Manufactured Outrage of the Day

It doesn’t get much sicker than this. Whole new frontier of twisted.

Troll harder, Alex Brant-Zawadzki.

@FlyingChainSaw: No, the HuffPo writer is trolling for linkbait:

Speaking of sensitivity – you have no idea how sensitive the trigger is on this sweet baby we’re raffling! All the easier to fire those 36 bullets you’ll get in those three magazines. Loughner only got off 32 shots. Think you can do better? Then give us your money.

This ignores the underlying issue: Loughner’s extended magazine allowed him to squeeze off more shots before reloading. A twelve-bullet clip may have reduced the carnage. (Without entirely eliminating it, of course.)

And for chrissake, it’s a Glock. In Arizona. I’m no fan of a gun auction to begin with, but this is a mighty stretch to get upset about.

I heart my Glock 19. Accurate, low recoil and 9 mm FMJ (full metal jacket) is relatively economical to shoot. At $12-$16 for a box of 50, it’s not even worth my time to reload*. The Glock 23 is not a “new model” of the Glock 19. The new model would be the Glock 19 Gen 4, introduced earlier this year. The upgrade mainly has to go with making slight improvement to the gripping surfaces of the pistol.

I do agree that a Glock raffle in Gifford’s district is wrong and distasteful, but that’s the GOP for you. It’s like a psycho opposing party in a child custody or divorce case – no matter how crazy or evil you expect them to be , they will be crazier and eviler than you or I can conceive because they are not constrained by normal rules of conduct or conscience.

Reloading a Glock is fast and super easy, btw. Hit the magazine release with your thumb, the empty magazine drops free of its own weight (I just drop them in the dirt), slam a new mag in with your non-shooting hand, rotate the pistol 45 degrees, pull back the slide to chamber the round and you’re in back in business with another 15 rounds, not 12, in a standard factory mag. That thing that Woody H does in Zombieland where he has mags lined up on a table? You can reload that way for reals, you just need to rack the slide to be ready to shoot.

A political candidate here is raffling off an elk hunt to benefit his campaign. A neighbor of mine who is a running for judge back home and I went in on a bunch of tickets because she wants to go on a hunt.

* .38 Specials cost about 25-33 percent more than the 9 to shoot, and .357 magnums cartridges can cost close to 100 percent more than the 9. I also shoot a .22 LR semi-auto pistol to warm up with and just for fun. I can get 500 rounds for $15. I would take my .22 pistol, a .22 revolver and a .22 semi-auto rifle for the family bug out kit.

@nojo: Who cares about the ordnance logistics? A child died that day by one of these things, a civics munchkin at who could have been our very own Lefty in another incarnation. It’s not a hunting rifle. Glocks serve little purpose outside of a firing range except killing or wounding a lot of people very quickly.

@FlyingChainSaw: Who cares about the ordnance logistics?

I care a lot about manufactured lefty outrage — I hold lefties to a higher standard than wingnuts in the matter.

Simply put: It’s not the same gun — which is the entire premise. Nor is it the same clip — and the extended clip was the subject of a lot of discussion in the days following. So I’m supposed to get upset that they’re raffling a gun by the same manufacturer? A gun that’s advertised as a standard service weapon, and not even their concealed-carry special?

If that’s the case, I should also be upset by this:

“I have a Glock 9 millimeter, and I’m a pretty good shot.”

Gabby Giffords, last year.

@FlyingChainSaw: There is a move afoot by the firearms industry and media to have the AR-15 aka “the (evil) Black Rifle” be accepted as a “modern sporting rifle,” which is even the name of a show on The Outdoor or Sportsman’s Channel.

First used in its original .223 or 5.56 mm chambering for varmits, gun makers are now making it in calibers suitable for big game such as .308 (which is what I use for elk).

Cheap ARs can be found for about $650, but most run from $850 to $1200, which is a bit too much for me. I’d shoot one if someone gave me one or if I got one for waaaaaay cheap, but I’m pretty happy with what I have already.

@nojo: Glock’s “concealed carry” model, the subcompact Glock 26, is as thick as their standard 9 mms because they all use double stack magazines. I would have gotten one if it was thinner.

The Modern Sporting Rifle:

http://www.nssf.org/MSR/facts.cfm

@nojo: Yes, that’s what everyone remembers, anyway: Glock pistol. They’re getting the base foaming anew by reminding them of the victory of one of their own gunning down the marxist dog Giffords. The auction featured a Glock to get the psychocon base raging, drooling, lapping at the black stumps they have for teeth and howling for the deaths of more Democrats.

@redmanlaw: Have a friend who met with a a guy who was PRC Army, going around gun stores in the west selling cheap Chinese AKs, undercutting all the good stuff by hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Fucking doofus made the mistake of telling my correspondent he was still a Colonel in the PRC Army and he filed a report of a unregistered alien agent with the feds. Years and years later, the guy was finally grabbed for importing cheap Chinese AKs, bringing in a number of guns under a single serial number.

@FlyingChainSaw: Glock is the pistol most used by U.S. law enforcement agencies, I believe. Chinese AKs apparently about the middle of the pack when it comes to quality. I think I’d get an AK before I got an AR, just because they’re cooler.

This is more like it:

“There’s a woman who has a bullet in the brain and who everybody is wishing a full recovery,” Brian Miller, the immediate past chair of the Pima County GOP told TPM. “I don’t think that raffling off a firearm right now is probably the right way to go.”

Never mind the brand, never mind the clip. Of course you lose the GUN THAT SHOT GABBY outrage, but it’s more to the point.

@redmanlaw: Guy I knew into that stuff, living in Texas at the time, really like the Finnish AKs.

@redmanlaw: I thought this post might interest you for some reason…