More MSM Pap

From the Christian Science Monitor, which is apparently hanging on via website: 

Armed America: Behind a broadening run on guns

ATLANTA - What do an elderly Oklahoma homeowner, a Virginia Citizen Militia member, and a Texas airline pilot all have in common these days?

They're all part of America's massive gun-and-ammunition buying spree – a national arming-up effort that began before last year's election of President Obama and continues unabated. Across the United States, it has led to shortages of assault-style weapons, rising prices, and a broadening of gun culture to increasingly include older Americans, women and – gasp – liberals.
[...]
The buying trend, however, is far deeper and more prolonged than any knee-jerk reaction to an election or potential legislation, experts say. Though liberals still favor gun control at far higher percentages than conservatives, Americans as a whole are edging in the direction of more gun rights, according to a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports, an independent polling firm in New Jersey.

A major piece of the shift is the perception among many Americans that crime is rising rapidly. Nearly a third of Americans surveyed in the Rasmussen poll say crime has increased in their neighborhoods, and 72 percent say it's very likely that crime will grow in the near-term.

The FBI reported in January that, nationwide, violent crime was down 3.5 percent in 2008, robberies were down 2.2 percent, and car thefts declined by 12.6 percent. Those statistics contrast with 2006, when robberies, for example, jumped by nearly 10 percent.

The fears are in some cases taking on a Y2K-like fervor, forecasting total social meltdown. In times such as these, Americans have always reached for their guns, says David Kopel, research director for the Independence Institute, a free-market-oriented think tank in Golden, Colo. He digs up a clipping from a Massachusetts newspaper published three months before the "Shot Heard Around the World" that started the Revolutionary War. The article documented a vast gunpowder shortage blamed on "wolves and other beasts of prey" lurking about. Modern fears are fueled by the prospect of an apocalyptic economic failure.

"The logic is simple," says Tom Lee, a member of the Virginia Citizen Militia, which traces its roots to the Revolutionary War. "People are seeing a looming economic collapse that will lead to a prolonged and possibly worsening breakdown of law and order and, eventually, a We-the-People vs. armed-government-enforcers scenario. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees through the Keynesian scam and sees the wisdom in preparing for the worst."

Here's my favorite part of the story:

Some gun-control advocates are bewildered by the uptick.

"We find [it] disconcerting," says Juliet Leftwich, legal director for the Legal Community Against Violence in San Francisco.

Good lord, they're even dumber than I think they are!

MSM Beats It's Chest and Moans Pitiously

NEWSWEEK bemoans the fact that the Dems are terrified of gun control, while ignoring the other fact that they only people in the entire country who favor gun control are a few looney Dems and the MSM: 

In the past, national political leaders might have raised troubling questions about how such an unstable character could obtain easy access to high-powered weapons. They might have been even more motivated given that Poplawski's cop-killing spree was part of a near epidemic of mass homicides that have left 58 people dead over the past month. Or given that Mexico's insanely violent drug cartels are arming themselves with high-powered assault weapons purchased at U.S. gun stores and later smuggled south of the border. Yet many past champions of stricter gun-control measures are silent. These include top Obama White House officials who have squelched any talk within the administration about pushing further gun-control measures."It's weird," says Peter Hamm, the communications director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "When you see people like [Attorney General] Eric Holder or Hillary Clinton or [White House chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel become muted on this issue, you feel like you want to call up a friend and say, 'What's up?' "

Running for president in last year's Democratic primaries, Barack Obama promised to restore a federal ban on certain semiautomatic assault guns—a position that's still on the White House Web site. The ban was originally passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress in 1994 and lapsed five years ago. In recent years the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has also lifted virtually all restrictions on imports of foreign-made assault weapons, permitting a flood of cheap Romanian, Bulgarian and other Eastern European AK-47s to enter the country, according to gun-control groups. "There's been an absolute deluge of these weapons," says Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center.

