Paul:

First the Redemption Rye… This was a recommendation by another friend of mine and I had sampled it prior to this occasion. The whiskey is 95% rye and definitely has a different flavor profile than the bourbon and Scotch I’m used to. It is more deep orange in color and had a sweet almost floral nose. Initially the taste I got from this was a bit of citrus fruit. I feel like I could call this one blind out of any other bottle in my closet based on this citrus note, it was pretty apparent for me. The finish is sweeter and it is not overpowering which makes it a great pairing with the cigar. I would definitely go back for this as it seems reasonably available and priced acceptably. We killed the bottle but I’ll be buying some more.

The Tatuaje Anarchy is an interestingly shaped cigar 6.125 x 52 with a taper down to 48. The cap has a spiral tightly rolled tail. This caused me a bit of a cutting issue as I didn’t want to over cut it but i wanted to get that tail off . In the end I did end up cutting mine twice to get it just right. After that cut the draw was perfect and it had subtle coffee, espresso type notes which lasted after it was lit. In the middle the sweeter tastes of coffee and cocoa started to get a little spicy. There was constant “dry” hint in this cigar and someone said “cinnamon doughnut” in the middle. I definitely got that. In the final third the sweetness was gone for me and it got spicy, clove like. I smoked it down until it was burning me. This is on my list of best smokes ever. It wasn’t “huge” but it was perfect for hanging out and having a quality smoke.  I was terribly sad when I looked the next day and they were out of stock. If anyone wants to trade me some please contact me! I’ll definitely be stalking their 2012 release.

Ryan:

Cigar:  One of the best I have smoked so far despite the disturbing curly-q on the end. I didn’t detect any big flavors but there was some leather notes in it and possibly cut grass.  Effortless drag, but it still went out on me twice.  Even after the re-lights it was still good. The ash held on for a good 2-2.5 inches before it fell off. Very smooth and mild, but with a big nicotine punch.

Whiskey: It started with a citrus note that faded very quickly and finished with a sweet vanilla caramel.  It was a thin whiskey that finished almost as fast as it started.

Despite the amateurs’ beliefs there was no “powdered doughnut”.

I just don’t have much to say about either as I paid more attention to the company and conversation that I did to my whiskey and cigar.

Paul’s Thoughts:

First I’ll take on the bourbon. This Parker’s Heritage Collection 5th edition was released in 2011 and is finished in cognac barrels. Immediately it was apparent this was a very full bodied whiskey. I would describe it as thick with almost a sticky sweet initial taste. In general this drink reminded me of maple syrup. There was some heat on the first couple of sips but as usual for me this mellowed out. Having some experience with cognac I did notice the contributions to the flavour profile that the aging in cognac barrels made. I wouldn’t say this is the most complex bourbon I have ever tasted but it is “different” and the quality is quite evident. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it especially if one was looking for something slightly on the sweeter side.

The Edicion Limitada 2011 Dark Ritual is a big honking dark beast of a cigar 6.5″ x 56 ring with a super dark Maduro wrapper . Pre light it smelled like a sweeter but typical cigar box nose. Draw was clean and the construction was pretty much flawless. At some point Ryan had to relight his but if you’ve read prior reviews you know this is typical. Initially on lighting the strength and power of this stick came out and hit me like a ton of bricks. I would describe the first couple of puffs has overly harsh. Immediately I picked up a dark chocolate type of flavor profile that may have been contributed to by the bourbon. In the second third I picked up something that reminded me of a dark roast coffee. There were some tart acidic notes at various times. By the last third the strength was still there, if not kicked up a notch. The end was like a freshly brewed espresso. Tons of dark coffee and chocolate flavor but dangerously hot. In a way I enjoyed the after tastes and aromas of this cigar on the way home more than when I was smoking it. I’m interested to see how the rest of the box ages.

