Why Is This An Issue?

Just about anyone who's been to or otherwise seen east Houston and Harris County knows it's not exactly the most picturesque part of Texas, with the refineries and such.
Well, via this morning's Houston Chronicle, we find that local county commissioner Sylvia Garcia is spearheading an effort to beautify the area by building parks, painting murals and things like that. From the article:

Earlier this year, Garcia led opposition to naming Houston's new major league soccer team "1836," suggesting that it could promote anti-Mexican sentiment. The team's name was changed to the "Dynamo."
Garcia, who shares Hispanic ethnicity with more than half the people in her district, has said the soccer team's name and a promotional campaign highlighting the historic Battle of San Jacinto are distinct issues.

Uh...why? Like it or not, 1836 and San Jacinto are Texas history, and one thing we Texans hold in very high esteem is our history. And with this being an "issue" among the area's residents, it begs the question, just exactly where do their allegiances lie -- with Texas and the United States, or Mexico? More than a few people would call me insensitive or -- gasp! -- RACIST! for daring to ask such a question, but yet again, like it or not, it's part of the area's and the state's history -- one of the cornerstones of it. If the allegiances of the residents of the area -- who, I am guessing, are largely of Hispanic/Mexican descent -- are such that they have this huge problem with acknowledging that, well, just what are they doing here? Call me crazy, but the fact that acknowledgment of that history is, in fact, acknowledgement of an ignominious defeat of Mexico, coupled with it being an issue at all would suggest that the loyalties of the area's residents would chiefly lie with Mexico and not with Texas or the United States...
I have no quarrel with Hispanics. They have the right to their opinion. But to say that we should ignore or downplay a cornerstone, a proud part, of our Texan and American history because it upsets their delicate sensibilities is just wrong on so many levels it defies description. And it's a damn shame the people who have a problem with this aren't being called on it.

Charge of the RINOs, Again...

When the writings of ex-Weekly Standardite David Brooks first appeared in the New York Times, I thought it was a good thing, that they were finally getting someone to add at least a tiny semblance of balance to the raging leftists on their op-ed page. But the more I read of him, the more I think of him as just another party apparatchik in the same vein as Hugh Hewitt, and his latest column does little to dissuade me of that notion. An excerpt:

You look at the vulnerable Republicans and it’s like a moderate Republican graveyard: Deborah Pryce, a bright and effective member from Ohio; Christopher Shays from Connecticut; Sweeney from New York; Gerlach from Pennsylvania; Reichert from Washington; DeWine from Ohio.
Why have 55 Republican senators? Why not 25? Why not 15 brave and true? Throw in a few dozen pure-minded Republican House members and you could hold the next Republican convention in a living room.

I suppose I could see his point, but I still don't agree with him. In a more sane country, in a more sane political world I don't think I'd have to be asking this question, but here goes -- What in the bloody hell is the point of having Republicans in Congress if they don't agree with the conservative agenda the Republicans are supposed to have stood for? You know...lower taxes, smaller government, keeping the feds out of my gun safe and not interfering with my wanting to fill that gun safe up? Say what you will about ideological purity, but, for example, as a gun owner I think Republicans like Mike DeWine, Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee are worse than useless to the Republican Party, as they give those who would take more of our money and liberty more legitimacy than they otherwise would have had -- "See? Republicans support these common-sense gun laws too!"
I suppose that centrism might play well among the people who put these pansies in office, but from where I sit that's still a form of playing defense, to an extent -- you let your more leftist opponent define who you are and you try to get as close to him ideologically as you can while still giving Republican voters in your state a reason to vote for you. To what extent that's true, I don't know, but I think it would be very interesting to see what kind of power shift would occur in this country if Republicans moved to states in which their votes would actually count for something; after all, for example, as Kim du Toit illustrated in one of his essays, there's not much if any point in voting Republican if you live in Chicago, as "the Incredibly Raving Loony Party...gets six times as many votes as the Republicans." I've said this before, and some might think it heresy, but if it came down to a vote for a Zell Miller-type Democrat or Lincoln Chafee-type Republican, I would have absolutely no trouble voting for the person with the D beside his or her name. And I would go so far as to say that I'd bet money that Zell Miller's speech at the 2004 GOP convention did more to excite and motivate real Republican voters than anything and everything the aforementioned RINOs have done in their entire Senate careers.
Brooks and his ilk can talk this suburbanites-swinging-the-election tripe all they want, but if you ask me, if the GOP ends up on the curb Election Day, it will be because of, not despite, the fact that they have lost touch with the agenda of those who love freedom. If anyone's marginalizing the Republican Party, it's Brooks and his ilk. And the sooner the higher-ups in the GOP figure that out, the better off we'll all be.

French Stealing Brady Talking Points!

God, this is so rich! You absolutely just can not make this shit up!
Via David Codrea comes this, from Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Conservative presidential frontrunner (emphasis mine -- ed.)...

I am against militias, I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I’m trying to make you think about that. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he’ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you’re risking your life. If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined, because killing someone over a theft is not in line with the republican values that are mine. The private ownership of firearms is dangerous. I understand your exasperation for having been burglarized two times, I understand the fear that your wife and daughter may have but the answer is in the efficiency of the police and the efficiency of the judiciary process, the answer is not in having guns at home.

