A great way to get shot

One kid has the right idea and tries to peg him in the head with a basketball. Around here in my town, I'd give this jackass a solid 13 seconds before somebody runs him off with the muzzle of a Glock.

There's good training, and then there's bad training

Guess which this is?


I cringed too many times to count watching this video, with yayhoos firing weapons past each other and over their heads while spinning. Yikes!  There's a guy in comments defending this shooting school, but I wouldn't go there.

The concept of "Big Boy Rules" and firing weapons over or near someone else is absurd in my opinion, and is an accident waiting to happen. The Marine Corps does live fire with people forward of the firing line, as they would in combat, but those who are forward are not in front of those who are shooting, and even with that it doesn't look anything like this clown show. For starters, there's no choreographed spinning or twisting of the shooters, flagging one another as they transition from one target to the next. And for sure, in real world shootings there are those who have to shoot real close to their fellow Marine or Soldier or Officer, but surprisingly the Marines haven't felt the need to practice that one in peacetime, and it doesn't seem to have effected their lethality. With that in mind I have to question doing it in practice. As far as I know, only a select group or two within the Special Operations community routinely practices live fire with their own down range, and that's because their job description involves shooting bad guys who are in close proximity or direct contact with hostages. I just don't see surgical shooting being a skill set that black-clad mall security needs.

Now I'm going to be all paranoid when I see armed mall security, wondering in the back of my mind if they've been to one of these monkey business shooting schools.

All's well that ends well

A chase video of a very intoxicated driver.  OK, that one had me winceing most of the way. . . .goodness!


***ETA:  Hit this link for some super-creepiness!  These make me laugh so hard it hurts!

The vanity of this silly country will be its ruin

AAAHHHHHGHGGGGG!!! I swear (no really!), the absurd amount of fashion and vanity that is present in this country is depressing!!

Based on Andy's sound advice, I've scoured the internet looking for a medical ID bracelet for the afore mentioned allergy problem that I have, and instead of something simple and functional the market is instead flooded with jewelry. Jewelry. Accoutrement's that make you fashionable. Somewhere along the line some yayhoo decided that simple utility should take a back seat to looking cooooool. When I was a dumb wee lad, the way to look cool was to roll your Camels up in the sleeve of your white T-shirt.

That's all changed now.

Want a life saving medical marker for your wrist? Too bad the EMT looking for one on your soon-to-be corpse will pass over it while admiring your pathetic designer tribal cuff. What is this garbage!?!? Pleaseohplease tell me: What does your conceited, vainglorious, extroverted, bubbly personality have to do with a lifesaving device crafted for the sole purpose of identifying your severe medical condition? That's right, nothing!

It's abundantly obvious that idolatry is here to stay in America. Pity.

What I'm now looking for is a solid, stainless steel band with all my allergy gibberish on it, but with the whole shootin' match ceramic coated bright red. Bright red, as in LOOOOKY HERE EMT DUDE!!! MEDICAL ALERT THINGY!!! SAVE MY LIFE!!!! Not "Looky here EMT dude. I'm a charming thirty something with a fondness for shiny beads, horses, and long walks on the beach. I like taking long showers, and sometimes I get butterflys in my stomach when the cute clerk at Wegmans asks me if I have a bonus card. I'm insecure about the dark birthmark on my finger, and sometimes I cry quietly about it at night."

What I don't need is a leather, barbed wire abomination that some off duty nurse who sprung to help my dying ass will end up too busy laughing herself to death over to administer my epinephrine. Get over yourselves, people!

First they came for the lead. . . .

Then they came for the copper brass .

This is the start of something very interesting. When the ATF says that a particular brand of copper brass bullet is banned because it's "armor piercing," how long before other manufacturer's bullets are banned?

Something else to think of - California is a "lead free zone" so to speak, so this really hoses the millions of rifle shooters there. And isn't it a bad idea to ban a bullet designed to penetrate deep into large dangerous critters based on the idea that it penetrates so deeply?


***ETA: The bullets are made of brass.

The worst kind of gun owners

If this story is even true, these two morons are the dumbest gun owners on the face of the planet.

