John Kerry's Career...

Read this one from the one and only P. J. O'Rourke in the Weekly Standard:

JOHN KERRY EFFECTIVELY ENDED HIS political career on February 28, 2005, during a little-noticed event at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Senator Kerry was being presented with the library's "Distinguished American Award"--a bust of John Kennedy. The artist had portrayed JFK with head slightly tilted. The bust looked puzzled. The award was presented by Senator Ted Kennedy, who phoned it in. Supposedly Kennedy was rushing to catch the "last plane out of Logan" to get to Washington for a vital debate on bankruptcy reform legislation. Why the other senator from Massachusetts wasn't vital was not explained. Nor was it explained why any Democrat was vital to a debate on legislation that was simply to be passed by the Republican majority and signed by the Republican president.

On a less funny subject, this from Boston.com on adding .50 cal rifles and Five-seveN pistols to the state's Draconian assault weapons ban:

Known on the street as the cop killer, the Five-seveN is easily concealable and is designed to shoot ammunition that can pierce 48 layers of Kevlar, the material in bulletproof vests.

The .50-caliber rifle can accurately shoot a target up to 2,000 yards away and can potentially shoot down commercial airplanes during takeoff, supporters of the bill said. The rifle is not covered by the state assault weapons ban.

As predicted right here, the antigun lobby is moving hard and fast to try and duplicate their last big hit, banning "cop-killer" bullets. I like that "known on the street" reference, as if the reporter, one Justin Matthew Aucoin was some "O.G." just in from "da hood," as opposed to the more likely scenario of a recent J-skol kid copying a Brady memorandum.

An Inexcusable Absence...

...which no doubt did not make the heart grow fonder!

Had a grueling shoot down in Florida at the Southern Grand trap shoot. It was fun, because Kim Rhode (she of the Olympic gold medals and sterling sense of humor) was along for the ride, but apparently Florida is ont he verge of washing onto the sea from rain, so all our filming was frantic between-the-rain stuff. Should be a good show...I did provie prettyt conclusively that I can't shoot clay pigeons worth a crap. Kim's instruction helped enormously.

Saturday, it's off to Phoenix for Festival of the West for COWBOYS. Maybe I'll sleep tomorrow.

In the meantime, try and watch SOUTH PARK's episode on the "Hippie Menace." It's a home run...

Whip It Good!

From Annanova, presently largely without comment:

Passers-by called police after seeing a young blonde woman being bundled into the back of a van in Brunssum.

Three men had roughly manhandled the struggling woman who was handcuffed, blindfolded, gagged and staggering on high heels in fishnet stockings...

Two of them were only half dressed and police feared the woman had been raped in the back of the van.

But when they untied her and took her gag off, she reportedly screamed: "You stupid b******s! I've been trying to set this up for months! And now you've ruined it, just when it was getting interesting!"

Okay...maybe one comment! You'd think in this modern age they would have at least arranged for video! Think of how much more interesting it would be than reinactments of the Michael Jackson trial.

I feel a new reality show coming on!

You Can't Win 'Em ALL...

Check out this column from the Henderson Daily News, which I suppose must be somewhere in the United States or Texas. It's one of those rare cases where the journalist, Ms. Sherry Long, manages to get everything wrong:

Personally, I'm scared of guns. I will not go near them, whether they're pistols or rifles. I don't care. I have buried too many friends and family members who died from shooting incidents.

A better question to ask is, why are semi-automatic guns even manufactured?

Most large corporations are driven by the profit motive - cold, hard, green cash. It's a simple true hard fact of life...

In 1994, Congress banned automatic and semiautomatic weapons, but it seems there are more reports than ever about shootings involving assault weapons...

...These types of weapons need to be taken off the streets once and forever...

Federal law states that automatic weapons can only be used by the military.

Well, as Steve Perry once sang (badly):

Oh Sherry
You should've been gone
Knowing how I made you feel
And I should've been gone
After all your words of steel

Sherry can be reached at schools@hendersondailynews.com. Perhaps more importantly, her boss, Tony Floyd, the managing editor, can be reached at tfloyd@hendersondailynews.com. A non-snotty questioner might note that calling a story a "column" or an "editorial" does NOT release the writer and the publisher from the journalistc canon of ethics, which obligates them both to report and print only items they know to be true. Opinions are not facts, and vice versa. Ms. Long's piece is so fraught with errors that Michael Jackson's chimp coulda poked holes in it after five minutes on the Internet with a stolen GameBoy.

Task Loading

I've been thinking lately about that ole debil "task loading," or, why multitasking is a myth. What got me started on this was an interesting thing that happened while I was at Gunsite. I was on my gazillionth run at the Scramble course, and we were down to filming the "cutaways," breaking each shooting position down into its component parts and filming them to allow the editors something to "cut away" to...movie magic blah blah stuff, doncha know.

Erik Olds, the Gunsite instructor, said, "Your finger's going in the trigger guard before you're in position to shoot." Happened twice. That's not something I normally ever do. I mean, I've shot several hundred matches over the last 30 years — handgun, rifle, shotgun, three-gun, cowboy, submachinegun, fill-in-the-blank — run high-speed simulations and helped hammer out safety issues for matches years and years ago. If you were to ask me, I'd say I have completely internalized trigger discipline. Rule 3: Don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready for the gun to go bang. I didn't touch the trigger, but I was going into the trigger guard too soon.

I realized that task loading had reared its ugly head!

The "rule" of task loading states simply that the more tasks you're asked to perform, the less likely you are to perform all tasks well. Task loading appears (to me) to follow a geometric rather than an arithmatic progression. Imagine a graph where the horizontal axis is "numbers of tasks" and the vertical axis is an inverse "quality of performance;" that is, where the vertical axis meets the horizontal axis is "100% performance," a.k.a. perfect performance. The higher you go on the vertical axis, the worse your performance per task gets.

An arithmatic progression would yield a straight line whose steepness would be relative how much performance-per-task degraded as additional tasks were added. A geometric progression is a up-turning curve, with performance-per task drastically declining as additional tasks are added. My observation of and experience with task loading both in firearms instruction and instruction for high-risk sports such as technical diving or climbing Big Mountains is that not only does it follow a geometric progression, but there is a "crash point," where basically everything goes to hell and you can't do anything...very bad in a risky situation!

