And Finally...

This is what that other guy's show would be like if only Bob Munden spoke Korean...

I gotta stop doing this...I'm gonna go blind! Get thee behind me, YouTube!

White People Dancing...

...check it out here.

I think I dated that girl in high school...

Yet Another Passing of Note

It has been a bad week! I note with sadness the passing of my friend Kevin O'Farrell of Santa Fe, perhaps the greatest cowboy hatmaker in the world.

He was active with SASS in the early days, made hats for working cowboys, rock stars and U.S. Presidents. Each time huge success came calling, Kevin turned away so he could pursue his passion of making great hats instead of running a huge hat business.

The shop will stay open under his apprentice/partner, Russ, still pursuing Kevin's passion.

Good ride, cowboy.

How To Write an Anti-Gun Editorial

This from David Petzal over at Field & Stream:

Rule Number One is: Identify yourself as a gun owner and user; it gives you credibility, a la Bubba Clinton in the duckblind and John Kerry at the trap field.
[...]
Rule Number Two: Ignore what actually happens when a pro-gun law goes into effect. Minnesota passed its right to carry law a year ago. Since then, people are not shooting people in larger numbers than usual...
[...]
Rule Number Three: Any pro-gun law cannot be the will of the people, but must be due to the infernal machinations of…THE NRA.

Read the whole thing...you'll be seeing a lot of these following hte Baily school shooting.

Dude, Where's My 1911???

I never thought I'd be saying this, but two big ole thumb-sized .45s up to Ashton Kutcher for going on Leno last night and mentioning that when he and the Sainted Demi were in Cajun Country for work, they were both packing heat — Herself a Glock and him a"Springfield." PS: Thanks, THR!

Okay, I'm chosing to believe a 1911 rather than an XD, because, hey, when you're replacing Bruce Willis you gotta go Old School somewhere.

BTW, I did a little looking around and it seems the doofus has never been shy about his interests. This from the StarPulse blog:

Ashton Kutcher was forced to give up chain smoking and learn how to swim in order to take on the role of a U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer in his new film The Guardian. The Iowa farm boy grew up among the corn fields in the Midwest and had never been near any oceans or beaches. He explains, "At home, I shoot guns and chop wood. I grew up hunting deer, rabbits, and squirrels."

Still, I gotta be in a mood to face a Kevin Costner movie, especially one that doesn't include Sean Connery or Robert Duvall or gills.

LIGHT BLOGGING ALERT FOR NEXT WEEK! I'm going to be hither and yon, but I'll do my best...

The Inevitable Consequences of Gun Control

From Drudge:

Squirrels Go On Attack At South Bay Park

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- An aggressive squirrel pounced on a 4-year-old boy in an attack last week in Cuesta Park in Mountain View, Calif.

The attack happened as the boy's mother unwrapped a muffin during a picnic.

The boy had to get rabies shot after the attack. He is still getting the shots.
The attack is not the first one reported at the park.

Mountain View Community Services Director David Muela said that as many as six people have been bitten or scratched by squirrels since May, and that the attacks have become more ferocious in the last month.

This kind of thing would not happen in Arizona or Texas...the first rodent that goes bonkers in the West, and it's the Squirrel Apocalypse...kindergarden kids would be popping 'em at recess!

Anyway, avoid at all costs opening a sack of muffins around squirrels! Keep watching the trees, America!

Quotations from Chairman Jeff

Guns & Ammo has posted a nice selection of quotations from Jeff Cooper.

I like this one on violence, from 1975:

"One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure--and in some cases I have--that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy."

Stand Up, Lay Down or Follow

After a grueling morning of playing "fetch" with Pokke-san the cat — who in fact is a better fetcher than either Alf the Wonder Beagle or Ripley the gray parrot — I decided it was time to face the world. Put succinctly, the world pretty much sucks right now. Okay, enough of that.

I do note that it's a sad commentary when the only media/entertainment people in the world with any balls are the two guys from South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and a really hot Muslim chick from Norway named Deeyah.

Matt and Trey continue to kick ass and take names — Saddam being "tortured" in prison by being forced to watch the South Park episodes with him in hell as Satan's little butt buddy...the "Come Out of the Closet, Tom" Cruise wars...sad to say these were the only two guys to actually stand up and say that cowtowing to jihadists is not "sensitivity to religious beliefs," but cowardice.

I've come a bit late to the Deeyah bandwagon, but she is a screaming world-class hottie [check out the pix]. She's also done something no American "entertainer," and I use the term loosely, has had the balls to do...criticize Islam for it's treatment of women and demand an end to prejudice coming from all directions.

For that, and her "brazen sexuality," the radical mullahs want her dead...she's under constant death threats, physical intimidation, even an attempted kidnapping, that has kept her moving from country to country. Her response is the sizzling "What Will It Be?"...stand up, lay down or follow. Watch the video here.

I'm trying to imagine the simpering post-adenoidal whiners, whose idea of standing tall is singing something like "Bush! Ooooow, ich!" or the Hollywood bobble-headed drones actually putting their multimillion dollar asses on the line by criticizing people who can and will kill them for their words. Nope, don't even compute.

Now, where did I put the cat's "mousie?"

One Gun a Month Laws Ineffective???

Well, here's a surprise! Laws that limit individuals to one gun a month...don't have any effect on crime. From the Philadelphia Inquirer (strangely enough):

One-gun-a-month laws sound attractive to gun-control activists and draw broad public support in polls. But it's not clear that such statutes have had much impact on gun violence.

A study published last year in the journal Injury Prevention found that the laws restricting purchases had had no measurable impact. The study was done by a team of doctors from the University of Washington, using data from 1979 to 1998.

But we all feel better, right? Actually, I'm in favor of a law that requires individuals to purchase at least one gun a month!

And speaking of purveyors of mindless drivel — we were speaking of that, weren't we? — let me introduce you to that "master of psychological suspense," Jonathan Kellerman. Snore...nod. This from his most recent book, Rage, where his characters address the psychological disease these twits refer to as "gun hoarding" (honest...that's what Kellerman calls it):

"Don't users become pushers to pay for their habit? And all those guns he keeps — Lara wasn't raised with that, we never had so much as a BB gun in our home. All of a sudden they've got rifles, pistols, horrible stuff. He keeps them out in the open, in a wooden case — the way sophisticated people display books. If you're not doing something shadym why do you need all those guns?" [Paperback; Page 143; graf 9; no Internet link]

Well, I contend that we need all those guns to protect us from roaming bands of witless psychologists, dangerously spewing the effluvium from their pea-sized brains all over the place. BTW, read the Amazon reviews for Rage...looks like ole Alex Delaware's done gone limp!

