Crap!

I forgot to post.  

Got something for tomorrow. 

Nothing for today.

Uhhhh...  

What is it, 25 states got Constitution Carry?  Maybe Indiana, 26, if the governor is pressured to let the bill go by. 

26 is more than half.

Gun people have opinions

Gun opinions have opinions.  And just like all opinions, everyone has one and they generally stink.

And we are not shy about sharing our gun opinions with other people of the gun.  

You see another mostly-ally 'on the street' open carrying. (Really, it's at the register of the Sheetz, getting brefass sammich)  A Walther PPK.  In a floppy nylon holster with no retention.  At the small of the back.  What do you?

1. Point and laugh, "Loser!  What an awful gun!  Slide bite, much?  Yer gonna get that taken, then, nothing but tears."
2. Stare and judge silently.  Oh you ARE judging
3. "Hey buddy, you don't know me from Adam's off Ox, but, I'd carry with a better pistol and a better caliber and a better holster, and concealed.  UPGRAYDDD.  The J-Frame in your wife's purse she's never taken to the range is a better idea than that.  But you do you, Boo-Boo.  The grips are great, tho." 
4. If asked by the individual what you think of the ivory grips on his OC Gatt, say "The grips are tits, but, personally, that isn't my preference for a whole carry strategy.  That's just me."  Have polite explanations if follow-up questions are forthcoming.  

#1 might be true, but not polite for anyone but a best buddy.

#2 is the politest one.  Well, out loud polite.

#3 is a bit interjecting and innapropriate, sounding off uninvited.

#4 is polite, and satisfactory.  Trying to get around to #3, being your ultimate message.  But hell, what do you know?  Have some humility for once in your life. 

Me?  #2.  If I know the person, #4.  And more alert of people milling about that aren't him.  Silly.

 

Carry Options

"How do you carry your pistol?  OWB kydex?"

Nah.

"Milt Sparks, IWB?"

No.

"Pocket?"

Not any more.

"Ankle?!" 

No, I Clog-Carry in my TactiCrocs.  The pockets of my Cargo Shorts were all spoken for for other gear.

Some days you eat the bar…

I wonder if it will help CCW spreading with all the bear sightings happening in *towns?   

A few pets snatched up in front of the family while walking the dog, or a few close encounter scares, face to face.  Then the subsequent inability for 911 to instantly swoop in and solve the problem because that is impossible, and even upper middle class white ladies that were normally anti-firearms of any kind might see some occasional utility of they, or, better, someone else very nearby, having a gun to hand.  

"Oh, don't hurt Yogi, but do scare him off.  This whole can of anti-grizzly pepper spray barely made him sneeze, but maybe shooting into the air will do?  What?  Well, yes, I will stop voting for people that want to ban guns, just hurry!  I don't think Fluffy my Labradoodle can hold him off much longer."

(*I swear I composed this post before seeing Tam's link to a bar in Indy.  Serendipity, synchronicity, whatever.  Ahem.  Bearthread.)

All this started

With back pain.  My chief complaint.  First back pain,  Then the numb feet.  I figured the lumbar issues were causing the numbness issues.

They'd found SO many other things.  And tried SO many other things to try to fix it.  Including the unwelcome lymphoma diagnosis.

I just wanted my back to hurt less.  

I gotta get a second opinion.  From a miracle worker for backs.  I'll be patient.  Wait til the weekend. No improvement I am pulling the trigger and calling on Miracle Max.  

---

If Maryland became Shall Issue I'd be SOL.  Hanging a holster off my belt for CCW inside the wasteband would be painful.  

Belt

Thanks to Amazon order history, I know that this brand of gun belt will last exactly 3.5 years before it delaminates. 

To be a good stiff leather belt, desirable for those that are unaware, normal belt leather is sewn to another normal belt layer.  Inside to inside.  Of the cow skin.  Double layers make the belt double priced, typically.  With really good stitching, this will last a while.  Duluth Trading company makes a "Lifetime Belt" where the stitching lasts a year and the two leather layers come apart a little.  The scourage of delamination.  Which is sub-optimal.  Fine for holding up pants when it delaminates.  Starts to be an issue with holding up pants and holster.  

All this is for a belt that looks fine at work and doesn't scream, "Steel core camo tacti-belt, watch out this guy is prolly a retired Army Ranger or something.  Or wishes her were so."  I dunno how long them fancier belts last.  Haven't tested them.  But would buy this brand again.  Next brand to test is Bigfoot.

