Retro-Spect

I had that big long weekend and STILL couldn’t come up with blog fodder.

Well, everyone everywhere is doing the end of year retrospective. The News is doing the year in news, Hollywood is doing the year in Hollywood, NPR is doing the year in Communist propaganda and infiltration (DAMN PINKOS!) I might as well do one myself for the blog.

Only one new gun, the SIG. I had gone too big in the gunnie department in 2008, so I applied some self-discipline to 2009, much to the disappointment of my gunstore. I might get 2 in 2010. We’ll see.

I went back and forth in my head over a carbine to get. I’d probably already have the Camp Carbine by now, and be done with the whole topic, if Marlin had made the little rifle a little nice. Or still. And regardless on whether the M1 Carbine stays in the running, I think I will join the Garand Collectors association. If I get a M1, then being a member will help with the Civilian Marksmanship Program purchase process.

I didn’t do any instructor-lead training this year, despite flapping my gums about it. I guess that is TWO new years resolutions in 2 paragraphs…

I got a range membership this time last year, and I’ve renewed it. Definitely worth the price if you go at least once a month. And I do.

Got my first deer. That was a thrill. Another resolution…. Make more chili. Mmmm, venison.

What else? Despite the shortage of ammo, I’ve managed to keep my stocks up even with the relatively normal burn rate. I took a few n00bies to the range, and the Trollop bought a HUGE Fohty-Fo. So I did SOME inspiration of others

You Gun Nuts are Crazy

You Gun Nuts are crazy and no one should listen to a word you say. You keep saying Obama is coming after your guns. But Obama said he wasn’t gonna come after your guns, and hasn’t done anything to come after your guns. So shut up.

At least that’s what many hoplophobes have said time and again since Barry got elected.

We gun enthusiasts are a bit leery of this sentiment. What with Obama being a major muckity-muck for the Joyce Foundation. It says it right there on his resume, 1994-2002. And Joyce is major funder of anti-rights causes.

Right now, the biggest political mover of the anti-gun cause is Mayors Against Illegal Guns or MAIG. (The Brady Campaign is but a shell of its former self.) It is so active because Mayor Bloomberg of NYC is the active pusher of MAIG, and presumably has a bit of the President’s ear.

Well Bloomberg sent up some suggestions on restricting gun rights that Obama can do without having to get Congress to DO anything.

So I guess that whole “Obama isn’t gonna come after your guns” is a lie. Well, IF the president has his ATF come down on the gun culture with both feet it’s a lie.

~~

As an aside, what’s so unreasonably heinous about Mayor Bloomberg’s MAIG recommendations? He even brings up that nigh everyone wants to enforce the laws already on the books, and these suggestions would just go towards that, so?

Good question…

Well, a ban on non-sporting firearms and ammo is a recommendation ATF could do, suggested my MAIG, just for an example. But most all imports are used for sporting purposes. People SHOOT imported Mosins or SKSs or Glocks in a target competitions. It’s not the big events like those held at Camp Perry, but it is still a sport. And that’s if we ignore the Heller decision that said restrictions on the grounds of ONLY sporting purposes utility are unconstitutional. An imported firearm and ammo has a possible use under the other protected purposes of firearm ownership… militia use, and, most importantly, SELF DEFENSE. How is a restriction of 60 year old bolt action rifles and the most popular police sidearm reasonable?

Most importantly, this one restriction is a BAN by administrative fiat, instigated by MAIG (who claimed to never want to BAN guns), associated with an administration whose followers insist that the President would NEVER EVER want to BAN any guns.

The other 40 recommendations are geared to nibbling away at the periphery, making gun ownership and operation more expensive and more of an administrative hassle and more invasive of lawful gun owner’s privacy. It erodes the gun culture. And once eroded more ambitious rights infringing statutes can be emplaced. None of the recommendations seem to seek to reduce illegal gun activity like murder and assault and robbery except for marginally. It's interesting that the 40 suggestions were purposely picked to be the most inconvenient for lawful gun owners and the least inconvenient for what should be the true target of the sentiment "enforce the laws we already have." The actual criminals. [What if 40 suggestions were made by the NRA to a pro-gun President and an overwhelmingly conservative Congress to have ATF enforce the laws it already has on the books? Could the NRA offer up the same suggestions? Maybe. So why the worry? It's a matter of trust and the wiggle room written in to the rules. Plus there are easily 40 BETTER recommendation out there than these that target legal owners as well as actual criminals.]