Buck Fever...

So I'm in my office trying to talk on the telephone, answer email and straighten up my desk all at the same time when I get the feeling someone is watching me. I turn around, glance out my office window, and, YIKES!, it's the revenge of Bambi!

Not really, but it is a couple of bachelor mulies — probably the same ones that cropped off my Sweetie's geraniums last weekend — were pondering me from about 10 feet away. Scared the crap out of me. Lucky the bastards didn't have battle rifles, or I'd be done for...Condition White'll get you every time!

A Few Thoughts on the Passing of Jeff Cooper

This week's SHOOTING GALLERY, totally by coincidence, is "Learning the GUNSITE Way," a video tour of the GUNSITE 250/350 pistol class — the baseline for practical shooting.

That's fitting...

More than 25 years ago, before the mainstream media totally abandoned the gun culture, Esquire Magazine called Col. Jeff Cooper, "The most dangerous man in America."

They were right, of course, but not for the reasons they thought. It's easy to think of Jeff's legacy in terms of his huge contributions to shooting — creating of the "Modern Technique" of the handgun; codifying the four rules of gun safety; founding GUNSITE, still the standard against which other shooting schools are measured; resurrecting John Browning's masterpiece, the 1911; inventing the sports of practical shooting; though his writings, redefining how we looked at armed self-defense; birthing the "Scout Rifle" concept and advancing "the art of the rifle."

I think, however, that when such things are tallied up, Jeff Cooper's legacy will be writ much larger. Jeff was the bridge between the old world and the new, between Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton and the profoundly more dangerous world we now live in. At a time when America seemed to be sleeping, Jeff Cooper challenged us to take our lives into our own hands and to live those lives under the unfashionable precepts of duty, of honor and of grace. In essence, he did something unique — he challenged us all to walk the path of the warrior, then gave us the tools to do so.

I believe he succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. The gun culture now is a powerful force in American culture, and not just politically. We are armed and we are competent. There are more armed, trained civilians in America today than at any time since the Revolutionary War, and every one of those people is Jeff Cooper's legacy.

He remained an irascible bastard to the end...during my SHOOTING GALLERY interview with Jeff last year, he didn't hesitate to shake his finger in my face and set me straight when he thought I'd strayed from the point. At the end of that interview, though, Jeff said, "So Michael, you want shoot some of my personal guns?" So I stood on the first GUNSITE range with Jeff's personal lightweight .45 Colt Commander. It felt...familiar.

Thanks for everything, Colonel. And say hello to Elmer and Rex for me.

Col. Jeff Cooper...A Giant Has Fallen

At the request of the family it is my sad duty to report the passing of our founder, Jeff Cooper. Jeff died peacefully at home this afternoon while being cared for by his wife Janelle and daughter Lindy.

There will be a private internment at Gunsite by invitation, with a public memorial service at the Whittington Center at a date to be announced.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

DVC,

Ed

Ed Head
Operations Manager
Gunsite Academy, Inc.
2900 W. Gunsite Rd.
Paulden, AZ 86334

Thank You, Michigan!

Had a great time up in Nugent-World over the weekend! Lots of people stopped by the gigantic Bass Pro OUTDOOR WORLD just to say "hi!" Some came with pretty serious questions, especially about CCW guns, and I hope I was able to help.

I'm always honored and humble when I talk to fans of SHOOTING GALLERY. I've said THANK YOU before, but I can never say it enough!

I'm doing pretty well on a rewrite of my book TRAIL SAFE, which was originally published in 2000 by Wilderness Press. I got the copyright back last year and decided to publish it through my own company, Flying Dragon Ltd., so I don't have to deal with the morons who populate the "real" publishing industry (my favorite line about 'real" publishing was from an old agent of mine when we went to the big book association convention...which was populated with frantic mid-20s women editors who went to Ivy League schools and still wore plaid skirts, cream colored sweaters and sensible shoes...as, of course, did my agent..."It's easy for writers to get laid here," she said caustically, "but you won't have any fun...")

Specifically, I'm adding a lot more firearms information, which Wilderness, a granola press in Berkeley, CA, was uncomfortable with. I'm also adding a new introduction and some appendices on using my "Strategic Living" (tm) concepts outlined in the book in urban environments. My goal is to debut the new version at the SHOT Show in Orlando, with a big book signing and general revel.

I'm also planning on doing our SHOT Show episode of SG a little differently next year. I was thinking of having the camera follow me around on my meetings with firearms execs, gun designers and high-end trainers, with an idea of giving everyone an overall view of trends and what's coming up. SG is the ONLY show with as many insider contacts as we have, and I'd love to let everyone see what's coming up. If i can get the TOC support, I'd like to do a live video webcast from SHOT, focusing on new products. I've done this twice before, and each time we had a million individual viewers — raising havoc with our servers! — over three days.

Thoughts?

News of the Day...

I'm really torn over which new sof the day item is rocking my world more...this item from Evening Standard of London:

Police are hunting "devil worshippers" after a series of sickening "satanic rite" attacks on sheep at a national park.

...or this piece on Barbra Streisand's really nasty boobs:

Streisand seemed to forget what a photographer's flash can do to a black dress as she unwittingly revealed she had left the black bra tucked up in her drawer at home.

I can't even bring myself to post the picture. Then again, there's always Al Qaeda extreme paintball in Alabama:

What is perfectly clear, though, is that the images were not placed on the video to celebrate paintball as a recreation. They were there to celebrate it as a means towards death.
[...]
And when the Muslim American Society of Tampa (MAS-Tampa), a group that has published on its website material concerning the murder of non-Muslims, puts out a paintball event flyer stating, “We’re trying to separate the men from the Boys, The guns from the toys, The real ones from things that just make noise,” this too must be questioned. Are these groups out to have fun, or is it something else?

Me, I smell a whift of sulphur in the air, and I'm not even close to the U.N. Autumn is always a really scary season to me!

Fall Color? White...

Ah yes, the last day of summer, and I'm scraping snow off my windshield — one of the joys of mountain living I could probably do without. It takes me about a month to shift into winter gears. This winter, I'm going to replace some of my ratty winter stuff with the newest, lightest, stuff-that-doesn't-stink-like-a-dead-rat high-tech gear.

I've already shifted from the Summer Guns, my .380 Colt Mustang or Taurus J-frame .38 pocket pistols, to my Full-Time Gun, the SIGARMS 225.In truth...and maybe this is a result of overexposure to people like Walt Rauch, Chris Edwards and Frank James...I found myself carrying two guns more than I ever used to this summer. I'm pretty much a shorts and t-shirt sort of guy in the summer. Occasionally, I'll wear a gunbelt and carry the SIG in an Alessi belt holster, but if it was a local trip, but I usually found it easier to carry the SIG in a SafePacker — the absolutely best off-body carry system ever developed — then stuff one of the pocket pistols in...duh!...my pocket.