Disregarding the extreme amount of gun ignorance (Mosin Nagant being a "Russian M4" and "machine gun"), there's no sense in leaving firearms hung on a nail in plain sight in a crime ridden part of Philly. Lying to drug dealers and detectives to try to fix a jacked up situation puts this story over the top.

Roadside euthanasia

An ARFCOM thread on why police officers don't put down animals that have been crippled by traffic. I commented that often it's department policy that either prohibits this practice, or makes it a big ball of red tape in order to do so, and not because cops are heartless and like to watch bambi struggle for life on roadways.


True story:
Nine years ago I was home from Camp Lejeune for the weekend, driving back from the video store (we still had those then) at about 10:00 at night on a four lane non-divided highway. I was close behind the only other car on the road at the time -- a black Nissan Pathfinder -- when two deer crossed the highway from our left, the trailing one getting hit on the front end of the Nissan. I could tell that he hit that deer really hard, as he caught it with the entire front end, and we were moving along at just over 50 mph. We both stopped, checked the damage, and I gave the driver and his wife my personal information as a witness in case their insurance scumbags tried to screw them on getting the car fixed. The driver and I found the deer on the edge of the road on the right side about fifty yards behind us, still alive, with its spine broken just forward of its hips. It kept trying to stand up, and because its back legs didn't work it would topple over to its left, bringing it closer and closer to the middle of the roadway.

County deputies show up, and take a solid ten minutes to get permission from the Sheriff or Sergeant or whomever was in charge that night to publicly execute this crippled doe. State cops show up stop traffic both ways, which was now significantly built up, and what I presume to have been the most junior county deputy of the six or so who were there racks the slide to chamber a round (I don't know why she didn't have her duty weapon in condition 1, but I saw it with my own eyes that she carried on an empty chamber). Me and the driver were walking back to our cars when I heard the shot. . . . and then another. . . .and then another.

I knew immediately what was going on, so I said goodbye to the driver and headed back down to see what kind of macabre scene this clueless deputy had just subjected her audience of onlookers to. It was. . . . substantial.

She had shot this youthful, two or three year old doe three times in the face at close range, but hadn't hit anything of importance -- and by importance I mean something structurally vital that would mercifully end the poor critter's life as humanely as possible. All the other jolly cops standing around weren't giving her any instruction, as they themselves didn't know how in the world this superhuman deer could take three rounds of .40 S&W in the head and still be completely alert, looking around with blood pouring out from what was left of her nose and jaw. I note that one of the police cruisers was positioned in the turn lane so that its headlights fully illuminated the public display of incompetence, and traffic was stopped not more than 75 yards away.

Whom I believed to be the senior deputy said: "Well, we'll just have to wait for the ol' girl to bleed out." I told them all in not the most tactful voice that we would be there for awhile, as superficial gun shot wounds have that tendency to, you know, heal, and that a deer missing all its teeth would definitely die -- of starvation -- but there would be a little bit too much overtime involved with the supervision of that. Then, like a middle-school science teacher, I pointed out that the deer did in fact have a head, which included the brain housing group, and attached to that was the beak-like extension of the jaw and nose, that didn't. Deputy Sally hadn't hit that brain housing group, but if she could do that, then everybody could go home.

More permission was asked for more rounds to be expended on behalf of this traumatized deer, and when it was given I pointed out just where to shoot.

Me: "Right here." (pointing to a spot right below the ear)
Cop: "Right where?"
Me: (Grabbing the deer by the ear and turning her head towards the cruiser's lights) "Here. Shoot her with one round here."
Cop: "Oh. . .ok" (as she starts to aim from six feet away I stop her)
Me: (pointing to the muzzle of her Sig pistol) "No ma'am. This is a doe. It doesn't have antlers, so it can't hurt you. Put your weapon against her head so that you don't miss."

At the crack of the gun it was finally over. All the cops looked at me like I was some sort of deer whisperer, knowing just what to do. In reality, I've just killed a ton of animals and know where the vitals are; and that doe would have been better served if, at the moment I found her, I had killed her with my pocket knife. For this reason I don't encourage cops to put animals out of their misery because, in my opinion, they are much more likely to put them IN misery.

