Zed Parkour

That's a tattoo, I got that removed.

AFK BBIAB

Gonna be out of pocket for a bit, so... 

Posting is gonna be mostly youtube videos that interest me.  I try to keep em T-Bolt themed.  Light posting otherwise. 

Range work

Some thing are good, some are bad.  So, typical.


Still pushing right even when I DO have a good finger placement.  Odd.  Targets I think I shoot good end up being the worst, and targets I think are meh turn out decent. 


This was last week:

And I went a little different with this target this week.  Pairs at the five target areas.  Load a magazine with 10 rounds, two two two two and two to a different target:

But the results were similar.  Even though I am placing the finger tip better it looks like I am pushing the hits to the right.  Noticed it last week, and it happened this week.  So I concentrated on that for the second half of the second session and the hits shifted toward the center of each.  Hard to tell by looking at it, but take my word.  The concentration was "dangit, finger placement is right, be SURE you are pressing straight back."


Baby steps.  Marginal improvements.  But still, the correct direction. 

The trick, I think, is making all these minor improvements, then hammering em home until that is the instinctive way to shoot.  Move and shoot, split times, press outs, poppers, no shoots... something other than .22...  Soon.  I hope.

IRS Investigating Hillary

The IRS is investigating the Clinton Foundation!  She will finally get her come-uppance!


Oh, stop being naïve.  The point of this is to whitewash the whole thing.  Before the election they will announce how they got through the inquiry in record time and found not even the slightest irregularity.   Vote Hillary!

Kuh-niff-UH

There are lots of verboten items at my work.  Federal contracting company doing computer services of various kinds.  In Maryland. 

So, the usual.  Firearms, explosives, ammunition, tasers.

But also... knives 'including pocket knives'.  NO WEAPONS!  Among other things. 

They even did a sweep in the kitchen areas looking for the knives folks use to cut up office birthday cakes.  A buncha blunt scissor hoplophobic kindergarten teachers, they.

And many folks ignore the rule.  A full size leatherman is useful if you actually have to open up a computer and do, you know, actual work on it.  Because that's your job. 

That's not my job, but there are plenty of things I use at least a blade for.  Cutting plastic, for mostly.  For that I use a mini-Leatherman.  Sub 2 inch blade.  And I don't wave it around in the faces of the busybodies and they don't go out of their way to check to see if I have one.  It's definitely not a weapon.  If I was angry enough that I needed to go all violent and self-defensy, I'd not turn to a tiny penknife blade, as my hands would be a better practical item for that.

I tell this story because I forgot to pocket my mini-Leatherman the other day and didn't realize it until I got to work.  Been a while since I did that.  I felt kinda nekkid without it. 

Two in one

One of the nice things about my current shooting instructor is he is also my gunsmith.  A gunsmith that if he had his druthers would just do custom 1911s.

"So he is an 1911 true believer?  The one true pistol, designed by John Moses Browning, pbuh?"

Oh sure he really likes 1911s,  But he trains me on Glock SIRTs,  And shoots whatever.  Only recently has he started carrying a 1911 again when out and about, and that is to help advertise his gunsmithing business.

When training, I also get exposed to other gizmos.  Slide cockers, red dots on the frame, red dots on the slide, different iron sights, some tritium some fiber optic...  whatever the latest thing is, he wants to play with.  Then, if it is no good or conveys no advantage, he discards them, and I don't have to pay to find out on my own.

So what does he like and keeps for the advantage?  Well, a few things on race guns that aren't in my wheelhouse at this time.  But a flat trigger and a plain extra wide notch black rear sight, so you have some gap on both side of the front sight in your sight picture.  Those seem to have stuck around.  And I kinda like both.

Never would have guessed that.  I'd have guessed I'd want to stick with 3 dots.  So... yay?

I was sure it would be him

Some of y'all don't even remember he was in this game.  Poor Marty.

Enfield

Specifically, the famed Jungle Carbine!

The main article to the Lee Enfield said there was more felt recoil in the carbine because the barrel was shorter.  "the .303 round produced excessive recoil due to the shorter barrel."  This made me furrow my brow.


