How much?

Good point. 

What is the rule of thumb these days?  For how much ammo to keep on hand.  I haven't kept too close a tab on mine, as I reached a critical mass, in my mind.

The old rule is/was... Have 100 rounds for each gun you shoot available, and 1000 in the primary shooting pieces.

In a bad situation you'll go through 1000 for your rifle and pistol, but if times are that bad you'd have to CARRY everything you own.  I'd hate to carry 2000 rounds of 7.62...

Anyhoo.  I have like 200 for each usable gun set by.  Or more.  Over 1000 for the M1A.  Well over.  That's the big one, ammo wise.

At any rate, it's been a while since I made an ammo purchase.  I need to get off my tail and do the hollow point test for my Commander.  See if HP .45 makes it jam.  Just to know.  Pricy, tho.

Gun Control Proposal

Seen at JayG's blog, a proposal for all guns to be fitted with a GPS transponder. 

I guess since the microstamping proposal was for the most part revealed to be silly, they have to think of a new silly thing to foist. 

But man, a GPS transponder would make confiscation a snap!

Speaking of silly things, remember the biometrics gun in Shoot Em Up that the 'evil' gun maker, played by Paul Giamatti, wielded?  I doubt that would get popular with shooters.

I remember.. must have been in the late 70s early 80s... There was an article in Popular Mechanics for something similar.  It was for cops, for weapon retention.  The officer wore a ring that activated a safety in the gun.  Anyone without that particular ring couldn't fire the gun. 

I'm sure it wasn't popular with the police.  The occasional failure to function, or one cop getting loaned another cop's gun... this would kibosh that.  That I remember.

But at least it wasn't pushed as a gun control scheme.  Homeowners could also get it installed for safety purposes. 

Wait!  Here it is!  June of '77.  The Magna Trigger Safety Ring.  Looks like it is still made, too.  Anyone ever seen one in the wild?

So that biometric scheme is nothing new.  The concept has been around for decades.

Damn

Archie is feeling the weight of age, setting things on the stove, then napping, then waking up when the smoke detector goes off.  Another neighbor that spoke English is getting foreclosed on (she constantly rolled over her mortgage in re-fi for 18 years, then got laid off.)  Another neighbor is 3 years older than Archie and is also feeling the weight of age...

My neighborhood is changing.  Too fast.  Kinda bummed about it. 

Double 1911

The gunbloggers are talking about it and some are tittering, justifiably.  The usual suspects are losing their fudge. over it.

The double .45.




Interesting, I say.  I wonder if it will cost less than $3000?

It's a Stanely #444 to me.  Something to 'want' but not something I'd pursue.  I'd love just to hold it once in a store to see how dang fat that grip it and to check it's heft.

Hello?

Gun Sto'

Got a strange call from the gunsmith at my local gunstore.  He left a message, but no detail.  He wasn't in when I visited and no one there knew what he was calling about.

"Probably your gun is ready."

Nope.  I don't have a gun in the shop.  Haven't for months.  Interesting.  I'll have to try again.

They are having a sale on US milsurp ammo cans full of 5.56 ammo though.  420 rounds on stripper clips for $160, cash.  Plus you get a free ammo can.  LOTS in stock.

That... sounds?... good?  I know if it was 7.62x51 I'd have loaded up.  I guess there is cheaper.  But since Prvi Partizan sells it (62grain FMJ) for about the same price at the samish volume I guess $160 is better than a kick in the head.   Just a heads up for lower Montgomery County peeps.

And it was 62 grain stuff.  "Green Tip," whatever that means.  Someone more in the know might pipe in. 

Zombie Boot Camp

Just like it says.

Now YOU can run over regular people done up in gray makeup with your urban assault vehicle (mine is a 2001 Durango with 170,000 miles!  What's yours?)

"Experience lasts 3 hours"

Yeah, but the flashbacks last for decades.  The horror... The horror...

PJ

PJ Media and the zombocalypse parallels.

"A small band of heroic and sometimes not-that-heroic survivors — let’s call them Conservatives — make their ways singly or in pairs to a secluded house or other shelter — let’s call it the Constitution."

Defending themselves agin' gummint zombies.




Note: Klavan is not advocating the standard remedy. Probably for the best.

Camping

You want to enjoy your pre-zombacalypse outdoor recreational camping, but you are afraid what happened to those idiot on Walking Dead will happen to you?  Worry no more.  Anti-Zed Tent.  Remember to have your 10/22 with you.

