Cool USPSA Production Poster!

My pal Paul Erhardt cooked this up for USPSA Production Division. Dealers can pick up a FREE copy from the USPSA booth at SHOT...we'll be giving some away on DRTV, assuming we survive SHOT...

Revving Up DRTV for SHOT

Okay! Marshal has crafted a masterful plan for SHOT uploads. He's created a special blog page on DRTV that will go live on Friday. Rather than multiple post all over the place (like I did last year on the proof of concept run), we'll post all our SHOT material...print, JPEGs, audio and video...on that blog.

I'll of course link to the SHOT BLOG off the Michael Bane Blog.

How to Get Found

There's a cool GPS locator for people skating along the edge of the world now available, and at a reasonable price.

The little gadget is called SPOT, which can track your movements through a constant link to the sats. It's not a telephone. Rather it's got three buttons — OK, HELP and 911.

When you push OK, your family (or whomever you designate) is notified that you're okay; hit HELP, and your designees are nitified that you might need a pick-up; 911 alerts rescuers and gives them your GPS coordinates. The box is $170, with $99 for a year's subscription to the service. I've spent a lot of time way off the grid, and a bix like SPOT would have offered a certain peace of mind. I especially like the fact that the 911 button can send the GPS coordinates...rescuers are very special people...they're putting their lives on the line for you, Anything that makes their jobs easier and safer is, by definition, a good thing. The new product has already resulted in five "saves."

Interestingly enough, the company is headed by an old friend of mine, Dave Biggs, whom I worked with at the world-class consulting firm R.D. Garwood. I also worked with Dave on his book on designing new products in a world-class environment. Obviously, Dave know what he writes about!

Bitter Kicks Butt!

My good friend Bitter Bitch is kicking some John Edwards butt over on her blog, in response to the Edwards campaign to answer "non-partisan" questions about the Senator's real feelings on guns:

Countertop noted that the “rural liaison” of the John Edwards campaign is answering questions from gun owners over at Field & Stream. This guy just happens to be “Mudcat” Saunders, a Virginia Democratic organizer with a history of sexist and negative rhetoric about gun owners. The campaigns usually just defend him as being “colorful” and ask that he be ignored by anyone other than rural white men, even as they hire him as their spokesman.

I understand the desire of a campaign, especially for someone like Edwards, to try and hire “real” people to counter his very preppy and almost fake image that gives some people the creeps. However, I do find that who they choose to represent gun owners can be very telling in how they view what the gun culture should be. That doesn’t mean I write someone off because they are mostly just a hunter, but when they start proudly spouting off rhetoric that would turn off most non-rural gun owners, I’m concerned since I’m a non-rural gun owner.

So, in an effort to participate in the Democratic primary, I submitted a question to the blog asking Mr. Saunders to address these concerns:

My question is geared for Mr. Saunders and his previous statements regarding voters who own guns, and if the attitudes reflected in those statements reflect the views of Mr. Edwards as well.

While working for a Virginia campaign in 2005, Mr. Saunders publicly referred the gun owner voters as “Bubba.” While he officially represents the Edwards campaign now, I am curious to know how that attitude reflective of sexism and negative stereotypes has either been incorporated into the campaign or if Edwards has distanced himself from such statements.

When I called to lodge a complaint with the previous campaign that issued such statements from Mr. Saunders, I was told that he was simply colorful, so I would like to know if Edwards takes the same position on such negative rhetoric.

As a gun owning graduate of one of the top women’s colleges in the country who has spent years doing outreach to other women on gun safety and the shooting sports, I found this term and the rhetoric of the statements highly offensive. It actually made me reconsider my support for the candidate because of my concern.

Lest anyone think I am simply a reactionary uppity female from New England, I am actually from a very rural Southern upbringing, grew up fishing, and have taken steps recently to get into hunting. I am one of many changing the face of gun ownership and sportsmen/women, and I’d like to know if the Edwards campaign is embracing this progression in gun ownership or if the candidate stands by such stereotypes as the “Bubba” vote.

Read the whole thing...good job, Bitter!

Light Blogging Alert!

This is the week leading up to the SHOT SHOW in Vegas, and I'll be busy as Bill Clinton at a girls' school graduation! Don't expect a huge amount of blogging this week. The DRTV plan at SHOT is to get as much information up as quickly as we can...allegedly, we have access to a T-1 commercial pipe, plus whatever setup we can get going at the hotels.

We'll be running two video crews on the floor — one with me and/or Marshal Halloway; the other with the Marshal-ette — Teresa — and veteran SG & COWBOYS videographer Mark Jury. We also have digital still photography capabilities in case the pipelines aren't wide enough to move as much video as we'd like. I plan to do several — the initial plan is for one each day of the four-day SHOW (Saturday-Tuesday) — podcasts on the new products, trends and other things that catch my attention.

We also know that, as Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke said, "No operation plan extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main body of the enemy." We'll adapt and overcome!

