Divemedic

Rifle Projects

Thanks to everyone that posted comments to my request for proposed ideas for my next rifle project. I want to take a minute and point out that this is for a build project. Thanks for some of your thoughts on buying M1As, SCARs, or LaRue rifles, but I am not looking for suggestions on BUYING a factory made rifle.

I am building one using what was an 80 percent lower*. I have a number of lowers that have been machined already, and are thus already legally owned firearms. They are waiting to be outfitted with parts and accessories. Building rifles has become a bit of a hobby in itself. Here are the posts on my last build:

This will result in an off paper, one of a kind rifle that I built myself. Since this is a build on an AR10 receiver, I am looking at a Faxon barrel and a good scope. Trying to play with some other pieces/parts to get a 2 MOA rifle. The last build is hitting 4 MOA with factory ammo. Maybe I can get 2 MOA with the one I have, if I get some better ammo. My direct supervisor at work is a precision shooter that builds his own rifles and handloads. He is hitting 4 inch groups at 700 yards and has said he will give me some of his hand rolled .308 to try out. That should tell me if it’s an ammo issue.

*Note to the fellas at the ATF: This was an 80 percent lower that was purchased and machined prior to you changing the law. As of the date that you passed the ban on homemade lowers, this was already legally a firearm, according to your own definitions. Since ex post facto laws can’t be made and they were legal to create at the time, I am within the law.

So don’t even think about killing my dog, my son, or shooting my wife in the face. Likewise, please don’t come and set fire to my house with everyone inside.

By Divemedic, ago

Legal (not Justice) System

Imagine that you are convicted of a crime that you didn’t commit and then sentenced to life in prison. Twenty years after your conviction, changing technology makes new ways of analyzing evidence possible, proving your innocence. The DA for the state still, knowing that you are innocent, manages to use the legal system to keep you in prison for another decade. He even does so far as to hide the fact that the only witness in the case had died.

Mr. Lott tried vacate his conviction in 2018 based on exonerating DNA results, but former District Attorney Paul Smith opposed the motion. Instead, on the eve of Mr. Lott’s evidentiary hearing, the DA offered only to modify Mr. Lott’s sentence, which would have released him from prison but kept the conviction on his record. Mr. Lott accepted the agreement on July 9, 2018. In doing so, Mr. Lott was freed after spending 35 years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit- with 10 of those years being served AFTER the legal system knew that he didn’t commit the crime. That’s a legal system, not a justice system.

“Former District Attorney Smith’s opposition to the irrefutable evidence of Mr. Lott’s innocence was a blatant miscarriage of justice,” said Barry Scheck, Innocence Project’s co-founder and special counsel. “This unwillingness to acknowledge the truth in addition to the systemic factors at play in Mr. Lott’s wrongful conviction cost him 35 precious years — and have plagued other wrongful conviction cases in Ada for decades.”

It’s cases like this that force me to oppose the death penalty. The cops, the prosecutor, the judges, they all work for the same employer. It is virtually certain that some people have been executed for crimes that they didn’t commit. If we as a society execute one innocent person, we are all collectively guilty of murder. That is why I remain opposed to the death penalty- the system is flawed, designed to reward those employees of the government for convicting people of crimes, whether or not the convicted person actually committed them.

In this case, they took his life from him, or at least the part that counts, nearly as certainly as if they had killed him.

By Divemedic, ago

Looking

Looking at my next rifle upgrade. I am thinking about an AR10 with this scope on it. I would like to be able to hit a 10″ circle consistently from 500 yards or more with factory ammo. My last AR10 project resulted in what I call a lightweight skirmish rifle. This rifle shoots 4″ groups at 100 yards with factory ammo.

This time I want something that can get reliable, accurate hits from distance while still being something that you can carry in the field. I need to double the accuracy with this new build, meaning 2″ groups at 100 yards, to get 10″ at 500 yards.

Opinions? Thoughts?

By Divemedic, ago

War is Ugly

There are many who are horrified at what has been happening in Israel. How could anyone kill women and children, they ask. Everyone who asks that doesn’t understand warfare. For too long in the west, people have viewed war as if it were some kind of sporting event where a score is kept and there is a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’. That isn’t how reality works.