I think this is where the nasty little Bond Derringer really shines. It gives me the option of two rounds of .410 #3 buckshot as my opener, followed by lots of 9mm Hornady TAPS as the main act. On drives this summer, I carried the Bond, as I've mentioned before, in a crossdraw "driving holster" from Bond, with the SafePacker on the center console. I really like the .410 buckshot as a car-jacking deterence utility...10 pellets that'll cruise right through the door panels if necessary and buy me a little time.

Color me paranoid. OTOH, color me still here!

I'm thinking of getting a SIGARMS 239 so I can get LaserGrips on it. But who has the time?

And speaking of paranoid...I watched the first episode of Jericho, CBS' post-nuke family drama Wednesday night. Critics have already picked it as the show most likely to be cancelled first, because those mushroom clouds are creepy. At least Lost is set on a mysterious tropical island and people with hunky boys and girls inskimpy clothes, as opposed to rural Kansas peopled with Skeet Ulrich and Gerald McRainey in Carhardt drag.

Heck, I liked it, although the shots of that cloud occupying the space previously occupied by Denver was a bit unsettling. Aftewards, my Sweetie who was less than enthralled, asked me if I knew the blast radius of a Denver nuke off the top of my head...makes for downer dinner conversation! At least we're upwind...

My favorite part of the show was the town's lone ham radio operator/gun nut/paranoid...damn, that sounds familiar! I wonder why?

Ground Control to Major Mikey

I'm not totally sure, but the above unidentified space baggie spotted outside the Space Station looks uncannily like a plastic bag from the Town Pump minimart in Harding, Montana, that blew out my car window about three weeks ago.

I'm sorry...really...

ATTENTION DETROIT!

Well, kids, in celebration of National Hunting & Fishing Day this coming Saturday [September 23], I'm going to be at the OUTDOOR WORLD Bass Pro Shop in Auburn Hills, MI...north of Detroit.

Yes, I argued for a Humvee tour of 8 Mile, but, hey...

Anyhow, I'll be there most of the day, and it'll be more fun that three monkeys with a key lime pie and a case of 30-weight oil.

Drop by and we'll do guns!

It's Monday Once Again...

Spent all day yesterday at the range in Durango with Randi Rogers, a.k.a. Holy Terror, filming an update of her stellar career for COWBOYS. It's amazing to watch her transition from cowboy guns to Glocks — she's on Team Glock now, since Julie Goloski jumped to S&W. her grandfather and coach, Cowboy Action Shooting Hall of Famer Gene "Evil Roy" Pearcey, was worried when Randi went inside to change from cowboy drag to Glock drag — "You know it takes a while to shift gears with different triggers," he told me.

Randi responded by coming out and doing three blistering runs on the plate rack with her Glock "Practical-Tactical" 9mm.

"Okay," Gene said. "Forget what I said."

One of the greatest parts of my job is watching talent do what it does best. I feel so strongly that if we can put great shooters in front of the larger public, it would go a long way toward changing public opinion about guns and shootings. There's a huge resource just waiting to be tapped...okay okay...I won't get started!

The new Carnival of Cordite, the weekly collection of All Things Bang! on the Internet, is up and always worth perusing.

Cybercast News Service is reporting that a couple of NRA-backed bills reining in the BATFE should be coming up for a vote in the House:

Legislation expected before the U.S. House this week would give the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) greater flexibility to punish federally licensed firearms dealers and limit the agency's actions at gun shows. Another bill would forbid the ATF to release so-called crime gun trace data to cities, counties or states for use in lawsuits against the gun industry.

Let's hope this stuff gets through the House while we still have the House!

Finally, I can't give you any details or even tell you where the information came from except to say it is good, but I'm hearing about a 2300-yard sniper "kill" out of Iraq with the new .408 long-range blaster. Military snipers are truly pushing the envelope almost beyond belief. Earlier this year there was a confirmed kill at 1250 meters with a .308! Thats a pretty far reach for the baseline cartridge!

We'' of course be doing some work with the .408 for SHOOTING GALLERY a little later, and you'll see just how far our guys can reach out and touch someone.

The Sputtering NYT Sputters On

This is from the "Idea Lab" section of the NYT Sunday Magazine (you may have to register):

Brazil has the most gun deaths annually of any country, and last October it held a referendum on a nationwide gun ban. In the run-up to the vote, polls suggested that more than 70 percent of Brazilians supported the ban. Then the Brazilian gun lobby, which previously had emphasized the desirability of gun ownership, began running advertisements that instead suggested that if the government could take away the right to own a weapon (though Brazilians have no constitutional right to bear arms), it could steal other civil liberties.

This argument took gun-control advocates by surprise, and on voting day, 64 percent of Brazilians voted against the gun ban. “We gun-control groups failed to anticipate this idea of focusing on rights,” admits Denis Mizne of Sou da Paz, a Brazilian public-policy institute. As a report in Foreign Policy revealed, the National Rifle Association lobbyist Charles Cunningham had traveled to Brazil as early as 2003 to impart strategy to local gun advocates, teaching them to emphasize rights instead of weapons.

Shocking, isn't it? Even multi-generational peasants can understand something that baffles even the brightest liberal — sometimes, the goverment is not your friend.

The Next Moses

This from U.S. News & World Report's Washington Whispers :

Can Magnum P.I. Replace Moses?

That old National Rifle Association TV ad in which Magnum P.I. actor Tom Selleck says, "I am the NRA" might be making a comeback. That's because he's being talked about as the replacement for former five-term NRA President Charlton Heston, the Moses portrayer who is afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.

Easy On; Easy Off

I woke up this morning thinking how much better and more fulfilled I would be if I had an accessory rail, one of those four-sided jobbies made for ARs that would allow me to attach lights, lasers, blenders, coffee grinders, grenade launchers, weed whackers, etc. to myself. I was thinking sleepily about maybe replacing my left arm, then doing a SureFire commercial. Luckily, I came fully awake before I could make contact with rogue surgeons in Uzbekistan on the Internet.

First though, let's address the issue of walking sharks:

Two of the new species are members of the epaulette shark family, which distinguishes itself by sometimes using its fins to scamper away. Their name comes from the fact that they have two large round spots near their heads that look like epaulettes, the shoulder ornaments on military uniforms.