Here’s a reform that MAIG didn’t recommend. How about, when someone is convicted of unlawfully shooting someone they don’t let that person out of prison after a couple years so they can unlawfully shoot someone again?

~~

Here’s another issue. MAIG wouldn’t disclose that report. Why keep it secret? The Washington Post got a copy back in September and reported on it, but failed to report the actual details. Why? It is only after Calguns put in a FOIA request did this information get promulgated. Why does the Executive branch of the US Government have to have a veil of secrecy over this issue? It’s not National Security related. Why can’t THIS policy wrangle be exposed to the sanitizing light of day? Thank goodness for FOIA.

Anyway, like I said, you Gun Nuts are crazy thinking the President is contemplating some secret plan to ban your guns. You all need to calm down. Here. Have some Kool Aid. It’s delish.





[and, full disclosure, the President does have to institute these recommendations. he hasn't yet, and might not. let's give poor, struggling Obama the benefit of the doubt, shall we?...]















[AND... you know, as the day wore on yesterday and I composed this blog, EVERYTHING I said was said by someone else...]

Ooo! Thought experiement! What 40 recommendations to enforce the existing laws would we gun bloggers recommend to the President to direct his ATF?

NY Gun Permit

When was the last time you heard Sean Hannity talk about Gun Control? The only time I hear from him is when I am exasperated with the drive home NPR station and switch over. Which is frequent enough to know that he doesn’t talk about guns much. (My radio listening is a constant flipping to stations that don’t annoy me. When NPR goes over the top with leftism, when a call in show’s professional announcers relinquish their show to amateurs by going to the phones, when a commercial comes on… that sort of thing)

Anyway… Sean Hannity… Doesn’t mention the right to keep and bear arms very often if at all. At least not enough for my taste, certainly. Another metrocon, I guess. Nothing wrong with being a metrocon, make no mistake. Better a metrocon that at least understands the purpose of the Constitution to those that take their tyranny ala carte.

The point is, he HAS a pistol permit for carrying in New York.

I’ll grant, he’s a celebrity and the Leftists in this country can be dangerously violent and he needs to protect himself and his family from very real threats… But what about other folks in New York? Don’t their families need protection at times? I appreciate his exercising his 2nd Amendment rights because he has the wealth and fame to overcome New York’s arbitrary and unjust and unconstitutional gun regulations, but how about a shout out to help his fellow citizens in his state and country? He’s not THAT special. Even he, Hannity, will admit that over and over in his radio show.

So it'd be nice if he through his a bone to a conservative issue. Him being a conservative and all. I'm just saying, I'm not raking the man over the coals or calling him a traitor to our great cause. Some commenter will think I am so let me put the kibosh on that right now.

