Whew!

...made the airport with time to spare today...not like me at all. Even TSA went smoothly, more of a "Hi, Michael!" than a "We got us an AL-QUAIDA!" like the last swing through Texas. I was shocked to learn that in addition to the first day of summer and the longest day of the year, today is National ASK Day, where your William Faulkner-esque neighbors who never mow their front porch, have 3 rusting Volkswagen vans and a painfully dead snowmobile up on blocks and actually barbecued a poodle last July 4 drop by to ask if you have a gun in the house. Nobody came by my house, possibly because I only have a few neighbors, including the town marshal, and my closet neighbor once thanked me for not shooting his dog when it camped out in front of the Secret Hidden Bunker and barked for, like, 3 weeks. I was really busy today, but a visiting neighbor would have certainly provided comic relief. I have lots of answers to questions like that.

I of course always ask anyone taking care of Alf the Wonder Beagle if they consider themselves liberal. Not because I don't want Alf consorting with liberals — I'm more concerned with chihuahuas, especially those nasty hairless zombie-looking ones — but rather if she has to unleash the Flashing Fangs of Fury on them I want her to be ready to deal with the nasty aftertaste.

One the good news front, my Sweetie won her category at last Saturday's cowboy action match in Ft. Collins. I am very, very proud of her. She has all the makings of an excellent competitor, as long as she doesn't pay too much attention to me. Congrats!!!

Wednesday's podcast is mostly on Wild Bill's 1860 Colt Richard's conversion I got to examine in Deadwood last week. I also talk about the holster and the gunbelt, one very similar tot he one he's wearing in the photo below:

Be sure to listen in...I did a good bit of Internet research and a quick spin through my own reference library, and I wasn't able to find any hard "gunny"stuff about that particular Wild Bill piece — allegedly the gun he was wearing on August 2, 1876 at the #10 Saloon. Hopefully I've added something original, or at least different, to Wild Bill lore.

Isn't it amazing that the gun-free paradise of Chicago is more violent than downtown Baghdad? Last weekend, 8 people killed and 52 people shot. Second Amendment Foundation EVP Allan Gottlieb put it best:

"Chicago has become a slaughterhouse," said SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, "where defenseless victims are terrorized by armed thugs who have taken full advantage of an unarmed populace. Daley and his predecessors who perpetuated this ban are wading knee-deep in the blood of hundreds of crime victims who should have had the means to defend themselves."

Amen to that! We're waiting for the MaDonald decision from the Supremes, due this Thursday or next Monday (probably), but I gotta tell you that every time I read David Hardy's OF ARMS & THE LAW, I get more and more worried. The thought of Justice Ginsburg writing on the incorporation of the Second is just terrifying.

Well, time to head on to Arizona, where even plants are heavily armed!