Comments From the Brady Blog

It would seem the powers that be at The Organization Formerly Known As Handgun Control have decided their blog needs to be overhauled. I am guessing they'll probably shut down comments entirely, considering how pro-gunners practically run the place. Speaking of that, the following was posted by Kelli, one of the two resident gun-haters:

You want to dominate a blog, go to the pro-gun sites with your other gunnut buddies

My response:

We have those and congregate at them too. I see several familiar names here, actually. I just think it’s deliciously ironic that we pretty much own the comments section on a blog by an organization that’s dedicated to stripping our rights from us. Anyone who’s been paying attention to American politics over the last few years knows the power of the Internet is an awesome thing. And if you don’t believe it, just google “Joe Lieberman, netroots” or “Jim Zumbo, terrorist rifles.” I should note, however, that I am no way comparing the lefty lunatic fringe to the average joe AR-15 owner — but the above are textbook examples of what happens when certain groups congregate via this medium and direct that energy to a goal. With that in mind, it’s quite illuminating that here at the blog of what is arguably the biggest gun-ban organization in this great land, most of those who care to speak up are pro-rights and pro-liberty. The Brady gun-ban supporters are, for all practical intents & purposes, nowhere to be found (Celli and Macca don’t really count). Kinda makes me think the Brady gun-ban agenda isn’t nearly as popular as they’d like to make us think it is. If it is, where are all the people who support it? You’d think they’d all be here — or at least a lot of them. Could the Brady Bunch and their insidious agenda really be so transparent to Mr. and Mrs. America? One can certainly hope.

Should be fun to see what happens. They'll probably shut off comments completely just like the Gun Guys did. Robb mentions possible changes here. Funny stuff.

A Tale of Sheer Brilliance: Making Fools of Antis

Welcome, visitors from A Keyboard and a .45 and The Fat Guy! Main page is here, pull up a seat & stay a while!

From THR:

I left Champaign-Urbana at 0530 with 27 guns in my trunk and one on my hip. Given that Chicago Police reportedly now receive one vacation day and a $300 bonus on their paychecks for each gun they confiscate, I was very cautious. Visions of a car accident and subsequent police contact and discovery of the guns in my trunk filled the back of my mind. It would surely earn me the label of "gun runner" and incarceration in the disease-ridden bowels of Chicago’s city jail.

I'm sure the eyeballs first officer to find said guns would be wide with glee:

"Hoo YAH! Cha-CHING, BABY! I just got a month and a half off and a free trip to Aruba!"

I had 23 guns to turn in and didn’t want to take them all in at once as I expected that would raise suspicions. So I decided to visit three or more turn-in locations to “spread” things out. You know, take five or so into each location until I ran out of guns or they ran out of credit cards.

Might not sound so good at first, but if you haven't seen it before, trust me, it's quite gratifying. A lot of folks say that participating in those "gun buy-backs" only helps the gun-haters because it ramps up the statistics on how many guns were turned in, but then there are also those who make the point that the buy-back advocates pad their numbers anyway. I'd agree with that. (By the way, how can one "buy back" property one never owned in the first place?!) Getting money for what are essentially piles of scrap metal and funneling that money back into the shooting sports -- money from people who think guns are essentially the root of all evil -- is just great. I was laughing out loud with glee and had a grin on my face the size of a B-52 when I was reading this at work yesterday. It'd be fun to see this happen more often. ;-)

A Few Words On the Honorable (sic) Sen. Joe Biden

Pretty much everything that can be said regarding Senator Biden's slur towards gun owners on national TV the other night has already been said. But I just have to say, I wonder how many of the other candidates are cursing him under their breath for letting the cat out of the bag in relation to how the people running the Democratic Party REALLY feel about gun owners. So far it seems that none of the other candidates have not really come out and said anything about the issue of gun control -- although, of course, even a cursory examination of their records shows they arguably share Biden's opinion. It really was quite telling that not only did Biden get raucous applause for what he said, but he also didn't get publicly upbraided on stage that night -- not even by the allegedly-pro-Second Amendment candidate Bill Richardson. That one's definitely gonna be something to remember should Richardson's candidacy gain any traction. Such a shame he'll probably never get called out on that.