Ryan’s Reviews:

Bourbon:
Bourbon was like an “after dinner” drink.  Thick, syrupy, and sweet. It definitely had flavours of caramel or burnt sugar and warm vanilla. I don’t know how it was possible but it was smooth and fiery all at the same time.  As the night went on and the bourbon got colder the fire in it diminished significantly.  I would not hesitate to drink it again.

Cigar:
The first 1/3 was harsh rough.  I didn’t find much enjoyable about it.  The second 1/3 was better.  It was not as harsh and tasted of hay and leather, but had a strong metallic after-taste.   It was an easy draw, but still managed to go out on me.  The last 1/3 was even harsher than the first.  It felt like someone dragging a fork down the back of your throat.  The hay and leather had lessened, but the metallic taste remained.  The best quote of the evening was “I wonder if this is what $15 in pennies tastes like.”  That pretty much nailed it.  The ash was a light grey and held on for a long time.  I can’t say I would want to smoke another one of these.

Recently, due to a training class I’ll talk about later, I’ve taken to rebuilding a lab network of machines to experiment with from a security perspective. Unfortunately I had just gone through an exercise during our house move and a recent office move that involved throwing out old CDs of software and OS installs “I would never use again.” Please let me first state. NEVER DO THAT. Just as soon as you think “I’ll never need this again,” you need it.

My lab network is installed on Oracle VirtualBox and configured on the “internal” network devices in VirtualBox making it a pretty much isolated subnet which can house old unpatched and broken systems to play with. The only host with connections to the “bridged” network and this “internal” network is a BackTrack 5 install I’ll use to poke at the others. If you haven’t checked out Oracle Virtualbox, do so!

I was able to dig up a Slackware 3.5 CD from 1999 that was at the bottom of a crate of “computer stuff”. Back then I had used this CD to build a server that lived on the internet for a few years hosting my domains. Creating the VirtualBox VM was simple enough and to my surprise the system booted right up and installed (once I chuckled about setting up partitions manually, building swap, and picking my packages). The FULL install fits in a tight 390MB It booted the first time and I was able to log in… everything looked good.

Except the network…

The network adapters that Virtualbox can present (AMD PCnet PCI II (Am79C970A), AMD PCnet-Fast III (Am79C973), Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM), Intel Pro/1000 MT Server (82545EM), and Intel Pro/1000 T Server (82543GC)) on the internal do not have drivers available for this kernel version.

I got to thinking about ways to get this box on my internal virtual network, usb was not an option as that was also a 2.2 kernel item and then I remembered connecting linux systems to dialup ISPs back in the day. SLIP came to mind…

VirtualBox supports “host pipe” serial ports that can be presented to each OS. Supposedly, if you configure two hosts on the same “host pipe” (see syntax below) these two hosts can communicate via this pipe as a null modem cable. This works… I added a similar configuration for both the Slackware system and my BackTrack system with the BackTrack system “creating” the pipe. I put it on COM2 on both systems because Slackware thought there was a serial mouse on COM1

This successfully showed up as a serial port on both systems when they booted. (/dev/tty01 on the Slackware system, /dev/ttyS1 on the BackTrack box). Then the question was just how to get packets flowing between them.

Bringing up the SLIP interface on the Slackware end proved to be a little bit tricky for reasons I can’t exactly explain. For some reason the /dev/tty01 device at some point disappears between when the kernel finds it and when I log in. Attempts to connect to it will fail. It shows up on /dev/cua1 which I see referenced in documents regarding modem setups. The command to attach the SLIP interface on the 2.0.34 kernel Slackware system is:

Where cslip is my chosen protocol and 19200 baud is my chosen speed (old school ). Then it is just a matter of bringing up the network interface (sl0) with:

Where sl0 is the interface, 192.168.124.2 is the IP I want the Slackware system to have and 192.168.124.1 is the BackTrack system. At this point the system didn’t have a routes to the other host. So I added one:

