Casualty of the times

According to an e-mail I just read, it looks like Knight Rifles is going belly up. I don't own, nor have I ever fired, one of their products, not being too terribly interested in black powder guns at this point in my life (especially in-line black powder guns, which I consider a travesty, but to each his own) , although that could change someday.

This latest casualty of the times started me thinking about the hunting firearms industry as a whole. When you stop to think about it, aside from the collector who feels compelled to acquire multiple guns in multiple chamberings, how many customers can the hunting firearms industry count on? The average hunter, unless he is a habitual shooter, looks at his rifle as a tool, a part of the total picture of hunting, a means to an end. He has little need for a slew of rifles, even if he can afford anything he wants. It's my position that this type of customer makes up a substantial part of the hunting firearms market. So, in good economic times companies like Knight rifle can depend upon the collector to keep them in business, but when things turn downward, collectors cut back and average hunters already have their guns, so the whole market for hunting guns sours.

Realistically, once you have a good deer/elk rifle, you don't really need much else if you're a big-game hunter. Barring theft or act-of-God destruction, and assuming reasonable care and maintenance, you could hunt with that same old friend from womb to tomb and likely never wear it out. Gun companies know this, which is why they continually come up with new chamberings that do little more than gild the lily and goad folks into buying their latest and greatest offerings. A wise person/hunter sees through this barrage of advertising and turns a blind eye towards it. Perhaps this, coupled with a severe recession, had something to do with Knight Rifles's demise.

Take care.
DAL357

P.S. When Remington stepped into the AR15 field, I wondered about the wisdom of the move. Now, however, I realize it was a good decision for the company's survival. To the best of my knowledge, Remington was heavily tied to the hunting firearms field, which has been static for some time. By encompassing the red-hot black rifle market, Remington is able to stay afloat and not end up like Winchester. A shrewd move, I'd say, even if the world doesn't need another AR15 maker/marketer. (The world could use a few more ammo makers, but I digress.)

You may have noticed...

You may have noticed a tapering off of blog posts recently; a good reason exists for this phenomenon: We're moving! That's right, the 357s are voluntarily downsizing and moving to another home. This one will be more centrally located in the city (although it will be farther away from my work...how'd that happen?...oh, yeah, a one word explanation: wife) and exactly 1,000 s.f. smaller.

So, I've been busy moving stuff that we could mostly live without to temporary storage. It's amazing the amount of useless items one woman can accumulate in eleven years at one house. Of course, I've accumulated a fair amount of things too, but mine all have a purpose.

Anyway, I've got to get going. I have to run another load to the storage unit, although I'm tempted instead to take a detour to the dump.

Take care.
DAL357

Uh oh!

Call me cynical, but the first thought that muscled its way to the front of the line in my mind wasn't, "How sad that people died and had property destroyed in this storm." No, it was, "I wonder how much money this is going to cost the USA?" Heck, I don't even know if the US government will be sending "aid," a euphemism for tax dollars, but I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if it didn't.

Isn't it awful that a human being can't feel at least a bit of compassion for a disaster without thinking about how much he'll be fleeced for it? But that's the kind of reaction the US government has wrought with its innumerable instances of largess to folks who should be their own government's concern. Thanks, FedGov, for making me so callous.

By the way, notice the term "global warming" used below--this must have been a slip-up. I thought the new term for this is "climate change," since global warming now may or may not be happening. But since adopting the phrase climate change, the totalitarian-at-heart environmentalists can now have all of the bases covered no matter which way the wind blows, or at what temperature. Neat, eh? Also, isn't it frugal of this "reporter" to tie two different things into one news story? By piggybacking the holy grail of the environmentalist movement, global warming/climate change, onto a tragic occurrence, the environmentalist message gets more exposure.

One other thing: the Indian government should be able to afford to help its people, with all of the programming jobs and 1-800 help number jobs that have gone there from the US, their tax base must have risen in recent years, giving them more capital to work with for such contingencies.

*****

Millions displaced by cyclone in India, Bangladesh
By Sujoy Dhar Sujoy Dhar


KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – Cyclone Aila has displaced millions of people in India and Bangladesh, only a fraction of whom have access to food and drinking water, officials said on Wednesday.

The cyclone has killed at least 210 people in the flood-prone region, though officials said the death toll could rise, and rescuers have struggled to reach millions still marooned.

Cyclone Aila hit parts of coastal Bangladesh and eastern India on Monday, triggering tidal surges and floods.

Officials say more than one million people have been displaced in India's Sundarban islands in West Bengal state alone, one of the world's biggest tiger reserves and which is already threatened by global warming.

Heavy rain triggered by the storm raised river levels and burst mud embankments in the Sundarbans delta, destroying hundreds of thousands of houses and causing widespread flooding in the eastern state, and triggered landslides.

Global warming experts say rising sea levels have seen the fragile Sundarbans lose 28 percent of its habitat in the last 40 years.

Nearly 2.3 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands have moved to government shelters in West Bengal, the aid agency Save the Children told AlertNet.

