Free Republic

Boy that does not seem right.

Amongst reservists I know in eastern NY, they all seem to like Trump. Officers, NCOs, white, hispanic and black who express and opinion like him. Of course perhaps those that do not like him keep quiet, but overall it seems he is very popular.

Obama was popular with most Hispanics and most blacks so perhaps it is just the folks in the reserves tend to support whomever is in power.

Anyway that poll does not seem accurate.

No she was actually only warned about the coaching. It was her second offense, when she lost her temper and smashed her racket that she was penalized a point. It was the warning that pushed her over the edge.

The issue no one is speaking about is that her rage towards the referee was due to her losing and losing badly, the warning was simply the final straw. She was going to lose two straight sets, badly. She should have taken the warning, reset her mind and gone out again to fight with new focus, anyone in a losing position knows that. Yet she flipped out, why?

After watching the tape it was apparent that had she managed to pull out a win in the second set she was so drained she would have been slaughtered in the third set. Her movements were of one exhausted, not an athlete in control of the middle third of a game. By raging on the referee she was actually gaining time to catch her breath.

Now it is possible that by throwing up a cloud of “hen-crap” she sought to cloud the obvious fact that her time as a top athlete was effectively finished by this match. She is too old, too out of shape and too slow to compete, steroid use and human growth hormone have done all they can do an now the price is being paid, and will be paid in the years ahead.

Well stated, no disagreement with what you said. I have not got the background to make a moral judgment.

I tend to think it has much to do with the change from WWII massive draft based armies nominally operating under a set of commonly western values, v.s. modern professional western armies against middle eastern insurgents. The modern period is a conflict of civilizations.

The men of that era that I knew, did not use the phrase “warrior”, that is a modern term. They used the phrase “soldier” or “Marine” or “Sailor”. There is a distinct difference. I can tell you what those soldiers/Marines thought because I asked them and listened in when the men of my fathers generation spoke. Later I asked them when a young man and they were still about in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Some of them were genuine WWII heroes: Robert Raysbrook, navy cross winner, 7th Marine regiment and Jack Agnew, Bronze star, 506 PIR. Look them up if you care to, they used to have their own wiki sites.

I never head anything good about snipers from these men or my father’s and uncles recollection of various VFW discussions. They might have accepted the men on our side as necessary, but they not view any snipers in a positive light. Some of these men admitted to being present when men attempting to surrender were shot after heavy combat, they were by no means boy scouts when it came to the enemy or understanding killing in the heat of battle. They had a distinct different opinion when it came to what was cold blooded killing.

The modern adoration of sniping would have been seen as perverse by the majority of the men from that generation that I knew. When older and I was able to check with retired UK vets from the early 1960s as to what they had heard it was the same. Note they did not feel that way about what would be referred to today as a Squad Designated Marksman or skilled combat marksman, the derision was specifically reserved for what they saw as killing at long range in cold blood, or in the case of the Japanese, shooting men in the back. It was description of what was done to a jap who did just that and who once burning no one thought to put him out of his misery that started me down the path of asking about this, back around 1974.

Hmmm..

It seems you think I am something I am not.

For the record:

1) I and my wife both voted for Trump and support him more now then we did when we first voted for him. In my case I have not supported a candidate with as much enthusiasm since Ronald Reagan, though I voted for the put-up republican candidates in between, though not with a lot of enthusiasm. They were too supportive of immigration, exporting jobs, anti-gun and intervention overseas for me.

2) I am not a member of any leftist organization nor have I ever been , unless you consider the NRA, DCRA or SSV (US, Canadian, Swiss shooting organizations) such.

3) I did my state Guard duty (8 years), though I was never in danger of anything other than a training injury. Never deployed but few S1 NCO’s in a RTI ever are at risk of more than a paper cut. Did do some good as an SDM instructor down at Fort Benning between 2006 and 2010, though that was done in the capacity as a volunteer civilian, not a guardsman.

4) Prior to getting an advanced degree I worked as a construction helper, gas station jockey, janitor, production line worker, test technician, engineering technician and finally programmer.

5) Christian who sends his kids to a catholic school for lack of a better alternative. That means I pay to have my kids taught things besides leftist propaganda, in hopes they will grow up to be independent moral and productive citizens of whatever remains of the republic, not entitled moochers.

