Follow-up Friday- Quantico spies, AR ban, Osprey crash
Let’s start with the Jordanian fellas who wandered onto Quantico May 3. Illegal, trespassing on a military base… throw the book at ’em, no? Uh…no.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official confirmed to Fox News Digital that Hasan Yousef Hamdan and Mohammad Khair Dabous were allowed to bond out by an immigration judge in June.
The bonds were $15,000 and $10,000 for Hamdan and Dabous, respectively. Conditions of their release include showing up for immigration proceedings and staying away from Quantico or other military installations.
Both men are expected to appear in a Virginia federal court in September. Fox News
Believe back in the day we would have regarded that as pretty cheap intel – only cost money. And note this all happened in JUNE – so by now I’m sure they’ve scarpered for home with everything they saw locked in their heads. Damn, we are stupid…
A while back, readers were surprised that New Jersey’s ban on “assault weapons” was declared to be legal. Given the “common usage” part of recent Supreme Court decisions, it would seem that a rifle owned by (depending on whose estimates) 15 million to as many as 40 million Americans would be ‘common usage’ enough – but a New Jersey judge upheld the ban. Now an appeals judge ruled the ban unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan’s 69-page opinion says he was compelled to rule as he did because of the Supreme Court’s rulings in firearms cases, particularly the 2022 Bruen decision that expanded gun rights.
Sheridan’s ruling left both 2nd Amendment advocates and the state attorney general planning appeals. The judge temporarily delayed the order for 30 days.
Pointing to the high court’s precedents, Sheridan suggested Congress and the president could do more to curb gun-related violence nationwide.
“It is hard to accept the Supreme Court’s pronouncements that certain firearms policy choices are ‘off the table’ when frequently, radical individuals possess and use these same firearms for evil purposes,” he wrote.AP
Does NOT sound like the judge is a fan – but he at least ruled according to law, not feelz. Plan on an appeal.
And, everyone’s favorite aircraft (barring possibly the platinum plated F35. It isn’t? Thought it must be…) the MV-22 Osprey. The Air Force has issued its findings on the Japan crash which killed 8. Gear box basically internally turned into shavings…as Gomer used to tell SGT Carter: ” Well, surprise, surprise, surprise!”
The crash of an Air Force Osprey aircraft eight months ago in Japan that killed all eight airmen on board was caused by a “catastrophic failure” of one of the aircraft’s proprotor gearboxes and the pilot’s “insufficient sense of urgency” to land immediately in response to electronic warnings in the cockpit, according to a crash investigation by the U.S. military released Thursday.
The investigation concluded that a gear failed and broke apart leading to metal chips in the proprotor gearbox, which serves a function similar to a car’s transmission. The root cause of the gear’s failure is still under review by engineers, according to the Air Force.
The issue of possible metal chips in the proprotor gearbox has come up at least seven times in Marine Osprey mishaps since July 2022, according to data obtained by NBC News.
Not quite pilot error in the report, but he did rise to Indiana-Jones level “he chose – poorly” and it killed him and seven others. But for the part which got ME torqued:
Conley’s investigation also noted that a lack of sharing of safety assessments between the three services that fly the 386 Osprey aircraft across the military “substantially contributed to the mishap.”
Safety information on the aircraft is handled differently by different branches of the military.
Despite a joint program office that runs the Osprey platform, safety data among services is not universally housed. For instance, the Marines released narratives of serious Osprey mishaps over the past 10 years that included detailed descriptions of what happened in each incident. The Air Force deemed that same information to be “privileged safety information” and not releasable, according to a spokesperson. NBC News
Excuse me, but what the actual f***? Multiple fatal crashes over years, and no one with enough seniority has pounded his/her fist on the desk amd said “we want ALL your data on ALL the crashes on the table yesterday!” Sounds to me like some serious program management dereliction of duty.
Category: Air Force, Guns, Marine Corps
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/02/groupthink-gives-v-22-bad-rap/394420/#:~:text=But%20facts%20matter%2C%20and%20the,by%20the%20U.S.%20Marine%20Corps.