The article specific to the carbine said it was because the rifle was lighter.  THAT made me feel better and nod my head.  Also, the butt pad had less surface area.  Ouchie.

Also, the Brits were on about a .276 caliber service cartridge like I have pondered about alternative caliber selection in the past.  Neato!  I learned something new today.  Reportedly too hot. 

V

Don't wear masks

Bad guys wear masks.  Cops shouldn't.

What good are the masks?  No eye pro or ear pro.  Just ID pro.  Are you ashamed of your job?  You clearly aren't cold.  

You know that eye protection probably masks your identity enough, anyway, regardless, right?  If you are worried about the bad guys recognizing you.

Assassins!

The talk about Iver Johnsons got me thinking about President McKinley.  Then assassins and their firearm manufacturer choices.

Iver Johnson was used to off RFK and President McKinley

Boothe could afford a custom handmade Deringer.  Which was a brand of sorts, too.  Unless it was a Derringer.  The knock off of the original.

JFK got his from a Carcano surplus job.

Garfield got popped with a Webley Bulldog

Reagan caught one from a Rohm .22

Squeaky Fromme tried to shoot Gerry Ford with a Colt .45. 17 days later another 'nice' lady took a shot with some kind of .38 revolver.  Damn hippies.

MLK Jr. was cut down by a Remington.

Fabrique Nationale for Franz Ferdinand

Dunno what was used on Huey Long, the Kingfisher

Medger Evers was shot with a milsurp Enfield 1917


So a plethora of often inexpensive boomsticks used to commit and outrage.

Romney Never Called Me

Not even in October of 2012.


Trump has robo-called me twice already.


Once almost 9PM.  Not cool!


But Mitt couldn't arse himself to do that.  If he had wanted to be president then maybe wouldn't be in what we are in now. 


Another reason I didn't vote for Romney. He never asked me to.

-----

It is nice seeing lefty media type salivating waiting for the fact check of Trumps speech and then being disappointed when they come up empty. Maybe President Lord Business WILL win in Novemember.

Had a Dream

A dream of blog fodder.  Woke up thinking "that'd make a great post!"


It's a truism.


The most dangerous time you will have with your pistol, assuming you aren't a clod, is the going in and out of your holster.


Solution.  Ban holsters!


Ok, that's not right.  This dream post is only half right.  Yes, you are probably most likely to have an unwanted loud event with holster work compared to any other operation, but getting rid of holsters is a non-starter for all the other great thing a holster brings to the safety table.

1968

A question for people old enough to remember 1968. 


Before the Democrat Convention in Chicago, did you know something bad was coming down the pipe?  Or was it a surprise?  Did you turn on the TV and say "Wow, them cops are really laying into thos long-hairs.  Didn't think this would happen..."

Umbrella KILLS!

Remember my post about how some organization think umbrellas kill 2,000,000 a year?

Even Uncle picked up on that.


That's 740,000 more people dead from umbrellas than are killed by car crashes in a year, in the world.

Talk about a hidden menace!  Why is no one talking about this?!  And HOW are the umbrellas killing folks? 

• There is the obvious 'wind catches it, it flies through the air and comes down tip first' stabbing you to the ground like a bug in a lepidopterist collection.
• Kids jumping off roofs with an umbrella as a makeshift parachute.
• Lightning strikes because it looks like a lightning rod, and you use it during rain storms, duh.
• Some umbrellas have a ricin spiked tip.  That can't be good for you.
• The mechanism can fail, collapsing the umbrella around your head, temporarily blinding you, and you step into traffic.  Hit by city bus, but umbrella-caused death.
• Shoddy materials with lots of heavy metals that then are transferred to your bloodstream, absorbed through the skin in your left hand.
• You could choke on your umbrella when you try to swallow it. 
• The toxic fumes if gives off when you walk around with an umbrella on fire.
• Umbrella gun.
• You picked up one of Burgess Meredith's umbrella by mistake and misuse the special features.
• You might commit seppuku using the sword in the handle.  That blade could cause a lot of problems, actually.
• Carried away in a hurricane or tornado because, dammit, you paid $25 for that umbrella!
• The umbrella could give you AIDS. 
• Perturb the wrong umbrella holder and he might shove that bumbershoot up yer... orifice... and open it.  Killing you, thusly.
• Blood poisoning when you catch the web of one hand on that sharp bit while opening or closing it.  Man, that smarts.   Shoulda used Neosporin.
• Helicopter blade failure if you  have a deluxe model. 
• If you open one quickly near someone with a weak heart, you might startle them into a myocardial infarction.
• Angry grandma mistakes you for a Masher, bashing you in the head and shoulders repeatedly with her parasol.  You die later of concussion related complications. 

