The New Baby!

This is my new baby:


I believe it is destined to become the Bedside Blaster of Choice, the ideal handy device to allow one to reach one's battle rifle in the closet. Brother Hans Vang swears he can do a full Vang Comp job on the barrel, although I wonder if this is a vicious case of overkill. Hans tells me a bunch of Federales have his system on their witness protection guns to tighten up the patterns. Are we looking at the future of sporting clays?

Full video report coming up soon, and I'm going to get this monster on the next season of SHOOTING GALLERY, too.

Meanwhile, our aforementioned friend, Larry Correia, has a great post over on his Monster Hunter Nation site on why "one-shot stop" stats are a load of rhino hooey:

...since gun fights by their nature are fluid, dynamic, and always suck, we can also assume that they’re going to be different. To illustrate:

Shooting 1: Subject is 105 pounds, soaking wet. Pacifist. Faints at the sight of his own blood. His book club calls him “Todd.” Has never been in a violent encounter in his entire life. Plays Barbara Streisand records to get “charged up”. Gets shot in the abdomen with a Brand X .32. Bullet lodges in the belly button. Barely breaks skin. Subject faints because of loud noise. .32 Brand X = 100% stopper.

Shooting 2: Subject is 310 pounds of prison hardened muscle. Has a spider web tattooed over his whole face, and his friends call him “Death Train”. Subject 2 is high on coke, crack, meth, elephant tranquilizers, No-Doze, and Cherry Pepsi. While robbing a bank during a tri-state killing spree, Subject 2 engages in a running gun fight with police and is shot through the lung with a Brand Y .45. Subject 2 then carjacks a busload of handicapped nuns to escape. Later has friend who flunked out of Vet School remove the bullet with a pair of barbeque tongs. Subject 2 then goes to 50 Cent concert. Brand Y .45 = 0% stopper.

So from this illustration, you are far better off carrying the Brand X .32 than the Brand Y .45.

Larry has a way with words, doesn't he? Still, you'd be amazed at the number of questions I get about teeny tiny "stopping power" differences. My response is always the same...shot placement...then shoot the bad person/s until he/she/it/them stop doing whatever it was that made you shoot in the first place.

And while we're on the stopping power debate, here are photos and video of Dave Barry blowing up a low-flow toilet. I', afraid I came about a day late to this party, but as a guy I appreciate any exploding bathroom fixtures.

The secret seems to be to fill the toilet up with gasoline before taking a pot shot (HA!) at it...at present gasoline prices, this was, like a $250 explosion.

I also note that David Petzal over on the Gun Nut blog is starting to sound every bit as weird as the rest of us. He was recently musing about a series of Haillary Clinton shooting schools in case her present gig doesn't work out:

The trick to creating a successful franchise is to come up with something unique, and I have been contracted to provide ideas that would set these schools apart. Here are my ideas:

*All attendees will be flown in by C-47, which will make a corkscrew landing at the school airport.

*To create a realistic environment, recordings of imaginary sniper fire will be played at all times.

*All attendees will wear pantsuits.

*All attendees will run (or waddle, as the case may be) between classes to avoid imaginary sniper fire.

*When not actually engaged in classes, attendees will play pinochle.


*Attendees who are selected to shoot first in any class are entitled to whine about it.

*Female attendees whose husbands exhibit signs of incipient mental illness are entitled to a 20 percent discount.

Hey, I'm signing up! If you win the student shoot-off, do you get Chelsea?

Aim For the Head!

Happy Walpurgis Night!

Yes, it's that time of year again, the great witches' sabbat, when Satan Hisself will rise and dance with his minions in the spooky mountains of Eastern Europe. Throughout the world the Undead will stir — vamps, were-things, zombies, wights, every single beastie you read about in Monster Hunters International, Larry Correia's (a blog commenter and regular on THR) indispensible guide to dealin with the Real World.

REMEMBER...AIM FOR THE HEAD! The Undead are tougher than Hillary Clinton with 'roid rage! Then be sure to separate the head from the body — think machete, hand axe, etc. These guys regenerate faster than b-HO after a Jeremiah Wright speech!

And be sure to hang a clove of garlic on your front door. I've done this for decades and have had virtually no problems at home with the Undead.

Tomorrow is, of course, the old Celt Pagan holiday of Beltane, so hey, you survive tonight and tomorrow you can celebrate fertility!

Hot Chicks Love 1911s

Yeah yeah yeah...sexist as all get-out...so what? I'm not running for President of anything. These from the Suicide Girls website.

Hokey-Dokey Monday

You're not going to believe this, but while I was in Barry someone apparently set off a low-yield nuclear weapon in my office...at least, that's the only explanation I can think of for the mess...I would never have left it like this!

Anyway, first some big new...my old friend and COWBOYS host Richard "Tequila" Young has decided to metaphorically ride off into the sunset after six seasons of COWBOYS. He has a real job as an engineer in the petrolum industry and a real life, including wife and kids, and wisely he'd like to spend some time with them before he drops dead from overwork!

It's been a great ride, Tequila...thank you!

I'm going to wait until the press releases go out this week to tell you who the new host of COWBOYS will be...suffice to say, yes, he has a hat!