Now over to the BackTrack host which was a bit different. It is running a 2.6.39 kernel and based on the layout of the distro (Ubuntu based) it differs a bit in the network configuration. Bringing up the SLIP interface involved putting the following into /etc/network/interfaces

The slattach command was similar (different device):

Then it was just a matter of ifup sl0 on the BackTrack machine and we were good to go. The more modern OS was kind enough to add all of the routes we needed. We had IP connectivity and about 130 seconds later at 19200 baud we had a portscan… this should be an entertaining pentest lab machine Maybe my next goal will be to harden it and setup routes to the internet…

___________________________

I found the following articles and links pretty helpful in this configuration as well. They would probably be good starts for further reading if you are doing something like this:

1. http://www.ott.net/knowledge/tcpip-nullmodem/
2. http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:network
3. http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Net-HOWTO.html#AEN1780
4. http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#serialports

Prior to the AFC championship game (go Pats!) I got some time out on the porch and decided to light up a cigar. This was not a “two regular guys” event but will serve as a quick review to hold my loyal readers over until Ryan and I get together again.

First the drink… Maker’s Mark is a solid and staple bourbon. The has been my go to whisk(e)y for quite some time. From Magic the Gathering to the halls of Moria to Munchkin it is my gamer drink of choice. If aliens landed and said “what does whisk(e)y taste like?” I’d probably start them with a glass. Sweet but not overly so, and just enough heat so you know it is there. I won’t waste too much time here because I’m sure a future review will break it down more completely. It will suffice to say I think I’d be hard pressed to find a cigar it didn’t go well with and this was no exception.

The smoke… This La Gloria Cubana had been in my humidor for a few years, not intentionally, but I just never got around to it. I think it was roughly a robusto size in a natural wrapper. From the moment I lit it I got salty flavors from it. The wrapper and the smoke reminded me of salty peanut skins or cashews. The draw was good but the burn was a little uneven and that might be because I went through a bout of fighting humidity in my humidor and this stick was in an area I found to be a particular problem. That aside, I touched it up once and we were good to go. A good winter smoke as it finished up in a reasonable amount of time. The middle was kind of flat but at the end I definitely got some floral notes that weren’t bad at all, maybe something like dried rose petals, some sweetness to the salty flavors which hung around.

I’m not sure I’d go back for seconds on this one, maybe it died in my humidor, maybe I smoked it too fast because the game was coming on. It wasn’t terrible, not an epic cigar either.

Paul:

Being a more experienced wine drinker and evaluator I certainly know and respect the concept of the setting and situation playing into the review. These two exceptional specimens were enjoyed in Ryan’s garage, on a cold, dark windy Friday. The perfect setting!

The scotch was consumed from coffee cups and here were my thoughts: This is classically what I’ve come to expect in my experience thus far with Highland Park whiskey. The color is light and a more transparent golden tan and the odors are of oak and smokey peat. The taste is initially a bit powerful on the first sip but immediately mellows out and you get the semi sweet and smokey notes that remind me of caramel. The finish is long but not excessive which makes it a great pairing to the cigar. Overall a very well balanced enjoyable scotch that doesn’t take over the smoke.

The cigar was a classic for sure, the #2 size is a 6 1/8 x 52 ring in a Pirámide hand made with Cuban tobacco. Other Cubans I have had have hit much harder, like the drink this was a very balanced experience. I would describe the initial tastes as a mix of spices and maybe some nutty notes. The burn and construction were very good. Ryan had to touch his up once but mine was even and well drawing all the way through, the ash was a deep graphite gray but didn’t hang on very long. In the middle I picked up what I described as a cedar taste and the end carried through the spicy part. It didn’t dump smoke, with two of them going in the garage it wasn’t full although when my wife and I left later that night there was still a pleasant aroma coming from the now closed building. I think this in the top range of sticks I have had thus far, but the price and availability is a complete downer. This is an amazing smoke and the best example of a Cuban I’ve tried but there are better values to be had.