Video game blogging

Aaaaaaaand Battlefield 3 is. . . . .

Terrible.

This game sucks so bad I doubt I will even finish it. I just quit playing not only for the gheyness, but also because it's boring. I'm a first person shooter type of gamer, and I'm known for being able to love the bitter with the sweet, but this game is bad. I don't have many positives here, so I'll tell it like it is.

The storyline sucks. The structure is so rigid that if you stray too far looking for cover you will be DQ'd. Bad guys appear out of thin air; you can watch this happen so much that it becomes something you start counting, like a pet word or someone who knifehands when they talk. Oftentimes your weapon has zero effect, like there's a glitch that keeps the game from acknowledging your hits.

Worst of all, there's these little story/video clips in almost every mission where you are 98% detached from what is going on, but are obligated to hit a random button every five seconds or so to keep from getting your ass kicked by some Iranian or Russian dude. The developers couldn't figure out how to make your character fight like a real Marine, so they make you watch it happen, and if you don't realize what's going on you will get stabbed to death. They should have left that stuff out; or at the very least, if you're going to add a fighting part into the game, give me some real controls so I can fight. Don't make me watch ten seconds of a struggle, and then quickly flash the "B" button and expect me to pick up the signal that I'm supposed to be interacting.

The entire game is senseless like that. The execution of it is as bad as it gets. The graphics are good, and the weapons are pretty cool. The rest sucks. It's my opinion, but I note again that I am the guy who plays the devil's advocate and sees both sides of everything. This game is not worth your time.

ETA: I don't have the time to play multiplayer online, so I stick with the campaign. I can't speak for multiplayer, but I think the campaign is garbage.

ETA2: What this bloke said. And I'm not even done listening because the wife and kids want my time. Wives in general have no clue as to what video gaming is all about. But that's ok; you are loved just the same.

ETA3: Kids are in bed, so I gave it another shot. Now it's not just ghey, but it's preposterously ghey. There's a scene where an enemy jet is engaging your Recon team, and it must be hyper realistic because it doesn't matter what you do, that jet will kill you. It can apparently shoot through anything, so there's no point in hiding. The game is super scripted, which is not what I would have expected from Battlefield. Y'all are slipping!

Pain is not always weakness leaving the body

This past Monday was day one of me getting back into weight training after almost a year and a half hiatus. Despite me dropping a third off the weight I normally lift and only doing three sets, all I managed to do was hurt myself. Badly.

Tuesday night I woke up and my arms were aching painfully, with my left arm seized up at the elbow from tightness and inflammation. Wednesday night was the same thing with my right arm, and the pain was severe enough to keep me awake for half the night. In the wee hours of the morning the whole week, including this morning, it took substantial effort for me to put my cup of coffee to my my lips; my arms just won't bend. It takes an hour or two of me working them to get them functional enough to drive to work, and I'm downing Motrin to keep the inflammation down.

Lesson learned: take it easy on the weights when you've been out of the game for awhile.

I'm giving myself the weekend also to recover, and hopefully I'll get a do-over on Monday. Military presses will be with the bar only! I've been wanting desperately to do some shooting, and I've been offered to do a review on ammo that I just haven't been able to get to, but since I've been sick for two weeks now and I'm physically unable to scratch my own back at the moment, it looks like I'll have to wait til' next weekend.

Is firefighting not dangerous enough?

I have to hand it to them, DC politicritters have a super active imagination! Their latest bright idea is to post firefighters in high crime areas and have them just stand there, unarmed, with the belief that thugs will stop robbing and assaulting people because of the flashing red lights.

What happens when the thugs decide that taking lunch money isn't exciting enough, and that the chance to drive a firetruck is as easy as taking out unarmed firemen? Funny how it's "everyone's job to make sure that our city is safe," as long as "everyone" is on the government payroll.

The police officer interviewed in the video is spot on, and I can appreciate his angst. I'd be pissed, too!

***Here's a short article on it, naming DC Police Union spokesman Kris Baumann as the vocal person grilling the idea.

Never heard that excuse

An Arizona Republic story about Anthem Republican Lori Klein's carrying of a gun in her purse while at the Legislature said she showed off its laser sighting by pointing it at a reporter interviewing her in the Senate lounge.

