You can CHOOSE

"The source of your home's electricity."

Liars.  They only offer the BS clean sources   I'd choose soft anthracite coal with high sulphur and mercury content if they let me, but no.  What a rip off.

I remember the 70s!  All coal all the time, to defeat the oil shocks.  We were the Saudi Arabia of coal.  We should be converting back to steam train locomotives, they said then.  It'd help us beat back the coming ice age if it weren't for haze reflecting sunlight.  But soot on glaciers was a good thing for melting them bastard.  By 2010 there'd be a glacier wall a half mile high south of Cleveland.

Intergenerational Warfare

"Brexit proves Baby Boomers should get less of a vote."

Too late now.  Shoulda brough up disenfranchising beatniks and hippies 50 years ago when it coulda done some good. 

Gen X tried to warn you Millennials, but you wouldn't listen.

At least when Boomers got political, it was out of fear of the Draft, and then they made halfway decent music for a time.  You youngster got political, I think, because you are a lazy and all your music is wretched.  

I told you 15 years ago.  But a house.  30 year fixed.  No refi to consolidate other loans but to lower   payments.  Buy used cars.  Don't carry a balance on the credit cars.  If you have access to a 401k but don't use it you are leaving YOUR money on the table.  But you shooed me away.  Now look at you?

And you don't fix Boomers by doubling down on the crap they got wrong.  Like socialism.  Jeez.

Stay off my lawn.

New Gun Owner

A co-worker is getting a gun!  Got the Maryland permission chit and everything and is now trying to decide.


He seems to have his heart set on an XD.  I told him the pluses and minuses of that design.  Repeatedly.  He still wants it.  I think he is trying to save $50?

He says to me "Maybe I can find a used HS2000!  Those, you see, are the same gun as the XD.  Did you know that?" "Yes." "Well maybe I can get one of them and save another $100" "...." 


"What else should I get at that price point, if not an XD?"  Well, I keep telling you M&P and Glock are still in that price point.  Below that price point is a Hi-Point pistol.  That stuff from Turkey. Above that is Sig and Smith Revolvers and H&K and 1911s


Heck, he REALLY liked the VP9 he borrowed and shot.  It's $700.  He's a technology professional and makes as much or more money than I do.  And balks at going from $450 to $700 on such a durable good.  It is what it is.

"It'll last for 150,000 rounds instead of 175,000 like a Glock, but I don't see myself exceeding 100,000."

"Yeah... let's say you shoot 50,000 [heh] at 50 rounds in a box, so that is 1000 boxes of ammo at $25 a pop.  $25,000 in ammo spent.  Go ahead and buy the $700 gun you think you'd love than the $450 compromise gun, maybe?"

Range work 3

Tuesday.

Look at #4.  Then it struck me...   I remembered Sam has noticed I wasn't using enough finger on the trigger.  My left index finger was just on the tip of it.  Aha!  Glad I remembered that.  And #5 is better.

Started strong with #1!






---


Thursday.

DAMMIT.  I needed to lube my pistol.  Did so at the range.  When I have oil in my hand my brain was thinking 'gunsmith' and I caught myself muzzling my own fingers.  GAH.  I need to do some serious attitude adjustment on this.  I have lost a step on safety training.

The range was crowded, which is good.  I wanted to do a session with more loud booms and flying brass all about.

My results were ok, but middling.  My head wasn't quite in it.  Right out of the gate on #1 was kinda nice.  That was a high point. 

#1 is strong again.  Getting tired by #6.  I'll get better at fatigue, but I am not there testing fatigue.  #4 isn't shabby at all.  Had a flyer on #3 I can't account for, tho.  I want 60 shot and they all look like #1 and #4.

25 feet, .22lr, Ciener conversion, in case you forgot.  CCI standard ammo.  I get a failure to extract once every other magazine.  I load to 10.

One more procedural detail.  I have 3 magazine.  So, sometimes, it's shoot all three and reload.  Sometimes it is shoot once, bring it back to look at it, put it back out, reload a magazine, and fire another string at the next target in line.  It varies.  But I am trying to take my time.

Maryland Gun Laws

Maryland new restrictive gun laws went into effect in late 2014.

2015, the first full year after they were in place, Baltimore had the highest increase in homicides in the nation.