That was from MSNBC, who keeps tabs on such things. My fear is that a vicious combination of global warming driven by Al Gore's endless speecifying and hormone runoff from LA nip/tuck emporiums will create a breed of super-sharks that can walk on land, thus eeriely echoing a Saturday Night Live skit from the 1970s.

From there, we race to China, where the first penis transplant has apparently gone limp. From the UK Guardian:

Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Dr Hu said. An examination of the organ showed no signs of it being rejected by the body.

Hmmmmm...perhaps the penis had taken on a life of its own, a la the wretched 1981 science fiction film The Hand. This is sooooooooooooooo Hollywood! I see Ben Allkeck in the lead role, with Robn Williams as the penis. The love interest would, of course, be Jessica Alba, who has the rare ability to look askance at a talking penis.

Which, of course, brings us back to accessory rails.

Summer Bites The Dust....

...it snowed yesterday and was 27 degrees when I got up this morning. I decided to opt for jeans rather than shorts, which I insisted on wearing yesterday, snow and all. This is The Week for the quaking aspens...not a great year, because it has been a damp summer. Still, it's agonizingly beautiful out there.

I'm having a strange gun jones. I want something, but I don't know what I want. I mentally reviewed my gun list, spent a while on GunsAmerica.com, but nothing really popped up on my radar...ay least nothing at a price I was willing to pay. Yeah, I'd like a pristine S&W .44 Special Triple-Lock, but I'm cheap.

I note that Jeff at Alphecca is going through the same thing, although he seems to have settled on a Henry lever gun in .22 Magnum. I'm actually looking forward to the Ruger Rimfire Challenge next May...the idea of a 2-gun .22 competition lights up my life, and judging by the response we're getting, I'm not the only one. I'm probably going to shoot both in the Unlimited Class (Tac-Sol 10/.22 & S&W M-41) and the Human-Operated Class (Taurus 62 pump rifle & S&W 617 DA revolver). It'll be fun! You should make your arrangements soon, since we're talking about capping the entries at 100 shooters (and let shooters have the option of shooting in two classes).

I spent all yesterday afternoon inletting a set of Eagle "Coke bottle" reproduction grips to my elderly S&W M-29. I know, I know...I was going to return this second set of grips, but I want a set of '50s vintage Coke bottles, and the originals are selling for $250-500...nope, I don't think so. So even though the Eagles we're even close to fitting — unacceptable for $100 grips!!! — the wood was nice and I decided to suck it up and fit them myself.

Next time, I'm just going to buy my own beaver and let him gnaw down a walnut tree. What a pain in the butt! The inside of the grips were so crappy it turned into a major project, with routing bits and sanding drums. I got the grips rough-fitted, and I want to do a little more handwork on the insides, so there's still another couple of hours work left. DO NOT buy Eagle grips unless you've got a LOT of time on your hands this winter!

Jeff Cooper Gravely Ill

This from Rob Leahy:

“Jeff Cooper is in extremely grave condition at this hour. Previously hospitalized for possible surgery, he suffered a heart attack and was revived in the hospital. The heart muscle suffered serious damage. I hope you all can spare a moment of your day for him and his family in your thoughts and prayers...Rob"

So Much Bull!

So we're finishing up our rodeo clown reunion for COWBOYS at the Pentleton Round-Up — Slogan: "Let 'Er Buck!" — in (surprise) Pendleton, OR. We were trying to think of a good "OUT," the "thanks for joining us" part of the program.

So we got the bright idea to close with Tequila doing his spiel while the rodeo bullfighters worked behind him, which of course would involve a cowboy and a ton or so of pissed-off bull. We don our mandatory cowboy hats and long-sleeve shirts and talk our way onto the floor f the arena.

Now here's the deal at the Pendleton rodeo arena — it's huge, so they block off a smaller area for the bullriding with a 4-foot high fence made of PVC pipe. Let me reiterate that...PVC pipe. No problem, because we're stupid!

The Pendleton cowboys have a laisse faire attitude about the whole thing..."Might want to pay attention in there," one of 'em tells me.

No, we didn't kill Tequila! He delivered his lines perfectly, bull going batshit crazy in the background. We pack up quick and and head out of the arena, just in time to see the next bull launch himself about eight feet into the air, soar over the fence with PVC flying everywhere and land in the mathematically perfect spot Tequila and the rest of us were occupying seconds before.

Now THAT would have been an OUT to remember!

Paging Bobby Flay!

Here's the bright idea for the day, from MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

What a good idea! I say start with Congress, microwave the whole miserable lot of them, then serve 'em with drawn butter and maybe a hint of parsley.

Non-lethal weapons have been this panacea for years...spray 'em with icky stuff, bonk 'em with rubber balls, Food Channel 'em...then the non-lethal thingie kills someone, the manufacturer redefines the product as "less lethal" and nitwits like Michael Wynne go back to the drawing board.

I'm bracing for the tsunami of gun control crap after the Montreal shootings. You might want to visiting VampireFreaks, the website of choice for the shooter, Kimveer Gill, AKA The Angel of Death, just to keep tabs on what the kids are up to...or you can go straight to Mssr. Death's favorite Internet role-playing game, the Super Columbine Massacre! In truth, I don't have a clue...but if I was a college student, I think I might take a break from binge drinking and throwing up to take a shooting class...

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

What was that bit on the Mickey Mouse Club about Wednesday: Something like..."today is the day that is filled with surprises; nobody knows what's gonna happen!"

Well, I know what happens on this Wednesday, I am set upon by...

MORONS!

Packs of sleazy, scheming morons who need to be hung by the neck until dead, dragged through the muddy streets of Deadwood and fed to Mr. Woo's pigs! RANT RANT SCREAM SCREAM...clowns to the left of me; jokers to the right...it's a bleeding miracle I got through the day without strangling somebody. Actually, if I could have arranged a strangling through the phone or via e-mail, it would have been ALL OVER for the whole nasty pack of MORONS! Apparently, a brain bomb went off over America, and the IQ is plummeting!

Huff...huff...huff...

Okay, I feel much better now!

The only thing that's cheered me up all day is "Air America," that bastion of liberal talk radio, going bankrupt. So, essentially, their talk radio imitates their ideas...There aren't even any good Paris Hilton stories.

Ah well, tomorrow is indeed another day, and how can I be crabby at a rodeo clown reunion in Oregon?

Good heavens! Let me count the ways!

Hooray for Hollywood...Not Really

Here's an interesting little tidbit I gleaned off the Brady Center site, from a heartland newspaper:

It’s been just two months since Paul Helmke left Fort Wayne to lead a national gun-control organization, and already he’s gone Hollywood.