Cave divers are real big on task loading, sensitive to even small tasks that are "no problemo" when taken individually but which add to the overall load. My cave diving instructor was big on the idea that the complexity of the tasks added didn't really make that much difference — a simple task was every bit as big a load as a compex task. It was the additive nature that made task loading so dangerous.

So why am I harping on this? Because it's not something we normally think about and it's sneaky as hell. Task loading goes against our common sense, which tells us that several small, non-complex tasks taken as a group should not be a big issue. Then we drive our SUV into a tree we've driven past safely a thousand times.

Here's my example of task loading — I run into the frame, assuming exactly the same shooting position as when I was running the course for real. Making sure my hands and the gun are in the same position, I take — and make — the shot, then exit the frame the same way I did it for real. Oh yeah, there are two cameramen in awkward positions I have to make sure I don't sweep when I exit while keeping the muzzle downrange...etc.

John Shaw, who founded the Mid-South Institute for Self-Defense Shooting, had the best analogy I've ever heard about task loading (although he didn't use it in that context). Imagine, John said, that everyone gets $1 worth — 100 pennies — of concentration. That's it. Nobody gets a buck and a quarter; no matter how many Tony Robbins' seminars you attend, you've still only got those 100 pennies of concentration. Your only option is how to spend those pennies.

John goes on to talk about focus, but the analogy works perfect for task loading. Every task requires a few pennies — I suspect a minimum amount of, say, a nickel's worth. Whenever we add a task, we subtract from our 100 pennies available. Even an inconsequential task takes five pennies. The closer we get to "spending" all 100 pennies, the closer we come to the "crash point."

And even if we're a ways away from the crash point, as we add tasks we're still drastically degrading our performance of each task.

There are some interesting implications for tactical training here (jeeez, as well as for the Real World!). I have seen a trend in training that involves adding "simple" tasks, largely as a way to differentiate one person's training style from another. The true secret way of the Ninja involves standing on one foot, chanting while drawing the knife, etc.

If each task added degrades performance of all tasks — including the primary task of saving one's ass — I would say the existance of task loading argues for simplicity. Plus, it requires a certain level of vigilance from all of us, no matter how experienced, to keep it from sneaking up and biting our posteriors!!

Cowboy the %$&$ UP!

As you may or may not know, I gotta thing for cowboy boots and cowboy hats, although because I am an amazingly cheap human being I never actually buy any, except for my ratty pair of Durango dress boots and a couple of pairs of cool cowboy shooting boots. I think, however, I may have met my VISA BUSTER...

Get thee to Rocketbuster Boots and just feast your eyes on these puppies. I am so into the Rocket Science boots (click on 'em to get the big picture). They also do LOGO boots! I'm sure that many...maybe even hundreds...of you would pay $1500 for a pair of SHOOTING GALLERY logo boots. Wouldn't you? What if we kicked in a COWBOYS logo? Free instruction? A car? Health insurance?

Swamp Gas!!!

"Must be those strangers that colme every night
Those saucer-shaped lights
Put people up-tight
Little green footsteps that glow in the dark
I hope they get home all right!"
— The Byrds "Hey Mr. Spaceman"

From MSNBC.com:

PORTLAND, Ore. - A fireball streaked through the night sky across the western half of the Pacific Northwest on Saturday, startling people all the way from southern Oregon to the Seattle area.

advertisement
Scientists said the fireball was probably a meteor, and that it likely disintegrated just before any fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean.

Summer Jensen of Portland said she was sitting in her living room with her father when she saw the flash of light outside and rushed to see what it was.

"It was like a big ball of fire," and "behind it was a trail of blue," she said.

I hope they get home all right!

Sunday Morning Powder

There's this old joke about Colorado weather — you don't like it, hang around for a couple of hours, and it'll be completely different.

Yesterday my Sweetie and I hiked down into town for fun and festivities of FROZEN DEAD GUY DAYS, the Nederland winter festival. The short story is that, like the legendary Rocky Top, where corn don't grow at all, Nederland has no crops to celebrate (8000 feet elevation); the mines were all worked out years ago; the famous rock stars who puked in local bars in the 1960s have all moved on to other bars (where they serve Geritol, no doubt) and the studio burned down; even the dope dried up.

The only thing we have is a frozen stiff in a Tuff-Shed near where I live (I get lost tourists in the summer). Look the story up on the website...suffice to say each March we celebrate a cyrogenically preserved grandpop warehoused on dry ice in a structure originally intended to store lawnmowers, garden hoses and the occasional field mouse.

I love it here.

So anyway, we hiked into town yesterday; it was almost 70 degrees and sunny, perfect for Coffin Races. We took Alf the Wonder Beagle unmuzzled, in case we were attacked by mountain lions or liberals from Boulder in town to mix with the proletariat and buy t-shirts. A good time was had by all...I bought souvenirs for the film crew, Alf met new friends and protected us from lions and my Sweetie stocked up on designer beer.

It started snowing about 8 P.M. This morning, it's freezing cold with a foot of fresh powder and still snowing.

That's right, sports fans — time to ride the wild surf! One more cup of coffee and it's time to hit the slopes. This is a good thing, since all next week we'll be in Florida filming at the Baby Grand trap shoot. The idea is that I can't shoot clay pigeons worth bat dookey — which is true — and Olympic gold medalist Kim Rhode is going to heal me — which is, at best, a crap shoot. I'm also going to be totally decked out in trap drag...I've always said I couldn't get into shotgun sports because I couldn't afford the clothes!

Well,, PULL!

Carnival of Cordite

From Anarchangel's blog site, the weekly Carnival of Cordite, a collection of gunstuff from across the blogosphere.

There's a beautiful piece from a friend of Mark Wilson, the Tyler, TX, man who gave his life in a shootout:

In the streetside restaurants and shops people were running for back exits. Waiters and cashiers were locking doors and dialing 911. Arroyo was burning through 65 rounds of 7.62X39 ammunition. Over 100 witnesses were listening or watching. Bullets began to tick in the window glass of lawyers offices, splinter through woodwork of shops, and whine off plaster walls. In the courthouse judges locked themselves in their chambers. Witnesses and juries huddled while deputies and bailiffs scrambled to secure the building and return fire.