I will be signing autographs at the OUTDOOR CHANNEL booth in the Gold Hall a week from Sunday at 11 AM...I'll also be in and out of the OC booth many times a day, so you can leave me messages there. I'd love to meet and thank as many of you as I can!

Rocky Mountain High

Thought you guys might like to see this Rocky Mountain News special feature on the old Caribou Studios here in the little town I live in. When I used to pal around with country singer Eddie Rabbitt, he used to wax poetic about the "little piece of paradise" in the Rockies where he wrote many of his number one songs...world is damn small:

Some of the greatest names in rock history -- John Lennon, Elton John, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, U2, Chicago, Joe Walsh -- recorded at the Caribou Ranch. The brainchild of frustrated record producer Jim Guercio, the ranch, just outside Nederland, grew to a legendary outpost in the music world with its own distinctive sound.

Stories abound from the studio's heyday, when it was constantly booked with the biggest names in music. A space heater fire ended an astonishing era at Caribou Ranch.

Now Guercio has swung the ranch's gates open for the first time since the fire to tell the story of the legendary studio that got its start after a missed flight.

Whenever he's in Colorado, Robert Plant hangs out at the Pioneer Inn...me, I prefer the microbrewery across the street. I will say, however, that the bar at the PI in the dead of winter, say late March, may be one of the weirdest places in the Known Universe...think bar scene in Star Wars

"Make Ya Famous..."

This is the finished version of my gen-u-wine felted Wild West bowler hat...the vest is also a felted original from You Know Who...

If (or should I say "If'n...?") it's good enough for Bat Masterson, it's certainly good enough for me...

...and before you ask, the gun's a 1956-vintage Ruger Blackhawk .357 rebuilt by Dave Clements for accuracy, and, no, you can't have it!

Well Hell...

I've been working like a crazy person all week, and every night I have nightmares about the SHOT SHOW and not being able to get everything done.

We just hired veteran videographer/lunatic Mark "I'm the NRA" Jury full-time for DRTV at SHOT, adding yet another video team for us on the floor. Mark worked with us for several years on SHOOTING GALLERY and COWBOYS, as well as last year at SHOT when Marshal and I launched DRTV.

The Para 1000 Round Challenge videos with Todd Jarrett, currently on DRTV, has gone viral...we're getting responses now from all over the world, and DRTV has set another visitor record. And so we ride the tiger! Next week going into SHOT we've got my "everythigng you ever wanted to know about red dot sights" show.

We will also have some SURPRISES the first day of SHOT on DRTV!

Did you expect anything less?

No pixs of the Sweetie allowed! She is as intensely private as I am public...when we first started going together, she, as an attorney, negotiated a settlement whereby she would not appear in any of my magazine articles, books (non-fiction and fiction) or anywhere on the Internet, with a later coda that added broadcast television and radio to the list.

Funny story...a mystery novelist friend of mine called on the home line one night when I was out of town. My friend, who had never met my Sweetie, said that through my novel, ALL NIGHT RADIO — which features a very smart woman protagonist who used to be an attorney — and the advance work on the sequel he'd vetted, my friend felt like he knew my Sweetie.

"That's not me!" my Sweetie exclaimed. "It's Michael...all Michael's characters are Michael! I am not in his books!"

Well, there you have it, from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Our Enemies Celebrate THE BUSH SELL-OUT

This from the Huffington Post; of course, we're all familiar with Mr. Helmke, the man who makes Norwegian rats look good!

More evidence emerged this month that the gun debate is turning a corner in America.

Only days after signing the first gun control legislation in over a decade, the Bush Administration has now disavowed the most extreme outcomes implicit in the gun lobby's view of the Second Amendment.

In its brief in the D.C. v. Heller case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bush administration acknowledges that because of the "unquestionable threat to public safety that unrestricted private firearm possession would entail" that "various categories of firearm-related regulation are permitted by the Second Amendment."

The Brady Center welcomes this surprising development. It demonstrates the problem with the "private purpose" interpretation of the Second Amendment. This view might have sounded good politically to the Ashcroft Justice Department [pdf], but now the Bush administration realizes that the lower-court decision could "cast doubt on the constitutionality of" common-sense gun control laws like the "federal machine gun ban," the restrictions on firearm possession by felons, and the licensing of gun dealers.

May George Bush find his true place in history, with the other quisling scoundrels, carpetbaggers and traitors.

Genuine Southern Biscuits

So I got up bright and earlier this morning and makde my Sweetie genuine Southern buttermilk biscuits, interestingly enough using one of Alton Brown's recipes rather than my grandmother's recipe. Sorry, Big Mama, wherever you are...I didn't have any lard.

I did modify the recipe somewhat, but I won't tell you how or why! This is a gun column, after all.

I have to decide where to go from here on politics...I know I've said I'm going to stay home, but I'm probably incapable of that. At this point, I'm thinking of who might actually be able to beat the Dems...