Just One Thing to Say...

I really should be ashamed of myself for not keeping up lately with Frank J.'s hilarious takes on things over at IMAO, but with the raise in the minimum wage that takes effect today, I thought of something he said shortly after the Democrats regained control of Congress. If you'll recall, Michael Moore sent out a really smug message out to conservatives right about that time, and ole Frank, of course, had a dead-on take on every part of it, but this morning I thought of this little snippet (Mike in regular font, Frank J. in bold):

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

I don't want a minimum wage! That's why I went to college!

I really couldn't have said it any better than that. What really burns my tail about this, though, is that I make more than minimum wage, so when the inflation kicks in, as it invariably will to sustain this increase, I won't get a raise to counter that, which basically means that I am going to effectively be taking a pay cut. I've already taken one this year. I damn sure don't need another one. Thanks a lot, you sons of bitches. You better believe I'm gonna remember this next time I go to the polls, no matter how badly the Republicans screwed the pooch in their 12 years in the majority.

Getting My Fix

So I haven't been shooting in the last three weeks or so, which I think is probably the longest pause in my shooting sessions ever since I took it back up a little over two years ago. Money was a bit tight, and of course .45acp isn't exactly cheap. As it turned out, though, this week I had a little extra cash on hand after taking care of my bills, so what did I do? Went and bought myself a box, of course, and the Springer Loaded and I went out yesterday morning. Man, but did it ever feel good to be back out there...like things were back to normal. I was so excited that I didn't even notice -- until the ammo was almost gone --that the rear sight on the pistol was loose, and drifting off to the left. And boy, did I ever feel silly...all I could do was move the sight back and tighten it as best I could with my Gerber multi-tool, because I had left the little allen wrench at the house that I would have used to tighten the screw on them. It worked for the rest of the box, but now comes the fun part, getting them zeroed yet again. I had completely forgotten that the night sights on that pistol were adjustable. One could call it a blond moment, but for the fact that my hair is brown...but yeah, I went shooting, and life is good...

A Comment On An Anniversary

I think LawDog put it best, and I can't add much to what he said, but the event whose anniversary he was noting -- the infamous Chappaquiddick incident -- did make me think of something the great Mark Steyn wrote a few years ago:

In 1999, Dan Rather, choking up over the "irony" of JFK Jr. dying on the anniversary of Chappaquiddick, couldn't even remember Mary Jo Kopechne's name, or, at any rate, deemed it unworthy of mention. But the advanced-model Kennedy flack disdains such squeamishness: Yeah, so he killed someone. This was the line taken by The New York Times' Adam Clymer in his definitive hagiography of "the leading senator of our time." If the name seems vaguely familiar, it may be because you're sitting on it. Two years ago then candidate George W. Bush caused something of a stir by referring to Mr Clymer as a "major-league a--hole" -- or, according to which paper you read, "assh---." My own view of him was formed by this line from his Kennedy book:
Edward Kennedy's "achievements as a senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne."
As I wrote two years ago, "I don't know how many lives the Senator's changed -- he certainly changed Mary Jo's -- but I'm struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the curious equation: How many changed lives justify leaving Miss Kopechne struggling for breath for hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy's car? If the Senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been okay to leave a couple more broads down there? Such a comparison doesn't automatically make its writer an a------, but it certainly gives one a commanding lead in the preliminary qualifying round."

Steyn has always had a way with words, and while some might think that over the top, it really does make one wonder if the voters of Massachusetts apply that same moral calculus when they go to the voting booth every six years and vote him back in. I just find it so hard to believe that the Camelot "mystique" is really that strong. But then, I could be wrong, or maybe Mass. voters really do delude themselves into thinking Teddy Kennedy is the last link to his long-dead brother, though all they really share is the name. Perhaps more than that, as of course JFK's escapades are legion once you get below the image that's been made of him since his death, but apart from that, I can't help but think that Teddy and Jack Kennedy really were far apart ideologically, even though they were both Democrats. Maybe that shows how much the Democratic Party has changed in the last 45 years or so, but still, it just boggles the mind...

More Must-See Video

Gun owners in Australia and England speak out on being stripped of their rights. It'll make you fighting mad, and even tear up a time or two, too...

