Suomi in the Rain

This month’s Practical Rifle match at my club was shot on the 50 yard range so I decided to shoot my TNW M-31SA Suomi. As a pistol caliber carbine, the Suomi is best suited to 100 yards and under.

The course of fire was three magazines of 5 rounds each from behind 5 different barricades. The first barricade was a picket fence. The toughest stage required a very low prone that had me canting the rifle to the left so I could shoot under the barricade. The one stage each strong side and weak side, and finally, one through a window.

The coat is a German surplus Sympatex (similar to Gore-Tex) rain coat, which is about the best deal available in a breathable membrane rain coat. At $30 or less it’s a steal. I bought it several years ago specifically for shooting in matches where I’d be getting muddy. I’ve also used it when camping and hunting. My hat is an old REI Explorer, which is similar to a Tilly Hat. I treated it with Tectron waterproofing spray this week and it kept my head dry in today’s light rain.

To carry my 36 round sticks mags I used a French MAT-49 pouch that I bought from Keepshooting.com.

The targets were IDPA targets with yellow duct tape on them to simulate the spine and brain. Only hits on the tape counted, because they represented zombies. ;)

We had some drizzle early on and then it started a light steady rain towards the end of the match. My groups were good but the gun shoots several inches high at 50 yards so my score was only OK. It was a lot of fun though.

The ammo I used was Brown Bear 9mm 115 grain FMJ. The Suomi eats it like candy. Zero malfs except for when I charged the gun for the first time a live round ejected. I've had that happen with the same magazine previously so it needs some tweaking. I didn't use it for the rest of the match and had no more issues other than that it's awkward to cock left handed, which slowed down my reloads.

I had a friend shoot some video with my iPhone on my final stage.

TNW Suomi Video

TNW Suomi

Here’s a short video of me shooting my TNW Firearms M-31SA Suomi. This is a  9mm Parabellum semiautomatic carbine based on the Finnish KP/31 Suomi submachinegun. This TNW reproduction is an inexpensive way to experience a cool piece of history.

My TNW Suomi functions perfectly when using 36 round box magazines but my 72 drum needs some fitting. The ammunition used in this video was Russian-made Brown Bear 9mm 115 grain FMJ. I've also shot it with Federal 9mm 115 grain FMJ.

The TNW M-31SA Suomi Carbine

For several years TNW Firearms of Oregon has made the M-31SA carbine, which is based on the KP-31 Suomi submachinegun adopted by Finland in 1931. The KP-31 gained famed during the Winter War of 1939 – 1940, and saw extensive use during the Continuation War of 1941 – 1944.

Click the pic for full size photo.

The KP-31 was a very influential weapon. Before being exposed to the Suomi, the Soviet Army didn’t employ SMGs in significant numbers. They were regarded as “gangster guns.” However, being on the receiving end of fire from Suomi SMGs wielded by Finnish troops changed Soviet leaders’ minds. For example, the drum magazine of the PPSh-41 is a nearly straight copy of the Suomi’s 71 round drum.

The specifications of the KP-31 are:

• Operation: Blowback, selective semiautomatic or fully automatic
• Weight: 10 – 11 pounds
• Cyclic rate of fire: 750 – 900 rounds per minute
• Barrel length: 12.6”
• Feed: 20 round box (“stick”) magazine, 40 round drum magazine, 71 round drum, or 36 round stick.

Specifications of the TNW M-31SA are:

• Operation: Blowback, semiautomatic only
• Weight: Approx. 12 pounds unloaded
• Barrel length: ~16”
• Feed: Same as the KP-31

Because the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 amended previous Federal laws, no new fully automatic weapons for civilian, non-law enforcement ownership may be brought into the United States. Therefore, when Finland sold off their stock of Suomi SMGs in the 1990s, they had to be demilitarized into torch-cut parts kits before being sold on the US market.

18 U.S.C. Section 922r also restricts the number of imported parts that may be used in the construction of a new semiauto firearm for American civilian use, so when building new rifles from the Suomi parts kits, TNW had to use the following US-made parts:

• Receiver
• Hammer
• Trigger
• Disconnector
• Barrel

As a shooter with a background in military history and a long time interest in the Winter War, the Suomi has long held a fascination for me. TNW’s semiauto version caught my eye several years ago. Their primary online dealer, Centerfire Systems, has been out of stock for a little while now but the M-31SA remained available directly from TNW. Not wanting to miss my chance of owning this piece of history, a couple weeks ago I decided to pull the trigger (sorry) and order one.