6) Had a job since I was 16, never took any relief, welfare or unemployment payments, have paid high taxes as a well paid professional. Have sufficient property that I, my wife and kids stand to lose a lot of the left succeeds.

So your vitriol fell on terrain I was not occupying or defending. If you have a difference of opinion on how a generation felt about snipers that you can rationally voice, feel free to come back, else I will assume you are slightly deranged or with best interoperation, not operating on all pistons. Said another way, the method of your attack is exactly that used by the left, who you proclaim to be against. You are literal emulating those you assert to oppose.

Very strange.

Well since you made it personal, a response to each point raised:

1) Not a collectivist, here, far from it.

2) If we are going to use antecedents as arguments: Father was SSG, Army, 45 to 49, Grandfather #1 an Army 1918, Seabee 43~45, Grandfather #2, Guard 1924 to 1926, Navy 1940 to 1946, Uncle #1 Marine Corp 1950 to 1954, Uncle #2 Navy 1949 to 1954, Uncle #3, Navy 1944/45, Air Force sometime in the 1950s. None of them were leftists, 2 VFW members though only one of the above was a combatant under fire.

3)Unless you are of some formal specialized education, I would respectfully suggest I might have read a lot more history than you, with a few obscure published articles in the field. I even happen to be the authority the area of Irish Enfield rifles from 1921 to 1991.

4) Not a moron, advanced technical degree and a few published papers in my field, as well as some published articles in other areas (long range shooting and history).

5) I very much doubt your father loved enemy snipers in WWII. The men who I recall hated them passionately. As I said snipers were felt to deserve no quarter (all of them). You may respond that you did not mean your dad loved enemy snipers, but a literal interpretation of your sentence would suggest that.

6) Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack: Using the phrase “Pearl harbor was the ultimate sniper attack” is kind of like the terms: “verbal rape” or “suggestive treason” or “heroic deference”. It is a mixing of temporal and abstract ideas that do not have any real meaning when combined. Indeed it is a misnomer.

7) “Of course they were men”. That is a non sequitur.

In the end it was you decided to use a classic leftist tactic: Do not address the subject at hand, but make a personal attack and attempt to disqualify the opinion of the other person.,] In this case it was not even my opinion, simply the opinion accurately relayed of a generation of men I knew and looked up to. What I said was true and having had a chance to compare notes with some UK soldiers who were fairly close to the UK sniper side of things in the 1960s, agreed it was true on their side of the pond as well.

Ponder that for a moment, Perhaps a more moderate response would have yielded a better result, instead of making assumptions that compelled you to exhibit the exact thing you thought you were condemning.

An older middle aged chap here:

My father, and his generation was the WWII/Korean war era and none of those servicemen had anything good to say about snipers of any nationality.

They were all men of good character, those vets. I recall once them talking about a Jap sniper who was snuffed out with a flame thrower. The comment that stuck in my mid was they did not waste a bullet on the fellow, but allowed him to burn until he died. Being a young chap I was rather bothered by this act of cruelty which seemed out of place and asked my father about it.

His response was snipers, because they kill from long distance without warning and with relatively low risk, are not deemed to have any right of quarter. He also said something to the effect that snipers were considered to be one step ahead of psychopathic murderers, though I forget the exact phrase. The essence of his view, and the men of his age was that snipers had a defect of character.

As a middle aged man, who has never fired a shot in anger, nor ever been fired at I do not have the capacity to make such a judgment. Being part of the gun culture, I have noted a fascination with sniping and admiration of it that is incongruent with the beliefs of my father’s generation.

something to ponder

The problem with urging escape I see is this:

When you surrender you are having your life spared in exchange for an implicate promise to not engage in any further war-like activity until exchanged.

So you have a group of men who bail out of an aircraft armed only with pistols, over enemy territory. To resist once they hit the ground is a death sentence, so they surrender. However by the same token, once they surrender they pretty much, other than an escape which the human spirit will never rule unlawful, have an obligation not to engage in any form of combat against the folks they surrendered against. If they do their lives properly will be forfeited, as they gave up that option with their surrender. So urging young men to do that is kind of putting them in a very bad situation, which might not only lead to their death but very poor treatment for those still prisoners of war.