Mark Wilson was in street, firing.

There is also an excellent piece from Trigger Finger on why gun control remains popular in some circles, even though it patently does not work — a question my Sweetie, an attorney, has asked me numerous times:

Gun control advocates do not care, and never have cared, about offering solutions to crime and violence. They care about meeting their own emotional needs, and they do not care about the lives they damage and destroy in the process, because their own lives are already damaged and destroyed. They will never stop, because their psychological wounds will never heal.

Registration will not be enough. Bans will not be enough. Confiscation will not be enough. Herding all the gun owners into the ovens will not be enough, because the wounds will never be allowed to heal so long as the coping mechanism for grief involves reopening the wounds.

It has been said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

Gun control is a religion.

WELL SAID!

NPR's On The Media

The National Public Radio "On the Media" story I worked on about media bias is up at the On The Media site for March 11.

I think it's an excellent piece, fair and balanced. I think it's also a good example of how we can get our message out if we're willing to work with the media.

Let me know your thoughts!

Your REAL Job...

Nice column here from Jeff Smith at the Tucson Citizen:

There is no right more intrinsic than the right of self-defense: not free speech, not freedom of religion - nothing. If you are set upon by attackers who do not hesitate to use every available means to injure or kill you, is there any earthly authority you can imagine that could justly deny you the right to defend your life?

Of course not. There's no instinct more basic than this.

The right to live is by definition the foundation of every other right. A right so implicit confers responsibility, in any rational construct. Once past the helplessness of infancy and its dependence on mother and father for sustenance and protection, the individual's responsibility to defend and maintain one's intrinsic rights grows in proportion to one's level of maturity until, at adulthood, each of us becomes wholly responsible for himself.

Sorry, but that's the way it is: You are your job, and that moneymaking business is merely a sidelight.

Neat New Gun!

I just wanted to say that the little Remington 7615 5.56 pump carbine pretty much rocked. We took it through all the hoops, from shooting off the bench to speed drills on steel to the infamous Gunsite Rifle Scramble course, and it just kept on ticking.

I'm sufficiently impressed to say the 7615 may be the ideal rifle for a civilian self-defense scenarios — easy to shoot, uses readily available AR magazines, not and "assault weapon," light weight. I could go on, but you really need to shoot one. They should be in the civilian pipeline within a couple of months.

BTW, wait 'til you see my "out" at the end of the SHOOTING GALLERY episode on this gun (and carbine shooting in general)! I'd just finished a run through the Scramble (and a pretty good run, if I do say so myself), and I'm a pathetic whipped puppy.

TGIF, Y'all

Well, I'm sitting here in my pajamas, so I don't know whether to start blogging or go testify in the Michael Jackson trial. Speaking of which, there are some things sufficently weird as to be beyond satire. What can you say? The trial venue should have been changed to Mars.

More importantly, the new New York Times-driven antigun initiative regarding "terror suspects" and their ability to obtain firearms. here's the story earlier this week that triggered the whole thing:

Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a Congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.

People suspected of being members of a terrorist group are not automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials and gun control groups have voiced increasing concern about the prospect of a terrorist walking into a gun shop, legally buying an assault rifle or other type of weapon and using it in an attack.

Let me say just one word here...suspect! Say it again and again...suspect, suspect, suspect, suspect. A suspect is, "Someone who is thought to be guilty," to crib the words from legal-explanations.com. Maybe I'm dense — no comments from chorus! — but I take that to mean a suspect HAS NOT been convicted of a crime; rather, someone...a cop, a district attorney, some guy in the basement of a federal office building in Washington D.C...that the suspect is guilty of something.

Just because your name is on some government list is no reason to deprive you of your rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Imagine the NYT's outcry if the G had announced that anyone on the various and sundry terrorists' watch list woiuld henceforth be denied his or her right against unreasonable search and seizure?

Make no mistake about it...this is just another antigun initiative.

And make no mistake about this, either...we are all on some government list...

Gunsite #2

Absolutely great day today in the GUNSITE Hunter Prep course. Essentially, this course provides simulations on African or North American game. Basically, you work your way through the woods/veldt looking for game. I shot a warthog at 10 yards, a lion at 100 yards and an antelope at 57 yards. I was using a Steyr Scout Rifle in .308 with a forward-mounted 2-power Leopold scope.

I've shot the Steyr Scout before, but this is the first time I've ever really wrung one out. SOLD! The idea of a forward-mounted scope allows you to shoot with two eyes open — the way we monkeys were designed to do — and it is fast, fast, fast to pick up. I spent all day blasting .308 match rounds, and the Steyr was hands-down the most comfortable .308 I've ever shot...even with it's skinny short barrel. In fact, the stock was so well designed dit was like shouldering and shooting a .223. My pal Alan Samuel from machineguntours.com, who's along for the ride and is a very experienced three-gun shooter, totally agreed. Alan capped a couple of back-lit antelope at 200 yards with the sun on the way down. Even our crew had a blast.

I really like GUNSITE's philosophy of a consistent platform across all the weapons' systems...shot a handgun the same way as a rifle as a shotgun as a subgun, etc. Makes a huge amount of sense.

Tomorrow we'll be working with the GUNSITE crew, Greg Foster from Remington Law Enforcement and Dave Spaulding, a fine trainer in his own right, working with the new Remington 7615 pump carbines. Oughta be fun!

Gunsite #1...

...okay, I'm sorry. I've been slacking on the blogging front. Hard though it is to believe, I've been working. Two days; two episodes of SHOOTING GALLERY down. Two to go.

Still, it has been an aamzing couple of days. Monday, we spent the afternoon with Col. Jeff Cooper, the 85-year-old Lord-High-God-Of-The-1911 and the man who invented practical shooting. I think it may be the definitive interview with the most important man in the firearms field since John Browning, but I may be prejudiced. One of the coolest things was that we got to spend the afternoon in Cooper's armory, which is sort of the Mother Church of Practical Shooting. I think this is going to knock your socks off when we cut the interview. Considering that I've always considered Cooper one of the major influences on both my writing and my life, it was one heck of an afternoon.