Thanks to: Breda.

CCW Process

Ooo, don't forget Question #25, that you see on this sample application.  Page 3.

"On the attached continuation sheet, list all past employers for the previous 5 years..."

THAT is actually my hardest one.  I don't remember my start date.  It's the same job I did since before 2005 but with a different contractor.  Same chair and everything.  I just need to list my previous company, I guess, but my previous supervisor is long gone. I don't even remember her name.  And that company has been sold twice.  The current employer, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with the exact date.  And I know all those supervisors because it has only been two.

If I am really lucky I am misremembering my start date with my current employer and it is really March 2007.  That would be fortunate.

The CVS next to my gunstore can make passport photos.  My gunstore will notarize it for 2 bucks.  I got my references are figured. So, get the app's ducks in a row, make an appointment for fingerprints (and pay for it), write a check for $75 to the state, and visit the post office.  Gonna have to take an afternoon off, and then that will be that.   

But don't forget question 25 out there.

Another from the Fortnightly

A positive gun rights article at the Metrocon Fortnightly.

This time the problem is with the commenters.  They seem a little pessimistic.  I guess we all are that, at times.  I'm just juiced by the Woollard case right now, still.

Passport photos

One set of instructions for the Maryland CCW permit says the 2 passport photos must be 2x2. Another says they must be 1.5x1.5.

These are on State websites, so it's not like some shlub in the internet got it wrong.

I'm going with the instructions on the application itself. 1.5

Here's a 'What If'...

What if I apply for a CCW, and then the expected happens and the State Police deny it (keeping my application fee, of course) and all others coming in now until the whole court thing shakes out in a year or two...  Then, I will have on my Permanent Record, the fact that I was denied for a CCW permit in the State of Maryland.

We all know that that fact is no biggee, but it might be a headache or even lead to a recalcitrant digging in his heels when I re-apply assuming the court cases resolve in 'our' favor (as it probably should.)

Worth the risk?  Nothing on the Utah or Virginia application for out of staters that asks "Have you been denied for a CCW anywhere before now?"

What do you think?

Note the Bad News

Note:

"While the ruling is appealed, Maryland State Police, the agency that processes permit applications, will not make decisions on applications in which approval rests solely on that clause"

Dammit!  Doesn't say they will deny, tho...  Think they will sit on them?


Some daylight:

"The state, which has not yet filed an appeal, also asked Legg to clarify whether he intends to issue an injunction barring the state from denying permits based on that [good and substantial reason] requirement."

Worst Show Ever

that he can't stop watching...

I managed to stop.  It had potential, this show.  Potential wasted.  AMC made Breaking Bad, after all.  Mad Men.  They made a show about advertising execs.  They managed to hold your attention in an office.  This is a Zombacalypse.  They can't manage to keep things interesting in life or death struggle for humanity? 

Application Activity and Instructions

Information on applying for CCW in MD

Also here, and more concise.



What you need:

Where to get your fingerprints taken care of.  Find a place that does them electronically.  There is a list on the webpages 

What the application form looks like.  You need 3 references that have known you for 2 years and are reputable.  You need their full name, address, employer name, and resulting phone numbers for their work and home.  You need the application notarized.  You need the notarization and fingerprinting and submission via the mail to be close together,in time, so nothing 'expires.'  Don't delay.  Do it all in one week. 

For the reason on the application on why you want a CCW, don't put "to stick it to the Man!"  put: "For self defense and all lawful purposes." or summat.  NOW you don't have to cite police reports of actual threats.  It's Shall Issue now.

Get 1.5x1.5 passport photos, 2.

I've lined up references.  Not for a passport photo and that place will probably also do notarization, so I'll come back to it after I get the fingerprint chit.  Then it's just put them all together and mail it with the check.

The Vector

It's even worse than I thought.

Zombie are bad enough.  Do you know what causes zombies?  Spiders.  (fixed link*) Spider that burrow into your brain through your ear nose or just through your skin.

Now it has to be headshot... then kill it with fire.  If they are sprinters?  Sprinting, flesh eating, enraged, undead controlled by spiders?  Mother of God...

Look! Politics

A reasonable and intelligent commenter gets noticed by a major media organ of the Grand Old Party.  It's so easy to Pavlov the Stupid Party.  Any thing that can be angled toward Religion is seized up by the Republicans, and, guided by the Dems into said trap, they take their train right off the rails into that swamp.  Which would be fine, electorally, if a majority of the country shared the views.  I am dubious that they do, despite GOP protestations that the electorate must.  Ah well.

