2. Ruger MK-II bull barrel .22
  3. Custom sub-MOA AR-15, two new P-Mags, one Colt 15 round mag.
  4. Remington 870 pump in 20ga
  5. Chinese copy of a 12ga coach gun
  6. Springfield Range Officer .45 with 7 magazines and custom holster
  7. Springfield Range Officer 9mm with 7 magazines and custom holster
  8. Lawdog’s personal Rock Island 1911 9mm, reworked by Joe Speer with 6 magazines
  9. A ladies package consisting of a ring (late-Victorian-style design with either high-quality glass or mid-grade garnet stones. The mount is jeweler’s metal, size 6 3/4 or 7).  A unicorn necklace, late 1980s-early 1990s James Avery sterling silver charm on a silver chain. A coin necklace, an 1904 Indian Head penny, silver dipped in a gold-plated mount with a gold-plated silver chain. And a handmade necklace and earrings from Phlegmmy. And a very nice Damascus knife.
  10. Signed copies of Lawdog’s, Peter Grant’s, Dorothy Grant’s, JL Curtis’, Ambulance Driver’s, and Tom Rogneby’s books
  11. Two sets of custom 1911 grips from Rimfire Designs, you can also work with Mark to design your own!
  12. Beretta 92FS, with six magazines.
  13. Gen 3 Glock 19 Trijicon tritium sights. Two 15 round magazines, which are included. If the winner is in a 10 round state I will find some and substitute them. Other goodies include the usual mag loader, a Streamlight TLR-3 weapon light, and a Bladetech range holster and mag carrier.
  14. A full polish on a stainless or nickel plate on a blued handgun. This is a 600-800 dollar value from Reflections Chrome Plating up in Maine!
  15. A NEW Ruger Precision Rifle in 6.5 Creedmore, with 4 magazines.

Winners will be notified in the order their numbers are pulled, and they will have their choice of the prizes (or remaining prizes) based on the drawing order. Winners will be announced as soon as we contact everybody.

Thank you to all who donated items for the raffle, and especially thank you to all of you who donated for this good cause. You folks continue to amaze me with your generosity!!!

And a special thank you to Jenn, for once again doing the back office ‘stuff’ to manage the spreadsheet of donations and receipts, without her this would not have been possible! If you’re of a mind, drop by In Jennifer’s Head and give her a thank you.

Moral bankruptcy???

Posted on by November 29, 2017

Who’s next???

Weinstein, a senior executive at Amazon, O’Reilly, Tambour, Halperin, Rose, Franken, Spacey, Conyers, more Hollyweird types, Clinton redux, another NPR executive, Garrison Keillor, and now Lauer…

And Moore’s accusers are no longer on the front page, but the fallout is ‘rather’ interesting.

The Dems leadership (Pelosi) are continuing to ‘excuse’ the behavior, BUT…

A bill was introduced today to expose all the secret settlements, and get that information out.

“Enough is enough,” Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, one of the bill’s sponsors, said. “For far too long sexual predators have roamed freely through the halls of Congress — the people’s house  — while survivors of sexual harassment and assault have essentially been isolated, bullied and shamed into silence.”

Full article, HERE. Interestingly, this effort is being led by a young female Dem!

And apparently there is/was yet another set of hush funds, HERE.

The oddity is that the pedofile cases seem to have ‘disappeared’ from the news, but I’m betting they will be back, and Hollyweird will have some house cleaning to do in short order.

It seems the swamp is a LOT deeper than anyone knew… Personally, I think there should be some recalls starting up, and the silent majority voting them out. As the old saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely…

And it’s sadly being proved true, yet again,  not only in politics, but the MSM, the entertainment industry, and big business.

Personally, I find the behavior abhorrent, and I think every damn one of them needs to go to jail for their actions, regardless of who they are, where they are from, or who they represent.

Yea???