But hobnobbing with Dustin Hoffman, William Shatner and other Tinseltown stars is just another day at the office when you’re a Midwestern Republican trying to convince mostly liberal donors of your good intentions.

Now here's what interesting...as soon as Helmke signs on to run the Brady Confederacy of Dunces, the first thing he does is run off to Hollywood!

Now, here's a quiz...why do you think that Brady found it important enough to send their top shill on a tour of Hollywood studios? Don't worry, it's a multiple choice test!

1) There's gobs and gobs of Hollywood bucks to be picked up!
2) Hollywood has an amazing ability to help shape the social landscape through movies and television.
3) You get lots of great PR pal'ing around with the stars, even decrepit old stars who did their best work in the 1970s.
4) You look like you're part of the "mainstream" as opposed to a coalition of effete Northeastern urban socialists sucking the teet of a corrupt Jabba the Hutt like George Soros!
5) All of the above!

That's right, the correct answer is Number 5! Here's what is really interesting...all of the above points would apply to the firearms industry if we bothered to try and reach out to Hollywood. We could get the bucks, the PR, help reshape the social landscape (or at the very least blunt the antigunners' efforts to shape it their way) and help move ourselves back into the mainstream.

That's why the industry puts so much money in their Hollywood initiative...no wait! There is no Hollywood initiative from the firearms industry! In fact, we don't even answer the phone when Hollywood calls!

Is that because everyone in Hollywood hates us? No...we have a solid core of actors and film and television professionals who support our side of the argument, and a larger group of up and comers would would come over to our side if we reached out. But we now offer Hollywood exactly nothing...Bad Michael!...that's not true either...when a Number 1 rated television series came to one of our largest organizations and asked for a poster to put in their Number 1 rated show, well hell, we gave it to them! Just like that! Put it in the mail and sent it to them! Man, we are the masters of our fate; we are the captains of our volleyball team!!! [social reference for quote...Mad Magazine, circa late 1960s]

Do you suppose that Brady would have mailed the poster to them, or do you suppose that Brady might have sent Shill #1 in person, with poster, flowers and a split of Cristal Champagne?

As you know, my team ran a successful Hollywood operation for the industry that was canceled because it cost too much.

We needed that money to promote hunting, because as we all know, the Founders insisted the Second Amendment be included in our Bill of Rights to promote duck hunting, a primary activity when not shooting the British or various and sundry indigenous peoples.

I did get that right, didn't I?

PS: Above cartoon, "What if Ducks Hunted Men?", is from here...

Remember

The image is a wire service photo taken in Pakistan, less than one month after the Twin Towers fell. As we remember our losses, let us remember our enemies as well, since they still intend to incinerate all of us.

Here is what I remember of the days following the attack:

I got to NYC as soon as the planes started flying again. Coming into the city, which seemed as still as a prop in a science fiction movie, we were stopped at a roadblock — everyone coming into the city was being stopped and ID'ed — and all our bags were hauled out of the van and searched. Our driver, who'd immigrated from some African hellhole and who was too familiar with roadblocks, was near panic. "This is not America," he kept saying. Finally, one of the exhausted NYPD cops, snapped back, "It is now."

When I lived in the city, I had a loft on 125 Cedar Street, directly across the street from the South Tower. When we'd rehabbed the old tax scofflaw building, all my friends and I used to joke that it was on the verge of falling down. The punch line is that on the day when everything else fell down, the old building stood.

My best friend still lived in the building, and on that day he became one of its heroes. His is one of the strangest stories of that day, but it's his story to tell, not mine. I have heard it all, and it is the stuff of nightmares.

He was being allowed to return to the building for the first time, he'd told me, and he hoped that I'd be willing to go with him. Of course, I said. We spent an hour or so getting through the police lines, then were issued a police escort and haz-mat masks because of the...high organic content...of the ash. The fires were still burning in the multistory wreckage of the towers; site workers were still collecting...pieces...of my fellow citizens in five gallon plastic buckets. The smell was...as I imagine the smell at the gates of Hell might be...overheated steel and ash, underlaid with the stench of...burned meat...that seared the back of the throat and that I smell to this day.

We waded through the ash into the building. Because it faced the South Tower, as the Tower collapsed onto itself, the huge rush of air and debris blew out the lower Tower windows, blasting our old loft building with ash, with office equipment, paper, computers...and people. The...remains...had been removed and quick widows thrown over the hollow places. Part of the famous World Trade Center facade was in my old kitchen, rammed into the cabinets that I'd hung myself.

Of course the apartments had been looted, jewelry, money, anything that could be easily carried out in the confusion. "Looted?" our police escort asked, and my friend nodded. "I'm sorry, man," the cop said. "We would have shot the sons of bitches, but there was so much else..." My friend said it didn't matter, again and again. "We would have shot 'em...," the police officer said, and then tears rolled down his face. "Goddamn it, we couldn't save anybody..." My friend held him and we stood in the ashes and cried.

Going out, we passed the engine company that had occupied the first floor; I remembered the guys laughing and playing cards at night when I'd been back in the city to visit my friends. They were among the first responders for the South Tower. The wreckage was pasted over with plywood, on which someone had spray-painted, "Thank you. We will never forget you."

We went to a lower east side bar, my friend and I, and we drank. The whole city smell like burned ash, and there was grit in the drinks.

Here is what I remember from the first night, when I stood in the rain ourside the police lines as the wreckage steamed and burned...I remember the signs, the "Have You Seen" hand-lettered posters that covered every available surface...brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, husbands wives, children, lovers...so many faces, their names fading and running in the cold rain...nobody talked...I was standing next to a Hasidic couple who'd brought their small child; behind me was a couple in formal wear, him a tux, her a black cocktail dress...we were all soaked, but nobody left. The bulldozers were working through the night, and sometimes flares of flame roared toward the sky.

"You can feel them, you know," my friend told me. "The lost; the dead. You can feel them."

And I could, an endless scream of terror and loss...and all we could do is stand in the rain.

So now we are five years into World War III, and where are we? I wish I was more optimistic than I really am. Every day I thank those shadow warriors who I believe have kept us from another day like the one five years ago. Read this article in the National Review. These men and women fight in the dark, die in the dark...and in the end, hold back the that dark from us. They are the best of us.

