Short random gun crankery.

November 7th, 2025

I’ve had this in my back pocket for a couple of days, waiting to use it. As you know, Bob, I am an unabashed and unrepentant Smith and Wesson fanboy.

Honesty compels me to link to this post from the Revolver Guy blog:

“S&W 432 Ultimate Carry Ti Review: No Thanks!”

It is about 5,800 words, but I think you can see where the author is going from the headline.

As I said, most of this article was written before I experienced the big malfunctions. As such, the tenor of the general description of the 432 UC Ti may be at odds with my overarching opinion, which is: I do NOT recommend this revolver for life-and-death purposes. The first one failed within 600-ish rounds. S&W was offered the opportunity to redeem itself, and the second gun failed within 200 rounds.

I actually own one of these revolvers, as well as one of the earlier Lipsey’s Ultimate Carry guns in .38 Special. I haven’t had a chance to go to the range and give them a through workout yet, but my extended Christmas/end of the year vacation is coming soon. I’m also not carrying either until I have a chance to put rounds downrange: for right now, I’m relying on either a Beretta in .25 ACP or one of my old-school J-frames.

Greg Ellifritz also linked to this review in his Weekend Knowledge Dump for this week, and he has some additional comments. I would encourage you to read, not just his comments, but the whole Weekend Knowledge Dump. There’s some additional fun stuff in it: I would also recommend “DesertTech MDRx – Dubious Gun, Horrific Customer Service” and “The Open-Bolt MACs”. Or, as the article by Dr. Dabbs puts it: “The Open-Bolt MACs: The Worst of Absolutely Everything”.

Posted in Guns, Smith and Wesson | Comments Closed

Your Friday loser update on Thursday: week 5, 2025.

November 6th, 2025

NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:

None.

The Brooklyn Nets were the last team standing. But, sadly, they beat the Pacers last night for their first win.

Both teams are now 1-7, along with the Washington Wizards.

Posted in Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: special dying media edition.

November 4th, 2025

A reliable source has informed me that the NRA is ending publication of Shooting Illustrated and America’s First Freedom. I have not found a link for this, and when I checked the NRA website earlier today, I still had a choice of these magazines with my membership.

The same source also informs me that the NRA is switching to quarterly print publication for American Rifleman and American Hunter. Again, I have no link for this. I’ve checked the NRA’s website and done a lazy Google search. But this is not a person prone to misinformation or falsehood, so I trust them implicitly. If I find a link, I will update here.

I think this is just another example of what Roy Huntington is talking about: the gun, ammo, and gun accessory manufacturers are dropping print advertising in favor of the Internet, and the print market just isn’t sustainable any longer. Of course, nobody’s considered what’s going to happen when the big companies that effectively control the Internet start hating guns again.

Edited to add: link from Bearing Arms, dated October 30th. It doesn’t name the magazines, but my source tells me they are named in the linked Cam and Company interview.

Link from News2A, also dated October 30th.

On a happier note, “Teen Vogue” has snuffed it. More or less.

“Teen Vogue”, the print publication, actually ceased publishing in 2017, but it continued on as a website under the Condé Nast brand until yesterday. Condé Nast is folding the website into the regular “Vogue” website. I’ve seen one report that says 75% of TV’s staff was fired, “including its entire politics team”.

I would be happier about this if they had snuffed regular ‘Vogue”, too, but you take your victories where you find them.

And, finally, Gannett announced today that they are changing the name of the company. The new name? USA Today Company.

Gannett’s name change will take effect on Nov. 18, when the company’s stock will switch to trading under the ticker symbol TDAY on the New York Stock Exchange.

Posted in Guns, Media, Obits | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: November 4, 2025.

November 4th, 2025

Diane Ladd. NYT (archived).

Other credits include “Carnosaur”, “White Lightning”, “Then Came Bronson”, and “The Fugitive”. And the pool of living “Alice” actors gets even smaller.

Former vice president Dick Cheney. WP (archived).

Victor Conte. I’m not sure how many people will remember that name: he was the founder of Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), the people who provided “performance enhancing drugs” to various athletes “including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones”.

The federal government’s investigation…yielded convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, Politics, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Ice, ice, baby.