A note on purchasing firearms over the Internet:

There has been much misinformation spread about buying guns on the Internet. I.e., calling it a “loophole.” In fact, unless you have a Federal Firearms License, the only way for you to buy a gun online is to have it shipped to a local FFL, who will then have you come in and complete the same paperwork and go through the same background check as if you go into a gun shop and buy something from their stock. The Internet merely gives buyers access to a wider variety and better prices. The local FFL will charge a fee for processing the paperwork. The FFL I use charges $30.

I already own a Suomi parts kit for another project, so I was already familiar with the quality of these guns as originally made. What was done to them was a crime from an historian’s perspective. They are a product of a bygone era. The metal parts were machined from large pieces of high-grade steel. The steel was given a nice, blued finish. The wood stock was well-crafted and fitted.

My initial impressions of the TNW M-31SA are as follows:

• Suomis are heavy sumbitches. Twelve pounds for a gun shooting 9mm Parabellum ammunition, by current standards, is excessive. But remember, the KP-31 was originally adopted 83 years ago. Manufacturing methods were a lot different.
• As a corollary to the weight, the Suomi feels solid in your hands. Holding the M-31SA gives you the impression that no matter the abuse that it suffered on the battlefield, a soldier armed with a Suomi could rely on his gun.
• TNW’s semiauto trigger mechanism gives a heavy trigger pull. Parkerized parts don’t help this. In fact, the trigger pull is more than weight of the rifle. It arrived bone dry and copious lubrication helped this, and I’m hoping it improves as the finish wears. I did some careful polishing inside the trigger group to improve it, however. I think I have figured out a way to reduce it further, and will do a follow up post with details once I’ve tried it.
• Instead of bluing, TNW parkerized the outside. This is a more practical finish in that it’s more protective but it isn’t as attractive.
• Other reviews have mentioned that TNW also parked the bolt and inside of the receiver tube. They should have left it bright, as with the originals. This would make the gun easier to cock and reduce break-in period. The bolt on my rifle appears to have been matte blued, which is an improvement over Parkerizing for this application.

TNW included with the rifle one 36 round stick magazine. This is actually a post-WW2 design, originally made for the Swedish m/45 Carl Gustav SMG. During the Winter and Continuation Wars, the Finns used 20 round stick, 50 round “coffin,” and 40 and 71 round drums with their KP-31s. The 36 round mag wasn’t adopted by the Finnish Army until the 1950s. It is one of the best SMG mags ever made. Because they are a double column, double feed magazine, it is easy to load. They are very well made. This 36 round stick was later used in the S&W Model 76 SMG, which itself was a copy of the m/45.

The 71 round drum is the magazine most associated with the Suomi. I have one, which required fitting to the rifle before it would latch in. As I understand it, the Finns individually fitted and serial number drums to their KP-31s, so this wasn’t a surprise.

The rifle was shipped with the barrel and shroud removed so the package would be shorter. Removing and installing these pieces is easy. To remove them, rotate down the latch that’s in front of the magazine well, then rotate the barrel shroud and pull it off. You can then pull the barrel straight out. Reinstalling these parts is simply the reverse of this procedure.

To remove the bolt and clean and lube the inside of the receiver, first remove the trigger group. This requires removing the screw behind the trigger guard. Then, with one hand pull the cocking handle back a couple inches and hold it, then unscrew the receiver cap. Make sure that you have a good hold on the cap because it’s under a lot of pressure. (Note: Early M-31SA’s made by TNW were striker fired and had two springs in the receiver. The later, hammer-fired guns have only one.)

Reassembly is basically the reverse but you need to be careful that the cocking rod doesn’t jump over the bottom of the bolt. Getting mine back together took a few tries. I don’t anticipate removing the receiver cap after each range session. I generously lubricated the bolt and it should be good for quite a while.

My rifle’s stock has evidently seen a lot of use. It was rough sanded and has several repairs. The sling swivel on the left side of the butt is in a different hole that it originally was. It looks as if the swivel somehow got torn from the stock at some point. The length of pull would be considered short by most Western shooters, but this is for good reason. It allows you to properly shoulder the rifle even if you’re wearing a thick winter coat. Given Finland’s climate, this is important. The stock from my parts kit is in better shape and has nicer grain, so I’m going to swap them.