Looks like the old French attitude of "l'etat, c'est moi" is alive and well. I wonder how many armed-to-the-teeth bodyguards that puke Sarkozy has. And they call him the conservative one!
And look at what he's saying! I'll be damned if it doesn't come straight from the gun-grabbers' playbook right here in this country! "If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he’ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you’re risking your life. ...I understand your exasperation...but the answer is in the efficiency of the police and the efficiency of the judiciary process, the answer is not in having guns at home."
Translation: "Let the police handle it, they're the only ones professional enough..." I don't know how many Frenchmen are actively trying to rid themselves of the whole "cheese-eating surrender monkey" stereotype, but it's hard to dispute that their political candidates' utterings of such lunacy undermines those efforts a great deal. I can't help but think, once again, of what the great Bill Whittle penned in "Freedom" (emphasis mine --ed.)...

Kick down 100 doors of self-proclaimed French pacifists, grab the women and kids, and haul them away. Then try that again in Texas, with 100 NRA members.

I'm not sure it's only the "pacifists" who'd just roll over, either...

Truth in Googling

At the suggestion of SayUncle...

sensible gun laws

sensible gun laws

And, while we're at it...

ban all guns

ban gun ownership

Because, as SayUncle says, that is their goal. Do NOT be fooled.

Hey, I do what I can...

The Hunters vs. the Shooters; or, THIS Is What Throwing People Under the Bus Looks Like

I always wondered about the political leanings and acumen of the outdoor writers at major newspapers, considering the media's by-and-large leftist leanings. Did they recognize the importance of the fight for the natural right to arms, or were they like so many others who think, "as long as they don't take my deer rifle or my duck gun, it's all right, the hell with the rest of it..." ? Well, via the great Michael Bane, we have at least one answer, from the Denver Post outdoors editor, one Charlie Moron Meyers, and here he weighs in on the Colorado governor's race:

...Ritter has been attacked by the National Rifle Association as a threat to gun ownership, a reference to his stance against certain radical firearms as an article of public safety when he was Denver's district attorney.
The notion that Ritter, or any other Colorado politician, could or would take away our shotguns and hunting rifles is absurd. Last time I checked, nobody went hunting with automatic assault rifles or Saturday night specials....
...This wrong-headed election rhetoric from the firearms lobby consistantly ignores the reality that it doesn't matter how many guns we own if there's nothing left to hunt.

"Saturday night specials" and "assault rifles." How do you like that? The jackass managed to fit in two of the gun-grabbers' key terms in his wrongheaded rant. As Mr. Bane said, "Sort of takes your breath away, doesn't it?"
Another thing Mr. Meyers is missing, of course, is the flip side of his so-called "argument," that is, that it doesn't matter what the hell's out there to hunt if you don't have any guns to hunt with. And if these damned Fuddites actually think their shotguns and deer rifles are safe from the likes of Chucky Schumer and Fat Teddy Kennedy, well then, I just don't know what to say to that. I think the peerless Kim du Toit, as is his wont, said it best:

What really, really pisses me off is the fact that gun owners seem to be splitting into two factions: the "Hunters" (or "sport shooters", as some call them), and Shooters (that would be people like me, who love shooting but seldom if ever hunt). And yes, I'm aware that there's considerable overlap, but bear with me.
While Shooters would never consider selling out the Hunters (gun ownership, to us, is a sacred thing), I’m not so sure that the reverse isn’t true. How else should I think, when I read crap like this from a Hunter like Meyers...
What this foolishness means is that an anti-gun politician (like, for example, John F*ckface Kerry) has only to show up at a clay shoot with a borrowed Red Label and an ironed camo jacket, for the Hunting Simpletons to be reassured that No-Guns Norman won’t go after his "sporting" guns. And I'm not making this up: I've read quotes from people during the 2004 election campaign who thought exactly that.
For the benefit of the Hunters, let me say this, once and for all: The Second Amendment is NOT about duck hunting. And if you think it is, you deserve to get everything that comes to you.

As he goes on to say, though, that would mean that the non-hunting contingent of gun owners had long been marginalized and all our guns would long ago have been taken from us. And there is something much more important that he points out that the Fuddites apparently aren't taking into account either -- 80 million gun owners and about 20 million "shooting" licenses, which means, of course, that there are 60 million gun owners in this great land who do not hunt.
And this goes back to what Michael Bane was originally talking about, the continued diverging of the gun market into two segments: the shooting/IDPA/IPSC/self-defense-type segment and the hunting segment:

(this divergence) would be no big deal except that the firearms industry has 100% allied itself with the hunting side of the market to the exclusion of the shooters. As the markets have diverged, so have the things in our best interest split. In some cases, those interests are in direct conflict; for example increasing hunting access versus building shooting ranges. More troubling is the fact that the hunting side of the industry focuses on traditional hunting arm, rifles and shotguns, while the shooting side of the industry is overwhelming interested in self-defense handguns, "black" rifles and competition firearms.