Today was BUZZ GUN DAY AT GUNSITE. We spent most of the day working with venerable H-K MP-5s, running through about a thousand rounds of 9mm working with Cory Trapp, Gunsite's main full-auto guy. Excellent instructor, and Gunsite's facility is beyond compare.

Late in the afternoon, when we were all punchy, we shifted over to Glock 18 machine pistols, proving that if you have vast amounts of ammunition to get rid of, we have just the device to help you out. I did a quick opening running four 33-round mags through a compensated 18...sucker was smoking hot when I finished, but it never missed a beat. We even did some strong-hand-only work with the little machine pistol, and it hummed right along. I'm not saying that you don't have t0 pay attention — it will rise on you — but it's not a particularly hard gun to shoot. In an ideal world, every Glock should have a selector switch!

I will say again that GUNSITE is once again the premiere shooting school in the United States. I base that on several factors — the long-term instructors, the quality of the facility, the comprehensive nature of the instruction and the willingness of the instructors to embrace change. I'm pretty familiar with shooting schools, and I think that Gunsite is hands-down the best of the best.

There are only a few tactical schools I'd personally recommend — Gunsite, the Firearms Academy of Seattle, Valhalla and the Rogers Shooting School. There are other individual instructors I like (here's a hint...if they're featured on SHOOTING GALLERY, it's ONLY because I am willing to recommend them!).

Tomorrow is rifle day (Steyr Scout rifles and maybe the Springfield Armory SOCOM rifle), and we finish up on Thursday with some of the new Remington .223 pump carbines! I'll keep you posted.

Another in the Occasional Series...

...of Words to Live By:

"Nothing says peace and love like huge monster truck tires rollin' down the road..."

— MTV's "Pimp My Ride"

Menawhile. Back at the Damned Airport...

...I thought I'd post something before I boogied on down to Arizona!

As usual, the morons at United have come up with a new and even more convoluted system for people declaring firearms at DIA. Let me see if I have this right:

1) Check in on the machines
2) Tell the helpful United employee that you need a firearms declaration form
3) Watch while helpful attendent tears up your baggage claim and calls some hapless schlepp over to carry your bad to the "Oversize Bag" check, the newest, latest place to get a firearms declaration
4) Fill out declaration and place in bag
5) Wait for second schlepp to "take possession" of your bag and push it over to the Official TSA Declared Gun Checking Station, which is either at Continental Airlines or Pittsburg, whichever is farthest away
6) Wait until the overworked TSA guys run your bag through and then announce that, yes, you do have a declared firearm in your bag
7) Go to the gate

At least, that's this week's fire-drill, which was different from last week's fire-drill and which will no doubt be different from next week's fire-drill. Is it too much to suggest to our reps at NSSF and the NRA to try and negotiate some sort of standard with these fools? I know...I know...silly me!

In the meantime, check out the Carnival of Cordite over at Gullyborg.

Off into the skies!

The Wu Also Rises...

Thank god DEADWOOD starts on Sunday — I haven't heard anyone called a "motherf%$&*&g c%$%sucker" in months! I watched the "Mr. Wu" episode repeat tonight, and it was spectacular. I would try to explain, but it's hopeless.

I'll be in GUNSITE in Arizona all next week filming. We'll be doing subguns and machine pistols, a day of working with the new Remington .223 pump carbines (think a 20 gauge Remington 870 pump in .223 that takes AR magazines) and some precision rifle work.

I also plan to hit Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, since it's alledged to be the best pizza on earth! Hey, I've eaten at John's in NYC and the original Uno's in Chicago, not to mention assorted strange pizza places in Italy. Pizza is important!

Sorta Snow

I took the day off and went snowboarding with my Sweetie, who perversely insists on skiing — tres embarrassing! Skis! Yesterday's technology...old news...an excellent sport for people with walkers or on crutches...well, if it makes her happy, it can't be that bad, to crib a phrase from La Crowe.

It was about 50 degrees, so it was hardly a world-class powder day. I hauled out my old Burton all-mountain board, which I figured will run in just about anything; I've used it at A-Basin in June in a mix of slush and mud, so I figured it was perfect for today. It was. You know, of coursed, that boards sing. Skis may, too, but I was never good enough on skis to hear it. I started out with some big, looping carves until the board found its way and began to sing. Nothing quite like watching that roostertail of ice crystals behind you.

Hey, it was a good day!

The Antigunners Stumble

First read the Brady press release on the Five=seveN 5.7 X 28 pistol, especially this part:

The National Rifle Association has defended the weapon and questioned the Brady Campaign's testing. In response to their comments, Barnes today suggested that the NRA's President, Wayne LaPierre, "put on a bullet proof vest, and we'll fire the weapon at him, and see what happens. He should put his body where his mouth is."

Now read the NRA response:

It is pathetic to see the gun control lobby make hysterical statements to resurrect their failed political agenda. According to the BATFE, this armor-piercing ammunition is only available to the military and police. The Brady Campaign continues to deceive the American people in their effort to ban firearm ownership by all law-abiding Americans.

I'm waiting to see what Bitter Bitch of the Bitch Girls has to say about what she doesn't like about the response. As pour moi (the only legacy of my ill-fated attempt to learn Frenchie in college to meet the language requirement...remember requirements?), I refer you back to my Two Front War post. I thought the Brady release stank of desperation, which quite frankly lifted my spirits.

To quote the robot Daleks from the old Dr. Who television series: ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK...

Sign 'O The Times!

Well, you knew it would come to this:

Less Swearing on TV, Demands Former Sex Pistol

LONDON (Reuters) - "Wanna be an anarchist?"

At least one of the Sex Pistols, now middle-aged and a father of two, no longer does.

Former Pistols bassist Glen Matlock has called for swearing on British television to be curbed, nearly 30 years after the provocative punk rockers sent shock waves through Britain by using derivations of the dreaded "f"-word on live TV.

"It's pathetic when people swear for the sake of it," Matlock told a television show to be broadcast Sunday. "Something ought to be done about it."

Matlock wrote my all time favorite Sex Pistols' song, God Save the Queen:

God save the queen she ain’t no human being
There is no future in England’s dreaming

What the heck? They were right! Still, I suppose Sid Vicious is spinning in his grave, or hell, or Pittsburg, or wherever you go when you kick, to think that another fellow Sex Pistols bandmate, Johnny Rotten, is doing a series on Discovery about helping people really understand insects. I am not making this up. I wish I was.