As water levels slowly recede, hundreds of thousands of families who sought refuge in shelters, schools and other buildings are now returning to find their homes either washed away or submerged in water. [Man, that's some crackerjack reporting! What else would one expect from a flood, clean floors and windows?]

*****

Take care.
DAL357

Infinite hubris coupled with economic ignorance

Does it ever end? I suppose it will someday, but for now the attitude of the current idiot administration/party in power, as opposed to the last idiot administration, seems to be "in for a penny, in for a pound." They can't wait to display the depths of their economic illiteracy to the world. Check out the following hyper-moronic plan to stimulate U.S. auto sales.

*****

Obama, lawmakers agree on "cash-for-clunkers" bill
Tue May 5, 3:49 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers reached agreement on Tuesday on a legislative proposal designed to stimulate U.S. auto sales, which have fallen to near 30-year lows.

The one-year plan crafted by members of the U.S. House of Representatives would offer vouchers worth up to $4,500 for owners to replace their less fuel efficient vehicles for models that get better gas mileage.

The goal of the "cash for clunkers" legislation is to sell 1 million vehicles.

"By stimulating consumer demand for new vehicles, this proposal will directly benefit domestic autoworkers and automotive manufacturers, which have arguably been hardest hit by the current economic downturn," said Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and staunch industry ally.

House Majority leader Steny Hoyer has embraced the proposal and said in an interview with Reuters in April that the measure would be acted upon quickly once proposed.

*****

Why only $4500 towards a new car? Why not give the things away to everyone (citizen and illegal alike) and make those factories really hum?

Truthfully, I don't really care anymore. As someone I read recently said, it's all the Democrats' baby now; they can't blame the impending fiscal ka-boom on those worms known as the Republicans, who stand for nothing except a different version of big government. In fact, I implore all idiotic ideas be not only proposed, but adopted, thereby hastening the day of reckoning.

Take care.
DAL357

Swine flu update

Update: SHUT THE HE** UP ABOUT THIS MEDIA-DRIVEN NON EVENT!!! It's obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain that this is NOT the population-reducing pandemic that's been predicted for decades by sci-fi writers and epidemiologists, at least not yet. If the virus goes into hiding, morphs into something more deadly, then resurfaces during the next cold-and-flu season, we'll have something to worry about. But those are BIG ifs. In the meantime, try to refocus on how we're all getting bent over a barrel by a government run amok, elected by a people who are willfully deaf, dumb, and blind, for this flu thing is most assuredly an attempt to distract you from the real epidemic: venal politicians and the idiots who elect them.

Take care.
DAL357

Close to home

This story, unlike some break-ins, had a happy ending. It also happens to have occurred in my city, which is not known as a particularly violent place to live.

*****

A suspected burglar is under arrest Saturday morning after police say the homeowner took security into their own hands.

Colorado Springs police say they were called to 3295 West Woodmen Road on a report that a person armed with a knife had just broken into the caller's home. The caller told police they had used their gun to fire a shot at the armed suspect and the suspect had run away.


Police and K-9 units found the suspect in the woods with non-life threatening wound to his lower leg. He was transported to Memorial Hospital and arrested after he was released.

The suspect, Ricky Hatcher, was booked into the Criminal Justice Center for Felony Menacing.

Police say the homeowner and Hatcher may have known each other. Police say the homeowner is not facing charges pending further review by the District Attorneys office.

*****

I've got to make sure my wife reads this. (For some reason, and I could be wrong, but I have the feeling the homeowner involved is a woman, mainly because it's written using variants of they which, as any decent writer knows, is not correct grammar.)

Take care.
DAL357

Others' perception of you could be jeanetic

George Will recently penned a piece opining on the the proliferation of denim wearers and, most importantly, the philosophy behind this several-decades-long phenomenon. You can read it below, along with my comments, of course.

*****

Demon Denim
By George F. Will

Thursday, April 16, 2009

On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes. Father and son are dressed identically -- running shoes, T-shirts. And jeans, always jeans. If mother is there, she, too, is draped in denim. [James Howard Kunstler called it the infantilization of the American adult male, although it goes for American adult females too.]

Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. [Sorry, George, but that's going a bit too far. Freedom means putting up with slobs who have no idea that's what they are, but I kind of get your drift.] Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.

It is, he says, a manifestation of "the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby." Denim reflects "our most nostalgic and destructive agrarian longings -- the ones that prompted all those exurban McMansions now sliding off their manicured lawns and into foreclosure." Jeans come prewashed and acid-treated to make them look like what they are not -- authentic work clothes for horny-handed sons of toil and the soil. Denim on the bourgeoisie is, Akst says, the wardrobe equivalent of driving a Hummer to a Whole Foods store -- discordant. [True.]

