Word smithing

Why is it that those who write an anti-gun piece feel the burning need to add "shooty" type words or conjure up the Wild West that really wasn't very wild? It's almost a subliminal thing, like those people who stick their tongue out when they draw, or those who bob and weave when watching kung-fu movies.

Here's an anti-gun opinion piece in USA Today (surprise!!) that starts out "When it comes to gun fights. . .", making the first thing the reader interprets a violent act, in an article regarding civil rights. Way to go, poncho.

I don't have the time to properly fisk this bird cage liner, but here's a taste (see what I did there?!):

Last month, for instance, Wyoming joined Arizona, Alaska and Vermont to become the fourth state to allow concealed firearms with no permit whatsoever.

Yeah, and it's already turning out to be such a bloodbath like in Arizona, Alaska, and Vermont, right? Oh, you didn't mention that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary has happened in those states since they passed those laws? Weird. You might want to mention that then because you make it sound like it was a disaster for other states, which isn't the case at all.

It goes down hill pretty fast from there. Perhaps another blogger will be by to give this piece the scrutiny it deserves?

Random local violence roundup

Well now, it seems the local savages have been pounding their war drums this week and getting themselves in heaps of trouble.

First up we have the hard-core natives hailing from Culpeper county, Virginia fighting over the important things in life:

"Man charged after report of shots fired at controversial Culpeper river swimming hole"

I mean, we have droughts around here in the summer and all, but this sure ain't the Sahara or anything. Gunfighting over the local watering hole? Whuuuuuuuut??!?!?

Next we have a masked crusader who tried to Robin Hood the milk from the Stafford county Wal-Mart and deliver it to the emaciated community. Why, he should be given a medal and six high-fives! It takes a huge heart to steal milk from the rich and give it to the poor.

Meanwhile, in Spotsylvania county, desperate gunman robbed a pizzeria known to be a huge depository of county funds and Mountain Dew, but mostly Mountain Dew. The county has tried to keep it a secret that the store keeps $40 in cash there at all times, but the criminals these days have access to real-time intel on where the goods are being held.

Also, Stafford teens are getting into their groove by going all stabby on one another during Spring Break. If the adults are doing it, than why not? Right? Criminals gots to learn the ropes somehow.

Again in Spotsylvania, a young man was accosted by someone or something; we have no idea what or how, except that he was found in a ditch unconscious. Looks like we have ourselves a mystery, gang.

And no doubt all this violent rage is being fueled by massive quantities of prescription drugs from King George county. Generally, the local people in the surrounding counties are very docile and polite, but quickly turn to armed robbery, assault, gun violence, fornication, and ritual animal sacrifice when exposed to the dredges of their medicine cabinet which was stolen from them and then sold back at an inflated price plus interest.

Central Virginia used to be a place where random violence like this was unheard of. With the influx of tens of thousands of morons from Elsewhere, America, the crime rate is increasing rapidly. Or it could be the lax gun laws. You chose.

Bitter and busy

Daggone. When the hell did my time become so valuable that there's just not enough of me to go around? I need to bottle that shit up and sell it for a fortune if it's that important to the world.

Between my family, my house, and work (almost entirely work), I am completely used up and then some. I am nodding off by 2100 every night now, and I'm a zombie at 0515 when I'm making some coffee. The real work day starts when I get home and I have to fix all the shit that breaks around the house while also handling the general maintenance.

So yesterday afternoon I was destroying the indigenous flora with a gas-powered, bladed whirling machine, bitching in my mind about how silly this weekly task is, and it dawned on me how fickle mankind is. Here we have an outdoor area for recreation that we have to do constant maintenance to in order for it to "look good." Sound familiar? I place grass cutting right under tying a sturdy piece of multicolored fabric in a slipknot around the neck; it's a mundane thing that serves absolutely no utility at all, is extremely dangerous, and could in fact be completely avoided by intiating some common sense. The last bit would entail thinking for yourself, thus breaking the ant-line of human stupidity which would allow for things to really get done.

