I received a Streamlight Wedge (8810 Slim) as a gift the other day. I'd had my eye on them recently and was considering one for purchase. It looked handy and cool, so I let it grow on me. Friend of the blog Scooter McGee shared that he bought one and liked it. Lo and behold, my former partner gave me one. Immediately upon opening it I was impressed with the size, shape, and feel. This is the size of a large folding knife body or maybe two Sharpie pens thick. It is designed to fit in a MOLLE loop. It is too wide to clip into a standard shirt pocket holder, but fits a pant pocket. It fits a sap pocket for sure. The light is handy because it's flat. Normally I've carry a Streamlight Polytac C4 or an old school Surefire 6P. Round flashlights don't work well in pockets when sitting for obvious reasons and on the former, I'm not too keen about relying on the clip on a belt loop. So now the Wedge has immediately found a place in my EDC, which only got a flashlight included if I was going somewhere sketchy at night. The Wedge is the perfect shape and size to go into a pocket casually and inconspicuously, so I could even take it to a nice restaurant in decent clothes without a weird bulge. Honestly, last night I slipped in my pocket as my evening walk light. Went in and carried like an afterthought. This is what I'll be carrying around town and at night now, absent a need for a "real" flashlight. The Wedge is shaped somewhat ergonomically with a grip for the fingers on the "underside" and on the "top" a two-position knob/switch. There is a low-powered constant on position and a positive contact high power position. You can only hold the switch in the high power position for 35 seconds before it gets too hot and dims. It will allow you to simply release and re-initiate high power if needed. Scooter wished it had a momentary on button, but I found in either mode it was easy just to flip on and off so I think it's okay in that respect. Illumination for such a small light was great. The lens is smaller than a dime but illuminated the front door area of suburb-dark house adequately to take a photo with by iPhone (for OPSEC not positing it). I could identify any threats in the shadows and easily navigate or identify details. In my law enforcement days, I'd consider the light adequate in that situation. In a suburb-dark park, I got decent illumination outside, better than I thought I'd get. I do need to try it in a darker outdoors environment at a distance. However, indoors, at short range outdoors, and for adding illumination to a large open dark area, it was great to good enough. Again, I will use this as a primary EDC light and would feel comfortable with it as a LE backup light (I used my 6P during daytime and as a backup light to a Pelican 7060 LAPD flashlight or a Maglite). This is not a penlight. It's too bright and the lens too big for that. This is a real flashlight. I was happy about that. The shape and strength can also make it into an improvised bludgeon should you need to use it that way, although Streamlight wouldn't approve. It is USB-C rechargeable, so if you're like me and have hesitations about that, carry a second light and keep the Wedge charged. I don't anticipate using this light in critical situations where it isn't charged or I don't have a second light. If you're operating in the field where a charging brick or another electric source is, make sure you have a flashlight that has swappable batteries. Intellectually, I understand charging is not a big deal and I'm okay now having such a flashlight. Just note that the USB-C port is a new type of connector and you may not have a bunch of extra adaptors lying around. USB-C is great because it's omni-directional and a better standard all around. The package does come with a cord, but no outlet brick to plug it into. It's available on Amazon for like $85. Check out the specs. Springfield Armory introduced its LevAR; basically an AR charging handle with a fold-out right hand side contact surface to provide additional leverage. They claim it's for out-of-spec or substandard ammo (I'm looking at you Tula) that gets jammed in the chamber. Specifically, the honking lever allows you to go beast mode on the charging handle instead of mortaring your AR to clear a jammed cartridge. In my experience, this would never help me. Mortaring and simply firmly grabbing a decent aftermarket charging handle has worked or nothing would. Maybe if you don't have a nice AM handle with ambi or larger contact surfaces you might have an issue from time to time. Stoner and Sullivan's original handle isn't that great, but if they felt the gun needed this (along with the forward assist) they would have designed it that way. Thankfully, the Biden Administration cares a lot about shooters and recently banned Russian export ammo, meaning cheap, crappy steel cased Tula ammo is not long for our shelves. I've only experienced catastrophic jams I couldn't clear in the field with Tula (which I have forsaken shooting from an AR platform forever). Twice (I know, I know), I needed a 5mm rod, oil, and heating the chamber to bash the stuck case from the chamber by inserting the rod down the muzzle and banging away. The issue was that the extractor just couldn't hang on to the case. And if the extractor can't hold on, all the leverage in the world ain't gonna help. Anyhow, this is a solution in search of problem. If I were a millionaire, I'd buy one for the collection simply because the engineering is cool. Sadly, no way this is real. My reply says it all. Probably some Nigerian scammer. Oh how I wish it were an actual Australian cop to give them a ration of shit or that America had balls and sent the CIA to run guns and liberate Australia. Anyhow, see this video clip. Basically two douchebag criminals met up to "exchange" a gun that had already been used in two other shootings. Douchebaggery happened and a douchebag got shot. Gee, don't these two know that transferring possession of a gun