Ok, 2,000,000 umbrella deaths makes more sense now.  With that many one of you MUST have seen a deadly umbrella accident.  I've seen lots of car accidents, but no brolly brouhaha's.

Hmmm, I wonder how many of these deaths could also get appended in the accident report with: "alcohol was involved."

Blood Simple

You can tell that this was an early effort for the Coen Brothers. 1984. They are still learning the movie makin biz.  


I like the Coen Brothers, and wanted to see this because I hadn't.


But, there were firearms. Without looking, ima guess there was a pearl handled Iver Johnson breaktop in .38 S&W and a Browning Hi-Power and a flash shot of some S&W modern snubbie. The breaktop was so prominent in the production it deserve an actual credit before the title of the movie. And to be paid scale.


The bad guy used a scoped hunting rifle, but it was dark


Let's go to the big board and see, Johnny!


Darn!   It was a S&W 39, not a Hi-Power.  Ah well.


And they are calling the Iver Johnson a .32.  I'm getting better, but a true gun geek would leave me in the dust. 


The Snubbie was Fitzed up, and may be a continuity error.

What?

Huh?


2 million die from umbrella accidents?  Worldwide.


How can that be?


Not that many people are killed with gun "on-purpose's".  Worldwide.  Non war-time situations.


That can't be right.  Not 2 million.  2000 would be a shockingly high number.

Maybe there is something

You know how I said I have no hankering to get another boomstick?

I thought of something.

I kinda wanna make another upper. Make an upper. Do all that 'gunsmith' work. Something with a magnifying optic and an SLR-like forend. Low profile gas block. Longish barrel. Rifle length vis carbine length.

I'm new at this, so my big worry is "Oooh, I should got the gas tube that was half and inch longer" and whatnot. End up having to buy more and more parts. And I'd have to relearn all that info I core dumped ages ago about head space and twist rates. I better take it slow. One part at a time. This may take a while.

But that's the goal.  Do a good job making a rifle from scratch.  Buy nothing superfluous.  NO RETURNED MERCH!

Nation's Gun Show is in town this weekend, but there is too much on my plate. Plus, it's too hot. Maybe in the fall.

You sir,

Are a F*ckwit.

BAR

Ya know... back in 2007, I half expected to have a Browning Automatic Rifle by now. Pah. Fantasy.

Trained again

Simulator at Hatfield Gunsmiffin'.

Now I am locking too much with my elbows as an isosceles triangle.  No good.  It hurts after a while, and that's even without recoil.  And I lose some finer control.  Another bad habit to work on breaking.

The Assistant Gunbsmiff wasn't there.  He was competing at Regionals  Shooting contest!  So good for him.

And if all went as planned, I am at the range today to shoot more .22 without locking my elbows.  More on that later.

Nine Years Gone

What a strange trip it has been. 

I started blogging 9 years ago today.  Blog were new and hip and popular and there were SO many active gun blogs.  Blog that didn't spark my interest to expand my gun knowledge, but did, indeed, fan the flames. 

So few blogs today.

But then I had to think of a niche to carve out for myself.  Luckily, I was new to guns, and the blogs already out there were all old hats to this subject.  I could journalize my fumblings. 

