I had meant to write about “The Four Rules work” last night but decided on a different style of article.

After reading about Alec Baldwin killing a person on set, there was an uproar in the gun community. Many of us wanted Alec arrested and treated like we assume we would be treated. Others advocated from “positions of knowledge” to tell us that it was never Alec’s fault, he was just a trained monkey.

Turns out that Alec was more than just a trained monkey in front of the camera. He was also the producer, which meant he was also responsible for the safety culture on set.

What I really wanted to talk about was, “how come this didn’t happen way back when?” They used to make a “western” a week. There were weekly westerns, which often included gun fights. Why didn’t we see or hear about accidents back then?

Even before Jeff Cooper made his four rules famous, there were westerns shot without incident. How come?

Let’s start with A Fistful of Dollars

In this quick draw scene, nobody is in the line of fire for either shooter.  Clint’s gun is pointed to his left as he fans the hammer.  His intended targets are all offscreen.  He is pointing his gun at nothing.  The bad guy is still in the middle of his draw.  It might look like he is muzzling himself, but it is more likely his muzzle is in front of him.  If you look at the background, the only person is behind Clint.  The bad guy can aim at the fountain, and it will still seem like he is aiming at Clint.

Clint has the bad guy at gun point.  But there is nobody where his gun is pointing.

Shooting at Clint.  But nobody is where that gun is pointing.

Moving on to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, we see the same sort of thing.  Even more, while we see the character’s loading guns from time to time, when you look at closeups of the guns you find something interesting.

If you look at the revolver, you should notice that it doesn’t have a loading gate.  That is because this is a cap and ball revolver.  There is no cap on the nipples.  This makes it trivial to verify that the gun cannot fire.

You can see the game being played in these two side by side shots, just before the big gun fight.  The pistol belt has cartridges in it.  All of those cartridges would have been dummy rounds.  Take careful note of the pistol, though.  It is a cap and ball revolver.

The left image is part of the montage of quick cuts between the three actors.  There is no reason for there to even be dummy rounds in that revolver.

The right image is just before he draws.  This is a single cut.  In this image, you can see that his right hand has moved slightly AND there are now caps on the nipples of the revolver.  When Van Cleef draws, he will pull the hammer back and fire the gun.  There will be a soft pop from the cap and a flash.  There may or may not be powder in the chamber.

Regardless, there will be nobody where he is pointing the pistol when he shoots.

In a dozen movies I watched shortly after the Rust shooting, I only saw a couple of scenes where the pistol might have been pointing near a person.  All of those scenes were framed in such a way that it is possible for the gun to have been pointing away from all people.

It is certainly possible to film dangerous looking scenes involving guns without actually putting people at risk.

This “Film Crawl” came about because Alec Baldwin shot and killed his cameraman. I believe that we can all agree that Alec Baldwin is guilty of manslaughter at the very least. Likely murder.

The short of it was that he took a pistol that he might have thought was unloaded, pointed at his cameraman, and pulled the trigger. This resulted in the death of his cameraman and injury to his director.

Now Alec is a trained monkey. He is supposed to hit his mark and say his lines with the right emotion. Ne is not expected to be a firearm guru.

He is expected to know the four safety rules, and to follow them. If he is not following them, there damn well better be no other way to do it, and every safety precaution should be taken.

I have some snap-caps, but not for every caliber. Most of the time I don’t need them, or I use just a case. After learning of the Rust incident, I learned a bit more about safety on set and made up a few dummy rounds for testing feeding or loading issues.

Every dummy round has an expended primer in it or hot glue. There are NO pristine primers. If the primer has no dimple, it is a live round.

Each dummy round has two metal BB’s in it. If you shake the dummy round, you can hear the BB’s rattling around in there.

Finally:

• Treat every firearm as if it is loaded.
• Never point your firearm at something you are not willing to destroy or kill
• Make sure you identify your target and what is beyond it.
• Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

Even when I KNOW it is a dummy round, I do not point the firearm at anything I’m not willing to destroy, and I treat it as if it has live ammo in it.

I had issues with feeding on one of my Winchester ’94s (post ’64). This meant that I was running the lever and watching how it feed into the chamber. This would cause there to be a round in the chamber with the hammer back, cocked. A mistake could have caused the hammer to drop. Using dummy rounds made this safer.

I was having issues loading rounds into my r92. A couple of dummy rounds let me get things figured out in a safer way.

