Saturday, November 30, 2013

Post Thanksgiving

Wazzup, dawgs? All the leftovers are gone, although, in truth, when you serve lobster there are amazingly few leftovers. Had a couple of tablespoons of Scotch cranberry sauce, and that's about it.


Spent all morning with the builder of the New Improved Secret Hidden Bunker...not surprisingly, when he left I was poorer. Sigh. Poor that concrete! Move that dirt! Saint Peter don't you call me can I can't go...I owe my soul to the...well, never mind.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!


As always, my thoughts on Thanksgiving go to those American men and women in our Armed Forces who are walking an increasingly shaky line at distant posts around the world. We give thanks for them, and we give thanks for those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We remember the heroes of Benghazi, abandoned by their leaders, who saw their duty and never faltered. Give thanks for our increasingly shredded Constitution that has stood as a bulwark against the worst excesses of our politicians for more than 2 centuries. Give thanks for the American people, who have consistently proven that they know and understand more than their leaders give them credit for. Finally, spend some time with your family...and stay the heck out of malls!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year, not the least of which is that it is almost over. It has been a tough year for all of us.

Take a break, have some turkey, give thanks...

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Before You Ask...


When I opened the box from One Source Tactical, my Sweetie immediately and without any prompting whatever, "Now THAT is a knife!" With apologies to Crocodile Dundee, it's the VIKING SURVIVAL KNIFE from Suarez International...OL length of 14.5; 8.5 inches of blade; 1075 carbon steel, a very aggressively textured polymer grip slabs, lanyard hole, kydex sheath with numerous options for tie-downs and straps as well as an attached TEK-LOK for the belt.


Gabe says the knife owes much of its design to the classic Finnish puukko design...you're probably familiar with this design if you're a fan of the S.M. Stirling science fiction book series "Dies The Fire" or you've been watching a lot of episodes of The Vikings:
Some time ago I received a Finnish Puuko Bayonet from a very good friend that had recently visited with our contacts in Finland. The blade looks more like a kitchen knife than something that goes on the end of a rifle. But it is very utilitarian.

At the same time, we were watching the final shows in the History Channel's The Vikings. One of Lothbrock's guys had a knife that was like the Puuko Bayonet, but slightly larger. Immediately I thought that such a knife could do everything...and of course, we had to build one. So in the tradition of our various Scandinavian brothers, we have the Viking Survival Knife. I know the Finns were not Vikings, but Scandinavian Survival Knife is a mouthful.
Unfortunately, I don't have nearly the knife lingo of Michael Janich, and I realize from reading back issues of Blade and Tactical Knives that in order to test a knife I should head into the bleak wilderness surrounding the new Secret Hidden Bunker and clear at least an acre of brush with the VSK, hack down a 12-inch tree, roll up some leftover carpet and hack through it with a single stroke and, I don't know, maybe behead a crocodile or something.

So, it being Thanksgiving and I can't face clearing brush before I cook — not to mention the obvious absence of crocodiles — can I just say that I like this knife?


It feels "alive" in my hand, an obvious combination of relatively light weight and a perfect balance point. I like the grip texture. As a knife guy I have a bunch of long, sharp things lying around the Bunker...one of my favorites has always been an old Ocean Edge dive knife (long discontinued) because the grip never slips, it holds its edge well and it's got a big honkin' metal knob on the butt for hammering stuff. I hammered on a lot more stuff than I ever cut or stabbed! The VSK looks like you could use it to pound apart a train.


In truth, I like knives that tread the line between great big Bowies and the plain old machete (Southern Grind's Granddaddy and TOPS Condor Alert also come to mind). I can't even remember the number of machetes I've owned over the years, and they've done yeoman's work...whenever I used to get a magazine assignment in Mexico or Central America, my first stop upon arriving in country was to find the nearest "feed store," where I could buy a peasant shirt, a cheap machete and canvas sheath and a sharpening stone, since every machete I bought "down there" was as dull as dirt. Not a 1911, but better than harsh language (in dive towns, I've always purchased a cheap dive knife at the local scuba store, cause they had a good idea of what was and was not legal; that'll also work with ice axes in areas climbers frequent...if you had to choose one "improvised" weapon, you could do a lot worst than an ice axe).

But I digress.

The VSK looks like a great workhorse blade, and it has become my favorite "dog walk" knife. Clip it on my off side...walk Alf the Wonder Beagle! I also like the price, $149.99 (same as the Southern Grind blade). Too many of the so-called "surveil" knifes are more like "investment" blades...sort of like learning to throw knives with a vintage Randall #1.

BTW, before you ask the funny green condom on my carry Sig P938 is a TUFF1 gun grip cover...I love these things! I got a nice note from Scott Hopkins, who heads up TUFF1, and he included a couple of the gun grips in the package. I cut a piece of one to fit the STI LS9 I used in the IDPA Back-Up Gun Nationals and I was very impressed with how well it did exactly what Scott said it did...really, really gripped. I added one to the 938, and I'll be adding a TUFF1 to my other carry guns (as well as my 3-Gun AR and mags).

I love inexpensive products that perform perfectly...I like them a lot! Thank you, Scott.


Tuesday, November 26, 2013

RECALL SENATOR EVIE HUDAK!


