If...

If 20% of black voters sympathized with legal self defense, instead of the current 10%...

If 20% of Jewish voters sympathized with legal self-defense, instead of the current 10%...

The whole nation would be Constitutional Vermont-style carry.  And all of Bloomberg's and Soros' astroturfs would gain little traction in the Democrat party.  They'd have to change their tactics.  Go for the Metrocons, maybe? 

I don't know if it is currently a 10% sympathy.  It might be 5?  It's not zero.  And Trump is doing a decent job attracting these new non-traditional potential GOP voters.  I wonder if the conservatives that run after Trump will be savvy enough to hold to that message?  It's hard, what with the nigh entirety of the Democrat controlled media has managed to convince the world that the Republicans are the party of the Klan, somehow. 

Well Duh

It's always been obvious to me, since the 80s, that all this eco stuff from the left started as a solution looking for a problem.

The solution:  Socialism! (Communism, Jacobinism, National Socialism, Fabian Socialism, Keynesianism, whatever you wanna call it.  The people 'in charge' are the boss of you.  Rather than a servants of yours.)

So they had a solution and looked around for problems for it to solve.  They created many.  But one persistent one was to break off Conservation and make it their raisin de-enter.  Hmmm?  Yes, raison d'etre.  That's what I said.

So this is old news.

Efforts to rein in global warming by eating less meat, driving electric cars, or subsidizing solar energy are completely ineffective, writes a professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and constitute nothing other than 'pointless virtue signaling.'

No, your SUV isn't killing the Koala bears.  CO2 is not a pollutant.  The only reason your solar panel save you money is you got me to pay for parts of it.  And I am eating steak in my dotage, not bugs.  Unless you mean lobster.  But no roaches or ants or grubs or locusts.  Doing that stuff won't save the planet.  The planet doesn't need saving.  The planet is just fine.  It's just a way to put you in thrall of some sort of tin pot dictator that thinks he can run your life.  He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine, sunshine.

"Why are you against clean air and water, T-bolt?"

Who said I was?  We HAVE clean air and water.

"At least their heart is in the right place, T-Bolt?"

I don't care where your heart is if it installs a tyrant.  And if you were really and truly serious about the subject you'd be violently mobbing your own side to get them to support nuclear power.

But it has always been about politics, never science.  'Science' is a Potemkin veneer to what is 100% politics.

When you corner them, and when they are honest about, they even admit that all these things they want you to do to change your life to save the planet won't even move the needle in positive effects.  They tell you the house is on fire, fully engulfed, then suggest you use a 16 ounce water bottle to put it out.  Pathetic.

It's a Christmas Miracle

In North Africa!

I'm in a quittin mood

It will pass.  I am pretty sure.

Sometimes blog post go below interesting to me and become 'Duty.'  After that they are a chore. 

If a they are a chore too long they become an albatross.  When that happens I hang up the spurs. 

But not today.

You know...

WWII shows from the 1960s were much better before I learned how to identify vehicles.  When I was ignorant, paint a Wehrmacht cross on the side of the tank, and I'd believe it was the bad guys.  Totally absorbed in the narrative.

Not now.  Not when I recognize that Panzer as an M7 Priest, which is a very effective light, mobile, allied artillery.  But not a Mk 3 even if you squint.

Maryland

So, Virginia has been sporty with the gun issue.

Don't forget next door Maryland.  We have monstrosities coming down on us this session.

Here is our bill tracker.

My former delegate, now state senator, Jeff Waldstreicher has a bill up!  (He took Raskin's seat when Raskin got promoted to Van Hollen's seat, and Van Hollen took the retiring Senator Mikulski's seat.  What a rogues gallery of villains.)  Anyway.  It's kinda lame.  Jeff's bill.  We have a list of verboten assault weapons in this state and he wants to add to the list.  Just 2 more.  These:  "ANDERSON MANUFACTURING .223 CALIBER AM–15 AND 7 .300 CALIBER AM–15."

