busdriver

I think both incidents change in my mind depending on where I put the "start of the incident." In the second case (keep this shortish). If I just focus on this: a dude gets in a physical altercation with cops. One sees he's has a gun, then a gun shot is heard. Pretty hard. I think by most precedent, that's a lawful shoot. BUT. I think in this case, you could argue that the cop started the physical altercation by shoving the woman into the ground. If you buy that, then the premise of self defense falls apart. Basically, what is a proportionate response by law enforcement to people standing in the street and getting in the way? All that said, the protestors are clearly engaging in civil disobedience, not just protest. Given the the history of successful civil disobedience hinges on getting the state to respond with disproportionate force, this should have been entirely predictable. ICE has handled all of this very poorly. If the goal was lots of deportations, this will end up being a failure. If the goal was a political show of force, it has backfired. In any event, physically getting in the way of law enforcement and not expecting force is just dumb.

Hopefully. Although, the Gold Dot and 197SR look a lot better than I would have thought initially.

Ratner, a thought / suggestion related to using a pump. Make sure you add a bit of time pressure/stress into your training routine with that thing. The first three gun match I tried, I was using an 870. Short stroking the action under pressure is a thing.

So I saw an article about the latest shadow tanker being seized, this time by France in the Med. I did some quick Gemini searching, and that puts the seizure count at 8 in the last month, with European plans to ramp up this type of thing, and the Russian Navy beginning escorting tankers. The fleet size is substantially larger than I realized (estimates vary, but around 1000) so the overall impact is still small on a numbers basis, but military escort of tankers sounds like the portion of this story that matters. Lots of opportunity for a spark here. ReutersFrance intercepts suspected Russian shadow fleet tanker i...The French navy intercepted a Russian tanker on Thursday in the Mediterranean suspected to be part of the shadow fleet that enables Russia to export oil despite sanctions. The War ZoneShadow Fleet Tanker Seizure Operations Expand In The Face...Following America's lead, the boarding and diversion of the Grinch came as Europe is drawing up new plans to go after Russia's shadow fleet.

Ok, I think I'm tracking your line of thought. Here's what I'll say: -Scenario one is the president doing something I think is stupid, but entirely within his role/authority as the president. The one China policy was always a presidential policy. -Scenario two is highly dubious, with a president threatening a war with a defense treaty partner (and all the associated constitutional problems), which would obligate the rest of the alliance to go to war as well. I say all that, fully believing NATO would just fold. From a utilitarian/outcome perspective, the first one pokes a bear (maybe put them in their place, maybe start something), the second seriously impacts our future treaty negotiation position (maybe for the better, maybe not). Either way, what is in our nation's best interest is actually open for debate in both cases. From a rules/procedure perspective, the first one is in line with the rules, the second seriously threatens even more expansion of executive power if it goes unchecked by congress/judiciary. Thankfully, Trump has a tendency to throw shit at the wall and then react based on popular opinion. So he backed away from the military threat (without ever making an explicit threat), whether that was a polling thing, or a GOP reaction thing, or social media. Once you remove the military threat aspect, him tariffing and pushing to buy Greenland falls back into things I think are stupid, unproductive, and ultimately not in our best interest. But I have lots of political opinions that run counter to popular opinion, and he got elected so is what it is. All I can hope for is SCOTUS will slap down the "emergency" tariffs BS.

What does Biden have to do with this? I didn't vote for him, and I don't have a double standard. Yes, the senile old man said shit that was not particularly bright. But there is a categorical difference between threatening an unprovoked act of war against a Senate approved mutual defense treaty ally and responding to an act of aggression by China. And you can't be stupid enough to not understand that. Try arguing in good faith, you might like it.

So threatening violation of Senate approved treaties is fine, just not actually doing it?

Either a SD clone (hide the suppressor attachment under the handguard) OR.. Make it look like the Iranian embassy SAS guns.

Realpolitik guys: What's the line in your mind? At what point is it just too far?

"Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down" -First NATO Secretary General. It's funny, but true. Access to our markets was part of the post WW2 deal (that America came up with). Just cause you don't like the deal in retrospect, doesn't mean the Euros were being abusive. Arrogant little shit heads, sure but that's different. Most importantly, it kept them from fighting each other. Implicitly threatening to seize land through military force is finally defending ourselves? That's some interesting logic.

