Queen Elizabeth Hit With A Bat!!!

Well, make that, the Queen Elizabeth II, ocean liner de luxe, is showing what happens when her Captain (and her corporate ownership) gets a clue.

Threaten people's money and they'll do something.  In this case, threaten cruise ship companies with the potential loss of fares (and ships and crews) and they'll start packing heat when they sail through waters known to be inhabited by Somali muslim pirates.

From a couple years ago at a couple of hijackings a week, to now it's been months since the last successful merchant ship was taken by pirates.  You know what changed?  Nothing.  Only, the people at the top of some food chains noticed that when we put guns on merchant ships before, piracy dropped off.  Some of us were calling for arming private vessels against pirates 'way back when it first became a real problem again.  Finally, once again, reality catches up and history starts rhyming.

I Gotta Say, Today Was A Good Day

If you grew up when/where I did, that line reminds you of a song.

My Darling Wife went grocery shopping and filled the entire floor of Bad Robot with goods, came home, walked out of the freezing and into the heat, and said for me to get the groceries.  Ok, no problemmo!  I stepped outside and could TASTE that it was freezing out there.  As I was gathering the first armload of evil, hateful, landfill-filling single-use bags, I noticed an unhappy phenomenon:

A car was coming up my street, creeping one mile an hour on the far side of the road.  'Who the [deleted] is this, creepin' up?'  I said to myself.  No harm no foul, though, yet, so I kept gathering groceries as the car passed.  Inside to unload, outside to reload the next load of groceries on my arms, and they have stopped two houses down.  Uh-huh.

Inside, outside to get the next load again and they U-turn at the end of  the block.  I thought they were going to pull into a driveway, but they were just sitting there on the street, now on my side, now facing me.  Uh-huh.  I pulled my (concealed) pistol halfway out of its holster, so the grip was entirely exposed and ready to grab.  I prepared myself for a sudden rush of acceleration and a drive-by shooting in my general direction.  The thought of what motion I would need to make to fully draw my gun.  I considered the possibility of a carjacking as I had an obviously-newish car standing open and probably would have the keys handy.

Inside, outside to get the next load again and they are creeping down my side of the street now.  As they passed, I put the Captain's Chair in Bad Robot between my face and their windows, in case they felt like seeing me real up-close like.  They slowed in front of my driveway, then continued creeping.  They stopped in front of the house next door.  No further activity.  Drive-by less likely, jacking more likely.  Make this next trip to unload extra quick.

Inside, outside to get the next and final load.  They started creeping again, and stopped a few houses farther down the street.  Well, no threat to me, probably, anymore.  Aimed rifle fire still possible but seems less likely.  I went inside and grabbed my camera and superduperzoom lens and took up a position behind the truck in my driveway and started watching and shooting.  Blur.  Driver gets out and takes something from the trunk, can't see what. Solid 2.5 second exposure got a license plate and overall car shot, as they close the trunk.  Blur.  They walk to the door.  Thinking now about murder in the night, ears open for a door kicked in, gunshots, screams.  Blur.  Taking pictures in the dark: impossible.  No passing headlights to provide illumination on target.  20-second automatic exposure times, blech.

As I was trying to get another good shot of the car, I heard a woman's voice pleasantly thanking somebody and a man responding, wishing her a good night.

And here I was, ready to have a shootout.

Well, at least I'll be ready . . . God forbid!

Not Bad

My long range sniper deer rifle is back up after a couple of years waiting for a part.  Finally for the first time in too long I took it to the range.  Four shots with one called flyer and the other three within a 2" "group" right on target at a hundred paces.  The yellow dots are 4" circles.

Close enough.

Now if only someone would invite me on a hog hunt I could get some bacon with it . . .

Transparency For Thee, but None For ME!

The morning that Attorney General Eric Holder was to testify (yesterday) before Congress, and was extremely likely to face a Contempt of Congress citation for failing to cooperate, the Department of Justice (which Holder leads) called the White House and was told they could claim Executive Privilege to prevent further disclosures in the Fast & Furious gunwalking cover-up investigation.

On Sipsey Street Irregulars, there is a report that one of the President's MOST influential advisors, who is in on literally everything important and who has the President's ear, is on paper as part of the scandal. Denis McDonough (remember that name, folks) is now outed as one of the people who heard the complaints coming in up the chain of command, that we were letting guns walk - and then the guns were still ordered to be allowed to continue walking. If this McDonough guy knew, it is very likely it was mentioned to the President face-to-face. If this guy knows the President knew, that is also possibly on paper somewhere. They don't just shred the e-mails like they used to. Somewhere, in a file or a hard drive, is a very interesting communication. But we don't get to see it (yet?).