Never heard of Anderson, but companies sometime try to circumvent Maryland letter of the law by renaming.  'This isn't an AR, it's an AM!'  I don't know if that was what Anderson was trying to do but that bulldog Waldstreicher is onto them if they are.

There are good bills in the pile too.  You need to get permission to buy a gun in Maryland since 2013.  Part of that is to get fingerprinted.  Their intention was you had to do that whenever you renew your handgun purchase permit.  SB43 says you just need to pay for fingerprints the first time.  Good.

Others tweak and tighten transfer rules between people.  Already pretty tight and easy to run afoul of without knowing.  It's purpose is to get black people in Baltimore in more trouble.

Another is to Lo-Jack all firearms.  To look at the feasibility for same, at least.

Finally there is a proposal sop that you can add money to the state's gun buy back program.  Check a box and you pay an additional $5 to that.  "You wanna pay more taxes?  Check this box."  What a load of hogwash that is.

Not TOO much damage contemplated this session.     

It's not really...

It's not really a Christmas song.  It's a Boxing Day song.  The king is hiding out to help out a subject on the bottom rung of his kingdom's social ladder.

Still, jolly ol' King Wencey might have been a toff, his heart appeared to be in the right place.

The origing of Boxing Day are unknown, though personal conjecture makes me believe the story of Wenceslas couldn't have hurt any in the tradition's formation.  I mean, St Stephen himself has the feast day, but his proto-martyrdom wasn't about bring forth blessings to the poor and lowly.

When he lived, in the 900s AD, he was only a Christian once removed.  That part of Bohemia was still quite pagan.  He died because of worldly political intrigue, and with a hint of ecclesiastical struggle with them selfsame Pagans.  His brother was the bad egg that did him in with Treachery.  Red Wedding style.

Merry Christmas

Bro

My bro asked me what gun to get.  Huh.  He isn't the gun-getting sort.  He's stationed in California and worried about major unrest.

I said don't worry.  You can't solve your neighborhood uprising problems in California anyway.  Cuz you can't get a gun in California.  Or ammo.  So, no sweat.

Oh, I know he can.  But what a PITA.

Might not be all bad.  Say you cannot transfer without a certificate, but less about already-owning.  Same with magazines.  (he lives in California, but his license plate is Pennsylvanian, so he has that advantage.)

Single Stack

YEARS ago, I lamented there aren't enough single stack 9mm pistols out there.  Like nine years or so?  That I'd love to have one.  There were some available but not enough.

Well, now you can't swing a dead cat without hitting another model of 9mm single stacks.  And that's great.

But here I am, sitting on my hands.  Not spending money.  Oh, fickle gun customers like me must be the bane of the factories.

But I am not the shooter I was.

I have a single stack I shoot well, now, and it is a pair of custome 1911s in .45.  I am more likely to make a custome single stack 9mm 1911.

If I were in a shopping mood, a black plastic 9mm would be up there on the list I guess.  But it would be #5 or 6 on this list of 4.

Is there a middle place between J-Frame and IWB 1911 that a 9mm single stack could fill for T-Bolt in a more permissive CCW environment?  I dunno.  I used to think the .40 was a good compromise between 9 and 45, too.  Less so, now.

Train Derailment, Harper's Ferry

No injuries, no toxic waste.



Growing up in the DC suburbs, Harper's Ferry is a tourist draw for field trips and such.  It's a neat little historical tourist trap.

And it is right by the C&O Canal, a popular hiking trail I really appreciated as a boy scout. 

You see, a canal towpath is level.  Much preferred for backpacking than the Appalachian trail. 

And that reminded me of my first 50 mile hike.  We started in Cumberland and went south on the C&O.  Five day in April.  We got there late and the first spot we camped was Spring Gap.

Just a few miles by the light of the moon.   The train track, I could swore, was on our side of the river.  Apparently not.  But it was close, as you see here.

And  in the mid 80s, those freights never ceased.  All night long and into the morning.  Constant.  Did not sleep well the first night.  None of us. 

