G-g-g-g-Ghostguns. Scoob?

It's already illegal for those 'too dangerous to own a gun' to have a gun. You want to make illegaller? Super-illegal? Illegal-Plus-Plus?

It's not illegal for me to own a gun. Let me, and everyone like me, gunsmith in peace.

— J T Bolt (@NewJovianTBolt) December 16, 2021

Good News

From another blog. 

The ATF is letting the boot on our neck up a little bit.  They aren't taking it off, but it's a little less uncomfortable.

Suppressor approval in 4-6 weeks instead of 8-14 months?  Yes please.  

Master List 4

Getting simpler over time. Had a half dozen of so on Master List #2.  Fewer on #3

In order of desire...

1.  A .45ACP rifle with a big honking suppressor.  DeLisle repro
2. I kinda jones for S&W Model 65 with a 3 inch barrel?  K Frame, "the perfect carry revolver".
3. A .308 rifle good for hunting, with glass.  A tikka?  
4. S&W Model 625.

And I am just sorta spitballing now.  If I happened in to my favorite gun store and Tom said, "Hey, we just got this in" and it was one of the above?  Credit card snap.  I can't think of anything else that would do that.  Not in the sub $3000 range.  

---

I'd buy a $10,000 gun, but I'd have to think on it.  I just can't think of a gun that price I would want.  Working BARs go for much more.

Am I weird for wanting a relatively low magnification fixed power scope for a hunting rifle.  4x can get you pretty close to the action for any venison.  And sniping bad guys...  Hell 500 yards is pretty far and Marines routinely quality at that range over iron sights.  A 4X ACOG is pricy, but all decent scopes are pricey.  Kinda weird hunting with a bolt action and ACOG combo.  But why not?

Though it is not like I am going to go rifle hunting anytime in my future.  No, wait, you never know.  A hunting trip could fall in my lap, some season, somehow.  "I'll drive you to my buddy's lodge in West Virginia, we'll hunt and then cigars and bourbon.  The stands are a easy stroll from the warm comfy beds."

Christmas Future

 

Boltie

I never did get a bolt action rifle.  

Years ago I should just got a Finnish Tikka.  They have magazine fed versions, and lots of left handed options.  Just a hole that was never filled.  

I think the closest dealer is in Frederick Maryland.  Which is above the Interstate 70 line.  North of that line is where hunters can use rifles.  Which might be a clue as to why decent Euro hunting rifles are sold at that gunstore.  Frederick is plenty close enough to go gun shopping for me.  

.308 of course.

---

I need to make a new Master List of 'gonnes I wanna buy.'

I haven't updated it in forever, and my tastes and desires may have shifted.

Snuck Past the Algorithm

An ad on Facebook:

 I've seen a lot more of firearm related products on Facebook, and no fewer than usual products for sale in Amazon's website, this holiday shopping season.  

I don't do blog related stuff on FB usually.  So how do they know to serve up gun ads?  Well, blogger is Google and Google talks to FB.  But I also lurk on "Custom 1911s" groups, too, to eyeball the pretties. Nothing too mysterious about them trying to sell me a Rittenhouse t-shirt even though they might not realize it is a Rittenhouse t-shirt.  Also, a LOT of brass catchers to attach to an AR.being hocked to me.  

I bet if someone snitches them out that long sleeve shirt will get pulled.  But I'm not gonna snitch.  

Montgy County

My county.

Once the richest and safest county in the state.  A quiet bedroom community for DC commuters.  Now with policies that attract inflow migration of Hispanics, many of which are illegal aliens, and now it is easy to get cheap labor at the Dunkin Donuts and the Home Depot. Lawn mowing and house cleaning services are affordable because of the off books nature and competition.    

Carjackings more than DOUBLED.  Yeah but does that mean it went from 5 to 11 per year?  I mean, we get crime, but this isn't Baltimore of DC...  And murders are a single digit type situation too.  

And as long as you don't hang around the rum joints that was far from my neighborhood... Malicious destruction or petty crime doesn't really extend beyond some littering and parking disputes.  So I am grateful for that.  I don't get porch pirates come for my Amazon packages, even.  If my neighborhood is infested with illegal aliens they are honest middle class illegal aliens that keep their noses clean and press their high school age children to do the same.  

I am still on the lookout.  You know, locking the door to the car on entry for carjacking precautions.  In case of one bad apple.  A burglar wants in my house when I am at work, well, he is getting in, except my neighborhood doesn't totally empty out.  My neighbors all wave.   They'd notice someone besides me.  So that helps some.  

