Nuffing.com

https://cdn.athlonoutdoors.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2012/03/nfa-2.jpg

Many weapons parts are federally regulated like SBRs. Keep them safe with NFA trusts. A prevalent misconception exists among the general public, and the majority of gun owners, that silencers are illegal. Lump machine guns and short-barreled rifles into that questionable group, too. To the better informed, all the previously mentioned weapons can be legally owned by paying a $200 tax and filling out ATF Form 5320.4, also referred to as Form 4.

The most common manner in which to obtain restricted Class III weapons is to fill out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) Form 4 and register the weapon as “individual” ownership. The second classification, “corporations,” allows incorporated entities to own Class III weapons. A third registration method is to assign your ownership to an NFA trust.

NFA Trusts Are a Popular Method to Own NFA Guns

Creating a trust to own Class III weapons has risen in popularity over the past two years, owing to a couple of reasons. As a part of the background check process, the chief law enforcement officer in the community where you live is required to sign off on the Form 4. NFA trusts are a popular option for those communities where that LEO refuses to sign off on the form. The second reason that trusts have become more popular is the belief that Class III applications registering ownership to a trust get approved in less than the two to eight months it has historically taken to get approval.

The popularity of creating a trust to take ownership of Class III weapons deserves a hard look to weigh the pros and cons associated with this choice. Keep in mind that I am not an attorney. For this reason, I am not making any recommendations that could be construed as legal advice. I am merely presenting the views of two knowledgeable attorneys on the subject, as well as other experts on the subject. Going beyond using a trust to own National Firearms Act (NFA) regulated Title 2 weapons, this method of ownership may be used in states where Title 1 weapons come under close personal scrutiny, too. (Title 1 firearms are the kind that you can go to Wal-Mart or the local gun shop to buy.) An attorney in your state should make that judgment, though.

Handy around barricades, short-barreled rifles are excellent competitors in 3-Gun competitions. Photo courtesy Matt Howard

Before diving into the issue of NFA trusts, let’s examine registering weapons under a corporation to help clear the air. Some of the pitfalls of using a corporation instead of a trust include registration of the corporation on an annual basis that require fees from state and local municipalities, filing taxes and maintaining a board of directors. If the corporation is dissolved, dealing with the assets, such as NFA items, can be difficult legally.

Legal Advice on an NFA Trust

A trust is an estate-planning document. A trust lives on beyond the life of the person establishing the trust. To get an idea of the benefits of creating an NFA trust, I spoke with David Goldman, an attorney from Florida. He established GunTrustLawyer.com, and created a network of lawyers who specialize in creating NFA trusts. “The biggest reason that people use trusts is that the chief LEO won’t sign off,” Goldman said. “One of our most frequent users for trusts is police officers—when budgets are tight and the officers want to arm themselves with short-barreled rifles, but their chief won’t sign off. Privacy is another matter.”

Sun Devil lower. Jeremy Clough photo

I don’t advocate allowing felons to own firearms. Certain legal judgments don’t take into account every case, though. And, with 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce, it complicates some gun ownership situations. “You don’t have to be engaged in criminal activity to be a prohibited person,” Goldman said. “I had a client injure a child in a helicopter accident and was convicted of child endangerment, which made him a ‘prohibited’ person. If his 12 machine guns hadn’t been in a trust, they would have been lost.”

Stories abound of false charges brought by angry spouses embroiled in divorce proceedings. “I had a client throw a cup of water and he was charged with spousal abuse, and became a prohibited person,” Goldman added.

“A person cannot purchase a machine gun without a background check just by using a trust. The gun or firearms trust merely prevents the local CLEO (Chief Law Enforcement Officer) from arbitrarily denying fully qualified individuals the ability to exercise their constitutional right to purchase a firearm. An NFA trust does not make it easier for a criminal to purchase machine guns, silencers, and SBRs because of the ease in which these items can be tracked back to the purchaser.

Photo courtesy SureFire

“Besides allowing individuals to protect their right to purchase firearms, these trusts provide protections for the families and friends of gun owners that are not available with individual ownership. Through the traditional purchase route, many individuals are at risk of criminal activity and prosecution for permitting a friend, spouse, parent or child use or have access to the items. In addition, individual ownership does not deal with important issues, such as incapacity or death of the firearm owner. Likewise, a gun trust addresses the transfer of these firearms to heirs that may not be eligible to receive them, such as children or people living in a state where Title II firearms are not permitted. As a gun trust lawyer, I have seen many individuals who were forming corporations, trusts, and LLCs that were generic in nature and did not address their needs. Due to these errors, they placed their families, friends and children at unnecessary risk—a risk that can be avoided with an adequate NFA gun trust.”

