Tag Archives: burning hatred like a thousand suns

Article – Feds Demand Apple And Google Hand Over Names Of 10,000+ Users Of A Gun Scope App

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TL;DR version: a high-end riflescope lets you link to your phone to get images and other data from the scope. A buncha the scopes were illegally exported.  .gov is demanding to know who uses the app so they can try and see where the scopes wound up.

According to an application for a court order filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on September 5, investigators want information on users of Obsidian 4, a tool used to control rifle scopes made by night-vision specialist American Technologies Network Corp. The app allows gun owners to get a live stream, take video and calibrate their gun scope from an Android or iPhone device. According to the Google Play page for Obsidian 4, it has more than 10,000 downloads. Apple doesn’t provide download numbers, so it’s unclear how many iPhone owners could be swept up in this latest government data grab.

This is quite similar to the blanket searches the cops are doing where if someone gets shot in XYZ neighborhood they demand the phone records of everyone who was in that are at the time and then they troll through that info looking to see if they recognize a suspect.

The solution to these rather broad and offensive assaults on privacy, other than politely walking these people to the end of a long pier and giving them a strong pat on the back, is not to discard your smartphone but rather acquire one that isn’t attached to your ‘real life’. Theyre a tad more expensive, but burner smartphones that don’t require ID might be worth it. And, of course, never leave your phone with the battery in it anyplace where you’re going to be spending a lot of time.

 

Love letters from ATFE

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“This is an important message from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. ATF recognizes the essential role that FFLs perform in keeping the public safe, and we greatly value your cooperation. If you encounter indications of unlawful activity, please report it to your local ATF field office and or local law enforcement. A listing of all ATF field offices can be found at www.atf.gov. You may also contact ATF to report suspicious activity any time at 1-800-ATF-GUNS or online at www.reportit.com and select ATF Anonymous Tip Line. Thank you.”

The circumstances under which I would voluntarily engage with those morons is a very short list. This smacks of ATFE getting their ducks in a row for something.

ATFE Weirdness

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I’ve been selling guns on and off for almost thirty years. Just when I think there’s not much out there to surprise me, something comes along I havent seen before.

Today, I got the following email in my box:

ATF.FFL.Alert@usdoj.gov <ATF.FFL.Alert@usdoj.gov>
Jun 6 at 10:27 AM

This is an important message from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A suspicious individual attempted to purchase a “precision rifle” firearm that “could make a 1000 yard shot in order to shoot children, then adults” from an FFL in Broadwater county, MT. The suspect is described as a white male, mid to late 50’s, 5’10”, 180-200 lbs., brown/grey hair, brown eyes, wearing a long sleeve orange t-shirt (“Staff”/”Support”?) dark jeans, green hat. See photo below. The suspect was driving a dark sedan (possibly a Buick/Ford) late 1990’s-2000, Montana plate beginning with “4”. If you come into contact with this individual, please contact the Broadwater County Sheriff’s Office at (406) 266-3441 or ATF Helena at (406) 441-3140.

Ok, thats a bit odd. Here’s where it gets really weird. About five minutes after I got that email, my phone rings and I get a robocall from ATFE with the exact same message. I have never heard of ATFE sending out BOLO robocalls before. Also, I suspect that with all this effort being made by ATFE there is more to this story than meets the eye.

But…first time I ever got a robocall about something suspicious from the goons at F Troop.

Background.

Article – Suspicious packages spotlight vast postal surveillance system

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The U.S. Postal Service regularly photographs the front and back of every piece of U.S. mail, or about 150 billion parcels, envelopes, and postcards every year. A longstanding practice known as the “mail cover” program enables law enforcement to obtain address information and images of the outsides of mail as part of an investigation without the need for a warrant through the Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Postal Service’s policing arm.

Kinda makes you all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? They may(!) not be reading your mail, but they’re logging where it came from and where it went.

These clowns can scan over a billion packages a year but they can’t get my Priority Mail packages across town in three days. :::eyeroll:::

Whats really annoying is that The Powers That Be will point to the recent bombing suspect’s arrest and use that to validate what is, to any reasonable standard, a rather intrusive policy that  kicks the spirit of the right to privacy right in the sac.

Putting the goober in gubernatorial

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Our Democrat governor has come out in favor of the usual ‘assault weapons’ ban and is spewing the predictable balm of how he’s pro-Second-Amendment and he has a family history of hunting to back it up. Not sure that the one has anything to do with other but, hey, if I pose for a picture while wearing orange and holding an elks head that must mean I’m a foe of tyranny.

It’s so predictable…”I grew up around guns, BUT…….”, “My family has hunted for generations, BUT………”, “I’m a strong supporter of the right to bear arms, BUT………” and then it’s usually followed up with some inane free association exercise involving deer, AK-47’s, and the words “Don’t need” and “to hunt”.

Likely, this Quisling is posturing for some sort of potential political advancement come 2020. What he has done, though, is crap the sheets in his own electoral bed. I will personally make sure that this statist nonsense is not swept aside when the elections roll around.

Does he have a chance of making his dream come true in Montana? I doubt it. But the problem is that, like bedbugs and other vermin, he isn’t alone. You get enough political opportunists like him in one place and you get a synergistic form of stupidity that feeds on itself to be more than the stupid sum of its stupid parts. Scientists call it ‘critical mass’, most folks call it ‘Congress’.

And this, my fellow survivalists, is why you cannot let your guard down. There are always people like this who, while entitled to their opinions, believe their opinions need to become your opinions….whether you like it or not.

Vote early, vote often, and stock up just in case.