To wrap up on the Single Stacks, a wonderful time was had by all (mostly)...Rob Leatham won for the 14th time...I don't think he can actually be beaten in this match, to tell you the truth. He shoots it on cruise control while the rest of Super Squad is laboring in hyperdrive to knock TGO off. Hats off to Mr. Leatham! My favorite moment was on stages 5 & 6, where a tupical Illinois thunderstorm — just this side of Biblical — had flooded the approach to the stages. While everyne else waded through, Robbie of course just walked on the water.

Rob also had the best line at the awards ceremony as well. He got his choice of six superb custom pistols, and he chose one made by master gunsmith Dick Heinie.

"This is the fastest and easiest way to get a Heinie gun," TGO quipped. Heck, it's the only way to get a Heinie gun, except for Nighthawk. BTW, I'll have a Heinie interview on the podcast this week. We'll be talking about a lot of 1911-ish things, including hte Nighthawk guns.

For me, the greatest thing about the match was touching bases with so many old, and new, friends...I especially enjoyed meeting those of you wqho regularly comment on the blog as well as visit DRTV...THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I appreciate your thoughts on how we can make our projects better...believe me, we'll be cycling those ideas into implementable stuff...

I'd also like to say that I need to shoot more matches all the way through, not just so I get better — although, hey, who can argue? — but for all the reasons I tell other people to compete...enhanced gun handling skills, the internalization of shooting skills, jam-clearing under pressure, simply the ability to deliver the shot under pressure.

My next shooting event where I'll actually be shooting a match will be the first cowboy Wild Bunch match — 1911s, WWI trench shotguns, and major caliber lever guns — the weekend of June 14/15 at the End of Trail celebration and World Championships. I'll bring a bayonet for the trench gun in case everything goes to hell.

And lest we forget that the war goes on and on, here's my favorite stupid media comment, from the Chicago Tribune news blog, under the title "Anti-gun folk rather quiet":

Monitoring the feisty and zesty comment boards at Change of Subject these last two weeks has reminded me of something I became aware of in the mid-1990s, when I wrote rather often on the subject of firearms policy:

Gun-control advocates are weak. Whether they're badly outnumbered by gun-rights advocates, lazier than gun-rights advocates or simply don't have the statistical or philosophical ammunition to keep up with gun-rights advocates I'm not totally sure.

But the undeniable truth is that, whenever this subject bobs to the surface of the news pond, as it has lately, those who favor tough new laws to restrict access to guns prove to be no match for their passionate foes in the rumble-tumble of online debate.

"Gun-control backers: Where are you?" I pleaded in a headline last week.

Cue the sound of crickets.

By all means, cue the sound of crickets...could it be that the much ballyhooed "antigun movement" was never more than the media and a few strident voices in various urban cesspools? Whoops!

Michael Sucks Big Time!

Just a quick note to say that I have managed to shoot the very worst pistol match of my life at the Single Stack Classic/USPSA Single Stack Nationals...good lord, there were stages where I couldn't hit the ground! I may have managed to shoot myself into FLP (Frackin' Last Place...which I heartily deserve).

I wish I could think of a viable excuse, but my problem was that I insisted on pulling the trigger when the sights weren't on target. That is, when I wasn't snatching the trigger...

Well hell, still had a good time! The match was excellent...I was on a squad with USPSA Executive Director Dave Thomas and former USPSA President Dave Stanford, whom I worked for back in the Old Days, and John Amidon, head of the National Range Officer Institute. 

We all went to dinner tonight along with Andy Hollar, who was USPSA Prez after Dave Stanford and exchanged lies and assorted bullshit...good times!

Be sure to watch DRTV for my full video report, which will NOT feature a single one of my miserable stages!!!

MOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Presented without comment:

MOORESTOWN (CBS 3) ― More charges have been filed against a Burlington County police officer who was recently charged with sexually assaulting three girls.

Authorities announced Moorestown Officer Robert Melia Jr., 38, has been charged with four counts of animal cruelty after allegedly engaging in sex acts with cows between June and December of 2006.

Melia and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis were previously charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of criminal sexual contact with three girls in his Pemberton home from 2003 until 2006.

Melia is being held on $510,000 bail.

Oh god, could I say he's an udder failure????

There's a Ball of Fire in the Sky...

...which was the title of a truly wretched song from Tommy James and the Shondells. But more importantly, yes, there are balls of fire in the sky, over Phoenix and Florida, causing residents to, well, do nothing.

Don't worry...I have a theory! Well, two theories, actually. The first is that the Benevolent Alien Overloads have simply gotten disgusted with the Democratic primary mud-wrestle and have decided to finally make themselves known in the hope of making everyone SHUT THE FRACK UP!

My second and perhaps less likely theory is that the lights are the first signs of the Libertarian Convergence, as predicted in the Mayan Calendar — hey, isn't everything? Anyhow, during the LC a giant black monolith will appear just outside of Intercourse, PA, and simultaneous across the world (in a bizarre recapitulation on the Christian concept of "rapture") liberals will begin exploding, leaving only small greasy spots and an unpleasant odor. Man, would I like to be in Hollywood, or on the set of the Today Show, when the LC hits! It'll look like a string of cheap Chinese firecrackers going off.

Oops...is "cheap Chinese firecrackers" insensitive? Never mind...I'm going to the range to wait for the Benevolent Alien Overlords...I'll bring the cookies and milk...

More Media Funnies!