Now.  Reflecting back:

• I am a better shooter, yes.  But not that much better.  I don't have the natural talent that some of those whiz bang Race Gun people have, out of the box.  But that's ok. 
• I have TWO CCW licenses. 
• My home state has had ups and downs.  Back in 2007 you had a duty to retreat in your own home.  Not anymore.  Back in 2007 the AR10 offerings were sparse but you could buy an M1A with as many 20 round magazines as you want, and as many AR15s as you want.  Now you can get one of the many decent AR10s out there, but not AR15s, M1As or 11+ round magazines.
• Back in 2007, the 2nd Amendment could be successfully argued to be some sort of collective right of the National Guard's.  Not anymore. 
• I bought too many guns.  If I could get in a time machine and go back and tell New Jovian Thunderbolt what to concentrate on... what to look for... what is a waste of time... what is fun but uneeded... what is perfect for him... that would be great. 

Deadly Danger!

And you should see all times my SUV went out ending folks, too.  Only people that drive cars are responsible for crashes.  SUV owners get off Scot free because it's always the dang truck that slays on the motorways.

Crap

This IS a dry spell.

Hmmm.  I am not looking to buy another gun.  No plans.  No saving my pennies.

I am looking to get more training.  That is where my gun dollar is going.  But I am near dry in the current hole I am pumping from.

Need something to shake stuff up.

Police and CCW folks

This is tricky.

In the confusing hoi polloi of a shooting type situation, where a CCW person is trying to do the right thing, how does one communicate, instantly, with scene arriving law enforcement if there are still shots flying?

The article doesn't know, and neither do I.

"Make yourself scarce."

You might not be able to avoid involvement.  Can't or won't, depending.

Got Bupkis again

Went a good long while before the well went dry this time!  I'm half proud.

Let's reminisce, shall we?

Almost 5000 posts published.

11,000 comments.

Forgot to go to the range this week.  BAD!  Better go twice next week.


Oh, and some dude in the French Riviera used an Assault Weapon to mow down 70 people. 

Michael Moore

He just wants sensible gun safety reforms.  No one is coming for your guns. 


Michael Moore, hero of Flint, calls for the banning of all semi-auto guns, large capacity ammo magazines, and war.


'War' aside...  after he has all the semi-autos, what does the mag ban get him?  What is his value-add getting rid of them?


I guess the Ruger Scout, and similar, bolt action rifles can take 20 rounders.  And Mike would consider that large capacity.  Maybe he anticipates killers going to that kind of bolty after everyone has surrendered their Garands, and 1911s, and Glocks, and whatnot.


(The 'war' part, is he assume all returning vets are like Corporal Flashback and are ready to snap because 'Nam.)


Back to pitch forks and machetes when the Revolution comes, eh, Mike?

Compare

Compare the two:




If a cop carries an AR around the DC mall, it's "Police with a long guns"


If I do that it's "rampaging psychotic madman with an evil assault rifle, loose, wreaking havoc"


Even if no one fires a shot.


Funny how the Press works.


In other news, might have been an actual sub machinegun involved.  But can you really trust that report?

Ham? Like pork?

Hillary Clinton has seen Hamilton, on Broadway, three times.   She cries every time.


Well, she, and her staff, and her security have.   She is never really alone. 


Do you know how much those tickets cost?  Must be nice to be that rich offa money she didn't earn.


Unless someone gave her those tickets.  "Just remember who got you into the show, huh?"  If she did purchase them herself it's not like she handled the filthy lucre.  She might even be surprised how US currency looks a bit different compared to what it did in the 90s.  The Ten is peach colored? 

Good guy with a gun

"Didn't stop the Dallas shooter!"  So says Mike The Gun Guy Weisser.


What are you talking about?  Are you stuck on stupid or something?  Hordes of good guys with guns and one bomb throwing robut kept his kills down to only 5.  Stopped him butt cold.  Can you imagine if it were British cops, with no guns, trying to stop that sniper?  How many dead people that would be?  He'd have run out of ammo before a SWAT team could respond.


Oh, does The Gun Guy want someone like me do the stopping?  Is that the fallacy he is chasing?  Well, I can't be everywhere at once, nor should I try to be.


As an aside, this Gun Guy thinks Oswald would have learned to shoot in the Marine Corps with a Springfield 03.  Post WWII, I doubt that the Marines still used them.  Even in boot camp. 


