We haven’t had a TW3 post in a while, and this one is being posted a day late (and a dollar short, perhaps). But it was a good week for posts and for interaction. Here’s what we discussed, in case you missed it.
Here Be the Posts:
Sunday Night Football, our Sunday-we-ain’t-posting post, also explained the three posts we try to put up every weekday. Along with the gun technical post, the SF history and lore post, and the “whatever” post, we have some weekly and monthly features too, including the popular Assclown of the Ides shaming an SF or other military poser, on the 15th of the month, the Monthly Wrap-up, which isn’t always done (time, gentlemen) and two weekly features (apart from this weekly wrap), the Wednesday Weapons Website of the Week and the Saturday Matinee movie review, which tries to bring you a movie with, well, lots of guns and/or unconventional warfare.
Ten Years Ago…, we told you, you could barely give away the Colt scopes that fit the carrying handle of an old AR-15 or M16A1. Now, we see one on GunBroker with a buy-it-now of one thousand dollars. But maybe we’re premature to dig through the blueprints for our time machine plans, because with one day still to go, no one has yet bid.
Where this brotherhood began is a story we lifted in toto from the US Army Special Operations Command feed, because it was an irresistible human interest story. It told how a young Bolivian soldier was impressed with the Spanish-speaking sergeants who came to his country to train his unit. He never forgot, and much later, as a member of the same Special Forces Group that had once trained him, the now-American soldier trains his counterparts in Latin America.
Cop Caps Cop who Cuckolded him, then Self. Title pretty much tells the story. Not a responsible use of firearms. Better to apply divorce lawyer in a case like this; it’s also therapeutic to go cuckold some other guy. Preferably not one who carries a gun 24/7 and has anger management problems.
Nerf: The gateway to violence? Seriously? takes the clue-by-four to a Catholic priest who seems to think the gangbangers that turned his Chicago parish into an abbatoir did so because they played with Nerf guns. It can’t have been because they were raised by child addict mothers in an environment where a space alien would see so few fathers he’d assume humans reproduce by parthenogenesis.
Veterans’ Support Organization — a scam? answers its titular question in the affirmative. Some “non-profits” exist so their staffers can do well by doing good, and some exist so that their staffers can do well by pretending to do good. How about conditioning no-tax status on paying no more than $100k salary and benefits to any one staffer, and $200k to any one family? But those non-profits that overcompensate their execs give a bad name to the other two percent. Read the comments, too.
Fearless Felix has a flawless jump. Red Bull Stratos’s Felix Baumgartner, backed by an all-star team of technicians and experts, made a 71,000 plus foot jump from a helium balloon, wearing a pressure suit. He means to break Joe Kittinger’s 1960 record. Joe Kittinger (who is 83) is helping him. Video at the link.
When one .45 just isn’t enough gun, Arsenal will happily sell you a double-barrel, double-magazine Siamese-twin .45. If that won’t handle your threat, better take off and nuke it from orbit. That’s the only way to be sure.
Lights, Camera… Amphibious Assault. The USMC’s goosebump-inducing recruiting video. Serving in the Army can be just as cool, but you’d never know it from Big Green’s soporific beige ads.
These Guns Can’t Shoot, but… they look cool, hanging on pegs in the arms room or onboard this New Zealand company’s replica World War I fighter planes. Wednesday Weapons Website of the Week.
Ignorance is His Excuse. We list a few audacious operations that our alleged foreign-policy expert Vice President never heard of. “Wait, we fought Japan? Who won?” Actually, listing these ops out makes us want to add a feature about Great Special Operations of History, concentrating on unsung ones. Interested?
For the kid who has everything: 1911 XRB. It’s a handmade, exotic-wood rubber band gun. Unfortunately, we did correspond wit the guy who makes them, and our attempt to buy one has gone nowhere so far.
What are the odds on hostage rescue? We look at some hostage rescues in recent history, doing the math that fellow SF vet Jack Murphy over at SOFREP hasn’t done (but using his data shamelessly).
Chainsaw Suicide: Let’s Blame Guns. One of the more ridiculous things to come out of some idjit professor’s mouth, which is saying a lot.
Safety Update. Early on we covered the sad story of a hunter who accidentally wounded his neighbor. We update you on her progress… she’s still in rough shape, but she’s home, and it could be a lot worse.
Machines Making Machines: Inside a SiG Factory takes you along on a SIG-Sauer P226 (and other pistol) production line in Germany. Yes, the title was stolen from Rossum’s Universal Robots.
Can You Help an SF Widow and Extended Family? Pretty straightforward question about a family that has faced unimaginable loss. Please follow the links and do a good deed if you can.
SFO Sheriff: Don’t Do as I Do, Do as I Say. That’s a pretty common theme in law enforcement circles, but it’s pretty bad when a guy who beat his wife black and blue walks out of a courtroom with a 1-day sentence, his guns given back, and struts back onto his job as the local chief law enforcement officer. He says you shouldn’t have a gun because you can’t control your temper. But he’s a unique and special snowflake.
She was fine(d) when they caught up with her… Hot tip: it’s probably not a good idea to apply for a gun permit if you’re a criminal. They actually do check that stuff you put on the form.
Saturday Matinee 012 (er,Sunday?): 1911. We look at a rare movie (in the USA at least) with Jackie Chan as serious as a heart attack. If you can only follow the convoluted plot, you can learn a bunch about the Chinese Revolution. But the battle scenes are good. Chan & two Broomhandles is a screen full of awesome.
That Was the Week that Was: 2012 Week 12. Which is this post you are reading. So this is a silly recursive link. But that’s how we roll.
Boring weekly statistics:
21 posts, 16 substantive comments, 11,413 words (approximately). About average on the numbers. However, that long post borrowed in toto from a military PR feed really inflated our word count. But it was such a good story we had to share it with you.