A little over two months ago, I joined the NRA. Not long after joining, I mentioned it on Twitter, tagging the NRA and “March for Lives”. One person replied – hidden tweet, but I still saw the notification – that my opinion had been “bought and paid for” by the NRA.
And David Hogg said on Twitter last week, “Anyone who supports an NRA sellout is an NRA sellout”. Huh…
Someone who never receives money from the NRA is, by definition, not a “sellout” to the NRA. And it’s evidence of a major problem having to explain what a sellout actually is.
A sellout is someone who expresses a different opinion or takes a different action than they otherwise would in exchange for some form of consideration, typically money. A quick example would be if I were to suddenly become a staunch gun control advocate after receiving money from Michael Bloomberg.
Again, someone who does not receive money from the NRA, by definition, is not an “NRA sellout”. Nor can that person’s opinion be said to have been “bought and paid for” by the NRA. Because that person received no consideration in exchange for their opinion.
Same if a person already supports gun rights ahead of receiving any consideration from the NRA or any gun rights group. Because “selling out” means a change of action or opinion after receiving consideration. As a clear example, we can turn to the Simpsons and Season 9, episode 15 – “The Last Temptation of Krust”:
Contrary to Hogg, donating money to a person who supports gun rights doesn’t make you an “NRA sellout”. Donating money to or joining the NRA or another gun rights organization doesn’t make you an “NRA sellout”. Since the only way someone could be an “NRA sellout” is if they previously didn’t support gun rights and only started supporting gun rights after receiving money from the NRA.
And this isn’t just about the misuse of “sellout”, but also the belief among many on the left that the NRA owns and controls the opinions of gun rights advocates. And they don’t.
You were tried and convicted in an arms selling operation. Selling arms to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War in which we were supposed to be supporting Iraq, and then using the proceeds to fund Nicaraguan contras. While the selling arms part wasn’t your idea, you wrote a completely new plan that essentially made the entire thing from that point onward your responsibility. Selling arms to Iran directly, and diverting funds to Nicaragua in violation of the 1983 Boland Amendment.
And then you later tried to cover it up by destroying documents, getting your secretary to help you.
These are facts not in dispute.
Yes your convictions were later overturned due to the immunity Congress gave you for your testimony, which is why you weren’t sitting in prison. Unlike others involved who sat in jail until pardoned, a Christmas gift from George HW Bush in 1992.
The Iran-Contra Affair overshadows your decorations. Most who know anything about you know you only as the one who spearheaded what became, arguably, the largest international political scandal of the 20th Century. As a result the left and the media have been having a field day with this.
And while many say “we shouldn’t care what the left thinks”, bear in mind that nearly 19 out of every 20 gun owners are NOT NRA members, and your election as NRA president will keep that number very high. Because a significant portion of gun owners and Second Amendment supporters are libertarian or left-leaning, even “leftist”. The fact there are 100+ million gun owners in the United States should make that obvious. And there are only about… being generous… 5.5 million NRA members.
If you want to help the NRA, Mr North, resign. Your resignation as NRA president is really the only good thing you can do for the NRA right now. You should never have been chosen. Step down as NRA president and let the organization choose someone who doesn’t have your kind of history, your kind of infamy.
Let’s be realistic: optics matter, regardless of how much many might say they should not. And given the current situation in the wake of several high-profile shootings in the United States, there is much the NRA can do to improve how they are perceived. Which makes your election as NRA president all the more… surprising. It really makes me wonder if those with the voting authority at the NRA are not concerned or never considered the optics of this.
Upon learning of your election, I’ve actually considered canceling my only… 2-month old membership. And you being at the head of the organization is likely not going to bring many new people in, regardless of how fervently they support the Second Amendment. And many members may use your election as a reason to not renew or cancel. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the membership numbers in the coming months.
So respectfully, Mr North, please do what is best for the National Rifle Association and its members and tender your resignation.
Let’s flashback about three years to when I wrote a review on the Alien Gear Cloak Tuck 2.0. At the time, I said it was the best value holster available and the most comfortable of the ones I’ve personally tried. Otherwise, though, I said it wasn’t all that unique among the other hybrid IWB holsters available: it was a plastic, molded shell bolted to a backing. Price was really the only thing that set the Cloak Tuck apart, coming in well below the better-recognized brands.
And the holster wasn’t without its drawbacks. First was the exposed hardware on the back, but Alien Gear fixed that with the Cloak Tuck 3.0. But I also mentioned the hardware coming loose, something that was a continual battle because I… kept forgetting to put Loctite on the screws.
One of the features of the ShapeShift 4.0 holster, that is also on the Cloak Tuck 3.5, are belt clips that don’t attach with screws. So they shouldn’t come loose. So seeing as my wife needed a holster for her Taurus PT111 G2 (that we bought brand new at Cabela’s for only $200), I bought one for my Glock 19 as well.
As of this writing, I’ve been using the holster for about 3 months. Let’s start with what’s unique about this. From the product page:
To improve on the award-winning Cloak Tuck 3.0, the ShapeShift IWB Holster is designed with a single mounting point, allowing the holster base to flex and conform to your side.