Anyway, the Harper's Ferry derailment took me back to then.  No benzene.

Spares Box

This reminds me.

I should get some more spare recoil springs.   And with every spare recoil spring change, change the firing pin spring on your 1911.  I only have a couple spares.

What's that?  When do you need to change them?   What round count?  Well, it's not so much round count as it is when you need em.   And you don't know your round count, really, unless you record your range sessions.

A gov't can go 6000 round tho.  An officer?  Some say 500.

Speaking of weather

It's 75 years ago and you and your buddies are in a hole in Belgian soil facing the Siegfried line trying to keep warm.  You are in charge of a tripod mounter M1919, and the holes on either side are pretty far away.  But so is the war.   It's a quiet sector.  Until it isn't.

You go to hose down some Germans emerging from the fog but nothing happens when you pull the trigger.

Frozen!

It doesn't work and you were too green to know to watch for that.

Ok, what froze?

I honestly don't know what would freeze in the mechanism.

I am thinking condensation, and morning frost and breath vapor would accumulate and permeates and infiltrates the weapon, getting into the firing pin channel, or summat, and staying there as a small block of ice.

Also, the lubricants would thicken a bit in the cold.  Maybe not stopping it up, but slowing it.

But those are just guesses.

This guy knows.




That gun probably sat on that 'parapet' for days.  Unfired.  So the cold and any freeze/thaw cycles have had their way with it.


Once a few rounds go off, the gun warms itself. 

Feeling under the weather...

My head is like an endless fountain.  Starting to get a cough.  Uvular got all swoled up...

HEY!  I got the shingles vaccine a week ago!  MAYBE THE VACCINE CAUSED THIS!

Naw, I don't really think that.  For one thing, there has been a similar cold going around the office.  Cold, not flu. It's on the mild side for a cold. I'd expect more aches if I was really having a reaction to the vaccine.  I went to the doctors for that vaccine, you know what else you can get at the doctor's office?  Other sick people's colds.

Also, if it definitely was a reaction to the vaccine, that's fine.  Shingles is no joke.  I'll take the runny nose and dry throat.

But it has impacted my blog posting enthusiasm, so sorry about that.

I had a dream

It was about a giant grizzly bear in my neighborhood.  Almost certainly because the day before I had seen this article posted in Facebook.

The bear in the dream was much larger.

Before bedding down and also because of article, I was thinking of Bella Twin and that Grizzly she killed with a .22.

The grizzly in my dream was that size.

There had been lots of grizzly sighting and takings but one bear was at large, in my dream, here in the inner suburbs of Washington DC.  And there was some gizmo that was tracking them, in real time, by my front door, when I saw that the bear was only a few houses away.

Dammit.

I never liked the idea of bears, when a boy scout.  A little too apex in the food chain.  I didn't want to get drawn into the circle of life.  Not that way.

So I had trepidation.  But I had to DO something.  It was a dangerous animal that everyone wanted put down before it hurt more people.  Maryland was weapons free on this guy.  Yes, Maryland.

So I stepped outside with a Kar98.

Now I don't own a Kar98, nor have any desire to, but it was to hand, and not too shabby of a bear rifle.  Better than a .22.  And there was bear.  So fat it was almost round.  Must have been almost a ton of bear.  Now, I was thinking shot placement was important.  I aimed for the thoracic are and...  boom.  No effect on the bear.  I am pretty sure I hit ok, I must not have gotten anything important, or penetrated far enough.  Plus:  dream logic.  The rifle jammed, too.  The bolt couldn't be worked.  So I dropped it and started running.

I am thinking running from an angry grizzly bear is sub optimal.  In my best shape it is still 3 times as fast as me.  And I am not in that shape.

People make fun of the M1A/M14 but I sure wish I had had one to hand at this point in the narrative.  But whoda thunk a bolt action gun would give ya trouble.  Jamming is not the Kar98's reputation.

