• The WHO has declared Monkeypox to be a health emergency. According to them Monkeypox is going to become the next pandemic and kill you all!

    NPR has helpfully put together an article explaining how to protect yourself from catching Monkeypox. It is very informative in that it strongly suggests that YOU, that’s right YOU, can catch it just by touching a surface that is contaminated!

    The better answer is “Don’t have sex with strangers that have the pox.”

    The virus also spreads through physical contact, including touching a lesion, as well as the exchange of some bodily fluids like saliva. An individual could become infected by touching items and surfaces shared with someone exhibiting symptoms.

    As the virus can spread through skin-to-skin contact, the CDC advises people to exercise caution in situations where one can’t maintain some sense of personal space and bumping into others is impractical. In places where clothing is minimal and you could experience that contact, such as crowded raves and clubs, the risk goes up.

    Potentially contaminated items like bedding, clothes and towels should be contained until you have time to do your laundry, the CDC recommends. Be sure to frequently wash your hands with soap and water as you’re cleaning and dispose of all cleaning materials when you’re done.
    —Monkeypox explained: How to protect yourself and what to watch out for

    In the entire article they seem to leave out a couple of very important pieces of information:

    1. The survival rate in first world countries is currently 100%
    2. There have been four deaths, all in Africa
    3. The most common transmission vector is anal sex.
    4. The gay community is currently the most highly effected group

    As more than one politically incorrect person has pointed out, there is a perception that gay culture is very promiscuous and that there are many that are refusing to stop having sex while they are still contagious.

    It might make its way into the general population but right now it is very contained.

    For an organization that had no issues in telling the entire world to lock down for 2 weeks to slow the spread, they don’t seem to be at all interested in telling gay men “Keep it in your pants while you are contagious.”

    Is there something about the gay culture that doesn’t care about the health ramifications? Why is it that WHO refuses to identify the primary transmission vector?

            

  • Nonce verification failed

    We’ve been getting reports of people seeing this message when attempting to submit comments.

    What is it? What does it mean? What does it do?

    A Nonce in software is a one time token. You can think of it as a one time password. Because of the complications of current website deployments, methods we use to use no longer work so we send a one time token to your browser when you load a page.

    This token/nonce is used to verify that the submission being made is being made by an actual user of the site and not a hacker. It protects the site. Why it is failing is under investigation. It looks like there might be an issue with caching or other things that are designed to speed up the webpage. We will continue looking into it.

    How to fix

    If you are submitting a comment, use the back button and you should see your comment sitting in the box. Make a copy of it.

    Go to the home page and then navigate back to the individual article. You should now be able to paste your comment into the comment box and submit your comment.

            

  • Mississippi Board of Education votes to remove ban on guns in K-12 schools

    If you read Divemedics blog you can read about how the Florida Guardian Program hasn’t been a great success. The gist is that while the state made it legal for teachers and staff to be armed within the schools, the “needs permission” of the local sheriffs and school board and and and meant that in the end only a very few “special” people got permission to carry.

    Run of the mill teachers did not. I believe that his final analysis said no teachers are part of the Guardian Program.

    Under Mississippi state law CCW holders should be allowed to carry on school property. The state Board of Education didn’t see it that way and banned guns in K-12 schools. This has now be reversed.

    Of course there is a gotcha, this ALLOWS local school districts to allow CCW holders to carry on school campuses, but it doesn’t REQUIRE them to do so. I strongly suspect that this will turn into another victory in words but not deeds. This has been 11 years in coming.

    The infringers are at it, telling us that “Teachers are just as likely as anyone to cause violence in the classroom”, “…Teachers might not be trained enough…”, “you don’t know how your fight or flight is going to react, and that’s going to cause more problems than it [solves]”.

    Finally, this is the State DoE issuing this statement. Before it is implemented the State Board has to take action to allow guns in schools.

    The repetitive bleating of the anti-gun people that it will be worse if a teacher has a gun and is able to effectively fight back against an armed shooter is tiring. Nothing in the statistics says that a teacher with a CCW is going to lose their mind and start killing students. Why do these people always believe that a gun is going to turn somebody into a murdering asshole?