The typical hybrid holster – the Cloak Tuck included – is a plastic shell molded to a specific firearm bolted to a backing, either held on with screws or riveted to it. The stretch around your body combined with the pressure of your belt gives the retention on the firearm – basically a friction fit. But it also causes the shell to collapse a little when the firearm is not in your holster – e.g. when at a legally-mandated gun-free zone like a US Post Office.
This can make holstering your firearm a little tricky if you’re not in such a position the plastic shell is at its loosest. Such as trying to holster your firearm while sitting in the driver’s seat of your vehicle. It’s the one thing I’ve never enjoyed about using similar hybrid IWB holsters. Or at least ones with a wide profile. I don’t recall having that issue with my MTAC holster, which has a much slimmer profile than the more popular IWB hoslters.
But this is where the ShapeShift stands out. It gives you an IWB holster that behaves like an OWB holster. Whether sitting in the driver’s seat or standing up at home, I’m able to holster and draw my firearm effortlessly. I don’t even really need to shift much to get the firearm back into the holster while sitting in the driver’s seat of my SUV.
The shell is half of what can be an OWB holster, part of the larger ShapeShift “system”, meaning it also completely covers the firearm like the MTAC holster. And Alien Gear gives you that other half as well with the IWB holster, so you can remove the shell from the backing and turn it into an OWB – some other accessories required, though the Starter Kit comes with everything to easily make it an OWB holster.
As described above from the product page, and shown above, the shell is attached to the backing only at the front side. This is a stark contrast from other IWB holsters, including the Cloak Tuck, which have bolts or screws around the entirety of the shell. This allows the shell to float free of the backing, meaning the shell isn’t deformed by being pulled around your body with the rest of the holster.
It also means friction force isn’t used to retain the firearm. Instead it relies on retention in the trigger guard, which can be tightened or loosened to make the draw as easy or difficult as you want.
And the floating shell is why I can holster my pistol effortlessly. As if I’m putting it into an OWB paddle holster on my belt. Regardless of whether I’m sitting in the front seat of my SUV or standing up and holstering my firearm before leaving for work. It’s as effortless in the former as in the latter. The shell’s shape is not determined by my position.
That is how IWBs should be. Why did no one think to do that before?
Now about the belt clips. Well there’s not really much to say. Again, from the product page:
Keeping this mantra in mind, the ShapeShift IWB Holster offers adjustable cant and ride height. Alien Gear Holsters made this possible with the invention of their unique, tool-less inside the waistband holster clips.
These clips remove the need for tools, eliminate the problem of loose screws and simplify the entire process of modifying cant and ride height.
To take them off, you rotate them so they are pointing completely down. This means they won’t come out when upright or nearly upright for attaching it to your belt. Which gives some peace of mind that you’re not going to take off the holster and find screws missing, or find one laying on the floor because it fell through your pant leg.
So… conclusions.
It’s currently going for 55.88 USD plus shipping. More expensive than the Cloak Tuck 3.0 and 3.5, but still less expensive than Crossbreed’s SuperTuck and White Hat’s offerings.
The value is definitely far greater than anything really anyone else offers. Alien Gear gives you the IWB holster as you’d expect, but also gives you the other side of the shell to make it into an OWB holster (again, additional accessories needed to use it).
Given my experience over the last few months with the Alien Gear, I don’t think I can praise it enough. The comfort is about the same as with the Cloak Tuck 2.0 I previously used without the frustration of the belt clip hardware just coming loose.
And it doesn’t collapse without your pistol, making holstering your pistol easy regardless of how you’re sitting or standing. Which looking back at the other holsters I’ve used, that is, again, how IWB holsters should be.
The Alien Gear ShapeShift 4.0 IWB holster just gets pretty much everything right. Again I’ve been using it for about three months, and I can’t think of… anything negative to say about it. A stark contrast from the negatives I could readily say about the Cloak Tuck 2.0 after only two weeks.
Note: Product images copyright Alien Gear Holsters, and used under the Fair Use provisions of 17 USC § 107 for the purposes of criticism and commentary.
It was only a matter of time before one of the popular YouTube content creators had a catastrophic failure similar to what my wife and I experienced about 4 years ago. To recap on that situation, a slight crack in the outlet thread on the CPU block allowed coolant to leak into the lid outside the O-ring, and eventually sprayed out onto the system components and catch fire.
Kyle from BitWit – previously AwesomeSauce Network – recently suffered a similar catastrophic failure in his system called “Hotline”:
Just from the thumbnail, you can tell the leak was far, far more extensive than what my wife’s system suffered. And the photos and B-roll footage in the video shows the coolant got everywhere – including onto the RAM.
Now there were several saving graces to this situation, as Kyle notes.
The mainboard is the ASUS Sabertooth X99 – the same mainboard in Mira. The “armor” on the mainboard is designed to pull heat off all the components while also better directing airflow across the power delivery around the CPU. It also sheltered those same power delivery components from spraying coolant.
Without that protection, the coolant could have created shorts between components on the mainboard. The fire risk cannot be understated, even with short-circuit protection in power supplies. The same with the GPUs. Speaking from personal experience on that one.
So how did this occur? And could it have been prevented?
Kyle said in his video that the leak came from the outlet on the graphics card bridge due to the tubing coming loose in the fitting and spraying coolant all over the place, even showing the cap on the hard tube compression fitting was also loose.