If I’m working with dummy rounds, there are no live rounds in the area. I can’t say room because often I’m doing work on the dinning room table and there are live rounds and magazines in the dining room.

On the Rust set, they were using the “prop” guns for target practice. All the guns used were real guns. They were not disabled in any fashion. Put a live round in them, pull the trigger, “BANG”. And the crew at least was using them for target practice.

This meant that people were bringing live rounds onto the set. A big NO NO NO.

They were putting live rounds into a prop gun. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

The production team was rushing the armorer (unconfirmed), which led to a pistol with live rounds being taken by the 2ndassistant, who declared it “cold”. It does not appear that the armorer had checked the weapon to verify it was “cold” and the 2nd assistant didn’t either.

Then Alec took that gun, did not verify it was cold. There is a statement that actors are not allowed to check if the gun they are handed is cold, “for safety reasons”. If Alec had opened the loading gate, rotated the cylinder 7 times, he would have been able to see the unfired primer on at least one of the cartridges loaded.

He didn’t. He pulled the hammer back. Pointed the gun at a person, and pulled the trigger. The gun performed exactly as designed and fired the round.

[xCiteBib]

Short answer: 2 out of 5 stars.

This is obviously somebodiessomebody’s work of love. Like me, they are more interested in the data than the user interface.

This leads to a user interface that is barely useable.

There are times when you press on a sentence which acts like a button. These are often small with gray text. In other locations, the same text is on a button.

There is an option to “save” all over the place, but what are you saving? How do you get it back?

In the 4DOF calculator, if you select what you think is a cartridge, it will set the ballistics of the bullet, but not velocity.

The default dashboard has a couple of widgets to let you slowly set the range to target and wind conditions. If you want a table instead, you can click at random until you click on the clipboard/grid in the lower-right corner.

This gives you an option to change the interval between data rows and the total distance you want calculated.

If you like the numbers, press “set”. Do not press the “cancel” button. If you press cancel, it will take you back one screen. You need to click set, which will give you the table you are interested in.

This table is the 2 stars above. It uses either the G1 or G7 drag curves, it uses all the variables you provide. There is time of flight, drop in inches, MOA offset and everything else you could want.

It has a “save” feature. I don’t know where it saves the data nor how to access it, nor how to print it.

Even if the features I’m looking for exist, this app is too clunky to use.

I’ll go looking for an online replacement soon.

I’d actually prefer to get gnuplot doing this for me. I have the G1 and G7 curves, it is just a matter of entering the correct formulas.

I’m relatively new to this gun stuff. Before the 2000, I didn’t have money for firearms, and after I bought my first round of firearms, I didn’t have money to purchase guns for a long time.

I was forced by good comments to go do math and then visualize it. Thank you, gnuplot.

In the graph above, the first line is purple and represents the Point of Aim through the scope 1.5 inches above the bore.
The second line, green, is a simple constant acceleration of gravity in an ideal environment. I.e. bull crap. It is there so that I can have a verification stage.
The next line is the results from the Hornady ballistic calculator app. The values input are BC of 0.12, muzzle velocity of 1050, diameter of 0.22inches, weight of 40 grains. These are the numbers from the CCI subsonic 22LR ammunition.

From looking at the constant acceleration and the G1 calculations, you can see there is a difference. The bullet is losing velocity in the G1 graph and drops more than 8 inches at around the 67 yard mark. The constant acceleration has that happening at around 72 yards.

Next, I “zeroed” the rifle/scope combination at 25 yards. This requires that there be an initial upward component to the path of the bullet. I did not do the math correctly to modify the initial horizontal velocity based on stealing some of that for the upward motion.

The orange line is again constant acceleration. The curve is tangent at 25 yards. Depending on initial velocity, this might not be a tangent, but instead pass upwards through the PoA curve. The M193 out of an AR15 platform, zeroed at 25 yards, continues upwards for a significant distance.

The yellow dots are the Hornady G1 calculations with an initial upward velocity added.

What does all of this mean? It means I’m a visual person and should have spent the time graphing this stuff, so I could actually see what I’m doing.

Thank you for the feedback.

I’m getting better.

At issue is learning the easy things, but not understanding them.

Before I put the new scope on the rifle, I was hitting my target(s) at random ranges consistently. I put the new scope on the rifle, zeroed it, was, very, happy with the groups I was getting.