Back to cops.  The MoCo PoPo.  Not noticed a dearth of patrol cars, but how could I tell, 10% either way?  But the county let go 25 officers and didn't back fill 30 positions where an officer left of their own accord.  60ish out of 1200?  Who does that satisfy?   It doesn't make the Defund Police types any happier, and doesn't help normal people at all.  It's nibbling a margin, slowly attriting  .  Just useless.  Our local gov't office are filled with cowardly dolts, but that is a universal condition these days.  Never super competent, but less so lately.  You can say that going back a century, though.  

Men's Magazines

 It actually HAPPENED.

"I was chased by pack of bloodthirsty otters that bit me 26 times in TEN SECONDS… I thought I was going to die, says Brit"

Yeah, but what KIND?

You all heard about that congressional aide accidentally toting his firearm downtown where that is a no-no.  And got arrested for it.  Poor guy.  Prolly forgot his perfectly legit CCW piece was in his backpack.

It was a .45.

Is it weird that my only interest other than 'poor bastard' is 'wonder what kind of .45....'

It was a Gunny, too, up for promotion, and now has to face this music.

I bet it was a Kimber.

PSA on the Radio

Virginia Department of Health:

"Fall is in full swing, so be sure to keep protecting yourself from Covid 19...  Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly..." etc. and summat.

Well, we know that WuFlu doesn't spread on your hand contact.  It's respiratory aeresol, which is why masks that work aren't used (too hard) and masks that don't just don't (but are easy to use).

Still...  The hand washing thing.  I don't mind that.  Seen too many people come out of a terlet stall and just keep walking out the door here at the office.  ~shiver~  That changed because of this novel Corona virus because of all these Public Service Announcement.  

Now, some people, when this is all over, will go back to their slovenly ways. But I am hoping in the main that  greater percentage of folks in the population will be habitual post ablution hand washers.  And that is a good thing for a whole host of other reasons un-Covid related.  Move the need from 80% hand washing to 83% hand washing in 2032, still?  Net plus for society.  With luck it is a greater improvement than a mere 3%.  

A noble lie in the PSA I do not mind a whit.  You disgusting Typhoid Mary wannabe savages. (not YOU, you always washed up.  That other guy.)   

---

Typhus... Typhoid.  I often got those confused.  I should remember it because Typhoid Mary had bad hygiene and was the cook, so she she spread a gut disease.  And Typhus is the lice one, and Scrub Typhus in some Pacific theaters was AWFUL for the warfighters that got it.

I'd have to gut you like a fish!

Even an ox dies.

Yeah, I don't have 3 bad men to go against in a saloon, so let's not make that kind of arrangement.  Nor do I need copious quantities of laudanum just yet.  

Head Cold

Anecdotally, nigh everyone is coming down with a head cold.  Kind of a nasty one.  Non-Covid.  The president sounded like a frog.  This guy.   Those are the 'famous' ones  Buddies at work also got the crud.  Not laid low  

Peeps are hypersensitive about the WuFlu so they are in tune with maladies and hence sharing said info.  

That said

I still made it 52 years without seeing this movie:

I KNOW!  That's not like me at all.  I mean, I don't gravitate to musicals, but still!  If you can watch Wizard of Oz every year until age of majority you can watch this once. 

Come to think of it, it didn't get a lot of syndication repeats for my area, to my memory.  Miracle on 34th Street got a lot more air time.  It's a Wonderful Life, of course. 

General Waverly was the same actor from Twelve O'Clock High.  Major Stovall, the Group Adjutant.  Dean Jagger

I thought the same actress appeared in both this and It's a Wonderful Life, but I was confusing Mary Treen and Mary Wickes.

The sets were gorgeous.  On a huge soundstage.  And in VistaVision.  Most of the outdoor shots were indoors.  Fire in the fireplaces and everything.  Inside.  And I have the same steamer trunk as Danny Kaye.  There is a LONG scene in the dressing that Bing and Danny make look effortless, but just memorizing the script for it would have been a big deal.  No cuts. Vera-Allen has some serious dancer gams, and watching her, the boys, and Rosemary Clooney to a quartet  about snow....  I found myself going "Damn!" at numerous points, so impressed was I with the performances.