Long ago, when James Dean and Marlon Brando wore it, denim was, Akst says, "a symbol of youthful defiance." [Now, since practically everyone wears denim, kids have to show youthful defiance by wearing their baseball hats cockeyed, or having tats or piercings.] Today, Silicon Valley billionaires are rebels without causes beyond poses, wearing jeans when introducing new products. [Yeah, I've noticed this over the years. They try so much to be some kind of iconoclast, but they end up looking like they're trying too hard and merely appear foolish.] Akst's summa contra denim is grand as far as it goes, but it only scratches the surface of this blight on Americans' surfaces. Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote. In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six -- so far -- "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you). [Yes! YEEEESSSSS!!! Oh, and let's not forget the worship of sports teams and all of the piggish behavior that seems to entail.] Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling -- thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism -- of believing that appearance matters. [If appearance DIDN'T matter, then why is the media and pop culture filled with images of so-called beautiful people? Of course appearance matters, which is why every mother's son and daughter ought to do their best to look neat, clean, and well-dressed at least a couple of days a week.] That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste. [In other words, it leads to the "Who are you to judge?" mentality which, when embraced, leads to more and more boorish behavior, dress, and attitude. It leads to mindless lemming-like conformity and a suppression of thought, and that's NEVER a good thing.]

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves. [This is so true. If you dress casually, what does that say about your attitude and thoughts about your audience? Not much in my book.]

Do not blame Levi Strauss for the misuse of Levi's. [I don't.] When the Gold Rush began, Strauss moved to San Francisco planning to sell strong fabric for the 49ers' tents and wagon covers. Eventually, however, he made tough pants, reinforced by copper rivets, for the tough men who knelt on the muddy, stony banks of Northern California creeks, panning for gold. Today it is silly for Americans whose closest approximation of physical labor consists of loading their bags of clubs into golf carts to go around in public dressed for driving steers up the Chisholm Trail to the railhead in Abilene. [Bwaahaha!]

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly. [Hmmm, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I guess that's as good a milepost as any to start from.]

Edmund Burke -- what he would have thought of the denimization of America can be inferred from his lament that the French Revolution assaulted "the decent drapery of life"; it is a straight line from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of denim -- said: "To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely." Ours would be much more so if supposed grown-ups would heed St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and St. Barack's inaugural sermon to the Americans, by putting away childish things, starting with [but not limited to] denim.

(A confession: The author owns one pair of jeans. Wore them once. Had to. Such was the dress code for former senator Jack Danforth's 70th birthday party, where Jerry Jeff Walker sang his classic "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." Music for a jeans-wearing crowd.)

*****

Bravo!, George Will, for bringing up this topic. Too bad it will fall on deaf ears, or those that do hear your message will miss its point entirely and dismiss you as a snob. Oh well, pearls before swine and all that.

By the way, one of my favorite things to do is to put on a pair of casual chinos, dress shoes, a dress shirt (no tie), and a sports coat and shop for a few things at Wal-mart. The looks I get from the slovenly dressed there, which comprise about 95% of shoppers, are priceless. It's all great, good fun, and my little slap at the ignorant, boorish behavior and dress that has become the norm in America.

Take care.
DAL357

P.S. I own more than one pair of jeans, but I don't wear them every single day. I also have other forms of dress and I believe I'll be wearing those forms more and more in the future so as to differentiate myself from the rabble.

P.P.S. No doubt some of you will say, "I don't care what others think of me." Yes, you do. Would you rather drive a shiny, new, paid-off car, or an old beater? Be honest. Have you ever checked your nostrils in a mirror to see if there is anything there that shouldn't be? Sure you have, because you care about what someone might think of you should you have dried snot ringing your nose. Don't give me that tact; try it on someone else. If you truly don't care, then forget this post and go in peace like the slob you've likely always been.

Jack Weaver

I didn't even know he was still alive. Well, I guess he's not anymore.

*****

The shooting world lost one of its best-known names last week. Former Los Angeles County Deputy Jack Weaver, 80, died Tuesday in Carson City. Weaver, for those of you not familiar with the name, is the man for whom the Weaver Shooting Stance is named.

After experimenting with a variety of shooting stances and modifications, Weaver decided the best position for reaction shooting was simple: two hands on the weapon, gun up a foot or so above the vertical centerline of the body, and head slightly dropped. This gave him what he called a "flash picture" of the target. It also gave him the 1959 "Leatherslap" gunfighting title. As he explained "it looked kind of stupid, and everybody was laughing at me, but it worked."

After three years of losing to Weaver, Guns and Ammo writer and legendary shooting expert Jeff Cooper proclaimed the Weaver Stance "decisively superior" to anything else. In fact, Cooper incorporated Weaver's stance into his Modern Technique of the Pistol.

On Saturday evening, I spoke with Weaver's son, Alan, about his father and learned that this last year of his life had been one "of a rock star" after American Handgunner published a story about Weaver and his stance in its May issue. "All last year," Alan said, "Dad got letters, videos, patches from police departments and shooting clubs, tons of mementos that made him realize that people did remember him and his contributions."

We all remember Weaver's contribution to shooting -every time we take a two handed Weaver, or modified Weaver or whatever you call it.

--Jim Shepherd

*****

Like or loathe his stance (I kind of like it), he did help move accurate handgun shooting to the point it is today.