127 extra killings since the gun restrictions.  In one year.  In one smallish city.

I'm not saying correlation implies causation, but CORRELATION IMPLIES CAUSATION!

1970s

Saw reference to this via other bloggers.

Look at the majestic cleft on that chin!

And they are using the card system with the dispatchers we see in Adam 12.  That was LA, this is Pasadena.  I am pretty sure LA lead the way on that system.  I wonder how far is spread.

And check out the teeth on that long-hair skateboarding mope. 



Oh, don't get too much of your training from 40 year old film strips.


Good job keeping your finger off the trigger in the 1970s, tho.

80% Lower Safety Tip

If you decide to make an 80% lower into a gun, then later decide the gun needs gunsmithing work, well...

It's gonna be hard convincing a gunsmith to work on it.

You see, no serial number. 

I've seen these lowers get kicked out of more than one gunstore that did smithing, with my very own eyes.

Jig

FANCY!  I like.  Look how precise and well built that jig is.  (A jig for hogging out the waste in a 80% AR lower and make it a bit more than 80%.)

Having trouble justifying it for myself.  I'd never make enough 80% lowers into guns to make the jig really cost effective.  I know no one I could sell it to, used, when I was done, either.  Hmmm.

But spending too much money on gunsmithy things is not something I've been hesitant about before.

Feeling prickly

About pushing government today, aren't I?

You aren't the boss of me

Local officials are getting pushy about smoke detectors lately.  One or two gentle reminders?  No problem.  But it's constant.  Now I am jaded. 

Once your alarms reach the ripe old age of 10, they should be sent to a "mandatory retirement" #mcfrsSOS pic.twitter.com/qsMVVDhGou

— MontgomeryCo(MD)Fire (@mcfrs) June 24, 2016

Oh, it's the LAW now?  Gotta change out the detector every ten years and put in a fresh battery every week?  YOU can't tell me what to do.  I through my smoke detector in the trash.  All it was good for was telling me I was making breakfast.  No, I don't care about any of the children in this house.  They can look out for their ownselves.

Your overbearing PSA campaign had the opposite effect of what you intended Montgomery county.  Since you started taxing plastic bags I've been dumping all mine in the creek, too. 

Roll Dirty?

Rolling Dirty?

In Maryland?

Jeez, I dunno if that is a good idea.

And even if I half considered taking that sort of risky action, how would I tell all you readers about it?

I do CCW where ever I legally can.  Unless I am wearing a Speedo swimsuit.  Mmmmm, nearly nekkid.

And I go to the range a lot these days.

But if you roll dirty, you gotta be chill.  Roll cool, man.

Anyone

Do any of you hear any grumblings by gun owners for any specific new restrictions, though?

90%.  Hmph.  90% of the people on the liberal's FB friends list doesn't support more restrictions

MOAR Restrictions

So, I hear from Democrats, Gun-Banners, Liberals, and the Media (ahem) that even a HUGE majority of gun owners favor more restrictions on guns.  They often cite a 90% number.

Then they change the subject.

I know a lotta gun owners.  I don't know any that favor restrictions.  So., extraordinary claims should elicit extraordinary supporting evidence, no?  WHAT restrictions are we for that will make Diane Feinstein so happy if the NRA would just let pass?  Crickets.  Usually.  Makes you think they are lying, no?

But listening to NPR and it sounded like they actually were exploring what type of new restrictions us gun owners might be cool with.  The reporter checked with 7 different gun stores before she found one that would talk to her.  That gun store owner was in favor of a restriction.  Ban on private sales.  Make it so folks have to go through an FFL.

Hmmm, even the NPR reporter noted that was a little self-serving.

Another firearm enthusiast and shooting competitor and instructor noted his state had relaxed gun crimes down to mere misdemeanors.  He was fine with making stuff like that a felony because he knew he was never going to commit crimes with his guns.  Lock up violators and throw away the key.  What point is there to not enforcing or weakly enforcing laws against firearm crimes?

Another thing?  Folks seem to be for things like being sure if a person is adjudicated mentally defective someplace that someone should actually tell the background check people that instead of hiding it under a bushel.

I don't think they extra gun 'restrictions' gunnies support is what the gun banners are trying to imply they support.  So, no, NPR's Aarti Shahani, it ain't the kind of pro reform you and your allies really want, now, is it?  But please, talk to the NRA.  Compromise.  That means YOU offer up something.  For once.