Getting the Wrong Idea

Via SayUncle comes this, from some lefty Tennessee blogger, on ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani:

The right-wingers are willing to forget his views on any number of matters: guns, gays, and abortion, to get someone who will not only go after every bogeyman they see and they can get a law past against, but do so with such delight as no Middle American has ever seen.

Uh..come again? The so-called "right-wingers" this character refers to are but a subset of conservative-leaning people. If you get beyond the big mainstream conservative blogs, past the David Brooks-type people who think the GOP should basically co-opt the Democratic agenda, you'll see there are quite a few of us right-wingers who have some SERIOUS reservations about elevating him to the highest office in the land. I am sure I speak for more than a few right-leaning people when I say I could never vote for Giuliani. Call me a single-issue voter if you want, but I think Suzanne Gratia Hupp said it best:

How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.

Giuliani's record vis-a-vis the Second Amendment is loud and clear. Just another big-government nanny-stater, no different from anyone vying for the Democratic nomination. I'm sure many Democrats would try to say otherwise, but as far as I'm concerned that's little more than partisan shilling. I don't know about the views on gays, but we'll see how the views on guns at least come into play as the campaigns really crank up. We libertarian conservatives will be getting louder then. Count on it.

Lock-n-Load: Parker v. D.C. Goes to the Supreme Court

Well, friends & neighbors, we're one step closer to finding out if the highest court in the land believes the Second Amendment means what it says:

Local government officials in Washington, D.C., announced Monday they will appeal to the Supreme Court in a major test case on the meaning of the Second Amendment. The key issue in the coming petition will be whether the Amendment protects an individual right to have guns in one's home -- an issue on which there is now a clear conflict among federal Circuit Courts. The city will be defending the constitutionality of a local handgun control law that is regarded as the strictest in the nation.

The petition would have been due Aug. 7, but city officials said Monday that they would ask Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., for a 30-day extension of time to file the case. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and city Attorney General Linda Singer disclosed the appeal plan at a press conference, along with local Police Chief Cathy Lanier. (A news release announcing the action can be found here ) The Mayor said: "We have made the determination that this law can and should be defended and we are willing to take our case to the highest court in the land to protect the city's residents. Our handgun law has saved countless lives -- keeping guns out of the hands of those who would hurt others or themselves.

Personally, I think Mayor Adrian M. Fenty should be tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, as do all the elected officials who share his viewpoint. I can't even think of proper words to express my utter contempt and disgust for him and his elitist ilk.
That aside, it's gonna be quite interesting to see what happens. Will the conservative bloc on the court be enough to save the individual-rights viewpoint? Lots of people are scared, and I can't say I completely blame them, but it's long past time the record be set straight. And with the way things are going on other fronts in this country, I'd have to say now's probably the best time to go for the gold. I don't know what the chances are of getting any more conservative justices appointed to the court any time soon; it may well be years before we get another one. And it's long past time to stop this pussyfooting around. I don't know if a negative outcome is going to lead to "pressing the reset button," but something has to change. We have to go for it now. Buckle up, it might be a bumpy ride...

No Surprise Here

A Democratic presidential candidate wants to ban GUNS and spend our tax dollars on government babysitting programs? Say it isn't so!
Via just about everyone, we have this, from the Associated Press:

CHICAGO (AP) - Standing before a church congregation that has witnessed inner-city violence firsthand, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Sunday that more must be done to end a social ill that is "sickening the soul of this nation."
Obama told churchgoers at the Vernon Park Church of God on Chicago's South Side that too many young lives are being claimed by violence and more must be done to combat the problem.
"From South Central L.A. to Newark, New Jersey, there's an epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation," the Illinois senator told the crowd. "The violence is unacceptable and it's got to stop."
Nearly three dozen Chicago students have been killed this year, according to Chicago Public Schools. Obama said that figure is higher than the number of Illinois serviceman who've died in Iraq in 2007.
"We need to express our collective anger through collective action," Obama said.
He said the government needs to permanently reinstate an assault weapons ban and close regulatory loopholes that protect unscrupulous gun dealers.
He also said government should support and fund more after-school programs to keep kids off the streets. But some of the burden must also be shouldered by residents who need to do more to raise and protect at-risk children, he added.

