Walther PPK Mini-Review

I'm currently in the market for a CCW gun that's smaller than my Glock 19.  Today, I gave the Walther PPK a try. Here's how it went.

Ergonomics
The grip is surprisingly good for its size and relative lack of texture, and the gun points well. I did not have the PPK/S version with the longer grip or an extended magazine, so my pinkie was off the gun, but it didn't seem to matter.  Beyond these points, though, I wasn't very impressed with the ergonomics.

The PPK was not gentle on my hand

The safety is thumbed off by pressing up instead of down.  I think this is slower coming off the draw, so I don't much care for that.  There is also very little to the frame beneath the slide, which means there is almost nowhere for your support hand thumb to go without being on the slide.  I managed to go through 50 rounds without getting my thumb bitten, but I can see messing that up on a draw.  The impact of the recoil is also very rough on the hands, even though the recoil itself is not all that bad.  The webbed area of my hand between my thumb and pointer finger were left red and tenderized after shooting the PPK.

Trigger

Accuracy in single-action at 21 ft

Double Action:   Double awful.  It's a very stiff 13 lbs of force needed for this mode.  To make matters worse, it's very hard to feel the uptake vs. the break.  When I was shooting this, the shot caught me by surprise just about every time, as I just couldn't pull this trigger slowly while applying that much force to it.  Accuracy suffers.

Single Action:  They say its 6lb but it feels less.  This is a fun gun to shoot in SA mode, no question.  Again, though, I don't like the way it breaks.  The trigger seems to break the moment it moves with very, very little uptake compared to a 1911 or a Buckmark.

Sights and Accuracy
Very impressed on this criteria.  The PPK has very low-profile sights, which usually are very hard for me to use.  They have a red front sight and in the back, there is a red bar below the center of the rear sights, which helps you align.  Different from what I'm used to, but it worked.  I was acquiring a good sight picture as quickly as I can with the Glock 19 that I usually shoot.


It's very accurate in single action mode; far more accurate than what I'm used to for a subcompact.  Granted, most of those subcompacts were Double-Action-Only, so that may be a factor.  I was shooting this little guy almost as accurately as the Glock 19 at 35 feet.  In double-action mode, though, I was less accurate at 21 feet than I was in single-action at 35.

Recoil is manageable, despite the pounding my hands took.  The gun comes back on target quickly for follow up shots, no complaints there.  I think the all metal design helps manage the recoil in spite of the small size.

Overall

Double Action at 21 feet:  7 rounds,
1 bullseye, 1 in the black,
1 in the white, 4 misses 
Single Action at 35 feet:  9 rounds,
2 bullseyes, 3 in the black, 
4 in the white

I really liked the accuracy of this gun in single action mode.  The idea of a subcompact that shoots this accurately out to 12 yards is very appealing.  I could almost see myself doing IDPA-style matches with this (granted the .380 would not make power factor unless you went into BUG division) because it's accurate enough to keep up.  The double action kills it for me, though.  I like the idea of a DA/SA for carry, but I would want something a little less still in DA and with a crisper break.  And no, you cannot carry this "cocked and locked" because engaging the safety will also de-cock the gun.  I don't have any confidence in that first shot out of the holster, and if you're going to go with a .380, shot placement matters.

I'd still love to own a PPK someday, but as far as a carry gun goes I think I still need to look elsewhere: I'd like to try a Ruger LCP, S&W CS9, and give the S&W M&P Shield 9 another look.

"Guns And Safety: Where We Stand After Sandy Hook" Presentation by the Tenth Congressional District Democrats

At the behest of the ISRA, I, along with probably over 100 supporters of freedom, attended a presentation organized by the 10th Congressional District Democrats at the Glenview Police Station today.  We intended to outnumber them, and that we did.

The purpose of the meeting was to be an "educational presentation" about what gun control measures they could hope to achieve and what their strategy going forward would be.  It's impossible for me to accurately guess how many "antis" were there, but my guess is that the number was fewer than 10.  The ISRA managed to fill the room to capacity; many had to wait outside.