            

  • Truly there is nothing to see here. If you are a member and can not read this article please let us know, either via email or in the comments below.

    Taken for Wikipedia, Creative Commons

    The .45-70 rifle cartridge, also known as the .45-70 Government and .45-70 Springfield, was developed at the U.S. Army’s Springfield Armory for use in the Springfield Model 1873, which is known to collectors as the “Trapdoor Springfield.” The new cartridge was a replacement for the stop-gap .50-70 Government cartridge, which had been adopted in 1866, one year after the end of the American Civil War.

    Nomenclature

    The new cartridge was completely identified as the .45-70-405, but was also referred to as the “.45 Government” cartridge in commercial catalogs. The nomenclature of the time was based on three properties of the cartridge:

    • .45: nominal diameter of bullet, measured in decimal inches, i.e., 0.458 inches (11.63 mm);
    • 70: weight of black powder, measured in grains, i.e., 70 grains (4.56 g);
    • 405: weight of lead bullet, measured in grains, i.e., 405 grains (26.38 g).

    The minimum acceptable accuracy of the .45-70 from the 1873 Springfield was approximately 4 inches (100 mm) at 100 yards (91 m), however, the heavy, slow-moving bullet had a “rainbow” trajectory, the bullet dropping multiple yards (meters) at ranges greater than a few hundred yards (meters). A skilled shooter, firing at known range, could consistently hit targets that were 6 × 6 feet (1.8 m) at 600 yards (550 m)—the Army standard target. It was a skill valuable mainly in mass or volley fire, since accurate aimed fire on a man-sized target was effective only to about 200–300 yards (180–270 m).

    After the Sandy Hook tests of 1879, a new variation of the .45-70 cartridge was produced: the .45-70-500, which fired a heavier, 500 grain, (32.57 g) bullet. The heavier bullet produced significantly superior ballistics, and could reach ranges of 3,350 yards (3,120 m), which were beyond the maximum range of the .45-70-405. While the effective range of the .45-70 on individual targets was limited to about 1,000 yards (915 m) with either load, the heavier bullet produced lethal injuries at 3,500 yards (3,200 m). At those ranges, the bullets struck point-first at a roughly 30 degree angle, penetrating three 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick oak boards, and then travelled to a depth of eight inches (20 cm) into the sand of the beach. It was hoped the longer range of the .45-70-500 would allow effective volley fire at ranges beyond those normally expected of infantry fire.[5]
    Bullet diameter

    While the nominal bore diameter was .450 inches (11.4 mm), the groove diameter was actually closer to .458 inches (11.6 mm). As was standard practice with many early commercially-produced U.S. cartridges, specially-constructed bullets were often “paper patched”, or wrapped in a couple of layers of thin paper. This patch served to seal the bore and keep the soft lead bullet from coming in contact with the bore, preventing leading (see internal ballistics). Like the cloth or paper patches used in muzzle-loading firearms, the paper patch fell off soon after the bullet left the bore. Paper-patched bullets were made of soft lead, .450 inches (11.4 mm) in diameter. When wrapped in two layers of thin cotton paper, this produced a final size of .458 inches (11.6 mm) to match the bore. Paper patched bullets are still available, and some black-powder shooters still “roll their own” paper-patched bullets for hunting and competitive shooting.[6][7] Arsenal loadings for the .45-70-405 and .45-70-500 government cartridges generally used groove diameter grease groove bullets of .458 inches (11.6 mm) diameter.[8]

            

  • We have rolled out the new look, sort of. The actual look of the site should stay the same but there are some changes done to support membership.

    On comment pages, just above the comment box you will see a “Login or Register”. If you are already a member and logged in, you should not see this message. Once memberships go live the comment block and the Reply buttons will only be seen by members with the “Login or Register” option at the bottom.

    For members at the .300 Blackout level you should see a red crosshair above the Reply buttons. It doesn’t do anything yet but it is there. We’re working towards making it functional.

    For people signing up, there is a new field “Nickname” This is the default to be shown when you comment on a post.

    If you decide to change your displayed name or nickname at some point in the future, all of your posts will be updated to your new display name.