Or maybe he does come out for the 2nd, and I've just missed it. I'd be glad to hear about that.

~~~~~~~~

Update:

and Rush.

Another What If

JayG has a starting-over post that is pretty similar to most gunnies' ‘Lists’ if placed in a similar situation. Of course everyone personal taste preferences will make the lists look widely varied, but the bones of the lists will be the same ‘ol same ‘ol.

(And we gunnies love these types of what-if lists...)

I always say, if you have to start over or start from scratch you get one of each and a spare. So that’s a Shotgun, a Rifle, a Full Size Handgun, and a .22, and maybe a smaller Medium Caliber CCW Handgun. And then a backup for each. That’s 10.

But turn that around. Saying you are getting old and infirm and need to pare down. Say the Collectivist Libs win everything they ever wanted and manage to turn this country into a Socialist Paradise, but just never managed to get any political traction in the gun control department and so you have to move to your tiny Soviet style concrete apartment to live a life of servitude and drudgery. Say the zombies or an asteroid came and you are in a safe pocket where it is crowded and you are displaced and unemployed. Say you have to get on the World’s Collide Colony ship and take to the stars but where you end up will be an Earth like place and you’ll be in some fishing village there…

At any rate, the deal is, you look at your gun vault full of firearms and can only pick one because of space and money and portability reasons. And there is no prospect of acquiring more firearms ever again. Your life is the same as it is now pretty much, except you are a bit more impoverished and dislocated, but, you know, life goes on. You still gotta eat work sleep socialize, just out of a space smaller than a Hong Kong dormitory apartment.

Which, of all of your guns do you pick.

Everyone’s personal favorite will be different, naturally.

Some of you will choose a shotgun. It can do anything. You can hunt deer size critters or pigeon size critters with it, and you can defend your home with it very well.

Others will choose their favorite pistol so they can have it on their hip every waking moment, and under their pillow when they sleep.

Others will take the big rifle. When you need a rifle, nothing else will do, and to be without, then, could be a tremendous hardship.

A .22 is almost as versatile as the shotgun, and it can be more portable. The ammo CERTAINLY is.

And finally, others will take something that might not be the most practical but has great sentimental value.

What would I take? I dunno. I’m vapor locked on my choices. The Model 11 is a good shotgun, I’d love to hold onto the .45 or .357, and I LOVE the Garand. But I guess I lean toward the M1A the most. Soliders carried a rifle like that around with them all the time, so, with the sling, it’s got the “with me” thing in this conjectured disjointed world. It certainly works on everything, though it would be tricky harvesting squirrels, or navigating INSIDE my house in the event of a break in.

~~


The point of this thought excercise is not to prompt readers to post comments of their choice, though feel free to. It's to reinforce my understanding that there is no ideal firearm. They are role specific. The ones that try to go for a please-everybody generalist model find they can't do any one job well. Well enough. Can you imagine going through life with nothing but an M1 Carbine? I mean, it's certainly better than nothing, and cool in it's own right, but...

There is no one gun. There is no one caliber. The closest thing is a shotty 12 gauge, maybe. Or a .22, maybe. But that's not satisfying. And it all hinges on circumstance. "I live in the suburbs and there are bad guys around that rob people, I want a decent pistol" is different from, "I live in a developing country and there are bands of soldier like bandits roaming around spreading depradation, I want a decent rifle. And lots of friends." is different from, "I live in the middle of nowhere, I'm not a vegetarian, and there are few people about but quite varied types of game, from waterfowl to elk to everything in between, please hand me that shot gun and a variety of shells." is different from "I live in a lighthouse and need to shoo the zombie horde away from my front door by shooting them from the balcony, a .22 will do best."

Shorpy

If you are interested in History, photography, high quality scans, and Washington DC, and you don't know about Shorpy, then you are really missing out.

Even had gun content:

"Old Reliable, 1942. Infantryman with halftrack. A young soldier sights his Garand rifle like an old-timer. He likes the piece for its fine firing qualities and its rugged, dependable mechanism"

Deer

Since the snow, I've seen LOTS more deer about for this time of year. Pairs of does in wooded areas near the roads. Not even half spooked. Healthy looking. Big. Fattish.

Except for trudging through the icy whitestuff, tracking one would be SO easy nowadays.



I wonder if I am just noticing more deer lately or if there are more. Probably a bit of both.