It may be interesting to see how the reports of the conduct of the attendees and presenters goes.  I'll put my perceptions into the record as this:

1. As people began to come in, we gravitated towards the front.  One of the organizers came by and asked us to leave the first two rows (out of a total of five, if I remember correctly) for seniors and the disabled.  I was in the second row, so I smiled and said "no problem" and moved to the third.  Others did the same, except for one person who said that he would move once said seniors or disabled arrived.  As more people came in, they too sat in the front, they too were asked to move, and they did so. This continued several times until the back three rows were full.  At that point, they stopped asking people to move.  Not once did a senior citizen or a person with a disability ask for a seat in the front row that was denied.

2.  The conduct of the attendees was more what you'd expect for a Tea Party town-hall than a presentation, which is to say there was a lot of shouting, interrupting the speakers.  Many in the crowd tried to "shhh" the disruptors; and one gentleman from the ISRA briefly got up in front of everyone to ask the audience to respect the 1st Amendment rights of the speakers by not interrupting, but it was of no help.  To be clear, no one was "shouted down" or prevented from speaking.  All the presentations were able to be given, all points they wanted to make were made---but in the process, a lot of well-intentioned people made their side look rather bad.

3.  The organizers planned a Q&A session for the end of the presentation.  We were told we would be provided with note cards and pencils, and that we could write our questions down so that the organizers could chose some of them to answer.  The cards came, but the pencils did not--no matter, some of us brought pens and were willing to share.  The questions that were read were--predictably--confusing, rambling, and just generally awful.  The troubling thing is that the organizer appeared to be just reading them in order (after making sure to answer a few specially chosen from the antis first, of course), so it's entirely possible that they weren't chosen specifically because they were awful.

4.  One speaker started off with a potentially justified point about NRA members being the NRA's worst enemy, a point that resonated with me due to the lack of tact being shown in the room.  But then he did something that left me with my jaw agape...  I wish I could give you an exact quote, as I don't want to be accused of unfairly characterizing this statement, but the best I can do is to paraphrase.  The statement was essentially that NRA members are harming the pro-2nd Amendment movement because they were getting guns and then going out and murdering school children.  I shit you not, he said that WE were the ones doing the killing.  He then displayed a picture captioned "What a gun show looks like" which contained an image of a display of pistols on tops of a Nazi flag.  Yes, he just made us all out to be murderers and Nazis.  This is a thing that just happened.

Overall, both sides came out with egg on their faces.
Moving onto the content of the presentation, I made several observations regarding their strategy that I think are worth noting:

1.  Unsurprisingly, they believe that Sandy Hook will be an impetus for change. They cited a list of tragedies that had led to action before, such as the attempted assassination on Reagan and Fukushima. I think those are bad examples, as Jim Brady didn't get anything done for a long time after the Reagan attempt, and no one died at Fukushima.  I guess they could have just as easily said the assassinations of King and Kennedy, though, which played into the 1986 Gun Control Act.  Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that they are overplaying their hand here.

2.  One presenter made an interesting argument that the meaning of "infringe" meant something different at the time of the founding than it did now--an argument that parallels our side's argument about the meaning of "regulated."  According to him, an infringement circa 1780 would be a "cancellation" or wholesale abridgement of something; the correct word for something that burdens a right would be "impingement" rather than "infringement."  I don't know if this goes anywhere.  On one hand, we have to take originalist textual arguments seriously; on the other hand, the idea that some burdens around the margin of a right would be consistent with Heller and may end up just meaning that strict scrutiny analysis is OK.  Or, he's probably just wrong.

