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.