M1 Carbine Questions...

...that arrived out of nowhere following the last post. There are apparently a lot of M1 Carbine fans out there! Who'd'a thunk it?

Here are a couple of quick histories of the little gun, and here are some answers to questions.

1) As near as I can tell, the 5.7 MMJ wildcat and the 5.7 Johnson are the same cartridge masquerading under different names — in any case, a necked down .30 Carbine cartridge.

2) Yes, as a matter for fact, you can still get Carbines in the 5.7 caliber. Try Fulton Armory for a "lovingly restored" version. Fulton also offers a 5.7 barrel for $169 and installation services if you've got a Carbine stuffed in the gunsafe.

3) IAI, the Israeli company, had 5.7 M1 Carbines for sale a couple of years ago (I handled one at a SHOT Show a while back). Here's an ad from 2003, but I can't find them now and there are posts to the effect that the company is out of business. There are still IAI versions (usually the .30 caliver versions) around for sale...here's one for sale currently at gunsamerica.com.

4) The best news for M1 Carbine fanciers is that Kahr Arms is now producing an M1 Carbine through their Auto-Ordnance division, which they purchased a couple of years back. Kahr did a hell of a job overhauling A-O's Thompsons (one of my all-time favorite guns; watch for a SHOOTING GALLERY special on 'em!); the currently available versions are very nice. The Carbines I saw at SHOT this year were excellent, and after this post I'm thinking of getting one for myself and putting it through the wringer. Unfortunately, there's no 5.7 version yet.

5) And, yes, there are WWII original M1 Carbines around for sale, but I have not seen an original 5.7 for sale in the proverbial coon's age, which is actually two years younger than me. And PLEASE, if you've got a WWII vintage M1 Carbine in excellent condition, don't modify it! Ship it directly to my FFL dealer, and I will, in return, send you my thanks.

3) Quality Cartridge is offering components and loaded ammo for the 5.7 MMJ. Redding lists both forming dies and reloading dies, and I'm sure all the other major reloading companies can provide you with dies. Tank's Rifle Shop does a lot of work on M1 Carbines and offers a 5.7 case-length gauge, an indispensible tool for reloaders. BTW, here's an article on the .30 Caliber wildcats from The Gun Zone that's definitely worth reading.

I think the interest in the little Carbine is that it has always had the potential to be an excellent self-defense rifle while flying under the "assault weapon" nonsense. I've always heard that the old New York Police Department Stake-out Squad made excellent use of the .30 Carbine loaded with hollow-points (I'll ask Stake-out Squad legend Jim Cirillo when I talk to him for the show in May). Essentially, you're getting jacked up .357 Magnum ballistics in a rifle that has barely any recoil. Five, 10, 15 (the mainstay) and some original 30 round magazines are readily available (read this article before you buy 30-rounders!). There are zillions of accessories; heck, you can even get an Airsoft M1 Carbine for simulations!

I'd really like to see an M1 Carbine in 5.7 X 28...that would be, as Cartman is fond of saying on South Park, hella-cool!

The Two Front War

Things are heating up on the "sceond front" of the current antigun offense, the attack on little bitty bullets going really fast, the 5.7 X 28 and the guns that chamber the round. This from Newsday:

Armor-piercing Gun Targeted

WASHINGTON -- In late December, police in South Jersey moved in to arrest a local drug dealer and made an unsettling discovery in his car.

Besides more than a kilo of crack cocaine, they found a new type of handgun that was capable of piercing police body armor, according to Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi.

The weapon, called the Five-seveN by its Belgian manufacturer, FN Herstal, began showing up on U.S. streets last fall, according to law enforcement officials.

The gun is now itself a target - of legislation introduced yesterday by four lawmakers from New York and New Jersey that would ban it from the United States. The sponsors are Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, both New Jersey Democrats.

First. let me point out the intentional disinformation — armor-piercing gun, as if the gun has anything to do with it with the penetration capabilities of a bullet! Second quick point...all the parties involved on the antigun side acknowledge that the armor-piercing 5.7 X 28 ammo, SS190, is not available for sale in the United States. Newsday also points out that according to ATF, the SS192 hollowpoints current available for the FNH Five-seveN (and recently announced P90 semiauto carbine) are NOT armor-piercing.

So what?

This is just the next stage an intentional disinformation campaign engineered by the Brady Center, Violence Policy Center (VPC) and their running dog political lackies like Charles Schumer, Frank Lautenberg, Diane Fienstein, Barbara Boxer, etc. Brady is taking the lead on the 5.7 X 28; the VPC are the shock troops against the .50 caliber.

Notice the focus of This Year's War is on specific ammunition; the guns that fire the ammo are almost tangental in the battle. That's because the antigun forces are, as I've said before, on the ropes. Fund-raising has collapsed; with the exception of CNN, the mainstream media (MSM) has been burned so badly that they're leery of overblown antigun claims (after all, the AWB expired and no one seems to be handing out AK-47s on streetcorners, as predicted). So the antigun lobby has gone back to its biggest pre-AWB success...banning "cop-killer" bullets.

After all, Winchester Black Talon bullets had never killed a cop, were no more penetrative than a dozen other specialty rounds and were arguably no more "lethal" than many other hollowpoints or specialty ammunition. But they had a scary name, and the antigunners were able to mount their strategy and get it running before we as an industry were able to respond. And we lost.

And, in truth, the antigunners have gotten better at what they do in the insuing years. Let's take a look at their strategy:

1) They play to our biggest weakness, which is that, "The facts are on our side." The facts are on our side, but that does not matter! Instead, it allows us to expend our energies and resources on "proving" them wrong. They, on the other hand, understand perfectly they're in a Media War, not the Yale Club's debate society. One sound byte on morning television is worth $100 million in studies disproving said byte, because the larger whole of society doesn't care. Folks, the other side intentionally puts out disinformation to draw our fire, and just like Charlie Brown and Lucy's "football game," it works every time! How do I know this? I have my cherubs and seraphim; besides, it's what I would do in their place!