Reports are circulating that Michael Bloomberg shill Evie "Constituents? Screw em!" Hudak has resigned from the Colorado Senate rather than face a recall election she seemed destined to lose. Rumors have been swirling around Denver that panicked Democrats would force Hudak, whose sour demeanor is on par with that of a decomposing sea slug, to resign, allowing the appointment of another Democrat to the vacated slot rather than see the Dems lose control of the Colorado Senate.

Personally, I would have rather seen her dragged into the sunlight of an election, which has a cleansing effect on things that crawl from beneath rocks. But victory is victory — gun forces are 3 for 3 in knocking off Bloomberg's little playmates.

And a personal message to Colorado Democrats...2014 is coming, and we have long memories. To those of you Dems who whispered in my ear while I was at the State House that Michael Bloomberg has promised to punish defectors with a Bloomberg-financed primary challenge from the Left, but that he unconditionally promised he could protect those who voted with him...what do you think of Bloomie now? Even John "I Almost Had A Future" Hickenlooper has asked his buddy Bloomberg to stay out of Colorado politics. 

I'm especially looking forward to visiting Rep. Mike McLachlan's Durango district. If you recall, when McLachlan ran he assured the people of Colorado and his district that he supported the Second Amendment. In the debacle in the Colorado House, he even gave a little speechie-poo about how much the Second Amendment meant to him, THEN HE PERSONALLY INSISTED ON A 15-ROUND MAGAZINE CAPACITY CAP AND SPEARHEADED RAMMING THE BILL THROUGH! Our plan is to do a heavily publicized free training event in Durango during election season an make sure the truth about Mike McLachlan makes it to every nook and cranny.



You may remember the wretched Senator Evie Hudak in the Colorado gun law battles earlier this year, who couldn't even bring herself to be gracious to rape victim Amanda Collins. She also publicly claimed that all of the antigun bills were "written in Colorado," even though we had Bloomberg "boilerplate." She has been caught at legislative hearings posting to FaceBook and Twitter and looking at Patrick Swayze's ass (I can't make this stuff up!).

Let's sum it up:

• Hudak refused to listen to her constituents on opposing gun control because she was apparently too busy looking at Michael Bloomberg's ass to due her Constitutional duty.
• She lied about the antigun bills being "written in Colorado."
• Her performance with Amanda Collins, who has more guts in her little finger than Evie Hudak has apparently even experienced in her whole miserable life, should have caused Hudak to step down. But like her mentor in the White House, she has neither the honor nor the respect for the office which she holds to do so.

So let's send her home. RECALL EVIE HUDAK has until 3 December to collect enough signatures to force another vote, and it's going very well. If you are not in her district (Colorado SD19) and can't sign the petition, at the very least donate to the legal battle.

There has been some really nasty stuff in this recall, all from the Left, including death threats and dirty tricks. The reason is that a successful recall of Hudak will swing the balance in the Colorado Senate!

Time for you to go, Evie!

Monday, November 25, 2013

Beaver Crisis Continues Unabated!

Armed and Fabulous! Fabulously dangerous, that is!

I would say this is a major escalation:


Beaver steals hunter’s rifle

As you know, I am the only national journalist to consistently and honestly report on the burgeoning beaver crisis that is gripping not just America, but the world. Knowing there re armed beavers out there is terrifying to me...I think our only hope as a people is negotiation and accommodation. Is John Kerry available?

Sunday, November 24, 2013

A Nice Cheery Little Sunday Post

The board is set... the pieces are moving
Gandalf, LOTR

First, read this piece by Mark Steyn from NRO:
A government that lies to its own citizens should command no respect. To accord them any is to make oneself complicit in their lies, which is unbecoming to a free people. 
Which brings us to that other death of November 22: Aldous Huxley. “Don’t you want to be free and men?” rages a dissenting voice. “Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?” Gee, he sounds like a talk-radio guy demanding to know where the outrage is. 
Written in 1931, Brave New World isn’t as famous a dystopia as Orwell’s 1984 — because it posits tyranny not as “a boot stamping on a human face” but as a soft, beguiling caress of a human face, a land in which enslavement takes the form of round-the-clock sensory gratification: drugs, sex without love, consumer trinkets, sensory distractions . . . Crazy, huh? Like that’d ever happen.
Read the whole thing, of course. So gosh, what have our busy little Orcs in Washington been doing this week, since they're already wrecked our healthcare and driven the economy in a near-death stupor?  Well, they did manage to work out a deal that will ultimately allow those rollicking, fun-loving mullahs in Iran to go nuclear. Super! Is there anyone with an IQ greater than a snowball's who believe that the kids won't use the fire once they have? Come on now, raise your hands...sorry, you don't count, Mr. Kerry! You never counted...

Oh yeah, completely remaking the Senate! I know the Repubs are salivating at the chance to use the changes in rules when it's their turn at bat, but it got me thinking about John Stuart Mill and his essay On Liberty, specifically this part:
The third, and most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government, causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at becoming the government.
So why "go nuclear" over 3 judges added to the D.C. District of the U.S. Court of Appeals? That's the court that will be ruling on what I expect to be a flood of regulations to be coming out of the White House over the next 3 years. Let's face it, Obama is a broken toy; his legislative agenda is pretty much finished. But Kings govern by fiat...not the car, either. And oh baby, the regulations will be coming!

