Notoriously anti-gun RINO Richard Lugar went down in flames like a tax-fattened hyena last night. Tam and Roberta X have more.
For the record: NYT obit for Maurice Sendak.
Archive for the ‘Guns’ Category
Random notes: May 9, 2012.
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned.
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012Happy BAG day.
Friday, April 13th, 2012Buy A Gun Day is coming.
Unfortunately, April 15th falls on a Sunday this year, and most of the interesting gun stores around here are closed. (Cabela’s being a notable exception.)
In addition, WCD’s official supplier of fine weapons, Tex-Guns, is taking a vacation this week and won’t reopen until the 17th. Luckily, there are at least two other interesting gun shops I can hit.
The thing is, though, I’m not really wild about BAG Day this year. There are various things going on, but a big factor is that I’m just not seeing that much interesting stuff turn up used. The guys at Tex-Guns have noticed that too; they’re saying that people are holding on to what they’ve got, not making trades. (They have had a couple of interesting Smiths: some K-38 series guns in the 4″ and 6″ lengths, and a 6″ model 19. But all of those are surplus to my requirements at the moment.)
So I’ll probably go out, keep my eyes open, and possibly even run down to Bastrop. But don’t hold your breath waiting for a BAG purchase post, unless I stumble into something neat (like a 4″ K-22).
Speaking of New Orleans…
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012…the headline on this story had me all excited:
Then I clicked through. Apparently they mean something different by a “shotgun”, something involving music and house parties.
Too bad, because I think a shotgun near you is a good idea.
Yo ho maties!
Thursday, March 8th, 2012Setting aside for a moment just how incredibly awesome this is: wait a second. MIT, a school in Massachusetts (the cradle and grave of liberty), offers a class in pistol shooting? And:
I did a quick Google search to see what kind of pistols were being used; I did find the course listing, but it didn’t help much. It looks like, from reading the range rules, that this is air guns and .22 rimfire target guns. I also found the MIT Pistol and Rifle Club, the MIT Sport Pistol Club (the competition team) and the MIT Varsity Rifle Club. I had no absolutely no idea MIT had such an active shooting culture: once again, my faith in humanity is restored for the next hour or so.
Pssst, buddy. Want a free e-book?
Thursday, March 1st, 2012Passing along a hot tip from Tam, you can get the Kindle edition of Matthew Bracken’s Enemies Foreign And Domestic
I’ve heard a fair amount about Bracken’s work, but haven’t read any of it yet. My passing along this link should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the book, the ideas, or the writing, simply because I haven’t read the work yet.
But, hey, free book!
Noted.
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012Lawrence has a pretty swell writeup on the Piper Alpha disaster. I’m a little surprised that NASA hasn’t covered that in their System Failure Case Studies series yet.
My sister’s latest post over at the Park City Snowmamas site: “8 Items To Pack In a First Aid Kit For Travel”. I think there’s some good stuff in there, even for non-skiers (you might want to think about throwing some of this stuff into a range bag, for example). However, I do have to throw the yellow flag and assess the standard 15-yard penalty for an over sharing violation. Unfortunately, I don’t make the rules; I’m just a neutral ref.
Book blogging.
Friday, February 24th, 2012I generally don’t blog recent book acquisitions. While doing so would probably give me fodder for at least one post every three days or so, most of what I purchase wouldn’t be of interest to other bloggers; I do buy some SF and mystery firsts, but not as many as other people I can name. Most of what I do buy is primarily of interest to me.
That being said, I did pick up a couple of books recently that might tickle the fancy (or the funny bones) of some folks; I’m thinking specifically of Lawrence and Tam here.
Yes, you are reading that correctly: the title of the book is They Were Murdered In France. This is a fairly old (1957) true crime book consisting of 15 vignettes involving British citizens who were….murdered in France. I haven’t started reading it yet (I just got it out of the PO Box) but judging from the jacket copy, it appears that Mr. Harry J. Greenwall did not have a high opinion of the French police, or of Interpol.
A few weeks ago, there was an interesting discussion over at Tam’s place about gun porn in adventure fiction. On the one hand, you have the guy carrying a generic revolver. On the other hand, you have Tam’s Jock Studright example. (Stephen Hunter falls in the “just right” position for me. For example, in Havana
Anyway, the two most notorious exemplars of the way over the top weapon description school of writing are Jerry Ahern in The Survivalist
The Executioner’s War Book
…and pretty much right in the middle, a catalog of Bolan’s weapons and equipment, including lovely line drawings of such things as his “War Wagon” and the scope-sighted Marlin 444 lever action, a paen to the AutoMag, exploded drawings of the M2 and the Uzi, and so on. This works out to about 45 pages of weapons porn in a 201 page book. I’ve never been a huge Bolan fan, but this was just so weird I had to pick it up.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
Two Coffee Travelers for my office: $28.04 with tax.
Receipt: free with purchase.
Sending a clear message to the gun banners: priceless.
There are some things money can’t buy. Like schadenfreude. People have to earn that. And in this case, the gun grabbers have.
Stuff your sorries in a sack, Mister!
Friday, February 10th, 2012Sorry, folks. Yesterday got a big hole blown in it due to a flat tire and associated wrangling, but there really hasn’t been much going on.