Their coats seemed darker than earlier in the season. More brown. I guess that could be a survival coloration for winter. They match the tree trunk color better and darker means more absorption of the sun's radiation in the cold winter months.

Loot

What did I get for gunnie related Xmas loot?

Bupkis.

But that's ok. Last year I got the 1950's book about guns of the year. A compendium of magazine articles. And they LOOKED for stuff like that again for this year and just didn't find any. It's great to know they are looking.

Ooo! I haven't plugged the 50 year old electronic reprints of Guns Magazine lately. I love reading those. I forgot to check on November, so I better head over there and look at it now before January comes and bumps it off the list. Article for 1959... "Guns and Gear for IndoChina." I wonder what is happening in IndoChina? Something with the French. Shouldn't concern the US, much, I figure...

25th II

Oi!

HAPPY Christmas for my British readers.

25th

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

So, what you get? Any ammo? No one ever gives me ammo for Christmas...

So Hard

So hard to come up with blog fodder. Running on fumes. I have the rifle sling post I've been staring at for over a year. I have the carry rigs for a rifle that looks like it will turn Sisyphusian like the rifle sling post.

Keep rolling that rock up hill.

Hmm, I can take my humble Christmas bonus, apply to it my Xmas shopping consumer debt, break even, and be that much more confident to buy off the Master List...

Yeah, that'll be nice. January is almost here. I'm half tempted to bag the snubbie, and go with a spare 1908 Pocket Hammerless or a Sig P238. It wasn't THAT long ago I was thinking of trading in the Colt I have. But you know, that's the best size I've handled for a .380 so far. And it would be my pocket carry for summer. Cocked and locked 100 year old pistol? I dunno.

Well I could still bag the snubbie and jump right to the .22 revolver...

Registration Leads To Confiscation

Someone needs to start a list to keep track of those incidents. Incidents where a registered gun became a wrong confiscated gun. Some intrepid blogger needs to track down credible reports of incidents where an innocently registered firearm was then wrongly confiscated by the authorities. Either en masse or individually. I’d say that blogger should be me, but you all know how lazy I am.

Some possible examples, JayG had this from Philly. And, Caleb mentioned the famous Canadian list that is hopefully falling apart now.



The problem with it is it is a rare news event when registration leads to en masse confiscation. The last major event was Katrina, sort of. Before that Canada, Australia, and England. A future one might be Switzerland or somesuch. But if that happens you won’t need me to inform you. It’ll be on the news. And on EVERY other gun blog. And if confiscation happens individually, 8 times out of 10 it is because the gun owner became a brand new indicted or convicted felon. It’s the 2 times out of 10 on the individual level that we care about. When an innocent’s registered guns are confiscated unjustly.

There are other listable gun related items. JayG keeps a list of justifiable shootings. It’s not complete, and others also maintain such lists.

Maybe need another category of “I’m a gun owner, but…” where they are just a shill for Brady. Lots of those show up in letters to the editor. You know how they go. They start with “I’m a hunter, and a gun owner and a firm believer in the second amendment, but… this recent shooting incident where a drug dealer shot somebody shows that we should all have to store our firearm at the police station and then have to get permission from the authorities to retrieve them for sporting purposes.” Sometime the letters to the editor don’t go that far, but you get the drift.

There is already an “Only One” trope, well documented. David has a bajillion of them. Rarely a day goes by without him posting a new one. Only One, for those that aren’t familiar with the term refers to an unfortunate incident a Law Enforcement Officer had with a Glock 20 (he called it a Glock 40 because it shot .40) who, in front of a class of 3rd graders and right after informing them that he was the ‘only one’ qualified enough to handle said pistol, promptly shot himself in the leg. Unintentionally, naturally, but still negligents. The “Only One” attitude is not uncommon attitude among some police and public that the Po-po are somehow special, being agents of the government, and deserve special treatment. Better treatment. Better than treatment offered to ordinary citizens. This attitude rankles many American citizens, as you’d expect. You know, with us being citizens and all, rather than subjects.

Short

THIS covers my carbine requirements of 'short rifle that shoots pistol size ammo and preferrably takes magazines of a pistol I already own.'

And it's pretty, in it's way.


By Hera Arms

It's just a pain in the arse what with the necessity of getting a $200 tax stamp if you want to actually USE it as a rifle, with a shoulder stock.