Jeremy Clough photo

More Aspects

After a long conversation with Mr. Goldman, I related my interest in setting up an NFA trust with fellow writer, shooter and attorney, Jason Wong. A couple months ago, at a camp house in Wyoming, Wong said, “You have to be careful when setting up an NFA trust. I’ve talked to several people who want to take ‘will maker’ software and create a gun trust. There are too many variables in state law to just create a trust in this manner. You run the risk of creating an invalid trust.”

Wong summarized his caution best in a recent article on Tactical-Life.com: “In some jurisdictions, local chief law enforcement officers will refuse to sign the Form 4 certification, and it can be nearly impossible to complete the form,” Wong said. “In these instances, some buyers have resorted to using corporations, limited liability companies, or a trust to avoid the law enforcement certification requirement. When a non-person entity (such as a corporation or trust) is used to purchase NFA firearms, the requirements for a photo and law enforcement certification are waived by the ATF.

“If the buyer is self-employed, he may have already formed a corporation or LLC. In other cases, buyers often form corporations and trusts solely for the purchase of NFA firearms. If a buyer lives within a jurisdiction where a law enforcement certification is difficult or impossible to obtain, he may wish to explore one of these options. Buyers should speak with a lawyer about potential advantages and risks when considering the use of a corporation or a trust. Potential risks include the loss of all firearms possessed by a corporation or trust if the formation and administrative procedures required of the entity are not followed properly.”

The real difference between a standard lower and one for legal SBRs is the BATFE registration. Jeremy Clough photo

“Depending on the state, it can be as easy as signing a piece of paper and have it witnessed and notarized,” Goldman said in regards to completing a NFA trust. “We participate in the fees for providing the information and federal guidance and the local attorney handles the state issues. It can take 24 hours to turn them around to another attorney, but it usually takes a week.”

Cost of Security

Checking on the cost of establishment, I find it common for estate trusts to run in the $1,500 range. “In most states, we try to find attorneys who will prepare the Gun Trusts for a total of $600,” Goldman said.

“There’s a rumor that trusts take half as long to get approval as individual applications,” John Hollister with Advanced Armament Corporation said. “It’s logical because it takes less time to review since no fingerprints are required. There are only 12 examiners who review NFA applications. On July 1, 2011, the NFA application examiners were reshuffled from categorizing based upon the first letter of the last name of the applicant to being divided by state of applicant.” Hollister went on to speculate that individual Form 4 approval would be faster in the near future, owing to the reorganization of application examiners.

If you are in the market to purchase a silencer, machine gun, short-barreled rifle or other NFA weapon, consider all the options carefully. If you choose to form a trust, ensure that you weigh carefully the do-it-yourself route. I’ll be using a local attorney to set up mine.

The post What Are NFA Trusts? appeared first on Tactical Life Gun Magazine: Gun News and Gun Reviews.

Tactical Life Gun Magazine: Gun News and Gun Reviews

https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/12.0.0-1/72×72/1f51e.png

Time to do a report on a war theater where heavily armored vehicles shoot it out with each other in city streets: Mexico.

(You were thinking Ukraine? Probably an update on that next week.)

Cartel violence waxes and wanes, and regular readers know that the cartels are heavily armed. Even so, it may come as a shock to many that Mexican drug cartels have their own “tanks” (AKA “Monstruo”), i.e. up-armored civilian vehicles more accurately described as technicals or armored cars.

Mexican police recently captured one in Jalisco.

Mexico’s Guardia Nacional in Jalisco have captured a homemade ‘narco tank’ thought to be used by one of the country’s most powerful drug cartels.

The officials shared the news to Twitter after it was found in the area of Jalisco on 12 April.

According to the Mexican police, the vehicle was harbouring 2,000 rounds of ammunition.

In Texas, we call that “a good start.”

The heavy metal plated vehicle is thought to be owned by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion [CJNG], who operate in the area, as reported by The Star.

Painted green to blend in with surroundings, the tank is heavily armoured, with protective metal casing around the driver’s sider.

Publication Borderland Beat noted that the tank was discovered while being transported inside of a trailer.

The trailer limitation is probably why it seems unusually narrow.

