Transgender-theme AK-47, because 2nd Amendment!
HelixDab2 @ HelixDab2 @lemm.ee Posts 1Comments 2,373Joined 2 yr. ago
AR-15s are popular because there's a single standard, and all the parts made should fit that standard, and more-or-less work. I can buy a barrel from any one of ten or more manufacturers, and I know that it's going to fit on my receiver (although I might need a different gas tube). You can't do that with a Ruger Mini-14, you definitely can't do it with any of the fuck-knows-how-many AK variants. ARs do have their own shortcomings it's true, but all rifles have shortcomings; the AR-15 platform does a pretty good job of balancing the competing needs and desires.
That too.
I think that I originally paid about $550 for my S&W M&P 15 Sport 2 (although not many parts are original anymore); you can get a perfectly serviceable Palmetto State Armory AR-15 for $450. An AK is likely going to start at around $700.
As someone much more clever than I said, the real transgender AK is the AR that's chambered in7.62x39mm.
FWIW, IIRC it's only bulletproof to subsonic 9mm. If you're using normal range ammo (115gr), it's not going to stop the bullet. It's definitely not going to stop any rifle more powerful than a .22lr.
And super-rigid body panels are actually a bad thing; it likely doesn't have crumple zones, which means that more energy is going into the passengers in a crash.
People: please do not carry an AK. Just get an AR. ARs have interchangeable parts, ammunition is cheap, and aside from Bear Creek Arsenal, they're going to just work. AKs require significant hand fitting and there's no single standard, ammunition prices have risen sharply since the cheap milsurp ammo flow got cut off, and at the cheaper end they tend to be dangerous to the user. Yes, I know that AKs have a reputation got working in adverse conditions, but that reputation dates to the Vietnam war, when the AR was a new platform; modern ARs are far, far more reliable and accurate than an AK.
You can still get an AK for fun, but don't don't treat it like your serious gun.
True enough. And Trump could very well accelerate that with his economic temper tantrums. Still, I don't know what currency BRICS would settle on; certainly not the ruble, not after Putin cratered the whole country's economy. The yuan?
I'm very grateful that my parents have never lived in the Utah bubble; they saw right through Trump in 2016, and, for the first time in their lives, voted for someone other than a Republican.
Keep in mind that Benson was hard right; he would have thought that John Birchers were leftists. He and his faction may not have led the church for very long, but they had a profound influence on it.
Or gueuze. They tend to be a bit hard to find in the US. Sour Flanders red ales are another good style, and also difficult to find.
IIRC, a proper lambic is made with spontaneous fermentation, which makes each batch slightly different.
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that also change the way that the arrow is accelerated by the bow? Like, it starts a little slower, and then has increased acceleration until the string returns the the starting position? Whereas a long or recurve bow is going to have the hardest acceleration at the very start, since that's where the most energy is stored?
And if that's true, how does that affect the flight of the arrow? I know that with stick bows, the arrow bows as it's being accelerated, and then wobbles slightly before stabilizing a few feet in front of the bow. Some of that is likely because the arrow has to bend around the bow stave. But do you see less of that with a compound bow?
The US is a unicorn country because the US dollar is the primary currency in the world. If the Euro supplanted the US dollar for that position, then the problems with excessive debt could absolutely happen in the US.
Hmmm. I could support mandatory service, but not necessarily military service. An army of conscripts isn't a very good army; just look at Russia. OTOH, I think that, in general, a population that has some basic level of training so that they can be called up and quickly activated if the professional military needs more people isn't a terrible idea. On the other other hand, I think that people being conscripted to do public works and service is a pretty solid idea.
That said, I'd be much, much more supportive of a system where no one had citizenship--and I mean no one--without doing four years of service for their country first, in whatever capacity they were needed and capable of serving, whether that's some form of military service, or working in soup kitchens. E.g., unless you are willing to work for the country, you should not be able to vote -or- be elected, nor should you have absolute, unfettered free speech. IMO people need to be invested in some way in their country. Look at immigrants that have been naturalized; they're often far more serious about their citizenship and their responsibilities as citizens than people that were born and raised here. IMO we should aspire to have all citizens be as committed as those that have been naturalized.
EDIT - to be clear, I support a population being actively engaged in the politics of their locality, state, and country. Too many people are disengaged from news and politics, and that's a terrible thing.
As far as firearms training, my issue is that it's often used as a way to deny rights. E.g., make training mandatory to get a permit, but make training expensive, inconvenient to get to, at times that conflict with work schedules, etc., in order to discourage people from exercising their right. If training was offered on-demand, was free, and you didn't need to pass a test in order to be able to use your civil right, then sure. Like, the hunters' safety classes? You have to take the class, but you don't have to pass a test in order to be permitted to get a hunting license. (Or, you don't in my state. I've taken the class; most of it is pretty basic if you are already familiar with guns.) Any system that uses testing to determine if you can exercise a civil right will inevitably end up functioning like literacy tests did for voting rights.
In that case, I would recommend using your time machine to go back in time and buying something to protect the floor from the sofa.