When using rigid tubing, the tubing must go into the fitting straight. 90° about dead on. And with PrimoChill’s Revolver fittings, that cap won’t go on easy unless the tubing in properly seated into the base at a near-90° angle. The cap should go on without any resistance and without any contact to the tubing while threading it down.
At the 3:02 mark on the video at the top of the article, you can see small cut marks in the tubing, where the cap for the Revolver fitting cut into the tubing as he tried to secure it. And you can more easily see as he pushes the tubing back into the fitting that the tubing was not sitting at a proper 90° in the fitting.
This alone means the tubing was at too steep an angle. And instead of the cap going easily and cleanly onto the fitting, it cut into the tubing. Kyle should have felt that resistance. But rather than taking it as a sign he needed to redo the tubing – likely because he didn’t want to – he instead forced the cap onto the fitting. Taking as a false sign that everything was fine when he finally was able to get the cap seated.
This is why I said in my article defending AlphaCool that you must double-check everything when making a custom water cooling loop. And when using rigid tubing and compression fittings, you need to look for those cut marks in the tubing. As those cut marks are an indication you didn’t do it right.
The resistance alone trying to secure the cap will also tell you the tubing is at too steep an angle. Again, that means you didn’t do something properly, and you need to redo it.
So what ultimately happened here, then?
In short, there was some springback with the other end of the tubing in the CPU block. Little by little, the tubing started to creep out of the fitting, with fluid pressure building inside the fitting the more it crept. The fluid pressure also enhanced any springback effect in the tubing. Eventually it came loose enough the fluid pressure could push it even more until it sprayed everywhere.
And in the end, not only did Kyle not properly bend the tubing, he also never took the system down for maintenance. He should have caught this by inspecting the loop, whether during a maintenance cycle a year ago or 6 months ago – or 5 minutes after he assembled everything and before adding the fluid. And if he did drain the loop for maintenance between now and the time he built it, he didn’t inspect anything – only drained, flushed, and put in new coolant.
* * * * *
One other thing to note before finishing this out. Some in the comments section to Kyle’s video said that he should’ve used LocTite on the fitting caps, after noting the cap was loose. DO NOT DO THAT. If you cannot unseat the cap on the fitting without unseating the fitting, the cap is too tight.
And LocTite ThreadLocker will make it impossible for you to disassemble the loop at a later time as it won’t allow you to get the cap off the fitting. One measure I found online estimated about 50 ft-lbs of torque just to break the bond, well beyond the definition of “hand tight”.
Meaning disassembly would require literally pulling your loop apart, or cutting the tubing. It also means you cannot reuse the fittings without risking destroying them trying to get the caps off.
* * * * *
To finish this out, I’ll reiterate what I said in a previous article…
To repeat, and repeat, and repeat, since it must always be said: custom water cooling has risks that you won’t find with AIOs and air cooling. And AIOs still have a risk you won’t find with air cooling. That’s just the nature of the beast. And if you decide to custom water cool your system, you must be open to accepting and accounting for that risk.
The very, very low risk involved provided you, again, take all proper precautions, starting with selecting quality parts.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is having its 2018 convention soon. Many are under the mistaken belief that firearms are not permitted during this year’s convention. According to the NRA’s FAQ page:
During the 2018 NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits, lawfully carried firearms will be permitted in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and the Omni Dallas Hotel in accordance with Texas law. When carrying your firearm remember to follow all federal, state, and local laws.
This is pursuant to the convention center’s policies. While Texas law does not prohibit concealed firearms at convention centers (see Texas Penal Code §§ 46.03 and 46.035), the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center does have this on their attendee FAQ:
Licensed handguns (both concealed carry and open carry) are permitted on premise, as allowed by state law, unless the type of event being held at the KBHCCD falls under an exception that would prohibit a person with a license to carry a handgun at the event. Any exceptions will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the Director and will be in accordance with state law.
And the venue can direct that any event not allow concealed firearms on the premises, per the FAQ page. And where the NRA has not allowed concealed firearms in the past, it has been due to the law (city or State) or venue request.
This year, though, the request is coming from higher up still.
The Vice President of the United States will be a speaker at the convention. As such, the United States Secret Service has assumed jurisdiction over the venue pursuant to 31 CFR § 408.1 as authorized by 18 USC § 1752. So the carry of any concealed weapon – not just firearms – is a violation of Federal law while the Secret Service is in charge.
What exactly is so difficult to understand about this? And why are gun control advocates acting like obeying Federal authorities is hypocrisy? It’s basically a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. They’re called hypocrites for obeying the Secret Service, yet if they said to ignore the Secret Service, the anti-gun left would respond with, in short, “But I thought you were law-abiding gun owners!”
Since when is it hypocrisy to obey law enforcement, especially the Secret Service in their duty to protect the Vice President of the United States, even if that means not carrying a firearm? Egad!
Self-described “gun industry insider” Jon Stokes penned an article for Politico expressing a simple idea: “federally issued license for simple possession of all semi-automatic firearms”. Not just semi-automatic rifles, which is the bane of all anti-gun advocates out there.
All semi-automatic firearms. This would basically mean needing a license to possess what most every gun owner already has: a semi-automatic pistol. Since every gun maker in the world makes them and there’s an enormous variety available.