TNW also included an original Finnish sling made from leather. It was in fair shape. I gave it a healthy coat of Sno-Seal to preserve it. The sling is a simple carry strap about an inch wide.

The front sight is a simple blade. It isn’t protected but it’s thicker than many other military blade sights and looks sturdy. The rear sight is an open tangent. The notch on mine was a little buggered so I cleaned it up with a file and widened the notch a little to make it easier to use with 45 year old eyes.

Today I took the TNW Suomi out to my friend's place to shoot it. We put 150 rounds through the gun with only a couple of issues:

1. After the first shot the trigger failed to reset. This may have been related to my tinkering with the trigger group yesterday in an effort to reduce the trigger pull. A nudge on it with my finger reset it, and this problem did not recur.
2. Two or three times we failed to properly seat the magazine and it fell out when we charged the gun. This is purely operator error and can be prevented by firmly seating the mag, then pulling on it to verify that it's latched in. Because I haven't finished fitting my drum magazine to the gun, we used 36 round stick magazines.

We shot from about 10 yards in my friend's yard. Recoil is like a .22 and the report isn't much louder. We put 100 rounds of Federal 9mm 115 grain FMJ from a Walmart bulk pack, and 50 rounds of Russian Brown Bear 115 grain FMJ with steel cases through the gun. There were no function issues other than what I mentioned above. It fed, fired, and ejected as expected.

SMGs may be obsolete for the military, but shooting this was just plain fun. Assuming it'll feed JHPs and continues to be reliable, it would work fine as a home defense gun, albeit a very heavy one.

If you’re interested in historic military arms, the Winter War, or Finland’s military history, the TNW M-31SA Suomi carbine is a fantastic buy.

Making a Wool Blanket Capote

Over on Survival and Emergency Preparedness, I’ve started a series of posts on making a wool blanket capote. Parts 1 – 3 are up.

Check it out.

My Frankenstein AR15

Yesterday I received the PSA AR15 lower build kit that I’d ordered from Amazon and built of the lower receiver that I milled out from an 80% unit. The Spike’s Tactical mid-length upper that I ordered for it from AIM Surplus has arrived yet, so to test fire the lower I mated it with the top half of my Colt 6520.

Sorry for the pic in potato-vision.

I shot it this morning at the monthly Langhorne Rod & Gun Club practical rifle match. At the December match they allow for sighting in of new rifles and optics, and so they let me put a few downrange during this time to function test it. The rifle ran fine so I shot it in the match. (I brought the Colt lower just in case there was a problem but thankfully I was able to leave it in the case.) So far I have close to 90 rounds on the lower and it’s looking good. Zero malfs.

The Spike’s upper should arrive Monday and I’ll post a follow up pic after it’s all together. Initially, I’ll need to run it with irons using the carry handle from my Colt 6721. For an optic, I am pretty set on getting a low power variable such as a Burris Tac 30 or Nikon M-223.

The Hobbit–The Desolation of Smaug

I don’t recall posting any movie reviews here on the blog before but there’s a first time for everything.

When it first came out that The Hobbit was being filmed it was supposed to be two movies, which made sense. "There" and "Back Again," ya know. When I heard it was a trilogy I questioned it.

For example, The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey had way too much padding that didn’t add anything to the story, IMHO.

I saw The Desolation of Smaug yesterday. IMO it's much better than the first movie, even though there is a lot of stuff in it that was not in the book.

Beorn was really well done, IMO. Smaug was fantastic. The CGI is excellent and Benedict Cumberbatch did an wondeful job of vocalizing him.

I've read The Hobbit and The LOTR 4 or 5 times. I was pleased with how faithful the LOTR movies were to the books. For The Hobbit I'm looking at them as movies inspired by the book and just enjoying them. It's not like Jackson went all Paul Verhoeven on them, the way the latter did to Starship Troopers.

I’d say that if you like fantasy movies or Tolkein in particular, go see TH-DOS. Just keep in mind that it’s not a faithful interpretation of the book.

New MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro I’ve been using at work since 2009 has been getting long in the tooth. It’s still usable but running apps like MS Office, it has noticeable lag. Since it’s out of warranty I was able to put in for a new machine.

