Oops, I thought I linked it.

In reference to my last post, here is the link to Kim. I stand behind what I said:

 Kim DuToit apparently thinks that it is OK for teachers to gang rape kids, as long as the teacher is someone that he personally finds attractive. I am not impressed.

ANY adult that wants to have sex with kids is a child raping pedophile child molester. I don’t care how hot other adults think that those teachers happen to be, children cannot consent to sex. My guess is that Kim wouldn’t be getting his rocks off over this story if the teachers involved were men. 

I just can’t

So Kim DuToit apparently thinks that it is OK for teachers to gang rape kids, as long as the teacher is someone that he personally finds attractive. I am not impressed.

ANY adult that wants to have sex with kids is a child raping pedophile child molester. I don’t care how hot other adults think that those teachers happen to be, children cannot consent to sex. My guess is that Kim wouldn’t be getting his rocks off over this story if the teachers involved were men. 

Property crimes

People are all up in arms that the police in California are no longer investigating property crimes. That’s nothing new.


In the year 2000 my car was burglarized. The police knew who did it. They got his identity from the fingerprints. They told me that he would not likely face charges, because the police department did not have the resources to deal with “minor” crimes like auto burglary.

In the year 2005, someone stole a check from my mailbox, forged my signature on it, and deposited it into their checking account. I got a copy of the check, and sure enough, there was the name, account number, and signature of the miscreant. The police again told me that they didn’t have the resources to pursue the criminal.

On the way home, I passed 5 cops writing traffic tickets. The priority of the police has been about money for years. 

TSA incompetence

Every time I complain about the intrusiveness of the searches at the airport, someone always says some version of “Well, it is worth it to keep us safe.” As an answer to that I point out that, even though I have to face the indignity of removing my belt every time I have to fly, the TSA still misses fairly basic things all of the time.

Case in point: a minor with autism manages to clear TSA using a drink coupon as identification to pass through the TSA precheck line.

This was just four months after another woman managed the same thing at the same airport.

 If security is this lax, how many security holes are there, waiting to be exploited by professionals?

Sting of the Scorpion

I was looking for a small, easily maneuvered, pistol caliber carbine. Many of them were not any more compact than a rifle caliber carbine. I looked at AR platforms, as well as offerings from several manufacturers, and I just couldn’t find anything suitable. If you’re going to carry a firearm the size of a rifle carbine, you might as well carry a rifle carbine and get the improvement in power, range, and accuracy. Until, that is, I saw a CZ scorpion. Being the same length as an AR, the carbine was longer than I wanted, but the pistol version was exactly what I was looking for.

I plunked down $850 and bought one. It came with a pair of 20 round magazines and two 30 round magazines. The pistol has a 7.25 inch barrel, and the end of it has a flash suppressor threaded onto the barrel. The weapon also has picatinny rails and iron sights, as well as provisions for a single point sling. Removing the flash suppressor reveals a set of threads that fit my Tundra suppressor.

The charging handle is non-reciprocating and has a handy slot to lock the bolt open. You can give it the old H&K slap to put the weapon in battery, while getting that satisfying 80’s action movie sound. (OK, just kidding about that last part)  The charging handle on mine is on the left side of the weapon, so it can easily be operated with the left hand, but it is easily changed to the other side in the event you are a left handed shooter.

The magazine release is mounted on the front of the trigger guard, and is easy to reach and operate with the trigger finger. The safety is mounted on both sides of the pistol just above the grip.

Magazines are an opaque polymer, and there are generic as well as factory versions.

I only had two complaints: the pistol is too bulky to be fired with one hand, and my hand rested right on top of the safety, and caused it to rub the palm of my hand raw when I fired the weapon.

I wanted to put a stock on the pistol to make it easier to handle, but I also didn’t want to make an NFA weapon out of it. I found a solution: a pistol stabilizing brace. I bought mine at preppergunshop.com and it came with 4 generic 32 round magazines for $199.99. This allows me to stabilize the pistol for shooting, and doesn’t require the year long wait for approval.

The second problem was solved with the removal of the safety lever on the right side and replacing it with a right side safety delete from HB industries. It was easy to do: just field strip the pistol, remove the right side safety by unscrewing the set screw with a 1.5mm allen wrench, and replace it with the delete.

I took it to the range and put the Scorpion through its paces. It ate anything I fed it without complaint. I fired over 500 rounds through it. It fired subsonic, +P, and standard pressure loads in 115 gr, 147 gr, and 124 gr. I also varied between round nosed lead, FMJ, and JHP. All of them fed and functioned without a single failure. I fired 100 rounds with the suppressor- both sub- and super-sonic. No issues, and the subsonic rounds were about as quiet as dropping a paperback book on the floor. You could clearly hear the action cycling.