I really don't understand where the Scary-Looking Weapons Ban comes into play here. As has been pointed out by just about everyone with an interest in the actual facts of the matter (as opposed to overblown, emotion-fueled rhetoric), the vast majority of crime committed with guns in the inner cities of this country is perpetrated with ordinary handguns, more or less just like the one I keep under my pillow for the uninvited 3 A.M. visitors. I'm guessing the ban on the so-called "assault weapons" would most likely apply to said handguns as well.
And one more time, once again with feeling -- why don't more people see these criminals offing each other as a good thing? Call me a heartless bastard, but I can't help but think that once someone gets to the wrong end of a gun in the places Obama talks about, that means someone dropped the ball somewhere along the way. By the time most of these kids are getting cut down by their inner-city brethren, they should have at least some sort of clue that certain actions have certain consequences and that maybe running with the gangs and the drug dealers isn't the best thing for their long-term well-being. And when they don't get the aforementioned clue and they end up eating a bullet because of the aforementioned actions, why are said actions NEVER addressed? Maybe I do sound like a heartless bastard, but I am sick and tired of panderers like Barack Obama telling me that my right to keep and bear arms is causing the violence in this country. And how is it that when I was these kids' age, I managed to find things to do after school, most of which consisted of things like homework, TV or books -- none of which required a dime of taxpayer money?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- this guy is nothing but an empty suit, a smiley-faced socialist, and proof positive that Dan Seals was dead-on -- everything that glitters is certainly NOT gold.

Just a small point of contention...

Via Misha at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, we have this right good takedown of one Ted Rall, a vile California-based "cartoonist" who seems to get his jollies from insulting everything good about this country. Some good points here about the outrageous double standards vis-a-vis Teddy and someone like say Ann Coulter, but I do have a comment on one thing:

And just because he can think it, and say it, and draw it, and write it, does not mean that he should, or that Universal Press Syndicate has to continue to syndicate him, or that supposedly respectable institutions, such as the New York Times, have to publish his vile cartoons.

I suppose she might actually agree with me here, but I would really like to know just how many people outside of the coastal leftist elite --or arguably a good percentage of the people who run this country's major newspapers -- view the New York Times as as a respectable institution. Everything that's wrong with mainstream media these days, pretty much every complaint applies to that institution -- it's pretty much completely insulated from the realities of the daily lives of its supposed audience, they're incredibly biased, and quite condescending to boot, especially when it comes to things like gun control.
Respectable institution? I'd say the NYT publishing Ted Rall is just another indicator that it's little more than the house organ of the Democratic Party and the extreme left.

Unintentional Comedy Gold...

to be found at http://www.bradycampaign.org/blog/...
as at least two people I read every day, SayUncle and Robb Allen, along with with a trainload of other pro-gunners, has a field day talking about guns and the futility of gun control, and all the anti-gunners there -- who, by the way, are in the very distinct minority of the commenters there -- have to offer is ad hominem attacks (you'll see the term "gun nut" sprinkled quite liberally throughout at least one person's comments) and the same old tired comments about folks like us compensating for something, and they even go so far as to call us racists for the things we say on our blogs. It's quite insulting, but if you can get past that it's pretty funny. Almost makes it worth reading the puke Paul Helmke posts in the main blog!

What Media Bias?

Exhibit No. 90,386,037 that the mainstream media has a near-terminal case of anti-gun bias, so far gone that all I can do is shake my head:

When criminals need guns, they have plenty of options in a country with nearly 100,000 licensed gun stores.