    Note, after changing your nickname it might take a little while for you to be able to change your display name to your new nickname. Again, something we are working on.

    You can change your display name in “Edit Your Profile” page under the “Register” menu.

    We’ve had a couple of requests for ways to pay for memberships outside of credit cards. Absolutely this is possible. Reach out to use a awa(at)troglodite.com or gunfreezone(at)troglodite.com and we’ll get something worked out.

    If there are other payment methods you would like us to consider please let us know below in the comments and we will look into them.

    In the meantime take a look at The Essential Guide to Anonymous Payment Methods in 2021 for different methods of making anonymous payments using other methods.

            

  • The Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams is very very unhappy. It seems that “you’re here without proper documentation” you put a strain on the great city of New York.

    The gist is that NYC is struggling to find shelter for all of the illegal aliens that have shown up in NYC. Some of the southern states have taken to putting illegal aliens on buses up to DC. From there they are moving up to NYC and other cities.

    While NYC has a population of over 8.4 Million people they are having a difficult time finding resources for 3000 “asylum seekers”. The southern states are “heartless” for sending these illegal aliens north and not taking care of them in the border states.

    The numbers of people crossing our southern border is in the 100s of thousand per year. You can go on YouTube and find videos of people streaming across the border. They don’t care they are being filmed. They don’t care that they are breaking the law and entering our country illegally. They are here to take.

    For the very few that are actually captured or that don’t end up dead in the desert, in the river or baked to death in sealed semi trailer, some are being sent north. Those few are overwhelming the big cities but the small towns of on the southern border should have no problem handling them.

    It is terrifying how tone deaf these elites are.

    Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners, both of you for this serious moment, unprecedented moment. And the goal of our team is to make sure that we meet the moment. Four families did not meet the deadline that’s required by law, not acceptable. And as the commissioner stated, they were not there for 24 hours. They immediately moved to address the issue. But I think as Commissioner Castro stated, 3,000 people needed shelter in our city. Unlike other states in their heartless manner of sending those people seeking a place to stay in our country were sent out of those bordering states and sent to other locales.

    Mayor Adams: If it’s New York, if it’s Washington. The mere fact is, we are responsive and we responded. And when you look at 3,000 people hitting our shelter system, an immediate response from the infrastructure of our system to address their concerns is what we are talking about. So any comment or insinuation that we did not respond the way New Yorkers expect us to do so is just not true. And this is not a moment of saying, “Hey, we got you, we caught you.” No, this is a moment our administration is saying to them, “We’ve got you. This is who we are as New Yorkers. We got you. We’re going to provide the services you need and many complex services.”

    Mayor Adams: Because when you’re here without proper documentation, you have to navigate so many of the resources that we need to find ways to address. But we don’t have people in our shelters who are not being fed, who are not spending days on the floor, sleeping with children. That is not who we are. That is not who we are going to be as a city. And we’re asking all to be a part of this initiative. Our faith-based institutions, our legal advisors are those who want to volunteer. We were just here with Norman Siegel the other day.

    Mayor Adams: We are all in this together to deal with this influx of innocent people who are seeking asylum or fleeing wars, who are fleeing crises in their own country. New York is one of the few states where you have right to shelter. One of the few. We’re not like those who are sending people away during their time and needs. We are representative of what this country stands for, and we will always continue. Five families or four families that did not receive services within the timeframe that the law calls for is four families too many. But those over 3,000 individuals that we were able to provide services for, I want to say a job well done for those families that we provided services for. And we’re going to continue to provide services as a transition into normalizing their lives and not having to live within the shelter system.

    Official transcript July 21, 2022 fetched July 23rd.

    What happens when the violence moves north with these illegals? What happens when their culture collides with the culture of the East Coast and North East? Things could get interesting.

    Update: I’m not sure that it shouldn’t be air quoted “elites” or elitists. I’ll leave it there as an “awaism” today. Thinking about it.

            

  • Clickbait to an extreme:
    New assault rifle being sold to civilians is twice as powerful as the AR-15 and capable of shooting through bulletproof vests, report says

    One of the wonderful things about being a geek is that I understand some of the hidden messages in URLs and such. For example, if I see an URL that ends in “image-300×144.png” I am pretty sure there is also “image.png” at the same location that is likely high resolution.

