#Arms

Recently, due to the reaction of the U.S. government to Coronavirus, my day job has become 100% remote work. I work in the television industry, which has always meant one horrific thing. I was stuck living in Los Angeles. I was born and raised in LA, but as I got older and my priorities changed, I realized how much I hated living there. I started planning my escape in my early twenties, and when the opportunity to leave presented itself, my wife, baby, and I jumped on it. Our last day as California residents was Christmas 2020. We now reside in beautiful Colorado and couldn’t be happier. As an avid gun and self-defense enthusiast, the new opportunities before me were almost overwhelming. Suppressors? Binary triggers? No handgun roster? I wanted to drive straight to the nearest gun store and buy them all. Unfortunately, that would be hell on our bank account, so I had to pick a place to start. One of the most hideous affronts leveled against my passion for firearms is the illogical and ignorant laws surrounding AR-15s. I had a California compliant AR, and that knowledge made me churn and boil inside like I was filled with fiery magma. Welcome to my mini series Escape From Bondage: Un-Californiaizing My AR-15 Part 1.

The current US administration is looking to release many of the restrictions on weapons exports, according to a recent article at Reuters. Currently, International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) limit the ability for US arms companies to sell weapons overseas. However, the Trump administration is reportedly planning to change the jurisdiction for most arms exports from the State Department to the Commerce Department, which would likely make such exports substantially easier. The State Department’s focus is primarily on security and stability, which means they generally err on the side of less exports rather than more, but the Commerce Department is primarily focused on facilitating international trade. This strongly suggests that arms exports as handled by the Commerce Department would be facilitated by the agency, rather than obstructed, as the trend has been under the State Department.

The use of antiques in combat is something that often is overlooked, as many find greater interest in more modern weapons. However, though these older weapons are as obsolete as they are antique, they are still relevant articles of war, and still certainly lethal. Silent YouTuber jmantime covers the use of some World War II weapons in the ongoing Syrian Civil War:

The Peace Research Institute of Oslo have produced a visualization of the imports and exports and military and civilian weapons and ammunition. I have seen many of these types of visualizations before, but this is the first one I have seen that allows you to filter out military weapons so you only see civilian weapon data. You can click on any country and see where they export civilian (or military) weapons to and from where they import them.

Google and the Igarape Institute and the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers teamed up to develop this beautiful visualization of small arms, light weapons and ammunition transfers between 1992 and 2010. The visualization requires a modern web browser and graphics card that supports WebGL. I suggest using Chrome or Firefox.

A.R.M.S who manufacture AR-15 sights and mounts, and of whom the US military is customer, have developed a flashlight mount for the AR-15 called the Ring of Fire.

Russia Today reports:

The Economist has a nice graph showing firearm ownership throughout the world.