We now have the Chief Executive claiming Executive Privilege to prevent disclosure by the Department of Justice of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. His personal advisor is in on the Operation. We are officially ONE degree of separation from blaming the President himself for this illicit program. Conspiracy theorists may now be excused for going on and on about how the international-act-of-war-gun-smuggling-program-for-political-advantage-gone-wrong-because-it-was-found-out was truly known to Obama, if not directly his idea.

But don't be surprised.

I heard several people call in to Boortz's show today and say it (the F&F scandal) is just a conspiracy by the Republicans. A distraction.

Hold on there.

If it is a Republican invention, your boy just made a stupid move. This is the FIRST time in his entire Presidency that President Obama has invoked Executive Privilege as a reason not to have documents disclosed. But wait. Executive privilege is to protect disclosure of WHITE HOUSE communications. It is just not the way things are done, to have lower members of the Executive branch protected by Executive Privilege claims. What this privilege claim is telling the world is:

"I don't want you to know what I knew, when I knew it, and/or what I said, did, or didn't do about it. Piss off; you Republicans are not going to nail this one on me." -Barack Obama (paraphrased)

But you know what? This Privilege claim puts us only that single degree from Obama being in deep on Operation Fast and Furious. The last degree, if it can be closed, means that the President of the United States was responsible* for the illegal (by national laws on both sides and international treaty) smuggling of guns into Mexico, where hundreds or thousands of Mexican nationals were murdered. Furthermore, the drug wars were perpetuated by the use of these guns. And allowing these horrors to take place . . . was the whole reason for Operation Fast & Furious.

This is an act of war. On our nearest neighbor and one of our main trading partners. And he did it for domestic political purposes. The idea was that you would be outraged by the Mexican gun violence and demand tighter regulation of American civilian-owned guns. But then the gun smuggling (by the USA government) was found out - and then the reason for it was found out. And now we have a cover-up in progress.

THAT, friends, is why Obama doesn't want you to close that last degree of separation. This if nothing else would be an impeachable offense, if not a cause for open warfare between our nations.

Ouch.

********

(*everything his government does is ultimately his responsibility)

It's Official

In the circular for Academy Sports & Outdoors, they have an ad for a bb/pellet gun for $80 that is a dead-ringer for an M4 rifle. At this point I think even the most stalwart anti-black rifle gunny has to admit that the M16/M4/AR-15 is part of the American culture.

Good.

"It Just Went Off!"

Two lives lost. As the song says, "one's in the morgue and the other's in jail; one got wasted and the other's a waste."

Atlanta teenager in jail facing involuntary manslaughter charges. His three year-old niece was shot in the stomach* and later died of her injuries in hospital.

Guns don't shoot themselves. Please take just a moment to review the 100% sure-fire way to prevent this happening in your own family.


****

* This is agony. An arm or a leg you can tourniquet and it goes numb. Shot in the guts is sheer pain until you die.

You Will

You will click here.

You will watch.

That is all.

(2 minutes of fun if you think first person shooting videos are fun)

Man With Gun at Birthday Party!

Two guns, actually. No goblins showed up, so they were never drawn. Well, almost never. #4 saw Big Brother on my hip before the party and said, "No-no. No-no." I drew it and showed it to him and said "That's right, no-no for baby." Then I pulled off the holster and let him play with that instead until he got bored (10 seconds). THEN nobody even noticed.

Machine Guns vs. Clips

How is a machine gun like a clip-on necktie?

They both make a very specific task much easier! Also some people despise them for their looks. Also I like them. When I wrote this, I was wearing a clip-on tie. Not packing a machine gun just now, unfortunately.

Oh, also (and this is stretching the joke) if you don't have a belt when using either one, your friends will think you look silly (rimshot)

Follow the Money . . . Qui Bono?

Who wins, in the USA's government, or the "they" elite in the USA, if the drug wars in Mexico continue? I read this story, alleging that the government of the USA may be the primary supplier (by orders of magnitude greater than civilian sources) of arms to the drug cartels. My first thought was, "Why?" and then I realized the obvious next question . . .

Follow the money! Who stands to benefit? Arms manufacturies? Am I cynical enough to buy that line? Can it really be a sign of such gross incompetence from on high in my government?

Ugly, ugly questions my friends.