For many reasons, I didn’t have an opportunity to press the trigger for a while. My partner wasn’t here to help with the meat processing, the weather was too yucky to flesh the hide. I just didn’t get a chance.

I did glass a number of targets over the week, but no shots taken.

Then the other day, everything aligned, and I was good to go for a shot. I waited until he presented a beautiful side view, sighted in to put a round through his eye… slowly pressed the trigger, bang. And he took off. Clean miss.

Hmm, what did I do wrong? The next day I had another opportunity. Again I waited for a good presentation, lined up to take him through the eye. Pressed the trigger.

That damn critter didn’t even flinch.

Why was I missing at these ranges. It didn’t make any sense to me.

My mind started working the problem.

The answer came to me, bullet drop!

I was wrong.

Over the distances I was shooing, the time of flight was less than 0.08s. Using that old school math, we find that the distance a bullet drops in a given time is 0.5at^2 a=32ft/s^2. Fumble fingering the calculator, that gives me a drop of 1.5 inches.

Shit. That’s more than enough to miss that rodent’s entire head.

Add to all of this that because the rifle is sighted at a known distance, it is only at that distance and one other where the point of aim and the point of impact are at the same level.

At 25 yards, the point of impact will be either 3.5 or 3 inches below the perfectly parallel to bore scope. I say 3.5 or 3 because I do not remember whether the scope is 2 inches above bore or only 1.5.

This means that to have the point of impact intersect the point of aim at 25 yards, I have to point the scope down 3.0-3.5 inches.

But as we move the target closer or further from the muzzle, the amount of drop changes. This makes a difference. There is also that difference in angles. With the scope pointing down to get the rifle bore to point slightly up, there will be a period of time when the bullet is low compared to the point of aim.

After that time, the bullet will be high, compared to the point of aim.

Then we add even more stupid to the equations.

I got the new scope because I wanted the hash marks on the reticle to help me with figuring offsets.

The scope is lower cost, so it is a second focal plane reticle. This means that the distance between hash marks stays the same regardless of the magnification.

When the manual says that a hash is 1 MOA, they mean it is 1 MOA at 9x, not at 4x, where I keep the scope.

This means I need to know the magnification to use the hash marks to measure with.

I’m going to head back to the range and do some actual measuring. Then I’m going to use a ballistic calculator to have a better idea of wtf I’m doing and where that bullet is going to be relative to point of aim.

If things go well, I might even be able to figure all of this out, without blowing up my brain.

Once all of this is figured out, I get to repeat it with the Marlin in 30-30.

It feels like it has been a long week. I think much of that came from listening for hours of oral arguments. On the better side of things, I believe that I have better code in place to make the task easier next time. I’ve also created tools that do more saves along the way so that I don’t have to redo everything, over and over again.

J. Kb. contacted me to ask, “what was the request about what ammo?” I hope he has an article on 5.7×28 coming up. Having watched a number of YouTube videos about it, I’m curious, but not curious enough to invest in still another caliber.

It looks like there will be some photographs of squirrel processing coming up soon. I want to make sure that I take many photos.

We had a visitor staying with us for a short time. I managed to foist off my Nikon D5500. He had a great time with the lens I let him borrow, but he wasn’t allowed to take that with him. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with that camera once he picks up a couple of lenses for it.

Having spent today thinking about what I heard in the 7th Circuit Court oral arguments, I think I’ve identified why it was so difficult.

• The two anti-gun judges were actually rude. Easterbrook made disparaging sighs and other sounds while the good guys were presenting.
• The Judges were disrespectful to the Bruen court. They actually laughed at some of the phrasing from Justice Thomas’ opinion
• Judge Wood constantly played dumb, claiming that figuring out what the words of the Second Amendment actually meant was going to be their task, even though the Heller court told them what the words mean.
• Judge Easterbrook was demanding that the good guys argue against the NFA instead of the actual laws. Sort of: If we decide that an AW/LCM ban is unconstitutional, what’s to keep you from arguing that the NFA is unconstitutional?
• The Circuit Court represents more than just the state of Illinois. Yet Easterbrook and Wood kept repeating that machine guns and grenades are banned. Machine guns are banned in Illinois, but not in every state under the 7th Circuit.
• Easterbrook wanted to find some “special” meaning in “in common use today”. He refused to use plain text.