3.  Another presenter was discussing the Obama executive orders with respect to the issue of "prohibited persons."  She mentioned that persons on the terror watch list should be prohibited persons.  She also advocated for improved communication between the states and federal government regarding persons prohibited due to mental illness and lamented that the standard for prohibition is being "adjudicated as mentally defective."  I think this is an important point, because on this subject there is an opportunity to reach common ground, but also a great danger.  Most Americans, including pro-2A citizens, will accept policies that improve access to mental health care and that make sure that those prohibited by reason of mental illness cannot pass an NICS check.  The danger is in how we go about these things.  The President's executive orders propose that doctors report to authorities on whether their patients may be dangerous.  This is a horrible idea, because it means less people will seek out mental health care when they need it.  We need to guard against policies that will reduce access to care rather than improve it.  Likewise, we need to be prepared to fight any unjustified additions to the categories of prohibited persons.  We cannot allow ourselves to be stripped of our rights just because somebody else thinks we're crazy.  Mental illness is just too malleable a concept.  The standard that we have now -- adjudicated mentally defective because such person is a danger to him/herself or others -- is a good standard.  We need to keep in mind that the 5th and 14th Amendments provide that a person cannot be deprived of liberty without due process of law.  I think this issue may be the most important front line in the years to come, and that the best way to fight it will be through litigation--we need a Supreme Court ruling applying the due process clause to infringements of the 2nd Amendment.

4.  The NRA-members-are-murderers speaker believed the NRA could be defeated politically because it was powerful primarily because of money from gun-related businesses, and once there is sufficient outrage money no longer matters. He argued that the membership was too small to be representative (while leaving out any information about the number of members anti-gun groups have).  Comically, to a room where NRA/ISRA members outnumbered anti-gunners by at least 10 to 1, he said that it was the NRA that was "out of touch."  Is there something to this strategy?  Sure.  But it's easily countered by grassroots activism.  The NRA has power mainly because its members vote, it's members remind their representatives that they vote, and we stay active.  And the money, by the way, comes from us too, because we are the ones buying the guns and ammo.

5.  Finally, you know the stereotype of gun-grabbers not knowing anything about the weapons they are trying to pass laws regulating?  It is completely true!  The same speaker that wants the federal government to be able to keep you from owning a firearm by putting you on the terrorist watch list gave us these gems:   A flash suppressor is used by criminals to prevent people from seeing them (it's actually to minimize the disruption to the eyes of the shooter), that assault weapons have "silencers," that one of the defining features of an assault weapon its that it has "high capacity clips" (as opposed to "the ability to accept a detachable magazine").

That's all for now... keep calm and carry on.

Unanswered Questions on COIN in Afghanistan

I just got done listening to the President's speech on Afghanistan this morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get what I was looking for out of it.

To me, the big questions on Afghanistan are (1) What are our strategic goals in the Afghanistan conflict and (2) what strategy will we use to achieve those goals, and (3) why is this strategy superior to our other alternatives? What I got out of the speech did more or less answer (1) and (2), but the answer to (2) was lacking and (3) was non-existent.

The President does seem to think that preventing another attack is the primary strategic goal, and I think that's appropriately narrow. In theory, we could go for a "integrating the gap" goal as well, although that's probably too ambitious at this time. But, that leads us to the deficiency in the second answer. A COIN strategy will be pursued--much like in Iraq--perhaps too much like Iraq. But a COIN strategy is very likely above and beyond the level of commitment necessary to achieve the stated strategic goal, and is more in line with a grander objectives of bringing Afghanistan into the community of nations and improving regional stability--objectives which are not on the table.

I would like to hear from the President (or the Pentagon) why alternative approaches wouldn't be better. Why is it vital to our security interests that Afghanistan's current government retain power (or perhaps it would be better to say, gain control of the "nation")? Sure, we don't want the country to become a haven for terrorists again. But it's not like the "nation" of Afghanistan (without our help) will have the military might necessary to keep us out. So where is the "safe haven?" We can have ISR assets there at any time, operators on the ground at any time, bomb a training camp at any time, arrest suspected terrorists at any time, etc. etc. Obviously, from a legal perspective, that wouldn't involve treating Afghanistan as a co-equal Westphalian nation-state--which makes perfect sense, because it is not.

Hence the problem with a COIN strategy. Missing completely from the President's speech was any statement suggesting any consideration of the differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq has been a relatively stable united nation-state with a well-developed national government and an educated middle-class. Success of COIN in Iraq comes largely from providing security to allow the political process to run its course so that the new government can do its job. Afghanistan is entirely different. It isn't a nation-state at all, but a collection of tribes, none of whom care about the non existent "nation" of Afghanistan. There very little civil society or government institutions to build on. A COIN strategy in Afghanistan isn't just about providing security, it is attempting to fundamentally transform the Afghan society in an incredibly radical way. It is an enormous task that is going to take an incredibly long time to achieve, assuming that it can be achieved at all.