Bane also reports, "...one major honcho in the industry told me recently that 'hunter access' was the single biggest issue facing the firearms community, and that hunting was the future of firearms, period." I for one would love to see exactly what this major honcho has backing up that assertion, and what he would say to those of us who would contend that maybe the shooting/defense part of the market was more of the future than he and the Fuddites would like to think. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, anyone? Armed civilian patrols in Bridge City and Algiers? 'You Loot, I Shoot'? Taking that into account, I tend to side with Michael Bane when he says that, "The shooting sports are growing while hunting is shrinking. Firearms training is a booming industry, and a vast majority of states — including Colorado — allow CCW....We — sport shooting, self-defense, training, collectors — are the future of firearms in America."
I know not all the hunters will throw shooters like myself under the bus, but when I read crap like that from people like Meyers, I have to wonder how many of the hunters would gladly tell us to go to hell, thinking, once again, "they ain't gonna take my deer rifle, fuck those damn handguns and assault rifles..." And, as Kim du Toit showed, Meyers' argument that "no one NEEDS a Saturday night special or automatic assault rifle to hunt with" can very easily be turned on its head with the argument that:

no one “needs” to hunt anymore: we’re not a “frontier society”, we have supermarkets where we can buy meat.

The Fuddites aren't as safe as they might think they are...and what really irks me is that it's the people who are on the sport shooting side of the market who are fighting for everyone's right to arms -- for hunting, self-defense, or whatever purpose free and decent men and women might want to use them for -- while selfish pricks like Charlie Meyers only look out for their own best interests. Again, I know that not all hunters are like that...but how many of them are? I shudder to think...
And of course, there's at least one more thing we ALL should keep in mind, hunters and shooters alike -- you might not think the gun-grabbers are all on the same page, but they are. Don't think otherwise for a second. (For example, if Sarah Brady and her evil minions did not supporta nationwide handgun ban exactly as the Violence Policy Center does, then why exactly would they support those bans in the cities in which they've been enacted??) And the hunters and shooters would do well to get on the same page as well, if we're going to make more headway towards getting more of our rights back. Better for us to fight our common enemy than each other.

Dave Kopel Calls Out School Slaughter Enablers

Via the GeekWithA.45, we have this from David Kopel. Money quote:

Our nation has too many people who are not only unwilling to learn how to protect themselves, but who are also determined to prevent innocent third persons from practicing active defense. A person has the right to choose to be a pacifist, but it is wrong to force everyone else to act like a pacifist. It is the policies of the pacifist-aggressives which have turned American schools into safe zones for mass murderers.

As they say, read the whole thing. My thoughts?
Well, first, I was left absolutely stunned by Kopel's revelation that "the armed 'school resource officer' refused to pursue the killers into the school." Maybe I had heard this before and the details just faded into memory, but something that at least a few of us have been saying ever since that day is that if there had been armed teachers there at Columbine, the tragedy could have been prevented...and there was someone there who was armed? I don't know...perhaps it's just as well that this detail was forgotten, because the clueless pundits and editorialists who roam the halls of American newsrooms would probably seize on it and hail it as proof that arming teachers or administrators is not the solution -- conveniently ignoring, as they so often do, the facts surrounding that revelation, namely that "Even after SWAT teams arrived, and while, via an open 911 line, the authorities knew that students were being methodically executed in the library, the police stood idle just a few yards outside the library." (emphasis mine --ed.)
Kopel goes on to discuss several other things, including the questionable utility of anti-bullying programs, and at least one benefit of them, namely that they encourage people to come forward and report problems. This could be a good thing in the big scheme of things, along with arming teachers and administrators, as it's an intermediate measure that could well rid the environment of someone who could cause mayhem later...but, of course, we still don't arm anyone on school grounds -- or, for that matter, teach kids and adults alike about the combat mindset -- and the results have been plain to see, although there have been encouraging signs of change in Texas and Utah. I fear, though, that yet more innocent people are going to be killed because of the pacifist-aggressives that David Kopel talks about...

More Range Fun With the Kimber 10mm

Yes, that's right, friends, I went to the range yet again last week with my Kimber Stainless Target II. I didn't get to throw too many downrange because of time constraints -- maybe tomorrow or the next day, if it doesn't rain -- but I took 100 rounds of 180-grain Federal American Eagle...and 20 rounds of Winchester Silvertip 175-grain hollowpoint ammunition, one of the few even semi-widely available close-to-full-power 10mm loads. According to the Winchester website, this particular cartridge is rated at 1295 fps out of a 5.5" barrel. The Kimber is a 5-inch gun, of course, so they go out just a little slower than that, but still, I was a bit apprehensive. So after about 50 rounds of the weak Federal AE, I gingerly opened up that grey box of Winchester Silvertips and loaded a magazine with them. Slammed the mag into the gun, charged it, took aim at the target. BOOM! Okay, that wasn't so bad, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Okay, still not the rocket ride I was expecting. I finished off the rest of the magazine and thought, is that all there is?
Mind you, this was not a bad thing. I had just heard so much about how the 10mm was such a hard-recoiling cartridge (although, granted, in the original Norma loadings I am sure it does kick pretty hard), but still I was very pleasantly surprised. This is, of course, a completely unscientific wild-assed guess, but I'd guess with that shorter barrel I was driving those Winchesters out at about 1250 fps, at least...it might well have been more than that, I don't know. I wish I'd had a chronograph so I could have seen for myself...but back to the point, a 175-grain bullet at 1250 feet per second -- a bullet with about the same sectional density as the .45ACP, in a cartridge with about the same recoil as the .45ACP+P and at 400 feet per second faster than standard .45ACP, would be quite a potent self-defense cartridge indeed. I am itching to try the Double Taps in that gun...I know they have quite a following among the 10mm enthusiasts, and looking at the ballistics on those suckers, it's not hard to see why...
UPDATE! AlanDP says in comments:

Maybe you need to step up to a .50AE. (ha ha)

Come to think of it, one of these would make an absolutely hellacious truck gun...
Back to the range today, 50 rounds of Blazers, about the same of Federal AE, and the last of the box of Silvertips. Went head-to-head with the last three mags I shot...one mag of Blazer, one mag of Federal AE, and one of Winchester Silvertip. I felt the extra kick with that last one. 1250 fps? I'd believe it...

UPDATE, 5-22-07:
Seems like this post gets a lot of hits from Google from folks looking for info on the Kimber 10mm 1911s, specifically the Stainless Target II. More observations on my experiences with this fine weapon may be found here, here, here, here, and here.

Another Swirl Around the Toilet; or, Who's The Simplistic One Here?

From Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald. I'll admit I actually agree with a lot of what Pitts says (although sure as hell NOT the turd he passed that he called this week's column), even if he shows his leftist moonbat side of himself a little too much for my tastes, but this was just ridiculous...

We have become ever more impatient with the complexities and convolutions that characterize our most intractable problems, ever more intolerant of solutions that require patience, long-term thinking, and the coordination of multiple strategies. Like overweight people looking for a fat-burning pill, we want magic solutions that require no investment of time, tears or tolerance.

So sure, if school shootings are a threat, let's arm the teachers. Because, as everyone knows, the real problem in this country is that there just aren't enough people with guns. At the very least, arming teachers will sure discourage cheating. Indeed, why stop there?
Arm the bus drivers. That'll teach some punk to try to slip on with an expired transfer.
Arm the waiters. Bet folks won't be so quick to whine about their soup being cold.
Heck, arm the editors. Presto! Suddenly everybody's able to make their deadlines.
Lasee's proposal is emblematic of the simple, simplistic, simple-minded schemes that bubble to the surface of the national discourse with troubling frequency these days.

What else to say to this, but, what a load of horseshit? If anyone's being simplistic here, it's the weenies on the left who squeal for ever more strict gun-control legislation and gun bans after school shootings like the ones in Pennsylvania and at Columbine. There is, of course, a hell of a lot more to arming the teachers than just putting 1911s in their hands and saying, "Here you go." But people like Leonard Pitts, Marsha McCartney and their ilk either don't know that or willfully choose to ignore it as they peddle their disgusting stereotypes of gun owners and others who choose to see the world as the violent place it can sometimes be. Those of us who advocate arming the teachers don't see it as a panacea...we see it as just another tool in the box, much like the gun itself. It makes me sick to my stomach. When I read this, I thought back to what Dave Grossman said in his essay "On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs" (emphasis mine --ed.):

We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the
sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone
coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

And that denial is what promped Mr. Pitts to write that blatantly offensive piece of dreck, no doubt about it.
I wonder what Leonard Pitts would be saying if people stereotyped blacks like he stereotyped gun people in his column. I bet he wouldn't like it one bit, and for good reason...those stereotypes are just as infuriating and untrue as the ones he peddled. He and those like them ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Music: Thoughts on a Legend...And His New CD

So George Strait last week released his latest cd, a 15-song work titled "It Just Comes Natural." I've been a big fan of Strait for a long time, so of course I made sure to pick up the cd the day it was released. Some might say, I suppose, that after 25 years, George Strait's best years are behind him; well, after a listen to his latest work I can honestly say that these people don't know what they're talking about. I've never been disappointed with a Strait work, but I can honestly say this is the best album George Strait has done in the last ten years. You won't find any surprises here, just George doing what's worked for him for the duration of his time in the spotlight -- old songs, new songs, cover songs, heartbreak, love, longing, and some spine-tingling poetry, too.
I loved the first single, "Give It Away," with that spoken-word bit in it, and what a picture the song paints, of a woman who's had quite enough. I got the feeling she was a bit of a psycho, as the words of the song's main character were, shall we say, a bit understated. Maybe that's the way the writers wanted it, but understated delivery has always been one of Strait's strong points, as he also shows in "He Must Have Really Hurt You Bad," where the bartender's giving a heartbroken lady in red some advice against a beautiful piano backdrop. Strait's Texas dancehall roots show quite well in his cover of Bruce Robison's "Wrapped," a gentle fiddle-and-steel shuffle, and "What Say," a beautiful fiddle-laced ode to fidelity and old-fashioned values. And of course it wouldn't be a George Strait album without some good barroom honky-tonk, and Strait delivers here in spades with a cover of George Jones' "She Told Me So" -- just wait'll you hear the neat little twist in that one - and the slow, bluesy "Why Can't I Leave Her Alone," and rousing covers of Guy Clark's "Texas Cookin'" and Lee Roy Parnells' "One Foot In Front of the Other." Strait mines an old fruitful territory -- the broken-hearted cowboy lament -- with "I Ain't Her Cowboy Anymore," which admittedly has a bit more of a polished sound than its older brother "I Can Still Make Cheyenne," but still deserves a place in the pantheon of great Strait rodeo songs. You'll even find Strait waxing philosophical in "A Better Rain,that'll wash me from your eyes, so you can smile again..."
There's really only one misstep here, "How 'Bout Them Cowgirls." I just have to say, this song does nothing for me. It just seems so insipid, trite...blah. Still, though, it doesn't detract from the overall quality of this album enough to make any kind of difference.
The King of Texas has delivered again, folks. Go pick this one up. I guarantee you, you won't be sorry.