Threatening to beat up your playground sidekick to get his lunch money is slightly better than actually beating him up. The entire Greenland thing is asinine (in addition to being immoral) not one of the justifications makes any sense. Much like narco boats, they are all sophistry. This, like Venezuela is about Monroe doctrine.

Hopefully they have their shit in a sock when I go to buy later this year.

You guys really don't get it? This is a culture war play in the short term and a step in the direction of Australia style gun bands and "buybacks." And if they could get it, repeal of the 2nd. They know SCOTUS will strike a bunch of it down. But then they turn to their base and say "see, the ultra MAGA crazies are preventing us from keeping you safe!" The left never trusted that the right wasn't coming for abortion, and the right has never trusted that the left isn't coming for all the guns. Both sides are correct not to trust the other.

Threatening a lawsuit is just not thinking straight. Not to pour cold water on politician hate, but... 100% disabled / medically retired O-4 at 10 years of service in 2016, pulled forward to today is probably around $120k combined disability and retirement pay. House of representative base pay of $174k. That's 7 years of pulling down the neighborhood of ~$300k. If he was into saving/investing while in the military as well, it would not be hard at all to be a multi-millionaire with mostly boring index trading. Once you toss in inherent knowledge folks in those positions get, it really wouldn't be hard. All that to just frame what is a reasonable amount of money to be talkign about. Skimming through his disclosures, the only one that makes me raise my eyebrows is his habit of throwing money at FAS (Direxion Bull 3x) I don't feel like researching the timing of those purchases, but that could be suspicious. That said he also invested in some weird crypto BS that probably cost him money too (company went TU).

No worries, just part of an actual conversation. As much my fault for not being more clear. I think the broad and never ending application of AUMF is the root cause of the "problem" (for that side of the argument). As far as War Powers, my understanding is the admin is operating under the theory that it does not apply. I've read somewhere that the legal logic being used is the cartels writ large are fighting allies (Mexico) and therefore they're all terrorists. Executive branch legal Jiu-Jitsu like this certainly isn't new. I keep hoping that congress will eventually put their big boy pants back on and take power back from the executive...... I may be naive.

The argument is the entire concept of striking drug runners by calling them terrorists, is over the line. And yes, Presidents doing this kind of thing isn't new. The war powers resolution became a thing for a reason.

@brabus The pearl clutching reaction is certainly political posturing. However, there is an argument to be made that striking the boats is crossing a line, Rand Paul has made it while acknowledging the cats on the boats are very probably shit heads. So it's not like there is no principled opposition to the ops in the Caribbean either.

My point was Hegseth probably said something very close to what he's being accused of saying, just in another context. And the admin folks can't backdown because that would be tantamount to admitting Hegseth made a mistake (or violating the never apologize rule). So two things can be true: the re-attack in itself can be not a problem and Hegseth opened his mouth and stupid came out.

I don't know any of this thing from the inside. But it isn't hard for me to imagine that the one person telephone game through a WaPo reporter would destroy the nuance of military decision making and org charts, especially if it's influenced by the SoW saying something chest thumping and kinda douchy in response to a CDE type of inquiry (my suspicion).

From what I've read the VR2 is finicky when using it with a PC. I bought a Quest 3 instead. It works good.

This has become my primary training tool. It's very easy to blast along without realizing how much time you've been at it. If you like training, it's a hoot. It has pluses and minuses compared to dry fire, so it's best though of as going hand in hand with dry fire.

For sure. At the time, the local range folks at ACC seemed more interested in re-arranging obsolete emitter deck chairs or buying a few new crappy ones. I retired in '22, so I'm well out of the loop at this point.

LVC as a useful addition to backyard ranges and MOAs is much more difficult (expensive) than many realized. AFRL was playing with / experimenting with some stuff under the REDFLAG umbrella. I don't know what happened with it (was 6 or 7 years ago), but one of the problems was incentives. AFRL looks to figure out how to technically solve the problem, they don't much care about how to implement it at scale. Someone else has to pay for that. It always comes down to money.

I get you now. Carry on sir.

About 50% of NYC apartments are rent stabilized or controlled. And the mayor appoints all 9 members of rent guidelines board. So yes, he will have significant power to drive the supply side further into the shitter.