I expected the state to misrepresent the situation. I expected them to make their best arguments, even if they had to make huge reaches. They did not disappoint in that regard. It was just how down right disrespectful Easterbrook and Wood were to the Bruen Court, Murphy and Maag. It was not a good look.

Was the breakdown of the oral arguments worthwhile to you? Is it worth my time to do other oral arguments when they come out?

Other than a Ruger PC9, is there another 9 mm carbine that you like?

B.L.U.F. An examination of how judges act and how to read the tea-leaves. Also, the sorts of ridiculous things that are said and don’t get rebutted.

The head judge is Frank Easterbrook. He has a history of dumping on the Second Amendment at every chance he can. He is the judge who got means-end into the 7th circuit court.

All quotes are from the machine created transcript, with edits by me. I will only be adding the speaker to the quotes.

Here we see that she is off to a great start, banning modern sporting rifles and standard capacity magazines is exactly like fire codes from the founding era.

We know from Bruen that courts must begin by assessing whether the regulated instrument is protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment — Hunger. Nope, it is if the conduct is protected by the plain text. She is twisting words here.

The instruments must be arms. They must be bearable, and they must be in common use for self-defense. The instruments at issue here do not satisfy that standard for at least two reasons. First, large capacity magazines are not arms. They are accessories that are not necessary to the operation of any firearm. — Hunger.

We see the standard twisting from “in common use for lawful purposes” into “in common use for self-defense”, no surprise there.

Of course, the Supreme Court has issued an opinion saying that ammunition and magazines are indeed arms.
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This is the oral arguments for the above case. This is an AW/LCM ban case.

I hope you don’t have high blood pressure. I’m going to be reading this tomorrow and figuring out what some of the dumbest things said were.

Case argued by Erin Murphy for Amicus Curiae National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. and Ms. Sarah A. Hunger for Appellee State of Illinois in 23-1353, Gilbert Dickey for Appellant Javier Herrera, Ms. Sarah A. Hunger for Appellees Brendan F. Kelly and Kwame Raoul and Jessica M. Scheller for Appellees Toni Preckwinkle and Cook County, Illinois in 23-1793, Ms. Sarah A. Hunger for Appellants Brendan F. Kelly and Kwame Raoul and Erin Murphy for Appellees Caleb Barnett, Brian Norman, Hood’s Guns & More, Pro Gun and Indoor Range and National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. in 23-1825, Attorney Mr. Thomas G. Maag for Appellees Jeremy W. Langley, Timothy B. Jones and Matthew Wilson in 23-1827. [157] [7320281] [23-1353, 23-1825, 23-1793, 23-1826, 23-1827, 23-1828] (KRA)

Case heard and taken under advisement by panel: Frank H. Easterbrook, Circuit Judge; Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judge and Michael B. Brennan, Circuit Judge. [156] [7320278] [23-1353, 23-1825, 23-1793, 23-1826, 23-1827, 23-1828] (KRA)
Robert Bevis v. City of Naperville, 23-1353, (7th Cir.)

I feel like I am coming to the end of a long journey. Yesterday I managed to get another part of the puzzle working. I might actually be able to finish (hah!) this personal project.

I do not like WordPress. We call it the security breach. If it hasn’t happened today, it will happen tomorrow. So, I’m going to talk about the process.

The goal

To be able to easily insert citations and bibliographies into WordPress articles.

Requirements:

1. It has to be Easy
2. It has to look good in the final results.
3. It has to be easy to create citations

Item One requires a Graphical User Interface. In other words, I need to be able to get to a citation with just a few clicks. It also means that I can’t be clicking on multiple windows or carefully copying, so I can paste links. It really needs to be simple.
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When you read court opinions, it is sometimes hard going. I use the term “emotional blackmail” to describe the type of argument which is based on feels instead of facts.

The children will die if you don’t… Women will die in back alley abortions if you… People will solve disagreements in bloody gun fights if you…

It reminds me of the teacher who once told me that she was terrified of people having a gun in the school. If she said something bad about their precious child, the parent might snap and shoot her. If a parent is willing to murder her for her attitude, why aren’t they beating the crap out of her now?

In [xCite item=”QBP3BVS2″ pos=0] all the concurring opinions start with facts. I have only double-checked Roberts’ opinion written for the court. When the liberals start their opinions, it is about goals. They want to reach a particular goal, and they tell you why that goal is good, and you should just do “the right thing” without letting that pesky constitution get in the way.
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