ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
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User ID: 822
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
2hr ago
There's about 250 million North Africans in 2026, the Third Reich had only 80 million people.
I think the real question is what the UK decides to do. (The USSR really isn't "Europe"; if anything, they'd be on the side of Africa- how do they benefit from a strong Europe? Not that they're in any position to attack in '39.) If they intervene on the Continental side, Europe wins; if they intervene on the African side, Europe loses.
Europe has all the manufacturing power but no resources; Africa has all the resources but no manufacturing power.
Nuclear weapons make manpower irrelevant and they can be delivered ballistically into North Africa from European positions (and Germany is famous for this capability); in a world whose neutral countries do not know what they do, there's no taboo against their use (outside of the Africans, but they're at war, so their protests don't matter, not that they would to the average European in 1939).
Once European scientists figure out that it's not only possible, but relatively trivial, to build them (especially if they have colony resources to draw on) the war goes cold the minute Cairo and Tripoli are erased by atomic power. The Africans will have a harder time with it even though they straight up start with a reactor that has already been used to do this, but that has more to do with South Africa than anything else (and the defection of any remaining sympathetic South African scientists will be a huge problem for the Africans- a joint UK/NL expeditionary force securing modern scientific knowledge would be catastrophic for the African position- and European survival is also dependent on who else recognizes this, and by that I mostly mean the Americans).
Something people forget about modern Africa is that currently they have literally zero ability to actually invade Europe (currently their idea of an 'invasion' is a civilian vessel or a Castaway-tier raft; scary in the Bronze Age or maybe Europe ca. 2026). They have no naval forces, no heavy lift aircraft, and very little ability to build them. Sure, they could do an air war as a Pearl Harbor-style shock and awe campaign, but once they're out of ammunition (and more importantly than those things, jet/diesel fuel) they have zero ability to replace them.
By the time they've built that capacity, 1939 Europe is a nuclear state.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
4hr ago
Basically, southern Ontario is being punished for voting wrong with complete economic destruction. All of the "deals" are bullshit cope; Europe won't permit Canada to retain its industry (or sovereignty, honestly) any more than the US would have.
It matters not one bit to LPC voters who will gladly turn anywhere west of Toronto into the next rust belt (especially those in provinces who exist solely because of government welfare, which is everywhere east of Toronto) just so long as they believe they've successfully thrown their weight around because Trump was mean to them on the internet. They're the embodiment of every single complaint made about MAGA.
LPC voters think it'll all go back to normal once Trump is out of office. It won't.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
10hr ago
Flavacol or other powdered salt.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
10hr ago
but it also means that the people getting these degrees not only waste 4 years of their productivity being IQ tested, but because they start out upwards of 200K in debt, which delays all kinds of things that would be useful for the economy. Crazy things like, buying a house, taking vacations, having children and thus needing the kinds of things you need to feed and clothe a child. These things, in 1950, generally happened in your twenties
Remember when I said this system was fundamentally just child sacrifice?
Well, I meant it.
This has by now created a situation in which the population is shrinking and thus unless we import workers, there’s no way to keep the systems running.
Or in other words, the sacrifices to the academic-managerial system have consumed everything, just like those Easter Island heads. The system has to look for more and more people who are born outside of it (and ban every other sector of economic activity) to keep its asset prices inflated.
One notices the system lives in fear of those who would rather burn them at the stake instead, and the split between Blue and Red (and the other dichotomous groups that are proxies for this) is in many ways a looming socioeconomic pension crisis specifically because we sacrificed too many kids, and too much youth, in the service of building [or inflating, if you will] so many heads.
Which is perhaps in large part why, right now, the political fight in the West is between the academic-managerial class and everyone else. That class is expecting a payout in political power that most countries simply can't afford to honor if they want to remain solvent.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
13hr ago
· Edited 13hr ago
Elected Democrats believe, rightly or wrongly (I genuinely don't know which) that being called racist will do more damage to their personal career prospects than hurting the party.
It has more to do with why the accusation is made in the first place.
The cry of "racism" is an argument from privilege; unpacked, it's "you can't reform away my sociopolitical power because I claim it would result in spiritual damage to a cause I am pretending to care about to gain a superior position over my peers" (whether it actually does or not is immaterial). Cries of "sexism" function the same way.