2) They pick their battles — and their enemies — carefully. Notice they have gone after the 5.7 X 28 (a roughly .22 caliber bullet in the 30 grain range that can be fired in a handgun with a velocity of more than 2000 fps) and not the .22 Hornet (a roughly .22 caliber bullet in the 40 grain range that can be fired from a handgun — the superb Taurus Raging Hornet — with a velocity of more than 2000 fps). Why? Because the antigun spinners understand perfectly well that ballistics is ballistics...properly loaded, a .22 Hornet (or another dozen cartridges I could name, including the .22 Jet, the .218 Bee, the .221 Fireball, the new WSSM .223, the venerable .30 Carbine or it's .22 caliber clone, the 5.7 Johnson, wildcats like the .19 Calhoun or the ancient 5.7 MMJ and even the rimfire .17 Remington Mach II) can do anything a 5.7 X 28 can do fired from a handgun. My long-range handgun, a custom (from J.D. Jones/SSK Industries) T/C Contender single shot in .223, makes the 5.7 X 28 look like a sad puppy in every category and is spot-on accurate out to 500 yards. The antigunners took on the 5.7 X 28 because they get a free ride off the military descriptions of a cartridge not available in the United States and because FNH, while a huge international arms conglomerate, is basically a small player in the U.S. Is there anybody out there willing to bet me that a .17 Mach II won't zip right through a Level IIA vest? But all the major arms companies have handgun and rifle offerings in .17 Mach II (the hottest new cartridge since the .40 S&W), and believe me, the outcry over such an attack would be staggering. Notice that the antigunners aren't willing to go up against even a single powerhouse like Taurus — popular, heavily funded, headed an aggressive chief executive with a "take no prisoners" attitude.

The same rationale defines the attacks on .50 calibers. The cartridge is a military exotic, most of the manufacturers are small and the antigunners are betting that the whole of the industry — as well as the larger body of gunowners — will be unwilling to go to the mattresses over such niche cartridges.

3) The other side plays for precedents; we play for absolutes. For example, what are the long-term potential consequences of losing .50s? We say, well, we lost ,50 caliber rifles, which only effects a tiny number of shooters. They say, we now have a precedent on the books giving us grounds to ban cartridges and guns built for long-range accuracy, penetration, lethality, etc. HMMMMM, doesn't that sound like any rifle cartridge? Give up the 5.7 X 28? Heck, that's only a handful of pistols, so it really has zero effect...right? Except that there will be a precedent for banning any cartridge that can penetrate a Level IIA vest, which, as I have written earlier, is CAN OF REALLY NASTY WORMS!

4) The other side knows we like to play defense, so they make sure we have that opportunity. Why? Because if you're ever watched Monday Night Football, you know that ultimately, defense can never win the game against a good opponent. We've played defense for decades and won most of the battle; in the closing years of the Clinton administration we came damn close to losing the war! Of course defense is important, but so is an aggressive offense. If we have such an offense, would someone please point it out to me?

5) We like "wait and see." See if it will blow over. See if we dodge a bullet this time. See if the other side runs out of steam, funding or initiative. See if the topic gains any traction. Sort of like the first President Bush stopping "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf at the gates of Baghdad to see of Sadam would settle down. "Wait and see" only buys you another war on odwn the line. Or to use a more current example, if John Kerry's spinners had been faster to respond ont he Swift Boat Veterans' controversy, we might be haviing a very different conversation here today! Six or seven years ago, the industry's unstated policy on the VPC was that it was a fringe antigun group and would eventually go away like the festering pimple it was. Now it's one of the most aggressive — and most successful — of our enemies.

IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, CONGRAT!

Send Flowers & Drawn Butter...

The world's only superstar lobster, 22-pound Bubba, has gone to that Great Lobster Trap in the Sky:

PITTSBURGH, Pa. - He spent decades dodging lobster pots, but in the end, Bubba was done in by a trip to the zoo.

The 22-pound lobster died yesterday at the Pittsburgh Zoo, about a day after he was moved there from a fish market.

Bubba's untimely death came just as he stepped onto the red carpet. He was slated for a slot on Oprah as soon as he settled into his new digs, where he was going to discuss the sexual issues surrounding supersized Crustaceans. NBC has announced that they're "putting on hiatus" a planned "The View"-type morning talk show hosted by Bubba and Today correspondent Ann Curry. "We're all thankful he didn't suffer," said Curry, reached at home in the Today bunker in midtown Manhattan. "He was the best President we ever had, and he'd still be President if that woman had known a decent dry-cleaner! No...wait...was he on the Supreme Court?"

Flowers and cocktail sauce to the Pittsburg Zoo...

Oakland Confidential...

Here's a story you didn't expect to see from California — a man defending himself with a handgun, and the police back him up!

Patrick McCullough has been complaining to Oakland police about drug dealers for the past 10 years -- and telling the young men who congregate in front of his house at 59th Street and Shattuck Avenue to beat it.

For his efforts, the 49-year-old has endured harassment, threats, vandalism and an assault in 2003.

Then, during an evening rainstorm on Feb. 18, about 15 young men surrounded McCullough and shouted "snitch" and other taunts as he walked from his front door to his driveway.

Someone hit him with a branch, and others threw punches. McCullough told police he had seen a 17-year-old reach for a gun, so he drew his own gun and shot his would-be assailant in the arm.

"I'm a man, not a mouse nor a vigilante. I'm not looking for medals, just a safe neighborhood and peaceful existence," said McCullough, who grew up in a housing project on the south side of Chicago. "I don't believe in vigilantism under any circumstances. What I did and will continue to do is take my safety in my own hands."

Here's the follow-up story from SF Gate, where the perp says he didn't do nuthin' and the police say bull!

Hegler [the perp's mom, proving I suppose that hope does spring eternal] is urging prosecutors to charge McCullough, but police who patrol North Oakland disagree. They have known McCullough for years and consider him to be a good man in an area where drug dealers from the North Pole gang have run the block and nearby Bushrod Park.

"In our opinion, her son was the aggressor -- he instigated the whole event," said Lt. Lawrence Green, who oversees patrols in North Oakland.

Green feels prosecutors should charge Melvin and his friends for assault. He dismissed Hegler's assertion that McCullough was the instigator.

McCullough used a SIG P230 in .380, if you're interested.

Elvis Cole Rides Again!