But Obama and top White House aides have all but abandoned the issue. Emanuel helped orchestrate passage of the original assault-weapons ban when he worked in the Clinton White House. Now he and other White House strategists have decided they can't afford to tangle with the National Rifle Association at a time when they're pushing other priorities, like economic renewal and health-care reform, say congressional officials who have raised the matter. (According to his office, Emanuel couldn't be reached for comment because he was observing the Passover holiday.) A White House official, who asked not to be identified discussing internal strategy, says, "There isn't support in Congress for such a ban at this time." Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, says, "The president supports the Second Amendment, respects the tradition of gun ownership in this country, and he believes we can take common-sense steps to keep our streets safe," pointing to $2 billion in new funding for state and local law enforcement in the stimulus package.

More on The GNSITE S.A. Self-Defense Class

I thought I'd answer the questions form the last post with a new post...

All of us in this special class have done GUNSITE classes with 1911 .45s, so we're all cocked-and-locked advocates. Since I was using an unconverted (that is, no transfer bar) Flat-Top, I would normally carry it with 5 in the chamber and an empty under the hammer (a la Cowboy Action Shooting) or use the old cowboy trick of carrying 6 with the hammer carefully lowered BETWEEN the chambers. On the Rugers with transfer bars, everyone carried 6.

BTW, the Ruger Montado, designed for mounted cowboy action shooting, is a SUPERB S.A. carry gun (in fact, my partner Marshal Halloway bought the Montado he shot in the class). Right now it's available only in .45 Colt, but we're lobbying Ruger for .357 and .44 Special versions (we may do a poll on DRTV on that). We also had a couple of Vaqueros that Dave Biggers from XS Sites had set up with a Big Dot Tritium and express rear...they were 'way cool! Three of the guns, including 2 .44 Specials, had been "dinked" by Hamilton Bowen...they were, as one might expect, beyond excellent. My old friend Gary Paul Johnson had a Vaquero he'd had rebuilt on a custom titanium frame...light and scary!

We had holsteres from Ted Blocker, Tombstone, Blade-Tech, Andy's Leather, Mitch Rosen and Bob Mernikle. The Rosen was a traditional pancake; the mernicle a superbly designed concealed carry holster, as was the Ted Blocker I used part of the time. I'll probably use the Blocker or the Andy's Leather holster when I open carry when hiking.

Haz, the S.A. self-defense class was filmed for SHOOTING GALLERY because of the huge positive response we got from the lever action show last season.

Depending on the response from SG and the magazines, GUNSITE would really like to make the class a standard offering. We had breakfast with GUNSITE majordomo Ed Head yesterday and talked about an "advanced" S.A. self-defense class that would include night shooting (tricky on the reloads), more shooting/reloading on the move, and using two guns.

Whipped Puppy

Dog tired and on the way home from a week at GUNSITE...we did a single action self-defense class, followed by some carbine time. The S. A. class was both big fun and eye-opening...it's conceivable that at some point I may tire of snatching the trigger, but not likely. LOL! I shot my old .357 Flat Top Blackhawk that Dave Clements rebuilt. It worked superbly, except for the fact that in the dongas the steel was set for manly calibers as opposed to the wussy 125-grain Hornady JHPs I was shooting, so I had to "worry" a couple of them down. 

Interestingly enough, everybody came away from the class talking about how the S.A. revolver would do the job in most social situations, and no one would feel buck nakked unarmed with a big Ruger on his hip.

BTW, we were all utterly amazed that Pelosi would bring up registration in any context...make sure you contact your Blue Dogs! 

A Fair Answer to a Fair Question

Here's a comment from an anonymous commenter on my last post:

Why exactly do people need an assault weapon? It isn't for hunting. Maybe we should just all carry guns all the time. That way if there is a shooter we can easily take him out....I mean it may make the cops life more difficult, not knowing who the bad guy is in that situation or cause some friendly fire deaths but hey....we'll have our guns...I just don't get it.

I think it's a fair question and as such deserves a fair answer. Anonymous, the simple answer is that there is no real difference between types of guns. All firearms are purpose-designed machines — they are all designed to fire projectiles long distances; they are all designed to be ergonomic and easy to use; they are all designed to be accurate, easy to load and to reload. They are not particularly complicated machines, without will and capable of being used by their operators for great good or great evil.