But the commenter gets to brass tacks.  The latest hoopla isn't really about the Patriarchy versus Women, or the Religious against those Godless Commies.  Not at it's heart.  It's about LIBERTY.

"There is no lack of access to contraception or attempt to restrict it. Any American can walk into any drug store in any State and buy whatever contraception they want. If they are poor, they can use Medicaid, various State programs, or Planned Parenthood."

and

"Contraception is a personal matter and should not be in the government domain... If they [liberals] insist that contraception is a government issue, they forfeit the right to invoke privacy rights about it."

Ooops

"Americans should do whatever they want with regard to contraception, whether their religion plays a role in the decision or not, and the government should not force any company to offer it or any person to pay for it."

There you go.  And that whole Liberty thing?  Dovetails nicely with self-defense rights in the 2nd Amendment, and a few other things, don't it?  Like all those other items in the Bill of Rights.  And then some.

Take Gov't bloat.  Please.  Like rust on the iron ship of Freedom.  Like plaque in Lady Liberty's descending aorta.  Like a hair clog in the elbow trap waste pipe on the plumbing system of Self-Determination.

Maybe the Zombacalypse has already happened.  Just it's confined to Congress.  500 and some odd walking dead on that Hill at one end of the National Mall.  I see a time where Congress has a moratorium on new regs or legislation and just corrects old stuff and chops out the deadwood.  Then I wake up, disappointed, from that lovely dream. 

You wasted how many cycles on low flush terlets?  And declaring April 22nd National Lycra-Spandex Day or what have you?  When Social Security, from the 1930s and obvious to everyone broken for a long time, was just sitting right there?  RIGHT where you could see it? 

Well at least your approval rating is 11%.  That's the thing with eliminating regs.  It steps on toes of SOMEONE that kinda liked the law or rule.  So if they take it out their electoral popularity... goes down?  You mean single digit approval rates?  It can't go down much more.

And that applies to both parties, but Republicans have LIBERTARIAN Republicans in their midst that seem to mostly be ignored, so they have no excuse.  But the whole grand-damn party should know better.

It's Women's Freedom and Religious Liberty. (Or what have you, whatever the issue du jour.)

Not Women's Freedom and Religious Liberty.

Everyone wins and loses with the first, a coalition subset of the population wins and loses with the second.

[At least that's how I see it, and what has always guided and informed me, since Junior High.]

Big Time!

I made Tam's blog roll!  I'm in the BIG TIME now, baby.  The greatest day/week of my blog life.  Shall Issue, Tam...  Only a few blog goals left.   [Heck, I might have been there a while.  Every other month I search for 'jovian' on her page and get nothing.  Well, she put it up as 'NJT']

I'd love an Instalanche, but what are the chances?  I don't post Instalanche type stuff. 

There are a few more bloggers I'd love to meet in person.  A RobertaX blogmeet would be 'da bomb' and 'coooool daddy-o' or whatever the kids and hep cats are saying these days.

I want to rifle-hunt a deer.  And susccessfully clean another without requiring stitches.

Generics

Tam and Caleb are talking about generic guns they have gravitated, too.

Let me tell you a story. Another hobby of mine is antique handtools. Stanley made scores of varieties of planes to do various things. One of the niftiest is the Model #444 dovetail plane It's purpose is to make a groove in a board for a sliding dovetail. Neat! Thing is, there is no real way to hold onto the thing without hurting yourself (no really, you will bleed like a Mutha Hubbard, especially that second knuckle of your pushing hand). And it takes some serious finesse and skill to use it, otherwise (and then some). And there are plenty of other means available to make a sliding dovetail by hand. A plain old chisel is fine. If you have the skill to use a #444 effectively, you have the skill to do it with an inexpensive generic chisel.

Because of all this, they sold few #444's, as it was also complicated and expensive when new 60 years ago (it's not made today). The ones they did sell are found these days practically unused and in great condition, generally. So they command a high price when sold to handtool enthusiasts.

Do I want a #444? Yes. Would I ever USE a #444? No. It's neat. That's about it.

I'm sure there are interesting shovels out there. I dig holes with a regular one.  It's not a cheap shoddy shovel.  It's just regular.  It works.  Does the job. 

There are plenty of neat guns out there, too, that I'd love to have and play with. But I'd 'use' something a bit simpler for daily carry.

My guess is I am on the same page as both bloggers.