What I DID have, and remembered, in a shoulder holster was a .44 magnum revolver.  So, running ceased and shooting began again when I remembered that.  It took two more shots.   One with no effect, and the other must have hit the head.  So, yay?  Close call.  Dead bear.  I felt kinda bad.  Which is better than feeling nothing after a bear killed me, I guess.

Cooking

This Newfoundland lady has a channel where she makes real stick-to-the-ribs dishes. 

The one I want to try is the corned beef cakes.  Potatoes, flour, egg, and the bully beef, of course.



I used to make tuna cake and crab cakes (the tuna is the poor man's crab cake) because, Maryland.  Mayo, bread crumbs, flaky seafood, and Old Bay.

Shout out to Rx.  I know she like to play with corned beef in the kitchen.

I did not know this about HMS Glowworm

BZ

Hillary

This is what Hillary was.

She looks fine.  Decent for her age.  Dignified.  Appropriate.  I could respect the look.

Now she has had some work done.  And this is what she wants you to see:

Botox, wrinkle free.  But my eyes don't focus on that freak show.  I am drawn to this.

Old and wrinkly and too much a contrast.  She looks like a freak with them together.  Fail.  Just awful.

Ugh

I hate the holidays.  Short days, long nights, crazy traffic, family drama, general hassle.

I don't know how long my phone's voicemail has been broken, but I do know that is tech support asks me my info, tries to fix it, and fails, then transfers me to another tech, they will transfer me to five different ones before I give up on them and start looking for old skool answering machines.

I guess you save a lot of money if you hire incompetents. Good job, Verizon.

---

I am encouraged with what is happening on the 2A front in Virginia.  I wish this sort of political will had been more prevalent BEFORE the election so as not to flip the state commie gun grabber, but...

I wonder if it will translate into actual results at the State House, making the legislature back down?  I doubt it, but, you never know.

Of COURSE Governor Northam is for gun control.  We already know he hates black people, and gun control is mainly about disarming black people.

This wasn't always my favorite Christmas song

But it is now.

Star 80

When I was last in the gun shop the owner told me a story.

The ATF called and wanted ALL his sales records for the past 8 years.

Whoa whoa whoa!  What is this about?

Someone in Baltimore had shot another someone with a gun that never had a serial number.

The ATF wanted to know where that gun came from.

Long phone conversation followed.

The gun was a 'Polymer80' pistol.  Essentially an 80% lower Glock that you make 100% in your basement.

The gunshop owner told the ATF he'd never let one of those inside his store, for just this reason.  To avoid sketchy folks or calls from the Feds.

But if he did, he'd never keep a record of it.  And he is sure that people that did deal with them would not keep a record of who they sold it to.  You don't have to.  That's the point.  It's not required.  The point is you buy one online or you buy one for cash at a gun show or summat.  If you have nefarious goals or just want to be under the radar.  Either way.

So calling up gun stores to get sales records and maybe a lead on the perp was really an exercise in futility.  An angelic FFL doesn't sell them or risk his license, and a demonic FFL doesn't keep a record of it.

The ATF person on the phone saw his point.  ATF people that I have dealt with (The A part for me) have always seemed kinda reasonable.  At that ended the event.

Anti-Vax

That's me.

I go to my new doctor.  "Have you gotten your flu shot this year?"

Oh hell no, Doc.  Never never.  All that hassle and mild symptom reaction to the a damn this that is what?  5% effective?  No thank you.  Call me when it gets multi-spectrum.

"How bout a shingles vaccine?"

Please!  Yes!  Hurry hurry hurry!  I'm not CRAZY.  Gimme that shot!

My arm is sore right now.  Good.  Get the second one in March.  Grandma had shingles and she really suffered with it, the poor thing.

But I think it is still rational to avoid flu shots at this time.  And hope for an improvement or breakthrough.  Or when I get to be a little more frail as I age.  When that 5% makes more sense. 

The side effects are standard.  I get what feels like a punch-in-the-arm-bruise pain at the shot sight, and I always get the mildest of flu like symptoms.  Nothing going to bed early doesn't fix up in a trice.  And nothing bad enough to scare me away from getting a shot, unless that shot is useless, like flu.