En #Jalisco, la #GuardiaNacional aseguró un vehículo con blindaje artesanal y alrededor de dos mil cartuchos útiles que fueron localizados al interior de un tractocamión, como resultado de los recorridos para inhibir hechos delictivos en el municipio de Jamay. pic.twitter.com/jLgKnf5eqh

— Guardia Nacional (@GN_MEXICO_) April 13, 2022

Here’s a video covering various captured cartel narco tanks (though the voice-over isn’t the best).

Here’s a shorter video from several years ago showing various monstruos, mainly from the 2010-2011 timeframe.

This video shows still more footage, including (about 1:50 in) modern CJNG vehicles that not only look more professionally constructed, but have red-blue flashing lights and a cartel logo on the side, which does rather suggest they’re not trying to keep a low profile. Also includes combat footage of CJNG blowing away Northeast Cartel (CDN) rivals through their own gunholes.

Here’s a tweet that shows video of two other captured Nueva Generacion vehicles in 2019:

"Elements of the Mexican Army, seized several armored vehicles in a workshop allegedly used by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The events took place in the municipality of Tuxpan, in the state of Jalisco."

A behemoth of a ‘narco tank’ pic.twitter.com/auzhR6aMXh

— 𝙙00𝙙 (@just_some_d00d) December 21, 2019

And here’s one with a handy diagram:

For context:
The "Narco tank" or monstruo (Monster) is an improvised fighting vehicle used by drug cartels. pic.twitter.com/aFjeKCoLnK

— Cj comms open 1/6 slots (@ShiijeiKun) February 21, 2022

Some enterprising hobby company could probably sell models of these things…

Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog

https://cdn.athlonoutdoors.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2015/05/gbg-accuracy-1-150×150.1511985468.png

Of all of the firearms in our arsenal, the handgun can be the most challenging to master. It is small with a short sight radius and generally has a trigger that requires more pressure than the gun weighs. Almost always found with “open sights,” mastering a handgun requires mastering many moving parts. Fear not though, because by dividing handgun shooting into a few sections, we can do pistol shooting drills to improve our overall shooting.

Trigger Control

We often hear the phrase “trigger control” used when discussions of accuracy arise. Few times, however, is it given sufficient attention. The truth is that pistols for the most part are accurate. It’s our manipulation of the weapon that interferes with its ultimate capability. Here are some solid trigger control drills to help you improve.

• RELATED STORY: 6 Tips For Improved Trigger Pull with Rob Leatham

Pistol Shooting Drill #1: Brass On The Front Sight

This is always easier with the help of a partner. Start by unloading your weapon and remove the magazine if possible. Reset the action on your pistol and have your partner balance a piece of spent brass on the front sight. Now, execute a smooth, clean press of the trigger. If you do this correctly, the front sight will not dip or move and the brass will stay in place. If the brass falls off, you are generally jerking the trigger and causing movement in the gun. That movement translates into missed shots. The key to keeping the brass steady is a smooth, continuous trigger press with a clean “break” at the end.

Pistol Shooting Drill #2: Keep the Slack Out

The more we move the trigger, the higher the probability that we will miss our shot. The trigger press is composed of three stages:

1. The Slop – The distance the trigger travels to the rear before you encounter resistance.
2. The Slack – The distance the trigger will still travel while under tension prior to firing.
3. The Shot – Where the trigger finishes its travel and ultimately fires the weapon.

In our initial press of the trigger, we will experience all three stages of the trigger motion. However, after the initial press, the trigger will reset. The distance required for reset generally takes it only as far as our “slack” point. Do not allow the trigger to travel any further forward than necessary.

Pistol Shooting Drill #3: Empty Your Weapon and Press the Trigger

With your support-side hand, rack the slide and, as it is moving forward, relax your trigger finger. The tension of the trigger will push forward and allow it to reset. Only let the trigger move as far forward as it has to. Continuous dry-fire practice with this drill will familiarize you with how far your trigger needs to travel. We always look to avoid letting the trigger move all the way forward or having our trigger finger coming off. This generally ends up in a “slap” of the trigger on subsequent shots, which will interfere with accuracy.

Pistol Shooting Drill #4: Pencil Drill

Another common problem regarding the trigger is when it is not pressed directly to the rear. Many times, the firing-side hand over-grips the gun and causes the finger to arc as the trigger is pressed. This is called smearing the trigger and usually ends up causing shots to break to the support side. The trigger should be pressed with a direct and careful motion. A great pistol shooting drill to practice this is to place a pencil on the web of your thumb with the eraser on your trigger finger. Slowly and smoothly press the pencil toward you with the intention of keeping it on the web of the thumb. This drill will not only help you visualize a good press but can also create strong habits.