In war, there are no rules. There are no good guys or even bad guys. There is simply your people, opposed by their people. The winners are both the ones who are left, and the ones who get to write the historical account of what happened. That’s why the bad guys never win the war, because they are the ones who get to write the history books.

The conflict in Israel is a complex one. I try to put myself in the mind of both sides, and this is how I view it:

On the one hand, you have the Palestinians who think that Israel is sitting on stolen land. Imagine if one day, a group of people was resettled on your land, and you were told that you just had to live with it. On the other side, you have the Israelis, who think that they are fighting against animals that are killing their children. Depending on your perspective, they are both right. And both wrong. It’s a war, and war is like that.

As far as killing noncombatants, that’s how war works. The side that is willing to be the most violent is the one that will win. This applies to us here in the US as well. Imagine the coming conflict here in this country. Do you think for a moment that the left would hesitate to kill you and your kids? Would they use DCF to take your children away from you, simply because of your political beliefs? If you say no, look at these two photos and tell me if you still believe that.

War is an ugly business. The supposed rule that noncombatants are off limits is nonsense. Ask the residents of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nanking, or the Confederate populations that were starved and killed in the first civil war. You either have the fortitude to use every tool, tactic, and weapon at your disposal, or you take the chance of losing when the other side doesn’t follow the rules that you have decided to hamstring yourself with.

War isn’t a sporting event with rules, referees, and a scorekeeper. It’s a bloody fight for survival. The side that is willing to do whatever it takes to win is the side that has an advantage. That is why war is not to be entered into lightly. We here in this country have been the exception- war hasn’t come to our shores in more than a century. That is about to change.

What are you willing to do in order to defend yourself and your family. Think about it now, so you will know the answer when the time comes to either do what needs to be done, or calmly climb into the boxcars to be reeducated.

By Divemedic, ago

Nursing

A little known fact outside of the nursing profession is that there is a lot of infighting and mudslinging in the nursing field. Nurses who work in different areas of the hospital have this “circle the wagons” mentality.

Each of the units in the hospital views themselves as being better than the rest: surgical, endoscopy, the ICU, all of them.

The medical floor is where many nurses get their start, and it is viewed as one of the areas of the hospital that require the lowest level of skill and proficiency. It’s for this reason that they struggle to be respected by other units.

Labor and delivery are seen by most of the hospital as simply wanting to play with babies. The ICU are seen as the neat freaks, the ones who have OCD and simply MUST have everything perfectly in place.

However, there is one almost universal truth- the Emergency department is seen as being the cowboys. They aren’t as methodical, often improvising, adapting, and overcoming obstacles with little regard for tradition or propriety in their quest to stabilize patients. That’s why this is funny:

To say that some nurses simply HATE nurses in the emergency department is an understatement. An even larger sin amongst those particular nurses is to have begun your career as a paramedic. The nurses who dislike the RNs in the ED reserve an all new level of hate for nurses who used to be paramedics. They (paramedics) are viewed by these nurses as being knuckle-dragging Neanderthals’ who have no business in a hospital.

The odd part is that many nurses (25% to 80%) in the ED originally started their careers as paramedics. It’s a natural progression for them, because the same skills that make them good paramedics also make them good nurses. These former medics are known as great critical thinkers, improvisers, and they usually excel at starting IV lines that other nurses can’t get. Beginning your career starting IVs in the back of a moving truck, it’s a skill that isn’t unlearned.

I had a nursing instructor tell me that REAL nurses start IV’s in the hand, and never in the crook of the elbow, because it’s uncomfortable for the patient, and movement of the elbow can cause issues with IV pumps. I pointed out to her that some drugs like IV contrast dye, and Adenocard must go into that location, so saying “never” is not correct. The unfortunate thing is that she was one of my nursing instructors, she’s a screaming liberal, and since I apparently have a biological inability to shut my mouth when I think I’m correct, it cost me some grief during RN school. The same issue is what chased me out of getting my masters degree a decade ago.

It didn’t help that we had to write a paper on this cartoon, microaggressions, and how vulnerable populations must feel in the face of white privilege. I hate it, but liberal professors are the gatekeepers. There were two things that made life hard for me. Being right, and not being able to back down when I know that I’m right. That’s why I am struggling to finish my BSN. I already have Seven college degrees, with two of them being Bachelor’s degrees. It’s the nitpicky BS that I struggle with.