Of the standard builds we can order one is a 13” MacBook Pro, non-Retina model, with a 750 GB hard disk, onboard Ethernet, and a SuperDrive (DVD burner). My old MBP has a 15” screen but I use a 24” external monitor at work, so I figured I’d save a little weight and go for the 13” model to make it nicer to schelp back and forth.

Well, a couple weeks passed and I got informed that my new machine was ready. Instead of ordering the machine I asked for, someone in the purchasing department ordered me the 13” MBP with Retina display, 2.9 GHz Core i7 CPU, and a 256 Gb SSD.

OK.

This model comes with two Thunderbolt ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and an SD card reader.s

There’s no SuperDrive or onboard Ethernet. I did get ahold of a Thunderbolt to Gig-E adapter, and we have a USB DVD burner at work, so I’m OK there. I’ll have to keep an eye on disk usage, but I had a Western Digital 640 GB USB drive laying around at home that I added to my bag, so that I can offload stuff I don’t use a lot.

The new machine is fast. Really fast. Redonculously fast. A cold boot to the login screen takes about 5 or 6 seconds. Word and Excel launch almost instantly. Outlook takes a bit longer but it’s bloated compared even to Word and Excel.

It was also setup with Parallels Desktop and a Windows 7 VM, which runs much faster than the Windows 7 VM in VirtualBox on my old machine. My primary uses for the Windows VM will be accessing MSDN and running Visio, which unfortunately isn’t available for Mac OS X.

Battery life is great. I haven’t really wrung it out but when fully charged it shows about 9 hours remaining. Depending on usage I could probably go all day if I happened to leave my power supply home.

I figure it’ll last me about four years.

Kovea Spider Stove Review

Over on Survival Preps, I’ve posted a review of the Kovea Spider canister stove. If you need a compact, lightweight stove for camping or backpacking, check it out.

New Affordable 3D Metal Printer

Remember my post about the 3D printed 1911? As predicted, 3D metal printing is coming closer to reality for home users:

Anyone with access to a welder and the Internet soon could make his or her own replacement parts or tools with a new 3D metal printer that can be built in any garage.

...

Now, scientists have built an open-source 3D metal printer that costs under $1,200, sharing their design and software with the maker community.

"We have open-sourced the plans," in the hopes of accelerating the technology by allowing others to build upon the design, said project leader Joshua Pearce, a materials engineer at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.

Link. Being open sourced, I expect this design to be developed rapidly. There's been a bit of stink raised recently by gun control advocates seeking to ban 3D printing of plastic guns because they are undetectable. 3D printing metal guns would make that moot.

This is a liberty enabling technology and control freaks like Schumer and Feinstein can't stop the signal.

Dirt Simple Alcohol Stove

Over at Survival and Emergency Preparedness. Go hither.

Baikal MP-310 Range Report

Today I went with a friend to Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays and shot a round of 100. By halfway through the gun was opening up quite a bit more easily.

The gun had no misfires with  Federal and Winchester 12 gauge No.8 target loads. I did have some sticky extraction in the bottom barrel but only with the Winchesters. Both my friend and I have had problems with this ammo in the past, he in a Browning O/U, so as far as I'm concerned this is an ammo issue, not a gun issue.

I'm very happy with the Baikal MP-310. Only time will tell how durable it is, but for the occasional clays or trap shooter or hunter, it looks to be a good value. The one thing I plan to change now is get a set of extended IC choke tubes for it from Carlson's.

Baikal MP310 Ejector Tuning

After playing some more today with the Baikal MP310 over/under shotgun that I bought yesterday, I decided to tune the ejectors. Specifically, the ejector springs that are installed by the factory are much stronger than required. Here’s a good video describing how to remove the ejectors and clip the springs to reduce their strength.

Rather than a Dremel with a cutoff wheel, I just used dykes to clip 6 coils off each ejector spring, then deburred the ends with my benchtop belt sander.

Aside from clipping the springs to reduce the effort needed to close the gun, I also polished the bearing points on the ejectors and the slots in which they ride, and deburr all edges. I also polished the part of the barrel monobloc that bears on the pivot pin. Be careful when disassembling and handling the parts. I cut one of my fingers on a really sharp burr.