Then I suggest you read novelist Martin Amis' brilliant three-part essay on The Age of Horrorism. There are things in the essay that you might not agree with or that might make you uncomfortable, but it should be read by every American and taught in the schools. Here's just a tiny bit of it:

Suicide-mass murder is astonishingly alien, so alien, in fact, that Western opinion has been unable to formulate a rational response to it. A rational response would be something like an unvarying factory siren of unanimous disgust. But we haven't managed that. What we have managed, on the whole, is a murmur of dissonant evasion. Paul Berman's best chapter, in Terror and Liberalism, is mildly entitled 'Wishful Thinking' - and Berman is in general a mild-mannered man. But this is a very tough and persistent analysis of our extraordinary uncertainty. It is impossible to read it without cold fascination and a consciousness of disgrace. I felt disgrace, during its early pages, because I had done it too, and in print, early on. Contemplating intense violence, you very rationally ask yourself, what are the reasons for this? And compassionately frowning newscasters are still asking that same question. It is time to move on. We are not dealing in reasons because we are not dealing in reason.

Not dealing in reason...perhaps the most worthless word in the English language is, "Why?" Paradoxically, it is a word we in America love over all others. That's because we believe in our hearts that if we can understand the "whys," we can find the path of first, acceptance, then change, because at their core, all people are indeed the same.

That is the tragic misconception upon which we base our future survival as a people and as a country.

Five years have passed. We cannot say enough times "thank you" to the firefighters, the police, the construction workers, the people of NYC and Washington D.C. Or to the passengers and crew of Flight 93, who showed us the way to grace. In truth, we will never forget you.

Thank you.

Drizzly Saturday Afternoon

Another long sigh...summer's over, it's drizzling rain and I've got to do a 70-mile road bike ride in the AM...

S....I....G....H......

I'm waiting on a call from a guy who is, I suspect, going to tell me how those .40 cal Glock 22s in the hands of that super secret military unit whose name we're not supposed to utter but who has their own primetime hit weekly series starring President David Palmer performed over in the Sandbox.

Or maybe he's calling to ask me how they performed — extremely well, according to the cherubs and seraphim. No word yet from President Palmer (although I could tell you how his previous series' superstar is so taken with Crimson Trace LaserGrips that his signature H-K might get left in the ole Hummer more often than not, but that would require more effort than I can summon up this rainy morning).

Anyway, all this is part and parcel of the of the collapsed SOCOM Request for Proposal...all the various entities that make up SOCOM are now hell-bent on getting some kind of new handgun. The high-speed guys will simply buy them off the shelves, because they can have what they want...those on the Gyrene side will get trick 1911s; some of the CT guys will get the Glocks; there's a scattering of SIGs in 9mm and .40 that'll be out there.

But let me be real serious for a moment here — the bureaucratic collapse of the SOCOM RFP is going to cost AMERICAN LIVES! Here's how...yeah, the operators get what they want...but there's a lot of guys out there who aren't the operators...and they're still doing the job with what they have on hand. They're the men and women driving the Humvees and the trucks, working support roles, ect. THEY are the ones who wanted a better handgun, because they're the one's who most often need what a handgun does — one-handed firepower up close and personal.

When your butt is sandwiched into a Humvee, the SHTF and one hand has to remain on the wheel so you can get the operators out, what do you want in your free hand? I submit that the answer to that question is NOT a flawed 9mm loaded with ball.

You want a .45 that goes BANG every single time, because that's what's going to get you and the people in that Humvee or truck HOME!

And now those poor bastards are not going to get that .45 because some behind-the-line clerks couldn't decide on whether the guns should be optionally available in pink with racing stripes or some other lame requirement.

It's a damn crime, and, as usual, the grunts in the field are going to pay the price!

Teaching Women to Shoot

Nice story over at InstaPundit from the InstaWife, Dr. Helen, about learning to shoot, centered on the book Women Learning to Shoot: A Guide for Law Enforcement Officers. This is the great book from Vicki Farnam and my good friend Diane Nicholl at DTI, their follow up to Teaching Women to Shoot, this time from the students' perspective:

Anyway, my point here is not to go off on a tangent on the benefits of gun rights vs. gun control, but rather to focus on the great tips in this book written by two women, Diane Nicholl & Vicki Farnam. They focus on tips for female students who are learning to shoot and label their first chapter, "Risk and Opportunity". They talk to the female student about how to manage the mental risk of shooting and use a bit of psychology to talk to a fear of success that women may have when shooting.

I found the first book fascinating and a must read for every firearms instructor. Here's the outline of the new book:

In this profusely-illustrated companion to the ground-breaking Teaching Women To Shoot: A Law Enforcement Instructor's Guide, we switch to the student's point of view - particularly the female student. The techniques we have used to help hundreds of women improve their shooting are here for you to learn.

Our new book is different because it is written for women by women. We have listened, asked questions and observed how women learn to shoot for many years. Our students include women shooting a handgun for the first time to those with many years experience in law enforcement and the military. They share many of the same problems and frustrations, so do not feel like you are the only one struggling to hit the target!

Women differ in how they learn and how readily they develop new skills. We have found women tend to learn more quickly if the material is broken into several parts and is mastered one step at a time.

At the beginning of every class, we ask our students what their shooting problems are. The most frequent complaint is their lack of consistency. Sometimes they go to the range and shoot well and other times they do poorly. They cannot explain why this happens.

They do not fully understand what they need to do to accurately hit their target and they do not know why they miss. Our book provides the information you need to learn to make consistently accurate hits and to be able to self correct if you miss.

There are many things that can help or hinder accurate shooting. You will find shooting requires you to do several things all at the same time. Women are good at multi-tasking, given the proper instruction. We break shooting down into parts, thoroughly explain each one and describe how to put them together.

I gave you the Amazon link, but speaking as an author myself, I suggest you buy the books directly from DTI!!!

"What Must They Think of Our Guns?"

Here's one you just have to read, from Byron Williams over at Huffington:

The World Must Wonder How the U.S. Can Tolerate Guns

[...]

With the current spike in urban violence it is fair question ask is there a correlation between gun availability and escalating murder rates? While I don't believe there is a magic bullet that will eradicate the increase in urban violence, imagine if America embraced the type of gun control similar to Japan.
Shotguns are the only firearms that Japanese citizens can acquire. Sportsmen are permitted to possess shotguns for hunting and for skeet and trap shooting. This however, requires a lengthy licensing procedure. In Japan a person cannot hold a gun in his or her hands without a license.

The licensing procedure is extremely thorough. A prospective gun owner must attend classes and pass a written test. After the safety exam, the applicant takes a simple 'mental test' at a local hospital, to ensure that the applicant is not suffering from a readily detectable mental illness. The applicant then produces for the police a medical certificate attesting that he or she is mentally healthy and not addicted to drugs.

Moreover, the police investigate the applicant's background and relatives, ensuring that both are crime free. Membership in 'aggressive' political or activist groups disqualifies an applicant.