Euro Deep State

Well the Euro Deep State wanted a redo on the Brexit vote, figuring if they do it enough, eventually it will go their way.

Not this time.  It seems.

Nice.

The polls said it was a coin toss.  Exit polls are a little different, lets see if THOSE hold.

Easy Peazy

S&W have upped their M&P Shield EZ to offer a 9mm to go with the .380.

Intrigued, I am.  I've heard good things about the .380 version, and I'd get it to have something to introduce new shooters with, especially if they are older new shooters. 

I mean, I like the idea of the single stack Shield already.  I'm not in love with the concept, but it also doesn't drive me away. 

Plus, you never know when my own age will catch up to me.  Having this already in hand would be a help, in Maryland.  Neurological issues or arthritis could rear its ugly head.   

Huh, it's not a striker fired gun, apparently.  Internal hammer. 

The review make is sound a little snappy in the recoil department.

Yeah, Alan is mistaken

I hang around with a few O-6s.  It's my age cohort.  Colonels and Captains.  Some of them Colonels are now Brigadiers.  Some of them infantry veterans.

It's an O-6 that commands Naval Air Schools Command at Pensacola Naval Air Station.

The O-6 I know, that would be in charge of maybe relaxing the rules?  "What do you think of allowing people on base to carry a sidearm around base in CONUS, Colonel?"

"Oh HELL no!"

They've SEEN men in the their 20's walking around with a weapon all the time.  And they don't trust them to do it unsupervised.  Now if they were with a 30 something senior NCO all the time?  They still wouldn't trust em to carry a weapon.

Are all O-6's of this kind of attitude?  I am sure not.  But a LOT of em are.  And with folks that are all for CCW and carry themselves.  They just would never allow it if their command required incident free days.  They don't trust them like that, and have seen the mischief they are capable of.  A negligent discharge looks bad on THEIR record as much as it will on Seaman Schmuckitelli's or Private Snuffy's.  Or even Petty Officer Geedunk's or Lance Corporal Bellywash's.

If you see widespread CCW or Open Carry on base, it will be a slow slow process.  In my opinion.

Alan Gottlieb is more optimistic.

Gun Citations

Gun crime is not impacted by the availability of firearms.  Not at the local, state, national or even INTERnational level.

I've posted this before, but I want to remember it.  I keep losing the reference to this very important link.  On Medium of all places

Everybody’s Lying About the Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide

There is no clear correlation whatsoever between gun ownership rate and gun homicide rate. Not within the USA. Not regionally. Not internationally. Not among peaceful societies. Not among violent ones. Gun ownership doesn’t make us safer. It doesn’t make us less safe. A bivariate correlation simply isn’t there. It is blatantly not-there. It is so tremendously not-there that the “not-there-ness” of it alone should be a huge news story.

With instruction on how even I can figure out the data:

First, go to the Wikipedia page on firearm death rates in the United States. If you don’t like referencing Wikipedia, then instead go to this study from the journal Injury Prevention, which was widely sourced by media on both the left and right after it came out, based on a survey of 4000 respondents. Then go to this table published by the FBI, detailing overall homicide rates, as well as gun homicide rates, by state. Copy and paste the data into Excel, and plot one versus the other on a scatter diagram.

"But suicide!"  Yeah yeah.  100 years ago, a culurally similar nation had similar gun restriction as the USA at the time.  Canada.  They've gotten more restrictive over time.  But the homicide rate there tracks the same as the rate here.


---

Also, this citation, just for fun.  8 Stubborn Facts

1. Violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades. 
2. The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings. 
3. A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide. 
4. Gun-related murders are carried out by a predictable pool of people. 
5. Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of violent crime. 
6. There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates. 
7. Legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide. 
8. Concealed carry permit holders are not the problem, but they may be part of the solution.

Gonna be THAT guy

You saw that cop shoot out of the UPS truck, right?  The police manage to turn it into a goat rope when things on the road got crowded with traffic.  A sub optimal situation, to say the least.  Two innocent folks lost their lives.  Just a bad scene all around.