Snowpocalypse

All this snow has me exhausted. But it puts me to mind of the gunnie-related winter battles of the recent past. I'm glad I don't have to fight in this. And this storm is balmy compared to some of the nastier battles. The sun is out now, it's only 2 feet of wet snow, the wind is less than 15 knots. It's practically the tropics here. Compared to:

The Bulge
Chosin
Stalingrad
or the poorly equipped encampment at Valley Forge if you want to go further back.

And the brave Finns that fought off those commie bastards in the early 40s'. What would I be fighting with if I was a Finnish soldier? A Mosin "Lotta"?



How about a water cooled machine gun.

I hope they have enough ammo to keep the water from freezing... It would suck if the ice cracked the water jacket.

Fear

Caleb did a post on Fear.

Read the whole thing, WRT how hoplophobes live in fear. Not just of guns, but with most everything.

But then read this entry by JayG, FEAR and road rage.


Jay is afraid too. But a different kind of fear. His is more, “oh please, otherwise normal nice innocent person, don’t snap and force me to have to defend myself.” Jay also has a fear of, “oh please, dirtbag criminal, don’t think I’m a potential victim and put me in the position where I defend myself and fill you full of holes.”

No one with a CCW WANTS to go out and shoot someone. Or find themselves in a place they went consciously or unconsciously or accidentally where they have to shoot someone. At least no one that has a CCW should want to, and if they are in it for the chance to air out another human being, no matter how justified the shoot, maybe they shouldn’t get the conceal carry permit. (It goes back to my whole Don’t Be a Vigilante theme)

It’s ok to be afraid the way Jay is afraid. In fact it should be required.

But when it goes beyond that, and you DO find yourself in the place you feared you’d be, and despite your best efforts to avoid it, that fear should turn to anger. Cooper said it, “How DARE this person endanger me” and the warrior side flips on. The FIGHT part of Fight-Or-Flight should kick in. And it should do that because that maximizes your chances of a desireable-to-you end to the confrontation. Jay even has a story for that, from his pre-armed days, when threatened by a knife wielding punk. Jay, internally, was incandescent with rage, at very high Code Orange, and just a hair away from going Code Red and ripping out the guys spine via his rectum* no matter how many times Jay got stuck with the switchblade.

Jay was justifiably scared (as I would have been) then he was justifiably enraged, as I hoped I would be. The only thing that kept the flag from coming down on that fight was the decision making of the punk when a part him detected that bubbling cauldron coming up. It was out of Jay’s hands at that point.


[ * rectum? damn near KILLED him... old joke. sorry.]

Life Magazine

I’ve always liked this picture. Growing up, my parents had a coffee table book of famous photographs from Life magazine. This was one. It’s just so iconic WWII.

Without looking it up…

This dogface has been in combat a while, based on the beard. It’s an awful thin beard at that. I don’t think it’s because he’s young, though, I think in 30 years his beard would be that thin, too.

Dogface? Are you sure he’s a dogface? Dogface implies Army, to me, and that helmet looks camouflaged. The Marines in the Pacific wore camouflage while Army guys in Europe did not. I am given to understand that because the Germans wore camouflage, the Army didn’t want to adopt the same sort of mottled pattern for fear an ally might confuse soldier for wehrmacht. That wasn’t an issue in the Pacific, as the Japanese wore khaki.

That’s an M1 Carbine, from the looks of it. So this COULD be Korean war as well as WWII, but I am still thinking WWII.

Unfiltered cigarette in his mouth. I doubt it’s a Lucky Strike or Camel. Why? Luckys and Camels were the good cigarette, and guys on the front line had to settle for lesser known to us now, less-desireable brands a lot of the time. Why? The REMFs (that acronym stands for Rear Echelon Mother Hubbard, or something…) at the supply depots took the Lucky Strikes for themselves.

He sure does look determined and business-like, doesn’t he?

Now let me look it up…

Ok.

The photo was taken by W. Eugene Smith. And the subject is Angelo Spiro Klonis, Greek immigrant and army solider.

So I was wrong about the Marine thing. The Marines apparently, wouldn’t take a non-citizen. The Army wasn’t as picky. But he was 20 when war broke out so his beard is like that because of his genes, not because he has the thin chin whiskers of a bald face boy.

He served in the Pacific theater, however. So my camoflauge theory might still hold up.

I should probably hunt down more Life Magazine compendiums, of WWII and others. It's a good representative of the gold age of still photography, that Life stuff.