Follow-Through

Follow-through is the act of maintaining a steady platform to send follow-up shots on target. The challenge comes in the form of anticipation or flinch. Especially true with newer shooters, the anticipation of the next shot can cause a flinch response to the weapon. This causes muzzle dip, which never helps accuracy. Two proven drills to deal with this challenge are these:

Pistol Shooting Drill #5: Ball and Dummy

One of the most classic pistol drills, the Ball and Dummy drill is designed to help eliminate flinch. The drill is generally done with a partner to assist. While the shooter is turned away, the partner will place their weapon in a state of readiness. It will either be set with a round in the chamber or reset without a round. Either way, the trigger will function. The shooter is turned back around and given the weapon. They point in and press as if they were shooting a bullseye. If the weapon is unloaded, the trigger will click yet the muzzle should not dip. If there is a noticeable dip, it is a sign of anticipating the shot. Continue this drill with an occasional live round placed in the chamber so as to keep the shooter off-balance. Approximately 75 percent of the time it should be empty, however. This is a solid drill for learning to overcome the anticipation of the shot firing.

Pistol Shooting Drill #6: Single-Shot Drill

Similar to the Ball and Dummy drill, this exercise works on eliminating shot anticipation. This drill can be practiced without any assistance, making it easy to manage. Load one round into the weapon and then remove the magazine. Point in and fire the round on target. Settle in for a second shot and press the trigger. Watch your front sight intently for signs of dipping. This is equally effective as a tool for self-diagnosis.

Sight Picture & Alignment

There are many theories and methods of shooting when it comes to the sights. At the most fundamental and reliable level, though, we look to align the sights on target while intently focusing on the front sight. The rear sights should be slightly blurry as will be the target. The front sight should be crystal clear. Here are a few reliable drills to build confidence.

Pistol Shooting Drill #7: Bench Shooting

One of the best ways to learn certain components of shooting is to minimize the need to focus on other parts. By shooting from a benched position, you are able to eliminate the need to stabilize yourself in order to make good shots. This is a confidence builder as well as a drill to help you build good sight alignment habits. Sit at a bench with your arms resting on a shooting bag. Acquire a solid sight picture and alignment. Take your time and fire shots with the intent of managing perfect sights throughout the process.

Pistol Shooting Drill #8: Figure-8 Drill

One of the challenges we face is the feeling that our sights are all over the place as we begin to make a shot. For the most part, that is just our perception and not reality. With good mechanics, you can make accurate shots consistently. A drill to show you this, as well as to work on trigger control, is the Figure-8 drill. At about 6 yards, point in at your target, then take all of the slop and slack out of the trigger. Intentionally move the front sight 6 to 8 inches in a figure-8 over the bullseye. Now, as you come across the bullseye, break your shot and reset your trigger to shoot again. Continue this for 5 or 6 shots. What you will find is that you are much more accurate than you may think. By managing the trigger well, it allows for quite a bit of motion while still maintaining good accuracy.

Master Class

The goal is always to bring these components together. Unless you are a static bullseye shooter, there will be many moving parts to making a shot. Here are a few drills designed to start mixing components without overwhelming yourself.

Pistol Shooting Drill #9: Ragged Hole Drill

The Ragged Hole drill is another classic. From 6 yards, you will slow-fire 5 rounds into a single point on your target. Do your best to focus on a small portion of the target. Better yet, get a target that has 1- to 2-inch dots on it as focal points. Take your time and use the exact same point of aim each time. Do not chase your shots or try to make corrections. If you manage your trigger and sights well, you should end up with a single, ragged hole. If your shots are spread out, it is a sign that you need to polish up on one or more of the basics.

Pistol Shooting Drill #10: Shrinking Targets 

Similar to the Ragged Hole drill, the goal here is to start shrinking your shot groups. Find or make a target that has 3 or 4 circles on it, each a little smaller than the previous one. From 6 yards, fire 5 rounds into each circle. The goal is to have all the rounds inside the circle. As you master one circle, move to the next smaller one, and so on. This is as much a confidence builder as it is a skill builder.

