Keep yer eye on the target.

Zombies!

Letters

We get letters...  We get letters every day.... Ding dong!  Here's you mail today!



When blogs were big, I got few emails from folks.   The ones I did get wanted product reviews and I enthusiastically said yes to that, but then nothing was ever sent to me for review... 

Now that blogs are dying I am getting more, for some reason.

Lucky Gunner wanted me to know about their new feature.  They are posting pics of ballistic gelatin results for a whole bunch of ammo brands and varieties.  He referenced an actual blog post about the Manhattanite that thinks a few liberals can join the NRA and take it over, so he ACTUALLY read my blog.   He has no idea I am an occasional customer, tho, as I use a name other than "T-Bolt" to BUY ammo.  I bought a bunch of .45 Federal HST and Gold Dot .38 from there, last time, I am pretty sure.  Relegating my Hydro-Shocka-Locka to practice ammo. 

AmmoToGo wants me to get their free ammo and take a picture of a new shooter enjoying themselves shooting it.  Well, you get the ammo AFTER the publicity is sent to AmmoToGo.  And the ammo is 9mm...  So he doesn't read my blog.

And Blaser keeps asking me over and over if I can see their new website.  No.  I cannot.  It's on tumblr and I try to avoid tumblr if at all possible.  Blaser, when I looked before, has interesting high end thunber-boomers. 

Bloomberg Monay

I guess when people see Bloomberg money pouring in for a guy, the good guys take notice, and we drive turnout up in elections to vote against him.  Good guys win

He's like a Super Villain that way, Bloomberg.

I guess he'll realize this eventually and have to funnel his money in secretly, to avoid our response. 

Ted Cruz

So, Ted Cruz got criticized for holding his break-open broken open on his shoulder on social media.  And then people attacked the criticizers saying that is a perfectly acceptable way of carrying that kind of scattergun afield.  Back forth, back forth, frothy social media poop-storm, yay.

I'd like to see more candidates for office shoot something other than high end fowling pieces more often.  Only Palin bothered.  It'd be nice to see a future president shoot a bowling pin off a table and smile while doing it, for instance. 

I mean even a gun banner like John Kerry will pretend and put on blaze orange and pocket some #7 shot shells.

Treadin'

Best Cities

To survive the zombocalypse.

Meh. The criteria they used is fine I am just dumbfounded by the cities that rated well.

The criteria were defensibility, access to food resources over time, and having the best possibility of developing a cure. 

So this is community survival.  Not lone wolf survival.  They seem to be looking for a city that can survive intact.  A metropolis that is an island in a sea of Zed.

And a city can score high in one criteria and that can boost its ranks.  Hence, Boston scores well because of sea access, maybe?  But more from intellectual capital for finding a cure.  And it is hard to feed yourself in Manhattan with all those other mouths about.  But Utah scores very high on defensibility.

They rated Best:

1. Boston, Massachusetts
2. Salt Lake City, Utah
3. Columbus, Ohio
4. Baltimore, Maryland
5. Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Virginia

And Worst:

49. Chicago, Illinois
50. Riverside/ San Bernadino, California
51. Los Angeles, California
52. Tampa, Florida,
53. New York, New York

Five Year Plan

Five Year Plans always make me think about socialist governments murdering their people.



Stupid F---ing hippies. Lifting their throat to the slaughtering knife.

Member way back in thirty two
When Stalin's plan killed 10 million and 2
Gotta snuff them Kulaks for the Topia-U
But that's ok, they were probably Jews
Probably Jews
Probably Jews

 

CURSE YOU ALGORE!

Got a New Belt.

The thick kind.  Double thickness.  Good for a holster type belt.  Stiff. 

My old belt was de-laminating and had seen better days.  If I could carry more then I'd have had to replace it a lot sooner.

I like these belts when knew.  They are hard to get the buckle buckled and they creak like a wooden schooner.  It makes it feel even more substantial.  It gives you confidence.

The Future I Was Promised

Trash Wheel

Baltimore harbor collects a lotta trash, as harbors tend to do.  And anything but a west wind is going to keep that flotsam and/or jetsam in place.  An eyesore at the city's primo tourist destination.  So they have an automated skimmer that works like a Roomba slowly hoovering it all up.