UPDATE: From Reuters:

Strait scored his 30th chart entry with "It Just Comes Natural," which opened at No. 3 with 232,000. The MCA Nashville set was also No. 1 on Top Country Albums chart, his 20th on that tally.

I never was one to put THAT much stock in sales figures, as I've seen too many people use those figures to advance their argument that is the best. I do, however, find it heartening indeed that someone who's been doing what George Strait does -- honest-to-goodness REAL COUNTRY MUSIC -- can still sell at that level, in addition to filling basketball arenas and football stadiums all across this great land. It should really give pause to anyone who says that kind of music, and the people who make it, belong in the dustbin of history.

More Word Vomit from the Usual Suspects on the Amish School Shootings

First up, Rosie O'Donnell, who has said in the past that "if you do own a gun, I think you should go to prison," on the Amish school shootings:

You can buy a gun in America and it is not licensed. We can't trace who bought it, who owned it or who is responsible. That’s wrong.

Well, yes, it is wrong...but not in the way Rosie thinks it is. She's saying things that absolutely are not true. There are a few states in this great land where you do indeed have to have a license, purchase permit, Firearm Owner ID Card, or some-such permission from the .gov to buy a firearm -- and every single gun purchase through a licensed dealer has to be approved through the NICS, as per the Brady Law, with the serial number of the firearm recorded on the Form 4473 (with the exception of CCW permit holders, but even then the info is retained on the form, thereby creating a de facto nationwide registration scheme -- and not that I think any of this is a good thing, I think it's just yet another wrong-headed measure aimed at the wrong people and yet another avoidance of the real problem, that of a corrupted culture, but I digress)....and just the other day, one of my gun buddies was telling me I needed to get all my serials down and put them in a safe place, so in case any of my guns were stolen and later recovered by the police, I could get them back. Of course, again, we all know that Rosie doesn't think folks like you and me should have guns, but, of course, she has enough money to hire armed-to-the-teeth bodyguards to protect her kids. Apparently Rosie thinks the rest of us do too, or maybe she just doesn't care. Either way, I for one find her despicable.

Next up, the same old song-and-dance from Marsha McCartney, from the North Texas Chapter of the Million Mom March, in today's Houston Chronicle:

If we can't keep our kids safe in America's schools, then we might as well give up the war on terrorism, because we have already lost it.....We hope that these tragedies will wake up the nation to do something about the madness it can and should control.

And of course, we already know that the "something" Marsha McCartney and her brain-dead ilk would propose to do, would have absolutely jack to do with arming the teachers or administration and educating said individuals about the combat mindset and the fact that there is evil in the world and we have a moral obligation to rid ourselves of it by any means necessary. No, no, no. They'll just propose more meaningless, toothless, worthless feel-good measures like registration, "assault weapon" bans, and the like...in other words, more, um, infringements on the rights of the people. As the old saying goes, same shit, different day...

Information: Shooters Supply, Beaumont, Texas

Updated, 4-23-07:
It looks like I am still getting some hits for people Googling for Shooters Supply. So it looks like a lot of folks don't know what happened or they're just curious. The store closed last month sometime, apparently. I never made up there again before they closed their doors for good; last time I was up there, I think, was early February. As it happens, though, one of their former employees works at Gander Mountain, catty-cornered from Shooters at Highway 69 & Dowlen. I ran into him a couple of weeks ago as I went over there to browse for reloading stuff and asked him what happened. He told me the shop was doing fine; the owner just decided he wanted to sell off all his inventory & retire. Shame, too, because they were cheaper than Gander Mountain on guns, at least, and they had some good people working there. I know Gander Mountain will match others' prices if you bring in ads, but I try to support the little man when I can, and on that basis if I'd had to choose, I'd have chosen Shooters to buy another gun from. But anyway, that's the story behind that...