NOW I gotta get THREE of everything?!!

 THREE?  

Three.  Not just one is none, and two is one, but a pair and a spare?  

Ok.  Yer the boss.  Everyone is gonna think I am using this as an excuse to buy more guns, but, there is no arguing.   Gotta get a 50% bigger gun locker to start with, I guess...

MD CCW

 "If your data was stolen in the OPM hack you can use that as a 'good and substantial reason' to get a MD CCW."

"I head dudes with a security clearance can put that on the form and they pretty much automatically give you the MD CCW."

Yeah?  I know people with security clearances and people that got their data hacked.  They haven't gotten it.  Can you get one of your friends to show you their MD CCW card to confirm?  

A Maryland permit like that is like hunting for snipe.  I do, personally, know a person that is a TRAINER for the MD CCW permit process.  All the people he trained were the "Business owners with lots of cash" types.  No hack victims or spies or what have you.  And their preferred holseter was a ratty paper bag.  When they CCW they carry their gun in their hand and both hidden inside a paper bag.  Money bag in the other hand.  North Baltimore guys aren't fooling around  

5 will get you 20

That this guy was already a prohibited person when he shot a detective that pulled him over, then another detective after a car chase and disappeared.

(When/if they convict him he will prolly get more than 5-20...)

I woke yesterday to the local news saying BOLO for a tall thin white dude with neck tats.

Well, I already sorta keep an eye on peeps with neck tats.  Sorry non-meth-head kindergarten teachers that just happen to have a neck and face ink.

I say tall-skinny is a meth-head, but that's just an educated guess.  I could be wrong.

Why did he get pulled over?  Well the cops found a corpse in a house nearby and his name came up about it.

"Why do you care, T-Bolt?  Don't you live close to DC?  This is up nearer to Baltimore."

Yeah I commute to work near there.  They cancelled school around my office during this manhunt.  And I am unarmed because Maryland.

Well, I am not carrying a concealed pistol because Maryland.  I am armed.  I'd prefer to be better armed.

Dude's prolly half a county away, at least. 

(update:  they had caught him before I had left work for the day.)

Gun Buying Permits

Gun Permits (to own, not to CCW) requests are up 1000% in NYC among the Jewish community

A rational response to the attacks against them and the authorities at the higher levels subsequently turning a blind eye and not prioritizing their patrol assets to address it.

But still... it's New York.  Instead of 10 it is now 100, maybe?  A drop.

Good Point

McChuck brings up a good point.

The Maryland CCW people say they approve most applications.

But that's because people only apply when they know their 'good and substantial reason to exercise your human right in Maryland' is going to be approved.

I, for example, would never apply in Maryland unless I had police reports (plural) describing some Ornery Knob that had be threatening my life to point to on the application, or spent a lot of money on lawyers.  Why?  Because if my ducks aren't in a row and they turn me down I have to then check the box "Have you ever, in the past, applied for a CCW in any jurisdiction and been denied?"  That, here in Maryland, is often an auto-denial, right there.

I don't know if it is like that where you live, but that is the ecosystem here, and we rarely mention it, it is so ever present. 

USMC to allow conceal carry on base!

Way to go, Marines.

Wait... oh... they just mean off duty MP types.  I guess Shore Patrol types?  Whatever Marines call their police.  Marine base "Only Ones".  Codrea is prolly having a field day, lately

So, really not that many more people.  You could still say, statistically, no one is allowed to CCW, the percentage is so fractional.  Nothing-burger.

Still, better than the Air Force.

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. 

2AF

Always nice to have the Second Amendment Foundation going to bat for me, personally.  Well figuratively personally.

Bottom line of the case, Maryland is May Issue on CCW.  You need a reason the state police and attorney general think is valid to tote.  And then it is often very limited like "CCW but only to and from and at your work, no stops."

The Second Amendment Foundation thinks that is contrary to civil rights and errywhere should be Shall Issue.

Of course, if forced to overturn it's regime, Mayrland will think of other ways to make it annoying.  "You need 40 hours of training and must renew every other year with a $140 application fee."  Until that then gets overturned.

But baby steps.

