Jutland

100 years ago.

Arguably the biggest naval battle up to that time.  To be eclipsed by Leyte about 30 years later.

Wow.  100 years.  Seems like only yesterday I was a Snotty serving on HMS Lion. 

Wait, that wasn't me.

The Battle of Jutland Animation from NIck on Vimeo.

Remembering

We only learnt more details of my grandfather relatively recently.  And I think about him now at this time every year now. 

You see, he may have been killed in September of '44, but he left for the Marines the day after my Mom was born two years before that.  Her birthday happens to be on or around Memorial Day.  Saw my mom, left for the Marines the next day.

Lots of memorable things to remember around this time.  Memorial Day was also the time I reported to this current job over a decade ago.  Well, the day after.  And four years ago, Memorial Day, was my last cigarette.  I think it was four.  I am not sure.  I am sure it was Memorial Day.  

I am indeed fortunate I don't have anything closer to me than a fallen grandfather to remember this day.  Other folks aren't so lucky.

More Winning

Noticing more and more work related team-builds are involving range trips.  Something you'd not have seen around these parts 30 years ago when Bernie Goetz was in the news for his trial.  This is MARYLAND.  Not Sparta. 


Heck, 10 or 20 years ago it would be noticeably iffy in these parts.  I used to refer to the gun show, only 10 years ago, with one or two co-workers as "the place you get beef jerky" so as to not advertise firearms.  Now everyone on the office talks guns so much it's not a thing to worry about.  I purposely still don't talk guns so I can listen.  Old habits of not wanting to be the nail that sticks up too high, partly.  The other part is convos are mostly gun-forum derp.

Our Achilles Heel

"You realize what this means, right? Anti-gun people should vote against Hillary to keep guns out of the hands of the American people. --Joe"


Yup.  Vote for nothing but 2nd Amendment supporters for a few cycles, gun banners.  The gun factories will grow moribund for lack of sales.  Us gunnies will get lulled to sleep.  The gun culture will prove to be a mere fad.  Us old fat white men will die off THEN you strike! 

Go on.  It's your best strategy.  But you are too chicken to try it. 

Out of Pocket

Gonna be a bit busy for a week or few.  I hope i can still put up something daily.  But the well is getting a bit dry this week


This was the first year I got around to voting in the NRA.  I researched the candidates, picked ones that seemed effective and endorsed by bloggers I trust, eschewed clebrities, and didn't vote for or against Grover Norquist, who seems to have become a sad little man, Romney-esque in stature.  But the stuff against him seemed a bit forced. 


Keep that in mind #NeverTrump types.  I couldn't bring myself to vote for Romney in 2012.  Put him on as a third party now and I won't even bother to go to the polls for the down ballot.  WTF is wrong with you?    YOUR party is on the cusp of a landslide victory, the likes of which hasn't been seen in 30 years and you are trying to ruin it by shoe horning ROMNEY onto the ballot?  I didn't vote for him then, I am no longer voting for the  Romney/McCain/Dole/Bush type again.  If you serviced your voting constituency half as well as the Dems do there wouldn't BE a Trump.


"You need to vote for Gary Johnson, T-Bolt!"  No thanks.  I don't want to smoke the Reefer, and these Libertarians all seem to be one trick ponies.  Reefer, REEFER, REEFER!!! Two tricks if you consider 'be Bat-Shite crazy!' to be a policy position.  Which is a shame, really.   What about McAfee?  DOUBLE Bat-Shite. 

A FOUR way race with Bernie and Mitt, which then goes to Mitt?  That is really smokin' Lucifer's Lettuce there.  Just divorced from reality at that point.

What's old

Is new again!

Couric Apologizes

for all her failures.

Poor Katie Couric

Katie is going full Rather

You NEVER go full Rather!








Lying propaganda puff piece. Poor thing. She's really circling the drain. I feel bad for her in a way.

Range Relax

Only one off the black.

I started with the upper right shoot n see. Not relaxed enough. Switch to the left. Better. Midway through that I, just for giggles, did the other un-pastered targets. Apparently that was when I was tired as I got that one miss and the others aren't good. The last four of the day are a return to the paper targets where I forced myself to relax. And those may have been my best four. I circled them in sharpie.

When tense I get low and right.  When relaxed it looks like a sun setting on the horizon, a half circle above the center line. 

I need to do a whole range day with half circle above the horizontal center line.  That would be good personal progress.  Gotta get in the weekly habit this summer.  Ooo, I need more .22.