Short of sanding the floor down, there's really not a lot that you can do. The dents and dings aren't going to pop back out; it's not like auto repair where you can use a suction cup to pup them back up. Sanding the floor down is expensive; you're looking at thousands of dollars to have it done by a professional that will do it correctly. Doing it yourself is... not a great idea, unless you are a perfectionist and have a pretty good idea of what you're doing. Even then, renting the machines--or buying!--and buying the needed sandpaper, CA glue, and poly finish (assuming you want to use poly; I have other finishes that I prefer, but poly is fast and usually non-toxic) may well be more than your deposit.
The argument that you're going to want to make is that this is expected wear and tear; that might fly with your landlord, it might not. You could make a small-claims case out of it, and you might be able to win that. Or you might not, and then you'd be out your deposit, plus the cost of filing a small-claims case.
The probability is that, as you age, your ability to change you attitudes in order to keep up will slow down to the point where you will seem regressive and problematic to 20yo children when you are 60.
The era that my parents grew up in would seem awful to most people now, but my parents were unaware that there were problems, and they have a hard time seeing a lot of them now.
"For all intensive porpoises" is the one that really annoys me.
They're dolphins, not porpoises. Fuck, get your cetaceans right.
Interestingly, if I set my VPN location to Switzerland, I can watch YouTube videos without logging in. Everywhere in the US requires me to log in and be subjected to advertisements first.
The thing is, he raises a lot of very accurate points about the Democratic party. Dems are captured by corporations; they're unwilling to do what the people want, and what is in the best interests of the people, because that hurts their flow of money. And yes, tech companies are kissing Trump's ass because he's volatile enough that he could very well regulate them out of business if they aren't sucking his dick. Additionally, prior to his MAGA phase, Vance does appear to have been much more populist in his approach to corporations; he was saying some of the right things, even if his social policies were trash.
but this is ultimately voluntary and led by ones conscience.
Voluntary association is one of the defining traits of anarchist collectives though. None are compelled to participate, they do so willingly. The same was true with the early Christian church that existed within the Roman empire.
It is true that we see discrepancies between what Jesus supposedly said, and how the early church was organized. The church was certainly a product of its own time, much like Jesus' teachings about the position of slaves.
This was Luke writing in Acts
My apologies; it's been 30-odd years since I believed in a theistic religion, and I misremembered that.
[it] says very little (if anything) about how a state or market ought to behave.
True. Christianity is less concerned with material conditions than with eternal questions. But it seems fairly clear that valuing wealth and power more than spiritual matters is very antithetical to the teachings of Christ or his apostles. Wealth isn't seen as inherently bad; it depends on what you do with it.
I was raised in a very conservative home, both economically and socially. Even as a young person, it was clear to me that there were some pretty serious discrepancies between what Jesus and his disciples said about wealth, and how my own family and church viewed wealth.
Not particularly. Christianity in particular, if one reads the New Testament strictly, is quite socialist. In one of the Pauline epistles, Paul talks about all of the members of a congregation holding all things in common.
Marx assumes that addressing the material conditions would eliminate religion, and i think he's only partially correct. Yes, religion eases the pain of injustices now, but socialism can't address ideas of purpose within the universe, and life after death. Economic theory has nothing to say about whether or not any given deity is real.
OTOH, I'm an atheistic Satanist; I largely oppose theistic religions because I see them used to control people, rather than to comfort or help.
Progressive metal & related genres (currently listening to the newest Eidola album on repeat, and some Dance Gavin Dance), and bebop jazz.
But I don't program; I'm mostly cleaning up artwork for commercial printing.
Wut? AR-10s have different competing standards, and tend to be strangely finicky. (I've got an AR-10 in 6.5CM; it's really picky about ammunition.) The AR-10 was never adopted by the military; I think that you're thinking of the M-14.
That's because it's going to come assembled (hopefully). But if you ever need to replace a part? Good luck, because you're going to need it. OTOH, when I replaced the barrel, hand guard, trigger, BCG, etc. on my rifle, it was all very much plug-n-play.
They most definitely are not. Ammo prices for 5.56x45mm NATO start as low as 23.7cpr, if you're willing to shoot reman; if you want new, then 30.5cpr. Ammunition for 7.62x39mm starts at 38.9cpr, and that's steel case bi-metal bullets. If you want brass cases, they start at 45cpr. That means that a single 30 round magazine costs about $9.15 for an AR, and $11.67-$13 for an AK.
If you mean the majority of people that buy a rifle and then never use it, sure. If you're talking about people that actually go out and shoot, you're definitely wrong.
An easy example is ballistics. I have a 50/200y zero. I have to aim low and 100y by about 2", and at 500y I'll have about a 45" holdover. My LPVO has hash marks for ranges, and it's mostly right. An AK variant usually has a 25y zero; at 500y, your holdover is at least 80", and as much as 120", depending on the ammunition. You aren't likely going to find too many LPVOs that have holdover marks calibrated for an AK, so you'll probably be eyeballing it with a red dot and a magnifier. You can make hits out to 500y with an AK, but it's going to be a lot harder.