Sometimes we sort those machines in groups, usually by their gross physical characteristics, to make it easier to talk about them...handgun...rifle...shotgun, etc. "Assault weapons" is one of those categories, and it applies to military weapons designed for war. As a civilian, we cannot legally possess assault weapons...they are automatic weapons, designed to fire a full magazine of ammunition on a single trigger pull.

There are firearms that share some of the physical characteristics of military weapons in the same way that a family sedan might share a paint job with a NASCAR stocker or that a John Elway football jersey at a discount store might resemble the team jersey that great quarterback wore when he was playing. Because one thing looks like another, it doesn't mean the replica is the real thing. Your family sedan will not win at Daytona because it has the right paint job, and you are not a Hall of Fame quarterback because you wear the jersey.

Our enemies, however, have seized upon those physical similarities to create a false class of "assault weapons" and seek to have them banned or heavily controlled. Remember, the firearms in question are not more powerful, easier to shoot, hold more bullets or are in any way different from other firearms...except in they way they look. Our enemies want to control this false class of firearms solely because they seek to control — and ultimately eliminate — all firearms in civilian hands. They have been every open in describing this strategy...it's hardly a secret. Even the largest antigun groups said of the last AWB that it was not designed to have an effect on crime, but rather to get the public "acclimated" to having whole classes of firearms banned.

Simply put, an attack on one class of firearms, or one specific firearm, is an attack on firearms rights as a whole. Our enemies understand that; if we fail to understand that, we will lose.

If I may also speak to your question of "need." In a consumer society, we are not obligated to demonstrate need to own any legal product. That's why there are 60 brands of toothpaste and a whole aisle of the supermarket filled with different brands and styles of bread. And unlike toothpaste and bread, firearms are protected by the Constitution as most recently stated in the Supreme Court decision on Heller. 

The reason the Founders chose to list firearms rights as second only to the right of free speech is that armed citizens represent the ultimate check and balance against the excesses of government. Ultimately, we all love our country, yet fear our government, and the Founders were wise enough to include a "fail safe" in the Bill of Rights. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski said it far more eloquently than I ever could: 

But the simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. Our own sorry history bears this out: Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South. In Florida, patrols searched blacks' homes for weapons, confiscated those found and punished their owners without judicial process. See Robert J. Cottrol & Raymond T. Diamond, The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration, 80 Geo. L.J. 309, 338 (1991). In the North, by contrast, blacks exercised their right to bear arms to defend against racial mob violence. Id. at 341- 42. As Chief Justice Taney well appreciated, the institution of slavery required a class of people who lacked the means to resist. See Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 417 (1857) (finding black citizenship unthinkable because it would give blacks the right to "keep and carry arms wherever they went"). A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble.

All too many of the other great tragedies of history -- Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few -- were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. See Kleinfeld Dissent at 5997-99. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees*. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Fortunately, the Framers were wise enough to entrench the right of the people to keep and bear arms within our constitutional structure. The purpose and importance of that right was still fresh in their minds, and they spelled it out clearly so it would not be forgotten. Despite the panel's mighty struggle to erase these words, they remain, and the people themselves can read what they say plainly enough:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Pelosi Resurrects Gun Registration as Part of Dem Agenda

From yesterday's The Hill blog:

Pelosi pledges compromise on assault weapons ban

The ball is in Congress's court to craft a compromise in reinstating regulations on assault weapons, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged Tuesday.

During an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Pelosi said that the Congress will work to find some middle ground between the previous ban, which expired in 2004, and the precedent laid by the Supreme Court in a ruling enumerating more concrete gunowners' rights last term.

"We have to find some level of compromise," Pelosi said, citing 53 victims of gun violence nationwide in less than a month. "And we have to rid the debate of the misconceptions people have about what gun safety means."

"Yes, it is," the Speaker said when asked if the ball is in Congress's court now that Democrats control the White House. "And we are just going to have to work together to come to some resolution."

Pelosi indicated that new regulations might entail registration and prohibitions on transporting some firearms across state lines.

