Figures there would be nitpickers. Well, maybe that’s unfair; perhaps they are sincerely concerned.

Long-term Operative BG takes a break from training sea turtles to carry encoded messages to our trained attack infantry whales (The GormoPodForce™) to hector the Czar a bit:

I don’t have any problem with most of your recommendations for assault weapons banning. But can we carve out an exception for recoilless rifles? Ski resorts use them for avalanche control. During the 2011-12 ski season, 30 people were killed by avalanches in the U.S., which I’m pretty sure is many times the number of people who were killed in schools and shopping malls by maniacs carrying bazookas.

Well, ski resorts have a business case that would easily exempt them from the prohibition. The Czar would not worry about those applications in his proposal. You know, some Swiss resorts allegedly use automatic fire to trigger controlled avalanches, and we know that the media is hoping for a total ban on private ownership of automatic weapons as soon as 1934. So there is plenty of precedent.

Over at the alternate universe that is Twitter, Bill Goldbold (@wfgodbold) contends that:

Your box-magazine requirement could still cover AR-15s.

Yeah, but to some extent that’s just silliness. No doubt those things sell pretty well, and some prepper* is probably loading a bunch of .223s into one right now. But take it from a shooter or two who will assure you that such a magazine is going to get a snort of derision at the practice range.

Monster box magazines like that have a tendency to jam quite often (particularly with the reloaded ammunition that such an owner would likely want to use),** and throw off the balance of the weapon by quite a bit. Remember that 100 .223 rounds would add about 3 pounds of weight forward of your grip, which would be like holding three 16-oz bottles of soda in your palm. Not comfortable, but you can adjust your grip.

Now firing at a fast rate of speed will empty that box in about 45 seconds, which means the weapon begins dropping weight fast as you shoot. Meaning, of course, that your muzzle will tend to climb more until and unless you keep readjusting your grip as you shoot. Generally, that’s a no-no: your loaded firing grip should be no different from your unloaded firing grip. Better to have a few magazines loaded and ready to go than use an oversized box (or even a drum).

Curiously, although most folks don’t appreciate it, there are actually good, practical reasons that rifle magazines are 20 or 30 round boxes and no more.

* Actually, the Mandarin has been running several interesting scenarios on preppers for the last couple of years. They think they’re preparing for the End As We Know It, oblivious that they have been executing specific instructions by him the whole while. Some tricky math even the Czar doesn’t pretend to get, but that woman who hoardes 20 gallon-sized jars of mayonnaise is no accident.

** Technically, the most common problem is a failure to feed. The bigger the box, the more complex the spring system inside. If a cartridge is not perfectly sized due to reloading or cheap manufacture, you wind up with a non-firing weapon.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.