Her box got dropped off at capital yesterday.
I’ll just touch on the AR-15 thing for now, since those rifles tend to bear the brunt of anti-gun legislation. When I was going through the online training for my job, I wondered what the heck an MSR was. Why call an AR-15 a modern sporting rifle? That’s one step below Dick’s just stopping the sale of firearms altogether, isn’t it? What can I say? I was fresh out of the Army and not familiar with civilian retail markets.
We don’t sell Kalashnikov variants (except for the occasional used gun that comes in). We don’t honor the three-day Brady waiting period for Delays, don’t even acquire anything that comes in with a pistol brace or bump stock (unless it’s too late to send it back that day), and while we started stocking more AR, Glock, and SIG parts, we are very much not a gun store (as I tell customers on occasion when they get upset about our policies or inability to order that Benelli M1 model that was discontinued in 1996).
I’d say that the MSRs we sell are definitely common use firearms, otherwise my corporate overlords would be a bunch of Dick’s themselves. Down here, people buy MSRs for varmint hunting. They’re great for pigs and coyotes. They’re also really good for the rural property owner dealing with two-legged varmints. Pistol caliber carbines make for great ATV guns that can use the same magazines as a sidearm. Of course, that’s not to mention the fact that so many of us have extensive training on the AR platform over pretty much any other weapons system. Before retiring, I was tired of even looking at M4A1s. Realizing that I know them like the back of my hand, though, I bought my Ruger AR-556 MPR, and just last week I bought the S&W M&P-15 I’d been holding in the back.
In your collection 2176, do you own an AR-180 ?? When I was collecting, I had a Swiss 514 rifle with the fixed foldable bipod with the operating rod handle that looked an alcohal keg that the Swiss ST. Bernards dogs carried. I forgot the model number before the 3 digits and I may be off on the last digit. These Rifles I had years ago and sold them. Also had 2 H&K in 2 different calibers when they first hit the states, a Spanish Cetme, A Finnish Valmet AK varient, and an AR-15. The Garand Man wanted to sell me the rifle that had a rotary Mag on the bottom of the receiver that one could top off the ammo. I think that some Marines in the Pacific during WW2 had these I forgot the name of the rifle and I think it was in competition with the Garand but didn’t make it. I should have researched this stuff before I commented. I think that the AR-180 was made in either California or England but don’t remember… I’ll most likely get replys on this. I can’t remember if I had anymore rifles in the collection except two .22 Cal. Gallery take down rifles still in a case since 2007 when I moved down here. I wonder what kind of condition they are in.Rossi & Ruger
The WWII rifle with the rotary mag was a Stoner.
I believe the rotary mag rifle was probably an M1941 Johnson. I found an AR-180 years ago but didn’t have the money for it at the time. Also passed on a Valmet and a Daewoo rifle back in the late-’90s.
The only “cool guy” rifles I’ve owned outside of my AR-15s and the MAK-90 are an HK91 and FN-FAL.
Thats it 2176, The WW2 Johnson was up for sale by the Garand Man back in the day but I decided not to buy it
I sent in I think around one or 2two thousand for an FN-FAL and after a month or so, I called up to see what was going on and I got the sellers Brother on the phone and told him about the sale, he got a little pissed off and blamed his Brother for not letting me know that the item was still in Europe and the deal fell through and he should have let me know. I don’t remember if banks issued money orders. I used a store money order since I never had a checking account untill around 2008 or so. anyway, I got a check in the mail. Now I see The Brit rifles are in some of the gun stores.
The FN-FAL I never received took place around mid 70’s
Yeah, we’ll see those two (2) goat f*ckers again…but it won’t be in a court room. We’ll see their buddies, too. Prepare
“…shall not be infringed…” Wonder what part of that statement these despotic power hungry (s)elected oraficials can’t understand? When the Brits came to confiscate weapons, they were shot. Today’s despots would not be wanting to take away weapons from the citizens if they were not planning on doing even more things that would cause said citizens to need to shoot them. Prepare
So…the Chairforce blew a tranny? Not the FIRST ( 😀 ) time that’s happened. Too bad they can’t go straight to the problem and fix it. Be nice if they quit killing troops in an aircraft that is known to be a defect too.