And I believe this will have a direct effect on us. We've already seen moves on ATF regulations both on Firearms Trusts and FFL regulations. I mentioned the other day the new proposed BLM regs forcing shooters off public land, a policy USFS has been beta-testing for several years. If you recall, initialy there were repeated reassurance to the hunting community that it was only those damn recreational shooters. You'll notice the BLM regs no longer make such a distinction...conclusion? The Feds feel the once-insurmountable "hunting lobby" has been neutralized.

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Infringed had been doing the heavy lifting on the rise of antihunting sentiments...this from his excellent post "Hunting is Doomed, Part B:"
This kind of attitude [I'm a hunter, but I don't support...] is what’s going to kill hunting, because hunters still think it’s OK to argue about what hunting is and isn’t. This guy has just giving close to 6000 people, on a page “liked” by millions, moral cover for their outrage at a fellow hunter. Hunters will sell the animal rights movement the rope they will use to hang them. If you want to understand why in the shooting community, we’re so quick to knife traitors, this is why. Hunting has to develop the same kind of message discipline if they want their pastime to survive.
Yes, we in the shooting community have our "litmus tests," but quite frankly we have had to develop them to survive. I mean, "divide and conquer" may be one of the oldest, and still the most valid, piece of military wisdom on the planet. The reason that it is still valid is that it works. We have decades of our blood enemies trying to shave off little strips of the gun culture and either turn them against the majority or destroy them outright — "Saturday Night Specials," "cop-killer bullets," "assault weapons," "AR-15s," "handguns," ".50 BMGs," "sniper rifles," "stand-your-ground," and on and on and on and on.

Ironically, one of the areas most exploited by the antigunners was the perceived split between hunters and shooters (hence the development of those litmus tests I spoke about). Now we see, as Sebastian noted, the same tactics being used against hunters.

In the shooting community, we eventually adopted what I think is a very simple trope, "All guns are the same." Whether you shoot a specialized O/U for sporting clays, a .50 BMG in long-range competition, a bolt action hunting rifle,  a CCW handgun, a vintage Sharps rifle, your grandfather's double-barreled shotgun, a USPA Open gun, a .22 plinker, or an AR-15, an attack on one is considered an attack on all.  If you say you own "X" but you don't mind banning "Y," you can and should be considered a pariah to our community. Harsh rules, but these are harsh times. Our enemies will accept even the slightest gain as a huge victory and look toward more such victories in the future.

I think it's time for the hunting community to step up and say an attack on one is an attack on all. Read the brilliant South African article by Ivo Vegter that Sebastian linked to in his post:
The knee-jerk reaction of the chattering classes is that you don’t protect animals by killing them. That seems self-evident, but, as Mark Twain said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” 
The notion that hunting harms the survival of species, or the environment more generally, happens to be false, and demonstrably so.
 As a commentator to Sebastian's post noted, hunters have allowed themselves to be lulled into the "pseudo-hippy 'moral' position that only the mythical 'Native American' model of 'using every piece of what we kill.'" That's because the position is super easy to defend to our enemies who will happily concede that subsistence hunting is A-Okay with them...for today. Let's table the issue of whether any pseudo-hippy mythology is true, although I do notice the paucity of North American Mammoths and giant sloths (other than our veteran dopers) up here at the Secret Hidden Bunker and if you'd like a glimpse into the past of Native American buffalo hunting, I refer you to the magnificent and troubling bronze casting Buffalo Jump at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

The point is that hunting is now where we were in the 1970s...remember, shotguns were A-Okay! Hunting rifles were A-Okay! Handguns...you know those Saturday Night Specials are only meant to kill people...so maybe if you'll help us get rid of Saturday night specials, we'll leave you grandpa's double barrel and that squirrel gun. We as a culture now understand and accept that the only agenda the antigunners have is confiscation.

"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here."
— Senator Dianne Feinstein
February, 1995

As I've written before, after Newtown, when our enemies incorrectly believed the national "landscape" on guns had changed, the first word out of their collective mouths was, "Confiscate!" When it became obvious they'd overplayed their hand, it was too late...genie...bottle...etc.

One thing we saw in the Colorado battle was the extensive use of "false flag" hunting groups, most of them generated by Michael Bloomberg's organization, in favor of gun bans. It is time we learned that the only agenda for antihunting groups is the complete elimination of hunting. That's it. When they say anything else, the other side lies.

In war, the end justifies almost any means.
—Saul Alinsky, 1972

Do you doubt we are at war?

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Confederates in the Attic


“No one makes a big deal of it, but if you’re a fly on the wall in any of their homes — I’ll tell you what: If you track the Confederate Army to the Dixiecrats, to the conversation of the Republicans, to the districts that were affected, you may be dealing with different labels, but if they were ever able to track down their ancestors, there’s a Confederate general in every damn living room."

— Charlie Rangel
(D-New York)

So I spent the day looking for the Confederate general in my living room...under the couch, behind the television, in Pokkee-San the Tailless Manx's bowl...nothing...nothing, I tell you. Paging Stonewall Jackson! Where are you, dude?

Today was a bitch, and I didn't expect it to be a bitch. I expected to spend the whole day working on my Ruger SR-762, getting the Giselle 3-Gun trigger in, changing out a couple of other parts. Instead, it turns out that I'm a television producer, which actually requires me to occasionally produce television. Who knew? I also did cleared snow out of the Secret Hidden Bunker's driveway, but that was the fun part.