Thank You, Senator, for Standing Up!

Fred's out. Of course, you read it here on the blog yesterday beofre you heard it anywhere else.

Here's part of his statement:

Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.

Thank you, Senator...you would have been one hell of a President.

From the Inspirational Posters Thread...

...on DRTV...

New Hat!

My Sweetie knitted me this new hat...no, it's not too big! It's going to be a felted bowler, a la the creme de societe in, say, 1882. It shrinks when it's felted, which has nothing to do with being chewed on by Native American women and/or yaks. Of course, my head could get bigger!

Is Tomorrow the End of the Road...

...for Fred?

I'm hearing rumors from very deep but highly placed source that tomorrow may be the day Fred Thompson ends his campaign for the President.

Sigh. We've heard that before, but after Fred's less-than-stellar finish in South Carolina it's hard to imagine how the campaign can go on.

If that's indeed he case, where do we go from there? I think the outlines of the answer to that question can be found in this excellent article, essentially a post-mortem, from Bob Krumm:

Even without a win, Fred’s presence was important to this contest. Before this summer the GOP contest pitted the social conservative, the fiscal conservative, and the military conservative against each other. Fred entered the race and effectively told Republican voters, that they didn’t have to settle for just one. Since his entry, rhetorically at least, the other candidates have echoed his across-the-board conservatism.

Fred’s loss doesn’t mean that he will no longer be a significant part of what happens in Minneapolis. In a divided field his delegates may make a difference; that’s why I’m voting for him in the Tennessee primary in two weeks. And Fred will almost certainly be on the short list of potential running mates no matter which of the remaining candidates is the nominee. Still, “What might have been?” is what millions of Americans wondered as they learned the results of South Carolina’s primary.

Military Prepares for Democratic Takeover

These pixs are all over the Internet, but they're pretty darn funny...and close to home!

Presented Without Comment

From IowaHawk

Service Pistol Sweepstakes Gets Sweepier as STI Weighs In

Damn! We're all going to have to get new gun safes just to accompdate the flood of new polymer-framed service pistols that look to be showing up at SHOT 2008!

STI International, long a dominant player in the modular-framed 1911 style pistol market — they OWN competition shooting! — just popped their plastic 9mm, the GP6. Here are the initial specs:

Built on a light weight, highly durable polymer (Polyamide GF 30) frame, the GP6 incorporates integrated tactical rails and textured side panels, front and rear straps. The GP6’s all steel slide is tri-topped with front and rear cocking serrations and features a fixed 3 dot sight system. The controls consist of ambi-thumb safeties, an ambi–slide release, firing pin safety, and a user configurable magazine release for equal ease of use in either right or left handed configuration. The barrel is 4.25” in length featuring an innovative rotational lock up system. Long term durability testing units have fired more than 110,000 shots without any change in internal geometry. The GP6 comes standard with a storage case, 2 magazines, and sight keys.

Looks kinda Walther-esque to me...I'm trying to lay my hands on one as quickly as possible, the month before SHOT is always a dicey time. Mo' as it becomes available...am still waiting on at least one more plastic gun, whihc may or may not make it for SHOT...

THE SELL-OUT...MSM Finally Notices

From this morning's WASHINGTON POST:

The Bush administration's position in the case before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the District of Columbia's ban on handguns has created an unexpected and serious backlash in conservative circles, disappointing gun enthusiasts and creating implications for the presidential campaign.

The government's brief, filed by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement just hours before the court's deadline Jan. 11, endorses the view that the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to gun ownership, a finding long sought by gun rights activists.

But it also said an appeals court used the wrong standard when it struck down the District's ban on private handgun ownership, and it urged the Supreme Court to return the case to the lower court for review.

If the justices accept that advice when they hear the case in the spring, it could mean additional years of litigation over the controversial Second Amendment and could undo a ruling that was a seminal victory for gun rights enthusiasts.

Some were livid. One conservative Web site said the administration had "blundered in catastrophic fashion," and another turned Clement, usually a pinup for conservative legal scholars, into a digital dartboard. Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the Republicans' chief deputy whip, called the brief "just outrageous," and Republican presidential candidate and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) accused the Justice Department of "overlawyering" the issue.

THE SELL-OUT...John Lott Interview UP!

It's about 8:45PM Thursday and out DOWN RANGE Radio interview with John Lott is up. This is a wide ranging interview on the DOJ brief and the Fred Thompson campaign.

We have also burned an MP3 version that is being circulated in South Carolina by the Thompson campaign.

I'm pretty proud of this podcast. After talking to John, I profoundly hope this makes a difference...please, listen, and pass it on...

THE SELL-OUT...Special Message from the Thompson Campaign!

Tomorrow morning I'm doing a special interview with Second Amendment scholar John Lott at the behest of the Fred Thompson campaign.

I will post it as a SPECIAL DOWN RANGE Radio podcast as soon as I can, no later than Friday AM!