First, from Lady MacBeth's desperate campaign in PA, from the Politico Blog:

Clinton has her own harsh gun robocall out, painting Obama as the anti-gun liberal that most people thought both of them were until sometime earlier this month:

"Hello, this is Hillary Clinton for president calling. Barack Obama is not telling the truth about his past position on the Second Amendment.

As an Illinois state Senator, he supported a ban on all handguns, and he even personally filled out a questionnaire saying he supported the ban. Now instead of telling you the truth about that, he's trying to cover it up, saying he never saw the questionnaire -- even though his handwriting was on it.

And Obama voted to give millions of dollars to anti-gun organizations that are trying to take away our gun rights.

This is just another example of Barack Obama saying one thing, and doing another -- and yet another issue John McCain will use against Obama to win in November."

These guys are just great, aren't they? Both of them would like to march every one of us who owns a gun into "re-education camps" or just shoot us down in the street...but they want our votes! I say, vote for Lady MacBeth as the Least Electable Demo-Liar! BTW, I saw this next item over at Say Uncle, and it just cracked me up. It's a correction published in the New York Red Star, er, Times about one of their typical, slanted antigun stories:

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 18, 2008
Because of an editing error, an article on Tuesday about efforts by state lawmakers across the country to pass new restrictions on guns referred imprecisely to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. While it supports some firearms restrictions and enforcement of legal regulations on gun ownership, it is not an “antigun group.”

HELLO IN THERE! As Uncle noted, some idiot editor at the Times wrote this with a straight face... here's a helpful hint for NYT editors: It is perfectly truthful, acceptable and appropriate to refer the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence as "antigun swine," "lying antigun weasels," or, simply, "liars."

Bren Ten Rises from the Grave!

Okay, I don't know how I missed this at the SHOT Show, except for the fact that I was always running around like a crazy person, but Sonny Crockett's MIAMI VICE uber-gun, the Bren Ten, appears to be rising from the grave in the form of the Fortis, from Vltor Weapons Systems.

Here's the early March press release info:

Due to the overwhelming and positive response to the Fortis Pistol Project, we would like to address some of the questions, comments and concerns that we received from the 2008 Shot Show.

First and foremost, the Fortis Pistol is neither a concept nor a "market study"; we are moving forward with the Fortis. As many people saw at the show, we have finished a great deal of the design work and are evaluating prototype design models now. We are taking every possible step to ensure that the Fortis will incorporate the absolute best materials and manufacture technique available.

As part of a leading aerospace manufacturer, Vltor is able to use state of the art computer simulations for design testing, stress analysis, and geometric dimension and tolerance testing; furthermore, the Fortis will undergo extensive range testing and evaluation, to ensure that the final release product is worthy of the place it will take in the handgun world.

We are not yet ready to commit to a release date for the Fortis. We have learned from others in the industry that announcing a release date this early most often leads to one of two things: The release date is missed, causing discouragement and anxiety in buyers, or the product becomes a "rush job" to meet the release date. We will avoid the old axiom that there is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over and take the time to ensure that the Fortis is done right the first time. With that said, we expect that the first release of the Fortis will be around the end of the year.

As for the estimated price of the Fortis, this can set the same type of trap as guessing a release date - or goal is to bring the base level Fortis to the market, at a price that is competitive with a mid-level 1911 style pistol.

The First release of the Fortis is being developed in both 10mm Auto and .45ACP, there will be other calibers available in the future. Also, while identical in appearance and feel, the first release will not be a 100% reproduction of the original Bren-Ten pistol; there are design modifications to improve the strength, safety and reliability of the pistol. It is too early to say what parts will be interchangeable between the Fortis and the original Bren-Ten.

There's a Fortis blog that hasn't been updated since the March 8 release. I talked to David Crane over at DefenseReview.com, who has all the original skivvy, and he says the project is percolating along (with some other cool stuff from Vltor as well) for what David expcts will be a post-SHOT 2009 release to the public.

As you all know, I'm one of the few...the proud...the stoopid...who lost a $250 deposit on the Bren Ten of My Dreams when Dornaus and Dixon tanked back in the 1980s. I'd shot a Brent-Ten a friend (with a lot of money and connections, and even he only had one magazine) ended up with and was just crazy for the gun, since I'd bootlegged a CZ-75 9mm out of Canada.

I've since shot Col. Cooper's personal Bren-Ten, and with the hot Norma 10mm it was snappy, snappy, snappy...that bore axis sits way up there! Still, give me a reason and I'm 'way good to go with a new one. C'mon, admit it...plastic pistols don't necessarily do it for you, do they? You want heft, 10mm firepower and a compete set of pastel t-shirts!

Monday Rants

This is the Para ad that's running in the current AMERICAN RIFLEMAN...I kinda liked it so I got a copy to put up here. We're going to try and put up a ringing phone version on DRTV!

So it's nut-cuttin' time for Lady MacBeth, and of course I wish her the very best. In fact, I hope she sweeps Pennsylvania so she and b-HO can continue flaying each other alive until the Democratic Convention this August in Denver, which I sincerely hope will devolve into some hellish celebrity death match tearing the Democratic Party apart...q'uell partee!

Here's a little tidbit on that from the NY Daily News:

Hillary Clinton quit?

You'd have a better chance getting Bill Clinton to shut up.

But the argument for Clinton to pull the plug on her campaign is not hard to make.
She trails Barack Obama in all categories. There are only 10 contests left, and most look to be tough for Clinton.