Conservative parties, which the Democrats (and Blue tribe) are [and at least the median citizen understands that more than they did 20 years ago], function solely on this kind of privilege; back when conservatism was Christian, it was the same thing- claiming something was 'unchristian' is "you can't reform away my sociopolitical power because I claim it would result in spiritual damage to a cause I pretend to a cause I am pretending to care about to gain a superior position over my peers".
Thus, "X-ism" is actually an assertion that the privilege of faction members to rent-seek without limit using the civil religion as justification is in question, and that's what a conservative/Democrat/Blue fears, because literally every part of their coalition has that trait in common.
It's also why reformers fail when they accept the conservative falsehood that honoring the moral claim of "racism" isn't the pure rent-seeking it actually is (usually through some sniveling apology; they're neither hot nor cold and thus the electorate spits them out). The correct way to deal with that as a reformer is to not even dignify it with a response.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
18hr ago
· Edited 18hr ago
Screening for degrees saves employers time and boosts productivity without having to interview everyone.
So does an IQ test.
A degree works because it is an IQ test, just one that costs at 50,000 dollars and 4 years of your life to complete, much like high school used to be in the days before graduation rate became something governments would be punished at the voting booth for failing to sufficiently game.
Now, there's an entire industry that depends on forcing perfectly good high school graduates to spend at least 50,000 dollars and 4 years of their lives, in co-operation with a management system that refuses to employ anyone who didn't take this kind of IQ test. If they wanted to increase the fee, management has no reason not to agree, forming the bedrock of the academic-managerial complex, if you will.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
22hr ago
They're not second-tier in terms of functionality.
They are second-tier in terms of aesthetics, and that matters for guns whose aesthetics are the only advertisement. Ruger isn't even a stranger to that concept; that's the only reason Mini-14s sell in areas where you could buy literally anything else, and everything in Marlin's lineup is like that too.
By being off-brand Italian garbage that, while they are dimensionally compatible with gear (and some grips) meant for K-frame revolvers, is where the similarities end (so you're on your own for parts).
In my defense, it was 300USD, new in box, looked like a Python, and I bought it because I wanted a gun for every competition division (and... also to learn about revolvers; in this, the piece functioned as intended). A .357 would have been better if only for more reliable ejection; .38-only revolvers can sometimes fail to get the casings out and this one is no exception (I'm also not doing the '90s-cop/Ayoob thing where you let go of the grip and tilt the gun vertical to eject, so if I forget to sufficiently tilt the gun up before hitting the rod it'll remind me). I'd go to .38 Short Colt brass for speed, but doing that creates pressure in excess of what a .38 is supposed to take, so that's out too.
Anyway, this particular design uses a torsion spring to push the bolt into the locking recesses on the cylinder rather than the coil spring S&W designs use, and was having problems positively locking the cylinder, so it locked up in the first 50 rounds with a shaved jacket against the left side of the forcing cone (and would occasionally lead to a round where the primer would be hit so off-center that it wouldn't fire). Modifying that spring so that it engaged more forcefully against the frame solved the issue- the gun wasn't actually out of time, it just wouldn't honor the existing timing, if that makes any sense.
Then, one of the two pins engaging the hand with the other moving parts fell out somehow. For some stupid reason, the pins aren't actually part of that assembly, and said pin magically vanished out of the gun one session. The one I ground to fit seems to have held up better- at least that was a standard dimension, but I get the distinct impression that it's supposed to sit flush against the inside of the frame (there's no recess to hold it in the side plate) and I currently suspect some of the inconsistent trigger pulls the thing suffers from now are due to this pin shifting in some direction (perhaps due to recoil) and binding up. That could probably be solved by an improved shim to better capture the pin, melting some plastic on the 'loose' end to support it better, or soldering the pin to the hand, but I'm too lazy to take this thing apart because it's annoying to get the side plate back on so that's just a theory for now.
Oh yeah, and the screw holding the cylinder release backs off within 100 rounds of tightening it (unless you make it so tight it binds). Loctite would solve that if I was totally done playing with it, but a gun that was made before the widespread use of threadlocker shouldn't need threadlocker.
The extractor rod will sometimes bind due to failing to re-center on the stud that retains it and there's no chamfer so good luck loading anything other than round-nosed projectiles with any urgency whatsoever. Surface finish is nice enough but not so nice I wouldn't be that sad if I scratched it up somehow.