This makes his scheme instantly unconstitutional given DC v. Heller, which asserted the individual right to keep and bear arms “in common use” – 554 US at 627.
While the author points out that the Assault Weapons Ban attempt is “emblematic of gun control proponents’ consistent failure to understand how gun technology and the gun market actually work in the 21st century”, the entire idea of a Federal license to possess the most common firearm classification in the world shows a misunderstanding of how rights are supposed to work.
The entire history of gun control in the United States is a slippery slope so tall it makes Mount Everest look like a pile of sand in a sandbox. So despite the initial limitation that it would apply to semi-automatic firearms – again, the most common classification of firearms in the world – it would eventually be applied to ALL firearms.
You cannot say honestly that it would not.
Currently there is no census of firearms owners as well. This licensing scheme would change that. While it wouldn’t create a gun registry, a gun owner registry is just as undesirable, and likely just as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment as it would be unconstitutional under the First to create a registry of or require licensure for journalists, or in any other way attempt to limit the legitimacy of certain types of media by definition of law.
You’re already in a ton of public and private databases that contain the most intimate details of your life. Everyone from Facebook to Google to Equifax to the Social Security Administration has a big, fat file on you.
This doesn’t justify the creation of yet another database of personal information. And it’s immaterial to the larger discussion.
Yes I’ve already got entries in numerous databases. There’s a big difference, though, between those systems and an ATF system that tracks firearm possession licenses. That is the singular objection that anyone proposing any similar idea must overcome, and the author fails to overcome it here. He instead just brings up the “well, so many other organizations already have your information”.
First private organizations may possess your information, but have severe limitations placed on how they can use that information under Federal and State laws and regulations.
And before the government can lawfully possess your information, they must have a legitimate reason for it. Like… taxation.
The Federal government has your information on file to enforce Federal taxation, in particular Federal income taxation. State tax authorities have that information for the same reason. That is why children are issued Social Security numbers from a very early age: that, or another tax authority identification number, are necessary to claim the child as a dependent to take advantage of certain tax deductions or credits, or claim certain other benefits under the law.
If you are a business owner, you know that you generally need a State sales tax permit as well. A permit to collect and remit State sales taxes. Imagine that! That permit, though, is actually a registration along with a tacit submission to the State’s audit authority as well. And that information is used to enforce taxation, specifically to make sure you are properly collecting sales taxes – the proper percentage, given State and local regulations, and on the proper items.
Your vehicle registration is the same way. So many anti-gun advocates talk about gun registration with “you have to register your car, too”. Yes, you register your car because you are required by State law to pay several classes of taxes on it, starting with property taxes. If the government was not taxing your vehicles, they’d have no reason to require registration.
That is why you receive a letter at the start of every calendar year from your county assessor’s office. And the same applies for marine craft, aircraft, and even livestock – if you’re in the business of raising and selling livestock, as opposed to merely owning a few horses, goats, etc., unconnected with any business operations. It’s also why there have been calls for property taxes on firearms and ammunition, as such would make firearm registration universal, despite the idea being unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, just as taxing paper and licensing journalists is unconstitutional under the First.
And public schools have information on the parents and attendant children for enforcement of the law. Education meeting certain minimum standards is mandatory in every State. So the government tracks certain information for proper enforcement of applicable laws, whether by public or private schooling or home schooling.
In other words the existence of car registration and other government databases of personal information isn’t in any way a limitation on any rights, but about proper exercise of a government’s legitimate powers such as, but not limited to, its taxing authority. Part of this includes a government database of those convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors, since those convictions are used as the basis for limiting rights and privileges under the law.
You wouldn’t need a license to own lots and lots of guns of different types under this scheme, either. You would just need a license to own semi-autos, just like you need a license to broadcast over certain parts of the public airways.
Oh dear God, not this argument again.
I’ll set aside that this is merely another way of saying “Since the Second Amendment isn’t unlimited, we can pass any gun restrictions we want (short of an outright ban), and they’re all perfectly reasonable because your rights aren’t unlimited.”
First of all, there aren’t many “different types” of firearms either. You have rifles, shotguns, and pistols. Semi-automatic is the only classification spanning across all three. Rifles can also be bolt action, lever action, breech load (though uncommon), or muzzle load. Shotguns can also be breech-load or pump action. And pistols can be muzzle load, breech load (e.g. Derringers), or revolvers.
Semi-automatic firearms are, say it with me, the most common firearm classification in the world. This means you’re talking about requiring licensing for more than 90% of firearm owners in the United States. Again, this is unconstitutional given DC v. Heller.
And do you know why broadcast licenses are necessary?
First and foremost, it’s to regulate (in other words, “make regular”) the public airwaves and prevent multiple broadcasters on the same frequency in the same general area. Anyone who has tried to setup a WiFi access point in an apartment building knows the difficulty here, since you have a set number of channels on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz band, so getting a reliable WiFi setup when you have apartments all around you also trying to use WiFi can be… interesting.
Imagine three broadcasters in an area – e.g. a country, pop, and hip-hop station – all trying to broadcast on the same frequency in your metro area. None would get through clearly unless you were close to an individual station’s broadcast antenna.
