Gun-Climate tie in

Holy Crap, National Review with another gun tie in. To sum up, the comparison is made by a commenter, recalling parallels between the academic fraud going on now, and the academic fraud that went on year ago wrt Bellesiles

The money quote, in toto:

"Remember Michael Bellesiles? Arming America? Bancroft Award winner. Supposedly "lost" his data to a flooded basement or some such. What do we think of his "scholarship" now? What credence is given to his data? And how unwillingly were his supporters dragged to that condemnation? Where are his defenders?"

Gunnies may recall Bellesiles as the fraud that made up data suggesting firearm were less prevalent in US History, and he was caught on it, and mostly humiliated. If you can shame a hoplophobe.

How many fish heads? FIVE!

What do you say we make apple juice, and fax it to each other?




~Burp~ smell that?

We'll put on Zeppelin and eat cheddar cheese.

[NSFW -language]

Blog Meet Reminder

It's tonite, at the Sterling Virginia Sweetwater Tavern, at 5 PM.

Be there, or, kindly be square.

Thanks again to Newbius.

Steampunk, F-n OSM!

I can hardly contain myself. WANT!

A Steampunk house to beat all Steampunk anythings.



And he's not even CLOSE to realizing his vision.

LOL Zomb-EE

Oh HAI!

Zombie Trucksters

Golly, I like these. And they should be an inspiration for JayG Vehicle Meme.

A link to the ten best post apocalyptical survival vehicles. Non-fiction, too. Well, one is fictional. See if you can guess which one!

My fave is the SUSA, and it is the closest to what we use on RoMERO ops.

Though for personal comfort, I'd probably go with the Maximog. It's got a terlet.

Don’t Be A Vigilante

It’s one of the things you should have grown out of before you turned 21 and could buy a pistol. The fantasy that you can be Batman. The fantasy that you can be some avenging angel of justice, thwarting evil at every turn.

Resist this urge. Especially if you are and adult and a gun owner.

I admit, in my younger days, full of idealism, I had those thoughts. It’s one of the reasons I joined the military. I wanted to confront and overcome evil. To seek it out and triumph over it. Damn commies. It feels romantic, the idea of righteous vengeance. To put yourself in a position to be a hero. A little bit of that feeling and desire will always be there inside you. It's there in me. Don't trust it.

Just don’t. Mature beyond that urge. Be the OLDER kind of sheep dog, not the pup.

This is the second time this has happened in as many months. The other was folks in the Pacific NW getting CCWs and walking around in bad areas with the PURPOSE of possibly getting attacked so they could respond and take out a bad guy. They were… corrected… of that notion, if indeed that is what they were thinking.

The motivation is admirable, but enthusiasm can lead down dark paths, unintentionally. And the no-confidence, defeatist, Leftists are waiting for you to make that mistake, because it reinforces their defeatism and allows them to control YOU, politically. So resist the urge to be a vigilante. You don’t provoke evil so you can react against it. You don’t poke into dark corners to get evil to jump out at you so you can put it down. Evil men are not like coyotes. They aren’t a varmint or pest. They are persons, like you. Even though they might not deserve it, they do have rights. You have to be reactive, not proactive. It’s part of the deal. It’s part of the burden of carrying with you a deadly means, a weapon besides your brain that you are prepared to use when appropriate.

Know the appropriate.

‘Flushing out a bad guy’ from a park with a random LEO is not, generally, appropriate.

NICS Abuse

By the Federal Goverment...

THIS is what a backdoor nationwide gun registration looks like.

And registration leads to confiscation. People in other countries that let a registration go through and got their guns confiscated by the gov't a little bit later warn us not to let something like this happen.

We've compromised enough, letting regulations pass, that appear like common sense safety firearm laws. They have done nothing to enhance safety and HAVE been a burden to the innocent and smack of incremental tyranny. How about the hoplophobes compromise for once on this, a inalienable human right, and loosen the transgressions against that right somewhere? I'm more than willing to meet in the middle and go from there. The thing is, the middle is a mile or two in non-restricted direction.

Regret? Naw...

But if I was starting up an interest in firearms NOW, instead of 10+ years ago, and I was true to form, my first handgun purchase would be the same as back then: A .357 revolver. Back then I got a 686 that I am VERY happy with. Like I said in the header, this is not a regret.



But if I was starting out NOW, I really look hard at the new revolvers available. Particularly the 327 M&P. I got to handle one at the Fun Show last weekend. It can shoot 8! shots of .357. You can use Moon Clips with it (though I'm not sure how, with a rimmed case...) It has a tritium front sight (the one at the show had it at least), and you can hang a light on it. A revolver like this could give semi-autos a run for their money in police departments. I guess Smith and Wesson should have come up with this in 1983. Had they, I'd probably own one now instead of the 686.

I noticed something else about the Gun Show a bit over a week ago. The plastic guns are invisible to me. So are the ARs for the most part. Why? I'm not in the market for a plastic gun, so my eyes pass over them. I can't tell you if I saw a XD, Glock, S&W, of BlurfleBoomer brand pistol. But I CAN tell you if that last table had Smiths or Tauri or Rossi revolvers.