As an old guy who has been out of the market for a while but who listens to the young guys, here is what seems to be occurring:

Male version:

Social media makes a girl who is a 5 thinks she is a 7. I suppose it is the ability to get responses to poses make her a few points higher, not really sure. she wants an 8. So the guys who were 7, 6 and 5, who might have had a chance in the old days when interaction was primarily face to face, have no chance. Not all that good on the details, but the main point is that social media has in some way upset the normal mating market and most particularly the manner in which women realistically gauged their chances.

The women who aim high can find a temporary chap who will bed them, but not marry them. The somehow cannot see past these affairs and what it takes to get in bed with an 8 is much less than what it takes to get married to one. So continue to ignore the decent guys until it is too late. Their youth is spent and no marriage is secured.

They get bitter and are not at all pleasant to be around in their 30s or later. Why even bother?

Female version:

Most guys have not grown up. They play their video games, do half-assed jobs and are not serious about achieving anything. They frankly offer very little. It is not that girls have changed, most women want to have a husband and children, but the guys are not stepping up to the plate to do their part. A “5” guy who has drive and energy has no problem getting a girl, most guys who are a 5 simply are not motivated in any way, they do not even try. what is a girl to do? Girls are not bitter they are frustrated.

Seems to me a lot of this has to do with the loss of middle class jobs. Guys coming of age up to around 1975 could figure on making enough to buy a house and have a decent life if they just worked hard. Strong motivation to work, an achievable goal. Not so any more. Now with the median house being 350,000 and the median family income being 57,000, well there are a lot of folks that will never live as well as their parents did. Not a lot of motivation to work hard, they see it better to optimize the short term.

The entire response of young to seek a degree has been part of the response, which has lead to more distortions, where most folks going to a college are simply seeking easy credentials, they are not interested in higher learning, which is clearly indicated by their education choices. Big issue is a crappy degree in a liberal arts degree with a 60,000 debt load does not help someone in any way, there is now a generation of young people who cannot even pay off their student debt, much less think about buying a house. when it is a young women, they have essentially made themselves very poor marriage material, due to the high debt and even higher expectations based on a false promise of higher education solving all their problems.

Under such circumstances promiscuous behavior is kind of expected. I recall youth and instinct cannot be denied for ever. Something will give, and that is where we find ourselves today.

If you want to fix all of this, you have to bring back middle class value added jobs, instead of favoring financial manipulation at the expense of all else.

What Trump is doing.

The reason the Brady group is suing is they want to have black powder firearms go through the same instant check as regular firearms. In theory the sale would have been denied. Or so their lawyer will argue, or attempt to have an agreement made that Cabels will only sell black powder pistols with a PIC check.

Not the first time in PA. Around 1999 a mentally patient at the Norristown mental hospital, got a black powder pistol and shot a nurse or counselor, there was another push to regulate black powder pistols. I think the was a case back in 1978 as well, so every 2 decades or so a black power arms is involved in a crime. Knife crime is far worse in PA.

Given the every low rate of use in crime these arms are unregulated. But it is clear that he anti-gun lobby would like them to be regulated. Sort of exposes the lie they only want to regulate a few dangerous arms. I think the push to do away with black powder arms is because of the unregulated nature of them and the relatively low cost on used arms, they are a gateway arm to folks to get into the shooting culture. Take a 12 year old out who has just read about the revolution or Davie Crocket or the civil war or Wild Bill Hickok and his 1851 Navies, let him shoot a few muskets/ black powder pistols and you will hook him on guns for life. There is something very cool about them with the noise, smoke and big projectiles and due to low noise an penetration you can shoot in locals where shooting even a .22 would not be allowed. The Brady bunch does not like that.

Reality is much like doing background checks on ammunition, there is a limit to how much mayhem the law can prevent. Where there is an evil will, there will be a way for the evil doer to do his deed. If a chap is willing to kill someone, which is the most severe crime there is, he will find a way to obtain a weapon to do it. In theory Chicago and New York City should have no none, yet both cities seem to have some, and in Chicago’s case the situation seems out of control.

If you drilled down in the US census link, you will see white excluding Hispanic is 60.7%. As Hispanic is considered 18.1 % of population, this means that 84% of the Hispanic population in the US is considered white. Hmmm....

