Went to a small gun show over the weekend. If you want an $800 SKS, a bottom of the line AR-15 for $900, a bunch of M1 Carbines for $1200 to $2000 each, or a Norinco AK-47 with a thumbhole stock for $2500, this was the show for you! All the 9mm or .45 ACP FMJ you could ask for at $50 to $70 a box. 5.56x45 starts at a buck a round, green tip SS109 $1.50 to $2 a round. 7.62x39 also $1 a round.

One guy did have a bunch of interesting early 20th Century pistols, but none of them had price tags. After I asked out of curiosity how much he wanted for the Spanish Jo Lo Ar (a weird 9mm Largo handgun whose slide can be retracted using only one hand), I found out why. In nice shape it's a $900-ish gun. His was beat up, and he wanted $1200.

Magazines weren't too overpriced, oddly enough, so I picked up a Magpul 60 round drum for my AR. AR drums are notoriously unreliable, but from everything I've seen Magpul is the exception.

One bright spot: At a previous show a guy had an AMT Automag IV .45 Magnum (not a typo, it's an obscure caliber) with a price tag of $1,000 on it. The Blue Book says it's only worth $600-ish in nice shape, but the last few that sold on Gunbroker all went for $1500 to $2000, so I took a chance and bought it. A short time later, I decided to see what I could get for it, and had an auction house list it. The auction just ended, and it sold for $2500.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aaronsmith/2021/01/18/glocks-ammo-ar-15s-sell-out-as-biden-inauguration-foreshadows-tighter-gun-control/?sh=3d85cd182bc7

Glock handguns are selling so fast that Danielle Jaymes, general manager of Poway Weapons & Gear in Poway, California, can’t keep them in stock.

Her store sold a shipment of 192 Glock 19s in a week, she said, and 9mm ammunition is so popular that she rations purchases to 100 rounds per day.

“People will take whatever they can get because supplies are so limited,” she said. “If I had a million rounds of 9 mm right now, I could sell it in two days.”

Americans are buying Glocks and other guns as they anticipate gun control measures from President-elect Joseph Biden, who will take office Wednesday. Carried by police officers and fetishized by rappers, Glocks are widely popular. A Glock turned up at a Capitol Police checkpoint on Friday, according to news reports, when a suspect was arrested with the loaded gun, 500 rounds and false inauguration credentials.

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https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/01/12/florida-background-checks-for-guns-skyrocket-in-first-days-of-2021/

ORLANDO, Fla. – With more than 30 years of selling guns under his gun belt, John Lassiter, of Addison’s Gun Shop in Kissimmee, has seen his industry revolve between gun-lows and gun-highs. The highs he has a name for.

“I call this a ‘gun run.’ We have been through gun runs before,” Lassiter said. “After Sandy Hook, everyone started buying up guns because they thought that might be their last chance to own an AR-15.”

But never in his 30 years -- even after the Sandy Hook massacre, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas mass shooting and the 2016 election -- Lassiter said he’s never seen gun sales like he has recently.

“I had a quad-triple year last year in classes. We usually do one class a week. I was doing five classes a week, all summer,” Lassiter said.

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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/policy-sets-motion-nuclear-space-133000204.html

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 11, 2021 / On December 16, 2020, the White House issued Space Policy Directive-6 (SPD-6), which outlines a national strategy for using space nuclear power and propulsion (SNPP) systems in a safe and effective manner. The new policy directive confirms the United States' commitment to using SNPP systems and establishing nuclear power stations on the moon and beyond, which is good news for US Nuclear (OTCQB:UCLE) and partner MIFTI, who have designed and are testing thermonuclear fusion power generators.

Scott Pace of the National Space Council, commented "Space nuclear power and propulsion is a fundamentally enabling technology for American deep-space missions to Mars and beyond. The United States intends to remain the leader among spacefaring nations, applying nuclear power technology safely, securely, and sustainably in space." The key factor for enabling space travel are the new nuclear powered propulsion systems, as traditional chemical powered rocket fuels are hopelessly weak. DARPA, NASA, and the US Space Force have recently gotten serious and deployed the nuclear option. Why? Nuclear fuels and nuclear power systems, such as the highly-regarded MIFTI Z-pinch fusion reactor, can deliver 10,000,000 times the work (or energy) per payload pound than the chemical rocket fuels now used by Musk's Space-X, Bezos's Blue Origin, Branson's Virgin Atlantic, as do Lockheed and Boeing.