A Few Words on Certain Guns

It seems I get more than a few referrals from assorted search engines on certain kinds of pistols, and how to field-strip them, disassemble them, etc. Among the kinds of pistols people are looking for information on how to field-strip are:

Jennings
Lorcin
Raven
Davis Industries
Bryco Arms

To tell the truth, y'all, I don't have any idea on how to disassemble these pistols. I don't own any and don't plan to; once, not long ago at work, I was telling a friend of a lady I work with about my gun collection -- Rugers, Kimbers and a Springfield Armory 1911. He told me, "That's a real nice collection you got there."
And I told him, "The Saturday Night Specials have their place, I'll admit, it just is not in my safe."
Guns like the ones mentioned above do serve a purpose -- self-defense for the poor. But they'll only take you so far. From where I sit, guns like those are a stop-gap measure, intended only to fill their intended purpose until you can get your hands on something better -- and you nigh well should be working towards something better while you have that little cheap pocket pistol. I've seen a few comments here and there on how to disassemble one of those pistols that involved a hard, flat surface, a sledgehammer, and a trip to your friendly local gun store to pick up a quality used firearm. While I am not one to advocate wanton destruction of even the cheapest, poorest-made pistols, the fact is that if you're willing to spend a little more, say, $200-300, your options increase considerably. As I sit here I am looking at an ad for a Smith & Wesson 586 .357 Magnum, 6" barrel, Hogue grips, trigger job and other stuff for $325. Quality can be had if you really want it, but you're gonna have to pay, one way or another. Buy those cheap pistols if you really need them, but only till you can save up for something better, all the while keeping your eye out for that something better.

More Leftist Obliviousness to Irony

I was sitting here doing my morning blog-run, and over at his place, John Hawkins had a post on some of the latest drivel from a leftist site called The Smirking Chimp...

If you still believe that dissent is the highest form of patriotism, there's probably a spot in Bush's gulags for you. And depending on where you live, most of your neighbors won't even notice nor care if you disappear....

America is fast moving itself into an authoritarian, militarist, imperial state, one that has more in common with Stalinist Soviet Union and Hitlerian Germany than with traditional American society.

Where's the irony? Well, of course, it lies in the fact that the people who actually subscribe to the belief system/worldview that allows them to believe this, also would like to see ever more strict gun control, and probably even the total disarmament of the American people -- thereby disabling the very mechanism that prohibits the advent of this so-called fascist society they're talking about, disabling the very mechanism that would make it a hell of a lot harder for any dissidents to be herded into cattle cars for the trip to these so-called "gulags" these morons are going on about. I have to wonder how many of them have ever read any Solzhenitsyn...this reminds me of what Jim Kenefick said over at Moorewatch one day, even more succinctly than myself (emphasis mine -- ed.)...

Hey Mikey, wanna know the number one reason Bush could never pull off what Hitler pulled off, you fucking moron?

WE HAVE GUNS, YOU IDIOT. STOP TRYING TO TAKE THEM FROM US, OR WE’LL FEED YOUR LYING, GUN-GRABBING ASS TO THE BUSH-STAPO YOU SAY IS COMING THE FIRST CHANCE WE GET.

When will the leftists figure that out? Probably about the time there are roses blooming in the Arctic Circle and icebergs floating in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Ignorance of Jesse Jackson

...or it could just as well be intentional prevarication in reliance of his audience's ignorance and being too lazy to check what he's saying...
Via the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler comes this absolute howler from uber race-pimp Jesse Jackson:

...instead of metropolitan areas banning guns and rural areas keeping them, the gun advocates use rural-dominated state legislatures to pre-empt any municipal laws. Chicago gets governed by Springfield; New York City constrained by Albany.

Chicago gets governed by Springfield? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over? Anyone who knows anything about the fascist state of Illinois knows that it's more or less the exact opposite, to the point that metro Chicago's statehouse delegation is in the process of trying to either run three major Illinois gun manufacturers out of business or out of Illinois with their so-called "assault weapons" ban, to the point that the state senator for the particular district in which the gunmakers are located said the State of Illinois has almost become an enemy of his district! I know that Jesse Jackson and his sordid ilk have some serious problems with the truth sometimes, to put it mildly, but I am still rather surprised at this blatant out-and-out lie! Just more proof, I guess, that their position is intellectually and morally bankrupt, but I never fail to be at least a little surprised that "gun control" is STILL ever discussed as a positive thing in what passes for polite company...or that Jesse Jackson still has any air of respectability anywhere.

Range Report No. 1: Kimber Stainless Target II, 10mm

Actually, this is two range reports in one, and more of a preliminary report -- the REAL ones will come when I can get my hands on some REAL 10mm loads. ;-) I've put two brands of ammo through her so far, two different weights and loads:
50 rds. of CCI Blazer -- 200 gr. @ 1,050 fps
100 rds. of Federal American Eagle -- 180 gr. @ 1,060 fps

So far, I am very impressed. 150 rounds through the pistol, no jams, failures to feed or duds. The slide did lock back prematurely just once about a quarter of the way through the Federal, but I think that was due to limp-wristing. I ran her through my normal range regimen -- half at the 3-yard line, half at the 7-yard. Would have tried my luck at the 15-yard mark were I not mainly concerned with how smoothly she'd run through what I fed her, because this gun is arguably more accurate than I am. I know that might not be saying much, considering most guns no matter the brand are more accurate than the people who are shooting them, but still, it's just amazing. Ragged holes, anyone? I found out that no matter which of my guns I am shooting, though, I tend to shoot low and to the right. Next trip I am going to start working on that...I've been shooting the Springfield GI on most of my recent range trips and the same thing's been happening. I was thinking it was the gun, but apparently it isn't. The recoil of the Kimber 10mm with those light loads seems to be similar to that of the .45, so it didn't take long to get used to, but I know what's really gonna tell the tale is those real 10mm loads. When the founds come, so will they -- and it won't be too long. I look forward to it...