Ryan:

OK, first the scotch:  It was amazingly smooth.  While definitely a sipping drink you could easily just drink it and not feel any fire or burn on the way down.  It left you with a nice warmth.  I generally have to cut my scotch with some ice, but I could easily drink this neat.  It was that easy going down.  I found the consistency thin as opposed to some thick syrupy ones I have had.  The initial flavor was sweet which lead into some earthy undertones and then a big smokey finish.  The first sip was so smokey that it almost bordered on good BBQ.  That’s not to say I didn’t like it.  Just the opposite, the smoke was a great finish.

The cigar was like a night with Katie Morgan.  It was fun, smooth, and sexy, but I woke up with a nasty taste in my mouth the next morning Seriously, the cigar was different than I was expecting.  It was not harsh at all, but I think I have had more flavorful cigars in the past.  I would say it was a very mild cigar.  I can’t say i found any big flavors in it.  The cigar was an easy smoke and didn’t have that pungent cigar “stink” you sometimes get, but it is the only cigar that I have ever still been able to taste the next morning.  I have had some cigars from Drew Estates with what I would say had more flavor but they were WAY harsher than this Habanos.  However, maybe the cigar being lighter on the flavor made it pair better with the scotch.

I hope you enjoyed this review… let me know if “Two Regular Guys” reviewing what we consume is something you want to see more of.

In the interest of full disclosure I have known the author since college. Clay was one of my computer science cohort’s roommate. The first time I met him, he was sitting on a the heating unit of the dorm room, smoking a cigarette out the open window and told me about a project he was working on to inject human beings into the internet search process. It was a different world, the dot com boom was in full effect, I had more spare time than I could possibly imagine these days and any internet oriented venture was worth taking a shot at. I helped out for a few searches, then we graduated and went our separate ways.  I wouldn’t say we “kept in touch” but I kept in touch with the circle that knew Clay and was closer to them. Out of college my politics took a hard right and I went full on neo-con (a condition of which I hope I am permanently cured, more about this in some future post). I had heard Clay was working for campaigns and companies that I wasn’t supposed to like. When I bumped into him again on social media I was ready to meet an intellectual adversary.  I was changing however, and The Information Diet was a book that came along while I was already well on the road to recovery. More on this below…

First of all this book is a quick read, a virtue in a work targeted at those suffering from information overload and over consumption. The general premise of The Information Diet is admittedly simple enough to deduce from the title. The ways in which we consume information and the impacts information has on us and our well being are comparable to our relationships with food. What follows from that are truths that we must realize if we are to be responsible consumers of information. I’ll be honest, I expected preaching and lecturing about bad information and a holier than thou attitude as comes from many “self help” books, videos, and sources. This book is anything but, the strongest parts of the message come from personal stories of the author’s own troubles with information that I couldn’t help sympathize and empathize with. Other reviewers have cited the personal anecdotes as a negative but I think this is quite the contrary and essential to the message of the book. While I won’t spoil all of the content, a key observation is that healthier information, like healthier food, often is consumed closer to the source. What is closer to the source of someone trying to make this point than personal experience itself? In my opinion this is the only way to hammer home the point. Without the personal touch the book and message would be dry. The discussion of a Democrat operative’s (the author) meeting of Karl Rove and the impact it had is in itself worth the price of admission for this book. Knowing Clay’s previous involvement with technology and being a geek myself I must say I find the appendix that is essentially a call to arms for programmers to be particularly poignant and relevant to the world today. Those of us that work with computers and information systems must realize and respect the power of information in this world. I’ll say if you code, do IT or something related, this is a must read chapter. A very good concept that I had never completely considered was a detailed in a relatively small section of the book that reminds the reader that we are not computer systems. We cannot consume, process, and store endless volumes of information. We all must be reminded of this fact as we interact with a world creating and distributing mass qualities of information. You can’t know it all, and don’t try.