Hat tip: Sipsey Street Irregulars

Add It to the List

I am reminded by tonight's wikiwandering session that some things are so cool as to be desirable just because of what they are. I don't need another semi-auto rifle. I don't need another .30-caliber rifle. I don't need another hunting long range sniper rifle. Heck I don't even need another arguably historically significant rifle.

But I do want an M25.

If I Had A Business of My Own

It would have a sign like this on the door:



And in my business office, the shelf might look something like the shelf in my home office:

I Don't Care If This Isn't Florida

My Darling Wife would probably just answer truthfully. I would almost certainly look at my kids' doctor like she had just sprouted a third, flaming eye right there in front of me. Then I would decline to answer the question and wonder aloud if it were a Boundary Violation.

In the USA (as I understand it) your doctor is supposed to ask if you all keep guns in the house and counsel you on their safe storage. In Florida it is temporarily illegal to ask, says a judge. In Texas it's like asking if the sky is blue, or water is wet. I personally know maybe two families (of hundreds) without a gun in the house. My PREACHER has more guns than he can hold in both arms all at once.

Besides which, if my kid has a cold, a gun in the house is beside the point. Break in when we are home and we'll show you just where we keep the guns. Hint: this scenario ends badly for home invaders.

Okay, You Convinced Me

Stray coyote: no need
Small pack of dogs: no need
Large pack of racist Goblins: need

Prior to reading this I could only give mental assent to the fact that there are possibly circumstances where you might really really really be glad to have oh, say, 50 or so bullets handy. Now I'm on board and if I had the money to spare, I'd be sparing it for (more) magazines.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a need for regular citizens to carry multiple, high-capacity magazines for their firearms.

Who Coulda Guest?

The BATFE allowed shady purchasers to buy lots (2500+ at last report) of guns, despite the puzzled "are you sure?" from lots of gun shops. The idea was, you know, to, like, see where they went, and junk.

Turns out when bad people buy guns to distribute to other bad people, the guns go all over the place. Sure there are hundreds of dead people from thousands of guns allowed to "walk" into Mexico. Plus a couple of US Americans which suddenly made it a problem, and lookee lookee, what a surprise: "Gunwalker" guns showing up in the USA, as well.

If President Obama was in on this plot, what would happen? I mean, aside from the obvious attempt to have a coordinated falling-on-the-swords by everyone who knew he knew . . . .

This Makes Me Happy

Prices (in British pounds):

• Air Arms S400 Hunter pellet gun: 240GBP
• Ginb Special FT Stock: 280GBP
• Trigger job for the AA S400: 45GBP
• Regulator to double shot capacity and improve consistency: 190GBP

And then you have something like this:


Image from http://www.cones-stuff.co.uk/

Click through to that link and check out all the photographs. That is a beautiful bit of pigeon killing machinery. It makes me happy that such things exist. I do want one and would happily take one if you gifted it . . . but personally I have better use for a THOUSAND DOLLARS than to buy one for myself.

Why We Are Winning:

Mark Mason took a pretty good photo here. Blurry brass, blurry adult hovering nearby, razor sharp little girl rocking a full-auto MP5.

This little girl likely will never buy the argument that guns are dangerous per se and will never be convinced she should not be trusted with one. Seriously, what do the antis have to counter something that puts a smile on a person's face the first time and the hundredth time, from 5 to 105 years of age, regardless of sex?

Hat tip: The Firearm Blog

Quote of the Day 07 June 2011

Really? Twice? -Uncle

Ha
Ha
Ha
Sometimes analyses don't need much length to be brilliant.

Daddy Like This One Also: Wilson Combat 7.62x40mm WT for the AR

I've said before that I want an AR chambered in .30-06 but the same size as its poodle-shooter brethren. Well, at least this one is .30 caliber. It has a slight power edge (theoretically) over 6.8x45 Kramer, but both of them hang their heads in shame at the powder capacity of the .30-06. Power from the new 7.62x40mm WT is just over half what you get out of "God's Own Cartridge" but (like the Kramer round) another third again higher than 5.45 NATO.

The weapons platform is mature and reliable. Still we are shooting needles from it, because it's easier than changing and the .223 is "good enough" for most social work. Meh. If I was kingudawoild . . . oh, well. Fortunately, this Wilson round is likely to have lots of support and a small-but-enthusiastic mainstream following, unlike the Kramer round which remains a wildcat.

When the Kids Grow Up

Once there are no more curious little fingers poking around, it will be nice to have a few well-placed shotguns in Condition 1 around the house.

Just sayin'.