[And... I just got back from my Dad's house and found the copy of Best of Life Magazine he had back in the early 70s that I poured over. Mr. Klonis is NOT in that. I must have hallucinated the memory and picked up the picture in my memory banks from some other source. Who knows when...]

Worst Blizzard in HISTORY

Is coming to the DC area. At least according to the weather folks on TeeVEE. They are LOVING this.

Blizzard like conditions. Something like 10-15 or 10-128 inches of snow. 400 mile per hour winds with gusts up to 2000. Negative eighty degree temps. And that's Celsius.

All I'm saying is it is lots easier to track a zombie through fresh snow.

MHI Review

So I’m almost done reading Monster Hunter International. When I got the book and asked readers here how it was I got a few responses.

They were right.

It’s no Melville, it’s not literature. But it’s a good read.

I never would have guessed it was a FIRST novel. I was also worried it would have TOO much gun content. You know what I mean. You can pack a lot of details about firearms into a story, and there is in this book, but you can also OVERpack it. I like some, but it can be over done and distract from the narrative by excessive gun minutiae. (Odd. isn’t it? A gun enthusiast not wanting gun details in a story? Well yeah. I like beer but I don’t want to brush my teeth in beer instead of water, or to bathe in it…)

Anyway, it didn’t. Overpack the gun detail, that is.

As regards to the storyline, rip-roaring, action-packed.

But we all know there are no such things as vampires. Or secret elite groups that combat them and have for decades. Sort of like how Men In Black did for aliens, these groups do for Monsters like wights, Lovecraftian Old Ones, and gargoyles. The idea is silly on its face.

Now zombies… THOSE are real. And thank all that is holy we have RoMERO to protect us from the horde.

Zombie Pigs

This is how it starts.

And the purpose of the ZOMBIE Pigs is to eventually make Zombie-Soldiers? Have they gone mad? This is Resident Evil style stuff.

Though I wouldn't mind hangin' out with Mila Jovovich.

blog links

I think I need to change my blog format. It’s sometime too hard to see URL hyperlinks, the green color is too close to the black regular font text color. Also, making the linked area larger might help. Instead of a single short word like ‘Tam’ I should highlight and link most of the sentence, like: “according to the world’s foremost authority on the subject of antebellum French bayonets, Tamara Prudence Keel III…”

Yeah. That’ll go over well.

Stock Adapter Link

Weeks ago I followed a link to a gun blog sight that had an ad for a stock adapter for a Glock. I immediately lost it until Uncle re-linked him recently.

Plus, it was a link to a Ruger Mini-14 target troubleshooter, and I sorta have a thought for a Mini-14 for my endless carbine thoughts and re-thoughts.

Here is the Mini-14 love. Or non love, if you will. The Mini-14 has a reputation for less than stellar accuracy. Especially compared to what you can achieve with the same round on a modern AR platform. For a carbine that shoots .223, what do you need accuracy out past 100 yards for? Now if you are a Varminting... with the same ammo, then yes... way out past 100... So I can understand how you'd want a short light rifle that can do that since you CAN have a short light rifle that can do that.

Oh and the stock adapter is here. Kinda cool turning your Glock into a shoulder fired rifle by just clipping on a piece of plastic with an AR stock attached, but check into the legalities. I don't know much about stock adapter law other than you can end up afoul of the NFA in some circumstances if you add a stock or take off a stock or something something something. Gun laws are not the easiest to follow. I try to only keep the relevant-to-me laws in my head at any one time and know when I am contemplating getting close to another and need to add it to my mental inventory. Anyway, in the site's FAQ: "Anyone can buy it [the stock adapter], but if you plan on adding a [AR style] stock to it [the apapter] and connecting it to your handgun you should be filing a Form 1 with the ATF because you are turning your handgun into a Short Barreled Rifle (SBR)."

See? Was that so hard? Now to personally data dump that info until I need it again...

There.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Mini-14s! All that searching for the perfect Carbine for ME, through Kel Tec, Marlin Camp, CX4, M1, Mini... I'll problably end up getting an AR. Some day. If I do, the neato one Tam featured would be the one I'd want because of the MGI takedown capabilities. Well, for the upper. Why have a miniature rifle you can't easily stow? But that road is an expensive detour... With a steep learning curve. Remember the data dump and how I don't crowd my head with too much minutia not relevant to what I have and do? Yeah, I got next to nothing on AR's up there in the wetware. I pride myself on a very broad knowledge, and I can answer a question about any topic. As long as there are no followup questions and you don't know more than me. Yeah, I'm a mile wide, but an inch deep.

Stick with the M1A, T-Bolt.