That car issue? No big deal. I got a call back from the repair shop today. Seems the cap on the oil came loose, engine jetted a bunch of oil into the engine compartment which then leaked around and down onto the floor.

We’re having them change the oil (it needed it!) throw some new tires on, and fix up the brakes while it’s there.

Glad it wasn’t anything serious.

Kinda feel like a dumbass though for not figuring it out myself.

From their website:

To Our Valued Customers:

H-S Precision has received comments relating to individual testimonials in our 2008 catalog. All of the testimonials focused on the quality, accuracy and customer service provided by H-S Precision.

The management of H-S Precision did not intend to offend anyone or create any type of controversy. We are revising our 2009 catalog and removing all product testimonials.

Sincerely,

The Management of H-S Precision

Uh, guys, we’re fine with testimonials, we just don’t like them when they come from a bloke that shot an unarmed woman in the head.

Remington has made it pretty clear that they “get it” and aren’t happy with what HS did there. CZ, on the other hand, hasn’t made any move yet in distancing themselves on the issue which saddens me a bit. I really like CZ’s products, but doubt I’ll be buying anything from them in the future until they speak up on the matter.

Link

He’s looking to spend more time on his writing career.

I wonder if he’s run across Markos’ blog yet?

Over at Ride Fast & Shoot Straight there’s video of a shooting in Mexico.

Interesting. There’s 3 different camera angles so you can certainly see everything going on. It’s over in 23 seconds with four innocent people down. I believe two died from their injuries.

What really jumped out at me is just how fast the victims went down. I figure it comes from reading so damned many stories of people taking a hit with this or that and still having some fight in them. That certainly wasn’t the case in this one.

Somebody asked me today about the latest study showing that 10 states are responsible for about 57% of all crime guns. It took me a few seconds to place it, but naturally I’d seen it covered by other gun bloggers already and had my canned response in short order. Same thing Caleb says: The ATF themselves say you shouldn’t assume trace data implies criminal activity, and it says so right in the report that they based their study off of.

When I got off the phone I thought maybe I should look into this a bit. I mean, there has to be some kind of correlation, right? Just how out of whack are traces and criminal activity?

So, I dig up the 2006 ATF Trace Data for Michigan (PDF) and take a look.

About 1/4th of the traces from MI were related to “carrying a concealed weapon” which may or may not have been a criminal activity. So, there’s a pretty big chunk of trace data right there that’s meaningless to me as a crime statistic.

The second thing that jumped out at me was the breakdown of traces by city. Grand Rapids, the 2nd largest city in the state, doesn’t even show up. Looking at that I’d assume that Grand Rapids doesn’t have any gun crimes which is just plain silly. It’s more likely that the GRPD just doesn’t call in traces as often as some of the other towns. I have no why that might be the case, but to assume that Flushing, MI, a town I have never ever heard of before in my life has more gun crime than Grand Rapids is just out of the question. They ran 50 traces. Grand Rapids has more shootings than that in a year.

So, yeah, using trace data as a indicator of criminal activity is pretty much bullshit.

Sebastian has an amusing story on the matter.

I’ve noticed that I pick up on strange behavior a bit more often than Theresa does too. The last instance was when we were walking into a Meijer. I didn’t go into condition “orange” or anything it was just a WTF moment that made me think perhaps the character I was watching was up to no good.

He was picking up the handset to a pay phone, which isn’t something you see all that often in the day and age of cell phones. Even stranger: He was yammering into his cell phone while placing a call on the pay phone!

The wife’s vehicle is leaking oil badly. Like, there’s a puddle on the garage floor and the oil level doesn’t even touch the dipstick.

Wonderful.

This morning I was running a mental check of where everything is in the house, still trying to remember where in the hell I put my OWB 1911 holster. It was then that I remembered I had a Don Hume IWB holster for a Ruger SP 101 laying in my gun room, which then reminded me that I’ve got a Taurus 94 w/ a 2″ barrel on it and a light went off.

I grabbed the Taurus, shoved it into the holster and sure enough — fits pretty darned good! Why’d it take me 4 years to try this?

So, having basically “found” a gun that I’d long forgotten about I took it to the range today. Gritty trigger that keeps stacking on more weight until you reach what must be around 16lbs and then it breaks. Now I remember why I don’t shoot it all that much! Got it home and tore it apart thinking maybe I could do something to slicken it up a bit. I looked at the trigger mechanism, reminded myself that I have no idea what I should be doing in there, and squirted some Hoppe’s Elite into it. That’ll do.

The good news is that even with such a horrific trigger I can still manage to get something resembling a group when fired in double-action mode. I’m not sure how, as I pretty much never ever shoot anything that’s double action.