The Mendacity of Mike Magnum

I'm sure most folks who happen upon my humble place on the Web know about the site gunguys.com. As of yet I haven't said much about its content, well, basically because my visits to the site don't last much longer than half a heartbeat. But I had to comment on this, via Carnaby, who obviously has a much stronger stomach than I do when it comes to tripe like this, as he actually signed up for their e-mail list!...

Do you know that the NRA lobbies for and backs court cases to allow domestic violence offenders to own guns? And that they also think men who are under restraining orders should be able to pack heat?
And members of the so-called "gun rights" movement also defend the "right" of sex offenders to carry around guns!

I won't repeat Carnaby's words here (just go read what he had to say, it's very good), but what I'd like to say is, what a way to twist the argument. Most of us "gun guys" (and girls, too), as those cretins like to call us, would be arguing that people who can't be trusted with firearms shouldn't be trusted to walk among free men...in other words, that they should still be in jail, or better yet in the cases of the domestic offenders, six feet under at the hands of one of their intended victims. Were one to twist Mike Magnum's argument as he twists ours, one could say that he and his ilk think it's just peachy keen to let child-rapists and wife-beaters walk free in society. We don't, of course...but sometimes I ponder if there might indeed be some advantages to playing smash-mouth football down in the mud with these cretins.
The really sick irony, though, is if people like this Mike Magnum jerk had their way, the victims of domestic abuse would be denied their right to use deadly force in self-defense, as we see in this little snippet from the e-mail, ranting about so-called "junk guns":

...we'd love to see a firearm that meets our "safety standards"-- that doesn't exist...

So there you have it. They'd just as soon have that 115-pound woman go up against her 220-pound abuser with nothing more than her bare hands and whatever she might be holding in it, a knife, ink pen, or what have you. These people are foul, foul beings, a boil on the ass of humanity, and I've said it before and I'll say it again: Much innocent blood will be on the hands of these bastards and their ilk if, God forbid, it ever comes down to disarmament of the American people.

So I Got A Call Yesterday...

...from one of our friendly local gun stores, Shooters Supply in Beaumont. About five weeks ago I ordered a Kimber Stainless Target II in 10mm, and as the weeks wore on, I started getting more and more, ah, impatient. Well, I got outta the shower yesterday right before I hit the door for school, and this message was on my voice mail...
"Yeah, Pistolero, this is Friendly Gun Store Guy at Shooters Supply, that Kimber Stainless Target II in 10mm is in whenever you want to come pick it up..."
I seriously thought about skipping class to go and get it, but considering the gun is my graduation present to myself, I thought it might have been bad luck, so, I went to class and afterwards on to Shooters. Filled out the 4473, wrote the check for the gun and two extra mags, had them put on the Hogue finger wraparounds I ordered for her, and brought her home, cleaned and oiled her. And here she is:



I was going to pick up some ammo for her too, but as it happens, they were completely out of 10mm...they had a few boxes of 180-grain Remington UMC last time I was in there, but I asked them to order some for me. Not sure when it'll be in, a few days, I suppose, but when it gets here, you know what that means! Range report to come...

Musical Musings On a Saturday Night: New Songs from Not-Quite A-list Stars

So there are three songs from certain country artists that have been getting a pretty decent amount of play on the radio here, and all three songs are from artists who had a radio hit or two, disappeared for a while and made something of a comeback with these songs. I thought that was pretty odd, though not necessarily in a bad way...a couple of the songs are quite good. Anyway, here they are:

1. Rodney Atkins, "If You're Going Through Hell." What to say about Mr. Atkins? I'm sure he's a nice guy, and I don't think he's just a no-talent hack, don't get me wrong, but from where I sit he's not too much more than a Tim McGraw soundalike, albeit with a bit more of a traditional sound but not enough of that to make much of a difference. Tim's nothing to write home about as a singer, and one of him is quite enough. As for the song...it might as well be called "If You're Going Through Hell (And Other Cliches)." Doesn't do a thing for me. I'd rather have the time that goes to having this song played on the radio go to the two songs I am about to mention.

2. Steve Holy, "Brand New Girlfriend." Really fun stuff here, I didn't know Steve Holy had this in him. I grinned like the cat that ate the canary when I heard the line, "spent the whole day lyin' on the beach, wearin' nothin' but a smile..." He's got a pretty good voice, too. I'm interested to see what else he has up his sleeve.

3. Blaine Larsen, "I Don't Know What She Said." To hear this guy sing, you'd never guess he was only 20 years old. When I first heard this song, for about the first minute, I seriously thought it was George Strait because of that incredible voice. And what a clever tune! "I don't know what she said, but I sure like the way that she said it..." I would really like to see Mr. Larsen's career take off. I loved his first single, "How Do You Get That Lonely," from his very first album...why I didn't go out and get that cd, I don't know, but now I am going to have to fix that when I get this second one, too. If those two songs are any indication of Larsen's repertoire as a whole, no doubt both those cds will be worth every penny.

Running the Numbers; or, The Truth Isn't Always Politically Correct (Correction!)

Correction below, thanks GunGeek...