November 2nd, 2025

Hugh Freeze out at Auburn. ESPN.

15-19 in “two plus” seasons, 6-16 in the SEC, and they lost to Kentucky yesterday, 10-3. They are 4-5 this season.

And the NYPost is reporting that, with Mr. Freeze’s $15.8 millon buyout, the count is now up to $182 million owed to fired college coaches.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

Historical note. Parental guidance suggested.

November 1st, 2025

70 years ago today, United Flight 629 (a DC-6B) disintegrated near Longmont, Colorado. There were no survivors among the 44 passengers and crew.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Cops, Explosives, FBI, History, Law, Planes | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

October 31st, 2025

Chris Grier out as general manager of the Miami Dolphins.

The spin on this is that it was by “mutual agreement”. But the Dolphins are 2-7, and lost last night to Baltimore. So…yeah.

ESPN.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Noted.

October 31st, 2025

“50 Years Ago, My Father Wrote the Headline That Refuses to Die” in the NYT.

Is it “Headless Body in Topless Bar”? No, but that does get a shout-out in the article. In this case, it is the other one.

(A tip to headline writers: Avoid commas, semicolons and the word “castigate,” if you want to have impact. The Times’s corresponding headline that day — “Ford, Castigating City, Asserts He’d Veto Federal Bailout; Offers Bankruptcy Bill” — stands as a verbose counterpoint to “Drop Dead.”)

Posted in Media | Comments Closed

Your Friday loser update: week 4, 2025.

October 31st, 2025

NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:

Indiana Pacers
Brooklyn Nets
New Orleans Pelicans

And today’s bonus firing for you: Scott Woodward fired as athletic director at Louisiana State University.

As you may recall, LSU fired Brian Kelly and owes him $54 million. This has attracted the ire of many, including Louisiana governor Jeff Landry. Gov. Landry went as far as to state that Mr. Woodward wouldn’t be picking the next football coach.

Additional coverage from ESPN.

On the “Pat McAfee Show” on Thursday, Landry added: “There’s a number of bad contracts that seem to have followed Scott Woodward.”

Posted in Firings, Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#153 and #154 in a series)

October 30th, 2025

Dalya Attar is a state senator in Maryland.

Dalya Attar has been indicted on federal charges of, believe it or not, extortion. Most of the time, it is mail or wire fraud, often in conjunction with bribery. Extortion is so rare, let us savor that for a moment. The indictment was handed down October 23rd, but I’m only seeing reports of it today.

Reports say that there were two people who were “detracting from or negatively influencing her election campaigns”.

The conspiracy purportedly involved planting tracking and recording devices and, after obtaining footage of the unnamed victims “in bed,” threatening its release with demands.

This dates back to 2020, when she was working on her re-election to the Maryland House of Delegates. Reports say she had a falling out with a consultant who had previously worked on her 2018 campaign. The consultant became a vocal critic of Ms. Attar, and Ms. Attar wanted her to be “a non-issue in my mind”.

Ms. Attar allegedly conspired with her brother and a Baltimore police officer.

…and others involved in the plot allegedly placed a tracker on the consultant’s car and installed hidden cameras in a smoke detector in an apartment the victim used to rendezvous with her married paramour.
“Damn, I wish I had [the man’s] stamina,” Finklestein stated in a WhatsApp voice message after installing the cameras, according to the indictment.

…

In December 2021, Joseph Attar allegedly met with the man who’d had an affair with the consultant at a Baltimore-area shopping center and claimed to have “hours of footage of you in bed with [her] … the only thing you need to do is very simple, is go to [the consultant] and tell her, leave Dalya alone. Don’t bring her up anymore to anyone. Stay out of this election … and make sure she doesn’t do anything against Dalya.”
According to the indictment, Joseph Attar also told the man that if he didn’t do what he asked, “I’ll share this video with everybody you know, everyone she knows, every Rabbi in town, your kids, your wife, her daughters … I already have all her daughters’ phone numbers, right? And every shadchan [matchmaker] in Israel who is trying to set up her daughters, I’ll share these videos with.”