The ideas of a confirmation bias and consumption of entertainment disguised as news were not new concepts for me (I have been wrestling with them for a long time)  but there are definitely some very relevant takes on these topics in The Information Diet. As a former addict to right wing talk radio I will go even further than the junk food analogy and say some information is more like a drug. Not only are you hard wired to consume what is entertaining and makes you feel good, you crave more of it and yes it does destroy your ability to interact with society. This viewpoint is definitely touched on in the book, especially in the sections related to recommendations on dealing with information over consumption and abundance. While the author makes some recommendations, it is evident that the proposed method is simply adjusting and thinking about consumption and  is not quitting “cold turkey”. That would probably hurt…

Are there negatives I see with this approach to information? I would be lying if I said I didn’t think so. One analogy I cannot square with is the recommendation to consume information about local problems and local topics over larger national and global ones. This concept needs discussion and development as we live in a rapidly changing global world where seemingly small events half a world away can impact our personal lives. While we are small parts of global events and global information we live in a world where word and impact travels fast. Local news and local information is stressed as part of the recommendation and remediation plan but larger events compound to impact our lives. I have also found tools like Twitter very useful in my professional life, up to the minute news and commentary is critical in a business where a worm, virus, or skilled adversary somewhere very distant can be an instant threat in the time it takes a packet to get to you. Being “plugged in” is a required trait in infosec operations today.  I can’t therefore immediately act on what was essentially recommendation to ditch anything on my desktop with a little number by the title (although I like the concept and will think it over before I ever add ANOTHER tool with a number by the title ).  It is clear that the author uses these tools as well so I know I’m not saying anything that shouldn’t be already understood. Realize that while implementing these types of solutions for yourself you are still living in a world that consumes high volumes of all types of information very rapidly.

In the style of the author I’ll close with some personal anecdotes and recommendation that strikes to the core of the message of this book. I have for a while been tuning my information intake (long before I ran into this book). To continue the story above… When Clay first friended me on Facebook I was coming down from a 10 year high. I had just realized all of the positions I had held in political life were probably wrong and were actually scary to me. I however, knew he was a Democrat insider for much of the same time and a secret part of me wanted to blast him. I read his blogs and his updates about a book project and I was waiting for it to come out so I could read “the other side”.  To the contrary I realized Clay was writing about something I agreed with nearly 100%. I was on the journey to correcting my bad information habits when this book came out and maybe reading it is in itself a form of confirmation bias. If so, so be it! Before I read this book discussions and debate with friends made me realize a lot of my information consumption was hurting me. I have a 2 hour commute on a bad day, and I was filling it with right wing talk radio.  It was killing me, making me fat, and stupid. That amount of time (I choose to take the long commute for what it affords me in opportunity) can be better used. I changed my habits to consuming books on tape, lectures on topics that interested me and lowered my dosage of processed information. It works… I recommend reading this book and integrating the parts that work for you into your consumption habits. Don’t go overboard, but cut out the obvious crap. You’ll be happier. For me, this is a daily struggle, and a single status update or blog post can suck me back in. Stay above the fray, consume quality information and you’ll be ok. (I keep telling myself that anyway)

Visit Clay’s site, check this out and give it at read! http://www.informationdiet.com/

When I walked up to the parking pay station in Boston I was still quite unsure as to where the car actually was and I mumbled to an employee I was traveling with “I hope I can find the car now.” A nice passerby that overheard said, “The location is on your receipt.”

This is one of those moments where Big Brother hits you like a ton of bricks. Sure as he said it… there was the location of my parking spot on the receipt the machine spit out. Even as a techie who knew these things went on I quickly had a moment of creepy panic. These cameras are showing up everywhere and there are legitimate privacy concerns for sure. A quick Google search of “parking lot license plate camera” turns up a ton of hits. I seem to recall a recent story of some mall actually putting the data on the web as well but I cannot find it at the moment. I don’t know anything about the use of this data or the systems it sits on with regard to Logan, but I do know there’s a big database in the sky with the comings and goings of all the cars in the airport, who owns them, where they were flying to, when they came back.