is illegal without a background check? Why didn't our Bloomberg universal background check law stop this crime from happening? Sarcasm over, of course these criminals weren't deterred by the background check requirement. This is how guns used in gang crime often move; a "crime" gun changes hand from criminal to criminal. Criminals don't get background checks and background checks don't prevent crime. This situation is one of the few examples where a no background check transfer can actually be busted by the police...but only after the deed was done and a guy died. At least some other third party didn't get killed as I'm sure was the intent with handing off the gun. The crappy news article doesn't contain the details, but no word if the DA's office is charging anybody with violating the background check law (which would probably be plead away anyhow). In short the ACLU of New York argues that weapons restrictions near protests is a good thing. Leftist would say this because it disarms potential victims and keeps conservatives from "scaring" Antifa or whoever. The article is garbage and I'm not linking to it. Open carry is a protected form of speech. It's not popular speech though, because the message behind it is "Push us too far and we'll kill you." That's the intent of the Second Amendment. Californian cops and politicians really hated it when blacks did it in the late '60s so they banned loaded open carry. The Black Panthers had armed rallies to protest police brutality. Now the Panthers were scum, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a right to do that, and from the perspective of a black American at the time, yeah, using guns as symbolism against police brutality and discrimination was constitutional. Guns highlight the Second Amendment and the general preservation of rights, plus their inherent connection to American culture, making them part and parcel of a protest. As to whether guns are a good or bad idea; that's a different debate. Guns present at a protest can serve as a deterrent to those who might try to disperse or attack unpopular speech. I'd bet that's why the Panthers carried guns (to dissuade the police) and why guns are starting to show up at protests now. Washington state was so intimidated by right-wing people who might carry guns in public that they banned open carry near protests. Any lawyer worth his salt needs to attack that on a First Amendment basis. Weapon restrictions quashes freedom of speech. As we say, the Second Amendment protects all others. Look at Australia. You think cops would be behaving the way they are towards protestors if members of the crowd were armed? That can't happen in America without a lot of dead cops. Second, Kyle Rittenhouse would be dead if he weren't armed during that riot. We're seeing Antifa attack conservative events and protests and even murder right-wingers. Yeah, we need guns to safely express our opinions. No, concealed weapon regulations do not protect the right to free expression. Weapon restrictions only serve to disarm victims for leftists and ensure a monopoly of power to the left. Original LVRJ article for reference So Dina Titus sponsored a bill to ban bumpfire stocks and regulate them like machine guns under the National Firearms Act. I haven't bothered to read the text but either they will be effectively banned or people will have to register them and maybe pay a $200 tax. She is proposing this rehash of her 2017 bill written in the wake of the 2017 Mandalay Bay, I mean Route 91 Harvest Festival, or October 1 Shooting (whatever PC name we're calling it now) because of court rulings that are chipping away at the ATF's arbitrary reclassification of bumpfire stocks as machine guns. Donald Trump, instead of having a spine, wanted to make a "deal" and with the NRAs help went for the low hanging fruit of getting the ATF to effectively ban bumpfire stocks. To do this, the ATF had to abuse the definition of machine gun and their whole regulatory authority like an Afghan man does to a young boy's butthole. A military court and the 6th District Court of Appeals found that bumpfire stocks are not machine guns. No logical person would, only hoplopaths and politically motivated retards. Enter Dina Titus. So to remain politically relevant and get her name out there to appear she actually gives a shit about the retards, welfare queens, communists, illegals, and union employees that vote for her, she waved the bloody shirt of 10/01/2017. "We have to ban bump fire stocks because the courts might correctly interpret the law," she didn't say. This is asinine on so many levels. First, when the ATF "banned" them there was not some mass turn in of the tens to hundreds of thousands of them out there. Most of them are probably still out there hiding under beds, in closets, and buried in the yard. Making them more illegal through the bill process instead of bureaucratic witchcraft won't cause thousands of gun owners to turn them in. Given the fake election, the COVID bullshit, and the fact that Democrats are politely saying they really do want to subjugate half the country, no one with any balls is turning shit in. Second, machine guns are legal and should be more legal (like new manufacture and no NFA BS). 