I'm not a big fan when cops go a bit nutso.  Other people are even less of a fan of law enforcement, and some of them made memes. 

And here is where I do the internet 'Akshully...' stuff:

Everybody in this picture is a civilian.  The bewildered commuters in their cars, the hostage, the bad guys, the cops.  I guess their is a chance one of the commuters is like an army sergeant? 

Cops aren't soldiers or sailors or airmen.  Cops are civilians, just like you and me. In war, it is as much a war crime to shoot the police officer in uniform as it is to shoot a guy like me in civilian clothes on his merry way to his office job.  Because it is a war crime to shoot civilians.   

Salt n' Pepa

I still wake up and have that shock of realization.  Donald Trump, that real estate guy from New York that I saw in all the news magazines in the 80's...  won the election.  How is that even a thing?

I am still gobsmacked.

And it broke a lot of the media.  But the media was pretty mired in minutiae already,

I remember, also, in the 80s, the news magazine being obscessed with the plant on the mantle in the Whitehouse.

Well, not they'll go on and on about the size of his massive pepper shakers.

Good article in the Federalist

In case you haven't seen it. 

Reminding Democrats and Metrocons that at the base of gun control is real racism.  Not this fake racism that's been making the rounds. 

Testosterone

Testosterone levels among men is down.  Since the 1980s.

Crime/murder rates are also down.  Since the early 90s.  Across a large part of the globe.

I wonder if their is causation with the correlation?

Maybe soybeans make us peaceful.  Generally speaking.

Need to sell another gun

Why?  No reason.  I got more than I want?

I over paid for Series 70 Colt Commander.  I thought it was stainless, but it was nickel plated.  I dunno why I like stainless, it's really something I need to get over.  Anyway, it's nothing special, and even if it wasn't plated, which would require stripping off, there isn't enough life to the rails to do a proper rebuild. 

The previous owner has done a horrible job putting on an extended slide release.  I mean, butchery to the slide release.  So I replaced that.  Pachmayr grips came with it, and I put them back on for the next person.

It's an ok gun, but I overpaid for it during one of the Obama panics.  Prolly won't get all my money back, but, I'll get some.  A decent some.

And, this is Maryland.  So I will put it up on consignment at my favorite boomstick purveyor.  All is well.

This one.  On the right.  I'm not selling the snubbie.

Good they use units

Until recently I was using numbers of NICS checks as a sign of how healthy gun sales were.

But that's no longer reliable.  For example, Chicago cops run a NICS checks when they want to harass someone legally carry CCW.  So Illinois has more NICS checks than Texas.  I bet they don't have more gun sales than Texas.

I am not the only one to notice, and when folks report on the health of the gun selling retail industry they now also talk about units shifted, along with NICS. So, good.

Gun Control a Loser Issue

That's a nice sentiment.  The Freebeacon noticing that even super Lefty Dem primary candidates are either avoiding talking about the gun control they want to avoid scaring away voters, or are no longer running because they scared away voters.

But the true test will be how scared Dem majorities in Virginia are.  Will they pass their dream gun control measures?  Pass a watered down version?  Be stopped cold by the minority and constituent outcry which includes their Democrat constituents?

Bloomberg is a little distracted by his Prezzy run in the meantime.  He might not be as much help.

What a Booby

Tam is going on about booby traps, and she is right.  Not a good idea.  Not even after the Zombacalypse.

Dude named Cyr (what a great name.  Cyr.  such a waste.) set up a pistol to shoot when a door was opened.  Ick.  Sick bastard.  Well, maybe familiarity bred some contempt on what might be a nigh branchless family tree, but Cyr got hoisted by his own petard.  In the closest thing you will see to a petard these days.

And this got me thinking...  what would make a good booby trap?

Now don't you finish this blog post and head on down to Home Depot for supplies.  Even the best one is an awful idea.