I do the Facebook thing and I’m not a complete privacy paranoid but I do make it a point not to share when I’m gone on vacation or business but this event hammered home the reality that at all times you are being tracked, chose to release the data or not. Beyond the porno-x-ray-scanners at the airport and the pat downs and the security screens they were taking pictures of my license plates “for my convenience.”

I don’t know if this is “good” or “bad”, as most technology goes, the moral judgement is all in how it is used. It did serve as a reminder that even as I exited the “secure area” of the airport and left Big Brother behind for the night they were still watching us. Maybe most troubling of all is I probably would have never noticed this “feature” if I didn’t forget where I parked last week.

The costs of compliance with infosec impacting regulations is definitely huge as anyone working in IT security today can attest. Compliance with particular federal regulations impacting IT security and networking was a topic I frequently wrote and spoke about at pharmaceutical industry conferences just a few years ago. This is just one industry vertical example with IT security compliance requirements embedded in federal regulations, depending on the scope and area of business for any given operation HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, GLBA, MA 201 CMR 17.00 and similar state privacy regulations, Cal. Civ. Code 1798.82 1798.29 and similar breach notification regulations, Customs and Border Protection regulations, 21 CFR Part 11, and so on as well as industry standards such as PCI DDS etc. may be in play. Depending on the size of the organization and the particular regulations in question the costs attributable to compliance vary. The statement that rings true in most studies I have seen is that the cost burden is definitely higher per capita on smaller organizations and most of the costs are attributable to compliance with actual laws and regulations rather than industry standards or practice. As is stated in the survey linked above costs for non-compliance are definitely higher than the costs of compliance, that I do not dispute.

These findings are definitely trends I personally have observed as intuitively true. The problem with these compliance efforts is not that they enforce minimum security standards on organizations, it is that they provide a false sense of security to business leaders, investors, and customers and cause an allocation of budget and resources that might not make sense in their absence. Compliance with these regulations, creation of, monitoring, and auditing of controls and systems put in place to achieve compliance eats up a large percentage of IT security time and budget. I have long asserted the technical and process controls in the majority of regulations I have experience with from an IT security perspective are common sense and should be in place already in any reasonably sized mature organization. The “cost of non-compliance” is the cost of dealing in one way or another with the resulting incidents and the return on investment for IT security as a risk reduction mechanism is an easy case to build in this context. When compliance alone is used as the basis for an IT security business case or return on investment calculation the goal is shifted from reduction of real business impact to passing an audit to avoid fines, fees, and other statutory type costs. The parts of these regulations which are not common sense security control requirements are often those which drive levels of documentation, audit preparation, record retention etc that serve no other business purpose.

Passing an audit often stops short of reduction of real business risk in IT security. The controls required and the methods of testing are common sense, sterile, and not representative of any given actual threat landscape a business may face at any particular point in time. I’ve watched auditors “verify strong authentication for administrator accounts” by typing in pregenerated lists of passwords for a root account such as “password”,”mycat”,”test” etc on a single host in the data center and then come to the finding that strong password policies were enforced. I’ve been asked “do you have a firewall” and “do you have an intrusion detection system” and passed the IT security section of an audit. These are not unreasonable questions but they do little to verify the IT security status of any organization. It is a definite fact that insecure, risky, and improperly configured environments pass these kinds of audits every day giving leaders, customers, and investors very false senses of security curtailing their own responsibilities for due diligence. This is one unseen cost of infosec regulation, responsible parties take less responsibility for security when there are check marks, seals of approval, and audit statements in annual reports. The almost inevitable breach is then met with complete shock. “How were we compromised? We passed every audit!”