I'm thinking that I can aviod grass cutting by spraying the lawn with weed killer at the first sign of Spring. It only makes sense. Planting a garden or flowers is different, but grass? Really? Why do we do it? What's the point? We can't come up with something that looks good but doesn't require the use of a device that spins a sharp blade at 500 rpm just 18 inches from your feet?

I could care less about how my yard looks; to me lawn manicures are for three-times retired folks who actually have enough time to cut grass, and who don't have hobbies. I don't have enough time to do a fraction of the hobbies that I have, to say nothing of the ones that I want to do, so to me cutting the grass is a big ass waste of my time. I have drywall to sand and painting to do before I can even think about dinner, and then maybe I can take a glance at the Hornady dies that Mr. UPS man kindly delivered to my door before I stumble off to bed.

On my list directly below grass cutting are work meetings. People will schedule two weeks worth of all-day, mandatory meetings that start an hour before the folks with children can even get into the building, and then top off the first three days of a third week with intense mandatory meetings to address timeliness and why everybody hasn't got shit done around here. Are you fucking kidding me? Is 0900 so damn difficult? I would like to be able to take a piss before sitting down and listening to absolutely nothing of importance for eight hours. And while we're on the subject of urination, seriously, give a five minute break every hour so that the poor bastards stuck in the meeting can jettison the six gallons of coffee that we have to ingest just to stay awake.

Some day I will write a manual of common sense, but something tells me that half the people who read it would have their head explode.

A book for me!

A for-real-no-shit book for parents like me:

Go the Fuck To Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don't always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland. Honest, profane, and affectionate, Adam Mansbach's verses and Ricardo Cortés' illustrations perfectly capture the familiar—and unspoken—tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night, and open up a conversation about parenting in the process. Beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny, Go the Fuck to Sleep is a perfect gift for parents new, old, or expectant. Here is a sample verse:

The cats nestle close to their kittens now.
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear
Please go the fuck to sleep.

Perfect! My oldest (3 years old) now has my wife or me read a bedtime story, and it's always insufficient for her needs. Perhaps this book will be enough. . . .

(H/T The Agitator)

That won't get them far in life

Opportunistic thugs attempting to steal a van got more than they bargained for when they prised open the doors and were faced with a team of heavily-armed SAS officers.

Frickin' OOOPS! The officers wouldn't go into detail on the games that they played with the thieving scumbags, but one can use their imagination.

Speaking of pink pistols

No, not the Pink Pistols, who I linked to in my last post, but a favorable article about the NRA convention which discusses the growing firearms market for women.

The article is completely void of hysterical anti-gunners warning about blood in the streets this weekend, but it does turn out this little gem:

Those who attend the convention will find the latest styles and types of weapons on the market, but they will not be able to stroll out of the Downtown convention center with a newly purchased automatic weapon, Parsons said.

"If someone is interested in an AR-15, they can go to the manufacturer, check it out, hold it, look through the scope and get recommendations for a retailer where they live who can sell them that product, but they aren't going to buy it that day and go home with it," Parsons said.

Ms. Greenwood of the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, like other media yahoos, doesn't know that an AR15 is not an automatic weapon. I know it just blows the mind that such a mistake made it past the tight editing we enjoy in the media these days. Weird.

Pass the assault

In regards to the McDonald's attack from a few days ago, more of the story is now known.

The attackers names are not known, but we do know that they are 14 and 18 years old and that they should know better than to stomp on people's heads. Also, the moron who was filming the whole thing was a McDonald's employee (he's been fired, for what that's worth). We also know that the attack started over the victim allegedly checking out one of the attacker's boyfriend. So the whole shootin match should have never happened if any single person in the mess had been sane.

I have to throw the yellow flag here at McDonald's acting like they give a damn about the morality of their employees; the employee filming the attack and laughing is reprehensible for sure, and I have no concern for his livelihood from losing his job, but in general, businesses like McDonald's have made it a policy for employees to not intervene in such things. In our litigious society, trying to stop an attack will get your company sued. Now it seems that not stopping an attack will get you fired, or even shot to death, so it's lose lose for everybody.