Sen. Attar wasn’t elected to the Senate: she was appointed in January, but she is currently running for the seat.

Court filings show, however, that the senator is in custody, as are her brother, who is a real estate developer, and Finkelstein, whose police powers were suspended in 2022 but is still employed by the city.

I’m linking to the Sun’s coverage, but it is kind of thin right now. “This article will be updated.” The NYPost is a little more detailed, but also “This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.”

LaMar Cook is a staffer for Maura Healey, the governor of Massachusetts.

LaMar Cook has been charged with various crimes.

“unlawful possession of a firearm”. As we all know, Bob, Massachusetts never met a gun control measure it didn’t like.

“unlawful possession of ammunition”. See above.

And “trafficking over 200 grams of cocaine”. Way over 200 grams. Try eight kilos of cocaine. Which he had delivered to the state office building he worked in.

His arrest is also linked to parcels seized at the Hotel UMass in Amherst, where Cook was previously employed, containing about 13 kilos of the drug.

As a great philosopher once said, “Cocaine is a hell of a drug.“

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Random gun crankery, some filler.

October 30th, 2025

Smith and Wesson has a new series on their YouTube channel: “Tales From the Vault”, with Jerry Miculek.

The first episode dropped Tuesday, and it covers the Smith and Wesson Model 76. You may remember the Model 76 from various movies, such as…

As we like to say around here, “If the future was bad, CHeston was there.”

There was a gentleman at one of the S&WCA symposiums some years ago who had a display of Model 76s. As I recall, at the time, you could get a transferable one for about $8K. I checked GunBroker, and it looks like they are going for $18K to $20K now.

My brother sent me an interesting note yesterday: the revived Marlin (a division of Ruger) introduced a new lever gun in their Trapper series. Short barrel, compact, probably quick handling…and chambered in best mil.

I have not seen any lever guns chambered in 10mm until now, but it does kind of make sense. (There may have been some custom or semi-custom low production 10mm lever guns that I don’t know about.) Heck, I don’t even feel like I have a use case for a pistol-caliber carbine, and I find the 10mm Trapper an interesting proposition. I bet this would be a great gun for hog hunting.

I promised a couple of weeks ago to post photos of my old 1911 with the Battleship Texas grips.

I do think they look nice. Of course, I kept the grips that came with the gun, in case I ever want to restore it back to the original config. The gunsmith did have to do some hand fitting on these grips, so I’m not sure they’d go on any other gun.

Preview of coming attractions. As my regular readers know, I am a bore. Either a small bore or a big bore, depending. In this case, I am a small bore.

But: I am also PC.

Over at RevolverGuy.Com, Mike Wood has a nice piece up about the demise of the print editions of Guns and American Handgunner (previously), which includes reviews of several FMG Publications books. Some of those I’ve written about here. There’s also an appearance in the comments by Editor Roy Huntington, who explains the economics: “With the loss of print advertising, it was simply not sustainable to keep the presses rolling.”

RevolverGuy also has an after-action review of Revolver Fest 2025. I wanted to mention that because I thought this, from the comments, was interesting:

We had one gun (out of 7) go down (frozen action) at the Diamondback booth, and one gun that occasionally had a light strike that couldn’t be traced back to ammo. I heard from a number of shooters who experienced problems with multiple guns at S&W (sights, barrel clocking, frozen action, etc). The best place to shoot S&Ws was actually over at the Lipsey’s booth, where the guns were reportedly doing well. Maybe Lipsey’s did some inspections, cleaning and maintenance on the samples they brought?

So was this:

Smith & Wesson didn’t show up with anything all that interesting. I shot a 3-inch, Performance Center Carry Comp Model 19, which was neat, but a variation on an old theme. Smith also brought out their .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum 1854 rifles. I somewhat regret not shooting them, but I did handle them and they looked sharp. Frankly, Smith seemed a tad tone-deaf to the nature of the event; also on their table was a Bodyguard 2.0, a Shield X, and an AR. I get it: get your products in front of customers any way you can, but also, read the room, Smith!

As your resident unabashed Smith and Wesson fanboy: guys, do better, please.

Posted in 1911, Guns, Media, Ruger, Smith and Wesson | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: October 30, 2025.