And that one of the least important thing the Gun Guy gets wrong.


Mr Weisser?  You sir, a fuckwit.

Got some sim training in

Since I did the live fire training back in... May?  I've been quite busy on weekends.  And then I had to schedule a session around the Gunsmith/Trainer's other events.  So... finally.

Shake the cobwebs off.

He just worked on one thing for me.  Getting me faster by getting me more relax.  The simulation for most of half hour was red and green plates.  Shoot the green, not the red.  1 and 1, 2 and 2, up to 20 and 20.

When I am rushing I tense up.  This wrack the pistol around.  Plus when I hurry while tense it is as if I am trying to PUNCH that plate with a fist.  Like I pushing the 'bullets' out of the barrel with my arm strength.  Like I throwing a basketball during a free throw.  It's like a flinch, in a way.

Trying to work that out of me.  That bad habit.

When I am relaxed I can clear twenty plates in 10 or 11 seconds.  (Sam does this in 5 or 6.)  When I am not relaxed I miss more and it takes 20 seconds.

There was some progress.  Eventually you get fatigued and you have to slow down and concentrate on the fundamentals because you arms and finger are tired from all the shooting.  And MORE fatigued if you shot a lot of that all tensed up.

Ended the session, tired, with a few rounds of simulated pepper poppers.  Using what I learned I still got 51 in however many seconds.   I have to ask that next time.  But my personal best, ever, is 52.  Something musta stuck.

Where can I not carry

With my non-resident permits, sometimes the states that will honor those change over time, so I check frequently. 

Pennsylvania, case in point.  I used to be able to carry there.  No more.

Obviously, not my home state Maryland.

But where can I?

Deleware.  Yup.  North of there, just Vermont and New Hamster. 

Everywhere else east of the Rockies I can carry with a few exceptions.  These are no-carry states for me, outside the usual suspects:

• Florida
• Colorado
• Minnesota
• Michigan
• Illinois, of course
• South Carolina.

Hmmmph.  South Carolina is another backslider.  Florida wants me to get THEIR lucrative non-resident permit.  But if I did that only other state that gets me... nothing.

"What about the west coast T-bolt?"

Please!  What do you think I am?

Also, Georgia trusts Utah more than Virginia.  Might be Utah's extra training requirement.

Colion

Mmm, that's good Quinine

Thanks to Tam for turning me onto this Fever Tree Tonic.  I've likes Tonic, straight even, ever since the 1970s.  And I have never had malaria, so it must be working.  Also, I use Plymouth Gin.  This is damn hell gin & tonic season, dontcha think?

Was that 1985?

I coulda swore it was in the 70s.  Memory getting foggy.

So they carpet bomb black radicals in 1985 ala WWII

In 2016 they use a drone.  And with a bit more precision.

Betters

You Owe Them Nothing - Not Respect, Not Loyalty, Not Obedience

Been thinking on this. 

I am a boy scout rule follower type, firmly believing in the rule of law even when others flaunt it.

After this week?  Not so much.  I may be more rambunctious and break more rules.  Bend others.  Especially when there is no way to prove I did anything.

"But what about this blog admission T-Bolt?!"

"What about it?  Did I run a red light at 3AM last night or last week?  Or ever?  I wouldn't do that where there are red light cameras.  Prove I was even out!  Public urination?  You got evidence of that?  I admit to no wrong doing."

Yeah, I say that, but there are still limits, built in.  I'd never betray my country, for example.  There is still hope at the back of my mind that the Rule of Law can be restored and traitors can be found strung up, hanged from lamp posts. 

"Anything else T-Bolt?"  Well, I won't harm a body.  Or mess with their stuff.  That's a moral issue as much as a legal one.

But I feel salty. 

Yes, there are people that think they are better than me.  They are right in that there is a lesser group, and a greater group, but they have their ranking 180 degrees off.  I didn't require Public Servants to kiss my feet before now, but, boy howdy, the reqs have now changed.