And it starts out Christmas on the WWII battlefront.  Sorta appropriate for what started for us EIGHTY years ago.  I still haven't forgiven the Japanese for all that.  I should probably let it go.  I'm not Irish; I shouldn't be willing to carry paper on a grudge that long.  

Gun content:  I think I saw an unscoped Springfield 03 among the soldier in was was set late-war.  I saw the 03, pretty sure no scope.

Another Side Effect

Of the infusions?  They pump me full of Benadryl to keep my chance of having an adverse reaction low.  But then I am wiped out the rest of the day.  

Minor, I know.   

Two things I didn't expect.  Being that cold, and being that sleepy.

And I can't sleep a wink all night

It only took 50 some years.

Despite recent challenges, I feel... satisfied.  Like I've simplified and distilled my life down to well worn paths and habits.  And that's a good thing.  

I feel like the Detective Somerset character in Se7en.  Coasting into retirement, but before get roped into the event that then happen.

Sure, something could also happen to ME and knock everything into a cocked hat.  Something will, eventually.  That's the way life works.  I could get worsening health outcomes, I could get fired and struggle to get another job, my neighborhood could get hit by a meterorite, levelling it...

But, right now, I am satisfied with where I am.  

And my health could/should improve.  I'd like to re-add some missing paths.  Like a regular trip to the range.  Seek out the grail of firearm acquisitions...  A DeLisle repro.  Now that I can't, I long to have the ability to get back into the workshop and make something out of wood.  So, I got things to maybe look forward to.  

Yeah, this cancer is gonna kill me, but first we have to do that time period where I go "I'm in complete remission," until I am not.  Probably.  That is probably what is gonna happen.  

 

Improvise

A much better weapon than the CCW pistol in your holster.  More quickly deployed, effective at stopping the threat, and I have ready access to it in my gun-unfriendly state.  

**Here’s the best way to stop a potential carjacking. 😳🤣
*Follow me for more safety tips.😉#CriminalJustice 🚗😆 pic.twitter.com/lxrJT0kYHo

— Politically Incorrect Joker 🃏 (@rikki7s) December 2, 2021

County Covid

Almost fully vaxxed

Still 81 cases a day.

Well, whatcha gonna do?  Low utilization of hospital beds for it, at least.  5%.  Last January is was 27% taken up.  County doesn't post data on deaths.

All in all, SUPER fast, not just here but errywar

I was hoping

I was hoping that with a new generation we might lose school shooters.

From Columbine to Parkland, the school shootings had all been Millennials.  Few GenX or Boomers shot up a school. I was hoping the Zoomers would not take that path.  Sometimes a generation will do that.  Break from the previous' trend .  But I can't twist the 15 year old into the previous generation and blame a cohort with an irrational and sweepingly broad brush anymore.  Silly, I know.  It was just a trend I wanted ended.  

It's not the gun that's the problem; it's the fact that teenagers have come to want to solve their problems with violence. https://t.co/fXqkkVUh5f

— UR a Smart Ass, Carl (@cleflore23) December 1, 2021

I said no side effects

From the mono-clonal antibody infusions, but that's not entirely true.

All these are mild.  Very mild.  

I get the scoots.  Light scoot, admittedly.  WITH constipation.  That's a new experience.  Simultaneously having the runs and not being able to go at the exact same time.  INORITE?  Weirdest damn thing.

3 minutes of fever.  And an hour later 3 minutes of fever again.

Sleeplessness, but then the next morning not suffering from that perceived lack of sleep.  

So, the real answer is 'no truly bothersome side effects.'  Noticeably more energy.  No impact on neuropathy?  Maybe more pain sensors activating in the bad areas.  My fingers sting like burnt.   

I miss beer.  I miss cocktails.  I miss bourbon.  I want to smoke a pipe of tobacco.  

Question

When do I tell my boss about the cancer?

I've told family and close friends.  That's it.  No casuals like co-workers.  But co-workers notice my time off and my f-ed up feet and f-ed up hand.  And knew about my whinging over back pain until the lyrica took that down to a dull roar.   They KNOW shit is wrong.  I can't hide it.  Limping and hobbling at half speed.  

I should prolly tell the guy that approves my timesheets.  

But it's also none of their bidness.  I shouldn't have to tell anyone I don't want to tell.  This is going to kill me, but it's not going to kill me soon.  I will probably get to retirement age.  Maybe even switch to another company before that happens.  Get the jump-ship-pay-boost.  So telling them is moot. 

I'll tell the boss.  You think I should tell the boss?  Just him tho.