To smooth things up I used 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and gunsmith’s Arkansas stones from a set that I purchased last year from Brownell’s.

With these bearing surfaces polished up and the springs reduced, the action opens and closes much more easily.

I’m hoping to try a round of sporting clays next weekend with the Baikal.

Baikal MP310 Shotgun

I took today off and went up to Cabela’s to do some gun trading. I got decent prices on a couple guns, but their offer of $200 for a 1944 Underwood M-1 Carbine was ridiculously low. I therefore traded in my Stoeger Uplander 20 gauge SxS shotgun and Springfield M1911 that I haven’t shot much in years, and came home with a Baikal MP310 over/under 12 gauge shotgun.

I’ve been looking at the Baikals for awhile, since unlike most of the sub-$1000 over/unders, the Baikal has a reputation for being reliable. My guess is that they are the most common sporting guns in Russia. For example, I watched Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (which I highly recommend, BTW) yesterday, and in one scene there is a group of Russians and most if not all have some kind of Baikal over/under.

Since my expected use is a few rounds of sporting clays each year, along with some bird and small game hunting, it should serve me well. If I was going to be running thousands of rounds through the gun like serious clays or trap shooters, I’d drop the coin on a Berretta or Browning.

The Baikal is imported by European American Armory/US Sporting Guns and is made by Izhmash in Russia. They were also imported for a few years by Remington in their Spartan lineup.

The right side of the butt on this specimen has some nice looking grain.

As you can see, it’s also fitted with sling swivels unlike most Western guns. They are for a 3/4” wide carry strap.

The MP310 has a single-selective, mechanically resetting trigger, selectable ejectors/extractors, automatic safety, and comes with three choke tubes for improved cylinder, modified, and full. Compared with most other modern made shotguns that I’ve handled the length of pull is a bit short, which for me is good. At 5’6”, most modern sporting guns have stocks that are a bit too long for me. The Russian guns with shorter stocks fit me better.

As with a lot of other Russian made firearms that I’ve seen, fit and finish is a bit crude. This shotgun is sold as a hunting gun at a moderate price, so it’ll be no big deal if it gets scratched.

The one thing that may need some work is loosening up the action. It’s very tight to open or close. I did remove the butt stock and hose out the action with PB Blaster, then relube with some FP-10, which helped a bit. I’m hoping that a round or two of sporting clays will loosen it up. If not, I found some info on tuning the action.

I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to shoot the Baikal, but I’ll post a report afterwards.

The First 3D Printed METAL Gun

The smart guys at Solid Concepts have created the first 3D printed metal gun, a 1911 in fact. Here’s a video of it being test fired.

World’s first 3D printed metal gun

Yes, it had a few functioning issues. However, as a proof of concept they’ve done a fantastic job. Now it just needs a bit of debugging.

The technology enabling this is not yet affordable for the masses. Remember when personal computers first came out? Your smartphone has vastly more power at a faction of the cost. Or remember when the first Apple LaserWriter came out and cost around $4,000? You can now get a better laser printer delivered to your door from Amazon for around a hundred bucks. Even if 3D printers capable of doing laser sintering for additive manufacturing don’t drop to similar levels, they’ll come down in price to the point where you can go in together on one with a few buddies without breaking your bank accounts.

Combine affordable 3D metal printers with easily downloadable CNC drawings or even the G-code needed to run the printers, and the statist dream of unilateral civilian disarmament fails utterly.

Hey Feinstein, Schumer, Obama, Bloomberg, Cuomo? You can’t stop the signal!

A Small Lathe Built in a Japanese Prison Camp

I’ve been doing some preliminary research into silencer designs prior to filing my first Form 1, and ran across this article about a small lathe made by a British POW being held in a WW2 Japanese prison camp. Link to ~1.1 meg PDF.

This lathe was quite a bit smaller than the modern Chinese lathes made by Sieg and Real Bull, and which are commonly derided as toys. Yet, the author of the article made good use of it, fabricating parts for artificial limbs, among other things.

There’s something to be said for picking up and learning how to use a lathe as part of your preps. It could come in useful in the event of an economic depression when manufactured items become hard to get and it’s a tool with which to earn some extra cash.

Sources for the modern mini lathes include Harbor Freight, Grizzly, Little Machine Shop, and Big Dog Metal Works. Also check out mini-lathe.com for more info.