FARC

Looks like the Colombian government have signed a binding ceasefire with FARC after 50 some years.  Good for them.  Good all around. 

I guess the Rebels got tired of fighting all them Predators...

Latest Round's Sausage

Plenty of folks reported on the failure of recent gun control legislation.  Yay.  Good.  Most of the prize showcases up for bid on the Gun-Bans Is Right were various flavors of gutting due process.  So an attack on the 5th Amendment, that Liberals normally really like, and not the 2nd.  Which is a change of pace for Bloomberg's flying monkeys.

We won?  No.  Not really.  We could only lose.  We didn't lose.

My question is, what did they offer our side?  You want us to yield on due process, that is a big leap.  You gotta pay a big price in return.  How come non of the gun control folks thought it necessary to throw a compromise in there to get this bill over the finish line. 

Like I said, it's have to be something big.  Vermont style conceal handgun carry nationwide?  My preference is to KEEP all the due process AND have Vermont carry, but I am talking politics here. 

Oh, right.  Election year.  These bills were never supposed to be about compromise.  They were about electioneering.  It didn't matter if they won or lost.  They had to draw lines, not rules.

But if you were making sausage, and you were a politician, and not someone that likes the Constitution or are a firearm enthusiast like us... Say you were John Cornyn or McCain; Tim Manchin or Kelly Ayotte.  What do you haggle over when Diane Feinstein calls for a big bite of the apple?  She gets a big bite of Apple A, but in return she gives up:  WHAT?  To ge the NRA off of folks backs they are gonna need to get something for us in return.  Again she is always asking for a LOT.  She has to reciprocate with something BIG. 

Or we can just watch the spectacle on the House floor as there is a sit-in protesting against civil rights led by a guy that 50 years did sit-ins protesting for civil rights.  Gross.

After a Ban

Nothing is accomplished.

In Australia, since enacting a gun ban that is impossible to do in the USA:

No change is homicides, increases in assaults and sex assaults.

So what did disarming regular folks gain the regular folks?  What did it gain for the Aussie gov't?  What did it gain the criminals class of Australia?  I guess criminals and government officials have to worry less about getting shot by regular folks they have ticked off...

Police Doctrine

Wasn't one of the lessons learned from Columbine is you get a few officers and go in to an active shooter situation?

Well, they did do that in Orlando.  But then they pulled back out.  Because of bombs or hostages or summat?

Didn't they have bombs and hostages in Columbine, too?

Does the doctrine NOW have to be "you get a few officers and go in to an active shooter situation, and you PERSIST."

It's a hard thing, I know.  And easy for me to say, a week later and in the safety of a chair behind a keyboard, and I mean no rancor to the Orlando PD, honestly.  I don't know if I'd have the huevos to do so, if I were a cop.

It Trump == Hitler

People are gonna think it might be ok to murder him or people that support him.  And by 'people' I mean easily malleable Democrat youts. Jacobins. Wait, LABOUR?

After this weekend's attempted Trump assassination, Dems need to moderate their language. https://t.co/30jQjFQu7t

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) June 20, 2016

Range work

So a few weeks back I went to live fire with my trainer, after qualifying in the simulator.  .22lr only for now.  But I can work on my own.  While it has been a BUSY month, with 400 mile trips hither and yon every weekend for a while, I still got to the range once or twice because of the break throughs from the training session.  The skill is perishable, and I wanted to reinforce what I learned.

Good news and bad news.

The good news is I sorta held onto the improvement.  The bad news is, it's only sorta.

This is two weeks ago.  I marked the order I went with the targets.  I loaded a magazine and fired it off at #1, then switched to #2 with the second magazine, &c. 

One, crappy, Two, crappy, Three, no better.  Ok, darnit, calm down.  Think about the fundamentals.  Relax.  Trigger pull.  Don't hunch up your head and shoulders.  Don't grip tights as Dick's hatband.  It's .22, and he promised to transition to a tighter grip later.  For now, relaxxxxxxxxxx. 

