Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #164...
Monday, June 26, 2017
Dream Park...
So, I dreamed I was working in this little drug store in this tiny town out in the middle of flat-ass nowhere. The town was some houses and trees and a church and a courthouse and a few commercial buildings surrounded by billiard-table-flat farmland in all directions.
The drug store was in a strip center at the end of the three or four block main drag, along with a barber shop, a package store, the post office, and a little bar & grill sort of restaurant. And across the street was a park with some picnic tables and...this is how I knew it was a dream...a 50 yard pistol bay with a covered firing line.
So, like I said, I worked at the little drug store across the street from this park and, this being weird dream small town, the drug store closed at 9PM. I'm locking up, it's high summer so it's just starting to get to twilight, and I see two vehicles I recognize in the parking lot of the park across the street.
So I drive over and park my car (for some reason my car is the red Porsche 924S I had back in Georgia) and pull my ears on and wander over to the firing line on the pistol bay, where Jack Clemons is getting some pistol shooting pointers from Bruce Gray.
I sat and eavesdropped for a bit, but it was getting on toward full dark and, while the firing line was lit and there were a couple mercury-vapor lights in the parking lot, the pistol bay itself was unlit and the steel was starting to get hard to distinguish from the backstop. Plus, an evening fog was starting to rise.
Bruce suggested we all grab a bite at the little bar & grill across the street to give the fog time to lift before heading home..."People get in wrecks in this stuff all the time," he opined...and so I walked back to my car to move it back across the street. As I was unlocking the car, this dented hooptie with different-colored fenders and doors rolled to a stop on the street in front of me.
"Hey..." yelled the guy in the passenger seat.
"Sorry, buddy, can't help you. I gotta go," I blurted as I finished opening the door and started to climb in.
"Hey!" Now he'd opened the passenger door and hopped out and was making a beeline for my car. I looked around the parking lot, but Jack and Bruce had already left and parked at the far corner of the parking lot across the street. I locked my door and debated fastening the seat belt or leaving it unlatched so I could access my gun better.
I started the car and fished for reverse. The dude was almost to my door.
And I woke up.
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The drug store was in a strip center at the end of the three or four block main drag, along with a barber shop, a package store, the post office, and a little bar & grill sort of restaurant. And across the street was a park with some picnic tables and...this is how I knew it was a dream...a 50 yard pistol bay with a covered firing line.
So, like I said, I worked at the little drug store across the street from this park and, this being weird dream small town, the drug store closed at 9PM. I'm locking up, it's high summer so it's just starting to get to twilight, and I see two vehicles I recognize in the parking lot of the park across the street.
So I drive over and park my car (for some reason my car is the red Porsche 924S I had back in Georgia) and pull my ears on and wander over to the firing line on the pistol bay, where Jack Clemons is getting some pistol shooting pointers from Bruce Gray.
I sat and eavesdropped for a bit, but it was getting on toward full dark and, while the firing line was lit and there were a couple mercury-vapor lights in the parking lot, the pistol bay itself was unlit and the steel was starting to get hard to distinguish from the backstop. Plus, an evening fog was starting to rise.
Bruce suggested we all grab a bite at the little bar & grill across the street to give the fog time to lift before heading home..."People get in wrecks in this stuff all the time," he opined...and so I walked back to my car to move it back across the street. As I was unlocking the car, this dented hooptie with different-colored fenders and doors rolled to a stop on the street in front of me.
"Hey..." yelled the guy in the passenger seat.
"Sorry, buddy, can't help you. I gotta go," I blurted as I finished opening the door and started to climb in.
"Hey!" Now he'd opened the passenger door and hopped out and was making a beeline for my car. I looked around the parking lot, but Jack and Bruce had already left and parked at the far corner of the parking lot across the street. I locked my door and debated fastening the seat belt or leaving it unlatched so I could access my gun better.
I started the car and fished for reverse. The dude was almost to my door.
And I woke up.
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Sunday, June 25, 2017
Automotif CXXXVIII...
Looking at auction prices for these V16 beasts, it takes a moment to realize that, even though they are fetching anywhere from $150,000 for the most common to over half a million for the rarest variants, they haven't really appreciated much since the early days of the Depression, when the Madame X cars fetched north of $7,000.
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Saturday, June 24, 2017
Work day at the range...
I'm almost finished with the shooting portion of the FN 509 review. I'd like to have put more rounds through it, but time is tight, and the gun's gotta go back. 439 rounds with no stoppages of any kind so far. I hope to squeeze in another couple hundred rounds Monday/Tuesday morning.
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Friday, June 23, 2017
When is a courtroom not a courtroom?
When it's not a courtroom.
See, Indiana's strong state preemption law generally prohibits political subdivisions of the state from making places off limits to carry. However, buildings with courtrooms in them are an exception to this law.
So if a county had just purchased a building downtown and was using it for the offices of the prosecutor and various public defenders and suchlike, how could they make this new office building off-limits for carry, complete with metal detectors and security and such?
They could say that one of the rooms in the basement was actually a courtroom!
So, what happened when an attorney asked if he could see this alleged courtroom?
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See, Indiana's strong state preemption law generally prohibits political subdivisions of the state from making places off limits to carry. However, buildings with courtrooms in them are an exception to this law.