Here's an idea.  Put eyes on it.  So they did.

New Holiday!

Let's combine em!

Hallothanksmas!  Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas rolled into one.

More festive than Festivus.  More inclusive than Chrismahannakwanzika.  And the decorations van be broken out at the department store the day after Independence Day.

Damn Snazzy

Zombocalypse vehicle making the rounds.

Even the name kicks ass.

TEN tons.

NPR

So the liberal voice on the university radio station just told me, "The majority of gun owners are white and male..."  They then went on with the man bites dog story about how this one DC suburb bucks the demographic trends.

But that isn't news.  The white part.  It's true, yes, but not abnormal.  If you grab a huge portion of average Americans you can safely say the majority is white.  It's what you'd expect, inside expected parameter for 2015.  What is outside the norm is the male part, as there are slightly more women than men about. 

I think that prefatory statement was just word jumble to fill the time.  Maybe some liberal virtue signalling.

---

Also:  Good that an NPR station has at least a semi-positive gunnie story in suburban DC! I didn't stay tuned in to find out what was the demographic feature they found unusual to be enjoying the shooting sports or self defense practice.  Women?  African Americans?  A group of Guatemalan immigrants?  Blind people?

---

update:  here it is.

Attention all Gun Bloggers

Old NFO is laid up after surgery on one of his limbs or something, so make extra entertaining blog posts for a week or so.  He's bored.

Compromise

Ok, the gun-banners want universal background checks on all gun sales, even private ones.  They also insist their only concern is improving gun safety with common sense gun regulations and are certainly NOT for banning and confiscating all guns and you are a knuckle dragging trogolodyte with a small wiener for even THINKING such a thing.  Let's call this group of folks Bloomberg after their biggest booster.  (we could call them 'Liars' and much much worse, but we will keep it civil)

We, in the gun community, lets call us the NRA after our biggest entity for lack of another term, have been at this game a long time.  The NRA has compromised in the past but the compromise all seems to go one way.  Agin us.  When gun bannage is called for it is always the NRA that has to claw back some ground.  If the NRA gets gun friendly legislation passed later it never quite makes up for what we lost.  Except maybe for the sea change in Shall Issue.  So the NRA is wary, to say the least.

Anyway, so there is a motion on the floor, universal background checks, how should the NRA respond in a legislative judo type way, where it looks like the NRA compromises, but actually gains much more than they lose?  Use out opponent's weight against him.

As soon as the the NRA says yes to universal background checks the clamor from their own side will be deafening, so this so called compromise better be good... If you want to win them over and get them on the same page.

Ok, why would our side be upset about universal background checks?  Lots of reasons.  It's a hassle, to start.  You are never going to get the people that type SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!!!1!!eleven in all caps, as you don't need permission to vote...  but most gunnies are on board to prohibiting the sale of a pistol to paroled felon that did time for murder.  Our real problem is that a universal background check can mean universal tracking of every sale.  A simple matter to turn that tracking into a universal gun registry.  And a registry is required to conduct a universal confiscation.  And THAT is our biggest bugaboo.  Registration historically leads to Confiscation.  

So how do you square the circle?

Remove references to serial numbers from the background check process.  I've advocated about this before. 

Now the NRA GAINS something in a compromise.  Serial numbers are in the FFL log book, just like now, on gunstore sales.  So the criminal investigation side doesn't gain or lose anything new.  FFLs that perform the checks still get their fee for running it for a customer that wants to do an individual private sale.  The gummint has a record that T-Bolt ran a check on himself on such and such a date, and, let's say, that permission slip is good for a month.  T-Bolts long lost Uncle that sold him the gun can feel confident that T-Bolt is permitted to receive the boomstick.

Probably will have to have a check box on gun type.  Until we can sell pistols, &c., across state lines.  Maybe make that legal in this Universal Background Check Bill.  So, at any rate,n if not changed, Uncle in Kentucky can sell the .30-30 rifle to T-Bolt via this system, but would still have to do a FFL dealer to dealer transfer for the war bringback M1917 S&W revolver.