I'm trying to get the last episode of SHOOTING GALLERY 2014 to miraculously fall into place...it's another one of my nitwit ideas, recreate a scene from one of the greatest "gun movies" of all time, WAY OF THE GUN. I have actors...I have locations...I have guns...hopefully, by tomorrow, I'll have FX. Did you know blanks cost $1.05 apiece? I sincerely hope we can pull this off...it will SO rock!

I'm paying close attention to the savage wave of anti-hunting sentiment that is sweeping the Internet. Given that Matthew Inman is a brain-dead scumbag, it's a little frightening to see the crucifixion
of Melissa Bachman, who in fact has done nothing wrong, illegal or unethical. Indeed, as was the case of Mike Baker with Under Wild Skies. For years, we've said that hunters needed to stand with shooters; ironically, it's time for shooters to stand with hunters. An attack on one is an attack on all. An attack by a piece of crap like Matthew Inman on Melissa Bachman is no different than an attack on the ownership of ARs or .50 BMG Barrett rifles.

And speaking of pieces of crap, as I predicted years ago, the Interior Department is taking steps to force shooters off public land. The greenies in USFS have always had a hard-on against shooters, using whatever lies and misrepresentations they could come up with to shut down recreational shooting. It's going to get much worse...according to U.S. News:
Gun owners who have historically been able to use public lands for target practice would be barred from potentially millions of acres under new rules drafted by the Interior Department, the first major move by the Obama administration to impose limits on firearms.
...
If the draft policy is finally approved, some public access to Bureau lands to hunters would also be limited, potentially reducing areas deer, elk, and bear hunters can use in the West.
In our brutal battle with USFS' jihad a few years back, I predicted that the fight was a trial run for nationwide rollout. I was, unfortunately,  right. 

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Revisionist History of the AR-15 Pistol

Interesting to see the AR pistol being seriously considered as a self-defense tool as opposed to the "range toy for stupid fanboys" meme that has held sway for years. I recall being flayed alive a few years back when I mentioned that the AR pistol seemed to fill a PDW niche pretty well, especially in the constrained space of a vehicle.


RRA piston pistol

I've used both a Rock River piston pistol (RRPP? Hmmmmmm), which does not have a buffer tube, and a Spike's Tactical 9mm pistol as PDWs when I was on the road. [Aside...I've been using the DoubleStar C3 recently in a Comp-Tac Sports Bag].


Spike's 9mm

I mentioned Gabe Suarez's work on the AR-15 pistol:
We have also found the M4 Pistol to be an excellent vehicle weapon, being extremely light and handy and capable of maneuvering in the close confines of a Tahoe, Jeep, BMW, or similar sized automobile.
Matt at Jerking the Trigger, a daily read, is building up an AR pistol to test it out, and today he clears up a lot of misconceptions on building and owning AR pistols:
I wouldn’t say that I am anti-AR pistol and I also wouldn’t say that I think they are a great idea. I guess that I am somewhat agnostic toward them. However, what always bothered me was casual way that they were written off by many “experts” who sneered that they were toys without ever really backing that up with actual data. So, in an effort to find out what is really up with AR pistols, I am planning on building one and putting it through the wringer.
Definitely read the whole thing, and I look forward to his report. I do plan to build up a .300 Blackout pistol, then put in the paperwork to SBR it. Ideally, I'd like a lower that was already engraved with the Class III info and have the front of the magazine well checkered, which, of course, does NOT describe any of the lowers I've got here at the Secret Hidden Bunker. A little voice inside my head keeps telling me to suck it up and pay extra for the BANE Firearms "Fidelis" lower because...c'mon, you get it! Hey, how many gun companies share your last name, as well as the name of Batman's nemesis???They'll also engrave the Class III markings. Having trouble rationalizing $285, however, for a lower, even one this cool...
BANE Firearms "Fidelis" lower

All this implies that I have enough time to put together an AR lower, which does take about 10 minutes longer than grilling salmon. In the meantime, my recording studio is waiting for me...

...before I go, read this great article on Real World bug-out bags from my good friend Tim Wegner of Blade-Tech fame in American Handgunner:
The problem when traveling via the airlines is you don’t have the luxury of toting a full blown “End of the World, Zombie Slaying” B.O.B along with you. However, there is more a compact alternative I call the BMGB or Bare Minimum Go Bag. This is a small but well stocked emergency kit weighing in at 9 lbs. packed and locked securely in my checked bag after I check in at the ticket counter and go thru TSA to declare my firearm.
Read the whole thing...then go buy some of Tim's "Top of the Food Chain" seasoning!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

One Last Grilled Salmon

Spent the afternoon writing up 2 executive summaries, one for a  30--minutes special on the Philippine typhoon disaster, the other for a new 2014 series I've been noodling on. Then I had totally wonderful remaining afternoon putting the snow tires (Bridgestone Blizzaks, the best snow tires I've ever used) on my aging Honda Element, lovingly referred to as the "Boxcar." Afterwards, I grilled some salmon outside on the, since big time snow is on the way and grill days are ending.