Got that, boys and girls...registration and prohibitions on transporting some firearms across state lines? If the Dems thought a new AWB was going to be a s&%tstorm of epic proportions, wait until they wade into registration and bans on transportation of firearms.

Any doubts now as to what the leaders of the Democratic Party really want to do?  The "compromise" Pelosi is talking about would lay the groundwork for door-to-door confiscations, which has been the end game all along.

An Old Quote for the New Age...

I stumbled across the quote used in the first episode of the old Millennium television series and I thought it is now strangely appropo:

I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.

— W.H. Auden

Ann Coulter on Gun Control

From her site:

It's something in liberals' DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama's response to North Korea's openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile this week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament.

If the SAT test were used to determine how stupid a liberal is, one question would be: "The best defense against lawless rogues who possess _______ is for law-abiding individuals to surrender their own _______________."

Correct answer: Guns. We would also have accepted nuclear weapons.

Obama explained that "the United States has a moral responsibility" to lead disarmament efforts because America is "the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon."

So don't go feeling all morally superior to a country whose business model consists of exporting heroin, nuclear bombs and counterfeit U.S. dollars, and of importing Swedish prostitutes, you yahoo Americans with your little flag lapel pins.

On the other hand, the Japanese haven't acted up much in the last, say, 64 years ...

Fortunately, our sailors didn't wait around for Obama to save them when Somali pirates boarded their ship this week. Stop right now or I'll ask the U.N. to remind the "international community" that "the U.S. is not at war with Somali pirates."

Gun-toting Americans are clearly more self-sufficient than the sissy Europeans. This is great news for everyone except Barney Frank, who's always secretly wondered what it would be like to be taken by a Somali pirate.

Police -- whom I gather liberals intend to continue having guns -- and intrepid U.N. resolution drafters can't be everywhere, all the time.

If a single civilian in that Binghamton community center had been armed, instead of 14 dead, there might have only been one or two -- including the shooter. In the end, the cops didn't stop Wong. His killing spree ended only when he decided to stop, and he killed himself.

"The shooter will eventually run out of ammo" strategy may not be the best one for stopping deranged multiple murderers.

But it's highly unlikely that any community center in the entire state would be safe from a disturbed former crack-addict like Wong because New York's restrictive gun laws require a citizen to prove he has a need for a gun to obtain a concealed carry permit.

Instead of having Planned Parenthood distribute condoms in schools, they ought get the NRA to pass out revolvers. It would save more lives.

Apparently, No One Supports Gun Control

This is the latest polling data from Gallup...in general, I'm not a huge fan of polls, but it's worth noting that Gallup represents itself as the baseline (check out the graphics on the site, which for some reason I can't get to load into Blogger):

In Gallup polling conducted prior to last week's gun massacre at an immigrant center in Binghamton, N.Y., only 29% of Americans said the possession of handguns by private citizens should be banned in the United States. While similar to the 30% recorded in 2007, the latest reading is the smallest percentage favoring a handgun ban since Gallup first polled on this nearly 50 years ago.

Public support for restricting the sale and possession of handguns to "police and other authorized persons" was relatively high in the early 1990s, with 41% to 43% in favor, but has since edged lower. At the same time, opposition to a ban has increased from 53% in 1991 to 69% in the most recent survey.

The latest figures come from the most recent installment of Gallup's annual Crime survey, conducted Oct. 3-5, 2008. It is unclear what impact, if any, the recent Binghamton incident may have on Americans' views of gun control.

Separately, the October Crime survey found just under half of Americans, 49%, wanting the laws covering the sale of firearms to be made stricter than they are now. This is the lowest percentage favoring stricter gun laws in Gallup trends since the question was first asked in 1990. While only 8% say gun laws should be made less strict, 41% say they should remain as they are now.

Two factors are at work here...the public at large now acknowledges that draconian laws simply do not work and, in fact, can't work...and right now a substantial portion of the public at large is more afraid of its government than it is of a lone gunman.