There are some folks who care more for humanity than they do for the preservation of their job (me included), so that point is valid, but I can't see how commenters are throwing rocks at the camera man considering the public's usual policy of watching the mayhem while they wait on the cops to show up, if anyone's even bothered to call it in to begin with. The point I'm trying to make here is that people at large don't really care about some poor 22 year old getting her head kicked in because everybody is too locked on like it's entertainment, and they're waiting for someone else to do something. It's accepted that this is the way of the world, so who's to blame? This isn't the first time scumbags up and decided to do violence without cause. It's the way things have always been.

I do think that people in some areas are starting to warm to the idea that they can do something to stop this sort of violence without getting themselves hurt or killed, and this is because of modern self defense tools. Equalizers work; that lady in the video that tried to help wasn't very effective, but she would have been with the help of her little friend P3AT. Hopefully people wake the hell up and start getting involved.

***Update: We have on of the attackers names - Teonna Monae Brown - and also there will be a protest by a transgendered rights group. I bet the group didn't phone in for help for their protest.

Dinner Pic

All the rage these days:




This one was from a couple of days ago. Cheap turkey burgers are a staple in my diet. If it weren't for frozen and canned foods, I would starve to death in the urban habitat where I currently live because I can't cook for shit. You can turn me loose in the woods with nothing more than a loin cloth and a Ka-Bar, and I can make a weapon capable enough to kill an animal, skin it, then make a fire and burn the beast's flesh until it's fit for consumption. Put me in a grocery store though, and I will die unless it can be torn out of a box and eaten. I could live for years on Stella Artois though.

Simple food for simple people!

TSA Grope-Warrior caught distributing kiddie porn

Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.

I don't know about you, but I'm not at all surprised. People who routinely touch people inappropriately against their will are generally considered to be scumbags, and there is a special place that society has reserved for such folks. Here we have a bona fide gate-rapist who likes younger entertainment, and it makes you wonder how many of these sick fucks there are screening Americans at airports.

Again, I avoid flying as best as I can these days, but sometimes it's unavoidable unless I fancy losing my job. With the exception of a body cavity search, I've received all the sick shit that TSA can muster at airports all over the country. I have no sympathy for this guy, and I hope his message gets spread far and wide.

McDonald's attack

I have run into plenty of gun carrying people who, like me, mentally roll play different defensive scenarios that they may wander into from time to time. I have found that in many of these scenarios, it usually entails several aggressive males approaching or whatnot, kind of like a "Yo homie! Is that my briefcase?!" kind of attack. Unfotunately it doesn't always end up being such an easy choice on if/when/how to intervene to protect yourself or someone else.

Here is a video from Liveleak that was posted on Drudge and ARFCOM showing a brutal attack by two women on another girl in a McDonald's, rumored to be in Baltimore. I will warn you that this video is very disturbing:




Now gauge what your response would be if you were a patron at this resaurant. This attack went from a moment or two of fisticuffs to flat out head stomping, and if you have the stomach to watch til the end, there's blood and a seizure in there as well.

I show this as an example that an attacker(s) may not always be large aggressive males that present you with the time to react. This could be your wife or significant other being attacked by two women, and you walk out of the restroom and have to make an immediate decision on what to do. If the victim was a complete stranger to you, what would you do?

Discussion here at ARFCOM.

Bearing Arms

No, I don't mean firearms, medieval arms, or anything of the like. I'm talking Arms of the strategic type, with a couple of tactical ones thrown in for good measure.

Now, I really want you to check out the pictures in this thread regarding nuclear weapons. Seriously, go on and look at it. The next time you look at your grandfather, think of the batshit crazy ideas his generation had when designing this stuff. Then think of how you would feel as a nineteen year old Army trooper carrying a tactical nuke on your back, and then setting it up and launching it at an enemy that you can see with the naked eye. Maybe back then they had no idea that they were exposing themselves to massive amounts of radiation in several forms, or maybe they did and didn't care. With that sort of stuff - radiation exposure, I mean - there are things associated with it that can be worse than death, like a very very slow and painful death, or even having a penis sprout out of your forehead to the laughter of your friends. But it's no laughing matter.

Browsing through the pictures I can definitely see where GI Joe came from. All of the futuristic, half-human cyborg soldiers shooting lazer beams at one another doesn't seem all that far fetched now. The Ohio class submarines are both terrifying and awesome as hell at the same time, and I'm thankful that a group of demented scientists and engineers came up with the idea while hanging out at the water cooler one day at work.

