Tour d’Horizon is more honestly a tour of open tabs that have been annoying and irritating us.

Guns

I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on my gun all day.

For the Man Who Would Be Boris

If you know who we mean, you’ll get it. If you don’t, you won’t. In any event, here’s a rare HK 21 parts kit for sale on GunBroker.

It’s a lot of money (opening bid $7k), but that’s the going price for these kits, with barrel, for anybody that is burning to build one or have one built as a semi or post-86 sample. (The seller is a reader and commenter here who doesn’t know we’re going to plug his ad).

Guns that Stink: Armitage Skorpion Scarab

This same junker was made as the Leinad Skorpion; Leinad was one of the many iterations of the MAC-10 maker Daniel / SWD / Cobray. These guns used AK-like fire control and MAC-10 9mm polymer magazines, and… well, watch Ian successfully get a string of three shots out of one, twice, which is probably the world record.

It just goes to show that you can copy the look of a firearm but that doesn’t guarantee that you copied what made it work. We don’t know who designed this, but we bet he lacks the qualifications of the team of engineers that did the original vz. 61 Škorpion.

Brownells Has Zenith Licensed HK Roller Clones in Stock

The headline basically tells the story, but Brownells has the Turkish-made pistols in clones of the MP-5, MP-5k (shown, left), and HK33, ready to be SBR’d if you roll that way, or with a “pistol brace” which is also available separately. This link has the video announcement and links to the firearms and some accessories.

Even though the Zenith firearms are HK copies, they’re getting some nearly-as-stiff-as-HK prices for them: $1,500-2,000.  What’s the Turkish for “Because you suck. And we hate you“?

Where are Winchesters Made?

Not in New Haven any more. That plant closed over 10 years ago. They’re made in FN plants in Belgium, Portugal and South Carolina, and by a contract manufacturer in Japan.

Gun Stocks update

Anyway you want it: we have the table, our analysis, and the popular chart.

Gun Stocks since the Election
Week Ending	RGR	SWHC	AOBC	VSTO
11/8/16 (pre-election)	64.40	28.45		38.94
11/18/16	53.20	24.13		40.02
11/25/16	52.50	23.82		41.05
12/2/16	50.25	21.10		39.66
12/9/16	51.90	21.07		38.62
12/16/16	53.45	21.59		36.81
12/23/16	54.05	22.11		38.03
12/30/16	52.70	21.08		36.90
1/6/17	54.15		21.00	38.08
1/13/17	51.35		20.60	28.70
1/20/17	50.65		20.13	27.78
1/27/17	51.90		20.58	28.33
2/3/17	50.05		20.12	26.18
2/10/17	50.15		21.08	21.58
2/17/17	49.70		19.22	20.89
2/24/17	49.85		19.45	20.72
3/3/17	48.75		18.83	20.47
3/10/17	52.00		19.51	20.72

We’re all up a little this week, with RGR recovering to January prices, Smith (AOBC) showing a sharp change of direction (or, perhaps, volatility), and Vista regressing a little.

Here’s a second graph, with one more gun-related stock: Olin Corporation (OLN), a conglomerate that manufactured Winchester ammunition. It’s the only stock that’s really been moving in the same direction as the major market indices during this period, and it’s probably lagging them a little.

Disclaimer: Your Humble Blogger holds RGR, bought at about 56.40 on 9 Nov 16. It bottomed in the 40s later that day before rebounding a little by close, but it is taking its sweet time recovering.

Shorts

• Ever wonder what’s the significance of the three arrows in the Beretta logo?
• Setting up a gun room? Check out this display system.

Gun Poly-Ticks

4th Circuit Spreads Cheeks, Inserts Heads of a 3-Judge Panel

Alexandria Kinkaid in Recoil latches on to a brain-dead appeals court opinion, which ruled that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t apply to weapons that have a military application(!) and beats the court like a rented mule. We started to read the opinion but didn’t have the patience, unlike Kinkaid. So we missed this bit, that she found:

The opinion even mentions that the SIG SAUER MCX used by the terrorist in the Orland nightclub was “developed at the request of our Army’s special forces and is known in some military circles as the ‘Black Mamba.’”

That’s completely false, and one wonders just which wormy law clerk found it wriggling in the stains in his shorts. No, the MCX was not developed for Army Special Forces, and no, the Special Forces that didn’t develop it don’t call it the “Black Mamba,” either.

Usually, we expect Dan Rather to just make $#!+ up, not the freaking judges 4th Circuit Court of Freaking Appeals. (No doubt, some appellate lawyer will chime in to tell us that, naw, appellate judges make $#!+ up all the time. Sic semper all illusions).