BTW, I agree with DRTV regular RASTUS commenting on my last post...the more the media gives deranged killers what they want even in death — fame, "significance," blah blah — the more likely we are to have more of the same. I agree with the comments on the changed (for the worse) nature of American society, but I think the overwhelming "drivers" here are the current social tension, which is still ratcheting up, and endless media attention catering to psychopaths.

I fear we have entered a time of blood...stay armed; stay aware!

QUICK--Go Buy a Copy of PATRIOTS!

My friend Jim Rawles' novel, PATRIOTS: A NOVEL OF SURVIVAL IN THE COMING COLLAPSE, is now available from Amazon...if you're interested in getting a copy, buy it today, Wednesday, from Amazon and lets' see if we can bump it up in the Amazon rating! BTW, the opening of this book will profoundly creep you out...little bit too close for reality. 

On the gun front, Big Media is spinning up it's antigun message in the wake of a bad March of mass shootings — again, which I'll be addressing on next week's podcast — once again trotting out the same pile or warmed-over crap. Here's the skinny from CBS: 

Wong said the mystery policeman acted to adjust the fan in his home, "connect the music into my ear," and "made me unbreathable." He added that the officer would break into his room, "three time touch me when I was sleeping," and would try to get into car accidents with him. (The New York Times has posted the whole letter here.) 

This apparently delusional man was a self-avowed gun enthusiast; according to the Times, he had been licensed to carry guns since 1996. Wong had two handguns on him, along with body armor, when he went on his deadly rampage.

Not surprisingly, his actions have once again fanned the debate over gun control in this country. Vice President Joe Biden, reacting to the news, said "it's time that we gotta figure a way to deal with this senseless, senseless violence."

Yeah, Greasy Joe, he's one smart man...like watching a hamster try to recite Shakespeare. Go back in your hole, G.B. Coming up on ABC's 20/20 Friday this week is a segment titled, "If I'd Only Had a Gun," co-hosted by the reprehensibly slimy Diane Sawyer and the imminently thoughtful John Stossel...here's a bit from Brent Bozell's NewsBusters site (read the whole thing): 

Before moving on to other news, the ABC anchor informed viewers that there would not only be more coverage of the shooting spree on tonight's 20/20, but that next Friday the network would air a special on the "epidemic of mass shootings in America." Sawyer: "And, also, a week from tonight, ABC News is going to bring you the results of a year-long exploration of this epidemic of mass shootings in America – why it is happening and what lessons there are about staying safe if it is happening to you, and that is one week from tonight."

I suspect it's going to be a bend over and grease up moment. The MSM is bummed that the Dems aren't happy happy joy joy joy about ramming gun control down our throats, so they're stepping up to the plate. 

MSNBC on Mass Shootings

Worth reading (certainly a rarity!) from MSNBC:

Why are we killing each other?
Even in a media-saturated nation that encourages short memories, these numbers are conversation-stopping: Forty-seven people dead in the past month in American mass shootings and their aftermaths. It's to the point where on Saturday, dizzyingly, the mayor of Binghamton found himself offering Pittsburgh its sympathies.

Put aside for a moment the debate over guns. This isn't about policy. It's about asking the urgent question: What is happening in the American psyche that prevents people from defusing their own anguish and rage before they end the lives of others? Why are we killing each other?

This is not an era of good feeling in the United States. We have under our belt eight years of pernicious terrorism angst, six years of Iraq war weariness and, now, months of wondering how bad the American economy's going to get and when — or, worse, whether — it's going to come back. People are tense. There's less inclination to help out your fellow human being.

Meanwhile, anchors and analysts and witnesses and bloggers cast about in an information-age fog trying to make sense of something that is, in the worst way, nonsensical. They rush to offer solutions, but the thing they typically dodge is that we seem to be powerless to stop it all — that our community, our neighbors, may be next. That's too terrifying to contemplate, not to mention too open-ended for American news consumers reared on tidy Hollywood endings.

This is going to be the subject of my podcast a week from this coming Wednesday (April 15), because I think it's a valid question. More importantly, we're going to talk about your personal defense options on a daily basis.

Fish Story

Michael visits Cabekas...


-- Post From The Road

Another Snow Day...