Interesting study referred to in U.S. News on violence in Chicago:
Typically, Papachristos says, there are traditional factors that put a person at a higher risk of becoming a victim of gun violence homicide - African-Americans are more likely to be killed than whites; men more likely than women; gang members more likely than non-gang members; and those who come from low-income neighborhoods more likely than affluent individuals. 
But even more than any of those factors, Papachristos says, a victim's social network was a better indicator
Let me be clear here...if you 're a member of a gang in the Thug Life Paradise of the Windy City, you're about a zillion times more likely to end up inside a chalk outline than not. Wow, let's think about that...if the city of Chicago cracked down on gangs, it would save lives. But the gangs are quite simply part of the power structure, no different than the City Council or the police department. That scumbag Rahm Emanuel rails on and on about guns. Bought and sold.

So remember John Farnam's world-class advice for staying safe in an unsafe world: "Don't go stupid places and do stupid things with stupid people." This is a good summary.


BTW, if you want to read something from a person with the IQ of a endangered frog, check out this piece from HuffPo titled " Have a Right to Hate Guns." Hey Tom, I hope you don't mind when  say I have a right to have your stupid butt. Your ramblings are pretty much on par with a BB rattling around a empty container...have you every considered immigrating to, say, Somalia? Or maybe Chicago...you could be a Vice Lord, or a Latin King, or an Insane Satan Disciple, or even a City Councilman!





Sunday, November 17, 2013

Quickie Catch-up Edition!

Am at the Austin TX Airport waiting, as they say, for de plane de plane, and I've got a lot of catching up to do. Let's bullet-point it:

-- BIG OLE CONGRATS to Mike Seeklander, who with the SHOOTING GALLERY cameras rolling, won the inaugural IDPA Back-Up Gun Nationals at S&W last week. Neither Mike nor I have seen official results, but we got a text from IDPA marketing guy and old friend Paul Erhardt. In a world of brand spanking new mini-9mms, Mike won with a decidedly Old Skol Rock Island Armory compact 9mm 1911.


-- The IDPA back-up gun format is just spectacular. Five - shot strings, no holsters, intelligent stage design clearly built around Real World problems, only 2 divisions...semiauto and revolver, a simple straightforward wan to integrate a buck-up gun match into a regular IDPA match. This is yet another home run for Joyce Wilson and IDPA.

-- I shot my ancient STI LS9, a platform I'll have some more info on in a minute. I remembered belatedly there were a couple of small things I was going to do to the gun when rotated the gun "out of service" years ago, and they came back to bite me. I did have a wonderful time, and I remembered how great the little gun shot. I may be doing a bit of shuffling on my carry guns as a result.

-- Jesse James is a very nice guy, and quite frankly his inaugural guns look great. Obviously, you don't get a chance for any serious gun-handling at a party, but his launch guns handled great and showed showed what one might expect from a master machinist...an intense, relentless attention to detail.

-- The first 2 guns to reach the market from Jesse James Firearms Unlimited will be the stainless steel Cisco 1911 .45 and the Nomad 5.56 AR.


-- The 1911 is being manufactured by STI...you guys already know what I think about their guns. I believe I've called them the best about-of-the-box guns in the world. At last night's party I talked at length to both Tim Dillon, CEO of STI, who's factories are 20 minutes from Jesse's house, and Jesse. Both are very happy with the relationship and happily admit that both butted heads about the 1911 specs.


-- The AR line is based on Jesse James' spec 'd uppers and lowers from Houlding Precision Firearms in Cali (?!?!), a family company with a reputation for high-end precision (and expensive) ARs. Once again, I talked at length to Todd , the company's founder, about James' input into the design process, and Houlding said it was extensive. The Nomad features a James-designed muzzle brake, a Wilson Combat barrel and a full line of top-end parts.



-- Jesse and I talked extensively about his new and patented AR suppressor design, which looks uncannily like a sweet potato (yes, I'll get pixs loaded when I get to my my office at the Bunker). "Dude," he said, "what have I been doing for my whole career? Building intake manifolds and exhaust systems...I understand exploding gas." The specs on the suppressor are truly impressive, and who wouldn't want a sweet potato on the end of their gun?  Seriously, I'll be back in TX in a month and have a chance for hands-on with all the guns and the silencer.




-- There will also probably be a Jesse James signature FNH FNX-45, which I'm pretty much down with. the heavily engraved proto they showed at the party absolutely rocked, and I told Tabor Bright from FNH that I'd be standing in line for that one.

-- There will also be a JJFU full custom shop, which I suspect to be swamped with work from Day One. The cherubs and him tell me that History Channel is sniffing around for a JJFU gun series, but I threw my hat into the ring anyway.

-- You can see the guns at SHOT, and, yes, they will be the Higher Priced Spread.

--Tim Dillon and I talked STI SHOT Show releases, which I can't get into for now. He did promise me hat the LS9, which he and I 100%agreed was a gun before its time, will eventually be back in the line-up in its "perfected" form, that, is with a skinny light-weight aluminum frame ranther than the beefy steel of the original (I called for in the beginning!). I believe that will be a home run gun, but I'm prejudiced.

-- Austin has gone to hell on cowboy hats...hipster culture mandates fedoras...I, of course, have nothing against fedorss...I have many. But come on! Texas? Austin? My love of cowboy hats started when I was hanging around the Austim music scene Back in the Back When. One hipster girl quizzed me so much on my hat (a Sunday-Go-To--Meeting Ritch Rand western fedora in a cream color) that I wished I had an order blank for her.

Sorry for the crappy pixs...we'll have real video on DOWN RANGE ASAP!