Confiscation Failed? Double Down on Confiscation!

That’s the approach that Australian Justice Minister Michael Keenan is taking, offering an amnesty in hopes that some of the guns they didn’t successfully confiscate when they banned semi-auto rifles and shotguns (and pump shotguns) in 1996 will get confiscated this time.

This will be the 42nd Amnesty since 1987, the preceding 41 of which have confiscated altogether 1.1 million firearms. How’s it working? It isn’t:

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice reviewed the available research on Australia’s NFA firearm confiscation program and issued a memorandum that concluded that the effort had no effect on crime generally. In coming to this determination, the memorandum cited work from University of Maryland Professor Peter Reuter and Jenny Mouzos, aptly titled, “Australia: A Massive Buyback of Low-Risk Guns.” The NIJ memo made clear that the researchers “found no effect on crime.”

Keenan admits that he isn’t expecting to confiscate criminals’ guns, anyway. What is he hoping to confiscate? “Old family heirlooms,” he told the Sunday Mail.  Why? The Mail explains in a subhead: “Fears of a rising gun culture.” Goodness gracious, can’t have that.

NPR Appalled that Minnesotans Plan on Self Defense

A shocked tone goes well with this Minnesota NPR report that the 70,000-plus permits issued in 2016 were 60% more than 2015’s. Since they are Narodniy Politicheskiy Radio, they look only for political angles, and never consider the possibility that both self-defense and shooting sports are increasing in popularity.

Minnesota has only issued permits since 2003. Prior to that, defensive carry was forbidden.

They report that 1,500 permit holders (presumably who got their first permit in all years) committed a crime in 2016, but go on to admit that 1,200 of the crimes were DUIs or other traffic offenses. (The other 300 crimes would be a slow weekend among the vibrant and diverse non-permit-holders in the Twin Cities).

It must be a miserable time to be a minion of NPR.

Usage and Employment

 The hardware takes you only half way. Nothing this week. 

Cops ‘n’ Crims

Cops bein’ cops, crims bein’ crims. The endless Tom and Jerry show of crime and (sometimes instantaneous) punishment. Lots of Cop Was a Crim this week.

Sure, we Need More Moslem Refugees

They’re working out so well in Germany, Sweden, and now, England!

Ismael Omer, 32, preyed on the ‘clearly drunk’ woman when he saw her stranded at a bus stop after a night out in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, in August last year.

Omer persuaded the ‘naive’ victim she was safe with him and took her to his nearby home in Notting Hill.

Once there she realised ‘something was wrong’ but was powerless he forced himself on her in a cramped basement room said to be ‘little more than a cupboard’.

Yep, a “refugee” seeking asylum, from Iraq. Coming soon to a city near you, if the refugee resettlement “non-profits” can make enough coin out of it.

ATF Agents Celebrate Waco Anniversary

It took a while, but, yeah. That’s like the Japanese celebrating the mothers throwing their babies off cliffs on Okinawa. Which the Japanese don’t do.

Most outrageous statement: “We thought it was a humanitarian action.” And yet, your plan was to initiate by shooting the dogs. 

And then when it went nonlinear the bosses who planned the raid shredded all copies of the plan, and took the fifth. And they faced no consequences, unlike the poor bastards that unquestioningly followed the plan.

Is there any real rival to this, for the title of “most incompetent operation in the history of Federal law enforcement”? Maybe, the Boston Field Office of the FBI getting completely turned by their informants? (Remember, ATF didn’t set the fire and shoot the fleeing kids. FBI owns that one. But they wouldn’t have gotten it if ATF hadn’t been grandstanding for a budget boost).

The Perils of Kathleen: Trivia

Not many real developments this week, just people still bloviating over old news about the former Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and current felon, Kathleen Kane.

• Item 10 Mar: “My mind is permanently scarred from seeing Kane in handcuffs,” a jaded Keystone Stater wrote to the editor.
• Item 10 Feb: Kane Victim Not Honored. Philadelphia prosecutor Patrick Blessington, who was one of the staff attacked by Kane for receiving crude memes and “offensive” emails, came this close to being honored by the Philadelphia City Council. But Kane’s attack on Blessington as “anti-woman” was sufficiently sticky for the 15 formerly-Kane-supporting Democrats on the 17-member Council to can the routine resolution.  wait — it gets better. The Councilman who tried to honor Blessington, David Oh, is a veteran, but one who’s taken a beating in the news. Oh served honorably as a trainee and possibly as a non-qualified support guy in a Guard SF unit, but later got busted for overstating his record.