Compliance with IT security regulations has spawned mini-industry after mini-industry of miracle compliance tools and technologies that do little to improve on actual security, and sometimes heavily drive FTE and investment costs for little benefit other than simply complying with a particular regulatory requirement. I can think of many specific examples of IT technology I, my employees, or my consulting customers would not have deployed unless they were specifically addressing a regulatory requirement. These are all money and time that could and should have been spent elsewhere to actually mitigate risks present in the environment. Would net security expenditures go down in a regulatory free environment? I don’t think so but as an experienced professional in the field I can come up with clear examples where the money and time would have been spent in more productive ways. This is yet another unseen cost of infosec regulation, the time and money that would be spent on reduction, insurance, and planning around actual risks to the environment. It almost goes without saying that good security products go unpurchased and installed useful tools go minimally used and configured because with limited budget and resources the focus is on those technologies that “ensure compliance.”

The final unseen cost I will note is a result of the barrier to entry to many industries presented by infosec regulations. As stated in the study linked above these regulations are very costly for small organizations to implement. Whereas in the absence of regulation a smaller organization might choose to accept or insure against some risk the regulation forces them to implement some expensive technical and process controls. These costs might very well be the margin which makes these new start up companies and innovative products unprofitable to produce. When referencing the previous points an entrepreneur with a security tool or product might also be deterred from entering the market if the tool could not be sold as a requirement for compliance with a particular regulation. In these ways there is a logical impact on innovation in the IT security and all other industries subject to regulation and thus a major unseen cost to security regulation.

Due to the costs of data breaches and business impact of security incidents those businesses that made poor choices in hiring, projects, and security in general would be punished severely even in the absence of any IT security regulation. The costs due to disrupted operations, IP theft, reputation damage, direct financial theft or fraud need to be measured by business leaders and technologists and appropriate controls must be put in place. Failure to do so should mean failure of the business. The creation of broad, general regulatory frameworks and ineffective auditing for compliance of IT security technology, people, and process diverts resources from addressing actual risks to the business and presents a false sense of security in the literal sense for those decision makers with the actual responsibility to ensure security for their business, customers, partners, investors, and everyone else with a stake in the success of the organization.

In this article I will continue my analysis of firearm features that may or may not cause a firearm to be defined as and “Assault Weapon” according to MA General Laws and possible subject the otherwise licensed and lawful owner to as much as 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. If you want an introduction or further description of the impact of this legislation of law abiding firearms owners please see my other articles on the topic.

If you recall from previous articles the following conditions would classify a firearm as an “Assault Weapon” (from GOAL’s site on the topic)

a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of–

(i) a folding or telescoping stock;
(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon ;
(iii) a bayonet mount;
(iv) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; and
(v) a grenade launcher;

Let us focus on number 4 above. A semiautomatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine with a flash suppressor (or a threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor) and at least one other feature from the list above (for example a pistol grip) would be considered an “Assault Weapon”. What is a flash suppressor and why is it so evil? From WikiPedia which actually has a great article on the item in question:

A flash suppressor, also known as a flash guard, flash eliminator, flash hider, or flash cone, is a device attached to the muzzle of a rifle or other gun that reduces the visible signature of the burning gases that exit the muzzle. This reduces the chances that the shooter will be blinded in dark conditions. A common misconception is that the flash suppressor is used to hide the shooter’s position. This may be incidental, but is not the purpose of the flash suppressor.

Hmmm… That sounds like a safety feature to me? Definitely sounds like something I would want on a firearm that could possibly be used in low light conditions such as home defense. At the very best this section of the “Assault Weapons Ban” makes illegal another small insignificant piece of metal attached to the barrel of a firearm that has no impact on the actual functionality of the firearm (the action, ammunition, rate of fire etc) but at worst this section of the law makes illegal a safety feature protecting the eyesight of the shooter in low light conditions. Again the possession of a firearm with this feature and one other prohibited feature ALONE is enough to risk prosecution for a felony and possibly a 10 year prison sentence.