Too bad the judge only ruled that the AR-15 ban was unconstitutional. All other so-called “assault weapons” are still on the ban list, as well as “high capacity” magazines.
https://100percentfedup.com/204749-2/
I saw that yesterday.
The judge ruled (if I read that correctly) that the ban was unConstitutional for only ONE rifle, a Colt AR15, and NJ could (lawfully – WTF!) continue to ban “high” (standard 30 round) capacity magazines, but (low capacity) 10 round mags were okey-dokey.
I am SO glad that I moved away from the East coast lo, those many decades ago.
When I left my house to move to my late Moms home I had all my handguns in the car trunk and had to take the jersey pike on the way to Florida and my hands were frozen on the wheel and keeping to the speed limit untill I hit the Deleware Memorial Bridge knowing that if I got stopped and the jersey trooper saw the firearms, I would be arrested. The law says that I can transport firearms in my car while moving to a new abode but these shit bird troopers don’t believe in the law. Look what happened when TAH had the story about the off duty new jersey Brink’s worker whom has a carry permit was pulled over and arrested for having the wrong type of rounds in the gun which were approved by the company…
When I was in the rotary wing community of Naval Aviation, it was pretty routine for pilots to blow off transmission chip lights* if there were no secondary indications (low oil pressures, high temps, fluctuating RPMs etc).
When I say “blow off” I don’t mean ignore totally; they’d call it in, but if they said “no secondaries”, they’d get permission to Continue the Mission.
Most of the time, chip lights were false indications.
The problem is that when a transmission does go, it tends to do so very quickly. It can go from “chip light, no secondaries” to “oh sh1t” in a matter of seconds sometimes.
With the Osprey and it’s litany of problems, they probably should take every chip light seriously (at least in training or routine operations) and get on the deck as soon as possible. They’ll have a lot of busted missions that way, but have fewer of them fall out of the sky.
*for those not familiar with it: The transmissions (and engines) have drain plugs with magnets as some auto transmissions do. Those magnets attract metal chips and shavings that can enter the oil as internal components wear or malfunction.
In aircraft, unlike autos, the magnetic plugs have two concentric rings of metal separated by an insulator. Those rings of metal are connected to a power source and an idiot light in the cockpit. If the magnet attracts a metal chip big enough to bridge the gap between the two rings, it completes the circuit and the light in the cockpit illuminates.
The problem is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a big chip to illuminate the light…it could be a a few tiny shavings that ball together and bridge the gap. Tiny shavings are relatively normal…especially in a new or newly rebuilt component. So the chip lights are actually not that unusual and, if there are no “secondary indications” of imminent failure as mentioned above…
I heard that the head of the DC Gehime Staatspoliezei was saying that crooks AR-15 had a folding stock wanting all the low info/low watt people to think that the folding stock makes the rifle easy to conceal
That folding buffer tube is a mofo along with the barrel shroud (totally not a “handguard” that everying beside the original Henry repeatin’ rifle has)– makes totally helpless good citizens into evil mass shooters and racist RepubliKKKans, comrade! /sarc
“Both men are expected to appear”
You spelled disappear wrong.
I mentally edited it as “neither man is expected to appear” but your way works well.
I’m sure they jumped bail as soon as they made it.
The first thought that comes to mind when I hear about the Osprey is the F-111 and its many malfunctioning parts. When I was a lad of one stripe I was assigned to an F-111 base. As part of my orientation, I had to attend a briefing by the Wing Commander who told us what a great plane it was. I didn’t drink the Kool-Aid, my reaction to the briefing was thinking the Colonel should have better things to do than cheer lead to a bunch of wet nosed puppies. Of course, I was too young to have learned, “If you can question it, it’s science; if you can’t question it, it’s propaganda.”
My dad worked F-111s at Mountain Home. He called it the Wonder Eleven, saying it’s Wonder it got off the ground let alone flew.
I liked the F-one-a-lemon.
McNamara’s stupidity that kept on giving.