Four is better.  Five is even better.  Hey, next session go ahead and run the target out and back to see how you did.  Maybe you could have caught yourself at Two.  Six... good.  Notice none of the shot are low and right on 4, 5, and 6...  Only 10 rounds left.  Seven.. meh.  Where is the fifth shot?  Dunno.  Eight, I had a negligent shot.  The 'Dammit' shot.  Finger was on the trigger before the sight was on the target.  Paused and calmed before shooting the next four rounds.  Seven and Eight is showing some fatigue.

Last week is this target. 

Again with the needing to settle in.  One Two and Three.... not so good.  Four...  THERE we go.  The flyer in the center is from the Three string.  I am forgetting my training again.  Glad I ended six that way.

It's quite humbling.  Maybe I'll be good enough in five years if I keep at it and put a ragged hole in the center.  But it's stall a long hill to climb, no?  It will be something to just have them all be like number Four.  With two or three shots in the seven ring and everything else in well inside the five.

Oh, my local range has improved the lighting, and that is appreciated.  But there is still a 25 foot minimum distance, so this is all that.  8 yards.  More practice this week.  Maybe tomorrow.  That's be good.  Maybe go twice a week.  Oooo, I should oil this gun.  Ceiner conversion kit.

What if?

What if?

What if, on a lark, we gave Obama carte blanch and he enacted ALL the gun control schemes that have been bandied about lately.

Universal Background Checks.  Sale denial if there is a HINT of anything the FBI or local police have a slight concern about.  Denial to everyone on the watchlist after it has been doubled and include all their family members, too.  Assault weapons ban and mandatory turn in of the 10s of Millions of so called assault weapons already out there.

Lets say he got his wish in January of 2013. 

Would there be any impact?  Would Orlando have happened?  Yes.  He was a security guard.  He coulda swung another weapon source if the Florida gunstores only had lever guns and revolvers. 

Give Obama more leeway.  Let him repeal the 2nd amendment 3 years ago.  Like we were Britain.  Mandatory turn ins.

Gun deaths would INCREASE dramatically then.

Because this isn't Britain or Australia.  They can't even get peeps in Connecticut to register their so-called assault weapons.  Some people would turn their guns in.  More people would ignore the order and dig in their heels.  And a non trivial number would resist, violently. 

I know a lot of gun bloggers.  Reasonable and nice folks.  Not the foaming at the mouth sorts you hear about and meet occasionally and know are out there.  But damned if a few of them reasonable sorts would get a bug up there and fight back.  Of course the foaming at the mouth sorts will. 

So, what is the point?  Nothing you propose for gun control will work, and what will work you don't dare consider if you can think beyond Stage 1 and consider the consequences that would be worse than the cure.

Pesky Constitution

Senator Joe Manchin, D-WV, tweets "Due process is what's killin us now"


If he gets to upend the 5th Amendment along with the 2nd, that I get to play alone.  I am going to ignore the 13th!  But not in a racist way.  That's been done before, and really, it's not my cuppa tea.


No, I am after a different type of chattel to add to my coffle.  Ima gonna run down and capture rich urban white Democrats!  To start, the prize of my stable, will be that matched pair of Rosie O'Donnel and Michael Moore!  I'll make em wrassle!  In the nude!  And covered in cooking oil.  I'll post videos to Youtube and make a mint.

I posit

I posit that we should do away with the NICS background check system altogether.  Every high profile shooting has been done by someone how had no trouble passing the check.  Therefore, NICS is a totally ineffective waste of resources.

It accomplishes nothing.

And if a felon is caught up by it... well no one goes to arrest him afterwards, anyway, so what is the point?  If you don't want a felon to get a gun then don't let him out of prison.  If he is safe enough to let out of prison and vote (now, in Virginia) you might well allow him the means to defend himself.

Rectum?

Damn near KILLED him!

And I see Everytown is using their usual source for statistics.

Help stop hate from turning into murder. #Filibuster to #DisarmHate pic.twitter.com/v3urbAyCX5

— Everytown (@Everytown) June 15, 2016

There goes another run

I was sorta thinking about getting me an upper, but... I will wait now.  They are probably all gone at this point.  May never come back with Hillary a presidency and Mitch McConnell capitulating even now.  At least I didn't NEED anything.

Oh my... the next gun show is gonna be PACKED.

I bought ammo last week, fortunately.  So at least I am topped off.  Pistol, rifle, rimfire.  Good good. 

Have... Have I... Have I learned my lesson?  Huh.  Not so stupid now, somehow.