In fact, many Democrats think her odds of winning are so slim that all she's doing is helping John McCain.

Those clever Dems! You can't slip anything by them!

BTW, for those of you in PA who have any illusions, here's a wrap-up of b-HO's antigun roots...you've read them all before, but take a moment to remember that this man is the single most antigun candidate to ever run for major office. Read this other interesting piece by the John Fund in the WSJ:

But Mr. Obama, who sports the most liberal voting record of any senator according to the nonpartisan National Journal, has avoided much criticism of that record by implying that any conventional critique of his issue positions represent the tired politics of the past. If he had his way, questions about character and questions about issues would be off-limits.
[...]
Mr. Obama has said he wants to be judged and treated as any other candidate would be. The hostile establishment-media reaction to ABC's debate shows that he has not been. The presidency is too important to allow that kind of blinkered mentality to govern the rest of this year's election coverage. Bravo to ABC for finally asking a lot of questions many Americans have been talking about.

The great thing about Lady MacBeth is that she doesn't actually believe in anything except garnering power...if her pollsters told her that she could guarantee winning the Presidency by auctioning off Chelsea, there'd be an eBay site up within the hour...of course, you'd have to pull the Ex-First Daughter off the gay bar circuit...this from MSNBC:

PHILADELPHIA -- Chelsea Clinton stopped traffic Friday night as she wandered the streets of Philadelphia on a gay bar crawl, winning rave reviews for both her politics and her appearance.

Led around the neighborhood by Gov. Ed Rendell, Chelsea was mobbed by local gays and lesbians, as she walked from one club to the next. They ran up to hug her, posed for pictures and certainly invaded her personal space.

“I grabbed her ass,” one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter.

Gosh...maybe Lady MacBeth already auctioned her off!

Mark Steyn on God 'n' Guns

I really liked Mark Steyn's book, "America Alone," currently under attack as "hate speech" in Canada. This article in the OC Register proves that I'm not the only one with a sarcastic take on Fun With b-HO:

Sen. Obama's remarks about poor dumb, bitter rural losers "clinging to" guns and God certainly testify to the instinctive snobbery of a big segment of the political class. But we shouldn't let it go by merely deploring coastal condescension toward the knuckledraggers. No, what Michelle Malkin calls Crackerquiddick (quite rightly – it's more than just another dreary "-gate") is not just snobbish nor even merely wrongheaded. It's an attack on two of the critical advantages the United States holds over most of the rest of the Western world. In the other G7 developed nations, nobody clings to God 'n' guns. The guns got taken away, and the Europeans gave up on churchgoing once they embraced Big Government as the new religion.

How's that working out? Compared with America, France and Germany have been more or less economically stagnant for the past quarter-century, living permanently with unemployment rates significantly higher than in the United States.
Has it made them any less "bitter," as Obama characterizes those Pennsylvanian crackers? No. In my book "America Alone," just out in paperback and available in all good bookstores – you'll find it in Borders propping up the wonky rear leg of the display table for the smash new CD "Michelle Obama And The San Francisco Macchiato Chorus Sing "I Pinned My Pink Slip To The Gun Rack Of My Pick-Up,' 'My Dog Done Died, My Wife Jus' Left Me, And Michael Dukakis Is Strangely Reluctant To Run Again,' Plus 'I Swung By The Economic Development Zone Business Park But The Only Two Occupied Rental Units Were Both Evangelical Churches' And Other Embittered Appalachian Favorites."

Where was I? Oh, yes. In my book "America Alone," I note a global survey on optimism: 61 percent of Americans were optimistic about the future, 29 percent of the French, 15 percent of Germans. Take it from a foreigner: In my experience, Americans are the least "bitter" people in the developed world. Secular, gun-free big-government Europe doesn't seem to have done anything for people's happiness. Consider by way of example the words of Keith Reade. He's not an Obama speechwriter, he's a writer for the London Daily Mirror. And the day after the 2004 presidential election he expressed his frustration in an alarmingly Obamaesque way:

"Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets. The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', nonpassport ownin' rednecks, who believe God gave America the biggest d*** in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong.'"

Well, that's certainly why I supported Bush, but I'm not sure it entirely accounts for the other 62,039,073 incontinent rednecks. Reade, though, does usefully enumerate some of the distinctive features that separate America from the rest of the West. "Self-righteous"? If you want a public culture that reeks of indestructible faith in its own righteousness, try Europe – especially when they're talking about America: If you disagree with Eutopian wisdom, you must be an idiot.

Read the whole thing!

Happiness is Indeed a Warm Gun...

...and we can prove it! This in today's WSJ OpinionJournal from Arthur C. Brooks, author of the just-published book "Gross National Happiness:"

Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small nor downtrodden group.

Nor are they "bitter." In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were "very happy," while 9% were "not too happy." Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.

In 1996, gun owners spent about 15% less of their time than nonowners feeling "outraged at something somebody had done." It's easy enough in certain precincts to caricature armed Americans as an angry and miserable fringe group. But it just isn't true. The data say that the people in the approximately 40 million American households with guns are generally happier than those people in households that don't have guns.

The gun-owning happiness gap exists on both sides of the political aisle. Gun-owning Republicans are more likely than nonowning Republicans to be very happy (46% to 37%). Democrats with guns are slightly likelier than Democrats without guns to be very happy as well (32% to 29%). Similarly, holding income constant, one still finds that gun owners are happiest.