Take care.
DAL357

Truly newsworthy

Which came first, a population of dolts or a press that reports such drivel?

*****

LOS ANGELES – Miley Cyrus and alter-ego Hannah Montana have double-teamed their way to another No. 1 box office debut.

Cyrus' "Hannah Montana: The Movie" opened this weekend with $34 million in ticket sales. The big weekend follows Cyrus' first-place premiere last year with her 3-D concert film.

The movie is a big-screen installment of the Disney Channel series about a teen living a double life as an ordinary high school girl and pop star Hannah.

"Hanna Montana" drew $17.3 million on Friday for the biggest opening day ever for a G-rated live-action movie.

"Fast & Furious" fell back to second place this weekend. The street-racing thriller pulled in $28.8 million to raise its domestic total to $118 million.

*****

I see America's greatest achievements rapidly fading in the rear view mirror.

Take care.
DAL357

The Battle of Blenheim

Here's a little poem I stumbled across that I thought others might like. Take a gander and see what you think.

*****

The Battle of Blenheim
Robert Southey (1774-1843)

It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And, with a natural sigh,
"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory.

"I find them in the garden,
For there's many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out!
For many thousand men," said he,
"Were slain in that great victory."

"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin, he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
I could not well make out;
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide,
And many a childing mother then,
And new-born baby died;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won,
And our good Prince Eugene."
"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"
Said little Wilhelmine.
"Nay... nay... my little girl," quoth he,
"It was a famous victory.

"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."

Note: Prince Eugene: François Eugene de Savoie-Carignan, a brilliant general who aided Marlborough in defeating the Bavarians and French at Blenheim, Bavaria, August 13, 1704.

*****

Ah, the folly of war. Too bad this bit of wisdom isn't learned by every child in grade school in America. Nah, that couldn't happen, it might give the little darlings nightmares, although many seem to watch movies with vicious characters and graphic, violent action at far too young an age with scant parental supervision.

Take care.
DAL357

"When seconds count,...

the police are only minutes away."

Anyone who's been around the self-defense arena for very long has probably heard this little truism more than once. The Binghampton shootings reinforces the dead-on veracity of this maxim. In a statement by Police Chief Joseph Zikuski on the shootings, he showed that sometimes the police are MANY minutes away.

The chief defended the time it took officers to go into the building — an hour to 90 minutes.

"If some crazy lunatic decides to pick up a gun and go someplace and start shooting people, I really don't have the answer how long for us that could prevent anything like that," Zikuski said.

"What I will tell you is that the police did the right thing," he said. "We have procedures and protocols."

Remember this the next time someone exhorts you to leave your own self-defense to the police and just dial 911. Procedures and protocols are fine, usually, but sometimes exigent circumstances dictate actual thought over mechanized rote.

Oh, by the way, Chief, I do have an answer on how to, at the very least, keep the body count down: responsible armed citizens. Had someone in that facility been armed, although no one can guarantee it, I'd be willing to bet things would have turned out less favorably for the murderer. But, with the average resident of New York state rendered helpless by governmental decree by not being allowed to be legally armed, a tragedy occurred instead.

No one can predict what will make a weak mind snap. The best we can do is be prepared to take defensive action when it happens, be that defensive action running away or defending yourself with a weapon, especially a firearm.

Take care.
DAL357

Ipso facto

Yup, this proves it: Anyone who is a gun owner and is concerned that the Obama administration is hostile to the private ownership of guns is only a hair's breadth away from a mass shooting. Or so the following report would love for you to believe (by implication, of course).

*****

Police official: 3 officers killed in Pa. shooting

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH – A man opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns. [Okay, so are a lot of people, what does that have to do with what a disturbed individual has done? Nothing, of course, but it helps to associate in weak minds that gun ownership, concern about confiscation, and (especially) insanity are somehow linked.]

Three officers were killed, said a police official at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Police spokeswoman Diane Richard would only say that at least five officers were wounded, but wouldn't give any other details. [My condolences to the families of the officers killed and wounded.]

The man who fired at the officers was arrested after a several-hour standoff. One witness reported hearing hundreds of shots. [The implication here being that the assailant fired hundreds of rounds. But what if it was the cops pouring in the rounds? It wouldn't be the first time.]

The shootings occurred just two weeks after four police officers March 21 in Oakland, Calif., in the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. [The day when a lot of police officers died and not a shot was fired. Forgot that little detail, didn't you, you Brady and VPC shill.]

Police did not immediately release the gunman's identity, but his friends at the scene described him as a young man who thought the Obama administration would ban guns. [Would that they could, believe me.]

One friend, Edward Perkovic, said the gunman feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said he feared that President Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he "wasn't violently against Obama." [I'd say this young man, aside from his time-out for insane behavior, had a better grasp on things than many folks.]

Perkovic, a 22-year-old who said he was the gunman's best friend, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, "Eddie, I am going to die today. ... Tell your family I love them and I love you." [Eddie, being a heterosexual, was naturally repulsed.]