According to Klein, the gun has no safety but there was no danger because she didn't have her hand on the trigger.

Wow. The normal, knee-jerk excuse has always been "Relax! It's not loaded!" This politico's dumb-ass attack takes it up a notch though.

There is also the addendum excuse given that the reporter sat in front of her laser, which is still a moronic thing to admit to. Why was she fondling her firearm in a public building to begin with?

***Update: The story has changed yet again, with even more equivocation thrown in for good measure. Klein says that she cleared the Ruger's chamber before pointing it at the reporter, and the reporter says that he found out later that it was loaded. How it was determined that it was unloaded is unknown. It sounds to me like the pistol is a Ruger LCP with the Crimson Trace Laser on it, and that she had it in the zippered case that it comes with tucked down in her purse. My recommendation is that Ms. Klein get some firearms safety instruction, and also attend a course to learn how to safely carry the gun and have it more readily available than in a zippered pouch.

Also, the reporter she pointed the gun at was interviewing her because of Klein's insistence on carrying the gun into the Statehouse two days after Rep. Giffords was shot. Not said is how many days after the shooting of Rep. Giffords is it considered appropriate to carry a gun for protection in the eyes of the media, but then again the media doesn't need to make sense to create controversy. Any port in a storm, I guess.

What could possibly go wrong?

On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament.

Well, it is for only four weeks, and it's not like they were the first pick; it works via alphabetical order, and Madagascar or some other country already got their shot (My pun, can you feel it?). It still makes me wonder why the rest of the U.N. conference can't just skip over North Korea like short people get skipped to play basketball and maybe pick a country that is not so insane, like Nigeria.

In other news, Mayors Against Guns has picked Lee Boyd Malvo to be the next spokesman against gun violence.

Terminology fail

MISSOULA, Mont. – Authorities searching a 30-square-mile swath of rugged Montana forest for a former militia leader and survivalist say the man was prepared for his shootout with sheriff's deputies and left several caches of food in the area.

Alright, so the guy they're tracking sounds like he's not come to a peaceful agreement with his government in quite some time, but what's with branding him a survivalist? Aren't we all survivalists, or do some humans not breath air?

Spousal Unit Fail

Little initially put the gun to the dog's head and pulled the trigger several times, but nothing happened, police say the wife told them.

Knowing my wife like I do, I'm certain that if I was sitting on the porch pounding moonshine, snapping a partially loaded revolver at the dog while babbling about how bad my life sucks, she would probably end my suffering temporarily with a frying pan long enough for the state-run help to arrive and give me proper attention. But maybe my wife is different then the vast amount of them out there in that she cares about me, and wouldn't just sit on her ass while I self destructed.

The guy in the article is dead by his own hand, but I have to question the sanity of his wife. Telling the cops that her husband "got tired" of playing russian roulette with the dog means that she had plenty of time to do something to prevent such a tragedy, unless of course she's patiently waiting for that "til death do us part" clause in the marriage contract to be executed (oh, my pun!) so that she can get on with her life. It makes sense then.

Laaaaawww the doooo daaaaa daaaaay

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Uhmmmm. . .friendly fire incident?

You know it's bad when you can't definitively tell whether a country you are supposedly allied with for the task of fighting a war is a friend or not. This recent incident between Pakistani militants military and a US gunship may or may not be blue-on-blue.

The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force said U.S. helicopters were in Afghanistan near Forward Operating Base Tillman when they responded to incoming direct and indirect fire from over the border in Pakistan, presumably from militants. The helicopters initially did not return fire, but when a second round of incoming fire began, they did fire in response.

I have to ask the Pakistani militants military troops involved: just how many Apache gunships does Al Qaida have these days that you would shoot at it thinking it's your enemy? Seems odd to me that you would shoot at a machine that you know damn well belongs to an allied country, especially one that can resist that sort of gunfire while it turns around and destroys you. There is simply no cause for them to shoot at it, so that leads me to believe that either Pakistanis are completely fed up with our shit, or the gunship fired first. Considering that dark skinned men with beards carrying AKs could be construed as being bad guys from five hundred feet up, the Pakistani account of being fired on first seems likely. You would still think that they would try to wave off the whirling contraption of death instead of shoot at it; they had to know that the Apache would win that stand off.