Why are gun owners so happy? One plausible reason is a sense of self-reliance, in terms of self-defense or even in terms of the ability to hunt their own dinner.

Self-reliance? What a novel idea, especially on today, Patriots Day. I am reminded of a woman jogger I knew back in Florida, who one day went out and bought a big honking dog about the size of an old Volkswagen Beetle. She took this monster jogging with her every morning, and one day at lunch she said to me, "I finally know how it must feel to be a man...free from this nagging fear!" I told her a J-frame would have accomplished the same thing, been cheaper to feed and, as a bonus, cut down on the World Poop Accumulation.


And speaking of books, I've been off-and-on reading my friend John Taffin's "Gun Digest Book of the .44," which is, as always the case with Taffin books, thoroughly enjoyable. As I've said many times, the .44 Special/.44 Magnum are the most versatile cartridges on earth, suitable for everything from ground squirrels to velociraptors. The only problem with the book is that I see things I want really badly, and I'm trying to keep the custom gun urge under control.


Mostly now I'm refining guns I'm using. For example, the slide of the ParaUSA Carry 9 I've been "auditioning" as my next concealed carry gun, just went to Dave Biggars at XS Sights — you saw him recently on SHOOTING GALLERY — for his Big Dot Tritium/White Stripe Rear treatment. Great sight system for a carry gun and more accurate than you might think at distance. BTW, if you go to that Para link, you can see me shooting a Carry 9...a big thrill, to be sure...

I've still got to address the holster issue for the Carry 9. I've been carrying it around in whatever fits from the Giant Holster Box in the Basement, never the best option. I've got queries out to Hoffman, Lou Alessi, Blade-Tech and Ted Blocker.

I did have a WONDERFUL package come in this week...from my friend Ritch Rand, author of "The Cowboy Hat Book," at Rand's Custom Hats. As you guys know, I have this Big Jones for cowboy hats and boots...I look and look and look, but I never actually buy anything. This drives my Sweetie just plain bonkers (heck, it even drives some blog readers bonkers...I periodically get email to the effect of, "JUST BUY THE DAMN HAT AND/OR BOOTS, FOR GOD"S SAKE!"). Heck, I'm a cowboy shooter, so I even have an excuse. Ritch, who builds cowboy hats for the rich and famous, has been after me to upgrade in the hat department since he noted — rather tactfully, actually — that my off-the-rack cowboy hat, well, sucked.

So in a moment of weakness, I ordered not one, but TWO hats from Rand's, a Tom Horn style 10X beaver in charcoal gray (left), and a great looking Sporting Clays (can't shoot 'em worth a damn, but, hey, style counts!) in a natural cream color, below (in gray).

I got a twisted horsehair hand on the Tom Horn, sort of the classic, with a stampede strap. The Sporting Clays come withs a pheasant feather, which I think makes me look rather dashing...or stupid, depending on your frame of reference.


Anyhow, the superb quality of Ritch's hats just shines through...the difference between an off-the-rack hat, even a good off the rack hat like the Serratelli Broken Bow I got from Tonto Rim Trading years ago as part of a COWBOYS first season show, and a custom hat is amazing. I'm still 100% faux cowboy — ALL HAT; NO COWS — but definitely higher quality in the hat department. Thanks, Ritch!

And YES...I did the right thing and IMMEDIATELY ordered my Sweetie the Rand hat of her choice...A Quigley II in basic black...sigh...women are so conservative!

Darn! Now I've got to address that BOOT ISSUE...that should be good for about two more years of fretting!

BTW, as long as we're on fashion, there's a thread on DOWN RANGE suggesting that this jersey from Primalwear would be the ultimate bicycling togs for Yours Truly...I'm thinking they're right:
Doesn't go with the cowboy hats, though...well, maybe...

Thank Allah It's Friday!

Am home — Home to Tara! — after two weeks of bouncing around the country like a demented pinball. The fun part was that i got to shoot a lot, from exotic full auto guns like the H-K MP7, a bunch of pistols, including about half the ParaUSA line of 1911s and slick sporting clays shotguns. Of course, I arrived home to...winter! Another six inches of now, screaming winds and cold...sigh.

I really really need to get to the range to do some videos on the last quarter's guns. I especially am looking forward to shooting the Magnaport Charter Arms Bulldog .44 (here's the American Handgunner article that got me thinking about the project; I opted not to get any of the finish options). I'll be putting some rounds through it on Sunday, then I want to spend a couple of days on the range next week shooting some new guns and tuning up for the Single Stack Classic.

And speaking of worthless, scurrilous gossip, I hear certain federal agencies are going through conniption fits with their 1911s, to the point of rebarrelling all of them. Ouchies!

In the meantime, a light bit from NRO's "Hollywood correspondent:"

Just because Barry attended a church for years without noticing that its pastor was a raving anti-American racist; refuses to demean himself by wearing a flag pin on his lapel; is up to his ears in the Tony Rezko mess; and thinks you yahoos are, well, yahoos is no reason for the media to question either his morals, his beliefs, or his patriotism. Isn’t it enough for him to just say he’s addressed all those issues, and to ask the media to tackle more substantive questions, such as how he’s going to bring hope and change not only to the United States but also to our European allies, fellow leftists such as Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi?

I'd also like to drop a note to the commenters who keep talking about "Fred-heads this" and "Fred-heads that" — Fred lost, and we now have to figure out what's best for the culture.