Perkovic said: "I heard gunshots and he hung up. ... He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot."

Vire, 23, said the gunman once had an Internet talk show but that it wasn't successful. Vire said his friend had an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum. [Ewww! "Powerful handguns." No attempt at shading/influencing there, right Mr. Reporter-man?]

The officers were called to the home in the Stanton Heights neighborhood at about 7 a.m., Richard said. [The gunman was an early riser.]

Tom Moffitt, 51, a city firefighter who lives two blocks away, said he heard about the shooting on his scanner and came to the scene, where he heard "hundreds, just hundreds of shots. And not just once — several times." [What!?!? So Moffitt heard hundreds of rounds fired several times? Does this mean close to a thousand or more rounds were fired? This makes no sense, the ignorance of this witness is abundantly apparent, and his statement can be dismissed as unreliable.]

Rob Gift, 45, who lives a block away, said he heard rapid gunfire as he was letting his dog out.

He said the neighborhood of well-kept single-family houses and manicured lawns is home to many police officers, firefighters, paramedics and other city workers.

"It's just a very quiet neighborhood," Gift said. [I guess the point of including Gift's statement is to show this wasn't some inner-city neighborhood filled with drug houses. Plus, it shows that those darn, dirty gun owners just can't be trusted not to fly off the handle and start popping people, even in good neighborhoods.]

*****

Take care.
DAL357

Sportsman's Warehouse

Last week, Sportsman's Warehouse filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Apparently the chain is yet another victim of a shrinking consumerism-based economy. Judging merely by the scarcity of reloading components on the shelves of the Colorado Springs store, I am not surprised. The scarcity makes me believe they should be called Sportsman's Wherehouse.

I first became aware of Sportsman's Warehouse after I stumbled upon one in Denver about five years ago. The store had a fantastic selection of shooting goods, as well as many other things outdoors related. When Colorado Springs finally got a store, I looked forward to it with anticipation and, for a while, I was not disappointed. But after a couple of years, some cracks started to show. Reloading supplies began to be stocked with increasing irregularity and spots on the shelves for the more popular items would stay bare for weeks on end, and this was long before the current buy-it-all-now-'cause-they're-gonna-ban/hyper-tax-it ammo hysteria.

I'm not sure who was handling the supply logistics for the store/chain, but their incompetency during the good times was painfully evident. As everyone with even a cursory understanding of how to run a business knows, keeping a ready and steady supply on hand of products, especially popular ones, is crucial to the bottom line and to the long-time survival of the concern.

Maybe this bankruptcy reorganization will help SW get its act together and, once the ammo hysteria dies down a bit and ammo makers can catch up on backorders, become a successful retailer. But the pessimist in me says that is unlikely, particularly if some changes are not made in upper management and the usual way of doing business.

There, see how easy that fix was? I'll tell you, the problem with the world is that it doesn't have me to run it. For example, I can fix the US economy with just the few following words: STOP SPENDING MORE THAN YOU MAKE, AND ALWAYS VOTE FOR LIBERTY FIRST (making the huge assumption that you have a clue what liberty is), NOT A PARTY, MORONS! (Actually, there's a bit more to it than that, but those are the roots of most of the problem.)

Take care.
DAL357

Gouging out your own eye to help your neighbor see better

Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, AP Writer

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress may be alarmed by the surge in Mexican drug violence and its potential to spill across the border, but they grow silent when the talk turns to gun control as a solution. [Yup, nothing like fear of not winning re-election to shut a politician's mouth; so, these creatures can be taught simple tricks, eh?]

With related kidnappings and killings occurring in the U.S., the Obama administration is likely to shift dozens of enforcement agents and millions of dollars to the fight against Mexican drug cartels. [A losing proposition, as the War on Drugs is unwinnable, and those without a vested interest in keeping it going (law enforcement, to name one) and a scintilla of sense know that.]

Underscoring the Obama administration's concern over the violence and the potential for a large-scale spillover into the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Mexico on Wednesday to show support for its crackdown on drug cartels. [Oh, "the potential" for violence to come to the US. Yes, let's legislate on the "potential" of something that hasn't happened. Sure, why not? It helps distract attention from the FedGov's abject failure to protect its citizens from financial fraud, and it makes the pols seem like they're efficient go-getters, when, of course, they are not.]

Mexico has long tried to get the United States to curtail the number of guns — many purchased legally — that wind up south of the border, where gun laws are much stricter. The State Department says firearms obtained in the U.S. account for an estimated 95 percent of Mexico's drug-related killings. [So, in essence, what this paragraph is saying is that strict gun laws do not prevent murders (so why have them?). Also, I like how the word "estimated" is thrown in there. Whose estimate is that, what's it based on, and from which orifice did they pull that figure? Nonsense like this is easy to see through, unless you're a weak-minded dolt, and we have millions of them in the US--basically anyone who votes Republican or Democrat because they think there is no alternative.]