Reviving an H&R Model 1900 Shotgun, Part 2

Both the metal and wood of the H&R Model 1900 that I bought last weekend were pretty grungy. The metal had a mix of grease, dirt, patina, and rust. The forearm wood had been cleaned but the buttstock was nasty, with a couple splits in the wrist.

I started cleaning up the metal first. I used Kroil, steel wool, and paper towels to clean off the active rust while leaving most of the patina. Here’s the action, showing the patent date stamps above the pivot pin, which had been completely obscured.

(If you right-click on the photos you can then view them full size in another tab.)

The top of the barrel at the breech:

The choke is probably a full choke.

The wood was filthy. I took this pic to show the contrast between uncleaned wood (the wrist) and cleaned wood (the butt).

To clean the wood I used steel wool wet with lacquer thinner, and periodically wiped off the resulting slurry with paper towels. Except for the cracked wrist it’s perfectly sound. I flushed the cracks out with lacquer thinner then let the stock dry in the sun. I then flooded the cracks with superglue.

The only way to know if the glue is enough to prevent further cracking is to shoot it. If not, I’ll wrap it with wire like you see on a lot of old guns.

After the superglue dried I gave the stock three coats of dark walnut tint Watco Danish Oil. It came out pretty nice, IMO.

After cleaning up the barrel I hit it with some Birchwood Casey cold blueing solution. I applied several coats and let it sit for a couple hours. The white scratches that were on the barrel are now gone, and it has an overall brownish patina.

The cleaned and refinished gun looks good now. It doesn’t look new. It looks like a well used, old gun, rather than a neglected, filthy old gun. It should have some life it in yet.

Reviving an H&R Model 1900 Shotgun, Part 1

Last weekend I bought this H&R Model 1900 shotgun from the neighbor of a friend. I paid $60, which considering the gun’s condition, was probably too much. However, the neighbor is a widow selling off some of her late husband’s guns, so I don’t really care in this instance.

It’s a single shot 12 gauge. After getting it home I identified it as a Model 1900, which places the date of manufacture between 1901 and 1915. It was probably made with a 2.5” chamber but I measured it at 2.75”, so it’s likely that it was lengthened by a gunsmith. This was a fairly common operation after 2.75” shells became popular.

The Model 1900 was made with either an extractor or an ejector, and a twist steel or plain steel barrel. This one has a plain steel barrel and extractor. If it had a twist steel barrel I’d relegate it wallhanger status, but this one is mechanically sound so I feel comfortable shooting it with low brass loads or Aguila mini-shells.

In my online research I found this scan of an old catalog:

When this shotgun it came into my possession it was covered in about a century’s worth of rust, dirt, and dried up grease. Also, the barrel looked like someone had taken a Scotchbrite pad to it in an effort to clean it up, but never got around to finishing it. However, it is mechanically sound and locks up tightly.

Unlike other top break single shots I’ve seen, the way you take it down into two pieces is by removing the barrel pivot pin.

Open the action, lift the toggle, rotate it 90 degrees, and then you can pull it out. Now, you can separate the barrel and forearm from the frame.

I put a few shots through it last weekend and the choked barrel throws a pretty decent pattern at 15 yards, centered on your point of aim.

The gun cleaned up OK, which I’ll detail in Part 2.

Remember 9/11, Twelve Years On

On 9/11/01 I walked into the break room in our Plymouth Meeting, PA office a few minutes after the first plane hit the WTC, stopped dead in my tracks upon seeing the TV, and said aloud, "Holy shit!" A coworker repeated this about 30 seconds later.

We didn't know it was an attack yet and so I left for a job down in Philly, where I was to me one of our VPs who wanted to see a customer installation in person. We got down there and I completed most of the job before we decided it was time to leave, and I told the customer I'd come back to finish the job. Once I heard about the second plane hitting, I knew it was no accident, that this was an act of war. I recall CNN's website crashing under the load as seemingly everyone hit it in an attempt to find out what was going on.

It took awhile to get home because traffic was bad. My wife made it home OK after her students were dismissed. I spent much of the afternoon trying to find out the status of family in Manhattan, on Long Island, and down in Arlington. I later learned that one of my cousins was working downtown near the WTC and had to run for her life. Thankfully, she made it.