Well, even as the clock is running down on her long-shot appeal, and she’s reading how-tos on accessorizing an orange jumpsuit, Kane continues to exercise an outsized influence in Pennsylvania. All negative.

Unconventional (and current) Warfare

What goes on in the battlezones of the world — and preparation of the future battlefields. 

Army Reinvents the Jungle Boot

And proves that it still has CENTCOM on the brain, by making it in Desert Tan.

Here’s what the innards look like:

Details in this story at Army.mil.

Det A / PSSE Book

Yeah, we can say “PSSE” now, and it’s not classified any more. And the men of Det A have been honored. Now, there will be a book; the Daily Mail has some high points. The author is a longtime veteran of the element.

Note to our seagoing brothers: dear Frogs, this is how it’s done. First they declassify the $#!+, and then you write the book. Thanks for listening.

Thanks to the reader who tipped us via email.

Shorts

• A former CIA officer complains in Politico that the agency has “forgotten the art of spying.” We dunno… they seem to be doing okay against their main enemy, President Trump. But in her callow youth, she forgets that the CIA has, frankly, stumbled at spying since Stansfield Turner devastated the Clandestine Service, and a life of butt-kissing (and leaking!) in HQ became the ticket to rise.
• Jim Mattis has locked horns with the White House already on two possible appointments to DOD positions: the dreadful Michele Fluornoy (this one’s been blocked) and the even worse Ann Patterson. No, she’s really bad. Like terrible. Patterson supports the Moslem Brotherhood, and supported them beyond her rights and privileges as a diplomat in Cairo. Seriously, the MB has enough fans among the anti-Semites at State, we don’t need them in DOD, too.

Veterans’ Issues

Is it time to o disband this thing yet, and letting all its bloatoverhead seek its own level in the Dreaded Private Sector™?  Just shorts this week, or we’d never get the post up….

Farewell, Old Comrade

Here’s two pictures of USAF sergeant Kyle Smith, now stationed at Fort Bliss, and his former MWD partner Bodza. Kyle adopted Bodza when the dog retired in 2014, but had to euthanize his fellow Air Force veteran. (Autoplay video at the link, but it’s an interview with Smith).

Another handler draped the flag on Bodza, and then captured the picture of Smith’s farewell hug.

Naturally, Psychology Today has to pick this scab and explain why it hurts to lose a dog. And naturally, being Psychology Today, they have to explain it in entirely materialistic terms, in keeping with their eponymous pseudoscience.

It probably needs no introduction to this crowd, but Kipling wrote a verse about this kind of thing. Here is The Power of the Dog, from 1922, given a heartfelt reading. (No, the dog in this still isn’t Bodza… just a distant cousin, we guess).

RIP, Bodza. Who’s a good boy?

Shorts

• Item 10 Mar: Veterans’ Choice Extension Sought by VA head Dr David Shulkin. The program’s previous authorization sunsets in August. Congress is expected to pass the extension. VA bureaucrats have slow-walked Choice, which lets vets go to non-VA providers. “It’s easier to get gold out of Fort Knox that medical records out of the VA,” one frustrated veterans’ service organization spokesman says at the link.
• Item 10 Mar: Bogus Barber College Boss to Prison in Virginia for defrauding the VA out of education money, while not preparing his students to take the barber exam. William Grobes IV will be in Club Fed for over five years; his wife’s sentence is pending.
• Item 8 Mar: 39 State Veterans Affairs Employees Suspended or otherwise disciplined in Pennsylvania for some kind of criminal activity, but the union has prevented them from being fired. Nice to see that states can treat vets as badly as the Feds, and are similarly staffed with unfireable nogoodniks.

Is it time to disband this thing yet?

Health & Fitness

Nothing new. 

Lord Love a Duck!

The weird and wonderful (or creepy) that we didn’t otherwise get to.

Music to Clean CZs By

Not everything great from Bohemia and Moravia goes “bang.” Here are the symphonies of Josef Mysliveček, who was a great friend of a composer you have heard of, Wolfgang Amdeus Mozart.

Sure, Mysliveček was an Austrian citizen, like his buddy Mozart, but he was a proud Bohemian (Czech), and was actually known during a residence in Italy as “The Bohemian,” because Italians had a hard time pronouncing his name.

We actually like his concerti better. Here’s a favorite, the cello concerto in C Major; no wonder Mozart liked and respected him.

Just a reminder that Czech music didn’t start with Bedřich Smetana, or end with Antonín Dvořák.