I'm surprised I haven't heard this commercial yet...
Via SayUncle, we have this, once again from the Bayou City (emphasis mine -- ed.):

His name is Jim Pruett and he formed half of one of the most outrageous duos in Houston radio history -- Stevens and Pruett -- back in the 1990's. He's raising controversy on the airwaves again -- this time as a gun shop owner. He says Houstonians must arm themselves, because of the rise in crime. But, as you would imagine, some Katrina evacuees say they are being publicly called out.

"The sale of handguns are up 50 percent in this store," Pruett told Eyewitness News.

Gun shop owner Jim Pruett says Houston's growing crime problem has brought a boom in business. It's a trend Pruett ties in part to the arrival of Katrina evacuees. This is his latest radio advertisement:

"When the Katricans themselves as saying the crime rate will go up if they don't have more free rent, then it's time to get your concealed weapons license."

We listened to ad in the home of Debra Campbell. She's a Katrina survivor.

She said, "I think that commercial is very inhumane. It is targeting us now. It allows Houstonians or whatever criminals to gun us down for no reason."

Well, um, no, the commercial doesn't do that...the law still says that if you get killed for no reason, your killer will still be prosecuted. As for the criminals, well, they're gonna break those laws anyway, Ms. Campbell, that's why they're called, um, criminals. While I can understand why some of the Katrina evacuees in Houston might feel slighted by the attitude of good people like Jim Pruett, the facts speak for themselves. I was listening to Walton and Johnson yesterday morning, and they mentioned something that I had never thought about.
The population of Houston proper stands at about 2 million, with metro Houston at about 3 million.
150,000 people came to Houston last fall in the aftermath of Katrina.
Just for grins, let's say that 10,000 of those, at most, have ended up with blood on their hands.
10,000 added to 2 million works out to a 0.5 percent increase in population.

And via Houston Strategies, we have this(emphasis mine -- ed.):

Houston took in 150,000 evacuees — the most of any U.S. city — after Katrina struck on Aug. 29. Houston police believe the evacuees are partly responsible for a nearly 17.5 percent increase in homicides so far this year over the same period in 2005.

About 21 percent of Houston's 232 homicides through July 25 involved an evacuee as either a suspect or a victim, according to police, who attribute much of the bloodshed to fighting among rival New Orleans gang members.

A 0.5 percent increase in the population (NOT the criminal population, we're just assuming that 10,000 out of the 150,000 are violent criminals, which I would think is really pushing it, but who knows? -- ed., 5:36 PM),and a 17.5 percent increase in murders. (And even taking the entire 150,000 evacuees, that's still only a population increase of 7.5 percent. -- ed., 5:41 PM) So, it would seem that a disproportionate increase in crime has indeed come with the exodus of New Orleanians to Houston, and there's not much getting around that. I saw Spike Lee's "When The Levees Broke" a few weeks ago, and I recall who I think was some sort of activist scoffing at the notion that Katrina evacuees caused such a spike in Houston's crime rate, "as if Houston was all sunshine and rainbows before Katrina," or some tripe like that. No, Houston was certainly not all sunshine and rainbows before Katrina, but I still found it rather disgusting that anyone would downplay the evacuees' role in the increased Houston crime rate to such an extent. I am almost surprised we haven't seen more of the "blame the guns" rhetoric, especially considering that New Orleans Mayor Raycist Nagin was, if I remember correctly, one of the first big-city mayors to file suit against the gun industry.

Houston Chronicle Swallows Brady Kool-Aid

Welcome, blogHOUSTON readers! Main page may be found here, pull up a seat!
From an editorial in this morning's edition:

...more crimes are being committed with illicit guns. Keeping those guns from illegal re-sellers, straw buyers or convicted felons must be a national priority. Two rational steps include requiring gun-show dealers to conduct buyer background checks and limiting the number of gun purchases to one per person per month.

Neither of these measures should cause pain to law-abiding gun users. But they could spare communities, including Houston, from much unnecessary fear.

Yes, Chron editorialists, of course.
Let's not even consider the possibility that if convicted felons can't be trusted with guns, maybe they should still be kept out of society altogether.
Let's not even mention the fact that a straw purchase is already a federal felony, punishable by ten years in prison.
Let's just gloss over the fact that there is NO SUCH THING as a "gun show loophole."
Let's just skim right over the fact that dealers selling their wares at gun shows have to require that potential purchasers fill out the ATF Form 4473 before the purchase can go forward -- that is, the potential purchasers must undergo a background check -- as they would be required to do at their normal places of business.
In other words, let's just keep pushing the same old blatant lies and failed "solutions" that we've been pushing for God knows how long. Let's not consider the possibility that, for example, the War On (Some) Drugs has filled our prisons and left little to no room for people that really deserve to be there. Let's not even consider the cultural corruption that has led to more crime being committed with guns.
Judas Priest, is there no one in America's newsrooms who will call this out for what it is...NOT "rational steps," but complete and utter lunacy? I know the Houston Chronicle could by no means be considered a middle-of-the-road media outlet, but considering that it's the dominant daily newspaper in the largest city in one of the most pro-gun states in the land, I really expected better than this. Maybe some of that "elegance, wit and insight" that is supposedly found on "editorial pages in their ideal state."