Islandwana

When I saw this movie on cable...



I could have sworn is it was as green and England.  Not as buff as Africa.  Goes to show how you memory plays trick on you.

Ni, literally, the color in my memory was as green as a Spring lawn.  But in hindsight that makes no sense.

Winning Political Strategy

How gun violence prevention finally became a winning political platform.


Wait a minnit....  Don't you have to actually... win... and election on an issue for that issue to be considered a winning one?  Did a lot of pro-Freedom pols lose a seat in 2014?  Are firearms rights an albatross for this election coming in November? 


Just because David Axelrod has some wishful thinking doesn't mean it is high wisdom, and is certainly premature.


People didn't buy guns in record numbers, across parties, across regions, across demographic lines, just to turn them in to the Police Confiscation centers.  A passel of states didn't just expand their CCW rules just for the Feds to pre-empt them.


Hundreds of thousands flocked to Shannon Watts Facebook page?  Clicked the Like button?  How much did that cost the thousands.  Didn't MILLIONS flock to the NRA and sent in their hard earned money in the form of dues?  More than hitting a Like.

Counting chickens, The Hill?

The Angle They Take

The Gun Banning hoplophobes.  Like Attorney General Frosh.


The cases have gone against them, they can't deny that.  They concede publicly that there is a 2nd Amendment right. 


Hooray, they admit that.  Now you are 'disarmed'.  You think you've one, getting that concession


No, while they say there is a right, under their breath they are saying "and it is meaningless"


They can still ban guns that aren't for use in legal purposes!  And to Frosh legal purpose is, now, only self-defense in the home, because that is what the court ruled and confirmed.  Anti-Tyranny purposes aren't legal to his mind.  Self defense outside the home aren't legal in his mind.  Banning ARs is fine, for him.  Banning magazines is fine for him.  They aren't used for legal purposes.  You have to back him into another corner, HARD, to get the next concession.   


That appears to be the angle he, and those of his ilk, are taking.  Like Bill Clinton, just parse the issue to death to mean what they want.  Watch them when they do that, and oppose them.  They are slippery.

MD Good Gun News

You know how they dumped a buncha new restrictions on us in this state in 2013 under future president, then governor, O'Malley?

Well, the EVIL Governor Hogan managed to roll back one of the restrictions!

When you go to reapply for you photo-ID Pistol Purchase Permit when it expires?  You don't need to be fingerprinted again.   They'll just use the fingerprints of yours they already have on file, loyal subject.

Baby steps.  Thanks Governor.

At least when some court requires this state to card you at the voting polls I'll have this state issued ID to show them.

DC CCW

Yeah, yeah, of course I saw the judge talking about conceal carry in DC.  (summary:  the judge seems dubious about the May Issue part where you have to justify exercising the right)


Yeah, yeah, I know it has a lot of impact on my state that surround the District and on which they based their legal requirements. 


But I can't get excited about it, you know?  Even if President Lord Business was already inaugurated and he had already gotten his first choice of his former opponent Ted Cruz nominated and seated on the Supreme Court.  It's gonna take a while to wend this through and to hold the recalcitrant tyrants' feets to the fire.  I'll get excited when that is closer.


Oh, I think it's gonna happen.  Just not tomorrow.

I do like that this is becoming a habit.  Some judge going "Huh, this right may need strict scrutiny," keeps happening.  Over and over.  It comes to nothing, but it adds another data point to the list.  You'd never hear a judge musing like this in an ruling in 1976 or 1986...  It's a significant thing that it is happening more and more now.   I'm not the only one that has noticed this.

Fingers crossed, that the right thing may be done.

Gun Factories

Do you think that Eli Whitney really got into musket manufactury and mass production in the North as revenge for the South stealing his revolutionary (but simple enough to copy) invention of the Cotton Gin?  Because he knew that the Gin's expansion of Slavery would lead to the North having to give the South and ass-whooping over it in the near future?

The implication in this seems to steal a bit of a march with that leap.  Sure it did sort of work out like that in hindsight, but I am doubting it was Whitney's conscious design.  I would be pleased to be pointed to supporting evidence.

But the article has a decent overview of the effort of the early US military-industrial complex of 200 years ago.  A co-op that is an important stepping stone on the US firearms industry of today.  And it delves into the fledgling civilian market with Colt and Remington, too.  A decent little primer, this.  Despite it being Politico.

They go a long way to sum it up in the concluding paragraph.