Novelist Robert Crais was on the Today Show today — thank god he didn't get interviewed by Ann Curry, which would be like Einstein having a conversation with a talking pony! — pitching his new book, The Forgotten Man. Click on the link and go buy a bunch of copies.

Crais is hands-down the best "mystery" novelist working today. How good? The best thing I could say about Crais would be to borrow the quote Ross Macdonald used about Raymond Chandler: “Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.”

Ditto Crais.

I mean, I hate Los Angeles, even though I go there so much I can navigate the damned freeways. But when I read Crais' novels, I see LA as this great wounded beast of a city, half-crazed with pain, doomed and in some strange way utterly noble. Elvis Cole and his lethal sidekick Joe Pike are the perfect pair for 21st Century LA, trodding Philip Marlowe's mean streets neither mean nor afraid, but armored by their sense of honor.

Crais is also stand-up. He was a very successful television writer when he started the Elvis Cole novels, which he has relentlessly refused to sell to the movies despite rumors of staggering pricetags attached to such sales. The Cole novels, as he reiterated to Al Roker (who actually seemed to have read the books!) this AM, are the work of his life, and the work of his life is not for sale. Pretty amazing, considering your average author (probably myself included) would sell his or her child's virginity to Hannibal Lector for a shot at Hollywood. For a plug on the Today Show, he or she would probably kick in some fava beans and a decent chianti.

I fell in briefly with Crais through one of those bizarre coincidences that seems define the outer perimeters of my haphazard life. The character of Joe Pike is the weapons expert, a Vietnam vet who owns a gun store and lives in a Spartan apartment above the store. He is taciturn in the extreme, habitually wears Ray-Ban aviators, grey sweatshirts with the sleeves cut off and jeans, has red lightning bolts tattooed on each delt and is as silent and deadly as a cobra after the third Starbucks.

When I first Fell Into the Rabbit Hole, I hung around with a weapons expert just back from Vietnam, who owned a gun store and lived in a Spartan apartment above the store, who didn't talk much at all, habitually wore Ray-Ban aviators, gret sweatshirts with the sleeves cut off and jeans, had lightning bolt tattoos on each arm and was one of the most profoundly dangerous people I've ever met. He introduced me to rappelling, det cord, lock picking, weird beer, M-16s, and, in general, a world I'd only dimly imagined. He taught me how to set booby traps to trip up cops in simulations, and we once pissed on a famous SWAT team from the roof of a building we'd "seized." Not surprisingly, one day he dropped off the grid.

He WAS NOT Joe Pike, but I have to say the first time I read an Elvis Cole novel you could have knocked me over with the proverbial 5.56 hollowpoint. I told Crais that I had apparently apprenticed with Joe Pike, or a reasonable fascimile. After a couple of beers, he concurred that truth was often stranger than publicity, and he told me how he'd once quit a lucrative job writing for a science fiction television show when some pissy assistant editor said, "Oh, no dophin would EVER say that!"

He also wrote the novel Hostage, now a movie opening in a week or so with Bruce Willis starring. It is NOT an Elvis Cole novel! Kick ass, dude!

And yes, I've got my trashy colors back!

"It's Scary for Democrats..."

Fascinating interview by John Stewart on THE DAILY SHOW with Nancy Soderberg, author of The Superpower Myth; The Use and Misues of American Might, your basic handwringing liberal text. This is from James Taranto's Best of the Web on OpinionJounal.com:

Stewart: This could be unbelievable!

Soderberg:---series of Nobel Peace Prizes here, which--it may well work. I think that, um, it's--

Stewart: [buries head in hands] Oh my God! [audience laughter] He's got, you know, here's--

Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.

Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.

Stewart: [crossing fingers] Iran and North Korea, that's true, that is true [audience laughter]. No, it's--it is--I absolutely agree with you, this is--this is the most difficult thing for me to--because, I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.

Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had--

Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!

Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work. No, but I think, um, it's--you know, you have changes going on in Egypt; Saudi Arabia finally had a few votes, although women couldn't participate. What's going on here in--you know, Syria's been living in the 1960s since the 1960s--it's, part of this is--

Stewart: You mean free love and that kind of stuff? [audience laughter] Like, free love, drugs?

Soderberg: If you're a terrorist, yeah.

And, no, I haven't given up on trashy colored type! I'm posting this off my main machine, which only marginally works with Blogger, the AOL of blog software. I can't access all the features, most notably colored type, but I wanted to see if it was actually allowing me to post again. BTW, Blogger says in an email to me that they have no idea why some of their features come and go on Mac OS-X machines...some of their programming monkeys must have been subpoenaed for the Michael Jackson trial...

In Case You Missed It...

I think it's time for George Bush to send Special Forces troops into New York City to head off the impending war between rapper 50 Cent and his ungrateful and less talented protege The Game. 50 Cent dropped The Game from the G-Unit, and the proverbial 9-mil hit the fan.

Of course, you're aware that one of The Game's posse was wounded in a shooting at a NYC radio station Monday night. "Security shot my li'l homie," wrote The Game's brother, Big Fase, on the rapper's website. "I'm holdin' 50 Cent responsible." Immediately thereafter, somebody hosed the front of Violator Management, who reps 50 Cent, with bullets. The Game is from Compton...nuff said!

Sarcasm aside, I liked some of the stuff on Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Interesting to see 50 Cent the street thug trying to pull himself up and still remain a hard boy. This is from Many Man (Wish Death) and, yes, the lyrics are explicit:

Now these pussy niggas putting money on my head
Go on and get your refund motherfucker, I ain't dead
I'm the diamond in the dirt, that ain't been found
I'm the underground king and I ain't been crowned
...
Turn your back on me, get clapped and lose your legs
I walk around gun on my waist, chip on my shoulder
Till I bust a clip in your face, pussy, this beef ain't over

Pincushion Man

Yesterday was my fun day at the doctor's, where I got my fourth CHICKEN SLUDGE injection in my knee. So far; so good. I ran a couple of miles before I went to for Fun With Dr. Andy, and it worked pretty good. Plus it didn't wake me up screaming in the middle of the night.