    When reading articles on my phone, URLs aren’t shown to me so I just get the clickbait and look further looking for fodder for the blog.

    When I read this headline my first thought was “Oh boy, some journalist figured out that there is an AR-10”.

    Now I use to think that no mass murder would spend thousands of dollars on a gun they were only going to use once. Why not go with a $600 AR-15 from PSA or S&W. Then the Uvalde shoot proved me wrong buy purchasing $4000 worth of guns and ammo. Even that pales in comparison to a list prices of $7,999 for the Sig Sauer MCX-SPEAR. Not counting the ammo and the tax stamp for the can on the front.

    Yep, these people are afraid of the gun owners that are willing to fork over $8k plus more for the ammo just to have the latest and greatest semi-auto only version of the next gen gun for our military.

    Worse, while the link above is to Business Insider, they are pulling from The Daily Beast.

    Remember, everything is an assault weapon to these people, and you shouldn’t own any firearm, second Amendment be damned.

    Updated: If you check the URL for this post you will see that I misspeeled(grin) “opinions” as “options”

            

  • The LAPD has been given their marching orders by Commander Ernest Eskridge.

    “Department sworn personnel shall not investigate, detain, or arrest any persons for … Possession of firearm magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition”

    Progress in the correct direction.

            

  • It has been another week. We are slowly finding our rhythm. J.Kb. is doing a great job and high quality content. Miguel is doing his hit and run postings. I’m just hanging on by my fingernails.

    Status things:
    We still plan to start using memberships in another week. I’ve been writing a new theme that will look like the current theme but provide the features we need under the membership model.

    The site decided to purge all the nonces. This is how your browser tells the site that you are the same person on the same browser. Unfortunately it doesn’t really tell you this until you try and post a comment, at which point it gives a nasty message.

    The fix is to go to the home page and reload.

    As part of the move we prestaged the site to gunfreezone.troglodite.com. This allowed us to do testing and such. Unfortunately the process also turned all of the gunfreezone.net mentions in the database into gunfreezone.troglodite.com. This was most easily seen when clicking on the Gun Free Zone Banner.

    This is fixed in the live site. There are still a few instances of the wrong name but nobody should see them.

    Fixes in code but not on site yet:
    It was brought to our attention that somebodies real name was used when they left a comment after becoming a member. This should not have happened. We’ve set it up to use your username as your display name for now and we’ve updated the code so that if you change your display name all comments you made as a member get the new display name.

    WordPress, the software that runs this site, has a feature called “nickname”. If you set your nickname you can also set the your displayed name to your nickname. This will allow you to have a user name that is not displayed. Members can get to this feature by logging in and then going to the small bar at the top right that starts with “Howdy,” Use that to edit your profile and you can change your Nickname and your Display Name.

    The stopper right now is we are adding the “Nickname” field to the registration and membership edit profile pages.

    For members that are at the Shooter level, please feel free to contribute articles to the blog by sending to either awa(at)troglodite.com or gunfreezone(at)troglodite.com. Contributions will be posted under your name.

    Finally, we’ve added code so that we can make “Feedback” Postings. A feedback posting is open to comments from anybody.

    This is a feedback posting so you’ll be able to give whatever feedback about the site you want.

    Go for it. Please let us know what we are doing right and what we need to change.

            

  • David was at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS when the 2018 shooting took place. He walked out of a different building on campus and went home. His level of danger was a bit more than AOC’s on Jan 6th, 2021, but not much.

    He has since turned this into a free ride at Harvard and a couple of scams. He recently started a pillow company that lasted just long enough for him to rack in money and then folded before delivering product. He also was upset about how hard it was to create an LLC in MA.

    Guns are in the news so David is once again shouting “Look at me! Look at me!”

    He disrupted a congressional hearing on Wednesday and was escorted from the hearing room by security.

    Who invited him to the hearing? What are the charges being brought against him?

    David Hogg disrupts House hearing on banning assault weapons