Housekeeping Note: AK prices have spiked to a new record high this week after reaching a new high last week. The reporting of prices for used rifles for private sale reflects decisions based on the perceived value of the firearm. Why the AK has spiked, I have zero idea, especially in an environment in which the AR has received so much attention.
Recall last fall, when we witnessed a massive record setting drop in prices for AR-10 style semiautomatics. Those prices have recovered to a level still $99 below the current median price average. I know no reason for why the AR-10 is so much cheaper than nine months ago.
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president of the United States stood on the podium last Thursday night and proudly declared he won the endorsement of the National Rifle Association. The NRA doesn't give me a warm feeling because of the group's tendency to endorse candidates even though they are anti firearms.
The declaration, made days before Trump's acceptance speech said that Trump will protect the 2nd Amendment. Actually, whether or not Donald Trump is president, the only people who can protect their right to keep and bear arms are the people themselves. As a personal matter, I don't want to have my rights protected by a New York Rockefeller-style liberal who in the past has pressed for more laws against gun owners. His endorsement was not so much a come-to-Jesus moment but an open-the-door-for-Donald moment.
And as if to underscore what I have been saying about leftists and their firearms laws, Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey said in a Boston Globe opinion piece last Wednesday that as long as AR and AK parts can interchange with other brands and styles, those weapons will be considered "assault weapons" and will be outlawed. The great cry from conservatives was that Healey was rewriting law, which is pretty funny. The whole deck of firearms laws intended to constrict sale and transport of firearms between states has rewritten the Constitution for more than 100 years.
The Massachusetts Assault Weapons Ban is nothing more than a state sponsored assault on firearms owners under the color of law. Leftists don't like semiautomatic rifles such as the AR or AK and they really don't like their owners, and they will use their offices to steal firearms and murder firearms owners if they resist.
Laws, all the laws, should be subject to the consent of the governed, especially when it comes to rights enshrined in the Constitution. No free man should have his personal property taken away, especially property explicitly defined as a right in the Constitution.
Next week the despotic party will have their little meeting, in which they will conspire to use the national government to further their agenda, turning the rest of us into even more wretched serfs.
Fun times.
Loads.
Rantburg's summary for arms and ammunition:
Prices for pistol ammunition were mostly steady. Prices for rifle ammunition were steady across the board.
Prices for used pistols were mixed. Prices for used rifles were mixed.
New Lows:
Texas, .308 NATO (AR-10 Pattern Semiautomatic, Bushmaster XM-10 ORC, $700
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: +.01 Each After Unchanged (7 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Goose Island Sales, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round (From Last week: +.02)
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammo Mart, Buffalo Cartridge, FSFP, Brass Casing, Reloads, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammo Mart, Legendary, FSFP, Brass Casing, Reloads, .19 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (4 Weeks))
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Cheaper Than Dirt!, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .15 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: FedArm, Store Brand, TMJ, Brass Casing, .16 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q, 2016))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Cheaper Than Dirt!, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Lucky Gunner, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel cased, .23 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2016)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Hotshot, FMJ, Steel Casing, .21 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Hotshot, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (9 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .35 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: JG Sales, Tulammo, Steel Casing, FMJ, .34 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Munire USA, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .22 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2016))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds (10 Box Limit): Ammomen, Federal, RNL, .07 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds (2 Box Limit): Ammo Fast, Aguila, RNL, .07 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2016))
Guns for Private Sale
Rifles
.223/5.56mm (AR Pattern Semiautomatic) Average Price: $551 Last Week Avg: $521(+) ($616 (2Q, 2015), $476 (41 Weeks))
California (208, 211): Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Sport II: $550 ($650 (1Q, 2015), $400 (46 Weeks))
Texas (240, 261): Bushmaster: $450 ($700 (1Q, 2015), $350 (2Q, 2015))
Pennsylvania (151, 153): Palmetto State Armory: $555 ($700 (2Q, 2015), $300 (3Q, 2015))
Virginia (151, 162): Palmetto State Armory: $600 ($750 (1Q, 2015), $475 (10 Weeks))
Florida (351, 356): American Tactical Imports Omni Hybrid: $600 ($650 (2Q, 2015), $380 (1Q, 2015))
"ARROGANT TO the point of blindness," British diplomat Mark Sykes and his French counterpart Georges Picot "carved up the Ottoman empire, not unlike a butcher slicing up slabs of meat fresh out of the freezer," a British columnist charged recently.
The diatribe, leveled by Spectator columnist Taki Theodoracopulos, is shared by many, most notably Henry Kissinger, an authority on diplomatic Machiavellianism, who wrote of the Sykes-Picot deal ‐ a deal that had been meant to be kept secret ‐ that it was "the foundation for later wars and civil wars."
Though Sykes and Picot did not actually redo the atlas, but merely drew the line between the prospective British and French spheres of influence, their deal was soon fleshed out by the cartographers who penciled borders that later proved unworkable, and in some cases have also become irrelevant, from Libya to Iraq and Syria.