Every single problem we had with McCain is still there, but Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, represents a profound threat to the American way of life we cherish. He is a socialist who hails from the single most crooked political hellhole in this country, Cook County, IL, where it's okay to let some political shill buy half your house. He is the most antigun politician ever to run for the top office, and he's perfectly willing to say whatever lie is necessary to get him elected. He has to be defeated, and the only choice we have to defeat him is John McCain. So grow the hell up!

And don't forget...tomorrow is 19 April, maybe the most important anniversay in all of American history...I would bet money if you asked Obama what significance that date has, he couldn't tell you, because the America he desires is not the America we believe in.

Kopel on the Dem Follies

Nice piece from Dave in the WSJ this AM:

The Democrats and Gun Control
By DAVID KOPEL
April 17, 2008; Page A19

Imagine an election race of Pat Robertson versus James Dobson, each of them appearing at organic grocery stores and Starbucks throughout Massachusetts, with each candidate insisting that he alone deserves the vote of gay-marriage advocates. An equally silly spectacle is taking place these days in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama compete for the pro-gun vote.
[...]
However, having the right to arms and the liberty to hunt is worthless if you can't buy a gun. In 1999, Mr. Obama urged enactment of a federal law prohibiting the operation of any gun store within five miles of a school or park. This would eliminate gun stores from almost the entire inhabited portion of the United States.

As a state senate candidate in 1996, Mr. Obama endorsed a complete ban on all handguns in a questionnaire. The Obama campaign has claimed he "never saw or approved the questionnaire," and that an aide filled it out incorrectly. But a few weeks ago, Politico.com found an amended version of the questionnaire. It included material added in Mr. Obama's handwriting.
[...]
Yet, as Mr. Obama has mockingly pointed out, Mrs. Clinton is not exactly a modern-day Annie Oakley wiling away weekends in a duck blind. As first lady, she helped organize the Million Mom March for "sensible gun laws" in 2000. It was led by the shrill gun prohibitionist Rosie O'Donnell.

Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly voted for antigun proposals, and co-sponsored many of them. After Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans and St. Tammany police confiscated guns from law-abiding citizens, violating an explicit Louisiana law. In some cases, the confiscation was carried out with the assistance of federal agents, and was perpetrated via warrantless break-ins into homes.

The next year, the U.S. Senate voted 84-16 for a homeland security appropriations rider stating: "None of the funds appropriated by this Act shall be used for the seizure of a firearm based on the existence of a declaration or state of emergency." Mrs. Clinton was one of the 16 who voted "no." Mr. Obama commendably voted with the majority.

b-HO Reloads; Shoots Self in Privates

This from Kathleen Parker's superb column in NRO:

Obama has expressed regret that his words might have been offensive and artfully shifted focus to Clinton’s own pandering about learning to shoot a gun as a child.

“She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton’s out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday, (like) she’s packin’ a six-shooter.”

Fair enough. Annie got her gun and Obama got his boot stuck in his mouth. But God-fearing defenders of the Second Amendment — who are in their duck blinds packing shotguns, not six-shooters — know a decoy from the real thing.

If someone quacks like an elitist, he just might be one.

Spent a lot of time on the range today lobbing .45 ACP rounds and being embittered. I'm thinking six shooters on the ole duck blind sounds pretty cool! Then John Kerry and I can get our shotguns, get down on our hands and knees and sneak up on some deer!

Super Secret Para

...I finally got a chance to handle the non-firing proto and step through the specs of the long-rumored .45 ACP polymer-framed striker-fired Para...very impressive on first blush (and no...I was specifically prohibited from taking pictures)...each iteration of plastic pistols learns something from the last...

6:00 AM call and it's the middle of the night...sheesh...more later!

Still Bouncing...

...hither and yon, which explains the light blogging.

I'm getting ready to spend the day at Para, pondering 1911s. As you all know, I have a thing for hanging around gun factories — one of the things that has made me an embittered, small town pud-knocker, unable to embrace the audacity of hope. I'm hoping they let me in the R&D rooms to see what's new (and plastic),

I'll take JPEGS! Of course there'll be videos...

PS: From our daily updates of the Lady MacBeth/b-HO Death Match, this from Philly.com:

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is to announce in West Philadelphia today a crime-fighting plan that she boldly says will halve homicide rates in cities over five years.
[...]
* To renew the ban on assault weapons and repeal the Tiahrt amendment, which restricts federal authorities from sharing gun-trace information with local law enforcement.

I guess Lady MacBeth got bored with telling the embittered DNA-challenged backwoods extras-from-Deliverance little people (a.k.a., Americans) how she loveed the sweet feel of blued steel in one palm, the Gospel in the other. Nothing new here...just a reminder that, Hillapalooza or Obamarama, whichever circus comes to town, we lose!

Steel Challenge on Shooting Gallery

Premieres April 16, 2008 at 4:00PM & 8:00 PM Eastern

http://www.downrange.tv/shootinggallery/episode102.htm

b-HO Contiues to Shoot Self in Foot; Hillary Goes native

Just when you thought the Democratic campaign couldn't get any weirder, this from Lady MacBeth's fortified underground campaign bunker somewhere in heavily armed Pennsylvania country:

Clinton Portrays Herself as a Pro-Gun Churchgoer

I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration,” she said.

She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.”