One thing that impressed me was how the Internet functioned as designed that day. When a large central router was taken out in the collapse of the WTC, the Internet routed around the damage and I was able to reach a cousin on Long Island using AOL Instant Messenger. Phone calls to the NYC area were basically impossible.

In the wake of 9/11 the country came together like I had never experienced, but unfortunately was soon torn apart over what turned out to be misguided foreign adventurism with the goal of nation building in a backwards shithole that we should never had invaded. Worse, IMHO, is how members of both political parties took advantage of the country's mood to ram through anti-freedom legislation like the Patriot Act, the creation of the TSA, and engage the USA in a never-ending War On A Tactic.

Having ruined the Republican brand with foreign interventionism, the American public proceeded to elect Not-Bush, thereby removing Carter from the position of Worst POTUS Ever. His signature accomplishment will give the Federal goverment control over about 20% of the US economy despite massive and increasing public opposition.

The Attorney General of the US -- the nation's highest law enforcement official -- has repeatedly refused to investigate slam-dunk cases of voter fraud. Worse, to undermine the Second Amendment to the Constitution -- which he swore to uphold and defend -- he oversaw a gun running operation to Mexico causing the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans. If another country perpetrated something like Fast and Furious on the US we'd rightly consider it an act of war.

The IRS, never a public service agency, has been transformed into a tool of oppression by targeting political opponents. The exact effect this had on the 2012 presidential election cannot be quantified but was no doubt significant in stifling Tea Party voter turnout efforts.

Under the guise of "protecting us from terrorism," the US govermnent has created a surveillance state that would have Hitler, Stalin, and Mao doffing their hats in respect and awe.

One year ago one of our embassies was attacked and four Americans, including the ambassador, were murdered. The reaction of the the administration was to launch of cover-up, making anyone paying attention wonder just what they are covering up. Could it be gunrunning through Libya to Syrian rebels?

A dozen years on we've gone from having a POTUS who at least knew the enemy was, to a POTUS who now wants to turn the US military into Al Qaeda's air force. In the face of overwhelming opposition he delivered a disjointed speech last putting on display for all but his most devoted worshippers how incompetent, indecisive, and amateurish he is.

Twelve years after 9/11/01, I feel like I stepped through a portal into Bizzaro World. Does anyone know the way home?

Trapping Feral Pigs and Other Parables of Modern Life - Matt Bracken

This article is worth reading in full:

Trapping Feral Pigs and Other Parables of Modern Life
by Matt Bracken

Professional trappers don't catch fast-breeding and destructive feral pigs using hunting dogs and guns, or in little traps one or two at a time. The wily pigs quickly learn to evade humans after such fleeting contacts. So how do the pros trap entire feral pig herds, eliminating them all, from granddads to piglets, in one go? They feed them, most generously. They kill them with kindness.

First, in a clearing in the woods, the trappers build an enclosure about twenty feet on a side and four feet high, made of stout wire mesh. There is an opening on each of the four sides of the pen. The pen is loaded with corn and other pig favorites. At first, the suspicious hog honchos will send in a few of the little ones as scouts. The scouts come and go at will, eating to their piggy satisfaction, until eventually suspicions die and they are joined by every other member of the herd right up the chain of command. The pigs soon come to believe that if nothing bad has happened to them after entering the strange wire enclosure full of corn, then nothing bad will ever happen. Their "normalcy bias" kicks in very quickly.

Soon, the pigs can't imagine any other life. Rooting for tubers? An unpleasant task of the forgotten past. Nightly the herd eagerly trots to the free corn in the pen, and they fail to notice when one of the openings has been closed off with another panel of wire fencing during the day. Pigs are said to be as smart as dogs, but neither can count to four. Nor are the closings of the second or third openings much noticed. Finally, all that remains for the trapper to do is to install a powerful spring-driven trap door above the last opening. The entire tribe of formerly wary feral hogs once again enters the pen, and with a metallic clang their miraculous corn nirvana turns into a death trap.

The moral of the story: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Don't go inside the "free corn" pen, not even when all the doors are open. Free food is as dangerous as the sirens' song to ancient mariners. It is all too easy to get used to being fed, and then to miss the exits closing one at a time.