And part of that regulation is also about broadcast power. Your local radio and on-air television stations generate continuous high-power radio waves. Radio waves can generate interference with numerous devices. So the FCC regulates access to the public airwaves, and disallows use of certain radio frequencies, to minimize this interference to acceptable levels. Acceptable levels being that which electronics manufacturers can reasonably account for, control for, and protect against.
That is why you have the FCC Part 15 statement on virtually all electronic devices sold in the United States:
This device complies with part 15 of the FCC rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
As an example of the kind of cross-talk interference that can occur, back during the Cold War, the Soviet Union operated the Duga radar, a high-power (10MW) missile-launch detection system that operated by sending out a pulse at 10Hz in the shortwave radio bands. It was nicknamed the Russian Woodpecker. Quoting Wikipedia:
The random frequency hops disrupted legitimate broadcasts, amateur radio operations, oceanic commercial aviation communications, utility transmissions, and resulted in thousands of complaints by many countries worldwide. The signal became such a nuisance that some receivers such as amateur radios and televisions actually began including ‘Woodpecker Blankers’ in their circuit designs in an effort to filter out the interference.
There was also a group who tried jam the Woodpecker, called the Russian Woodpecker Hunting Club. The Duga radar has not been operational in about three decades as of when I write this.
The license to broadcast on the public airwaves isn’t a limitation on your free speech rights. It’s more akin to regulating traffic on a road. Only there are a lot more lanes and you’re granted exclusive use of one of those lanes in a general area. And the license is merely one additional layer on top of a speech medium with significant barriers to entry – the cost of the broadcast equipment, and the cost of powering and operating it, any licensing and costs associated with content, etc.
Plus the broadcast license is about regulating the airwaves, not regulating what’s on the airwaves. Though the FCC has come under fire for attempting to and actually doing the latter by threatening the licenses or instituting fines against broadcasters for violating certain “decency standards” – e.g. the Janet Jackson “nipple slip” that became the inspiration for creating YouTube.
The First Amendment, and much of the Bill of Rights, was inspired by actions of King George III and the British Parliament, including the Stamp Act of 1765 which literally taxed paper. A license to possess semi-automatic firearms, again the most common firearms classification in the world, is akin to a license to purchase and possess paper, or a license to create and operate a blog or Facebook page. And attempts to ban certain firearms is akin to banning books or implementing and enforcing “obscenity” laws.
And it is that which those who continually try to propose licensing schemes for firearms must acknowledge. You are talking about turning a constitutional right into a government-licensed privilege. This was demonstrated with Illinois wherein the State of Illinois revoked Travis Reinking’s firearms ownership license merely at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No Court order, of which I’m aware. No due process. Just merely a request from Federal law enforcement and suddenly Reinking was an illegal firearm possessor under the law.
In other words, licensure becomes a “kill switch” on a right unless there are safeguards in place wherein the license can only be suspended or revoked by court order, and only in response to proper adjudication in a Court of Law per the Fourteenth Amendment. And all licenses must be issued on a “shall issue” basis unless the person has been properly adjudicated in such a away as to legitimately deny them their Second Amendment rights. Meaning Illinois’s firearm licensure laws are, themselves, unconstitutional.
Unfortunately not even concealed carry permits carry such protection in most States. For example several years ago, James Yeager released a video online in which, expressing his frustration at the political climate and proposed gun control ideas, he said he might “start killing people”. Not long after that video was released, the State of Tennessee suspended his concealed carry permit.
No due process. No Court order. Just an arbitrary action by the government.
* * * * *
There is one objection the author does not address: the need to pay additional fees and navigate additional bureaucratic red tape to exercise a constitutional right. Along with the racial disparities in how laws are enforced. As has been pointed out time and time again, gun control laws are going to be disproportionately enforced against impoverished minorities for numerous reasons.
So taking on another level of fees to obtain a license to purchase and possess the most common firearm classification in the world will disproportionately affect minorities. Unlicensed possession of said firearms will likely be a felony, not a simple misdemeanor, meaning you risk locking more minorities up in jail on felony charges. Felony convictions come with numerous impairments both in law and society.
So this would basically set up a system that creates more crimes and criminals. That’s the opposite direction we should be going.
Plus as Elliot Rodger already showed, more gun control laws won’t stop mass shootings. Laws alone won’t stop mass shootings, as we saw with the Tennessee Waffle House shooting. Since laws don’t stop crimes from happening. Only prescribe consequences for said crimes after the fact, provided those crimes can be demonstrated to have occurred beyond reasonable doubt in a Court of Law.
Which is why it’s laughable that in response to an anti-gun objection to his proposal:
OK, but if we don’t have a gun registry and we do away with FFL transfers for license holders, then what’s to stop a license holder from selling a gun to a non-license holder?
he responded with this:
The law is what will stop them. As gun controllers are always fond of reminding people like me, criminalization is a deterrent.
It isn’t the deterrent it needs to be in order for such laws to be effective.
Most gun crimes are committed by one particular racial demographic in the United States. Yet gun control is only proposed when people – particularly children – of another demographic are targeted. So in many ways, the issue is very black and white, respectively.
Plus the continuous demand for more gun laws is tacit admission that all the other laws we currently have on the books – and there are a lot of them – haven’t done jack for violent crime, homicide, and suicide in the United States. And they largely have not, will not, and cannot.