Good Lord — Who is probably increasingly fed up with this crap...I wouldn't rule out lightning bolts — have these two swine no shame at all? Was Hillary packing when the Serbs...or was it the Croats...or maybe the Klan...tried to light her up on her peace mission? Or did she start carrying heat for fear of Another Intern Blow-Out (OUCH! Did I say that outloud?)?

In case you've been sleeping in a Pakistani cave with Osama, not to be confused with Obama, here's what Lady MacBeth thought about us sad-ass, bitter, gun-tottin' peckerwoods in 1999, courtesy of the New York Red Star...er, Times...wonder if she was packing heat when she wept, wept, for more gun control?

Hillary Clinton Appeals For Gun Control Lobbying

Stepping up the Clinton Administration's campaign against gun violence, Hillary Rodham Clinton used an emotional White House ceremony today to call on Americans to press Congress to ''buck the gun lobby'' and pass several gun control measures.
[...]
Mrs. Clinton was as careful as her husband has been to say that there are many causes of violence and that parents need to take responsibility for their children's behavior. But Mrs. Clinton, who is considering running for the Senate from New York, where gun control is popular, has also been more forceful than the President in directly taking on the powerful gun lobby in the aftermath of the Littleton killings.

Meanwhile, b-HO Himself is still reeling from inadvertantly speaking his true feelings while sucking up to rich white liberals in San Francisco. — e.g., that he holds us pathetic, gun-crazy, embittered, overly religious proles in Flyover Country in the utmost comtempt.

He's spinning like that Class 5 storm in Twister, and he just keeps digging his grave deeper and deeper. The problem is, he does actually hate us. This from Michael Young at Reason Online:

While Obama is indeed engaging in spin, there is a far more disturbing aspect to his interpretation. He misses the essential nature of modern culture. People don't end up focusing on issues like the right to bear arms, gay marriage, faith-based and family-based issues, and the like, because of bitterness against Washington or a sense that they can't effect change there. People focus on these issues because modern American political culture is, effectively, about subcultures, variety, pursuing parochial aims, and shaping one's identity and personal agendas independently of the state.

What Obama implicitly regards (in both his statements) as signs of disintegration, as reflections of popular frustration, are in fact examples of a thriving culture...Yet Obama's approach betrays a very suffocating vision of the state as the be-all and end-all of political-cultural behavior. Outside the confines of the state there is no salvation, only resentment. This is nonsense, but it also partly explains why Obama is so admired among educated liberals, who still view the state as the main medium of American providence.

That's right...apparently Mister Obama is puzzled by anyone who doesn't drink the G's Kool-Aide. Even the mainstream commentary is starting to notice that we in the gun culture, disgusted by how stupid the Democrats apparently think we are, are rising up. This from Politico:

For purposes of firing up a specific constituency, Obama's "bitter" comments may ultimately be most damaging for the general in terms of what they do for gun owners and sportsmen.
[...]
Beyond his "cling to" assessment, there is also a campaign questionnaire from a '96 state Senate race where Obama indicated support for outlawing all handguns (he denies holding having held this view and his campaign says that the document was filled out by a staffer who mischaracterized the candidate's views)

And, unlike Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry, he's not a hunter and has he ever been one. It might have seem contrived, but every recent Democratic presidential nominee could talk of handling a gun and tell tales of shooting birds.

McCain hasn't always been an NRA favorite (see reform, campaign finance) but the gun rights group could have an opponent in this race who, for energizing their members, more than makes up for their preferred candidate's shortcomings.

Obviously, the Democratic race is going to be decided by who has the longer nose, but let's make no mistake about one thing: Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want with every core of their beings to take our guns, and if either is elected, they will stop at nothing to strip us of our Second Amendment rights. Believe it!

What the Obamarama REALLY Thinks of US!

From the man — and I use that term loosely — who wants to be President:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns [emphasis mine] or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Read what Jonathan Martin at Politico has to say here. Hey b-HO, we'll be clinging to those guns until they pry them from our cold dead hands, too!

Gun Mon

Cute, huh? "Gun Mon...day." Get it? Okay, never mind...I'm tired. Besides, it's Tuesday, but I'm a day behind.

I thought I might actually talk a little about, you know, guns today. I got to spend some time at the range with a suppressed H-K MP7 in 4.6 X 30 buzzgun, courtesy of Long Mountain Outfitters and Fiocchi, who makes the ammo. It shoots like, well, a .22 submachinegun might...in fact, I kept wanted to overcompensate to keep the front end from rising, except that the front end didn't rise to speak of. It just buzzed away, the H-K suppressor doing a pretty good job of keeping the sound throttled down.

The whole Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) thing is pretty interesting...a sort of sub-sub gun that fills a role between handgun and an assault weapon. The uber-PDW, of course, is the FNH P90, another little buzzgun that shoots like, well, another .22 submachinegun (and available in semiauto civilian garb).

The whole issue on the little monsters revolves around whether their specialty cartridges — the 5.7 X 28 in the P90, the 4.6 X 30 in the H-K — will deliver the mail in a law enforcement or a civilian context...these cartridges are already proven quantities in military arena. But what you need in a military arena is not necessarily what Bob SWAT Guy, or you and I need. I have mixed feelings..I've talked to end users for both cartridges who were wildly enthusiastic on the terminal ballistics....but in every case the users had access to ammunition that you and I can't have and multiple hits were involved. A dozen of either of these little guys will certainly dent your mellow.

