store bust

I had planned to go to the gunstore, check if they had AR lowers.  But traffic was horrendous and this neck thing gives me drugs that make me loopy.  Takes a lotta gumption out of me, too.  At least they are working.  I can snap my fingers again.  And sleep.

That was my plan for this post.  "What do MD gunstores look like now."

When I took my Father out shooting there were lots of SOLD stickers on the stock there, but less than a few months ago.  So, madness still reigns in the Free State. 

Saw the Doc

It's not bone cancer or bursitis causing my lumbago and dropsies.  It's my neck!

You know MBtGE's back issues?  I'm trying to do that with my neck bones.  Also, I hold my head up too straight.  Stupid posture!

Posting this before the drugs kick in.  Hope I got a good night's rest.  I've been catching up on my missed sleep on my commute home.  I drive alone to work...

zed too

Tam is a zombie? 

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

zed

The zombie menace continues to spread.  Both in Houston Texas, which is kind of rare.  When Zed does pops up in Texas he rarely spreads too much.  Obvious reasons.

Except for Austin.

Pain

I got nothing.  My shoulder is giving me fits.  Maybe it was a mistake to help Archie with his gutters.

Heard a rooster somewhere in this suburban neighborhood.  Gun content:  Archie wants to shoot it. 

Found Fun

How come I can never manage to stumble over free gummint guns?  I'd ake good care of them, and never use them in a crime.  The Park Police should be tossing the freebies over my back fence, the way I figure it.

I'd need to sell maybe one to subsidize a really nice safe for the others.

ATF data

Been looking at the ATF 2012 trace data for my state, Maryland.

The vast majority of traces were guns sourced to Maryland.  And the vast number of traces that were done on crime guns were purchased more than 3 years prior.

Average age of possessor was 40.  The national average is 36.

The Maryland city with the most traced guns is, surprise, Baltimore, with more than 50%.  My burg, Silver Spring, had only 150 traces.  Silver Spring abuts the District of Columbia on the Georgia Avenue corridor.  That's the east side of Rock Creek Park.  West of the park is Connecticut and Wisconsin Avenues.  That area is more affluent with suburbs abutting you may have heard about.  Bethesda and Chevy Chase.   

Goal Recap

See my goals over there on the right?  Number 3.

To perhaps harvest some tasty venison with either a rifle or a shotgun, any skin or antler is just a nice bonus, here.

I have harvested one, been in on the field cleaning and butchering of 3 more (MBtGE dropped them) and dined on tasty chili, stew, and ternderloin.  I have not gotten any hides or antlers.  Why?  Well, none of the 4 HAD antlers.  All 4 were yearling bucks eating and damaging our battlefield parks and adjoining farms.  Probably could rop 40 of them a year and not make a dent in the over population.  Nothing but button bucks. 

So what about a hide?  MBtGE would have let me have the pelts of all 4.  If he had kept the pelts of all the deer he had shot in his humting career he could carpet the house, wall to wall.  So why don't I have one?  Why?  It's hard to process a skin.  And neither of us has done it before.  So that's that. 

Probably a skill I should investigate further.  Just cuz.  All that scraping, smearing of deer brains, alum, salt peter, what have you...

Pain update

NSAID script and a referral to an orthopaedist.  Fun.

And now I need real blog fodder.  Preferably with very little typing.  Hurts.  Less bloggy.

In other news, I want this hoverboard marketed.   Just to get the dang bikes off the car-roards.   At least the more aggressive and rude variety of bicyclists.

Bursitis

My shoulder is KILLING me.   Pain.  Flare up of bursitis, I think.  That or maybe gout.  Exacerbated by my rotator cuff surgery 20 years ago, no doubt.

It's teh off hand shoulder so shooting with Dad didn't do it.  I can still USE it, it just aches.  I would be unhappy if the zombies came tonite.

Ima call the doctor right now.

Ice T and Alan Gura

What's not to like?

Range Report

I took my father to the range for Father's Day this past week.

It's been years since he shot anything.  But I knew he had better fundamentals than me.  And more patience.  So I figured on him being a pretty good shot.  He was on a rifle team in High School, and he gave me his .22 Mossberg bolty a few years back.  I was sure he'd have a better trigger pull, and that's 90% of marksmanship by my lights.

On hand were a 1911 with a .22 conversion, a Commander, a coupla revolvers, 686 and snubbie, and an XD.

The XD was a bust.  I got some freebie mags for it and they were jam city.  Didn't have any of the confirmed good magazines with me to confirm it was them, but that's where the smart money leans...  mags that don't work with the XD I have.  Odd.  I wanted to have an XD to show Dad what a 'modern' pistol was like.

The .22 1911 was problematic for him too.  The sights are black on black with a dim indoor range (why are most indoor ranges so dark?) and a black target, so it was hard to get a good sight picture.  You can see his shooting in the lower left quadrant of the un-shoot-n-see-ed part of the target. 

Mine is all the top left target.  Just messing around demonstrating.  It also demonstrates that shooting skills are dulled by lack of practice.  Grumble grumble.

Dad did best on the lower right target.  Those 3 groups close to the bull are all with the Commander in .45 at 25 feet.  The top right is single action .38 with he 686 at 50 feet. 

He's had surgery on tendons in his thumbs for pulling back the hammer is a bit more difficult for him that it used to be.  

The only good shot of mine is the one only one in the red, and that was my first shot with the Commander.  I shoulda stopped there.