So, what happens if T-Bolt goes rogue and becomes a felon a year later?  The gummint has a record that I at least sought permission to receive a firearm.  So now the po-po has grounds to issue a warrant and confiscate my firearms now that I am a prohibited person.  Just like now.

So, Bloomberg gets his Universal Checks, the NRA gets it's gun rights protection, and we have a compromise!  There is the win-win gains, and nothing is lost via anyone's stated desires.

---

But it's not that simple, is it?  Bloomberg would HOWL.  He doesn't really care about the background check.  He wants the eventual registry.  So he will oppose this bill whole hog, but make up other reasons to declare it unacceptable beside the 'we can't make a confiscation registry out of THIS!'.   He can't state that desire as when its worded that way he can never get any votes to pass anything.  

NRA would HOWL.  Or at least the 6 million dues paying members and 10's of millions more in the gunnie community that care about this and understand this.  Because once you open the door to any gun-control sausage making in the legislature who know what will pop out the other end of this beast in a bill heading to the executive to sign or veto.  You get things like the Hughes Amendment of '86 when you open this door.

So NO one would be happy.        

One of the perks

One of the perks of being a gun blogger, still?  I get the opportunity to shoot other people's guns at blog shoots, which can be hella fun.  I dunno if I'd ever have had the chance to shoot a brown bess and a .50 and a martini-henry and a drilling otherwise.

I have been truly fortunate, because I find it fascinating.

I'm not a collector of things.  But I do have the collector urge in me.  Deep down.  I have to suppress it.  As a kid it was seashells and pennies, later I almost fell into the antique woodworking tool trap...  Guns, of course, is a parallel.  When I do have the urge to collect I don't want ever different possible variation of the Model 10 including limited editions, nor do I want new in box museum quality items.  I am more of the 'gimme one of each type' and not get wrapped up in the condition or variants.

Instead of actually owning one of each, I am more than happy to try shooting one of each at least once.   And I am not crazy about it.  I have passed up shooting an Arisaka at least once. 

Maryland Gun Politics

Former Governor of Baltimore O'Malley is still hanging his hat on gun control, and wants to drag the Democrat Party down with him.

He still likes the old canard that the NRA is in the pocket of the gun industry.   That the NRA exists to sell guns.  Like the gun industry is some huge monolithic cartel with trillions in sales.  Hey Marty, do you think and O'Malley administration will see more guns sold compared to, say, a Carson administration?  Yeah... 

Meanwhile, the liberal Baltimore newspaper conceded that guns are here to stay.   Glad they recognize that.   But there is a lot spewed nonsense in that piece.  For instance:

"When a group of young women at the University of Texas proposed to carry dildos openly on campus to protest a law allowing guns on campus, the proponents of this joke met with a storm of abuse, including death threats. Apparently the Y chromosome cannot bear to be mocked."

Liberal reporters never seem to see the death threats coming from the other direction.  And when Socialists talk about killings, I take notice.  Due to their history for the past century.

Extreme BOB

Good stuff.  Dips into the more paranoid side of 'Our Team' but that's ok.

I was thinking.  Fedgoons, as he likes to call them.  We saw that.  New Orleans and Boston after the Marathon.  They had to import so called 'goons' as there were not enough locally.  And to do a nationwide house to house search for all 300,000,000 firearms, assuming you get law enforcement and the national guard to sign off on doing such a thing (and they might not...), will take longer than a week.  Folks will notice.  Not just poor people in New Orleans that couldn't get out of the city or Bostonians long divorced from firearm familiarity and more citified and placid in the face of authority.  And the so called 'goons' had an exterior excuse.

Hard to maintain an excuse and do enough in time to get full forcible confiscation before people start to think and assemble and whatnot.  The so called 'goons' can't even round up cows in a remote ranch area without attracting attention from people that don't find that popular.

I don't think the State in competent or pervasive enough with willing participants on their side to get away with shenanigans outside of smallish area without a significant response.

Anyway, I need to re-read that for the good BOB nuggets.  Maybe another post if I think of something interesting.