My problem is I have a nagging sense that ballistics may be ballistics...we're talking roughly 40 grain bullets at 2200-2400 fps...hummmmm...now where have I heard those numbers before? Maybe the .22 Hornet (46 grain at 2600-2800 fps)? Not known as a definitive manstopper.Yes, we're talking trick bullet design, something I've very fond of in handgun cartridges, but still...

From a civilian standpoint, I'd have to say the jury is still out. If any of the specialty cartridges gains a bit of a widespready following, we'll see a lot of ammo development in the civilian arena...then I'll change to an ultralight plastic pistol with about a billion rounds in each magazine...I'll get it in a designer color, too!

I also put several boxes of 9mm frangible ammo through a production line Sig Sauer P250. I think I'm going to stand by my original thoughts on the pistol...it does feel a lot like the P225, a gun I'm very familiar with, in my hand. The long DA trigger is still slick — smooth, but with more stacking at the end of trigger stroke than with the protos I shot at the factory. It is not a hard trigger to get used to, though it could benefit hugely from a shorter reset...for revolver shooters, that long DA stroke is baseline normal. As I said, I've heard mucho rumors that the 25os are not flying off the shelves, probably a function of the viciously competitive plastic pistol market that I guarantee will get even more competitive as we move through this election year.

bHo's Gun Dance

Interesting article from Robert Novak on "Obama's Gun Dance:"

Barack Obama, who informs campaign audiences that he taught constitutional law for 10 years, might be expected to weigh in on the historic Second Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices are pondering whether the 1976 District of Columbia law effectively prohibiting personal gun ownership in the nation's capital is constitutional. But Sen. Obama has not stated his position.

Obama, disagreeing with the D.C. government and gun control advocates, declares the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear arms" applies to individuals, not just the "well-regulated militia" cited in the amendment. In the next breath, he asserts this constitutional guarantee does not preclude local "common sense" restrictions on firearms. Does the Draconian prohibition for Washington, D.C., fit that description? My attempts to get an answer have proved unavailing. The front-running Democratic presidential candidate is doing the gun dance.

Charlton Heston on Guns

Charlton Heston, 1923-2008

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

— Man of La Mancha

Rest in Valhalla, Mr. Heston.

Interesting NYT Piece on Survivalism

In the Fashion & Style Section, no less:

THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.

It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.

Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.

More on BHusseinO's Views on Guns

A little more on what BHusseinO has planned for us should he win the Presidency. This from Bob Owens at Pajamas Media:

As noted in a previous article for Pajamas Media from February 22, Obama said in the 1998 Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test that he favored a ban on the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons. Semi-automatic weapons are those firearms that are self-loading. They fire once per trigger pull, and use the energy generated by the firing cartridge to eject the empty casing and load the next round. They are not to be confused with fully-automatic weapons — most commonly called machine guns — used by the military and some elite police units, which will fire for as long as the trigger is depressed and the firearm has ammunition.

The semi-automatic firearms Barack Obama would like to see banned include rifles and shotguns commonly used for defense, hunting, and many forms of target shooting. This counters his campaign web site, where Obama claims to respect the Second Amendment. Cleverly worded as befitting a lawyer, Obama’s one-paragraph statement says he respects the rights of hunters. The right of using a firearm in self-defense or the defense of others appears nowhere in his statement.

Obama's Cindy Lauper Moment on Guns

But I see your true colors
shining through...
— Cindy Lauper
"True Colors"

Well, someone finally got Barack — what was that middle name again? — Obama to actually comment on guns...I guess his minders were out to lunch, or maybe out scouring the local Pennsylvania bookstores for a copy of Das Kapital so the candidate can refresh his economic positions.. You're probably not going to be surprised at his gun positions, either. This from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this week, through Alphecca:

Candidates' gun control positions may figure in Pa. vote

Clinton and Obama favor some kind of ban on assault weapons, something McCain opposes.

"I ... think we should reinstate the assault weapons ban (that expired in 2004) in order to give our police officers a fighting chance against the criminals on the street with these military-style assault weapons," Clinton said Tuesday.

All three candidates oppose creating a national handgun registry.

Rather than create a national registry, "I do think we have to do a better job sharing information between local and federal officials," Obama said yesterday. He differs with McCain and Clinton about whether people should be allowed to carry concealed guns. Clinton and McCain oppose outlawing it.

"I am not in favor of concealed weapons," Obama said. "I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations."

What a moron, but what can you expect from Richie Rich from Chicago...no guns, but "friends" who'll buyt half your house!

LIVE BLOG EVENT!

FRIDAY

9:00 PM EDT

WWW.DOWNRANGE.TV!!!

This'll be Big Fun...really!

Had a great filming day today...I think you'll like the show on lasers...I wanted to focus on techniques where lasers worked. This is the first time I've worked with Wes Doss of Khyber Interactive Associates and Crimson Trace's training division. Excellent instructor! he's running the 1-inch to 100 yard training seminars in May in Nevada...check out their list of seminars!

BTW, a bunch of us ran a lot of rounds through the Ruger LCP .380...everybody was blown away by the little gun.

BTWBTW, I chose to shoot a Glock 19 today...I hope that doesn't mean I'm going to hell!

Sorry for Light Blogging!

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Memo to Jeremiah Wright...