Trap-door, that YOU trigger, so when someone breaks into the front door, so bad guy rolls down to the basement Bond-villain style?  Maybe.  Maybe bad guy breaks his neck in the fall, too.  You HAVE improved on Cyr in that you triggered the trap.   It wasn't automated by motion detector or what not.  If a bad guy needs dispatching and you can trigger the trap or blast him with a 12 gauge you are wielding, which is better?  If he tumbles to the basement and doesn't succumb to incapacitation you still have a bad guy to deal with.

But there is the whole accidental deployment, where visiting Grandma goes a tumbling down the hole.  Much more likely than your housegun getting her.

Ok, how bout this.  Less injurious.   Have a mudroom.  Outer door is normal, inner door is reinforced to slow down the 4 home invaders smashing in.  You trip the switch and pepper spray from twelve cans in the wall start spraying the invaders.  Criminals don't where breath apparatus.  A small room full of capsicum is quite a deterrent.

The cons to those pros is the accidental deployment that catches Grandma, again.  And if grandma smokes, that room full of flammable aerosol could cause some trouble for the whole neighborhood.  PHOOM!

So, yeah, don't do it.  Keep booby traps a mental exercise.  Easier to do firearm training than to deploy elaborate gadgets with hard to gauge reliability or effectiveness or high chance of tragic mishap.  I am not the A-Team or MacGuyver, after all. 

So...

So-called conservative commentator is pro-abortion and anti-Second.  Figures.

Outlawing abortion, changing the meaning of the second amendment to mean Home Bazookas are two that come to mind, but you're being slippery here: You want the courts, not the legislature or the public, to be the vessel of ideas. The same thing cons once hated about liberals.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 2, 2019

His interests are apparently being CENTER-right, and pro national security and maybe small gummint.  But the important bits is being pro-abortion and anti-Second, and he no longer feels the need to even make noise that he isn't.  Okay. This is what we call a metrocon. Except not so much con. Just awful.

Do you know how much them things COST?

Defending yourself and others with a Narwhal tusk can run you up in to custom 1911 moneys.  Sometimes into transferable machinegun moneys.

And I thought collecting a few guns was an expensive hobby. 

Worst. German. Chancellor. EVER.

Well... second worst. 
Hard to beat that one guy.

Watch till the end. Angela Merkel says: we have to take away your freedom of speech, or else society won’t be free. pic.twitter.com/Y3qROvDQXg

— Ezra Levant 🍁 (@ezralevant) November 28, 2019

From here.

Yoda Bae

T-Bolt theory:

Baby Yoda speaks and understands various languages perfectly well.  50 years old, after all.

Baby Yoda is a female.

Baby Yoda has observed enough and can fly the Mandalorian's ship perfectly well, right now.

Baby Yoda

So I went to someones house with this Disney + thing.  To see the Mandalorian.  And the Babe Yoda thing everyone is talking about.

I didn't think I'd get a chance to see it so soon.

Best Star Wars show since 1986.  People were telling me this would save the franchise.  I couldn't believe that, it is too far gone.  But... maybe...

This show all happened after the second Death Star was blown up.  Plus five years or so?  Luke is starting a Jedi school, Han and Leia are decorating a nursery for little Ben.  But we don't see that part.  We see Apollo Creed and Werner Herzog.


And I saw the Mandalorian's blaster.  I've seen this model before.  In Star Wars and in the real world, because they usually make an unusual firearm as the base of the special effect blaster.  It looks like a Bergman.  Yup.

Shoulda remembered that from the last time I saw a Bergman as a blaster.  If your goal is to make future laser guns look exotic to make your sci fi fiction guns, you go obscure or exotic or you kluge on a buncha doohickeys.  Or do all 3.  And Star Wars practically invented that convention.  You can't use something everyone knows, it takes them out of the story.  "Hey, that's a Colt!" or "Those are obviously AKs and not even Space-AKs."  But a Bergman fits the bill, easy.

Dunno about his rifle.  I have the feeling MG42, but only because they always use MG42 for the long guns.  Could be a Remington shotgun receiver base?