That is, of course, true. However, when seen in the broader context of post-colonial history, this external impact does not explain Arab civilization’s crisis, nor does it excuse it.
The stuffing by foreigners of local rivals into single polities did not cause the bloody Iran-Iraq War ‒ because the imperialists did properly separate the Persians and the Arabs ‒ nor could Europeans be blamed for the strife along the years between Morocco and Algeria, or Libya and Egypt, or Iraq and Kuwait, all of which pitted Sunni Arabs against each other.
In India, for instance, the British also bequeathed a sectarian tinderbox back when independence loomed, and the assassinated Mahatma Gandhi was but one of its victims. Conflict with Pakistan, the violent emergence of Bangladesh, and the unsolved dispute over Kashmir are also seen as colonialism’s farewell gifts.
However, the subcontinent has produced a generally accepted political framework where an agricultural revolution was followed by an industrial revolution that soon sparked much social mobility and expanding prosperity.
The same can be said of Vietnam, whose splitting and bleeding in the wake of foreign intrusions were followed by a post-ideological quest to manufacture, trade, profit, prosper and to live and let live.
The Arab Middle East did not follow these patterns. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
#2
Still, on the positive side, think about how many Moslems all the Moslems have killed. And likely will go on killing. But then would the Moslems have done all that anyway?
Moslems seem to enjoy killing other Moslems, bombs in crowds, that sort of thing. Then use a fire hose to wash it all down the gutters and drains and plan to do it again in a week or so.
And ( besides ) the MS Media make a few bucks on the deal.
And it has been going on for how long, no end in sight , really.
Just Moslems killing Moslems. The religion of Peace, don'tcha know.Makes Sykes/Picot seem almost irrelevant and trivial, somehow. Much much too late to repeal or change now .
Gives new meaning to the term: " Insh'allah ", don't you think ?
#3
Any fundamental difference between the division of the ME after WWI and the American/Soviet divide of Europe after WWII? We sat on them and they've had the longest period of peace in Central Europe since the Romans. The long glace back in time - WWII, WWI, the Balkan Wars, The Wars of German Unification, 1848, The Napoleonic Wars, The Seven Years War, The War of Spanish Succession, The Anglo-Dutch Wars, The Thirty Years War (with an aside of the English Civil War), the Wars of Religion, etc, etc, etc.
Sometimes, what you thought was bad (ie colonialism), may have been the better of bad choices. How many would be alive today and how prosperous the general population would be if the course taken hadn't been?
#7
Sykes-Picot divided up all the Ottoman eyalets into unsustainable mini-states all at war with each themselves and other. For a century. And they still are. What a win.
After WWII we should have doubled down and split up Germany, Japan, and China into multiple states.
"a friend I’d met while working as a receptionist at the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard"
TL:TS:DR
Posted by: Bov Flimbers ||
07/23/2016 2:34 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The unspoken, key takeaway is the obvious failure of multiculturalism. Failure in this case, due to the author's tribalist longings, rejection of capitalism and economic progress. Or am I reaching too far ?
Reaching further, more evidence of multi-cult frustrations can be found in yesterday's Munich shooting by a reported unnamed, German-Iranian 'duel citizen.' Did I mention the shooter remains unnamed? Not for nothing I might add.
The mixing, or 'lion and lamb' liberal utopia will, by design, not happen on this earth. Possibly the next, but not the kingdom of man, I can assure you of that.
#4
When I was in school, a group of us rented an old house in a mostly black neighborhood.
Our next door neighbors on the one side were older Black Republicans (surname of 'White' - seriously).
The house on the other side was occupied by young Black radicals with one or two serious Black Panther types.
We got along quite well with both. We helped the 'White' family shovel in the winter and mow in the summer. We co-hosted block parties with the radicals.
Everyone up and down the street were good neighbors, except the radicals kept 'borrowing' all of our beer.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/23/2016 8:59 Comments ||
Top||
#5
The comments to the article are interesting.
The consensus seems to be that the author is what she rails about. She is a striving middle class twit who is gentrifying a lower class black area cause she wants "authentic" culture.
Just another lefty academic, hypocrite, progressive.
#6
We discovered that gentrification is many things and moving parts, but it essentially boils down to white wealth pushing out black and brown residents from neighborhoods that had once been undesirable – because they were composed of black and brown residents.
no, it was because of the undesirable class and culture of the people, whether white, brown, black or green
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/23/2016 9:46 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Just another lefty academic, hypocrite, progressive. Posted by AlanC
Not too difficult to unscramble. Law, medicine, engineering, computer science.....no. She's going with the indoctrination. She's going with what she knows.
#8
I once roomed close to work and bicycled in every day. The room was cheap and had become available because the prior tenant died from a gunshot. Neighbors were friendly and would cruise by and chat while I was out for my evening run.
When the days became shorter I switched to running in the mornings because after dark the animals would come out and throw empty cans of Colt 45 malt as they cruised by.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.