You will also note 13.1 % of the population is foreign, born, yet 21.1 % speak a foreign tongue at home. Both of those figures do not match what the 76% white figure would suggest.

A fair bet would be a lot of the illegals, who are most definitely not white are not counted in the census.

It also indicates why the democrats are so desperate to register and allow such folks to vote.

I have a hard time accepting what you say.

Zillow has been to the advantage of the buyers and sellers. Here are the reasons:

1) Let’s you research the price previously sold at, when and the taxes. Very good way to avoid flippers or over priced properties.

2) lets you as the owner of a house go in and edit the house for any improvements.

3) Lets you see the days on market, was it pulled off and then put on again and any price adjustments over the listing period(s). Great tool for someone who is a non conditional buyer.

4) Eliminates the need for a buyers agent. I can search the listings and contact the sellers agent when I want to. I note in the last year or so the amount of pictures put up has increased, as those that do not get less traffic. No more crap sent to me or going to see houses that are not what I want, no wasting anyone’s time.

5) Now what you do is contact the selling agent and since they want to get both the buyers and sellers 3% , they will work a bit harder for your sale. Easy way to get their commission reduced by 1 % off the top, friend of mine got the commission reduced to 4.5 %, both he and the seller benefited.

Let’s you as a seller set a price which you know is correct for the market. Much easier to do comps for buyers.

Overall Zillow is a very good tool for the market: it gives you more information. I do not see a down side to it, and I have been involved in 4 house sales/purchases in my life.

The problem is, with the two sides marching in orthogonal directions, we are setting ourselves up for two countries that overlap in physical space.

Such an arrangement cannot stand, it seems like we are going to have a civil war, one much like the Spanish civil war, with the left figuring they can take out their enemies and the right figuring they can do the same.

I sort of feel we are living in a situation similar to 1932 Spain, 1916 Russia, 1786 France or 1676 France. Something bad this way comes and we are powerless to stop it.

Now CAWW, I think you are being a bit disingenuous.

The person took exception to your statement that seemed to equate Rush L. and Ann C. with the left in stirring violent actions up. Do really believe that?

If so , well then you have to expect a wee bit of derisive comments. Here is the thing: The right, at least to my knowledge as never celebrated the radicals assigned to their side. When Timothy McVeigh was put down, not one on the rightside defended him. The left does not seem to see their own side that way, while Bernie S. deplored what the shooter did, a lot of the left is blaming his actions on the right. They have never disavowed the folks on their side like the weathermen. They are the ones pushing political violence since the summer of 2016, not the right who have been trying to use the political system to get redress of grievance. Trying to be a right wing moderate in such circumstances ,means you will be endlessly attacking you own side to no conceivable end.

The simple fact is you cannot reduce tensions with someone who will not question his own motives or is absolutely sure of their own world view. The left thinks they can undo this election, to being in a glorious period of socialist......something. What they are doing is preventing the pendulum from shifting the nation back to something reasonable with compromises that both sides will be unhappy with, but livable for all. What they are doing is pushing the country, by their intrigues to a civil war.

Publically noting this is a service, not an indication the Rush L. or Ann C. are advocating violence.

I read one article on this and it appears that he was a “cad”, to use the old fashioned term.

The girls had sex with him, hoping to get ahead in Hollywood/show business. He did not follow through on his promises, implied or explicit. They got mad and made the rape accusation(s) to get even.

Still it would seem at the moment of penetration, they were willing participants. Especially the ones making the accusation who were supposedly raped at the playboy mansion and came back for more. In some cases it was simply oral.

What was funny is what was left unsaid in the article, which is why I remember it. In our modern world they could not say the girls kept going back because they were trading sex for opportunity, so they left unsaid the motivations of the women in keeping in contact with Crosby for a year or more. These women were at venue that allow good looking young women to hobnob with celebrities. Gee I wonder why that was, do these young women have brilliant insights to offer? Kind of funny, they would not say what was going on.

Of course this is all based on one article, there may be facts I did not read or am unaware of.

Actually the Cathalic church managed to remove outright slavery in Western Europe no later than ~1000 AD, and much of the abolitionist movement in the UK in the late 1700s was Methodist driven. The abolitionist movement in the US was also church driven, even causing schisms over that very topic.