And yet, for all of those faults, I shoot it exceptionally well [in DA] with the factory grips (which are too fat to accommodate speedloaders, but one problem at a time) and have about 6000 rounds through the thing so far. It would be more, but the assholes at the place I bought the bullets from failed to send me the proper diameter, so that's kind of on hold for now.
Overall, I rate it 6 out of 6, would revolve again.
Honestly I'd rather them just offer standalone barrels (Ruger seems to have a bad habit of making things non-user-replaceable simply by not offering the parts; I think the nonexistent demand for shorter PC Carbine barrels is indicative it didn't start selling more as time went on, but that's because you have far better options). They're basically all takedown models for some reason, not like it'd be hard.
I don't think the PC Carbine was ever actually that great or optimized a product. It's 3 pounds heavier than it should be, the magazine well is about 2" further forward than it should be, and the non-50-state/tactical version makes itself known it really wasn't designed that way. Sturdy is expensive.
It's unfortunate. Ruger appears to define themselves largely by their legacy offerings (which is why it's a shock they're ditching the revolvers) but any iteration they do make on an established formula is 15 years too late and looks like it was just slapped together. They're a lot like FN in that way.
I'm kind of surprised they didn't just go Walther MPL (where the bolt's a rough casting except for the bearing surfaces which are nicely machined), but then again, 9mm carbines are luxury products to begin with (which is also why every manufacturer feels compelled to offer some gimmick- takedown for the Ruger, folding for the S&W, and... well, I'd say Kel-Tec but they'd do it even if they didn't need to so I don't think that counts) so maybe Guntube would laugh at them for a cast part being obviously cast.
Then again, I'm also one of those weird people who think that a Mini-14 set up with changeable barrels to shoot every pistol caliber under the sun would be an interesting prospect; the last people to ever make a semi-auto rifle in a revolver caliber was... well, Ruger's modified Mini-14 in .44 Magnum. They won't do this because they bought Marlin (and because it would require designing a bunch of magwells and a substantial modification to the receiver, including the fundamentals of how it operates), but for people who don't have the kind of range available to take advantage of an optic and don't want to spend $2/round on a rifle design that's so stereotypically American the CMP is usually running low on guns to re-import? I could think of worse business ideas. (Or just stamp a bunch of clips to hold 9mm if you'd have to do it the shitty Chiappa M1-9 way from any other pistol magazine, and have them launch out the top in the Garand way. I'm sure there's at least one state that exempts fixed magazines from capacity restrictions.)
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
1d ago
I think my revolver has jammed more times than my semi-autos at this point (and that’s something requiring disassembly to fix), but it’s also somehow ridiculously accurate despite having a 12-pound trigger (that is sometimes 20 if it’s in a bad mood).
You require no other hand strength to unload the gun, as soon as the cylinder leaves the gun it can’t fire even if the user pulls the trigger (for leverage, I guess), and you get a set trigger if you need one by pulling the hammer back.
It’s honestly a type of pistol that you could use offensively if you needed to (as in, not exactly 7 yards and in, especially in .357 where it’s not dropping 3” at 50 yards) if you put an optic on it, which is probably why the French adopted one.
I think the decline in metallic silhouette, or the fact it didn’t evolve as a shooting game, has a lot to do with why the casual for-recreation owner doesn’t seem to bother. Not like indoor ranges have the space for it anyway.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
1d ago
Any idiot with a CNC can do AR-15 stuff, and outside of maybe the Stoner 63 (which Robinson did in aluminum, that’s what the XCR is) it’s unique in that regard.
You’d have to do design work to transpose any other rifle and, if you have the tooling, it’s not worth it (especially with AKs, but the G3 as well). Modern guns come out of extenders nowdays and you need serious capital and production numbers for that (plastic or aluminum), but not the AR.
It’s lucky that the AR had a flat top that lent itself to optics basically by mistake but it is legitimately a great rifle in a cartridge that is almost as cheap as surplus used to be.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
1d ago
Even lower-volume competition shooters can expect their guns to last a lifetime. 5000 rounds a year over 20 years is 100,000 rounds, and that’s not unrealistic for guns to be able to reach.