3D printing has made bumpfire stocks kinda redundant. You can print a lightning link and have a full-auto AR-15 that no one can stop. Heck, all you need is a coat hanger. Third, who's to say that the court system doesn't unfuck itself and rules that the National Firearms Act is unconstitutional? Or that in short order, the way things are going, citizens stop caring? So this bill is going nowhere and if it does, who cares? Bumpfire stock owners didn't seem to care before. And frankly, if the Democrats get the votes to pass this, they will be passing much worse and then they will have much more to worry about than this. In the end, this is a publicity stunt that idiots will fall for. Democracy simply doesn't work. So we're comparing the LVMPD murder stat sheet from 2020, specifically for justifiable homicides, against our tracking of defensive gun uses for the same year. We track publicized events, which almost always means the news media (papers and TV). Most defensive gun uses never result in a shot being fired, so reporting is rare. In fact, guns are used more times in self-defense than in crimes, but few people ever share their experiences, call the police, or report it to the media. The most conservative estimate is about 100,000-200,000 defensive gun uses a year nationally, vs. 100,000 or so combined murder, suicides, deaths, and injuries by gun. In Metro's jurisdiction (Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County) there were (per their report): 2020: 21 justifiable homicides 2019: 9 justifiable homicides. Remember a justifiable homicide is when someone is killed; this does not track defensive gun uses reported to police. Also: Metro's numbers may include officer involved shootings and non-gun justifiable homicides. We counted: 2020: 14 2019: 9 2018: 7 But the updated report pulled today show different totals: 2020: 27 2019: 15 2018: 23 Metro reported the following fatal officer involved shootings (all cleared by the DA as justifiable): 2020: 19 2019: 4 2018: 12 Those numbers don't match up. I'm not sure of the exact reason for the discrepancy but as more information is revealed over time the numbers can change (plus guns are only way to defend oneself). 2018's large variance? Aside from non-gun self-defense maybe I wasn't paying as close attention to the news as I would have liked or the stories didn't make the news. I tend to follow 2A news aggregator sites that find and post defensive gun uses to catch what I miss. Anyhow, it looks like as far as deaths are concerned, a fairly accurate gun justifiable homicide picture can be put together through just media reports. Again, murders exceed justifiable homicides because most defensive gun uses don't involve a shot being fired and murders by gun always do. The whole point of the Second Amendment is that the government cannot force you to do anything. Take a business for example. A business refuses to enforce a certain mandate. The health inspector comes to write a ticket. The business tax people suspend the license. Eventually, law enforcement will come to shut the business down or arrest people. In another vein, perhaps the police are called to pull a child out of the home because of a court order so the six year-old can become “transgender.” Or they want to arrest you for being in a political protest. Non-compliance has to be backed by resolute force. That you are willing to kill those that would “force” you into compliance. When they come to arrest or otherwise harm you, you kill whoever the government sent. Once you’ve killed enough, eventually they stop coming (to badly paraphrase Gen. Lemay). If a lot of people do this, then suddenly mandates aren’t enforced any longer because they can’t be because the enforcers won’t do it. I know a lot of would-be enforcers simply won’t get to that point, but others have to be dissuaded. That is why we have the Second Amendment (in part). Yes, non-compliance by force may cost you everything, including your life, but the whole philosophy behind the Second Amendment and the American way of life is that death is preferable to living on one’s knees. As far as exactly “when” to forcibly non-comply, I’d refer you to the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson articulated it very well. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. What does this mean in today’s context? When a very large number of honest, hard-working Americans are rendered destitute because they cannot work and shop and things look like Australia, then people will act. Historical examples show us that people don’t preemptively deal with problems ahead of time while they can suffer through because of the risks involved. This means that the suffering, and the consequences for failure, are greater earlier on.
Some will wait, some will not. I do not think we are at the tipping point, but I feel like the clock is at a minute to midnight. Sage advice on "what to do". This is what tyranny looks like. It's not about a vaccine, it's about complying with what the government wants you to do. A medical emergency has become an excuse for grabbing power. Review-Journal article Screw these cops and their lawsuit. I hope they lose big time and end up paying legal fees out of pocket for this suit. Even though I was a close relative of a nearby agency, I have no sympathy for these two anymore. Two LA County Deputies got shot by a piece of trash gang member with a Polymer80 weapon. Since P80s came out, criminals have been making DIY Glocks instead of stealing guns. Good for gun theft, bad for home assemblers and Polymer80. PLLCA doesn't apply to manufacturers like Polymer80. General product liability should. The problem is that scumbag hoplopaths are suing because the courts are unwilling to enforce the fact that companies are not liable for misuse of their products. My first instinct was that some shyster personal injury attorney got to the promising big bucks. Not so. Everytown is leading the suit. Which means their scumbags talked to the deputies and got them in as plaintiffs. Based on the area and the surnames of the officers, I'm betting they grew up in a community with a poor gun culture where only criminals and cops had guns. The idea that average citizens might want to be armed and have guns that can't be easily confiscated is foreign to them. That and getting shot makes them a ripe target for being plaintiffs. My long assumption and fear is that urban cops, particular minorities in heavily minority and Democratic Party controlled areas, will be the ones who are most anti-gun when Second Amendment totalitarianism and gun confiscation comes. Screw these cops and I'm sorry I ever felt bad for them. |
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