So if a county had just purchased a building downtown and was using it for the offices of the prosecutor and various public defenders and suchlike, how could they make this new office building off-limits for carry, complete with metal detectors and security and such?
They could say that one of the rooms in the basement was actually a courtroom!
So, what happened when an attorney asked if he could see this alleged courtroom?
“It was intellectual curiosity at that point,” said Freeman. “I asked questions about who created the court.” Freeman said that after looking through a locked door it became obvious that there wasn’t a courtroom set up. “There were boxes and furniture in the room,” he said. At this point, he became more curious and submitted a request for public information about the courtroom on or about May 15, 2017. That’s when the trouble began.Shenanigans ensued. Go read the whole thing.
On or about May 17, 2017, Freeman was pulled into a restroom and questioned by courthouse deputies. Someone had accused him of carrying a gun in the courthouse and ranting about it on Facebook. Freeman knew that was nonsense, so asked the officers who made those allegations and who ordered them to question him. They reportedly told him they could not tell him. Freeman believes someone may have intended to intimidate him for raising questions and asking for public information.
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How Not To Do It...
We all love tales of plucky convenience store clerks who respond to an armed robbery attempt by pulling their own gat and turning the tables on the holdup man.
However, it's important to understand your state's use of force laws when playing Captain Good Guy, as one Indiana c-store clerk recently learned...
Your Indiana LTCH is not a Batman Badge, it is just a license to have a gun with you. Introducing a firearm into a situation is using (or threatening the use of) deadly force. We, as a society, have laid out certain parameters under which one may use deadly force. Shoplifting does not fall under those parameters.
Even if the guy's lawyer gets him off...say that video camera footage proves he never pointed the handgun and the intimidation charge is pretty 'he said, she said'...he is still going to be out several thousand times the cost of the cigar.
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However, it's important to understand your state's use of force laws when playing Captain Good Guy, as one Indiana c-store clerk recently learned...
Police say the cashier pulled a gun and followed the suspected shoplifter as he left the store and walked to his car. Investigators don't know whether the employee pointed the gun or threatened the man. At some point, he drove off and someone called police.This is what Claude Werner would refer to as a Negative Outcome.
Officers caught up with the suspected shoplifter and arrested both men.
Twenty-three-year-old Stephen Robinson is charged with theft and driving with a suspended license. The cashier, 31-year-old Ahmad Al-Rafie, is charged with intimidation with a firearm and pointing a firearm.
Your Indiana LTCH is not a Batman Badge, it is just a license to have a gun with you. Introducing a firearm into a situation is using (or threatening the use of) deadly force. We, as a society, have laid out certain parameters under which one may use deadly force. Shoplifting does not fall under those parameters.
Even if the guy's lawyer gets him off...say that video camera footage proves he never pointed the handgun and the intimidation charge is pretty 'he said, she said'...he is still going to be out several thousand times the cost of the cigar.
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Pot, Kettle
NBC News, apparently bereft of irony, reports that...
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"Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told House investigators Thursday that President Trump seemed obsessed with the Russia probe..."Well, so's everybody at ABCNNBCBS, so you'd think with that much in common, they'd get along a lot better with Trump.
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Thursday, June 22, 2017
Tactical Boogeyman...
You know that urban legend that goes around every now and again, the one about the ankle-slashing [rapists/carjackers/gang initiates] that are supposedly lying in wait under cars in parking lots to slash the Achilles tendons of women as they unlock the driver's side door?
Well, the tactical version of that is the "spent brass in the pockets" legend.
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Well, the tactical version of that is the "spent brass in the pockets" legend.
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Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Apparently making stuff is bad.
CNN says that people who make things don't want their kids to make things.
Apparently making things is such a lousy way to make a living that only foreigners should be allowed to do it. No decent American should have to sully their hands with productive labor by actually building stuff; instead, get a Master's in Barista.
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Apparently making things is such a lousy way to make a living that only foreigners should be allowed to do it. No decent American should have to sully their hands with productive labor by actually building stuff; instead, get a Master's in Barista.
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Awkward dream...
So I had this dream last night that SHOT Show next year was in Atlanta, for some reason. And I'm in the jostling crowd elbowing my way onto the show floor from the lobby, and there in the press of people in front of me are my parents.
What mom and dad were doing at SHOT is beyond me.
Anyhow, the rest of the dream was as awkward as you could imagine, with my folks following me around the show as I'm trying in my usual half-assed way to get some work done, and they're politely trying to be interested in my work and everything's just a mess. Dad's trying to be helpful, Mom is gamely feigning enthusiasm...it's a classic Comedy of Manners.
As best I can tell, this is some super-advanced-level version of the Have to Give an Oral Book Report Naked in High School Dream, about being unprepared, or maybe it's some manifestation of Impostor Syndrome or something.
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What mom and dad were doing at SHOT is beyond me.
Anyhow, the rest of the dream was as awkward as you could imagine, with my folks following me around the show as I'm trying in my usual half-assed way to get some work done, and they're politely trying to be interested in my work and everything's just a mess. Dad's trying to be helpful, Mom is gamely feigning enthusiasm...it's a classic Comedy of Manners.
As best I can tell, this is some super-advanced-level version of the Have to Give an Oral Book Report Naked in High School Dream, about being unprepared, or maybe it's some manifestation of Impostor Syndrome or something.
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