The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on October 8, 2005

It occurs to me that the supreme court decision allowing government to sieze private property for “the greater good”, even if that means to sell it to private developers easily lays the groundwork for socialized utilities. Think about it: if you can make a strong enough case that the State can do the job better than the free market, then the State could sieze the company, it's assets, etc., pay “fair value” for them (which isn't) and then take over all the operations of said industry.

If course, you'd have to make that case, first.

In other news, I'm getting much better at this shooting thing. I can actually hit stuff at 50' with reasonable consistency.

Now I just need a quality rifle. I had a conversation with an old, grizzled marine at the range today. He was trying to sell me an Italian Reproduction Single Action Army (a Mitchell). Quality gun, that he was letting go quite reasonably. The gun, a western holster, 500 rds of ammo, and a second cylinder so that it can fire .45LC or .45ACP. $600 asking, and I could have probably talked him down a bit. It had nice wood grips (which would have been okay by both Liz and I), but was nickel plated (which neither of us like; she likes case-hardened, I like blued or some other type of dark treatment). So, I passed on it, but it would have been a nice addition.

Anyway, the conversation went like this:
Me: Yeah, but I can't buy it because I'm saving up for an AK.
Him: Yeah, but this Michell is better than the AK.
M: Not at 100 Yds.
H: Well, if you're going down that road, why don't you want something to hit things out to 1,000 Yds?
M: Because M-1's and M-14's are expensive, and I can't even SEE that far.
H: (turning to one of the other guys) See, he knows.

Then we started talking about why M16's suck (the Marine agreed with me, but there were some strong M16 proponents). Basically, it came down to:
- John Browning and John Garand would beat the crap out of Eugene Stoner. They knew operating rods / gas pistons were the way to go, and even Stoner used them in later designs.
+ Yeah, but gas impingement works, it just gets dirtier faster.
- Yeah, but that's what's wrong with it!

Seriously, an M14 like this would be great. Problem is that they're like $1500. That's a quality AK ($750, for a VEPR K in 7.62×39, with a muzzle break and a folding stock (link) or $600 with the standard stock (link), which is probably what I'd do, considering that $150 is a lot to pay for a stock) and a pile of ammo for it (over 7,000 rounds, actually). Sure, the 7.62×39 doesn't have the “reach out and touch someone” aspect of the .308, but it also doesn't have the recoil, and it should be good out to about 200Yds. Even with a scope, I have a hard time with shots that are that long. I'm just not that good, quite frankly.

Category: LJ Import
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