We'd sort of wanted to go to the range today, but now there's about a foot of white stuff on said range, so we'll take Alf the Snow Beagle hiking instead. Been sitting around this morning watching SECONDHAND LIONS, a wonderful movie that, on a snow day, makes me feel like I'm on the verge of outliving my own time...this line from Robert Duvall's magnificent character Hub sums it up so well:

Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.

Maybe when we move to the new property in a couple of years I'll get a secondhand lion, which at the very least would scare the crap out of the local mountain lions. Maybe I should sign Alf s up for a Beginning Lion Dog Seminar.

I just finished reading EVERYDAY SURVIVAL by Lawrence Gonzales, the follow-up book to his amazingly good DEEP SURVIVAL. Sadly, I wasn't crazy about it...the premise wandered way to far afield for me, and I got lost among the stars, so to speak. He did do a wonderful job of expanding on the concept of using paradigms, which he refers to as scripts, in explaining why we smart humans are so prone to doing stupid things. After a little more research, I'm looking to working this expansion into a future book...it does a good job of filling in some blanks I had.

Ruger 30-round Mini-14 Mag

The long-awaited Ruger Mini-14 factory 30-round magazines are moving into the pipeline. Most of the aftermarket 30s were pretty much crapshoots when it comes to functioning. In fact, the only Mini mags I've ever found to be 100% were the factory 20-rounders. At $49.95 MSRP still pricey when compared to AR 30-rounders, but at least there's parity.

We're going to be filming carbine stuff very soon with the new Ruger Mini-14s "Tacticals." I have one of the ancient 181 Series Mini-14s and it has always been a better gun than it's given credit for...no, it's not a tack-driver, but it's a darn handy fiercely reliable little carbine. I never have understood people waxing poetic about AKs, which are 100 yard guns, while dis'sing Minis, which are 100 yard guns.

Spring Break

Sorry I missed the party! But the airports are looney tunes time! I guess the recession doesn't count when you've got Daddy's credit card...come to think of it, that's how the country's being run these days, except they we're the Daddy.

In catch-up, here's a must-read piece from Breibart's new Big Hollywood site on the endless on th propaganda war on those poor, poor Mexicans:

“There is an iron river of guns that flows South into Mexico [from the United States] to supply criminal organizations on the border,” says Tom Mangan, senior special agent with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in Phoenix. “They are in the market for machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles,” he continues. That’s right. The drug gangs can’t buy that and other military stuff like the 40MM grenades and the rifles with launchers...so they drive to the United States and purchase them from American gun dealers at retail. Isn’t that the story you’ve been told? Well, congratulations. America’s First Amendment protected propaganda ministry has punked you on another important issue — this time on behalf of dissembling officials and gun confiscation advocates.

Pretty much covers it. I say the answer is the opposite of the one being suggested: Mexico needs to draft it's on version of the Second Amendment to give the former peasants that have to live in NarcoWorld South a fighting chance. In Mexico, where guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns...now where have I heard that before? 

Wait wait...an even better idea...we get seven guys, including one who dresses in black and is named "Chris"...

Changing gears entirely, with TBD: SURVIVAL I've been thinking a lot about "transition time," a play on Amanda Ripley's "survivors arc" she outlined her book THE UNTHINKABLE. Ripley says that in a disaster, people typically go through three stages — denial, deliberation and finally decisive action. The people who survive are the ones who most quickly move through that arc.

The transition time concept works, I think, in any violent, chaotic encounter...the more quickly we move from "flinch" to "action" defines whether we will succeed or fail...that means training mental flexibility as well as specific skillsets. Goes back to that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote I've used for years and years, "In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed."

The goal of learning multiple skillsets is giving our minds a whole new box of "index cards," that is, responses for chaotic situations. This allows us to move quickly through the deliberation to decisive action since we're prepared and have a response. The "denial" phase is interesting, essentially the primate flinch/freeze reaction gone wrong. Freezing in the face of danger may have worked better when we were climbing around trees in Africa — lots of big predators are mostly sight hunters — but it doesn't work all that hot when you're getting mugged.