MD CCW

Back in the old days, like before I was born, before the term CCW was a thing, people did buy gun and people did carry them on their person.  Back then, in Maryland, if there was going to be any background checks done on you, it was done with the local police forces.  The state or feds weren't set up to do stuff like this, and the locals knew the local people.

With a high sign from the local police station, you could carry concealed.  You had to ask face to face and have a good reason.  Or be buddies with the cops.  So, that is an abuse.

If you voted against the sheriff in the last election and supported his opponent, or you grew your hair a bit long, or your skin was the wrong color or the cops were just asshole, you might not get a 'permit' either.  More abuse.

Especially because of this racial angle, and with advances in database retrievals at the state level, the state of Maryland eventually gave the authority to say yay or nay to the Maryland State Police.  Easier to control from Annapolis, and hopefully would take perceived race prejudice out of the equation.  If you wanted to keep CCW permits out of black hands you just had to deny permits to most everybody.  And here is where we are.

Except people are trying to get the information from the Maryland State Police records on how they make their determinations to grant or deny a CCW.  Maybe find out if the state actually IS disproportionately denying certain racial groups.  And also find the plethora of other excuses used. 

Are the state police denying people because they take cholesterol medication or viagra?  That'd be interesting to know.  Is that a HIPAA violation?

So there is potential for legal trouble two ways, there, for the State. 

Plus just get the permit process to BUY a handgun these days hurt minorities.  Where does a person in Baltimore that relies on public transportation go for the required training?  What if they have no credit card, you need a credit card to get the permit from the state, online.  And you want to use a library computer to do all this?  Baltimore crime is increasing rapidly, and people that want to defend themselves have a harder time securing the means to do so than some middle class suburban resident in much-safer Crofton Maryland.

Look!

Really expensive CCW friendly khakis.


Well, they aren't utilikilt expensive.  Have you seen those? $200 buck for that?!  A simple manskirt costs more than fancy denim pants I could wear to a Texas wedding?  Phew.  I'm not usually afraid of paying for quaility, but this kilt thing...  (also, RIP American Woolrich)

Anyway, the internet thinks I need to see lots of ads for them Stryker britches with a nice pocket designed for better pocket carry.

I do like the retention features.  You could take a tumble down a hillside into a creek and get up and keep running and your j-frame would still be where you left it.  And on the thigh, there is easier access when sitting in your vehicle.  These features make it a bit slower, but life is tradeoffs.

I have carried in the 'grenade pocket' of the military style BDU pants.  I don't like that position.  I'd have to get used to weight over there.  My sciatica is also RIGHT there, so that's also annoying.  I imagine this Stryker thing would feel similar.

Most of my long pant have deep enough pockets that pocket carry in a regular pants pocket works fine.

But that short pants version has a bit more appeal.

So this advertisement isn't totally effective.  It didn't make me slap the plastic down and order it to be shipped to me.  It got me to look at it.  There is a long lead time to get one shipped.  If I really liked it, I'd get more and there are volume discounts to get your short pants price down from MSRP of $90.  By the time I got the shorts delivered it would be fall. Almost winter.  The long delay probably means they order an Asian factory to make a run, and I have less and less lucky with consistent sizing from Asian mills.  (I assume Asia, too, because if they were made in America they'd crow about it.)  So, not quite there.  But it got me to talk about here.  The pants do look well though out.

I wouldn't use it for anything but a pocket carry sized gun, personally.  I want service size pistols in a holster on a belt.  But a decent holster costs as much as this pant.  And a belt to hang it on costs as much as this pant.  So why am I complaining about pant prices?

That's what caused your massacre

Prohibiting firearms in Virginia Beach gov't offices is what CAUSED your massacre.  We know for a fact at least one other person would have been armed and able to face the murderer on equal footing if the rules have been different.  Your proposal to make it MORE prohibited is bizarre and immoral.

"But you Gun Fanatics don't consider if you can already carry a mass murdered would already have his gun at work and be able to slaughter the place that much sooner!"

First of all, that already happened.

Second of all, you are worried that a CCW person, some of the most law abiding people on the planet.  More so than cops, as a class of people, might snap, and go on a spree?

"Yeah!  Like that!  Who's the stop that guy if he get's mad at work one day?"

Who watches the watchmen? 

"Yeah!"

The second CCW person in that office.  Heck there might be a half dozen people there that don't even know any of the others are strapped.  Happens all the time.  Like the last time you were at the grocery store.  They aren't all going to snap at once.  Sort of a balance, huh?  Might keep the massacre numbers down, too.