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Busy Busy...

...shot first IDPA Back Up Gun Nations at S&W Academy. Big fun. Shot my old STI LS9 9mm. More when I get back to the bunker...lotsa pixs!

Monday, November 11, 2013

Veterans Day, 2013


And in the nights of winter, 
When the cold north-winds blow, 
And the long howling of the wolves 
Is heard amidst the snow; 
When round the lonely cottage
Roars loud the tempest’s din, 
And the good logs of Algidus 
Roar louder yet within; 

When the oldest cask is opened, 
And the largest lamp is lit;
When the chestnuts glow in the embers, 
And the kid turns on the spit; 
When young and old in circle 
Around the firebrands close; 
When the girls are weaving baskets,
And the lads are shaping bows; 

When the goodman mends his armor, 
And trims his helmet’s plume; 
When the goodwife’s shuttle merrily 
Goes flashing through the loom;
With weeping and with laughter 
Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 
In the brave days of old.

My everlasting thanks to all of you who have held the bridge, stood between those of us at home and anarchy. 

God bless you all.

Remembering Robert R. Bane, USN, who served in the Pacific, WW2...and the flag was still there...






Sunday, November 10, 2013

Be Still My Heart



The legendary Swedish pop group ABBA is mulling a possible reunion next year, singer Agnetha Faltskog said in a German newspaper interview Sunday.

Can you hear the drums, Agnetha?

Completely Boring Computer Stuff

I upgraded phones to an iPhone 5s...of course my GPS turn-by-turn no longer works. Well, I'll torture it into submission tomorrow. The Sweetie and I slept late late late today, and as a consequence I feel...oh, what is that word??? Ph yeah, rested. I could get used to this, except that it's time to start the serious run to the SHOT Show. And Glock still refuses to tell me what their super deluxe new product intro is going to be! Maybe a Glock coffee grinder?

After just a few shots I've convinced myself to keep the Ruger SR-776 and shoot Heavy Metal all next year. Couple of immediate changes — Geissele 3-Gun trigger and some sort of muzzle brake replacing the perfectly serviceable flash-hider. I'm think an AAC brake with an eye toward a single solution to silencing my growing horde of .30 cals. I mean, if everything had the same muzzle brake/ratchet-on suppressor mount, I could move a single can to whatever I was shooting at the time.

BTW, while I was getting ready for recording Wednesday's podcast, I came across this gem on a site titled "Facts Are Facts:"
The modern, rhythmic music that we like and don’t particularly want to give up wasn’t exactly inspired by one of the seven heavens. English musician and mystic Cyril Scott—who was among other things a pupil of the “Masters of Wisdom” known as “Mahatmas”—wrote in his inspired book Music—Its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages about the forerunners to rock ‘n’ roll and their effects on society: “After the dissemination of Jazz, which was definitely ‘put through’ by the Dark Forces, a very marked decline in sexual morals became noticeable. Whereas at one time women were content with decorous flirtation, a vast number of them are now constantly preoccupied with the search for erotic adventures, and have thus turned sexual passion into a species of hobby.
Damn! I knew that Negro music was sexing up the womenfolk! Now I have proof. Admit it, doesn't Miley Cyrus make a lot more sense now?

And speaking of the womenfolk. they're doing a lot more hunting these days. National Geographic says the number of women hunters is up 25% since 2006:
One male hunter, Fred Williams, speaking to NPR, says, “"women tend to be actually better hunters because they tend to be a bit more patient, and oftentimes are a much better shot, because they tend to be a bit more focused." 
In Wyoming, Marilyn Kite, the state’s first female state Supreme Court justice, helped come up with the idea of the Women’s Antelope Hunt. 
"We've found it to be just great recreation, lots of fun, and the camaraderie of it is why you do it, really," Kite told NPR. "But we also really like the meat."
Cool.


Saturday, November 09, 2013

Interesting Article on Spree Killers

From The WSJ, titled What Mass Killers Want — And How to Stop Them. This covers a lot of ground we've already covered over the years. The media and spree killers are involved in an intricate dance...they love each other; they nurture each other. We've known for years how to stop, or at least reduce, mass killings, but we don'd do it because it would require the MSM to act like human beings instead of the whores they are.

There is one paragraph in the article that struck me as somewhat humorous:
Instead, massacre killers are typically marked by what are considered personality disorders: grandiosity, resentment, self-righteousness, a sense of entitlement. They become, says Dr. Knoll, " 'collectors of injustice' who nurture their wounded narcissism." To preserve their egos, they exaggerate past humiliations and externalize their anger, blaming others for their frustrations. They develop violent fantasies of heroic revenge against an uncaring world.
Holy crap! Does that remind you of anyone we all know???

That's right! Ole Barry "Hey...I'm A Stone-Drone Killah" Obama! The White House Liar-In-Chief perfectly meets the profile for a spree killer, which probably explains why he has so much fun dropping drones on jihadists, innocent bystanders, children, anyone else he can figure how to kill and get away with it, then brags about how much fun he's having:
The president’s specific words: I’m “really good at killing people,” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann write in “Double Down: Game Change 2012."
How's that for hope and change?