Fusion propulsion should far outperform fission-based propulsion, because fusion reactions release up to four times as much energy, says NASA chief engineer Jeff Sheehy. Fusion uses a very lightweight, low-cost, and safe fuel, whereas fission uses a fuel that is scarce, expensive, and hazardous. Fusion propulsion devices could also be one-thousandth as large as a fission device. Saturn's moon Titan, has long been a focus of scientists as it is the only known body in space besides Earth where there is clear evidence of surface liquid, which could potentially harbor life. A fusion powered propulsion system could reach Mars in as little as 3 months, the asteroid belt in 7 months, and Titan in just two years.

Princeton Plasma Physics Lab is in the process of developing a fusion powered spacecraft called the Direct Fusion Drive (DFD) which can produce thrust directly from fusion, while US Nuclear and MIFTI are just a few years away from producing the world's first working fusion power generator.

(Excerpt)

To begin with , there gun control and there's Gun Control. The NRA will oppose all of these out of principal but will breath a sigh of relief if only the first one or two pass.

Red flag laws: Virtually certain.
Universal background checks: Also almost certain.

The next ones are (IMHO) increasingly unlikely, due to the razor-thin majority in the Senate and the quite thin majority in the House:

A ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines which allows previously owned items to continue to be transferred and sold: Possible.
Requiring a national gun license to own firearms: Unlikely
A ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines which forbids ever selling or transferring them, and confiscating them upon the owner's death: Very unlikely.
A ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines which forbids ever selling or transferring them, requiring all such guns and magazines to either be registered under the National Firearms Act at $200 per weapon and $200 per magazine, and confiscating those which the owner does not wish to pay such a cost to register (Biden's plan): Very, very unlikely.

Speaking personally, if the first two pass I'll shrug. I'd find a licensing requirement annoying, but I'd live with it. The stricter the weapons and magazine ban, the more I'd hate it. The strictest version would have me pay something in the ballpark of $20,000 to be allowed to keep my property, largely because I have a ton of magazines. If I only kept three magazines for each of my "assault weapons", it would still cost me around $10,000.

https://kutv.com/news/local/video-mitt-romney-called-traitor-on-flight-from-salt-lake-to-dc

(video at link, not sure how to embed it)

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — "Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!" passengers on a flight from Salt Lake City to Washington, D.C. yelled at Utah Sen. Mitt Romney on Tuesday.

Video shared on Twitter shows several rows of passengers yelling at the senator and questioning him ahead of Congress counting electoral votes on Wednesday.

"Your constituents want to know why you're going to certify the Electoral College!" a passenger yells at the senator.

Romney has said he will vote to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 election victory on Wednesday.

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I'm anticipating isolated incidents, but nothing massive. Oh, lots of pushing, shoving, and screaming, sure, and there may well be ia few gunshots, but I'll be surprised if there's anything on a large scale.

Just speculation, granted.

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/general-notice/sb-criteria-withdrawal-notice-12-23-20pdf

Good news.

https://www.startribune.com/prosecutors-no-charges-in-pawnshop-killing-during-george-floyd-unrest/573391381/

Hennepin County prosecutors said Monday that they would not bring criminal charges against a south Minneapolis pawnshop owner who fatally shot a man during the unrest that followed George Floyd's death earlier this year, saying they lacked the evidence to rebut the owner's self-defense claim.

County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement that the destruction of potential video evidence by looters and the refusal of key witnesses to testify precluded prosecutors from charging the owner, John Rieple, in the death of 43-year-old Calvin Horton.

"Based upon the facts and available evidence, the state could not prove it was not self-defense and prosecutors are ethically prohibited from filing charges against someone knowing it would not be possible to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt," the statement read. Prosecutors said they reached their decision following an "exhaustive" six-month police investigation.

While the Star Tribune generally does not identify people who haven't been charged with a crime, it is doing so with Rieple because his identity as the owner of the pawnshop is widely known and because he has been identified in other news accounts of Horton's killing.

(excerpt)

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/gun-restrictions-face-uphill-battle-biden-74653133

The gun debate in America will soon enter a new chapter with a Democrat in the White House after four years under President Donald Trump in which gun control advocates developed a long wish list for reform amid a spate of large-scale mass killings in places like Las Vegas, El Paso and Parkland, Florida.

But any hope that Joe Biden will usher in a new era of restrictions on firearms is highly unlikely because of the same polarization in Washington that has tripped up similar efforts under past administrations.

The items on the agenda — largely relegated to the political shelf in recent years — include renewing a ban on AR-style rifles, universal background checks, restrictions on high-capacity magazines and a federal red flag law designed to prevent people at risk of harming themselves or others from purchasing a firearm.

But virtually all of those will require Congress to act. And regardless the outcome in two Senate races in Georgia that will determine which party holds the majority in that chamber, it will be a tall order to get a majority of lawmakers on board.

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