Pistol Shooting Drill #11: Single Shot From Draw

Our final drill starts to bring all of the fundamentals together. From a holstered position, smoothly draw your weapon and fire one round onto a bullseye. Do good after-action drills, then reholster. Repeat this 10 times and then reset yourself. The goal is to be able to shoot solid shots while mixing in the motion of drawing. If your groups begin to open up, slow down. If you are shooting ragged holes, then strive to increase your pace. This is a solid drill to start mixing the fundamentals.

Shooting a handgun can be a frustrating challenge. One minute you are shooting bullseyes and the next you are off. As with all shooting, it always comes back to the fundamentals. By practicing these pistol shooting drills, you can improve individual skills and ultimately bring them all together.

• RELATED STORY: Rifling 101: Understanding Twist Rate Basics

The post 11 Pistol Shooting Drills to Improve Accuracy appeared first on Tactical Life Gun Magazine: Gun News and Gun Reviews.

Tactical Life Gun Magazine: Gun News and Gun Reviews

https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/sites/buckeyefirearms.org/files/styles/slideshow/public/field/image/appleseed-2022.jpg?itok=wq6fsSiT

Buckeye Firearms Association

https://media.babylonbee.com/articles/article-10934-1.jpg

The Babylon Bee

https://www.percona.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Finding-Differences-Between-MySQL-Servers.png

When one is responsible for promoting application development from Dev through the various environments such as QA, UAT, etc., through Production, it is often useful to ensure that configurations in test environments are comparable to the final production environment.  This is especially true with systems where a team of DBAs manage the servers.

Obviously, the difference in performance could be due to differences in hardware, storage, networking, software configuration, etc.  The question is how does one quickly and efficiently find the differences without having to run a lot of different commands and compare the output.  Fortunately, our Percona Toolkit has a couple of utilities that can make this much easier.  When you are tasked with supporting large numbers of servers, efficiency is paramount and this is where the toolkit can really help you!

You can find more information on the Percona Toolkit here: https://www.percona.com/software/database-tools/percona-toolkit

Let’s look at a few utilities that can help you spot differences in servers.  The first tool we will look at is pt-summary (https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-toolkit/LATEST/pt-summary.html).

The pt-summary tool will give you a summarized view of the server hardware.  It runs a series of Linux commands and formats the output into an easy-to-consume format.  You will get details on the following:

• Operating System & Linux kernel
• Virtualization
• CPU (number of cores, speed, models, caching)
• Memory consumption, swappiness, etc.
• Mounted filesystems (mount points, size, usage, format, etc.)
• Disk schedulers
• Disk partitioning
• Logical Volumes
• RAID
• Network configuration
• Network traffic statistics
• Network connections
• Top processes
• CPU utilization

By running the same report on the servers, you can spot-check differences in the hardware and Operating System.

When you want to find out differences in MySQL configuration, the toolkit has the perfect tool for this.  It is called pt-config-diff (https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-toolkit/LATEST/pt-config-diff.html).

This utility can connect to different servers and look at their configuration via MySQL Server Variables and then perform a “diff” on the values.  The tool creates a simple and concise output showing any differences between the servers.  Any differences will be immediately obvious.  Below is an example of the output:

2 config differences
Variable                  my.primary.cnf  my.replica.cnf
========================= =============== ===============
datadir                   /tmp/12345/data /tmp/12346/data
port                      12345           12346

Usage of these two utilities will allow you to quickly and easily find differences in either hardware or MySQL configuration between two or more servers.  These are the two tools that I always go to when I need to understand why two servers that are supposedly the same do not perform similarly.

Percona Database Performance Blog

The wonderful thing about Laravel is that, if there’s something specific you need to accomplish, then there’s…Laracasts

https://theawesomer.com/photos/2022/04/tandem_shower_t.jpg

 | Pledge | Link

Like to share a shower with your sweetheart but hate fighting for warm water? Boona’s cleverly-designed dual shower head attaches to your existing water source and holds in place with a tension rod, distributing water evenly from both ends of your shower. Each head is adjustable for people of different heights.

The Awesomer

Access patterns intrigue me because it seems that everyone knows what they are and talks about them, but there’s also very little written about them—in MySQL literature, at least.
That’s why I set out to enumerate a list of access patterns (specific to MySQL).
Since there’s no apparent standard for access patterns, I cannot say how my list measures up, but after spending most my career with MySQL, I know this: it is necessary to consider these access patterns when evaluating and improving MySQL performance.
Simply put: you cannot ignore how the application accesses MySQL.

Planet MySQL

https://assets.amuniversal.com/23121b60863e013a9e10005056a9545d

Dilbert Daily Strip