BTW, remember Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938...the Night of Broken Glass. Stephen Halbrook has a new book coming out, Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and 'Enemies of the State'. In a recent article in the Washington Times, Halbrook wrote:
This week marks the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass, the Nazi pogrom against Germany’s Jews on Nov. 9-10, 1938. Historians have documented most everything about it except what made it so easy to attack the defenseless Jews without fear of resistance. Their guns were registered and thus easily confiscated.
Funny how that works!



Friday, November 08, 2013

Metcalf's Lame Response

Published, quite properly, by Jim Shepherd in THE SHOOTING WIRE:
In today's political climate within the community of firearms owners, even to open a discussion about whether 2nd Amendment rights can be regulated at all, is to be immediately and aggressively branded as anti-gun and anti-American by outspoken hard-corps pro-gunners who believe the answer is an absolute "NO!"
I'm going to leave the reasoned, nuanced discussion to Bitter at SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED, who does a superb job of disassembling Metcalf's sad comments:
Ah, yes, rather than address the specific issue, he resorts to implying that those who disagree don’t believe in freedom. This is a message to Dick: The Bill of Rights is a limit on government powers to silence you (in the case of the First Amendment), not a promise for any job you want with any private company you desire to work with and a free pass to say anything you want or behave any way you want without consequence from other private citizens. By trying to play this card, Metcalf is going into what I like to call Full Dixie Chicks Mode. The Chicks were outraged that their political rantings weren’t fully accepted by their audience and were stunned that the same audience simply decided not to buy future products. It’s the same situation here. The Bill of Rights does not provide a guarantee that someone has to keep giving you money when you say something that they fundamentally disagree with.
This is not, as Bitter so lucidly notes, a "free speech" issue. Let me go a step farther than that...as I noted in my earlier post, we have been having a "dialog" about the role of firearms in American society at least as long as I've been alive. IMHO, the "dialog" ended when the war began.

Let me say this again...we are at war with a segment of society whose sole goal is total civilian disarmament. We are not in a dialog. We are not in a debate. We are not in a healthy give-and-take in the Cornell University academic lounge. The primary weapon used by our blood enemies is the Big Lie.

It works like this...our enemy states a Big Lie, and I could list dozens, and we run around like little bitty chickens with our heads cut off, marshaling our arguments, footnoting our learned responses, bullet pointing our facts...and after the whole charade is over the enemy repeats the Big Lie, the lapdog media reports it as truth, and WE LOSE AGAIN!

Look at the thoroughly discredited "a gun in the home is 43% more likely to harm rather than protect the homeowner." Probably more words have been written debunking that fake piece of trash than all Shakespeare's plays and the complete transcribed Wikipedia, yet 2 weeks ago I read it presented as gospel truth in a daily newspaper website.

During the fight on the Colorado gun laws earlier this year, thousands of us came with our carefully prepared remarks, charts, studies, bullet points, facts — real honest to goodness facts. Our blood enemies, most notably Michael Bloomberg, shipped in a parade of liars...heads of fake organizations created by Bloomberg, a presentation of "polls" that wouldn't meet even the most basic rules for polling, etc. We had the "indisputable" facts; they had the Big Lie. Who won?

Hint: It wasn't us.

Note to future Metcalfs...you want some healthy give-and-take, go back to your academic lounges. The arena is for fighters.


Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Metcalf Canned

Intermedia moved quickly to protect their flagship Guns & Ammo property and capped longtime editor Dick Metcalf after his inexplicable, profoundly stupid column on the Second Amendment:


Couple of personal points here...Dick Metcalf and I have been friends for 30 years...that's a lot of adult beverage under the bridge. We have shot together, competed against each other, run matches, exchanged lies, and on and on. But the cold hard truth is he had to go. You can't spew the kind of nonsense Dick wrote and expect to walk away from it unscathed.

The very best thing I have read on the whole imbroglio comes from my friend Paul Erhardt writing in The Shooting Wire:
It's hard to tell exactly why Dick Metcalf chose to write what he did. Even harder still to understand his embracing of regulations as both needed and fundamentally the cornerstone of the framers' intent when they wrote "a well regulated militia."
Paul quotes from another column by our mutual friend Paul Markel from Student of the Gun:
The reasonableness approach is seductive and genuinely the default of most people. Were we living in a different time I might be willing to acquiesce to Dick's many reasonable points. However, for at least a century, as far back as the questionable passage of the individual Federal Income Tax, we the people of the United States of America have indeed been reasonable. We have accepted restrictions on our liberty a tiny bit at time. A minuscule amount of arsenic will not kill you, but it builds up over time, slowly.  
Decade after decade, we are treated to just a bit more gun control, just a bit more restriction in the name of public safety. To argue against "public safety" makes you unreasonable and modern man fears that label. Individual liberty and freedom will not be killed by a single, decapitating blow, that would be far too obvious. Instead, the body of liberty is being slowly but very deliberately bled to death one tiny cut at time, the cuts being so small as almost not to be noticed.  
When it comes to liberty, we, the reasonable people, have given and given and given, but it is never enough. The beast of the authoritarian state will never be satisfied. I, for one, am finished willfully surrendering my liberty. Don't come to me asking for "reasonableness" I'm all out and if you took a moment to be honest with yourself, I think you would be out as well.
We are playing a deadly serious zero sum game...every time our blood enemies win a point, we lose a point...and move closer to the abyss The concepts of "reasonable," of "national dialog," of an "open conversation" are nothing but false flag operations to reel in suckers.  We've had a "national dialog" for half-a century, and all we've done is lost ground. Hey, the facts are all on our side! The numbers are all on our side! The laws are all on our side! How can we lose a national dialog?