Well, Everytown Hates the Trump Gun Control Too

So that's everyone.

.@NRA is pushing a Cornyn Fake Out bill designed to confuse. Not a real solution to keep guns from terror suspects. pic.twitter.com/DECK4r58hf

— Everytown (@Everytown) June 15, 2016

Metro

O'Reilly is a David Frum quality metrocon.  But we knew that.

That said, more than half the writers of National Review are enthusiastically supporting 2nd Amendment rights right now on various .  So that is great news.  Ones there that are a bit squishy on the subject are too busy grumbling about Trump and having Schadenfreude whenever it appears Trumps has a misstep.

Wow, what an admission

Even the Washington Post admits that thousands upon thousands of people use guns to defend themselves every year!

That's a big deal and up from previous admissions of 'near zero' defensive gun uses by ordinary people they've been trying to tell me all my life. 

I think they lowball their estimate, and 1:6 is too low in their survey. But, hey, at least they have budged on the legitimate use of firearms.  That's a big step for them.  Credit where credit is due.  Now maybe the Post will help improve that ration by helping us expand gun bearing by the good guys.

Black Mamba

Tam notes that... no one in the gun community has ever heard that model of piston 'AR' has ever been known to have the moniker Black Mamba.


Odd.


Maybe someone is pulling the clueless media's leg?


"And this one is universally referred to as Shooty McShootface.  Because it always shoots the bad guy in the face.  And this one is known as Whistling Death Tornada.   And, my favorite, this is the famous Two-Step Kaboom.  Isn't she a beauty.  Be sure to mention all those name in your news story or people will think you are a rube."

Holy Crap

It might not have been terrism.


It might have been self-hate.


That's F-ed up, Omar.

For the Record

I am not a Crazy Gun Rights Activist.  I am just a regular schmoe.  Like almost every other American, I own a gun or two.  I am so normal you'd barely notice me in public.

I am not the enemy.  At most I am your political opponent.

I didn't kill anyone in a club last weekend.  I didn't do that.  That is not my fault. 

The Constitution of the United States didn't kill anybody last weekend, either.

Stop trying to pin this on us.

None of your gun control schemes would have prevented last weekend had they been in place long ago.  Except maybe that one where you suspend the 5th Amendment for folks on secret government lists.  But, being a fan of the 2nd, it turns out I am a fan of the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights. 

Do you Lefties want to live in a world where President Trump can ignore the 5th Amendment?  Something to think on...

Background Checks

If the NICS system can't catch a guy like the Orlando shooter...  What's the point in having background checks? 


Oh.  For convicted felons.  I wonder if it even catches them.

Mass Shootings

I've never been a big fan of crowds.

And trapped crowds seem to be target of these Terrorists.  Nightclub here, nightclub there, gathering near the Olympics, a summer camp on an Island.

But they also hit schools and Navy offices.  The latest big crowd I was in was the bleachers of a High School for a graduation.  I'd have carried, but, school.  I did manage to get the family to sit on the top row, to help with egress, but even then, exits are limited by the fence. 

Before that?  Crowded gun show.  NRA convention.  The first isn't the safest option since you aren't supposed to be strapped with anything not zip tied, but...  And I am sure it is not the first option some monster considers when wanting to get his 72 virgins. 

I don't fly, so no crowded airport security line for me to be stuck in.  It is a rare event that I am eating at a restaurant THAT crowded. 

The subway is a death trap in more ways than one.

So, to start, I avoid terristy circumstances by not going to the waterholes that terrists like to drink at. 

But my life is pretty boring.  I don't go to concerts, I don't go dance clubs, I angle for doing things in states other than the restrictive on civil rights one I live in, which means non-local, thus, less likely.  Some people, their life isn't complete unless they are blackout drunk in a crush of thousands watching Jimmy Buffet try to relive the 1970s.

----

You know something?  I'm not the only one that thinks that way.  People with CCWs often consider this problem and go, "do I really want to go to a venue, crowded or not, that is more like to necessitate the use of my pistol?  No."

So when there is lament "if only a good guy with a gun was in that saloon, if only that was legal in Florida!"  then yeah, maybe.  But even if, quite a few carriers would still be choosing quieter less crowded pastimes.