S&W revolver designs start breaking down closer to 50K rounds (they start going out of time), AKs crack at the trunnion after about 100K, ARs break uppers at the barrel threads if they even break at all, and most modern extruded aluminum rifles are likely capable of a million especially those with replaceable high-wear surfaces (the SIG MCX being a good example of that). The barrel will be shot out, and the bolt might break lugs, but that’s not usually a gun-ender so long as you can still buy the part.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
1d ago
Actually, yeah, I think you’re right. I thought the Carbines were both extruded but looking at them again I’m pretty sure they’re largely billet aluminum with cast bolts (one being its own thing, and one being an obvious conversion of their handguns).
Honestly I’m kind of surprised they never bothered to make an LC Carbine in 9mm but I guess that would cannibalize PC sales, which were probably not that great to begin with.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
1d ago
With apologies to Stevie Wonder:
>But what it is, though old, so new
>To fill your heart like no three words could ever do
>I just called to say 'the N-word'
>I just called to say how much I care
>I just called to say 'the N-word'
>And I mean it from the bottom of my heart
Remember when people used to do that for "the F-word"? I guess nothing really ever changes, does it.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
1d ago
Body positivity is paramount; I, for one, would definitely never call someone a 'bigger'.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
1d ago
Ruger is a weird company.
Ruger is an investment casting company that just happens to make guns. Now, casting is a fine way to make a firearm, particularly when it comes to pistols (especially revolvers because they have to be metal, but any semi-auto with a metal frame benefits) and stuff that has been designed with casting in mind (10/22, Mini-14).
Which explains literally everything about what was, yesterday, their product catalogue. But, if doing literally anything else with their casting lines is more profitable than the revolvers, then the revolvers are going to go. The 10/22 requires a minimum of machining to make, and the Mini-14 has such a fat profit margin (especially where they're the only legal option), that there's still room for those.
Or maybe they need the cash to pay for some new in-house aluminum extrusion capacity. I'm not convinced most of their new guns (the PC and LC Carbines in particular) aren't subcontracted to a different manufacturer and 9mm rifles never really sold that well to begin with (and even if the de facto nullification of the NFA does result in an uptick of 9mm rifle sales the PC Carbine was never even that great a rifle in the first place; yes, it's still legal in most states, but increased foreign competition of far better rifles will likely end up with Ruger competing with itself just like it does with the revolvers).
Remington, Colt, Winchester etc. are all dead and buried. Name brands for the banks to fight over.
As it turns out, not really.
Remington was broken up and most gun companies in the US took a piece of it (Ruger bought Marlin).
It's the Colt CZ group now.
Winchester ceased to be an independent gun-making entity in 1935; they were acquired by Olin, an ammunition company naturally seeking commoditization of their compliment.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
2d ago
Non-combatants of a belligerent really like the pretense that only its soldiers will die.
Break that illusion and they'll double down, just like a Palestinian. And at that point your solution to the existence of that people has to be final; generally this would consist of nuclear annihilation, but the problem other nations have with that is that 'making clear that you will genocide your enemies' may cause them to pre-emptively strike you with the same weapons.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
3d ago
Honestly the part I felt cheated by had more to do with the "oh, so we're just going to make the protagonist basically blameless" thing than anything else.
It would have been more interesting had the killer bees been delivered as a gift more than the chug jug ointment beforehand.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
3d ago
I'll add I think gay marriage was actually more important than people credit: post-Obergefell a lot of liberals decided that conservative opinions they had previously countenanced were actually too bigoted to tolerate at all.
2005-2015 was, statistically, when the last of the last generation (one hopes) to ever experience hunger in a Western country died (75-85 years if born in 1930, also the generation that came of age during WW2).
I do believe that Obergefell did have something to do with this- that the Christians vs. Atheists fight centered around 2010 was finally won (and the 'atheist' revolution proceeded to turn on itself in the form of International SJWery)- but on an institutional level those people were the last of the "you'd better keep that [X] around, you might need it some day", where X is [in hindsight, to me] 'standards of civility'.
Now that nobody remembers a time when the next meal could be threatened by (in some cases, literal) partisan sniping, it will intensify until it does threaten it, simply because that's how human beings work.
There's a really big difference between peace achieved by suppressing your violent desires and inner peace with no violent desires to suppress at all.
It's difficult to personally evaluate which is which.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
3d ago
The naive people are indirectly responsible for the costs caused by insufficient security measures.
However, the converse also applies: the most cynical (who demand others pay more for security) impose costs when they want too much security.