Gonna be doing much more research on this topic...expect more writing, or maybe the subject of a podcast.

Another Day at the Office

-- Post From The Road

Working Hard This Week...

So a little behind here...Marshal is working like crazy to sort out how badly DRTV got clobbered yesterday. The site is still not 100%, but Marshal and Teresa are doing yeoman's work to get it all back online. It reminds me how vulnerable we all are here in the technological web.

I think this week we're may need to declare a PODCAST HOLIDAY until the site is 100%. I'll talk to Marshal this morning, but my inclination is to not add tasks on top of problems. We'll make a decision a little later this AM.

Meanwhile, the reprehensible 'hos at Brady issues this drivel yesterday:  

 It was wrong that a brutal killer and convicted felon was able to arm himself with a military-style semiautomatic assault weapon.? It is wrong that our Nation’s weak and nearly non-existent gun laws make these deadly weapons so easily available to dangerous people. We owe it to these law enforcement officers to do what police leaders across America have been urging and do more to keep these weapons off our streets and out of the hands of dangerous people. 

Yeah, right...more laws would have stopped a man who was banned from possessing a gun from getting a gun and committing multiple murder, which, last I checked, was illegal even in California. The four hero Oakland cops died because the California penal system failed and put a bad man back on the street, and the men in blue had to step in to protect the community. They were soldiers of America...mourn them.

I note that John Kerry, who is lobbying for Teddy Kennedy's role as class fool, is bleating about Mexico. I'm proud to say that my analogy of ending the First Amendment to protect the delicate ears of Our Neighbors to the North has gotten some traction on the Internet.

If you're contacting your Congresscritters on the lunacy of destroying American rights to prop up a crumbling narco-state south 'o the border, feel free to steal my analogy!

I gotta go figure out how to put a Ching sling on an AR...I think it requires a third hand and that face-ripping chimpanzee, so I could be in trouble.

Gun Porn

From Traction Control, when a 500 fps pellet meets common household objects. The Christmas ornament, above, is my favorite.

A Fascinating Book!

I jus finished reading (in two sittings) NeIl Strauss's EMERGENCY: THIS BOOK WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, one man's odyssey from a life as a rock critic to a dedicated survivalist...in the best sense of that often miss-used word. Here's the Amazon blurb: 

Terrorist attacks. Natural disasters. Domestic crackdowns. Economic collapse. Riots. Wars. Disease. Starvation.

What can you do when it all hits the fan?

You can learn to be self-sufficient and survive without the system.

**I've started to look at the world through apocalypse eyes.** So begins Neil Strauss's harrowing new book: his first full-length worksince the international bestseller The Game, and one of the most original-and provocative-narratives of the year.

After the last few years of violence and terror, of ethnic and religious hatred, of tsunamis and hurricanes–and now of world financial meltdown–Strauss, like most of his generation, came to the sobering realization that, even in America, anything can happen. But rather than watch helplessly, he decided to do something about it. And so he spent three years traveling through a country that's lost its sense of safety, equipping himself with the tools necessary to save himself and his loved ones from an uncertain future.

With the same quick wit and eye for cultural trends that marked The Game, The Dirt, and How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Emergency traces Neil's white-knuckled journey through today's heart of darkness, as he sets out to move his life offshore, test his skills in the wild, and remake himself as a gun-toting, plane-flying, government-defying survivor. It's a tale of paranoid fantasies and crippling doubts, of shady lawyers and dangerous cult leaders, of billionaire gun nuts and survivalist superheroes, of weirdos, heroes, and ordinary citizens going off the grid.

It's one man's story of a dangerous world–and how to stay alive in it.

Before the next disaster strikes, you're going to want to read this book. And you'll want to do everything it suggests. Because tomorrow doesn't come with a guarantee...

What fascinated me was the strange parallels to my own life..I would have said I was the only cheesy book writing rock critic who ended up here. Plus, the whole idea of Strauss' quest to be secure parallels in many ways my own OVER THE EDGE: A REGULAR GUY'S ODYSSEY IN EXTREME SPORTS. I loved Strauss' description of his first trip to GUNSITE...he captured my friend Ed Head perfectly! You can read the excerpt here on Amazon.