I love Basil Fawlty

Is it OK to stigmatise someone who terminates the existence of a large number of other persons? Or is that prejudice https://t.co/dOhqVCSGEX

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 13, 2016

Tam has a logbook

With it, she can tell you that that Glock over there was made in 1992 (notated when she looked up long ago) and has had its recoil spring replaced 428 round ago.


Hmmm.   Like many of Tam's notions this is one of those Good Ideas.  Well, for gun geeks with a bit of anal-retentiveness, for gun writers trying to accumulate data, and for regular Joe Schmoes, if they are of a mind.


I'm thinking I should do this NOW with my rebuilt and from scratch 1911s.  Since, A) I know precisely where they are and what is in them, and B) it's just them two, and maybe a 3rd later.  Or 4th on the outside.  Easy to monitor.  And the four chapter would look like this so far:

1. SpringRebuild:  307 rounds, plus extra on the barrel
2. 001:  2016 build, 0 rounds
3. 002: unbuilt
4. 003: unbought

Good ground zero there.


(And I need to pump the breaks and Tam-Queues.  The problem is she is one of the few active gun bloggers still blogging guns on my blogroll.  When there is only the one waterhole all the plains animals come for a drink.  I need to expand my reading list.)

Vest

Whenever a terrist is wearing a vest it's always reported as a Suicide Vest. Never a tactical vest or load bearing vest where he keeps his spare mags.

 I think all reporters should be drafted into the military for a tour to avoid such confusion in the future.

CNN reports

Today, right now, that the shooter was a security guard in his day job.

If true, that will short circuit their gun ban calls.  If he was arming himself with his work gun.  Is Everytown going to call for law enforcement to be disarmed too?  No.

Orlando

It's the first hours, so how true can the details be.

But, if true, I am glad the FBI was on top of it ahead of time to maybe head off something bad happening.

"He was no Allah terrist!  He just hated the queers!"

Why can't he be both?  Terrists aren't known for their high regard for gay men. 

Metrocons and Katie

It's nice to see that despite the Trump Drama, metrocons that have been getting better about the gun issue haven't retrograded since dabbling in #NeverTrump stuffs.


Jonah Goldberg is one of the bigger examples of what I am talking about.  Thanks Jonah.  Katie Couris IS indeed a lying weasel.

Did Little during the war

Holy Moly!  One of the Doolittle Raiders is still alive.  100 years old.   I remember in the 80s my grandfather told me of a time he was a guest at one of their reunions.  Didn't seem like a big deal.  Seemed, at the time, there would always be WWII types walking around, forever.

Richard Cole, of Dayton.

Everytown won't notice

Not when the rampage shooter they normally like to rail against has a name like Mohammed.


"Gunfire?  I don't hear any..."  - Shannon Watts

No One Should Have a Gun

So says DNC Platform Committee member.


Of course she does.


But that got me thinking.  Let's test her theory.  This is the United States.  We have the luxury to do that sort of thing.  How about Democrats voluntarily agreeing to make themselves 'prohibitted' persons for a few years.  Registered Dems.  See how that works out for them. 


After a few years, re-evaluate the system.


You know what?  Never mind.  I can picture the results. 


Democrats would squawk because Democrat constituencies that didn't comply with the conditions of the experiment and caused a lot of death and mayhem among Democrats.  Democrats would want their guns back just for self protection.


Pro-Freedom folks like ourselves would squawk because of all the guns turned in and a possible drop in crime over a short period (even with the slaughter, on the whole, crime could go down) would give more ammunition to gun banners.   It's too big a risk for our civil rights. 


Forget I said anything.  I'm babbling for lack of blog fodder.  And shut UP Bonnie Schaeffer.  You know NOTHING.


"Nothing is ever solved when you have a gun in your hand except the worst possible scenario."


Oh now you are just being disingenuous.

What I am Doing Right

Talking about ingraining safety habits in all things before lead me to more self-reflection.


On a square range my habits are excellent.  Well ingrained.  Solid.  I can carry on a conversation over a shoulder and never even muzzle the overhead target trolley, much less the side walls.  I find it hard to even try to turn the muzzle somewhere else.  Like there is a great magnet at the backstop always pointing that tube down there.  Long, reinforced, habit in the building where the loud noises happen.


But it's easy to do that in that building.