Here's one thing you can do without running any 3AM stoplights.  Jury nullification.  Unless it's high government mucky muck in the defendant's chair then they want the jury to apply that law stuff to a regular person that they wouldn't apply to themselves.  Refuse to cooperate until it's just the one set of laws for all.

Things are bad, but

In 1968, around the time I was conceived, MLK was shot.  Dad worked at the phone company, and rumor that rioters were done burning downtown and were coming up Wisconsin and Connecticut a Avenues to burn down the nicer neighborhoods freaked him right out.

My grandparents lived in Bethesda off of Wisconsin.  Mom and Dad lived in Silver Spring off of Connecticut.  Dad worked at the phone company in Friendship Heights in DC off Wisconsin.

So, dad went to Montgomery Wards and got the single shot 20 gauge to defend hearth and home. 

I always thought that was my grandfather's gun, and much older, but...  there you go.

And not the best defensive firearm, admittedly, but better than harsh language.

That said.  THIS, what we have now, is not 1968.  Not even close.  But it will probably get Trump elected.

Oh, dear

And now Dallas.

Ranging

More Practice

A bit meh.  Some improvement.  Still not super thrilled, except....

1. Ok, you are cold.  But that is just lousy
2. Hey now!  Nice.  Do it like that from now on.
3. Oh, fer the love of...
4. At least you moved your finger pad to the right spot.
5. What did I just say?  Dangit
6. Ok, not a bad ending. 

A target full of ones that look like #2 is the goal here.  Then?  Faster!

Great Beer is Too Cheap!

Is it?  It's supposed to be, ass!

Fritz Maytag would slap your jowls if you insisted different.  And I'd hold his coat.  It's the drink of the common man, your snobby toff.  Stop pooping on the working man.

The Cop Shooting

The one in Minneapolis.

Obviously, it's early.  You can barely trust the details.  But that shooting...  Gives me the heebie jeebies.

Because, as it is now, the guy looks like a good guy shot by an excitable cop that done f-ed up.  He may have had a CCW.  He probably worked for a school system that could very well have done a background check on him too.  He sound like the proverbial boy scout.  Sure a furtive gesture and a miscommunication could have happened to spark this.  And the cop could very well not even be consciously racist or want black people to come to harm and have a minimum of prejudice onboard in his head.

But...

If it had been me in that seat...  Ima a good guy.  A proverbial boy scout. 

I dunno.

I suspect my chances would have been better.  Because of my race.  And that's why I have heebie jeebies.  Both "that could have been me!" and "I live in a world where my chances would have been better."

Poor bastard.

Never understood that

The sentiment that "If you do handgun competitions, that is too much game and will get you killed in real life so don't ever do that!"

What?

I never understood that worry.

Yeah, the whole when to reload and how, &c. and what have you might cement habits not ideal in every 'tactical' situation.  I can see that part of the argument.

But so what?

What will competing get me, even, hypothetically, I was using the most impractical gamer racegun and caliber and holster on the planet that was nothing like my CCW gun?  I will get, if I am successful:

• a good trigger press. 
• drawing quickly and smoothly
• hit that target, it's a bad guy, but don't hit that similar target, it's the good guy!

If I improved those three things, even with all the rules lawyer gamer bs tacked on, I am WAY ahead of where I am right now.  And I can work on those three things for 30 years and still not be satisfied with how well I do, even if I was world class.  But it is a worthy goal to strive for.

Salon weighs in

With a weighty piece...

Apparently, we are all wet, and living off of bumper sticker logic.  Spot the fallacies and contortions!  There will be a prize for the one that catches the most!

You'll hear from my Lawyer!

Gunsmiths have liability insurance.

Very important.  And real gunsmiths are covered by HUGE policies.  Because the product they service can end up causing huge damages.
 
Worrying about that?  Will leave a body awake nights. 
"OH CRAP DID I FORGET THAT ONE SAFETY CHECK?!"

Even then, folks can and do sue over something that everybody knows is not the smith's fault.  Lost a finger because you used pistol powder in your .30-06 reloads?  Sue the gunsmith that worked on the gun 3 years and 447 rounds ago.   The smith is probably gonna be fine, but that insurance will be needed to cover the legal shenanigans costs.   