I turned on the laser sight I mounted, and put an entire magazine through the center of the target just as fast as I could squeeze the trigger.

Drinking red dot Kool Aid.

A decade or so ago, I paid $400 for an EOTec holographic sight. I encountered all sorts of issues, the worst of which was the life of the batteries. So when I saw an online discussion about the new fad in microdot sights, I was less than enthusiastic.

I expressed the opinion that depending on the life of your batteries was a bad idea in a defensive firearm, and I also said that I don’t carry pistols that require more input than simply obtaining a sight picture and pressing the trigger. I don’t want to do more than absolutely necessary when my life is counting on putting lead on target. The contributors to that discussion told me how wrong and outdated I was, so I decided to take the plunge.
I bought a Holosun 507c sight for my M&P 9C from Amazon for $229. The Holosun has the same mounting as the Trijicon RMR, so I was faced with two options: I could have my slide machined, or I could get a mounting plate. With that being said, I just didn’t feel like sending my slide off for several weeks, so I just bought a mounting plate.

Installing:

I bought a mounting plate for $20 and it didn’t have the proper mounting pattern, despite the fact that the online description said it did. I bought a second plate from Trijicon which cost $90. The directions said that you just pressed it into the dovetail for the rear sight. That was easier said than done. The plate was too wide to fit into my Smith and Wesson sight tool, so it was a bit of a chore. After some filing of the plate with a hand file, and struggling with my press, I finally resorted to a non-marring punch and a BFH (Big Freaking Hammer). The end result was a bit of marring, and a plate that will likely never come off again.

Shooting:

I took the pistol to the range and had the sight adjusted in less than 10 rounds. I noticed that I was a bit slower getting my first round out because when I first present the pistol, I am trying to line it up with sights instead of the red dot. I think that I can correct that with some dry fire practice. Once you locate that dot, it is easier to follow it than the front sight. What this means is that I was much faster with my follow up shots than I usually am.

The Holosun has selectable reticles: a circle, a dot, or a dot within a circle. The circle allows for much faster shooting over the dot, at the expense of fine accuracy. At 15 yards, all you have to do is put the circle on the target and press the trigger. I am going to work with this one a while, but I think I like it. 

Hospital Transparency

US hospitals and drug companies are claiming that a Trump regulation demanding transparency in pricing is violating their right to free speech. The rule demands that health and pharmaceutical companies disclose pricing of their services as well as the discounts that they negotiate with trade groups and insurance companies, and they don’t want to do so.

Let me explain:
I went to the emergency room about ten years ago because I woke up with my heart racing along at 140 beats per minute. An EKG showed an abnormal heart rhythm called Afib. I was far too young for that, so I was admitted to the hospital. They attempted several doses of medicine to no effect. After an hour or so, while the hospital was running tests, the problem resolved by itself, They hospital held me overnight, and then I was discharged.

A week later, the bill came in the mail: it was over $13,000. I went in to talk to the hospital’s billing department to give them my insurance information. They gave me a revised bill that reflected the “negotiated discount pricing” from the insurance company. The new bill was $1,100, with $500 of that being my copay and the insurance company paying the other $600.

How can a negotiated discount be over 90% off the full price? Since the hospital is willing to accept that low of a price, it seems to indicate that they can make money at that price, so what is the deal? My opinion is that the insurance companies need prices for uninsured people to be scary high, so that people all clamor for insurance. I could see a discount of 10, 20, or even 30% off, but more than 90% as a discount seems to be some kind of scam.

This is why the companies hate this rule demanding transparency, because that practice would have to come to an end, once people realized they are being duped. Disclosing prices and discounts would be a great way to allow consumers to decide for themselves whether or not to patronize a business. Can you imagine any other business where the prices are not disclosed to the consumer until after purchase?

Bring free market pricing back to health care. Let consumers know the price beforehand, and watch medical pricing become more affordable.

Reasoned Discourse

I spent a good ten minutes formulating my points opposing another’s opinion on gun control. This was what I got in return:

Fuck it. I’ve done my research and have been immersed in all this mess the last couple of days and just all of a sudden, I don’t care about making my point or hearing any more of yours.
Corvus oculum corvi non eruit, right? Have a good life.

I especially love the condescending use of a Latin non-sequitur (see what I did there?) at the end.