This is how progressives can [correctly] accuse everyone else of imposing too many costs on the community by impeding the immigration they want, and how everyone else [correctly] can accuse progressives of imposing too many costs through failing to ensure immigrants behave themselves.
There's a meme in software about "move fast and break things". Same thing- you can either have more software faster and cheaper but having more security issues [which create cost indirectly], or you can have no software and have systems that are extremely expensive [which create cost directly].
Either one fundamentally creates a cost, but it's asymmetrically enforced, as humankind hasn't figured out how to measure much less begin to force the people who argue conservatism in a particular area to pay the opportunity cost that creates beyond "move to a land of plenty such that conservatism doesn't work".
but no matter how cynical they are there's nothing they can do to prevent the security costs and friction forced upon them by the scumbags
Sure there is- you organize meanness to degrade their capabilities. Typically this requires grouping people by class- sex, race, age, nationality [Irish need not apply], social standing, g, whatever- and forcing them to pay for "being scumbags".
And the ways you might force them to pay are many- you can levy fines, imprison them (which is more a fine on their time), disenfranchise them, physically injure them, and deploy various means of scumbag-icide (from assassinations of key figures to whatever prefix for -cide you wish).
On the other hand, of course, "being scumbag" is sometimes not something one can avoid. Perhaps one is born stupid, or with some trait that make their existence untenable (including relative statuses, since human beings work that way), so either they themselves, or those with whom they can co-ordinate, will seek to take away what you have because there's no particularly attractive alternative.
The thing that complicates this analysis is the fact that "people that just want to watch the world burn" (as in this case) are always a net positive to kill, but it's not possible to ensure the social machinery that kills those people is never turned in their direction.
A stuck in defrost wouldn't necessarily cause short cycling (although depending on the control setup there might be some)
A CMMG banshee 9mm AR with FRT and suppressor is up there on the list
If you want something actually transformative, build a vz. 61 with a lower that you can put an FRT into, then suppress it. If you must go Banshee, get the fixed ejector upgrade if you can (ejection is a weak point of this design), or go with the MEAN Arms roller-delayed system (it isn't an issue there). Or buy a parts kit and print an MP5.
it's hard to see why it's worth going to the manual actions or single-shots when semi-autos are so cheap
Pistol caliber semi-autos have always been cheaper simply because they require no locking system to function safely. That's why manual-action guns in these calibers are so rare (with the exception of magnum-length revolver calibers).
(Same reason why there are barely any straight-pull bolt-action rifles- you're >95% of the way to a semi-auto. The Heym SR-30, simplest of the straight-pulls, is mechanically/operationally identical to an HK SL-7 without an action spring and appropriate "locking" piece.)
more engineering would be needed to make it magazine-fed
If you can get the "donor" gun in question to take a normal magazine, just use Endomags (or Exomags if you want a 10-rounder for something closer to flush-fitting). Bolt guns with plunger ejectors might cause you some grief, but these magazines are available with ejectors mounted on them should you require that (though it's a compromise as they can get damaged, like they can on the 10/22, which also does this).
Or maybe see what you could do with a high-point 9mm carbine; those guns are actually cheap cheap
Extar's plastic 9mm is arguably a better value simply by virtue of needing fewer magazines (and you can put an FRT in that too).
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
4d ago
I honestly felt cheated by the movie [and have the impression the book was similar] simply because Dankness Evermeme (or whatever her name is) was mostly just getting lucky with conditions suitable for environmental kills (with maybe an excusable reflex shooting to make that one guy rue the day he dared set foot in the arena). If there was manipulation to place those convenient weapons right in her way, it wasn't clearly stated.
ThisIsSin
Like a wild animal, the threat to our body was coming right for us
4d ago
I'd figure a character-driven description of another character would be more relevant than the third person. Or maybe I just appreciate characters who would describe a certain movement as "breasted boobily".
You're not unloading troops or tanks from a frigate, though. You need lots of landing craft and a place to land at for that, and it's apparently geographically unfavorable to land in Europe on the Mediterranean coast (Spain doesn't really count, by the way; you're not driving through the mountain border to France).
If you want to conquer territory and impose your law, you have to get your men there so they can occupy it (and enforce that claim). If you can't get your men there, you don't control the territory, simple as, and that's as true in 1939 as it is in 2026.
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