I’ve shown that gun laws are not correlated with violent crimes. That looser gun laws doesn’t mean more violent crime, and it doesn’t mean less violent crime in general either. Same with that stronger gun laws don’t net less violent crime. But there is an exception wherein looser gun laws do mean less robberies in metropolitan areas. And stronger gun laws do not translate into lower suicide rates.
So this whole licensure idea, like the ideas of requiring gun owners have liability insurance, is just another idea intended on throwing more fees and bureaucratic red tape in front of the Second Amendment. And it will ultimately not do anything to curtail violent crime in the United States.
On April 14, 2018, I was driving south on I-35 through Olathe, KS, on the first leg of a road trip out to Las Vegas. That vacation didn’t quite go as planned – details on that later, based on if or how the situation is resolved. But on the drive out, freeway traffic was being its usual pain in the ass.
By that I mean you have a mix of some going a little above the limit, some going lower than the limit, some going lower than the limit who find it perfectly okay to pull in front of those going faster than the limit to get around those going only a little slower than they are… And unbeknownst at the moment, they were all trying to stay behind a Kansas Highway Patrol officer who was going 70 MPH.
The speed limit through the area was 65 MPH. I was trying to go 80 MPH.
Wanting to get around all of that, I tried to speed around the traffic, seeing the officer as I went along, eyeing the clearing ahead of the traffic. That’s when the officer pulled behind me and sped to match my speed. And promptly lit me up.
So after the initial statements about why I was being pulled over, I mentioned why I was speeding around him and everyone else, and he asked for my driver’s license. I had my hands in plain sight the entire time, as did my wife.
I replied by saying, “First I need to inform you that I do have a weapon.” This is not required under Kansas law, but I’ve said and will always say to volunteer that information up front anyway.
He said simply “Okay”. “How do you want to continue?” I asked in return. He asked if I had a concealed carry permit – not required in Kansas, but having it shows you’re serious about concealed carry – and I said I do.
“I’ll tell you what, you don’t show me yours, and I won’t show you mine.”
My wife and I had a good chuckle about that for the first few miles after the stop. And my wife posted about it to Facebook as well.
While I went for my license, he asked what I carry, which is a Glock 19, Gen 4. Didn’t mention ammo, but for those curious, I currently carry Federal Personal Defense HST 9mm 124gr. But the officer promptly showed approval of my pistol choice – wouldn’t expect anything less, given the Glock 19’s high popularity among officers for off-duty carry. I also have a Glock 23, Gen 4, but don’t carry it currently.
And if you carry a 1911, you’re not going to have this officer’s seal of approval on that one.
Four years ago, in late March 2014, I had my first attempt at a water-cooled system. Using my wife’s computer as the guinea pig.
About two months later, I posted pictures showcasing the aftermath of a failure in one of AlphaCool’s water blocks. And I’ve shown those pictures on other forums as one of the potential dangers of custom water cooling. Since then, my story has been used as a reason to not buy AlphaCool’s water cooling products. Or to not water cool at all.
In late 2016 on an Overclock.net thread, user Rockzzz said this:
I returned the item for a refund in the end, 3 days ago, because I’ve no trust : simply said, if there are no risks, as alphacool claims, alphacool should have no problem granting a real responsibility and warranty.
And there truely were more than “risks” in the past: http://www.kennethballard.com/?p=886 . It took this guy like 6 monthes to get the issue warranted and sorted out, and seeing the pictures he shew, damage seem pretty bad and obvious. Of course, there was no certainty for the disaster being caused by the cooler, and yeah, it does not say-it-all for the whole product line. But I’m not sure alphacool sells a lot all-in-all.
And later said this:
And they’re probably as much afraid of the insurance-fraud-guy as I am of the possible unreliability of their product line.
If they face a dishonest guy deliberately and slightly unscrewing a hose, just to get it leaking on the remains of his PC, then requesting a full RMA of his build, this becomes very annoying for them.
For what I’m concerned, yeah indeed, I won’t use watercooling until I’m in need of serious overclocking and until the PC-build-value/warranty is not a worry anymore.
This thread was about the AlphaCool Eisbaer expandable AIO. Which deviates significantly from the custom water loop that suffered catastrophic damage, with AlphaCool’s CPU block being the culprit as far as I could tell.
That said, let me make this clear: AlphaCool was in no way responsible for how long it took for me to resolve the issue. That fell entirely on the liability insurance company.
As such the only part in that situation where I fault AlphaCool is not informing me in advance they were handing it off to their liability insurance company. And I feel they did that to avoid making any statements to me that could be construed as admitting liability. Even mentioning that they’re handing it over could be interpreted as an admission of liability.
Prior to handing the case over, AlphaCool was stellar in their response. They seemed just as interested in finding out why one of their products failed in a catastrophic manner.
But once they handed it over to the insurance company, it was out of AlphaCool’s hands. Meaning their liability insurance carrier, Westfälische Provinzial Versicherung AG (Westphalia Provincial Insurance), bears full responsibility for the claim not being resolved in a more reasonable time frame. Especially since they initially claimed I used fittings that I never actually used, a fact claim made in contradiction of all evidence.
* * * * *
Custom water cooling is not without its risks. And at the time I published what happened, catastrophic failures were continually insinuated as a risk of water cooling, but virtually no one had shown one. And I changed that. Showing the pictures of the damage, describing what happened, and reporting on the progress of the claim and its final resolution.