Either way, check out the video to see what Pakistani militants citizens think about our dear president. And consider me shocked that they don't believe that bin laden was getting his fap on while looking at goat porn or whatever they found on his laptop; it's obvious that the Pakistanis are a freaky bunch of folk who don't mind at all keeping the internet porn industry in business.

The Tueller Drill for real

The Tueller Drill - or 21 foot rule - shows that a threat with a knife can get in a fatal blow on a person with a holstered handgun if that person is within 21 feet of the threat.

Some people discount the severity of a threat armed with a knife, as did these Nicaraguan police officers. ***Warning - graphic content. Two police officers are killed and several wounded in this video.***

Watching that video showed me how fast one guy with a knife can end lives and maim others. There was quite a bit of shooting from the officers with rifles, and it's unknown how many of their shots connected. The assailant finally did go down, but was still drawing breath when they put the cuffs on him.

I noticed that none of the cops had their weapons trained on the guy when he made his move. There was some complacency there that you can see in this longer version of the video that starts minutes before ol' boy goes all stabby. One well placed shot could have stopped the attack before it began, but once it commenced, the cops were on the defense and the assailant was moving fast. I also noticed that every cop he attacked was trying to retreat and fell down in the process, which is why gun schools often teach their students on proper footwork when moving. I would imagine that this wouldn't have played out like it did if it happened in the US. After he failed to drop the knife in a moment or two, he would have been Tazed, maced, and then savagely beaten before being handcuffed, and probably one officer would have been positioned for a lethal shot from a firearm.

Fishing for gun news this morning

Other countries must think America is nucking futs with the crazy that is in the news these days. We must be modern day Sodom and Gomorrah with all the Slut Walks, Shania Twain Love Triangles, The Price of a Suitcase of Cocaine in DC - it looks pretty awful.

I did pick up on this article warning America of the obvious dangers of barring doctors from counciling you on having guns in the home where your children are. It's so full of the same ignorant anti-gun rhetoric that has been going on for decades that it could have been written in 1971 and just reposted. It's that bad.

I'm too lazy to fisk the whole thing, but here's a little bit of fun anyways:

Florida is set to become the first state to pass a law that would limit doctors' ability to council parents about gun safety in the home. Pediatricians decry the law as wrongheaded, and they're backed by statistics that suggest the law will kill kids.

This is the part that I'm going to attack most viciously - "backed by statistics." So if all of these studies that you claim really do back your story with statistics and all, then where the fuck are they? The first link you have in the article, in the paragraph where you say that the Florida Pediatric Society "expects" an increase in injury and death from having guns in the home with children, links to "The Top 10 Leading Causes of Death." Wanna guess what's not on that list? Yeah, anything at all to do with guns. Bummer.

I caution doctors and journalists from hanging too much of their hope on expectations, as reality can be a real drag. Expectations are also not solid conclusions to draw from a study.

Next up you cite the infamous Kellerman study from 1986 (and I notice that you don't link to that one. I don't blame you) where Dr. Kellerman found that having a gun in the home makes you 43 times more likely to be killed by some shit or something. It's been years since I read that piece, but I recall his statistics also came to the conclusion that innocuous stuff like having a garage or PeeWee Herman doll makes you about certain to be killed by something. That study has been so thoroughly debunked that it's almost laughable that the author even mentions it.

The next link about doctors "decrying" not being able to warn incompetent parents about guns in the home - the one hyperlinking over the words "injury and death in children" - links to a health article talking about running related injuries in active kids. Do doctors warn parents about the dangers of their kids running? If it's so dangerous and all, maybe it's a good idea for doctors to council all of us dumbass parents about the hazards of life. Do doctors even get training on how to council people? Are they like Chaplains, but with medical skills? I can identify so many dangers to kids from where I sit right now that maybe I should sign up for my pediatrician to council me every single day, that my kids might live longer than I did. . . . .oh, wait.