"..."

This is what we are talking about

When we discuss the Deep State.

Ceding sovereignty to international bodies as a back door to leftist tyranny schemes.  One side is looking to take power and hold it, the other side wants to get along with the other and retain a higher class position.

It's how you get Trumps.  And on this issue, thank God.

But it might have been nice NOT to have to get here.  If those people that like to be in charge were actually responsive to the needs of the people they pretend to be in charge of, instead of acting like tyrannical nuisances, there wouldn't be a need for populism or, on the other side, communist revolution.  If the elites' priority had been the interests of Every Man instead of the System of 'Benevolent' Order they saw in their head there might be, now, a bit more balance in our political system.  Instead of madness that might get madder.

In sum, shove it, Mitt.  So glad I did not vote for you.

From Kurt Schlichter:

There’s our lesson from the last two years. The ruling class that runs them ran the institutions not for our benefit but for its own, to preserve its own power and position. The institutions and those running them are entirely responsible for our legitimate contempt – they deserve no respect, no deference and no obedience.

And Kurt has a point.

---

Trump is far from perfect on the Second.  If Trump arranged it so I could walk from my house to the subway, go downtown, and wander around the Portrait Gallery with a 1911 on my hip, without legal worry, using only a Utah non-resident CCW, THEN I'd say Trump is perfect.  Even better?  with an expired Utah non-resident CCW, provided I've done nothing else untoward save let that lapse.  But getting us un-arsed from a UN world disarmament scheme always targeting you and me isn't shabby.

Carrying

Tam has a point.  Even people with a hard earned CCW permit often don't carry.

But, if I lived in Viriginia instead of Maryland, I'd carry.  Even to church.  Or so I'd like to think.

Work pants are thin.  Lots of printing.

And I haven't trained myself like Tam has.  Carrying.

She has pants on?  I bet there is a gun in it.  The pants.  She has done that day in and day out for probably decades?  So the full size, or darn near close to full size, gun on her belt... She is used to it.  I remember when I switched from a walking around job on a cement floor, to a carpet job with a padded swivel chair and a CRT screen. It took MONTHS for my eyes to not hurt from looking at the screen.  My feet were happy.  So was my liver.  The cement floor was in the brewery I ran. 

If I strapped a 1911 in a IWB holster on?  "Oh, my back.  And that side is the sciatica side.  Have I put on a few pounds?  Great, the pants are too tight..."  Then I default back to the less optimal J-Frame in a front pocket.

Unless I am wearing those thin work pants.  Then even the J-Frame is a problem.

I'd probably work through the problem, like I did with the computer screen.  It'll just take a while.

But not everyone is as gun-centric as you and me.

But yeah, even with churches getting targeted I bet more than half the churches in Virginia won't have a gun anywhere inside this Sunday.  And it is legal in Virginia at the discression of the yadda yadda.  A few have a blanket no gun policy, but lots politely say nothing and it's a Don't Ask Don't Tell situation.  I find.  There.  In Maryland, maybe if a cop goes to your church?  Or you hired a guard. 

---

As an aside, I wrote all this in Maryland.  I am home tho.  And I have a J-Frame in my pocket and a Hudson in the nightstand a room away.  (The Hudson has a light, see?)  Why?  Because I live in a dangerous area.  Maryland.  And it is now solicitor season.  Lots of doorbell ringing.  During daylight I still open the door.  During night I might just check the air lock.  I am lucky to have a porch, so my front door opens onto the porch and the porch door is locked.  A hammer can bust down the porch door, but it can bust down the front door too.  But no one can quickly snatch at me without taking the time to foil the door. 

Well, that was a bust

I went to renew my Virginia CCW non-resident permit at the exact same place I got it in the first place.

The Circuit Court did it 5 years ago.  Not this time.  Now you gotta go through the state police.  I went to the website for all the information on what to do to renew.  Didn't see that little asterisk that took me to this new regime.  Totally my fault. 

I am going to need to get a fingerprint card done.  Again.  Another day for that. 

But it will be a little while before I am flying around with more than just the Utah toter's permit.  Thanks, Utah, for making this easy.  Easier. 

I want a Virginia one for a backup.  The whole one is none, two is one.  Might as well stagger the expiration dates a bit more, too.