Something that had been continually insinuated as a real risk of water cooling now had pictures to go with it.
But I posted all of that more to explain how to handle the situation, should it arise. Don’t panic. Take lots of pictures. Assess the extent of the damage. And, of utmost importance, keep calm and collected when writing e-mails. In my instance, I didn’t write any e-mails until several days later, after I’d fully assessed the situation and identified what hardware would need to be replaced.
Let me make this abundantly clear: the risk of that actually happening is very low. Arguably lower now than it was four years ago. Provided you take all the proper precautions, starting with picking quality parts. I even specifically said, when deciding to go with Koolance for the CPU block over going back to AlphaCool, that what happened was a “one in a million” chance.
The progression on Absinthe, now Amethyst, and other water-cooled builds including Beta Orionis and Desert Sapphire show that I did not let this one setback dissuade me entirely with AlphaCool. I’ve used several of their products without issue. Indeed the AlphaCool CPU block is the only AlphaCool product with which I’ve had any issue.
AlphaCool’s products have otherwise been a great value, overall. Their fittings tend to be much less expensive than the competition but still work very well.
Amethyst, the successor to Absinthe, has several AlphaCool products, all of which came from Absinthe and its predecessor. The D5 pump is AlphaCool branded, and the pump housing is AlphaCool. The 90° female-to-female G¼ fittings are all AlphaCool. As are the radiators: XT45 triple-120mm on the top, ST30 dual-120mm on the floor. Their radiators are some of the best performing radiators you can buy.
The AlphaCool CPU block was the only product of theirs that has ever presented any kind of problem. And as far as I’m aware, I am the only publicly-documented case of someone experiencing a catastrophic failure.
* * * * *
To repeat, and repeat, and repeat, since it must always be said: custom water cooling has risks that you won’t find with AIOs and air cooling. And AIOs still have a risk you won’t find with air cooling. That’s just the nature of the beast. And if you decide to custom water cool your system, you must be open to accepting and accounting for that risk.
Which, above all else, is what I intended to showcase: the risk involved. The very, very low risk involved provided you, again, take all proper precautions, starting with selecting quality parts.
In continuing the analysis of gun control laws and violent crime, let’s turn our attention to robbery rates. Source for the robbery rates comes from the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2016, Table 3. And this time I’m grouping the States by their grade from the Giffords anti-gun group for 2016.
Now the Giffords group gives States a letter grade, ranging from A to F. California is the only State with an A, and half the States (25) have an F rating. Numerically for any trend calculations, I substituted the letter grades for these numbers: A = 2, A- = 3, B+ = 4 … D- = 12, F = 13.
One of the leading arguments in favor of concealed carry and the right to bear arms is the ability to defend yourself and others. The idea of the shop keeper with a shotgun behind the counter, for example. And the carrier of a concealed weapon using that to deter a mugging on the street.
I’ve already shown that gun control laws largely do not affect violent crime overall. Robbery, however, is different.
For this analysis, I grouped together all States with similar letter grades into one grouping to eliminate situations wherein only one or two States had a particular grade. For example California is the only State with an A, so I grouped it with all States with an A- rating. This provided five groups.
Grade level
Median
Mean
Min
Max
A
100.4
106.9
69.6
171
B
108.4
102.7
51.1
142.7
C
69.6
86.1
36.6
215.6
D
74.6
74.8
32
110.5
F
80.2
72.1
10.1
131.5
Overall
79.5
81.95
10.1
215.6
That’s a pretty steady progression on the mean and minimum robbery rates based on grade level. As the gun laws loosen, the risk of being a robbery victim steadily goes down.
Now two things to point out. The 215.6 robbery rate – Nevada – is an obvious outlier looking at the data. Without it, the range goes up to 171, which is Maryland. But the overall mean and median don’t drop much: 78.8 and 79.2, respectively.
And then there’s the fact that A and B States do not have robbery rates going below 50.0 robberies per 100,000. The highest-graded State with a robbery rate below 50.0 is Iowa at 36.6 and graded at a C. And that’s the only State above a D with that low of a rate.
The States with the five highest robbery rates are Nevada (215.6, C-), Maryland (171, A-), Delaware (142.7, B-), California (139.6, A), and Illinois (139.3, B). The States with the five lowest robbery rates are all States scored at F: Wyoming (10.1), Idaho (12.7), Vermont (17.0), Maine (20), and North Dakota (23.9).
In short, you infringe on someones’ right to bear arms through onerous gun control laws, and you make the law abiding more likely to be robbery victims.
But this isn’t the end of the story. As I’ve pointed out before, the FBI further divides the violent crime rates – robbery included – by “Metropolitan Statistical Area”, “Cities outside metropolitan areas”, and “Nonmetropolitan counties”. Here the numbers definitely show that robbery is a metropolitan problem.
Cities outside metropolitan areas:
Grade level
Median
Mean
Min
Max
A
36.3
63.5
22.9
115.3
B
39.8
39.8
28.3
51.4
C
21.1
23.8
10.2
43.2
D
39.4
53.3
17.4
134.8
F
44.1
56.2
10.9
150.2
Overall
36.5
50.0
10.2
150.2
These States did not have data available for this: Hawaii (A-), New Jersey (A-), Rhode Island (B+), Delaware (B), Indiana (D-), and Arizona (F).