"For pediatricians, prevention is the name of the game," St. Petery said.

Huh. To think that this whole time I've been taking my tribe of ankle biters to the doctor for vaccines and illness related stuff, when it's now quite obvious I should be bombarding him with questions regarding the dangers of running, septicemia, and Alzheimer's. Aggghhhh, I feel so silly right now.

More than one-third of American homes have at least one gun at home, but a 2007 study found 70 percent of guns are not stored safely.

Oooooh. . . .another study. Check that one out for details of how a survey about how guns were stored in homes was construed by one pediatrician to mean that 70 percent of those guns were stored improperly. Doctor DuRant knows this shit for real Yo, because of that huge block of training he went through in medical school that covered how to properly store firearms in the home in every situation; you know, that instruction you get in your third year right in between lessons on how to council people and the one on how to conduct years long studies about such things like gun violence and autoerotic asphyxiation. Doctors are like Jack Bauer, but with stethoscopes and latex gloves instead of Sigs and H&Ks.

"I would think there should be a law that says if you don’t [council parents about gun safety], that should be malpractice," said David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health who studies injury prevention.

Cool! I'm down with that, because if parents have a claim that you didn't council them about the dangers of guns in the home with their children and they got hurt, then they will also have remedy when their kids impail themselves on a pair of scissors, tumble down the stairs and bust their dome-piece, choke to death on a hermit crab, or wash their intestines out with peroxide. Does your doctor council you about every danger your kid could encounter in the home? Cause what your sayin is that you consider a doctor to be at fault for not giving parents fair warning about common hazards.

Children in the United States are 11 times more likely to die accidentally from a gun injury compared with children in other developed countries, he said.

Oh come on! You know that's bullshit right there; you don't even offer a link or the name of a study. But while we're on it, did you know that MyHealthNewsDaily writers and AAP doctors in the United States are 43 times more likely to die from a rare venereal disease they caught from licking their stamp collection than are MyHealthNewsDaily writers and AAP doctors from Botswana? Honest Abe!

The writer goes on to try and link child suicides using firearms to a study about the dangers of the internet - no guns mentioned in there. Here's the gist of the entire article summed up for you:

The best way to keep children safe from gun injury is not to own one, Hemenway said. This is also the position of the AAP.

Yup. We got that from you, boss. But I have to ask you: in your professional experience, what's the best way keep children safe from violent scumbags, home intruders, or dangerous animals? Counciling?

***Update: Ricky the doctor chips in to say that counciling you about everything imaginable because he thinks it's dangerous is "within the scope of his practice." Hey Ricky, does that include medical malpractice? Last I heard, doctors kill far more people every year from negligence than every firearm death combined. Is it absurd to suggest a law making it so doctors start their counciling with a disclaimer to stay the hell away from doctors because they are known to be extremely hazardous to your health?

Because we've done enough to find the cure for cancer

Well duh! What did you think was gonna happen in a town called Manassas? Did you really think the sinless townsfolk would let an adult themed store get away with attracting people with money to burn by holding a contest where people get to see voluptuously subdued bewbies? Banish the thought!

Look, we've apparently got the cancer thing kicked, so we don't neeeeeeeed the dollars that such an event would bring anymore. We've got tons of money coming in. Besides, who would want to see such a sight? Young women prancing around in T-shirts and pasties won't attract legions of money spending people by dousing themselves with water on stage! Are you crazy?!?

Someone needs to tell those store owners to put down the dildos and try their hand at a proven money making event. . . . like a bake sale or lemonade stand or something.

Generalizing

It's not usually the best idea, and when it goes south it really pisses people off:

If you are in a serious relationship with a female nurse. . .

There is a pretty good chance you are a scumbag.

Based on years of observation and analysis, I can state with some degree of certainty that nurses tend to gravitate toward the most low-life, disability check aspiring, wastes of carbon on the planet.

They will then cling to said low-life for years, patiently awaiting a marriage proposal, no matter how many times they are lied to, cheated on, or stolen from.

It is tragically fascinating.

Corroboration?

The Original Poster, or OP, didn't get the corroboration he was seeking. Instead he got some severe backlash. Don't piss people off by insulting their significant other.