At least, not much that hasn’t been well-blogged elsewhere, such as the “tuba raid” story. (No, “Tuba Raid” is not a sequel to the great John Varley story “Air Raid”. But I’d love to see someone write “Tuba Raid”. I’d suggest the idea to John Scalzi, but I suspect he’s busy editing the “Stunning Stoat Stories” anthology.)
I was doing a bit of research for a post snarking on Mexico’s confiscation of 15 tons of meth. However, Jacob Sullum got there ahead of me. (There was a great discussion somewhere, earlier this week, involving people pushing back against new laws requiring prescriptions for pseudoephedrine-containing drugs. I swear it was on “Hit and Run” but I can’t find it now.)
Lawrence asked me a few days ago if the news that Carolyn McCarthy’s district was going to be axed had me doing the happy dance. Short answer: no. When she’s out of office, then I’ll do the happy dance. With an AK-47 that has a 30-round magazine. And a shoulder thing that goes up.
Stuff. And things.
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012Obit watch: noted British SF author John Christopher.
Here’s the latest I’ve been able to find in the HouChron on the Rangers/FBI/Harris County DA. It doesn’t add a whole lot to what was reported yesterday, alas.
Paul Farhi in the WP writes about press coverage of the Lance Armstrong probe, including his own paper’s coverage.
Weer’d beat me to this one, but: carry your damn guns, people.
Morning roundup for February 7, 2012.
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012Bunch of stuff from the NYT this morning. Sorry, but that’s how things roll sometimes.
First up: I didn’t know there were plans for an Eisenhower memorial. I like Ike, and the artist’s conception doesn’t strike me as being too awful. However, I’m skeptical of the need for yet another memorial in DC. The big news here is that Eisenhower’s family is now raising “concerns” about the design.
Extra bonus points: the memorial designer is WCD’s (and Lawrence’s) favorite architect.
And this is why they do it:
Lecture mode on:
And finally:
I commend to the attention of Mayor Bloomberg and “Mumbles” Menino Matthew 7:5. Better yet, I commend to both gentlemen and the other members of the criminal organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns the simple strategy of shutting the f–k up.
Edited to add: Oh, drat. I forgot that I wanted to make note of Alberto Contador being stripped of his 2010 Tour de France win. Congrats to Andy Schleck.
Obit watch and more randomness for February 3, 2012.
Saturday, February 4th, 2012Obit watch: prominent spy novelist Dorothy Gilman.
Ben Gazzara. I’m glad to see “Run For Your Life” get some mention in his obit; that’s another series RTN was re-running, and that I wish someone would bring out a full DVD set of. (And I’d also like to see “Anatomy of a Murder” sometime; I’ve read the book, but haven’t seen the movie.)
Hey, how about that lengthy Federal investigation into Lance Armstrong’s alleged doping? The Feds took their best shot…and turned up nothing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the guy has been tested so often that either he’s telling the truth and is totally clean, or his doping technologists are not only ahead of the curve, you can’t even see the curve from where they are.
Finally, I wanted to make note of a developing local story. Early Friday morning, a guy wrecked his car near a railroad crossing in the Avery Ranch area of Northwest Austin. The guy walked away from the wreck. A little while later, the wife of a homeowner in the area heard voices outside and saw a man (the same guy) lying under her car. Her husband went out to investigate, and apparently attempted to hold the man at gunpoint. The homeowner ended up shooting the intruder three times, killing him.
And the homeowner has now been charged with murder.
There are too many unknowns in the current press coverage to make me feel comfortable passing judgment in this case. I know the article quotes the homeowner as saying, “If you flee, I’m going to shoot you,” and then firing on the intruder as he tried to flee. But we don’t know what else the intruder did at this point; did he display a weapon? Was there a disparity of force involved (23 year old intruder, 47 year old homeowner)?
I think there is one thing we can say for sure:
Use your gun defensively, and even if it is a good shoot, your life is going to change; probably not for the better. Commvault Bryan and I were talking the other day about having an attorney on “retainer” and the various groups that offer that service for a small monthly fee; I need to get with Karl and get the name of the organization he recommends.
A little late for this year…
Monday, January 30th, 2012…but I propose that, next year and every subsequent year, January 20th be celebrated as “National Buy an AK Day“. (The connection between this date and presidential inaugurations is purely coincidental. I am sure Mr. Cube did not plan things this way.)
If you already have an AK, I propose you observe the day by purchasing at least 50 rounds of 7.62 x 39 ammo. Or whatever it takes to feed your AK if you have a variant caliber.
(Hattip: Kottke.)
Rumor control update.
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012Following up on the previous post:
Scary Yankee Chick was kind enough to leave a comment pointing back to her blog post on the same subject. (Thank you, SYC, and again I apologize for not following you more diligently.)
It looks like Stuff from Hsoi (who I also should be following more diligently) has done some research into this; not only has he not turned up much supporting this rumor, but he’s found a response from the NSCA pretty much debunking it.
I’m still open to discussion and additional information on this. I also still think being conscious about how you store your guns when traveling and what signals you’re sending to potential thieves is a good idea. But right now, I’m not seeing a whole lot supporting that particular rumor.
(Thanks again, and apologies, to Scary Yankee Chick and Hsoi.)