As long as I was there with Dr. Andy (if you're a cyclist, read his book), I had him whop me with a shot of cortisone in my left elbow. As a rule, cortisone sucks, and I hated like hell to even suggest it. It postpones dealing with the problem — my elbows are suffering from 10 years in a dojo and half-a-million rounds downrange, coupled with the inevitability of getting older — and adds a whole host of problems on its own. That's why this was only the second cortisone shot I've ever had in my life.

BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT...I've got a week at Gunsite filming next week, including a lot of time with submachine guns. I know from experience that a thousand rounds with a buzzgun with it's short, sharp recoil impulse will translate into a couple of hellish Advil nights and enough Ben-Gay to clear the sinuses of the entire population of Milwaukee. So I took the Coward's Path and got my elbow shot. Coincidentally, for the first time in a year I slept the whole night without waking up and nursing my miscellaneous yeechy joints.

Of course, the Glock 18 will still rattle my teeth.

NYPD Blue Finale

Yeah, I teared up. At least I didn't blubber like I did when Bobby Simone died.

My favorite line from Andy Sipowitz, several years back:

"My partner John Kelly used to say, 'Don't beat nobody on spec...'"

Words to live by, Detective Sipowitz. Words to live by.

Thank you.

Tyler Update

Once again, Alphecca has proven he's the best aggregator around. Read his Weekly Bias column.

I find myself getting angrier and angrier about both the media antigun spin and the thundering silence from our side of the table. It shouldn't fall on the blogosphere — on Alphecca, on Trigger Finger, on geekwitha .45, on 10-Ring — to carry all the weight while the people we PAY to speak in our behalf are still patting themselves on their backs for the election victory. Guys, we appreciate the hell out of your work on getting George Bush back in the White House, but the war has moved on to other fronts. We've got CNN spinning out of control, .50 caliber rifles under vicious — and far too successful — attack, a hero being besmirched by a rabid collection of idiots and I have yet to hear even a hint of a strategy from the progun side.

We need a national strategy to combat this antigun barrage on a state level. The attacks on .50s, the calls for a renewed AWB, all of these things are part of a concerted attack. Where is our national strategy?

Just Look at This CRAP!

If I hadn't seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe just how low antigunners can get. Go to 50 Caliber Terror and prepared to be PISSED OFF! Don't miss the flash intro.

Now that you're furious, you're probably wonder who is responsible for this P-O-S. Well, luckily, this just dropped into my e-mail box from a friend:

FWIW, the site is registered to Mark Karlin & Associates, a Chicago PR firm. Karlin is or was the chairman of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, and full-on neo-Marxist psychopath as well. (At least that's how *I'd* categorize him.) He's listed as the point of contact on lots of press releases for anti-gun organizations. He also edits buzzflash.com, which appears to be the Democratic Underground crowd's answer to Drudge. Just Google him.

Isn't that sweet? It's time we called these people what they really are, domestic terrorist wannabes, heavy breathers who get off on the idea that some real terrorist group will pick up on their ideas. Only a whore of the lowest sort would create a piece of crap like this.

Finally!

From Drudge.

I've always said that monkey could blow the roof off the Michael Jackson case. Give 'em immunity and a case of bananas, and let's end this thing!

Cultural vs. Political Battles

Let me just touch on this subject a little more. In the years I've been on the front lines of Gun Wars, the single most frequent question I've gotten from Our Side is, "Why don't the antis and/or media tell the truth?"

It's an interesting question because it shows that Our Side doesn't truly understand the battlefield. We think we're in a debate; we think that if we win the debate — do more comprehensive studies, present more compelling numbers, more clearly state our case, etc. — the majority of the public will sway to our arguments.

Our opponents understand that this war is about as far from a debate as you can get and remain in the same universe. It's not about facts; it's about convincing the great middle class that guns are bad. So what if you lie if the lie is parroted by useful idiots (to borrow a term from the old USSR) like Katie Couric then retracted on page 46 of the New York Times — if anybody bothers to retract it at all?

That's why you're seeing moronic remarks on the Tyler shooting like this AP wire story in the Kansas City Star this AM:

Tyler police spokesman Don Martin said Monday that gun owners should carefully weigh the risks before intervening in a shooting crime.

"We don't want citizens to go out there and get involved in situations if they don't have to because they don't have the training that the officers do," he said.

Kristen Rand, legislative director for the pro-gun control Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said the Tyler shooting last Thursday shows that criminals are undeterred by people potentially carrying concealed weapons. All but four states allow permits for carrying concealed handguns.

This is the Sound Byte War, folks. We don't need another million dollar study on how gun ownership does not cause cancer. We need full time spokespeople who are out there every day hammering the media with OUR sound bytes! I can't believe that we DON'T have such people! We should be raising holy hell!

Hopefully, This is a Trend...

I admit I haven't seen the Overstock.com ad, which is currently lighting up the Internet. Instapundit linked to this Slate article on the actress who steams up the ad: The moment you've been waiting for—the lowdown on the Overstock hottie...the lovely Sabine Ehrenfeld (pronounced "Sa-BEAN-uh") was driving back from a snowboarding trip with her children, on her way to casting calls the following day. Still, she found time to chat in a delightful and disarming manner. I learned the following:

In addition to German and English, Sabine speaks French and Italian. She is proficient in basic tactical pistol skills, because she thought it would be a fun thing to learn. She also has a private pilot's license and 350 hours in the air. Think about that...an article in Slate, which has turned liberal handwringing into a fine art, where the words "tactical pistol skills" are mentioned without a subsequent "response quote" from the monkeys at the VPC!!! This is, as The Sainted Martha would say, a Good Thing.

Seriously, in the old days of the NSSF media education program, Paul Erhardt, Gary Mehalik and I talked a lot about "normalizing" the possession, carrying and sporting use of firearms. The idea was that victory in the apparently endless battle over firearms was often defined as convincing a majority of the people that our political position was the correct position — an example being the individual, rather than the group, interpretation of the Second Amendment. Paul,Gary and I argued that a cultural victory was far more important than a political victory. Yes, political victory is important, but when firearms are once again "normalized" — she plays golf and shoots IPSC; we decided on a week at Gunsite instead of the family trip to Panama City, etc. — it makes it much harder for the antigun forces to function.

Our goal should be to marginalize the VPC, Brady, Chuckie Schumer, Diane "Gimme Back My Bullets" Fienstein and the rest of the elitist crew. That's what they succeeded in doing with us!