Posted on by November 29, 2017

SECDEF is making some moves in conjunction with the Navy to move forward on the shipbuilding front… And it’s NOT LCS!!!

The RFI states that one of the FFG(X)’s two main purposes is to “relieve large surface combatants from stressing routine duties during operations other than war.” It goes on to say later that “this ship will reduce demand on high-end cruisers and destroyers that currently conduct [anti-submarine warfare], [surface warfare], and theater security cooperation missions, allowing for an increase of more capable assets to maintain a stabilizing presence in regions where tensions with nations that have highly capable naval forces may exist.”

Full article, HERE at USNI.

This is not a recapitulation of the requirements that generated LCS, but a follow on to FF(X)21, e.g. a ship that can actually defend itself, and still do ASW and surface missions, albeit in a smaller, shallower draft ship than the current DDG/Cruiser configuration.

If you’re really bored, HERE is the actual solicitation for information. This is literally a ‘sea change’ from the previous administration and the continuation of the Little Crappy Ship design, that should have died a quick death many years ago, after the first cost overrun and underperformance…

As a reminder, HERE is a link to the last ‘real’ Frigates the US Navy had, The Oliver Hazard Perry class. The ‘FIGS’ as they were known, were damn good ASW platforms, with tails and helo dets, they worked ahead of the battle groups, and also on independant ops with ‘other’ assets when required. At 29 kts, they were pretty quick, and they had no problem going ‘in harms way’ to get the job done.

GRRRRRrrrrr…

Posted on by November 27, 2017

Yesterday was Monday all #%_*]{^ day!  Went out and got extra Christmas lights to fill out the front of the house, and of course, with my luck the new ones don’t blink!

And the Internet went down about 10 o’clock in the morning, and when I went to bed last night it still wasn’t up. So go read the folks on the sidebar, and maybe I’ll have a real post tomorrow!

Well damn…

Posted on by November 27, 2017

Sorry, scheduler didn’t go on time this morning…

That nice ‘clean’ yard I had on Saturday…

Yeah, now… Not so much…

The wind came up Saturday, and boom… And the Oaks are getting ready to drop even more leaves…

So yesterday was up and down the damn ladder, pressure washing the downspouts out, and putting leaf guards on the gutters… What a PITA! And of course Lowes didn’t have enough of the good ones, so I’m about 6 or 8 short…

Interestingly, seems like kids no longer rake leaves, I guess it’s ‘beneath’ them…

I know I’m old, but damn, I made good money raking leaves in the fall, to go with mowing lawns! I bought my first car that way!!!

And I’m sure as hell NOT paying $50 a month for somebody to come rake leaves. Grumble…

Go Fund Me/Gun raffle update…

Posted on by November 25, 2017

Five days left… We will end the gun raffle at midnight on the 30th, with the drawings to be held December 1st, but the Go Fund Me WILL CONTINUE. Right now we’re at about 61% of our goal, not as far along as we wanted, but at least this should give Andi a good start on the therapy she needs.

Andi, a member of our Blogorado family, has suffered a stroke, which was misdiagnosed initially, leading to complications.  She doesn’t have medical insurance, and is having to fund her rehabilitation on a pay-as-you-go basis.  Several of us have pooled our resources by donating guns from our personal collections, and we’re offering them as an incentive to raise funds for her, along with some non-gun prizes (jewelry, books, etc.) for those who’d prefer them.  The Go Fund Me is HERE. Jenn as a personal post up on Andi, HERE.

You’ll find photographs of all the prizes in three parts:  here, here, here, and here. There is an additional package it’s number 14!  A full polish on a stainless or nickel plate on a blued handgun. This is from Reflections Chrome Plating up in Maine! Remember, donate to the Go Fund Me, HERE, and email your receipt to  [email protected] in the raffle!!!

The drawing will be via a random number generator on 1 December. First number drawn gets their pick, second number gets their pick, and so on.

Thank you to all that have contributed both packages and donations!