Misplace a comma in ONE of the APA references in your bibliography, and you just handed them the excuse to take the paper you spend two weeks on down to an 88% ‘B’ grade. I just don’t have patience for that kind of ticky-tack BS. It doesn’t help that I am in classes where I am decades older than some of my instructors.

I will make it, because I learned my lesson ten years ago, but it still burns my ass that these professors make mouthing the commie line a required rite of passage to get a degree.

By Divemedic, ago

Using Statistics to Mislead

Take a look at the National Safety Council’s statistics on your odds of dying.

I’m not even on the “guns” yet. There is a basic flaw with this chart, and that flaw is the assumption that the event that causes your death is random- that is, they are assuming everyone is equally likely to experience one of the events. So looking at “opioid overdose” for example, if you don’t take opioids, your chances of dying of an opioid overdose are exactly zero.

Now that we have exposed the flaw, note that “guns” is the only cause of death that is listed as an object, and not an event or action. You will also note that the math doesn’t work. Firearm assault and accidents aren’t even close to equaling your odds of dying from “guns.” Doing the math, there is a 1.1 percent chance of being killed by “guns,” but your chances of dying from a firearm assault or accident are only 0.049 percent. The other 0.61 percent? That is from suicides. So you cut your chances of being killed by “guns” if you take the simple step of not comitting suicide. We see that on the next line, where you have a 1 percent chance of killing yourself.

Taking other steps, like not being a gang banger, a drug dealer, or a violent criminal likewise reduce your risk of death by “guns,” but we won’t mention that because it doesn’t fit the agenda. This is a great example of how people can be mislead by what appears to be solid facts and mathematics applied in a scientific appearing article, when it is really just hokum that is designed to manipulate the reader.

By Divemedic, ago

Working

Working a tough shift this week because I get home just in time to go to bed and get up to do it again. Makes posting tough. I’m working with pediatric patients this week. My last shift looked like this:

  • a 14 year old with developmental delays who admitted to being sexually active. Her mother knew and was OK with it. She was my sickest patient of the day.
  • an entire family (2 adults, 3 kids aged 9 months to 8 years) who came in with body lice because they are homeless
  • a 15 year old and her mother who came in with bed bugs from the long stay motel they are living in
  • A 3 year old who fell out of bed and broke her collarbone.
  • A 17 year old who had a bruise across his abdomen from a dirtbike accident
  • a 16 year old with chest pain that gets worse when he breathes in
  • plus a parade of sniffles, fevers, and sneezes that cause screaming children, which are the reason why I don’t like working pediatrics, but it’s my turn. I think I had around 25 or 30 patients overall, but I lost count. Most were easy- in and out in about 90 minutes or so.

One of the things that makes pediatrics hard is that all of the medication dosages are weight based. Because of that, it’s easy for people to screw up. Last night, 5 minutes before my quitting time, a Doctor ordered medication and discharge orders for a child. The dose appeared to be too large. I sat down and did the math. This is what my day was like:

The Drug Reference says that the dose is supposed to be 20-50 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day, divided into three doses. The ordered dose was 1080 milligrams to be administered to a 5 year old child who weighed 27 kilograms. It required calls to the pharmacist, messages to the doctor, cancelling the original order, getting a new order, administering the medication, returning the excess to the pharmacy, processing the discharge, and I finally got off work, 30 minutes past my scheduled time.

Nursing.

By Divemedic, ago

Fear

Below is a sign that governments know that an armed population is far more difficult to defeat. They are afraid of their citizens until a greater threat presents itself.

The truth is that an armed populace can’t be enslaved or subjugated. The most that an enemy can do is try to wipe them out- and whether that enemy is an outside force or their own government, an armed people is a formidable foe.

By Divemedic, ago

AI Knows the Truth

The left has their panties in a bunch because Amazon’s AI system has been telling people that the 2020 election was rigged. They have since overrode the AI and instructed it to no longer believe this. It isn’t as though the fine people at Time magazine didn’t already admit that this is exactly what happened.

They claim that they are trying to keep the AI from making false claims. What they are really doing is trying to stop even computer systems from realizing and distributing fraud. .

By Divemedic, ago