"If President Calderon's policies to roll back organized crime are to be successful, we need to defang the power of the drug syndicates to inflict damage upon our state, local and police forces," Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, said in January. "The best way we can do that is for a real ratcheting up of the United States' capabilities of shutting down the flow of weapons." ["Flow of weapons," could you please quantify that? Heck, one or two guns (or knives, or baseball bats, etc.) could be a "flow of weapons." You know, I agree with the ambassador on one point: we should ratchet up the US' capabilities by building a wall from one end of the border to the other, patrolling it incessantly, and shooting any Mexican citizens who happen crawl over or under it. That would cut down on the imaginary "flow of weapons" in one direction and the very real flow of illegal immigrants in the other.]

"I don't think the solution to Mexico's problems is to limit Second Amendment gun rights in this country," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate GOP's election committee. "What we can do is help our Mexican friends enforce their own laws." [Now here's a politician with his finger firmly in the wind. He's right, except about the part where "we" (the US) should help Mexico enforce its own laws; I missed that part of the US Constitution.]

For his part, Obama has signaled a willingness to tighten restrictions on guns, calling the flow of drug money and guns "a two-way situation." Yet 65 Democrats said in a letter to Holder that they would oppose any attempt by the administration to revive a ban on military-style weapons. ["Obama has signaled a willingness to tighten restrictions on guns." Really? Just a "willingness?" I'll bet he's foaming at the mouth at the prospect.]

Tom Diaz, an analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a gun [banning] control group, said cartels use military-style weapons such as the Armalite AR-50, a .50-caliber sniper rifle. ["Military-style weapons"...so the guns just have to look like military weapons, but not really be military weapons? Now we're talking about cosmetics?]

Semiautomatic rifles used by the cartels [Why would a drug-runner use a semiautomatic rifle when fully-automatic rifles are readily available from former Eastern-bloc countries, and corrupt soldiers in the Mexican army itself? These drug gangs have enough money to get practically anything they want, so why would they mess around with the relatively slower firepower of a semi-auto? The answer is they wouldn't.] are imported legally into the U.S. as "sporting" weapons, a policy that was stopped for years but revived under President George W. Bush. [I see, lay the blame at Bush's feet. The policy was "revived" because its ten-year lifespan expired--Bush had nothing to do with it. Not that I'm a fan of Bush, I'm glad he's gone, but let's at least try to act like an unbiased reporter, okay SUZANNE GAMBOA?]

Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., who chaired a hearing on guns going to Mexico, said he is not seeking widespread gun control [No, that would be too ambitious. Just another nick in the Death of a Thousand Cuts gun owners are enduring will do.] but Congress must do something. [Even if it's the wrong thing. Hey, portraying a situation with an aura of desperation demanding extreme exigence worked like gangbusters for the TARP fiasco, so why not trot out the ploy again for this circumstance? If you really want to do something, as I said above, make the border as impenetrable as humanly possible. Until you do that, Tierney, you're just wanking around.]

"We don't want to get distracted by the gun industry lobby of the NRA trying to talk about (how) every attempt to bring some sanity to the situation is somehow an attempt to get rid of everybody's Second Amendment rights," he said. "That's a red herring." [I see. So any discussion that runs contrary to the course of action you've already decided upon should somehow be dismissed as a distraction? Further suppressing the God-given and Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of US citizens is somehow bringing "sanity" to a situation? No thanks, fool.]

*****

Honestly, if this is the best ploy the Obama administration can come up with to further suppress our rights, and I don't want to get over confident, but I believe we have little to fear as gun owners. If this is the best argument they can proffer for another AWB, then this is a sorry, incompetent administration with such a paucity of ideas that they may make the Carter administration look good.

Take care.
DAL357

Rubber band Indoor-Varmint Getter

Here's a short article I wrote to submit to a varmint hunting magazine which didn't turn out the way I wanted, so I thought I'd post it here.





Can’t get out to your favorite shooting range due to this or that reason? Too hot/cold outdoors to pop varmints? No problem. Allow me a few minutes of your time and I’ll clue you in on a pastime that, while it can’t replace firearms hunting, can at least distract you from your inability to get your fix. Plus, you don’t even have to leave your home!

Practically every home in the United States is not only a shelter for humans but, somewhere in its nooks, crannies, or bowels, is also a haven for unwanted (as opposed to wanted?) insects. Sure, you can spray them, but you, dear varmint hunter, know that while insecticides may be efficient, they’re not quite as satisfying as personally squashing the little buggers. That’s where the following method of insect extermination comes into play that rids your home of pests AND gives you some quality hunting time.

Before I get to the specifics, I’ll tell you that I first was introduced to this sport back in 1971 by an acquaintance I made in 7th grade named Bernie. Where he learned it, I have no idea, and it’s really not important. What is important is that it works and it’s fun. (Wherever you are, Bernie, thanks.)

To participate in this sport, you won’t need any fancy equipment. Rangefinders, camo clothing, pet loads, etc. would be more of a hindrance than a help. Nope, the only things you’ll need are two 3.5” x .25” (size no. 64) rubber bands (see photo 1 above), and possibly a damp cloth.