October 30th, 2025

Bjorn Andresen. There’s a certain lack of notability here, but I think it is offset by the sadness of this story.

Mr. Andresen was 15 when Luchino Visconti cast him as Tadzio, the object of desire in his adaption of “Death In Venice”.

Tadzio’s mere appearance bewitches the composer Gustav von Aschenbach, played in the film by Dirk Bogarde. They meet in an elevator, leaving Aschenbach spellbound as they lock eyes but do not speak. Aschenbach then follows Tadzio around the city and fantasizes about him as a kind of artistic and romantic muse, before growing sick and dying in a beach chair as he reaches toward the boy.

Visconti called him “the most beautiful boy in the world”.

Visconti was also fixated on Mr. Andresen. During the boy’s screen test, the director asked him to strip to his swimsuit.
“When they asked me to take off my shirt, I wasn’t comfortable,” Mr. Andresen told Variety after the release of “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World,” a 2021 documentary about him directed by Kristina Lindstrom and Kristian Petri. “I wasn’t prepared for that. I remember when he posed me with one foot against the wall, I would never stand like that.
“When I watch it now,” he said, “I see how that son of a bitch sexualized me.”
He told The Guardian that Visconti was “the sort of cultural predator who would sacrifice anything or anyone for the work.”

…

During the making of “Death in Venice,” Visconti acted protectively toward Mr. Andresen. But the boy felt unprepared when Visconti took him to a gay club after the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1971.
In the documentary, Mr. Andresen recalled feeling besieged by “voracious looks, wet lips and rolling tongues” and getting drunk to cope with the unwanted attention. He wondered if Visconti, who was gay, was testing him to see if he was also gay, which he wasn’t.

…

Over the last 20 years or so, his flowing hair became gray and he obscured his face behind a beard that made him look something like Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” films.
Mr. Andresen continued to act, mostly on television in Sweden but also in films, including a memorable turn in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror movie, “Midsommar.” He was also a keyboard player in a dance band, a composer of jazz and bossa nova music, the arranger of the music for a Swedish production of “The Rocky Horror Show,” and the manager of a small theater in Stockholm.

Lawrence sent over an obit for Pierre Robert, long time Philadelphia DJ. The NYPost ran one as well.

His legendary career with WMMR spanned over 44 years, beginning in 1981 and became a constant voice for listeners in southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, Delaware and parts of Maryland.

This isn’t quite an obit, but I don’t know where else to put it. I also don’t quite know how to write about it, so I’m just going to do the best I can.

Officer Lauren Craven of the La Mesa (California) Police Department was killed on October 23rd. She was 25 years old, and had joined the department in February of 2024.

She came upon a deadly rollover crash on Interstate 8 northeast of San Diego just before 10:30 p.m. last Monday, officials said.
She reported the incident over the radio before stepping out and walking toward a car that had flipped over.
Craven was struck by another car, which triggered a chain reaction, smashing into the vehicles involved in the initial crash.

David Pearce was sentenced yesterday.

Pearce met Christy Giles, 24, and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, at a rave party in Los Angeles and lured them back to his place — plying them with fentanyl-laced coke and drugged drinks and then refusing to call for help when they overdosed.
A witness claimed Pearce said “dead girls don’t talk” when he begged the killer to call 911.
Instead, Pearce dragged their limp bodies into his Toyota Prius and dumped them on the sidewalk in front of two different hospitals.

After the girls were murdered and scumbag Pearce was charged, seven other women came forward and said they’d been assaulted by him.

It came out yesterday, during the sentencing, that one of those women was Ms. Craven.

Pearce assaulted Craven while she was unconscious in 2020, prosecutors said at trial. He was given six years for that crime, plus sentences of 15 years to life for the other rapes.

…

Pearce was sentenced to a total of 146 years in prison for his crimes…

She was assaulted by someone who isn’t even worth being called “human”, but she didn’t let that stop her. She worked her butt off to get through the police academy and get sworn in as an officer, and she died a hero.

Anybody else notice that there’s an awful lot of dust in the air today?

Posted in Cops, Heroism, Law, Movies, Obits, Radio | Comments Closed

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