You can CHOOSE

"The source of your home's electricity."

Liars.  They only offer the BS clean sources   I'd choose soft anthracite coal with high sulphur and mercury content if they let me, but no.  What a rip off.

I remember the 70s!  All coal all the time, to defeat the oil shocks.  We were the Saudi Arabia of coal.  We should be converting back to steam train locomotives, they said then.  It'd help us beat back the coming ice age if it weren't for haze reflecting sunlight.  But soot on glaciers was a good thing for melting them bastard.  By 2010 there'd be a glacier wall a half mile high south of Cleveland.

Intergenerational Warfare

"Brexit proves Baby Boomers should get less of a vote."

Too late now.  Shoulda brough up disenfranchising beatniks and hippies 50 years ago when it coulda done some good. 

Gen X tried to warn you Millennials, but you wouldn't listen.

At least when Boomers got political, it was out of fear of the Draft, and then they made halfway decent music for a time.  You youngster got political, I think, because you are a lazy and all your music is wretched.  

I told you 15 years ago.  But a house.  30 year fixed.  No refi to consolidate other loans but to lower   payments.  Buy used cars.  Don't carry a balance on the credit cars.  If you have access to a 401k but don't use it you are leaving YOUR money on the table.  But you shooed me away.  Now look at you?

And you don't fix Boomers by doubling down on the crap they got wrong.  Like socialism.  Jeez.

Stay off my lawn.

New Gun Owner

A co-worker is getting a gun!  Got the Maryland permission chit and everything and is now trying to decide.


He seems to have his heart set on an XD.  I told him the pluses and minuses of that design.  Repeatedly.  He still wants it.  I think he is trying to save $50?

He says to me "Maybe I can find a used HS2000!  Those, you see, are the same gun as the XD.  Did you know that?" "Yes." "Well maybe I can get one of them and save another $100" "...." 


"What else should I get at that price point, if not an XD?"  Well, I keep telling you M&P and Glock are still in that price point.  Below that price point is a Hi-Point pistol.  That stuff from Turkey. Above that is Sig and Smith Revolvers and H&K and 1911s


Heck, he REALLY liked the VP9 he borrowed and shot.  It's $700.  He's a technology professional and makes as much or more money than I do.  And balks at going from $450 to $700 on such a durable good.  It is what it is.

"It'll last for 150,000 rounds instead of 175,000 like a Glock, but I don't see myself exceeding 100,000."

"Yeah... let's say you shoot 50,000 [heh] at 50 rounds in a box, so that is 1000 boxes of ammo at $25 a pop.  $25,000 in ammo spent.  Go ahead and buy the $700 gun you think you'd love than the $450 compromise gun, maybe?"

Range work 3

Tuesday.

Look at #4.  Then it struck me...   I remembered Sam has noticed I wasn't using enough finger on the trigger.  My left index finger was just on the tip of it.  Aha!  Glad I remembered that.  And #5 is better.

Started strong with #1!






---


Thursday.

DAMMIT.  I needed to lube my pistol.  Did so at the range.  When I have oil in my hand my brain was thinking 'gunsmith' and I caught myself muzzling my own fingers.  GAH.  I need to do some serious attitude adjustment on this.  I have lost a step on safety training.

The range was crowded, which is good.  I wanted to do a session with more loud booms and flying brass all about.

My results were ok, but middling.  My head wasn't quite in it.  Right out of the gate on #1 was kinda nice.  That was a high point. 

#1 is strong again.  Getting tired by #6.  I'll get better at fatigue, but I am not there testing fatigue.  #4 isn't shabby at all.  Had a flyer on #3 I can't account for, tho.  I want 60 shot and they all look like #1 and #4.

25 feet, .22lr, Ciener conversion, in case you forgot.  CCI standard ammo.  I get a failure to extract once every other magazine.  I load to 10.

One more procedural detail.  I have 3 magazine.  So, sometimes, it's shoot all three and reload.  Sometimes it is shoot once, bring it back to look at it, put it back out, reload a magazine, and fire another string at the next target in line.  It varies.  But I am trying to take my time.

Maryland Gun Laws

Maryland new restrictive gun laws went into effect in late 2014.

2015, the first full year after they were in place, Baltimore had the highest increase in homicides in the nation.

127 extra killings since the gun restrictions.  In one year.  In one smallish city.

I'm not saying correlation implies causation, but CORRELATION IMPLIES CAUSATION!

1970s

Saw reference to this via other bloggers.

Look at the majestic cleft on that chin!

And they are using the card system with the dispatchers we see in Adam 12.  That was LA, this is Pasadena.  I am pretty sure LA lead the way on that system.  I wonder how far is spread.

And check out the teeth on that long-hair skateboarding mope. 



Oh, don't get too much of your training from 40 year old film strips.


Good job keeping your finger off the trigger in the 1970s, tho.

80% Lower Safety Tip

If you decide to make an 80% lower into a gun, then later decide the gun needs gunsmithing work, well...

It's gonna be hard convincing a gunsmith to work on it.

You see, no serial number. 

I've seen these lowers get kicked out of more than one gunstore that did smithing, with my very own eyes.

