Luckily, It's Friday...

…and not snowing, raining or earthquaking, if there is such a word. It's conceivable I might get to pull the trigger today.

I strongly urge you to read this analysis by Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned blog on the failure of Houston's Proposition 1 in the most recent election and its implications for gun owners and RKBA:

The LGBT community enforces a conformity that would make the most rabid 2nd Amendment activist blush. We also have our own “no one gets thrown off the lifeboat” principle, but in fact we are willing to throw people off the lifeboat in order to save the ship. We’ve done it. Notice that all of the DC preemption bills floated in Congress don’t cover NFA items. Neither do any of the national reciprocity proposals. It would also be doubtful that if we managed to pass a federal law preempting state and local bans on semi-automatic “assault weapons” that the bill would not also carve out NFA items. As firearms enthusiasts, we’ve been more realistic about what can be achieved and when it the right time to achieve it. The failure of Proposition 1 is a lesson in what happens when reality is ignored and deluded activists turn a generational struggle to an immediate all or nothing game.

Read the whole thing. I agree with Sebastian that we've been pretty good at calling our shots, part of the reason for our continued successes. I still feel very strongly that an overall reevaluation of silencers is doable, especially if we win in 2016. Ideally, as called for with the legislation introduced recently, it would be removing them from the NFA entirely. There are a number of other pathways available, though, including a move to the AOW $5 stamp, as a metal tube is demonstrably not a firearm, or retaining the $200 tax but moving to a NICS-type instant background check system so a suppressor can be purchased and taken home the same day. Small hammer...big rock...keep chipping...

Ammoland reports that Inland Manufacturing is going to introduce a pistol version of their M1 Carbine for 2016.

Man, I remember when I was a kid I stumbled across a picture of an Mi Carbine-based pistol, and I mightily lusted after it! I can't quite remember why. This was before the Iver Johnson "Enforcer" in the 1970s, so it must have been either a one-off or one of the Universal carbine pistols that were advertised in the 1960s. I don't think I ever saw one "in the wild," much less shot one. I would imagine that at the time I thought (insofar as a 16-year-old can be said the actually "think" anything) that a short, larger capacity semiauto with .357 ballistics would be spiffy. Of course, it has all the ergonomics of a large jar of Jiffy Peanut Butter.

I believe Patty Hearst used some sort of chopped and channeled M1 Carbine in the 1974 SLA bank heist. A shih tzu sort of gun, which of course readily explains how Ms. Heart's shih tzu Rocket won Best Toy Breed at Westminster this year. Or maybe not.

I got a really nice early Christmas present this year from Brother Potterfield, a nicely autographed copy of his coffee table book THE SHORT STORIES OF LARRY POTTERFIELD.

I have over the years been privileged to hear many of these stories directly from the horse's mouth, if you will, in my times with Larry. The stories are fascinating, and I look forward to reading the book from beginning to end. Thank you, Larry!