"Decades later, in the early 1900s, early “gun control” advocates would try to impose more regulation on the industry, and still do today. But gun production and sale, for decades, had developed as a commercial enterprise. As the political aftermath of Aurora, and Newtown, and Charleston has shown us, it has been a challenging bell to unring. "

See, it's the filthy lucre from the giganto gun industry, is implied.  Not noting how small that industry really is. 

Jeff Cooper

Um...

"Col. Jeff Cooper was known as someone who believed that there was no point in a handgun whose caliber did not begin with .4. (Had he lived to see it, he’d probably warm up to the .500 S&W)."

Ummm, Jeff attended the Shot Show the .500 was introduced at, I am almost certain, Weaponsman.  Why yes, about it he said:

"We have referred to the new giant 50 caliber revolver by Smith & Wesson as the "Dino pistol." The word dino in Greek means approximately "terrible," as with dinosaur (terrible lizard), dinopithecus (terrible ape), dinichthys (terrible fish), and so on. It appears that the 500 Smith & Wesson is quite terrible to a certain political journalist from Chicago who rushed to press with the idea that the new Smith should be just the weapon for street gangs. Just how this fellow got a job as a journalist is not clear, but he obviously does not know much about either pistols or street gangs. Whatever a street punk may have in mind for his "nefarious little plans," this Smith 500 is pretty close to the worst possible answer."  

He did publish books after the .500 was around.  Don't put the man in the ground too early. And he seems of 2 minds with regard to the pistols purpose. 

Why make a .500 revolver?  Why, to SELL, of course.  

Live Fire Training

That was fun.

Guru Sam was pleased to see me self correct on things.   Get all hunched.  Then I relaxed.  So, I am not a totally useless.  Then lots of stuff happened.

Things that helped me.  Things that helped me improve THIS session.  Things that may or may not help you and may not even be the end state for me. Same is getting good at molding me like like in a progression of improvement. 

Right leg a little more forward (I am left handed, remember.)  Bend the knee.  But keep the body square to the target.  You've seen the exaggerated lean back when a n00b is shooting?  I don't do that... much... but this stance eliminated what little I do do like that.  It get more fighter stance.  With weight forward it was like my hands had to do less to guide the front sight on target and keep it there.

A small adjustment in the finger position from my usual spot.  Gonna take some time to get used to that.  The trigger is now a hair closer to the crease on the finger and not the fingertip.

And do your trigger press, but pin the trigger back, then release the trigger but only to the reset point, then stage it and press for the next shot.  Concentrating on this actually REALLY helped the actual break.  I don't know if that would help you but it really got my head in the right place for that press.

See the picture below.  The lower right in the shoot n see was earlier in the session.  'Flinching.'  The bulls were all after the adjustments listed.   10 yards  American Eagle .22.  Ciener conversion on my 'worst' usable 1911 frame.   One of the mags was giving me lots of failure drills.  Gonna have to repeat and mark that one.

The upper left diamond was the first five shots at 5 yards for warmup.  We also did some simpler timed drills.  To try to rush me.   The orange paster-flyers are from that, earlier. 

Now, for more practice.  Dry fire and...  simple drill with that stance and MOST importantly, dial in that no-flinch trigger press.  

Gun Trend for Women

Ok, NOW it is an old saw, "Fer GOSH sakes, don't try to sell a snubbie to every woman that walks in the gunstore!"

Conventional wisdom has caught up to the fact that a small double action revolvers is NOBODY's good first gun.  But for a long time it was the gun you pushed.  For some reason.

Hell Smith and Wesson came out with a line of snubbies called "Ladysmiths".

Pink grips invariable came in J-Frame size...

Now, like I said, things are shifting the other way.  And clueless gun counter slinger in even the remotest FFL are getting the hint.  After getting hit by the clue-by-four.

But why?

WHY was the snubbie THE model to pawn off on women?

Well, it was small enough to go in a purse.  And small enough to fit smaller hand.  And simple for those uninitiated to the world of firearms.  A revolver is as easy to figure out as a fork.

But... small.  That's the key word.  Look at Hollywood.  In the 1930s the Hollywood mavens had SMALL guns.  The cops had normal .38 revolvers, some actors carried M1911s, and women... they carried teeny tiny automatics.  .25 and .32 caliber.  Fine for a tiny purse.  But that isn't really enough gun, right?  And purses got bigger.  Well, the next size up?  .38 snubbie!

Just a theory...

Happy Anniversary

This month, 50 years ago, the Glorious Cultural Revolution started!