Multiple purchase dispositions

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A couple years back I touched on what exactly (in Montana) happens when you fill out the ‘yellow sheet’ 4473 form when you buy a gun. Succinctly, nothing happens. Your name isn’t added to a big .gov file somewhere with a list of what you bought. Doesn’t happen here. (In your state, it may be different.)

But…there is a scenario where .gov does get all that info.

Remember this? Well, a guy came in and bought five of those from me last week. Three on a Monday, and two on a Wednesday. So, he bought more than one handgun within five business days from the same dealer….that gets a special form sent, within 24 hours, to the fedgoons.

It’s called the 3310.4 Report of Multiple Sale or Other Disposition of Pistols and Revolvers form. It asks for the info off the 4473 and also includes the specifics of what was purchased. This form then has to be transmitted to ATFE and your local CLEO within 24 hours. The gal at the sheriff’s office told me they’ve never had anyone come and ask about the forms. ATFE, on the other hand, takes a more pro-active role.

SO, in case you didnt know, next time you feel like buying a six-pack of handguns from one source, try not to do it within five business days of each other. Or, better yet, buy them in a private sale.

This has been a public service announcement.

Article – Janet Reno, former U.S. attorney general, dies at 78

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Hmmm…Janet Reno dies the day before the election. Makes you wonder what she knew about Clinton.

Could not have happened to a nicer guy.

Janet Reno, the strong-minded Florida prosecutor tapped by Bill Clinton to become the country’s first female U.S. attorney general, and who shaped the U.S. government’s responses to the largest legal crises of the 1990s, died Nov. 7 at her home in Miami. She was 78.

The cause was complications from Parkinson’s disease, her goddaughter, Gabrielle D’Alemberte, told the Associated Press. Ms. Reno was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1995, while she was attorney general.

For you youngsters, she’s the guy who brought you such momentous moments as these:

elian-gonzalez waco_fire_wide-9203577b23bd582c55a3ac54d95e03ced5cd9573-s6-c30Say hi to Hitler and Ted Bundy while you’re down there, Janet.

Article – BATFE To Ban Common AR-15 Ammo

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Those idiots are at it again.

I see this as direct blowback from the ‘wrist brace’ issue. The ruling on the wrist brace suddenly put AR ‘pistols’ at the forefront of the AR marketplace for a while. As a result, more ‘pistols’ in .223 were out there than ever before. And, as we learned from the Olympic/Chinese-ammo debacle , it doesn’t take many handguns in a rifle caliber to get ATFE to start swinging the banhammer.

In a move clearly intended by the Obama Administration to suppress the acquisition, ownership and use of AR-15s and other .223 caliber general purpose rifles, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives unexpectedly announced today that it intends to ban commonplace M855 ball ammunition as “armor piercing ammunition.” The decision continues Obama’s use of his executive authority to impose gun control restrictions and bypass Congress.

It isn’t even the third week of February, and the BATFE has already taken three major executive actions on gun control. First, it was a major change to what activities constitute regulated “manufacturing” of firearms. Next, BATFE reversed a less than year old position on firing a shouldered “pistol.” Now, BATFE has released a “Framework for Determining Whether Certain Projectiles are ‘Primarily Intended for Sporting Purposes’ Within the Meaning of 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(c)”, which would eliminate M855’s exemption to the armor piercing ammunition prohibition and make future exemptions nearly impossible.

Obviously the commercial market will handle the ammo needs if M855 is verboten. But M855 is available in quantity and usually at slightly better prices because when you’re tooled up to run off tens of millions of rounds of the stuff in one go, you can bring economies of scale into play. In other words, when you’re tooled up to make a couple million rounds a day its very easy to pull some off the production line and sell it out the back door.

This absurdity may get nipped in the bud or it may not, but it might be worth swinging by Cabela’s or Bass Pro and picking up one of those .30 cal cans full of ammo while you still can.

Article – Why Are The Feds Obsessed With Seizing These People’s Old Trucks?

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Jennifer Brinkley had a typical summer morning planned on July 15: get up, get dressed, and take her son to tennis practice. That changed when six body armor-clad Department of Homeland Security agents and local police officers showed up at her North Carolina home and blocked her driveway. They were there because of an arbitrary law promulgated 26 years ago to guard the prerogatives — and profits —of automakers and car dealers. Specifically, they were there to take Brinkley’s truck.

TL;DR version: the fedgoons nicked a bunch of peoples Land Rover Defenders because, according to the .gov, they were younger than the arbitrary 25-year-old threshold to import certain vehicles. (I know someone who, when he came to this country, was warmly welcomed at the customs port by having to surrender his motorcycle because it didnt meet US standards. Its a motorcycle…it’s inherently unsafe to begin with!)

I used to see a Defender around town here in Missoula. It was a light pink hue, so it was either a very faded red or an old military desert model. Haven’t seen it in a few years so perhaps it got taken too.

The two vehicles I’m most interested in are the Hilux, which isn’t imported to the US as that [although the US version was pretty close], and an old FJ with the impossible-to-find diesel engine. (Although somehow Adam Savage managed to get his hands on one.) However, it’s still rather annoying to think that theres a .gov agency somewhere wasting it’s time on this sort of nonsense. (As a sidebar, and interesting and equally nonsensical fiat is how diesel engines are rated… overseas the emissions standard for the diesel is how many miles you get out of a fixed amount of exhaust particulate, here its how much exhaust particulate you expel per gallon. In other words, if you have a diesel that spits out twice as much exhaust but gets fifty times the MPG it would be considered environmentally unsound, even though it is obviously tremendously more efficient and fuel efficient.)

I never much gave any thought to buying a Land Rover…I’ve heard too many bad things about British cars (and British food and guns), but if your tastes run in that direction and you find a nice Defender to tweak out into your BOV, you might wanna exercise some caution.