Chop Sticks

So, I like sushi, but don't always have the time to go to the local sushi bar. 

Fine, the local grocery collective stocks it.  Heck, so does my gas station.

But sometimes I forget to get the little complimentary wooden chopsticks.  Not wanting to eat with my fingers like a Neanderthal, I figure washable permanent implements would be good.  Just the pair, as it's just for me. 

Why no titanium chopsticks to go with my sporks!

Oooo, bonus?  They are as light as wooden sticks, but you could more conceivably and successfully slay a home invader with one of these.  I bet they'd work as tent stakes or pitons.

Don't call em Firecrackers

The PC term is "Fire Caucasion"

Independence

I am wondering

Is there any part of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming advocacy that isn't absolutely seething with fraud?

Beer review

Ballast Point makes some decent beers. Way out in San Diego.

If you are a super-hop kinda person, they got you covered.  I dial back a bit from the 90 IBU jobs, as I grow older and mellower.  But the 70 IBU Big Eye IPA was well done.  Enough I'd like to try some of their other offerings.

 

 

Now THIS is news I need to hear!

Bear downs 36 beers, passes out at campground.

Worth of Murrow and Cronkite.

And who knew that bears prefer Rainier?

Terrible Implement

"Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans"

Robb tipped me off to that Foundine-Era quote.  I put it here because I really like it. 

And what a great name.  Tench Coxe.

Another name from that ere is St. George Tucker.    Getting ready to read his book.  For fun.  Hey, if Lincoln could read it for fun, I can too.  View of the Constitution of the United States and Selected Writings,  1803.  Book hungry Abe would have coveted Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Blackstone, and this.

Shooting Illustrated

Got my first copy of the magazine from NRA.

It's weird seeing names of folks I have met and know in the masthead.  There is JayG.  And Tam.

That's it

Confirmed.  Hillary hates black people.  And doesn't understand, either ignorant or willfully so.

Letting people defend themselves is a civil rights issue.  Most gun control laws disproportionately target blacks and, in fact, have roots in Jim Crow.  What next, Hillary?  Separate water fountains?

No guns for the Gays

"If members of the Pink Pistols are really concerned about ending deadly violence in the LGBT community, they could start by cutting their ties with the gay bashers at the NRA."

Gay bashers?  News to me.  Especially considering all those gay people I've run into at range trips and blog events and whatnot.  I didn't see or hear about any bashing or anything approaching bashing at any of them.

Writers for the Advocate must go to different ranges than I do, I guess.   Bound to be a few firearms enthusiasts that are less enthused with the Gay community.  But bashers?

Who bashes folks that you KNOW has the same gun you do in their own holster?  Odd, that.

Somme 100

100 years ago, over the top, laddies.

And poof!  A professional army that took a century to develope and hordes of Pals that volunteered together to pitch in went up in greasy smoke and a pink mist, leaving a generational hole in Britain.  (Speaking of generational warfare.)

Even that has been old fuddy-duddy at the Metrocon Fortnightly noted the anniversary.

Thanks to Keegan's Faces of Battle, this event was a big deal in my college history days in the late 80s.  That was a textbook.  History of War.  They no longer offer it at my alma mater.  At the time I had a lot of trouble getting my head around the extent of the carnage.  57,000, with 19,000 KIA.  First day. Started a few days before our Independence Day.  It ended a few days before our Thanksgiving Day.  A half million dead, then.  For what we our about to receive, Lord, may we be truly thankful, amen.

Oh, but the great gains that were made!  Must have been ground gains the size of my back yard!

The French fought in the battle after bleeding for months in Verdun.  The Germans, too.  Obviously.  But we always talk about the Brits, here, for some reason.  I guess we could read their accounts better.  And, again, the other combatants were more concerned with their own big battles that the Brits were not a part of.  They were only halfway through that 10 month battle. 

The war had been going on for 2 years at this point.  Just a month shy, actually.  Call it 23 months.  Then this.

Did it make an impression on folks?  Well, I only saw some black and white pictures of the thing and it made an impression on me.