2. The Turkeys and Farmer Brown

Pigs are Einsteins compared to turkeys. Turkeys are so stupid that care must be taken to prevent them from killing themselves by accident. For example, if incorrectly stimulated, they might stampede into a corner of a feeding lot and trample many of their brethren to death in their urgency to follow the herd.

If turkeys think at all, they think of Farmer Brown as "the food man" or "the food god." So you can imagine their simple and unreserved joy at seeing the food man arriving to dispense the daily manna. For 364 straight days they believe they are living in turkey heaven, and they worship the food man, until on day 365 he unexpectedly takes an ax to their necks. (Hat tip to Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his seminal book, "The Black Swan" If you have not yet read it, you are way behind the learning curve. It's waiting for you at your local library.)

The moral of the story: If somebody is feeding you every day and asking for nothing in return, give an occasional thought to his motives and his possible end plans. Not everybody that feeds you loves you. The normalcy bias can kill you.

3. The Buffalo Jump

Native American Indians hunted on foot before the arrival of Spanish horses in North America. Bows and arrows and spears were not showstoppers against stampeding herds of bison, each weighing up to a ton. The Indians understood bison much better than the bison understood the Indians, however, and so the bison repeatedly failed to discern that all the pesky humans waving flags and setting grass fires were funneling them into a narrow draw and then to a yawning cliff, with squaws and children waiting below to commence the butchery.

The moral of the story: If you are being stampeded and funneled, it might be toward disaster, not away from it. Take any exit and go another direction. Read about the then-Greek city of Smyrna in 1922 to see a human Buffalo Jump in action. Wiki link to the "Catstrophe of Smyrna"

4. The Lemmings

The lemmings we are interested in are the small furry rodents that live on islands around Norway. For most of history, their mass charges into the frigid waters were seen as some kind of group suicide. Today, they’re understood to be the result of the little rodent's rapid gestation period kicking into high gear during rare periods of abundance of seed grasses sprouting madly during particularly mild arctic summers. In a matter of months the lemming population explodes, but eventually every last seed is eaten, and not another seed will appear until after the passage of the long arctic winter. The starving rodents packing the small islands can either die in place or undertake a desperate swim to greener pastures on other islands beckoning in the distance.

The moral of the story: There doesn't need to be a pig trapper or a turkey farmer in the equation to cause a mass die-off event; nature can do it all on her own. And nature doesn't care about your schedule, or your personal problems.

5. The Land Crab Massacre

One day in Puerto Rico a platoon of Navy SEALs had to drive in a few trucks and vans to an isolated rifle range way out in some swampy corner of the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base, now sadly closed. A few miles of gravel road paralleled the Caribbean shore, with mangrove trees close on both sides of the narrow track. You had to access this rifle range at certain times during the daily tidal cycle, or the road might be under water. The frogmen spent the day shooting guns and blowing things up, then at sunset packed up the trucks for the quick run back to their beloved NavSpecWar Det Caribbean.

Truck headlights illuminated a moving sheet of land crabs, migrating from the ocean toward the land for the night. Land crabs have a body about the size of a fist, and one claw as big as a Maine lobster's. They were so tightly packed that you could not toss a hat into their midst without hitting two or three: a near solid mass of them covering a mile of gravel road and the mangrove swamps on both sides. All the SEALs could do was drive over them in their government trucks, pulverizing thousands of them, maybe millions, leaving two wide swaths of crushed crab, crackling and squishing beneath our tires for a mile.

On the return trip to the range the next day, not a sign remained of the land crab holocaust. The smashed crustaceans had been immediately devoured by their erstwhile kin, who were probably happy that the hard work of shell-cracking had already been done by Goodyear tires. A mile-long crab massacre was followed by a cannibal feast that left no trace, overnight.

The moral of the story: Don't be caught in the middle of a mass migration where you have no room to maneuver independently. Any outside force, or your neighbors, can smite you at will. Like Desert Storm's "Highway of Death," refugee columns attract warbird attention the way that honey attracts flies. History is full of refugee columns being strafed, on purpose or through mis-identification. Or like the bison, refugee columns can be herded into traps, and the individual refugee can do nothing to prevent it. This is a paradoxical case where the normally presumed “safety in numbers” is a deadly betrayer instead of a savior. Given a choice, going it alone beats The Buffalo Jump every time, but it’s very hard to bolt from the herd.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2949909/posts?page=35

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