The police have unlimited discretion to deny licenses to any person for whom 'there is reasonable cause to suspect may be dangerous to other persons' lives. Perhaps, most important, handguns are illegal. They also have the right to conduct random searches of individuals who already have the license.

Well, that sounds festive, random searches and all! I always like it when "membership in aggressive political or activists groups" disqualifies one from the means of protecting his or herself from the more dominate political or activists groups. Plus, I would feel so much better if the police...make that the secret police, please...have total discretion on anything that effects my life! What a wonderful plan!

No wait...is that why the Japanese kill themselves at such a staggering rate (based on the 2003 statistics, "Every day nearly 100 people take their own lives, at a rate of almost one every 15 minutes.")? Naw, they must be happy as clams!

I particularly like Bitter Bitch's — one of my favorite commentators recently — response to the article:

I’m trying some statements on for size. Let’s see how they fit:

• Unfortunately, too many members of the clergy believe the First Amendment is absolute, thus, all religions should be legal to practice.

• Unfortunately, too many members of the media believe the First Amendment is absolute, thus, all newspapers should be legal to print.

• Unfortunately, too many members of MoveOn.org believe the First Amendment is absolute, thus, all peaceful protests and rallies should be legal.

• Unfortunately, too many lawyers believe the Fourth Amendment is absolute, thus, all warrants should have probable cause.

• Unfortunately, too many members of the ACLU believe the Fifth Amendment is absolute, thus, all persons should be granted due process of law.

• Unfortunately, too many members of the Institute for Justice believe the Fifth Amendment is absolute, thus, all takings should be for true public use.

• Unfortunately, too many defendents believe the Sixth Amendment is absolute, thus, all trials should be speedy and public with and impartial jury.

• Unfortunately, too many citizens believe the Eighth Amendment is absolute, thus, all punishment should not be cruel or unusual.

Yet, I didn’t read any of those sentences. Instead, I read this one:

"Unfortunately, too many members of the National Rifle Association believe the Second Amendment is absolute, thus, all arms should be legal."

Amen, sister!

One thing that really torqued me off was Mr. Williams' "world-wide" view...how must the civilized people of the world feel about all those American guns, which back up all those American rights?

Gosh Mr. Williams, I don't know about the whole world...I've never traveled in places with five star hotels and people who sip cappucino with thier little finger sticking out. But I have traveled in scary places, ruled over by men with guns.

In one country, my friends instructed me carefully on what to do when I met a military patrol...if in the city, step off the sidewalk into a gutter, remove my hat, lower my eyes and keep my head down, and pray they didn't notice me, since the military controlled all the drug running and "disappearances" in the country; if in the countryside, stay alert and try to hide from a military patrol...otherwise, step far away from the road, keep my head down and pray twice as hard.

I wonder what those campesinas standing with me in that gutter, up to our ankles in filthy water, our eyes downcast while "the militaria" decided whether to disappear us just for the hell of it thought America with all its guns...

Or the family of farmers kneeling at gunpoint on the side of the road in the rain, waiting their turn, while the "narcopolicia," neither police nor military but, essentially, franchised thugs, finished searching me...and collecting my bribe money...

Or the disappeared from the old Russian republics, where the preferred form of execution is by boiling...

Or the girls and boys from Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim sold into sex slavery...

Or the citizens of the once-free state of England doing time for defending their lives...

Or the Muslim woman from Bosnia, a world-class runner, I interviewed once who dispassionately described how people she once considered friends and training partners tortured and repeatedly gang-raped her...or the American woman hooked up to batteries in South America...or the people of Rwanda, or Dafur, or any one of a hundred hellholes...

Or or or...

Gee Mr. Williams...how they must wonder how we tolerate those guns...and wish to god that they had them!

FLASH! New SOCOM Pistol Skewered by Bureacratic Barb to Heart?

This just popped up on the Internet, courtesy of MikeO:

General Information

Document Type: Modification to a Previous Notice
Solicitation Number: H92222-05-R-0017
Posted Date: Sep 05, 2006
Original Response Date: Nov 29, 2005
Current Response Date: Nov 29, 2005
Original Archive Date:
Current Archive Date:
Classification Code: 10 -- Weapons
Naics Code: 332994 -- Small Arms Manufacturing

Contracting Office Address

Other Defense Agencies, U.S. Special Operations Command, Headquarters Procurement Division, 7701 Tampa Point Blvd, MacDill AFB, FL, 33621-5323

Description

This notification is to inform Industry the Combat Pistol requirement is postponed indefinately. USSOCOM will no longer issue a Request for Proposal.

"Postponed indefinately?" I say it's dead...

Older Generation Goes To Hell...

From MSNBC:

The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It marks the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for that age group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Meanwhile, illicit drug use among young teens went down for the third consecutive year — from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.

C'mon kids...get with the plan!

Seig Heil!

From Resistance is Futile! Couldn't resist it...

Sorry...No New Alien T&A

You know, after a few days with cowboys and Elvis impersonators, I start wondering whether I'll ever be able to get back to Baseline Normal...whatever that is.

Maybe when Meredith Viera starts on the Today Show I'll find my way back. I looked for a sleazy picture of Ms. Viera, but even Jossip, the world's greatest site if you're obsessed with Kate Moss and Paris Hilton, drew a blank. Sigh...

In the meantime, I thought I'd hook you up with the MOST BRAINLESS NYT OP-ED EVER PUBLISHED. And, unlike the Emmys, there's a lot of real competition in this category!

What’s worse, by granting this right to individuals, the law strips the public of its right to occupy public spaces without the threat of being shot. The police are trained to handle guns. The criminals know they’re not supposed to have them but find them easy to get, thanks to the N.R.A. Let them fight it out. No one is safer if gun-carrying civilians believe their rights entitle them to pretend they’re cops.

Sometimes I think the N.R.A. isn’t really about guns at all. It’s about making certain that the public — our political and civil society, in other words — has no ability to limit the rights of an individual. That is really what the logic of the “concealed carry” and “shall require” and “shoot first” laws says.

My gray parrot Ripley has more horsepower than this cheesebox moron, which is why, of course, Ripley doesn't doesn't write for the Decrepid Gray Lady. BTW, Ripley was never taken in by all the Valarie Plame stuff, either!

And good on NSSF for hammering the Boston Globe for not giving them equal time to address the Herald's endless fawning over Blowhard Bloomberg in neighboring New York. It's 'way past time for pretending that the vast majority of the MSM is anything but a propaganda arm of the antigun movement.

Finally, this note from the Material Girl's World:

POP star Madonna has sparked fury from animal rights groups by importing 1,000 baby pheasants from France for the shooting season.

The chicks have been penned at the 1,200-acre estate in North Dorset that the singer shares with her film director husband Guy Ritchie.