By joining the two rubber bands together as shown (see photos 2 & 3 above), you will lend enough speed and accuracy to this simple device to make clean (relatively speaking--more on that later), humane kills. After a bit of practice, which I’ll outline next, you’ll be at least as deadly as DDT.

Okay, you have made your projectile, now what? Have you ever heard of point shooting? Look at photo 4 above and notice what’s missing when the rubber band is in firing position…sights! This may seem a big problem at first, but I can assure you that after a modicum of practice, you won’t even think about them anymore. Draw a one-inch black circle on a piece of paper, tape it to a wall about shoulder high, step back approximately 6 to 8 feet, and draw the rubber band to firing position. (Note: I strongly urge you to use some type of eye protection when doing this because a rubber band once slipped off of my fingertip and hit me in my aiming eye. OUCH!) Make as straight a plane as possible between your fingertip, aiming eye, and the target. Then, just open the finger and thumb of the hand holding the rear portion of the rubber band. Whack! You should have come pretty close to your aiming point. If not, keep repeating, making any needed minor adjustments, until you hit your target at least 7 out of 10 times. When you get to this point, you’re ready to stalk your prey. (By the way, although I am right-handed, with the rubber band I use my left hand to shoot from. You’ll need to figure out which hand works best for you.)

As any successful hunter knows, you’ve got to go to where the game is unless you want to come home empty handed. The same holds true for the sport of insect hunting (hereafter referred to as insecting). The most fertile hunting ground in my house, and I suspect many houses, is the basement. A basement is like an insect magnet, probably because it’s an easy means of ingress for the little critters. We finished our basement several years ago, but that didn’t stop the never-ending procession of water bugs (aka roly polys) and spiders. I’ve lost count of the number of spiders I have killed, both by shoe and rubber band, over the years, but it has to be many dozens. Find the place(s) in your home where you have been invaded, then get to work insecting.

Once your quarry has been located, use the skill you’ve practiced to obtain to dispatch it swiftly and efficiently. Aim for center mass as you draw your rubber band to full length (don’t forget that eye protection), and make as flat a plane as you can between your aiming eye, the tip of your finger, and your target. Get as close as you think you need to (but please, no closer than 4 feet…5 to 6 feet is much more sporting) and let ‘er fly. Great, one dead insect!

Here’s where that damp cloth comes into play, especially if you’ve just splattered the creature against the wall. Wipe off the residue immediately, otherwise you run the risk of staining the area. Believe me, if your wife sees the mess you made, she’s not going to be too happy, and you may find yourself repainting a room, which could dampen your enthusiasm for your new hobby. Be safe--wipe up your slop. Don’t forget to clean off your rubber band also.

If you miss, the insect, especially spiders, I have found, usually obligingly stick around for another try, particularly if they are ensconced in their webs. Flies are less amenable to giving you another chance, but they usually alight again somewhere nearby after a few seconds of agitated buzzing, affording the opportunity for redemption.

So, there you have it. A sport that offers a tiny bit of the excitement of hunting that’s likely no more than a few steps from any point in your house. Granted, it will never replace real hunting, but some days, it’ll do.

*****

Take care.
DAL357

Cooler heads prevail in Mexico

Mexican drug gangs dump human heads in ice coolers
Tue Mar 10, 3:04 pm ET

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Suspected drug gang hitmen dumped five severed human heads in ice coolers on a road in western Mexico on Tuesday with a message threatening rivals, a state attorney general's office said.

Police patrolling a highway on the edge of the Mexican colonial city of Guadalajara found the heads inside five coolers left on the roadside, the Jalisco state attorney general's office said.

"They were recently severed heads, cut off about four hours before they were found," a spokesman said, adding police found a message left by apparent drug hitmen threatening rival gangs. The victims' identities were not disclosed.

*****

Sorry, but it was irresistable.

Take care.
DAL357

Anomalous?

Here's a story that came out last month, but which I've just gotten around to commenting on.

*****

Muslim TV exec accused of beheading wife in NY

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the TV network they launched to counter Muslim stereotypes. [I'll bet the tact of this station was that the West just doesn't understand Muslims and Islam, so it's the West that has the problem. It didn't work out too well, did it? The West has your number just fine, Islam.]

Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played [of course not, someone might get offended], but the slaying gave rise to speculation [by those with a brain in their head and stones in their pants] that it was the sort of "honor killing" more common in countries half a world away, including the couple's native Pakistan.

The Hassans lived in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, N.Y., — a well-off Buffalo suburb that hadn't seen a homicide since 1986 — and started Bridges TV there in 2004 with a goal of developing understanding between North America and the Middle East and South Asia. The network, available across the U.S. and Canada, was believed to be the first English-language cable station aimed at the rapidly growing Muslim demographic. [Uh oh.]

Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said his officers had responded to domestic incidents involving the couple, most recently Feb. 6, the day Mo Hassan was served with the divorce papers and an order of protection. [Yup, nine out of ten murdered wives and girlfriends would agree, if they could, that pieces of paper make poor shields against murderous louts.]