My common argument stands here as well. No one willing to commit a crime of violence using a firearm is going to be deterred by the threat of prosecution for a 1.5″ metal tube attached to the end of the barrel of said firearm. Possibly this law is also operationally similar to many gun control laws in giving the criminal the advantage. A criminal willing to use this type of firearm in a home invasion or other similar crime, even if they are met by an armed citizen defending their life, has the knowledge that once said lawful citizen has discharged their firearm they will be blinded by flash.

The law also restricts a “threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor”. Thus the installation of this barrel which simply has a 1/2 x 28 RH thread on the end of it onto a semi automatic magazine fed rifle with another prohibited feature triggers the “Assault Weapon” definition.

Commonly semi automatic magazine fed rifles sold and used in MA by law abiding individuals are sold with either a “crowned” barrel similar to the firearm I pictured in my article on bayonet lugs or with a compensator permanently attached to the end of the barrel via a weld or very high temperature solder. Oh I’m sorry… what is that? You can permanently attach a “compensator”? Again from Wikipedia’s article:

Muzzle brakes and recoil compensators are devices that are fitted to the muzzle of a firearm or cannon to redirect propellant gases with the effect of countering both recoil of the gun and unwanted rising of the barrel during rapid fire.^[1] Muzzle brakes are very useful for combat and timed competition shooting, and are commonly found on rifles

That’s interesting… So again we are left with a confusing set of restrictions that in the best case only restricts lawful owners of firearms. The prevailing wisdom is a permanently attached compensator on the end of a barrel is not an “Assault Weapon” feature. So I ask you who would call for more gun control laws. Which of the following devices can and cannot be permanently attached to the end of a barrel on a semi automatic magazine fed rifle lawfully possessed after September 13, 1994?

As stated in previous articles Massachusetts is in very small company with just a few other states that would charge you with a felony for possession of a firearm in this configuration. In the majority of our free country 1 1/2″ metal attachments and threads are perfectly legal on the barrels of firearms of this type. This alone presents a severe risk for shooters visiting our state for competitions, training, and other events when they bring firearms or parts of firearms legal in their home jurisdictions.

In my opinion, and I would like to believe, in the opinion of anyone would would defend liberty and civil rights, the possession of a flash hiding device intended to protect the eyesight of a shooter should not subject an otherwise law abiding citizen to 10 years in prison. I therefore urge you and our legislators to support repeal of the “Assault Weapons Ban.”

I have no idea what this case is about, I have no idea why I sued Classmates.com and these are the kind of things that really torque me off lately. What I do know is supposedly I can file a claim for my share of the settlement of this case (~$10) and the lawyers who filed the case will be asking the court for “attorneys’ fees of $1,050,000.00, plus costs”. (http://www.cmemailsettlement.com/)

I will be opting out… Classmates.com never harmed me in any way. I had no idea my name was attached to a class of people for which this lawsuit was filed. These types of lawsuits are completely ridiculous from my perspective. The fact that my name, even in a large aggregate, can be used to threaten another party into settlement for fear of an even larger judgement or costs incurred in defense without me making an affirmative accusation that I believe the defendant harmed me is wrong in all senses of the word.

My inclusion in the class was based on the fact that I had an account with Classmates.com during some specified period. Frankly I didn’t even remember I had such an account, so I clearly wasn’t sitting here steaming about some harm I thought Classmates.com had caused me. Also if I thought I had been harmed I should be completely free to pursue my own actions or not. I wish there was a way to universally exempt myself from all future class action lawsuits.

It seems the height of presumption for plaintiffs to join in a common suit and to press a “class action” suit, in which even those other alleged victims who never heard of or in some way did not consent to a suit are bound by the result. The only plaintiffs who should be affected by a suit are those who voluntarily join. (1)

_________

1 – Rothbard, Murray. “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution” <http://mises.org/rothbard/lawproperty.pdf> : 166