Hooray!


Not too late to get in on that sweet action here.  Vote Bernie.

You know...

For kids.

Don't wanna feel that Johnson

Does Gary Johnson think the 2nd Amendment is for hunting?

How can you claim to be a libertarian and ALSO be a Fudd?  That's like Hillary Clinton wanting to bad abortions.

My state wants to keep it's assault weapons bans because it only bans weapons that have no legal purpose, like say a revolver or shotgun does.   Well, putting down tyranny is a perfectly fine and legitimate purpose, Frosh.

“The types of guns banned are designed for military purposes,” Frosh said. “They are not necessary for lawful purposes. They are weapons of mass destruction.”

Frosh has always been a little 'special.'

Democrats Cheat at the Polls

Election in Maryland decertified.  Duh.

Democrats only notice Democrats cheating when it impacts other Democrats.

It's 1980 all over again

And 1984 with the Soviets.

Yeah, maybe cancel the Olympics this time round.

Doctor question

Last time I was at the Doctor's they sorta asked me the 'gun question.'


You know.  'Do you have any guns in the house?' question.  The none of their business question.  The go ahead and lie to your doctor question.  Which is just fine, too.


It wasn't the regular question, it just sorta sidled up in the course of conversation between the deep breaths and the turn the head and cough bit.


"What have you been doing for fun, lately?"


"GUNSMITHING!"


"!"


Ha!  It just slipped out, because I had been having so much fun with it recently.  Sometimes I lie and hide any firearm related topics for medicos.  This time... not so much. 


Other times, I have turned the tables on them.  If there are follow up questions I ask them what they shoot and when they act appalled at the thought of they, themselves, owning a gun I look at THEM even more appalled, like they have a tentacle growing out of their forehead.  "What is wrong with you?" Like they just told me they practice cannibalism.  Or believed the earth was flat as a pancake.


It's their own fault.  I am kinda big and odd looking sitting on that exam table nigh nekkid.   They aren't ready for topic jui jitsu.  You are supposed to be ashamed of it and it throws them when you don't oblige.  I've been too cantankerous as I age. 

Tam is dubious

About my recent training.

"You gotta grip it like you mean or you are gonna git kilt on the street, yo!"

"But, Tam..."

"Shut yer mouf when yer talking to me!"

"..."

"!"

"Please don't hit me, again, Tam..."

Ok, that conversation may not have actually happened in this reality.  But the gist is correct.  Light grip?  You could hear her squint through the comment section. 

And to tell the truth, I had never heard of ANYONE gripping lightly for gunfighting or action shooting games or whatnot.  All the pro shooters have the grip strength of a the hydralic press that crushed the first Terminator is an agreed upon trait.  I was dubious, too.  But I signed on to the training and want to see it through. And I am getting better in some areas.

But then some more insight came this past weekend.  He is breaking down my bad habits to build up the good habits.  And exaggerating a relaxed grip has a purpose.  Now.  It's not the end state I will eventually get to.  Says he.  "Oh, if you grip it as light as we do now in the training that will get you killed on the street, yo.  You are asking a Calculus question in an Algebra 1 class.  We'll get there."

Well, isn't that interesting. 

I can see my improvement.  Now I am merely rubbish instead of a dumpster fire of awfulness I once was.

WWI video game

A first person shooter.

I am interested.



The WWII shooters that came out after the grand-daddy of WWII shooters, Battlefield 1942, those hit me at just the right time.  They were real popular for a while.  2001-2005ish for me?  And with Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, on top of my History interest...  Perfect storm. 

I remember thinking, back then, that a WWI shooter wouldn't be as good.  No, not then.  Maybe now.  What with the centennial of the war and the advanced in gaming. 

Various bolty rifles and static trench warfare doesn't, at first, seem as exciting as WWII tommy guns and panzerfausts.  But you can work a Great War line to something fun. 

Nice Guys

It's 1977


You need to arm yourself.  Pistol.  Something for your belt.

What do you choose?

Ok 1911.  .357 revolver.  Anything else?  What's number 3 that is better than a Browning Hi Power?

Not a lot TOO choose in 1977, really?  Nothing to choose if you are using 2016 standards, right?  Revolvers tended to work, why mess with that formula?

And yes

I HAVE a mother.  You people.

Mom Bolt

That's my mom.  And me, too.  This film was developed a month after I was born.  See on the counter next to her?   A pack of Salems.  Dad never smoked.  This was the 60s.