Said Paul Moskal, who became friendly with the couple while he was chief counsel for the FBI in Buffalo, "His personal life kind of betrayed what he tried to portray publicly," Moskal said. [Yeah, just slightly.]

On Feb. 12, Hassan went to a police station and told officers his wife was dead at the TV studio.

"We found her laying in the hallway the offices were off of," Benz said. Aasiya Hassan's head was [conveniently] near her body.

"I don't know if (the method of death) does mean anything," said the chief [a distant relative of inspector Clouseau], who would not discuss what weapon may have been used. "We certainly want to investigate anything that has any kind of merit. It's not a normal thing you would see." [Not here, but in certain other countries it no doubt is quite common, along with the quaint practice of female circumcision.]

Nadia Shahram, who teaches family law and Islam at the University at Buffalo Law School, explained honor killing as a practice still accepted among fanatical ["fanatical"--a word chosen specifically to make it seem to Western minds that ol' Mo and his ilk represent only a small fraction of Muslims, an assertion I find dubious] Muslim men who feel betrayed by their [viewed-as-chattel] wives.

On Feb. 12, Hassan went to a police station and told officers his wife was dead at the TV studio. Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz says Aasiya Hassan's head was found near [conveniently] her body.

Nancy Sanders, the television station's news director for 2 1/2 years, remembers Aasiya Hassan. "She was beautiful, small, delicately built," she said, "while Mo would fill up a door frame. I always thought of him as a gentle giant." [Perhaps his future fellow inmates will too. Yes, just a big teddy bear of a man to be cuddled and rocked to sleep after an old-fashioned prison rape!]

"I just do not feel it was an honor killing," Sanders added. "I think it was domestic abuse that got out of control." [Huh? This guy not only murdered his wife, but then he took the time to perform a highly symbolic and ritualistic act on her corpse. He didn't just mean to kill her, he meant to dishonor her per the barbaric customs of his tribe. Intelligence, apparently, is not a prerequisite to being a news director.]

*****

Cripe! The only thing that surprises me about this item is that it doesn't surprise me.

Take care.
DAL357

Paul Harvey dies

Just last night I read that Paul Harvey had died; his unique voice and delivery will be missed.

I remember when I first heard him: it was in Panama (the country) when I was a wee lad of nine. Riding with my father (who was in the U.S. Army) in the front seat of the family car (sans seatbelt), I first laughed at Harvey because his delivery was so different from anything I'd ever heard before I thought it was a joke. I even remember the story he was reporting on, which was about a circus tent that had collapsed as it was being erected, killing several people. Still chuckling, I asked my father who this guy was, because he was funny. A bit perturbed, my father said, "It's Paul Harvey." Finally, I got the clue that it wasn't a joke and piped down.

That was back in 1969, and I began to enjoy, off and on, Harvey's show as I grew up. I haven't listened to him in a few years, and now I guess I never will again.

One thing I wonder about is how likely it would be for him to succeed in today's media, where little, if any, deviation from a cookie-cutter image/voice/philosophy is tolerated.

Take care.
DAL357

Flame on!

If you don’t like the direction the United States is going, and you’re wondering what went wrong, ask yourself this: “Did I vote for the Democrats or the Republicans in the last election, or in any other previous election?” If you said, “Democrats,” you’ve just found out what has gone wrong. Those who said, “Republicans,” however, have no reason to feel smug or superior, for you too are part of the problem. If, in fact, you have ever voted for either party in your lifetime, you bear direct responsibility for the collectivist state America has become. (Honesty compels me to admit that I, too, bear direct responsibility for this mess, although I have achieved at least a partial absolution by voting for a Libertarian candidate in three out of the last four presidential elections. Prior to that, I voted a straight Republican ticket since Reagan was first elected, when I became eligible to vote.) Neither of the two major parties supports liberty (the ONLY thing you should be voting for), therefore, a vote for either is a vote against the principles espoused in the U.S. Constitution and a vote against liberty.

If you identify yourself with and support either major party, you truly are anti-liberty and un-American. I’ll even go so far as to say you have disrespected and spat upon the efforts of all our military war veterans, both those who returned and those who didn’t, in a way that’s far more grievous than any street protestor has ever done. You, my fellow countrymen, have offered up your precious, precious liberty to the monsters you’ve created: people, aka politicians, who tell you what you want to hear and promise to suppress or steal from others, even though it flies in the face of that one cardinal rule of reality: You can’t get something for nothing.

You who support either major party are not Americans; you’re far from deserving that lofty title. Perhaps when, if ever, you think outside your little self-imposed box and see yourself for what you really are--a stooge for those who purportedly stand for liberty, but who actually work feverishly against it--you will see I’m 100 percent correct. I won’t, however, hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Heck, you’re probably so PO’d at me now that you can hardly contain yourself. Tough. It’s high time those of us who understand what liberty truly means stop pussyfooting around with you one-dimensional psuedo-Americans and call you on your part in ruining what was once the most exceptional nation the world had ever seen.

Enjoy the country you have made, for you deserve it.

Take care.
DAL357