Not nearly as clean a progression here. The numbers show though that you’ll tend to have lower robbery rates in the States rated at C. For all other grades, it’s a mixed bag, though some D and F-rated States do have lower robbery rates than A and B-rated States, and the highest rates are seen with D and F-rated States.
Overall, though, it’s about all over the place. The R² score was 0.0078, meaning no inference can be drawn about how well a State is rated versus that State’s robbery rate.
The five (5) States with the highest robbery rates in this group for robbery rate are Georgia (F, 111.3), California (A, 115.3), North Carolina (D-, 134.8), Mississippi (F, 142.4), and South Carolina (F, 150.2). The five (5) States with the lowest robbery rates are Wisconsin (C-, 10.2), Wyoming (F, 10.9), Idaho (F, 12.5), Michigan (C, 13.1), and Utah (F, 14.8).
Note as well that all States with a robbery rate under 25.0 are all graded C+ or lower with the exception of Massachusetts, which is graded at an A-. Of all the States with a robbery rate that is below the average for “Cities outside metropolitan areas”, all but 4 are graded at C+ or lower.
Metropolitan Statistical Area:
Grade level
Median
Mean
Min
Max
A
100.4
111.8
77.9
174.2
B
113.0
108.0
51.0
154.9
C
85.0
100.7
52.3
235.8
D
86.5
90.1
39.2
137.8
F
94.2
90.7
15.1
211.5
Overall
93.3
96.6
15.1
235.8
Here the correlation seen from the combined rates in the first table are a little more prominent. On the average and minimum values, we see a clear downward progression as the grades go from A to F. The R² score 0.0222, which basically means while States graded lower have a tendency for lower robbery rates, there isn’t really any predictive value that can be garnered here. The most we can say is that States with looser gun laws tend to have lower robbery rates in their metro areas.
This is reflected by the fact the five (5) States with the lowest robbery rate in this category are all rated F: Idaho (15.1), Wyoming (16.7), Vermont (24.8), Maine (25.1), and North Dakota (36.6). Indeed 7 of the 8 States with the lowest robbery rates in this category are all rated F, with the loner being New Hampshire rated with a D.
The five (5) States with the highest robbery rates in this category are Illinois (B+, 154.9), New Mexico (F, 173.5), Maryland (A-, 174.3), Alaska (F, 211.5), and Nevada (C-, 235.8). California comes in at No. 8 when sorting States by their robbery rates in descending order.
Nonmetropolitan counties:
Grade level
Median
Mean
Min
Max
A
9.20
18.0
6.68
33.5
B
7.25
7.25
7.04
7.46
C
5.00
6.83
1.61
15.1
D
9.29
10.6
2.75
22.5
F
9.45
11.6
1.25
41.7
Overall
7.70
11.1
1.25
41.7
These States did not have data available for this: Massachusetts (A-), New Jersey (A-), Rhode Island (B+), Delaware (B), Idaho (F), and Arizona (F).
This is very similar to what was observed with the “Cities outside metropolitan areas” chart, with States rated at a C being the overall best States in this group. But the D and F-rated States again show a tendency to have lower robbery rates than A and B-rated States given the minimum values. The R² value is 0.0068 – virtually no predictive value. In part due to how infrequent robberies are in non-metro/rural areas.
The five States with the lowest robbery rates in this category are Wyoming (F, 1.25), Iowa (C, 1.61), South Dakota (F, 2.62), Nebraska (D, 2.75), and Minnesota (C+, 3.58). The five States with the highest robbery rates in this category are Florida (F, 24.4), Mississippi (F, 26.2), California (A, 33.0), Hawaii (A-, 33.6), and South Carolina (F, 41.7).
Cryptocurrencies have enjoyed much the focus over the last couple years – and especially over the last 12 months – with regard to distributed computing. When I first started “putting spare hardware to work”, my initial focus was not on cryptocurrencies, but volunteer distributed computing. I did get involved in Ethereum mining for a short while, but backed out of it in February due to it no longer really being worth it, and migrated the processing back over to volunteer distributed computing.
With many of the projects, however, it can be difficult to actually see whether a difference is being made. Many projects on the Berkeley network – BOINC – show that your computing is making a difference. Two projects in particular have shown me such results: GPUGrid and PrimeGrid.
In the user profile for GPUGrid is a small widget to the right called “Contribution to scientific publications”. And recently I discovered a credit:
I’ll spare the jargon from the paper and summarize with this. The research in question focused on the CXCL12 monomer. If you look that up on Wikipedia, and go to the sections on clinical significance, you’ll see two things of note: Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer’s Disease. The research in the paper centered more specifically around molecular simulations with that monomer as part of “fragment-based drug discovery“.
Where will that research go? I have no idea. But this is just one example of some of what is coming about due to distributed computing.
Along with GPUGrid, I also contribute to Folding@Home, with a pair of GTX 1060s that were previously used for Ethereum mining now contributing to that distributed computing network. Unfortunately there is no way to know to what research I’ve contributed through them.
But imagine what good could come if even a small portion of the computing power that goes toward cryptocurrency mining were instead turned toward Folding@Home or GPUGrid…
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