That building is unlike any other.  Funny booths, the air feels weird, wearing ear and eye pro, lots of banging noises.  It IS square.  Designed to get you to just point the danger-pipes the right way as much as possible. 


And here is the other worry.  What do I do that I do not notice?  Complacency is not my friend in there. 


And there is a feeling in the back of my head...  What if I ran into a fool that DID need smoking...  A legitimate bad guy knife wield maniac that needs to be shot before he kills me and everyone else around.  He needs shooting.  But there is that part of me that says "no, don't muzzle a person, not safe!"  I wonder if that could be a hesitancy factor?... 


In the SIRT training there are time when you are expected to check your surroundings, including behind you, and to do it safely.  The instructor will occasionally sneak up on you with a pool noodle if you fail to check six.  If he hits you in the crotch or head with the noodle, you have failed.  AND you are supposed to SHOOT him with the fake simulator pistol.  Feels funny.  But it's a controlled room.   No ammo or weapons allowed.  All 'guns' are training guns and he instructs me to shoot.  Like I said, it still feels funny turning a pistol 180 degrees from the target area in there. 

Politickin'

Is positively tickin' some folks off. 

You readers (both of you) already know how I feel about President Lord Business.  I'm no Trump supporter, but I am no #NeverTrump.  I find him loathsome, and am perplexed at his success, but I dislike the other side even worse.

Getting a little fed up with otherwise allies losing their goddamn minds about Trump.  Been doing a lot of mournful unfollowing on social media as they continue to beat their drum and pray for rescue from Mitten, swooping down like a Valkyrie to save the party by losing to a jailed Hillary.  People that I once looked forward to interesting comments on various wide ranging subject now have just the one.

Not really having a horse in this race, and being neutral, I am finding all this railing and fussing tiresome and repetitive.  And then I thought "this is how non-gun friends feel like when I am pushing firearms into the conversation to garner more fodder!"  Huh. 

I am much less tedious around the straights than I used to be.  Even at my worst enthusiasm about firearm, it was nothing like me in my 20s when I had a passion for beer making.  What a bore I was.  My ex-wife was nice enough to develop an innocent innocuous code phrase way back then to jar me from my droning that meant 'dammit!  pump the breaks on the zymurgy jibber jabber!' and I'd change the subject.  Something simple like "And how is your old friend Steve?!"  Aha.  Thank you dear.  I will ask them about their favored sportsball team now or offer the fetch the canapés. It didn't mean my thoughts on brewing weren't VERY interesting.  It's just that we have trod that conversational ground and don't need to review further and I should keep it to myself.

#NeverTrumpeteers?  How is your old friend Steve?

If yer happy and ya know it...

Clap yer... TAM, NO!


Looks like you can't swing a cat by the tail in Indy without hitting someone with a social disease.

Yeah... about that...

I don't do blue guns or spray bottles of Formula 409 as safe as I could.  As if they were firearms.


And doing a lot of gunsmithing brings too many laxities with muzzle pointing.  So I try to reinforce the safety habits outside of the controlled workshop environments. 


But I am on the fence about the blue guns stuff.  The point of them is to eventually point them at a person.  A thing that gives me the heebie-jeebies when I end up pointing a revolver with cylinder and yoke OUT of the gun at someone when they ask to see the crown.  Can't hurt anyone with that gun, and it is obviously so, but man that makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it. 

Mixed!

Conflicted!

Confuzzled!


Back to the blue gun.  I don't get those heebie jeebies pointing them at, say, my big toe.  And Tam may be right.  I SHOULD be more reticent about blue-muzzling a big toe or a neighbor child.  Maybe.  I am still thinking on it.  But her point is well taken. 


You need one habit to maximize a quiet low-drama firearm lifestyle.

It's more now

Since I graduated college 25 years ago, gun ownership is up 100 percent.  Gun homicide is down 50%.  Give or take a point or two.  (Well, maybe it's going the other direction now, but that's because of those super violent Democrat criminals and foreign terror squads we see on the news, not legitimate gun owners.  We'll see as the FBI data emerges)

We, you, me, and the other reader that reads my blog knew that.  But it's good to remind others of same, now and then. 

F-YOU PAY ME!

I am rubbish at photos, and have few things to photograph.

I don't use an editor.

And I am not a professional, nor have I stayed a Holiday Inn Gunspress lately

This is why I don't get paid.  I don't want it and probably aren't careful enough at this to deserve it.

