My Favorite New E-Mail!

This was waiting for me when I flipped on the computer this AM:

You are a boring man who produces boring television shows. End of story.

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up early! It helps me plan for the weekend. Later today, for example, I'm going to watch IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE twice, then spend the rest of the evening working on recreational calculus equations. Perhaps I'll have some milk.

Anyway, if you haven't finished your Christmas shopping, consider the art of Walton Creel. That's him working on his "canvas," above. He's taking the exhibition shooter's Indian Chief outline to a whole new level, using a gun to create some pretty interesting art pieces. He calls it "Deweaponizing the Gun:"

When I decided I wanted to make art using a gun, I was not sure what direction I would have to take. I knew I did not want to use it simply as an accent to work I was doing, but as the focus. My main goal was to take the destructive power away from the gun. To manipulate the gun into a tool of creation and use it in a way that removed it from its original purpose. To deweaponize it.

During my first experiment I came across the concept of creating an image hole by hole on a surface. I also figured out that canvas would be too stressed by the process of a rifle firing many bullets into it. I moved on to aluminum and, with further experimentation, I figured out exactly how far apart my shots needed to be and that moving beyond .22 caliber was simply too destructive. When the aluminum was painted beforehand, the blast of the gun knocked off a tiny amount of paint around each hole, which helped fuse the image together.

One of my best friends in NYC is an artist, and they all talk like that. I especially like the possum...hey, I'm from Tennessee, and there's nothing like having a big picture of dinner in a place of honor in your mobile home!

Interestingly enough, you can also get an album (that is for all you young people, a collection of recorded sounds, on vinyl, no less) with him shooting and loading. I suspect you'll be hearing some of that on next week's podcast!

Man. boring as this might seem, I'd love to commission a portrait of Alf the Wonder Beagle. BTW, all those Indian Chiefs shot by exhibition shooters now go for a pretty penny among antique collectors. Wouldn't it be great to have this one, shot by the legendary Ad Topperwein in 1938?


Thgere's more about gun art at the Shooting Gallery Wildlife Museum site...no relation to my show, but it might be fun to stage and film an expedition. Tip of the hat to Say Uncle for the link!

Our friend David Hardy over at Arms & the Law blog has an interesting take on the concept of "common sense gun laws," a popular theme with the antis:

In face of all this hard data, the antis' theme has become "commonsense gun control." That, I think, is more than just "we only want a moderate amount of gun control." I think it also has a nuance of "don't expect us to cite hard data, just back whatever sounds like a good idea." Gun shows are "a loophole" that must be closed -- don't ask whether they're a source of criminal guns. Liberalized CCW is a terrible idea, will lead to street massacres -- don't expect us to show that it has ever had that result. Etc. "Commonsense gun control" thus equates to "we lost the battles over the hard data, and don't want to talk about them."

Read the whole thing...there are some important points. Important, because,as Sebastian very perceptively noted recently when discussing the Mayors Against Illegal Guns' survey that is getting traction all over the place, our enemies are moving to a different battlefield:

There’s a few conclusions that can be drawn from this.

1) MAIG is very serious about what they doing, and they are taking a very smart strategy to get what they want.
2) As gun owners, we’ve done a fantastic job in the past decade of educating other gun owners on last decade’s battles. You see high support for concealed carry, high support for gun ownership generically, and low support for semi-auto bans.
3) The debate is shifting onto grounds where we have not yet had the opportunity to educate gun owners. MAIG knows this and is ready to exploit it. More importantly, I think MAIG wanted to find out where we are strong, and where we are weak. This poll is basically reinforcement of their current strategy because it shows we’re weakest along their current line of attack.

Sebastian's doing an excellent job of staying on top of MAIG and the implications. Snowflakes in Hell should be a daily read.

Gotta go arm up my milk!