Plenty of histories written 50~100 years ago would cover that, now......not so much. Wonder why that is?

With regards to polygamy/divorce/slavery, you have to consider that in the old world there was no social security/income redistribution means. Poor meant you could starve. when faced with such possibility, some of the niceties observed today were simply not realistic.

Polygamy is never presented as ideal, it causes a lot of problems (like in David’s or Abraham’s house) but it was reality, a man of much means was a better bet for a woman and her children father than some dirt poor workman.

In a similar manner, there have always been folks who cannot manage their affairs, the solution back then was slavery for the folks with very short time preferences, bad luck, excessive debt, etc. There was literally no other out for folks who had nothing.

My late father trained on one in the Army. Said it was very controllable with its slow rate of fire and straight back stock.

Key to making it shoot straight was NOT to hold the wire stock firmly against you shoulder but sort of let it bounce off as the bolt moved forward. The recoil would bounce it back and you could walk the fire into any target is a short time.

Never fired the M3 but did fire a M1A1 made by savage. frankly I did far better with hits at 25 M on repetition setting than on the automatic setting. The Thompson has excessive drop in the stock and with the higher rate of fire, well it seemed to have excessive vertical dispersion. On the repetition setting, with that slight stabilizing influence of time, you would get more hits past 25 M than with full auto on a 20 W by 30 H pistol target.

From observation of AK pattern rifles in NMC matches the Norinco AK rifles and the Romanian WASR were the very worst in terms of aiming point moving as the rifles heated up. With such rifles the concept of a “zero” is more or less a chimera.

Of course I hear about all the accurate AK rifles, it just seems no one who ever actually goes to a rifle match has found one.

Kind of like accurate M1 carbines, every one knows someone who has one, yet somehow less than 2 percent of them in the hands of CMP shooters seem to be able to put in a 10 shot group of less that 4 inches at a fixed aiming point 100 yards away.

We almost certainly overlapped at Camp Perry, was there every year from 1989 to around 2009, with a few years after, but not in any real competitive guise.

My home away from home, many a year I contemplated the year in review while enjoying the sun-set out on the old ammunition dock by the clubhouse.

A well fitted out AR15 with a 20 inch medium weight 1-8 twist low-end broach-cut match barrel (Say a Wilson or a Douglas barrel) will group with M262 ammunition ~1 MOA range for ten shots @ 300 M. With a good cut-rifling heavy barrel, say a Schneider or a Krieger, it will do 10 shots around .65~.7 MOA consistently @ 300 M with better lots of M262. Both rifles with some sort of float tube.

The Army SDM rifles based on the M16A4 could keep shots in a head sized target at 550 M all day long with M262.

An average rack grade M16A2 out of the weapons pool with poorer lots of M855 will group 10 shots on the order of 15 inches at 300M. With M855A1, the same rifles will group 7.5 inches at 300 M, worst case. Average lots show 6.5 to 7 inch 10-shot groups at 300 M, though M855A1 is kind of hard on the bolts (much reduced life).

The chap who did the AK test above used the Yugo M70, which has a thicker action body and shoot better than an average AK. Same is true of the Saiga, they are known for superior accuracy using a the RPK receiver stamping, which once again is more rigid than the standard AK action body.

The average spec for an AK/AKM with the standard receiver stamping thickness was 4 shots in 15 cm (5.9 inches ) @ 100 m.

In my time of running a rifle range for competitive matches I have seen any number of skilled riflemen come up with a AK to try their hand at the NMC, and all have gone away with their tails between their legs, even on reduced range courses. Simply stated a standard AK has difficulty keeping 10 rounds in 6.5 MOA @ 100/200 yards and almost all of the rifles that showed up showed a marked tendency for the point of aim to shift as the weapon heated up. They are much poorer then M1 carbines, which really were never very good.

I note these resulted were recorded by NRA rated Experts, Masters and High Masters, folks who rally know how to shoot from position. Oddly enough these many folks have never found AK production rifles that can be depended on to hold point of aim and group 10 shots in under 2.0 MOA.

Meanwhile the Internet if full of Billy-Joe-Jim Bobs who have an accurate 1 MOA WASR AK. right......

Not denying the AK could be accurate, especially in a custom build, just pointing out what is out there in most folks hands is nothing like the armchair shooters posit.