A fun time was had by both, and after, the traditional beer and duck fat fries.  They had this on tap, and I was impressed.  I'm normally a Victory man.

Vegan Zombie

Does Obsessing Over Zombie Apocalypse Reveal a Lust to Escape Modernity?

In a word, yes.

Notice that folks interested in the whole zombacalypse thing are in the main gunnies, survivalist, and rugged individualists?  Zombies represent an implacable power that it is not only ethical to oppose violently, but a personal duty, to?  Something to be endure and survive.  A fight for life.  But, unlike gov't forces there is nothing abhorrent about opposing it.  Yes, the power of gov't is sketchy when over exteneded but not everyone IN government is insensate.  There are people in gummint.  Heck, some of them are us and some are Ron Swanson types working on the inside.  But if the power that is is hordes of undead there are no qualms about putting a round through their running lights, on sight.

Most of 'us' would even frown upon somebody just zapping random members of the Deptartment of Agriculture just on small government principles.  Not so, zombie Dept of Ag undead.

Last Man On Earth, Omega Man, fighting against long odds and thriving, on personal resources alone, the ultimate individual, struggling for his right to his life...  That appeals, though.

And it's wargame planning.  Thinking on 'what you'd do if...' and if you are ready for a Level 4 Zombie Outbreak you are ready for any lesser disaster.

Sad that rugged individualism is considered un-modern.

Dog

Having a blog is like having a dog.  A big ol' Saint Bernard.  You gotta feed it.  A LOT.  Maybe that's why it is called a 'blog'  the o-g part probably comes from the word 'dog'.  Huh?  Whadaya think of that theory, huh? 

["Uh, T-Bolt, I believe it is a portmanteau of the words Web Log.  Weblog.  Blog.  See?"  "Quiet, you!"]

Unlike a Saint Bernard, at least I don't have to walk the blog or clean up after it.

So many little things I could talk about.  Bloomberg counting that scumbag Boston a terrorist that got aired out by the po-po a victim of gun violence?  Please.  Cops leaving loaded guns everywhere.  Schoolchildren sentenced to 40 years hard labor on Devil's Island for merely thinking about the word gun in range of some jumped up public school administrator.  All have been done before by me or covered well enough on other blogs.

I found an extra box of .44 magnum while prepping for a range trip.  That's like finding a $50 in your pocket of your jeans after doing the laundry.  I think I'll look some more.  Maybe there is some .22 in that hole.

Future Movies

Hmm.  I did 2 movies as blog posts the last week without even trying.  Escape from New York was set in 1997.  Alien Nation was set in 1991. 

I remember those years.  None of that stuff happened like they said it would.  Those are HORRIBLE documentaries. 

Still better than Michael Moore's stuff.  Truthier.  Did you know that Bowling for Columbine is not in the Internet Movie Firearm database?  Huh.  I wonder why.  There is that fake bolt action rifle presentation at the bank that Mike lied about.  I'd really like to know what kind of rifle that was...

See?

THIS is why democrats shouldn't be allowed to own guns.  They are so divorced from reality that they are clearly undiagnosed schizophrenics and, if exposed to the system would be quickly adjudicated mentally defective and thus prohibited persons.

"The White House Says It’s Winning The Gun Control Debate"

Car Cover

You are being shot at and you don't want to get any holes in you.  You need something to duck behind.  Several brick and steel building between you and the shooter are good.  So is being on the other side of a hill.  A big ol tree trunk is acceptable?

What about a car?  Sure the engine block can stop most everything a bad guy would be slinging your way but what about the rest?

Well, I, and other tested that proposition at a Northcoast blogshoot many moons ago.  Pretty much everything went through the door.  But few things went through both doors.  A rifle round will sail clear through.  A .44 magnum did too.  But 9mm and .45 and such stayed in the car.  Ducking behind the other side of the car, even without the engine block, and you have a modicum of safety.  It's not just concealment, it's cover.  As long as someone smart bad guy doesn't shoot under the car at your shins.

So why did this thought percolate up in my head, now?  I don't remember if we test shotgun loads.  I imagine hot loads of 12 gauge 00 buck or slug wouldn't go through both doors.  Some sort of rifle sabot might.  But I have no real world evidence to know.

Or the bad guys might be aliens with really fancy sabot rounds that even go through engine blocks.  :50 seconds into this trailer. 

Monday Drought

It's Monday, and I got nuthin.  Well, this is kinda gun related, in that NASA should have been in the War Department.





Mmmm, sausage...

Buzz Aldrin said Tang sucks.  The only way Tang made it this long is because it was an Astronaut drink.  Probably cheap, too, is my guess. Never having bought any. Whole world has gone to heck since we stopped mixing up coloured sugar water in tupperware pitchers. You kids get off my lawn. Where is my Flav R Aid?

You know we haven't had a really good Gun Meme on the blogs in a while. Here is one, I'll get started: "Plastic Guns? Threat or menace?"

Snake Plisskin

I thought he was dead...

But... Something triggered a memory.  Escape From New York.  Plisskin had a neato torpedo submachine gun.  I wonder what it was, that awesome bullet hose...?

Well, thanks to the internet!

Aw, crap, it was just a suppressed Mac 10 with a what looks like the optics for a .22 plinker.  So disappointing.  Looks like he was right handed and right eye dominant.  Or, at least he became right eye dominant.

Your childhood heroes never live up to your expectations.  Next someone is going to tell me that Santa Claus was my Dad the whole time.  Happy Father's Day, Dad!