I can't throw ads in your face for this level of blog quality.  I'd be too embarrassed. 

Is it just me?

Or is it wrongheaded for Everytown to use a mime to help curb violence?  Some countries you are allowed to shoot them like mad dogs, Atticus Finch style.

How will you #WearOrange tomorrow?

— Everytown (@Everytown) June 1, 2016

Wait one, then again...

I take that back.  There is always room in the gun budget for a purchase that would perturb gun-banners in my state. 


"Like what, T-Bolt?  Nothing illegal, I hope!"


Oh, no, no, nothing like that.  Plenty of ways to get at em without running afoul of the law.  I could go through the trouble of getting a suppressor.  Or a MACHINE GUN!  That'd make em fume if they thought about it.   I could buy an AR10.  Cash and carry item.  A rifle.  Which means I could buy it out of state with no problem, I am pretty sure.  They pretend AR15 are extra dangerous and don't even THINK of the ramifications of the AR10 platform. 


Or it could be as easy as buying a 11+ round magazine at a gun show in a neighboring state.  Pay sales tax there, too. 


This state.  If I know I am driving somewhere I'll only pump enough Maryland gas to get me over the border and pay taxes in Pennsylvania or Virginia instead.  All because of the crappy way they treat me and my neighbors.  And I am happy to do everything I can to undermine them from within.  Fight the good fight.

Why?

Virginia is a hop skip and a jump from my house.  I have a VA non-resident LCH.  I am there a lot.  I carry there.

Hey, you want to know a fun travel plan?  Take your gun on an airplane trip from my house to Reagan National Airport (in Virginia) via the Metro.  Glenmont Station on the Red Line is walking distance from front door (in Maryland) and odds are the subway is on fire somewhere so I'd have to eventual de-train to a city bus for part of it (Warshington DC).

"Hey buddy, why does your plastic Pelican luggage have big locks on it?"

Oh, Piers...

It wasn't a machinegun.  It was a Joe Biden special!  Creepy Uncle Joe sez those are just fine.

GUNS IN AMERICA..
He was angry over his grades, so he took a machine gun to campus & shot dead his teacher. https://t.co/KWoMB0fiQJ

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) June 2, 2016

Except now it is a 9mm, not a shottie.

You can never trust reporting until... well... ever.

Another entry in a crowded field

A seven round .45?  Why would I want that?  So, it's 1911 capable?  Well, I have a 1911 or two I sunk a lot of money into learning about and making fancy and good, so why do I want this?  It's lighter, sure, but weight on the belt doesn't bother me.


Well...  I wouldn't get it to fill that kind of niche.  The niche if fills is the striker fire operating system. 


Yeah, I don't really have one of those.


And I like narrow.  Always have. 


And the powder magazine at Casa De Thunderbolt is all .45 and .38 right now.  For ease of inventory.  So, this is helpful coming out like this.  (Admittedly there is an urge to add 9mm to the pile...  that would require a whole different pistol selection system.  Might as well go double stack while I am at it, too...)


Plus if I were to go plastic-gun, I've been more and more leaning S&W stuffs. 


But I have guns.  Plenty.  So I am lukewarm on all three choices in front of me.  1) Get this .45!  2) Go ahead and take the plunge into the 9's!  3) Meh, just stand pat.  The enthusiasm is about the same on all 3 options right now, defaulting to #3.  Lethargy has struck.  Gonna keep training in the meantime.  While I think on it.  Good use for gun budget money, learning shooting, learning gunsmithing.

Jutland

That video I posted the other day was good visualization of the battle.  Paper, static, maps are sometimes hard to follow.

Guns, not just for Millenials anymore

A buddy, The Beard, his best gal is a casual shooter.  He's a casual shooter.  Now HER old Octogenarian father went and bought his first gun. 

We are winning. 

The old guy got a CCW, too.  I need to get The Beard to check the details of what gatt he got.  He doesn't sound like the feeble sort, so...  Prolly nothing like a .22.  The reasons appear to be "something fun to do, hobby-wise" and a dash of "I'm old and worry about being victimized."

First owned gun at 81.  Not bad.   He's got a weird grip, I am told, but tight groups.  Whatever the Army teaches you in the 1950s apparently stuck with him.