The LA Times did an interview a couple of weeks ago: 

Neil Strauss hardly seems like a guy who'd kill a goat and gut it with his own hands. A slim intellectual in silver jewelry and designer jeans, he doesn't appear to be the kind of person who would stash food in a forest or plot an escape from his Laurel Canyon home using fire trails and a motorcycle he barely knows how to ride.

Yet that's precisely what Strauss has learned to do over the last three years in an effort to prepare himself should society collapse. It's a journey he not only chronicles in his new book, "Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life," but continues to pursue. 

Days before his book's release, Strauss' BlackBerry is brimming with projects. (Get motorcycle license. Take pain-resistance training. Grind grain.) He's looking to strike a few items off his list. 

"I'm here to pick up a shotgun," he says, stepping up to the counter at Gun World, a Burbank shop whose anteroom is loaded with ammo and shell cases. The shotgun is a Remington 870 Wingmaster -- the third part of an unholy trinity that also includes a 9-millimeter pistol and a rifle, all of which he keeps in a hidden safe at his house. 

"Three years ago, I never would have been in a gun store," says Strauss, who was a New York Times music and culture critic before writing the bestseller "The Game," a guide to picking up women. He also collaborated with Jenna Jameson on her 2004 memoir "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star."

Anyway, what really locked me into the book was the fact that Strauss' and my politics are 180-degrees opposed. At the end of EMERGENCY he and his friends thrill at the election of Obama (although I wonder if he's less thrilled now as the shape of the Brave New World reveals itself).

This book is definitely worth reading, and hey, maybe it will save your life! 

Snowstorm Day

Had to run around and get ready for tomorrow's predicted snowstorm...not a big deal, but needed some survival beer (90 Shilling Ale) and some egg noodles. I would really like to see a snowstorm if for no other reason than I'm terrified of fire season.

Also having some issues with TBD: SURVIVAL...looks like we'll be filming the principal gun stuff at whatever Blackwater is called these days. Am working on getting the ubiquitous dude-guy carbine god Ken Hackathorn to join us. Would be fun, to be sure!

Here's a pretty good piece on His Majesty's Second Amendment plans from PajamasMedia: 

Another way Obama can use the “common sense gun laws” approach to cripple the Second Amendment is to allow his understudies, like Holder, Emmanuel, or any other Democrat, to do his dirty work. This way, he can continue to claim support for the Constitution while simultaneously waging war against it via his surrogates. 

The president is actually using this approach as I type. On January 14, Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush introduced H.R. 45, known as the “Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009.” Should this act pass, it “will make it illegal to possess … any firearm that takes an ammunition clip, without a [federal gun-owner's] license.” According to WorldNetDaily.com’s Drew Zahn, H.R. 45 would also order Attorney General Holder, “to establish a database of every handgun sale, transfer, and owner’s address in America.”

Have you noticed that Obama’s “common sense gun laws” all seem to end in the same way — with the registration of guns and gun owners, as well as an increased number of steps law-abiding citizens must go through to purchase a firearm? It’s just the same old gun-grabbing song and dance, which is why Zahn points out that, “H.R. 45 is a resurfacing of 2007’s H.R. 2666, which contained much of the same language and was co-sponsored by 15 other representatives and Barack Obama’s current chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel.”

As Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general in 1999, Holder described the outlawing of private gun sales as “common sense.” But we recognized the threat, cried foul, and persuaded Congress to ignore Holder’s pleas. Now that Holder, Obama, and Emmanuel are working in unison today, can we do any less?

BTW, I heard from my "Deep Throat" at Springfield Armory, who says that a direct appeal to Massachusetts legislators in Congress applies the most heat to "Mr. Fabric," the new head of SA who hates guns. Tomorrow I'll also give you an address for Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, who is a Colorado rancher and I suspect will have a limited sense of humor about Mr. Fabric, who badly needs to start his new career at Taco Bell. DO NOT contract Mr. Fabric directly...I want his new career to come as a surprise...