Jig

FANCY!  I like.  Look how precise and well built that jig is.  (A jig for hogging out the waste in a 80% AR lower and make it a bit more than 80%.)

Having trouble justifying it for myself.  I'd never make enough 80% lowers into guns to make the jig really cost effective.  I know no one I could sell it to, used, when I was done, either.  Hmmm.

But spending too much money on gunsmithy things is not something I've been hesitant about before.

Feeling prickly

About pushing government today, aren't I?

You aren't the boss of me

Local officials are getting pushy about smoke detectors lately.  One or two gentle reminders?  No problem.  But it's constant.  Now I am jaded. 

Once your alarms reach the ripe old age of 10, they should be sent to a "mandatory retirement" #mcfrsSOS pic.twitter.com/qsMVVDhGou

— MontgomeryCo(MD)Fire (@mcfrs) June 24, 2016

Oh, it's the LAW now?  Gotta change out the detector every ten years and put in a fresh battery every week?  YOU can't tell me what to do.  I through my smoke detector in the trash.  All it was good for was telling me I was making breakfast.  No, I don't care about any of the children in this house.  They can look out for their ownselves.

Your overbearing PSA campaign had the opposite effect of what you intended Montgomery county.  Since you started taxing plastic bags I've been dumping all mine in the creek, too. 

Roll Dirty?

Rolling Dirty?

In Maryland?

Jeez, I dunno if that is a good idea.

And even if I half considered taking that sort of risky action, how would I tell all you readers about it?

I do CCW where ever I legally can.  Unless I am wearing a Speedo swimsuit.  Mmmmm, nearly nekkid.

And I go to the range a lot these days.

But if you roll dirty, you gotta be chill.  Roll cool, man.

Anyone

Do any of you hear any grumblings by gun owners for any specific new restrictions, though?

90%.  Hmph.  90% of the people on the liberal's FB friends list doesn't support more restrictions

MOAR Restrictions

So, I hear from Democrats, Gun-Banners, Liberals, and the Media (ahem) that even a HUGE majority of gun owners favor more restrictions on guns.  They often cite a 90% number.

Then they change the subject.

I know a lotta gun owners.  I don't know any that favor restrictions.  So., extraordinary claims should elicit extraordinary supporting evidence, no?  WHAT restrictions are we for that will make Diane Feinstein so happy if the NRA would just let pass?  Crickets.  Usually.  Makes you think they are lying, no?

But listening to NPR and it sounded like they actually were exploring what type of new restrictions us gun owners might be cool with.  The reporter checked with 7 different gun stores before she found one that would talk to her.  That gun store owner was in favor of a restriction.  Ban on private sales.  Make it so folks have to go through an FFL.

Hmmm, even the NPR reporter noted that was a little self-serving.

Another firearm enthusiast and shooting competitor and instructor noted his state had relaxed gun crimes down to mere misdemeanors.  He was fine with making stuff like that a felony because he knew he was never going to commit crimes with his guns.  Lock up violators and throw away the key.  What point is there to not enforcing or weakly enforcing laws against firearm crimes?

Another thing?  Folks seem to be for things like being sure if a person is adjudicated mentally defective someplace that someone should actually tell the background check people that instead of hiding it under a bushel.

I don't think they extra gun 'restrictions' gunnies support is what the gun banners are trying to imply they support.  So, no, NPR's Aarti Shahani, it ain't the kind of pro reform you and your allies really want, now, is it?  But please, talk to the NRA.  Compromise.  That means YOU offer up something.  For once.

FARC

Looks like the Colombian government have signed a binding ceasefire with FARC after 50 some years.  Good for them.  Good all around. 

I guess the Rebels got tired of fighting all them Predators...

Latest Round's Sausage

Plenty of folks reported on the failure of recent gun control legislation.  Yay.  Good.  Most of the prize showcases up for bid on the Gun-Bans Is Right were various flavors of gutting due process.  So an attack on the 5th Amendment, that Liberals normally really like, and not the 2nd.  Which is a change of pace for Bloomberg's flying monkeys.

We won?  No.  Not really.  We could only lose.  We didn't lose.

My question is, what did they offer our side?  You want us to yield on due process, that is a big leap.  You gotta pay a big price in return.  How come non of the gun control folks thought it necessary to throw a compromise in there to get this bill over the finish line. 

Like I said, it's have to be something big.  Vermont style conceal handgun carry nationwide?  My preference is to KEEP all the due process AND have Vermont carry, but I am talking politics here. 

Oh, right.  Election year.  These bills were never supposed to be about compromise.  They were about electioneering.  It didn't matter if they won or lost.  They had to draw lines, not rules.

But if you were making sausage, and you were a politician, and not someone that likes the Constitution or are a firearm enthusiast like us... Say you were John Cornyn or McCain; Tim Manchin or Kelly Ayotte.  What do you haggle over when Diane Feinstein calls for a big bite of the apple?  She gets a big bite of Apple A, but in return she gives up:  WHAT?  To ge the NRA off of folks backs they are gonna need to get something for us in return.  Again she is always asking for a LOT.  She has to reciprocate with something BIG. 