Yes, because everyone knows when a criminal needs a gun, all he needs to do is go see his local federal firearms licensee and he'll be taken care of. Good grief, does the Associated Press have no shame whatsoever? Reading the rest of the article you'll see the statistic that just one percent of the nation's FFLs supply some 40 percent of the guns traced back to crimes in the country, and the AP hack uses that one percent in his lead to make the entire retail end of the American gun industry look like a one-stop shop for criminals. With a New York dateline on that story I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I shudder to think how many people actually believe that a criminal can just walk into a store and get a gun, considering the lies, half-truths and distortions promulgated by the mainstream media on an almost-daily basis.
Of course, though, something else that was not touched on here is, just how many of those murders were committed by gang members on other gang members? Or by drug dealers on rival drug dealers? And why isn't that touted as a good thing? Maybe it's cruel to think that way, but in the long run I think it'd probably be better for these cretins to snuff each other out than have them crowding our jails and leaving less room for rapists, child molesters and the like. Of course, if we declared an end to the utterly futile "war on drugs" and left it up to society to teach the young about the hazards of drugs, and left them alone to take their chances, and pay the price for whatever bad decisions they make, I just can't help but think society would be strengthened in the long run. And once again, I know it would take a gargantuan paradigm shift for the American public at large to think that way, but it would be more than worth it if such actions got our society back to the old fashioned values of personal responsibility and accountability.

Pot, Meet Kettle

Kim du Toit, in comments to his anti-iPhone screed:

With all Apple products, it’s always been about form, about looking cool, about marketing—because in that way, you can make the gullible too busy going ooh and aah to notice the serious design and operational shortcomings.

It’s about creating a cult, you see...

That's just rich, coming from a man who worships the 1911 so and makes no secret of his preference of the 1911 over the Glock. That's a preference I share, by the way, but the fact remains that there are those who point to the devotees of the 1911 and label us a cult, too. And I suppose there are those in both camps -- Mac and 1911 -- who do have a near-cultish devotion to those respective products, but I think it's a tad petty to sit there and call Macintosh users fools, no matter the reason. I personally never had much of a problem with any Microsoft-based computer I owned - as a matter of fact, I'd say XP was the closest Microsoft came to getting it right -- but Microsoft's history speaks for itself. And if this is any indication, the new Vista operating system is going to be suffering from the problems endemic to every new operating system from Microsoft since Windows 95. Sooner or later Microsoft is going to stop offering support for Windows XP, and then where will they be? Who's to say they'll have all the bugs worked out of Vista by then? I know I certainly wouldn't want to be in that boat...and nor would I want to be in the position of having to upgrade to Vista and spend half the cost of a new machine to upgrade my computer's internals so it could handle the system requirements of Vista.
A fool? No, I think I made a pretty smart decision, and I don't appreciate anyone looking down on me for that decision just because a lot of others who made it are so insufferably smug about it.

More Shooting Fun

So a couple of weeks ago I loaded some more ammunition for the Kimber Stainless Target II and it was off to the range day before yesterday with it. Lucky for me I beat the rain...
155-grain Hornady XTPs in front of 14.3 grains of Accurate No. 9 for a muzzle velocity of about 1350 fps, give or take 5-10 fps. Monday I was averaging about 1346.2 fps, but with an extreme spread big enough to drive a truck through...83 fps, which means I was driving them out at anywhere from 1300 to 1383 fps. I think I might have narrowed down the problem a little bit, though
I've heard people say here and there that if you put a tighter crimp on the round, it helps to cut down on that, so I tried that and still it didn't help. Not sure when I'll be doing it, but some gun mods will be in the future..flat-bottom firing pin stop, stiffer mainspring & recoil spring to delay unlocking. I've heard all those help as well, with another benefit -- slowing down the slide so it doesn't throw the brass so far. I recovered about half of mine yesterday, which was pretty good, but still I wish I could have done better. Such is life, though...and the fun with the 10mm is more than worth chasing the empties. ;-)

I Get Referrals...

from Connecticut, just a few minutes ago, from a search for "line paying my dues larry cordle." I could be wrong, but I think the song they were looking for is Ricky Skaggs' mid-'80s hit "Highway 40 Blues," which, of course, was written by Larry Cordle:

Well, these Highway 40 blues,
I've walked holes in both my shoes.
Counted the days since I've been gone,
And I'd love to see the lights of home.
Wasted time and money too;
Squandered youth in search of truth.
But in the end I had to lose,
Lord above, I've paid my dues.
Got the Highway 40 blues.


Awesome song and record, a killer country-bluegrass hybrid. Ricky Skaggs was another of my favorite 1980s hitmakers, a true talent. I have the Super Hits from him in my collection, with all those songs from the '80s. I might just have to pull that out today.