According to reports in the national press, the birds will be allowed to mature with 31,000 other chicks, brought in from Wales, on Madonna's Ashcombe House estate, near Tollard Royal, in time for the arrival of the guns on October 1.

The controversial move comes just a year after the material girl, 48, vowed to quit shooting after watching a badly wounded bird she had shot die in front of her.

Turns out it was all a big misunderstanding...the lovely Madonna though she was importing peasant babies! Angelina Jolie is heartbroken!

To Borrow a Phrase from the Rolling Stones...She was Hot!

Well, I was going to show you a picture of a shotgun I was fooling around with today — a Parker A-1 Special 12 gauge displayed at the 1907 World's Fair in Chicago as the ne plus ultra of the shotgun makers' art. But then I thought, naw, you'd rather see the Star Wars T&A. Femtroopers are HOT! Read about them here in SF Gate:

"...perhaps the most celebratory development for horny Star Wars fans since Princess Leia became Jabba the Hutt's barge ho."

I will warn you guys right now...if you buy your Significant Other an authentic Femtrooper costume for Halloween, it's on you! On the other hand, if she wears it, send me the pixs.

Oh yeah, the Parker was real nice, too!

Running on Empty...

...after all day at the range filming a COWBOYS on shooting on the move with cowboy guns. Kinda cool, I think. I may do a SHOOTING GALLERY on a similar subject, to wit, using 19th Century technology to protect your 21st Century ass. I know Thunder Ranch ran a couple of cowboy self-defense classes, but none of that info really trickled into the mainstream, so I thought I might do some trickling of my own.

If I wasn't so tired — 3 AM was darned early this morning! — I'd probably opine about the unfortunate death of Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin. In truth, I never watched any of his shows...his voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but hey, in my continuing vein of honesty, if you play out there on the edges of the Known Universe, sooner or later you screw with something that screws you back. That is the Unmutable Law of Nature, which takes no prisoners and doesn't actually care whether you're a nice guy or Hannibal Lector.

If I may toss a couple of cents in from experience, each time you go out there to the edges of the K-U, you believe absolutely — at least, I believed absolutely — that it was a fresh throw of the dice, that the odds reset themselves to evensies for each new extreme experience. Except that they didn't, not really...with each new throw of the dice the odds shifted a little more to the House...you cut the edges a little closers, accepted margins a little finer, were just the tiniest bit slower to respond...but that was okay, because every toss of the dice was a new game, right? Odds are odds.

If you're lucky, you wake up in the middle of the night, sit right up in bed and reel from the notion that you are alive not because you are good at what you do, or faster than the average bear, or willing to train harder, or any of the myriad number of things that are under your control — although all those things may be true. Instead you realize that you are alive because the dice rolled your way a couple of times, but the game itself is rigged. You are going to lose.

Then again, I'm really tired, which makes it unlikely that I'll finish my ROBOTICS DEMYSTIFIED book tonight. Go read Austin Bay's far superior commentary on Mr. Irwin and ponder Leonard Cohen's profound words for the evening:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed...

Keeping Up With Mark Twight

Twight is one of the greatest climbers of our generation, and one hell of a shot, too. It is always worht keeping up with what he's doing...you can do that here:

I determined that -- in climbing -- it is the physical and mental difficulty combined with risk and frequent failure that causes a spiritual evolution...

BTW, got to Amazon and buy one of his books! You'll be amazed at the insights.

Sad News About Gordon Davis

This note from the current issue of SHOOT! Magazine about Gordon Davis, one of the greatest holstermaker ever:

Gordon has been struggling with diabetes...Unfortunately, Gordon's condition has recently become much worse. He is almst blind; he has only one eye working and cataracts in [that eye]. He had to give up his tools and shed to pay for his back rent; he can't stand up and work anymore and is hoping to get Social Security. He now has no means of income and is on state medical disability...

I can't really do justice with how influential Gordon Davis has been in sport shooting. He's one of the original Wild Bunch, the founders of cowboy action shooting. There's the classic story of Gordie calling me up in the early 1980s, all excited about "shooting IPSC with cowboy guns." I listened to him describing how he and Harper Creigh — who would become SASS #1, Judge Roy Bean — were shooting old Colts and Winchesters off horses made of barrels, etc.

"What do you think?" Gordie asked me. I, commited "combat shooter" and Jeff Cooper disciple that I was, told him that was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard. "Good lord, Gordon," I said, "what are you smoking out there in California?" Years later Harper would ask me if I had any real estate or stock tips for him, since I'd done such a good job in "predicting" the rise of cowboy action shooting; the Judge still carries his internationally famous ivory-handled Colt SAAs in a spectacular Gordon Davis cowboy rig.

Before SASS, Gordon Davis, along with Milt Sparks, practically defined the modern carry holster. Gordon quickly realized that the fledgling sport of IPSC represented an incredible holster lab, and his rigs were quickly in heavy demand. Here's an AMERICAN HANDGUNNER profile from 2001.

I still have and use a Davis "Chuck Taylor Special," my first comeptition holster for a 1911.

SHOOT! is raffling off a custom Cimarron single action and what may be the last Gordon Davis rig. You can get details at the SHOOT! site or at (800) 342-0904. Tickets are $10 apiece.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing, but keep watching the blog...Gordon deserves our help!

SHOOTING GALLERY Site DOWN!

Strictly temporary while we move to a new server!

Sorry for the inconvenience!!!

U.N. Denies Self-Defense is a Human Right!

Well, there's a surprise! Everybody should read this paper:

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Fifty-eighth session
Item 6 of the provisional agenda
SPECIFIC HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES
Prevention of human rights violations committed with small arms and light weapons

Final report submitted by Barbara Frey, Special Rapporteur,
in accordance with Sub-Commission resolution 2002/25**

[...]

A. Self-defence as an exemption to criminal responsibility, not a human right
20. Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes designated as a “right”. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another.

21. No international human right of self-defence is expressly set forth in the primary sources of international law: treaties, customary law, or general principles. While the right to life is recognized in virtually every major international human rights treaty, the principle of self-defence is expressly recognized in only one, the Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), article 2.15 Self-defence, however, is not recognized as a right in the European Convention on Human Rights. According to one commentator, “The function of this provision is simply to remove from the scope of application of article 2 (1) killings necessary to defend against unlawful violence. It does not provide a right that must be secured by the State”.16

This should make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside about the wonderful "One World" that's coming up! Remember, don't pester the men with machetes when they come for you! And please, step quietly and orderly onto the railroad cars for the trip north; you'll just love the scenery!

Read Arms & the Law's excellent commentary.