Or we can just watch the spectacle on the House floor as there is a sit-in protesting against civil rights led by a guy that 50 years did sit-ins protesting for civil rights.  Gross.

After a Ban

Nothing is accomplished.

In Australia, since enacting a gun ban that is impossible to do in the USA:

No change is homicides, increases in assaults and sex assaults.

So what did disarming regular folks gain the regular folks?  What did it gain for the Aussie gov't?  What did it gain the criminals class of Australia?  I guess criminals and government officials have to worry less about getting shot by regular folks they have ticked off...

Police Doctrine

Wasn't one of the lessons learned from Columbine is you get a few officers and go in to an active shooter situation?

Well, they did do that in Orlando.  But then they pulled back out.  Because of bombs or hostages or summat?

Didn't they have bombs and hostages in Columbine, too?

Does the doctrine NOW have to be "you get a few officers and go in to an active shooter situation, and you PERSIST."

It's a hard thing, I know.  And easy for me to say, a week later and in the safety of a chair behind a keyboard, and I mean no rancor to the Orlando PD, honestly.  I don't know if I'd have the huevos to do so, if I were a cop.

It Trump == Hitler

People are gonna think it might be ok to murder him or people that support him.  And by 'people' I mean easily malleable Democrat youts. Jacobins. Wait, LABOUR?

After this weekend's attempted Trump assassination, Dems need to moderate their language. https://t.co/30jQjFQu7t

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) June 20, 2016

Range work

So a few weeks back I went to live fire with my trainer, after qualifying in the simulator.  .22lr only for now.  But I can work on my own.  While it has been a BUSY month, with 400 mile trips hither and yon every weekend for a while, I still got to the range once or twice because of the break throughs from the training session.  The skill is perishable, and I wanted to reinforce what I learned.

Good news and bad news.

The good news is I sorta held onto the improvement.  The bad news is, it's only sorta.

This is two weeks ago.  I marked the order I went with the targets.  I loaded a magazine and fired it off at #1, then switched to #2 with the second magazine, &c. 

One, crappy, Two, crappy, Three, no better.  Ok, darnit, calm down.  Think about the fundamentals.  Relax.  Trigger pull.  Don't hunch up your head and shoulders.  Don't grip tights as Dick's hatband.  It's .22, and he promised to transition to a tighter grip later.  For now, relaxxxxxxxxxx. 

Four is better.  Five is even better.  Hey, next session go ahead and run the target out and back to see how you did.  Maybe you could have caught yourself at Two.  Six... good.  Notice none of the shot are low and right on 4, 5, and 6...  Only 10 rounds left.  Seven.. meh.  Where is the fifth shot?  Dunno.  Eight, I had a negligent shot.  The 'Dammit' shot.  Finger was on the trigger before the sight was on the target.  Paused and calmed before shooting the next four rounds.  Seven and Eight is showing some fatigue.

Last week is this target. 

Again with the needing to settle in.  One Two and Three.... not so good.  Four...  THERE we go.  The flyer in the center is from the Three string.  I am forgetting my training again.  Glad I ended six that way.

It's quite humbling.  Maybe I'll be good enough in five years if I keep at it and put a ragged hole in the center.  But it's stall a long hill to climb, no?  It will be something to just have them all be like number Four.  With two or three shots in the seven ring and everything else in well inside the five.

Oh, my local range has improved the lighting, and that is appreciated.  But there is still a 25 foot minimum distance, so this is all that.  8 yards.  More practice this week.  Maybe tomorrow.  That's be good.  Maybe go twice a week.  Oooo, I should oil this gun.  Ceiner conversion kit.

What if?

What if?

What if, on a lark, we gave Obama carte blanch and he enacted ALL the gun control schemes that have been bandied about lately.

Universal Background Checks.  Sale denial if there is a HINT of anything the FBI or local police have a slight concern about.  Denial to everyone on the watchlist after it has been doubled and include all their family members, too.  Assault weapons ban and mandatory turn in of the 10s of Millions of so called assault weapons already out there.

Lets say he got his wish in January of 2013. 

Would there be any impact?  Would Orlando have happened?  Yes.  He was a security guard.  He coulda swung another weapon source if the Florida gunstores only had lever guns and revolvers. 

Give Obama more leeway.  Let him repeal the 2nd amendment 3 years ago.  Like we were Britain.  Mandatory turn ins.

Gun deaths would INCREASE dramatically then.

Because this isn't Britain or Australia.  They can't even get peeps in Connecticut to register their so-called assault weapons.  Some people would turn their guns in.  More people would ignore the order and dig in their heels.  And a non trivial number would resist, violently. 

I know a lot of gun bloggers.  Reasonable and nice folks.  Not the foaming at the mouth sorts you hear about and meet occasionally and know are out there.  But damned if a few of them reasonable sorts would get a bug up there and fight back.  Of course the foaming at the mouth sorts will. 

So, what is the point?  Nothing you propose for gun control will work, and what will work you don't dare consider if you can think beyond Stage 1 and consider the consequences that would be worse than the cure.