And for the President to insist that we can achieve this, with short-term timetables about creating a domestic security force, like Iraq, and benchmarks for political progress, like Iraq, just seems disingenuous. There is no way an Iraq-style surge is going to work as well in Afghanistan. So what we have here is a strategy that is going to require a massive, open-ended, long term commitment, but we are obviously not committed to the level of effort it's going to take.

This administration needs to take a long look at what we need to accomplish, what we can accomplish, and what we're willing to accomplish, and fit our strategy to those parameters. Funny, but I thought that's what we were supposed to be doing with our review of the Afghanistan strategy.

Don't Rush to Condemn Kane

It's amazing what people will believe.

Buffalo police say Patrick Kane beat a cab driver over not being able to get 20 cents in change. 20 cents, people. That is incredible and warrants some skepticism.

What's happened since then?

Jan Radecki, the cab driver has hired an attorney, Andrew Lotempio. But, instead of seeing dollar signs and signing up a personal injury attorney to go after Kane, the cab driver hired a criminal defense attorney. That suggests, of course, that the cab driver is worried about going to jail over this. So there is definitely a possibility that the cab driver was the one in the wrong.

Said attorney then goes public, saying the incident is "overblown" and definitely "not a robbery" as had been accused. Again, consistent with the theory that the cabbie was in the wrong--because if LoTempio can get the prosecutor to drop the charges against Kane, Kane can be persuaded not to go after the cabbie. If LoTempio wanted cash in a civil suit, it would not be in his interest to diminish the criminal case. The civil case would be much stronger after a conviction, obviously.

Now, ABC is reporting that a witness stated that the Kanes were the victims, and Radecki's neighbors are accusing him of "having a short temper and being involved in disputes with customers in the past." And that he locked the pair in the cab while "waiting for payment." But even according to the police, the fare was paid, with change due.

My theory: Mr. Radecki wasn't pleased with his tip, and locked the pair in his cab to try to extort more from them. The Kanes then resisted with force. It fits the facts, makes more sense than the $.20 motive, and explains why Radecki hired a defense attorney who has been playing this incident down.

Golden Mori---"Maersk II?"

Found an interesting link regarding what could become a pirate standoff similar to that of the Maersk Alabama. This time, the ship is Japanese with a mostly Phillipino crew, so our press probably won't touch it much. Unfortunately, this story is already several days old...

The U.S. Navy said Thursday that it intended to remove pirates from a hijacked Japanese tanker monitored by American warships off the coast of Somalia. A crew member's sister said negotiations were under way for the release of the ship.

The Navy came to the aid of the chemical tanker this week, at one point opening fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to it.

***

Negotiations have started for the release of the Japanese tanker, anchored in Somali waters with 23 crew members from the Philippines, South Korea and Myanmar, said Josefina Villanueva, whose brother Laureano is a Filipino supervisor aboard the Golden Nori.

"The pirates are still on board with the crewmen. They can't leave," she said, relaying information families had received from the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs.

She said there had been no ransom demand from the pirates. "The talks are just starting. I think the pirates will later on demand something," she said.

Another interesting tidbit from the same story: The USN rendered assistance to a DPRK ship attacked by pirates. First time I heard it. I suppose it's possible that I'm lagging behind on current events, but it seems these are pretty important events that aren't getting much coverage.

It also helped a North Korean ship whose crew overpowered pirates in a clash that left several crew members wounded and one hijacker dead. The hijackers were being held aboard the ship until they can be handed over for prosecution at a port. After the clash, Navy personnel boarded the North Korean boat to treat the wounded.

H/T: Subsim

Photo of the Year

Sweet!!!

Here's the article.

Iran "Crackdown"

Depending on the source, the Ayatollah's crackdown has netted anywhere from a handful to 200+ fatalities. It's hard to tell for sure as most information is coming out through Twitter instead of news organizations, and there isn't much to corroborate claims.

Except this one. Her name was Neda. Apparently her only "crime" was observing a protest with her father.