But look at the grocery bag on that brown fridge next to the ice cube trays.  Giant Food.  Back when Izzy Cohen was young and full of piss and vinegar.  It was a great store back then.  It was by a Giant they caught that guy that had been shooting folks last week.  Great takedown by the cops there. 

I don't remember that apartment.  I remember the house we moved into.  It's a mile away from me now.

Love you mom.  You looked great.  Still do.

Look at this

This is a piece of that big industrial explosion in Japan China last August.



It's a standard economic analysis piece after a big mishap, but this quote popped out at me:

"First I saw some splashes of fire,” a university student told the press, "and then a big fire ball after a few seconds." A worker added, "It sounded like the start of a war. I thought maybe Japan was bombing our port."

In 2015 the specter of a militarist Japan from 80 years ago still looms large in the imagination of ordinary Chinese.  I thought that interesting.


I don't like Commies, still, and call Putin a good little Soviet, but...  He's no Brezhnev.  Nor, if visiting Hawaii, would I keep a weather eye to the sky for airplanes with meatballs on their wings.  Southerners talk a big game, but I don't think they REALLY think that the visiting New Yorkers are gonna burn the town down again when the Braves host the Mets.


Japan is the threat, tho. 


I guess it would be.  China was allied with the US, then it wasn't.  And China has fought the USA a few times since then, but, even though we were in a bitter struggle, and certainly were capable of bombing Mainland China, we never did.  Maybe that counts for something.  At least in the public imagination. 

DHS Officer

And shooter, at large.


Great.


One of the crime scenes is the Aspen Hill Giant Food.  The closest Giant grocery store to my house.  2 miles away, tops?


Remember the Beltway Sniper?  His initial victim foray made a diamond pattern on a map of my 'hood.   The top of the diamond is Aspen Hill. 

What?  You didn't hear about it?  He isn't a Trump voter or a Tea Party member so....  Not national news.

Max Payne

Starring Markie Mark and Jackie from That 70's Show. 


Best movie based on video game, ever.  Which means it's not a very good movie.


About the only thing notable about it is the overuse of Taurus Judge.  Which knock people back just like regular Hollywood shotguns do.

Happy Cinko the Quatro

As our President likes to say.  So culturally sensitive.

Stem Cell Zed

Don't worry about Trump

We'll be knee deep in zombies by then.

This is how it all begins. 

Cells harvested from a forsaken child, tortured and contorted by amoral scienceticians, tampering in God's domain.  Then the dead reanimate and walk the earth.  Feasting on the living, nigh invulnerable to countermeasures.

The signs have all pointed to this End.  This horror. 

It was a good run.

Ooo, that reminds me.  I need more canned goods.  Grocery run.

What the gummint has in store for all of us

Saw this elsewhere:

"Everybody wants the right to carry a gun and that’s dangerous in a free society. We should not allow that." – South Carolina State Representative Wendell Gilliard


You heard him.  A representative of the government says we should not have a free society.  That's it's dangerous.  A free society shouldn't be allowed. 

I reject that notion, sir.  Good day, sir.





---



I SAID GOOD DAY!

Remember that TSA Headline

Airport screeners find most unchecked guns ever

Lotsa other bloggers touch upon it.  73 guns found in a week at the security gate.  Oopsie!  Well there was this little sentence in the body of the story:

" The agency reported that 68 were loaded and 27 had a round in the chamber. "


Yeah?  So?  Not much good unloaded without a round in a chamber, now, is it?


Now I know it is just people ignorant about firearms, both in TSA and the reporters, that someone makes this all seem extra scary and unusual, but jeez. 

Monday Bupkis

I got nuffin

Still shaking my head over the Pennsylvania churchgoer Tam called attention to.

Words over a reserved seat.  Then things calmed.  Then a guy with a CCW 'badge' injects himself into the situation, then things escalate again.  Then dumbass A airs out dumbass B. 

Going back to bed.

Been continuing the training

But now I have an appointment to shoot REAL bullets.  Finally.

Kinda Bupkis other than that news.

Up til now I have been unlearning what bad habits I could in a simulator.  Gah!  I used to know the brand name.  Anyway, one of the sims is a zombie scenario, so that was kinda nice.  Must have been developed in Britain.  The police zombies are Bobbies. 

When not showing idjits like me how to shoot he partners with a security company. 

But if I could sum up the stuff to improve myself, that would be keeping it simple and do three things. 

1. Relax
2. Front sight
3. Trigger squeeze

No matter what else is going on.