"If you like your health policy, you can keep it...period! If you like your doctors, you can keep your doctor...period!"

Here's how. Folks, our blood enemies lie. They are not misinformed...they are not operating on incorrect or incomplete information...they are not misinterpreting data...they are intentionally NOT speaking the truth because they know that low information voters have the attention span of gnats. They lie, because they understand if you keep telling the lie it wraps itself in the veneer of truth. As Adolf Hitler, the master of the Big Lie, wrote in Mein Kampf:
All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
The concept of "reasonable" is flypaper for smart people. Smart people — and former Professor Dick Metcalf is indeed a very smart man — find the idea of debate virtually irresistible because they believe they can't lose. I am reminded of the head of a gun company whom I counseled not to appear on a weekly network news show. Do you think I can't handle myself, said the exec, a trial attorney by trade? No, I replied...I said the game is rigged...you cannot win. I quoted Leonard Cohen"Everybody knows the dice are loaded; everybody rolls with their fingers crossed..."

He ignored me, and a quote taken out of context cost him his job.

To borrow a phase from our Liar-In-Chief, let me be clear...our blood enemies have one single agenda item  — one single item! — that has remained unchanged for half a century, and that is complete and total civilian disarmament. Or, to phrase it another way, door-to-door confiscation of every civilian-owned gun in America. That's it, folks.

Recall how that for the last decade as support as support for gun control waned we heard more and more about "reasonable" and "common sense" gun control laws. Don't be silly, we were told...no one wants to take away your guns! The moment Newtown happened and our blood enemies thought — incorrectly — that the national landscape for gun control had changed, it was confiscation time, baby! Hey, San Francisco started the confiscation of magazines with a capacity greater than 10 this week. The end game is ALWAYS confiscation!

For more than a decade Paul Erhardt and I have taught that whomever gets to define the game will ALWAYS win said game. When a high-visibility "gunnie" like Dick Metcalf decides to validate the other side and by stepping into their arena, it does untold damage to our cause.

Dick, Good Lord, what were you thinking??? 

We don't need a new dialog, a national discussion, a third way, a new beginning or common sense anything...we don't need "reasonable" — we need to hold the damn line against people who would happily load us into boxcars and send us east! We need to say no to the people who destroy our heritage, spit on the Constitution and unleash their thugs. 

No compromise.

That clear enough?



 

Monday, November 04, 2013

TOMORROW'S THE BIG DAY!!!!!


Live "studio" filming of SHOOTING GALLERY openings and closings...the Ben Avery Range...Phoenix, AZ

Two sessions...9AM and 1PM..."goodie bag" including books, videos, assorted swag...

We'll be giving away a certificate for a Ruger Take-Down 10/22 as soon as Marshal'ette figures how how!!!

NO TICKET NEEDED!

The range is closed, so we'll be using the main range area.

SEE YOU THERE!

Sunday, November 03, 2013

I Feel Smarter Already!

Always great to wake up and learn something new! This from Business Insider, everything you ever wanted to know about the AR-15!
Very little separates a civilian AR-15 from the M-16s that are the standard-issue rifle for the American military. The military versions are semi-automatic, but also come with the ability to fire in a three-round burst; this feature is rarely used.
Well, who knew? I was handling a modern military M4A1 last Friday morning, and to my uneducated eyes it appeared to be full auto. In fact, I thought the 3-round burst went away when the M4 upgraded to the M4A1. I guess since the President lies on a daily basis, it sets the tone for his busy little bee minions in the media. Using the same logic, I'd say very little separates my Grey Parrot Ripley from Business Insider correspondent Brian Jones, except that Ripley is smart.

Friday, November 01, 2013

Since When is it Friday?

I guess 4 days of filming — 2 for SG; 2 for TBD — and a travel day in the middle pretty much takes care of the week. The days were long, and I just went to bed. Sorry.

I will say the Kodabow crossbow is just the bee's knees! It's like the shooting equivalent of popcorn...you cant just shoot one bolt. We were all amazed at how hard this thing hits...the bolts went roughly 60 percent into the target (a standard Bulldog arrow target). I'll have it in Phoenix next week, and maybe we can get some audience members on it.

Remember...

SHOOTING GALLERY 
LIVE AUDIENCE FILMING
PHOENIX, AZ
BEN AVERY RANGE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5
9AM and 1PM SESSIONS
FREE STUFF!


And while I'm thinking about it, I note that Jesse James, the motorcycle Jesse James, is launching his Jesse James Firearms Unlimited in Austin this month:
Following in the footsteps of his worldwide success with West Coast Choppers, Jesse James Firearms Unlimited brings his renowned level of craftsmanship and detail to a new industry and product. "It's taking the same theory behind my world-famous bikes and applying it to another passion of mine, which is guns," he explains.  
 Jesse James Firearms Unlimited will debut with an initial offering of a 1911 pistol and an AR-15 rifle. The guns will be available for purchase as early as January 2014 online at www.jjfu.com. Ultimately, the brand will offer a full span of guns that appeal to military and law enforcement as well as to the individual gun enthusiast.
Sounds cool to me! We'll keep you posted...especially if we can get painted on flames! I like flames.