Demented Engineer - "Hey Earl, you reckon we ought to come up with something really deadly to counter the Reds? I just don't think the tanks can get it done."

Evil Scientist - "By golly Sam, I think you may be onto something! If we could harness the power of the sun by splitting atoms, we could put it in some sort of clever technical device that can deliver it to those damned commies. Then we would be unstoppable!"

Demented Engineer - "I'm liking your zeal, Earl! If we took all that powerful scientific bullshit that you just came up with and stuffed it into a humongous tube, we could stow like fifty of them on a submersible ship that would then be capable of destroying the entire world! It would be great!!"

Evil Scientist - "And then we could put some of my scientific bullshit in something smaller, such as one of those right circular cylindrical devices you were pontificating about, one that would be portable enough for one of those warfighter drones to carry into battle."

Demented Engineer - "That would clean up the rest of the Reds that survived the evil holocaust. Good thinking; now let's get to work!"

Having been on a few military bases myself - some of them so spooky that I walked around with every hair on my body standing up, blading 45 degrees towards anyone I came across - I can only imagine how many dudes in white labcoats are busy at work, protractors and calculators in hand, designing crazy stuff that we haven't even heard of yet. Scary huh? What could possibly be more badass than an underwater ship carrying more ordnance than was dropped in WWII?!?!

Well armed in Mexico

Looks to me like the Mexican armed forces and Mexican law enforcement are pretty well off as far as guns go. They also have armor, air support, artillery, crew served weapons, and uhmmmm. . . .what else was there. . . .oh yeah, US funding. That's helpful too.

It also looks like they could care less that H&K is no longer in the business of arming Mexican government personnel, and thus indirectly arming the cartels, considering that Mexico is using weapons from the likes of Beretta and FNH, and have even fielded their very own rifle for their military.

And while the Beretta ARX160 would probably be on the top of my list if I had to fight the cartels, I certainly wouldn't feel too inadequate to be outfitted with an FN FAL either. Wouldn't necessarily want to clear rooms with it, but for street fighting, yeah, give me the well worn four foot battle rifle that spits 7.62.

Circus side show

BERLIN (Reuters) – A shootout between two German circus families competing over tent space has left six people injured, police said on Tuesday.

If we can't agree on registration and background checks for circus folk, than what can we agree on?

Germany obviously needs to strengthen its gun, knife, baton, and circus freak laws to prevent madness like this in the future.

More non-gun stuff

It's this thread again at ARFCOM - U Laugh U Lose. Page 58 now. I lost it on this video.

Bizarre, I know, but don't be drinking coffee or anything if you laugh at random stuff like this. You've been warned.

MY HAND IS A DOLPHIN!!!

Get out of the passing lane!

I just found a reason to like New Jersey cops. More of this, please!




No fines or tickets. No wasting time. Just get the hell out of the passing lane!!! Lesson learned.

Found here at ARFCOM GD.

Kidde Scorn

Ok, so why is it that modern smoke detectors these days not only cry wolf half a dozen times a year, but decide to do so only at zero-dark-thirty? It defeats the whole purpose of having them in the first place, if you're so used to them giving false alarms that you don't even bother to check the house out in the middle of the night. You instead spend your time waiting to hear which one goes off first so that you can either smash it on the ceiling with a broom like it's a bigass bug, or take it down and sling it out into the yard like I did last night.

A couple of years ago I updated our house to code by retrofitting the old battery powered smoke detectors with integrated, hard-wired Kidde smoke detectors. A week later I was far far away in a foreign land when the report from my wife came in that the whole house was beeping at like three in the morning. It finally stopped on its own, and didn't repeat that again for several months. At this point, it's a quarterly thing for the detectors to sound off for no reason, and it always happens late at night.

As a residential electrician in a past life, my experience has been that in a twelve pack of modern smoke detectors, one or two of them right off the bat are going to be defective. You normally find this out when you test them; the ones that are screwed up are immediately noticeable, and you replace them so that the home owners don't have an issue with them in the middle of the night. From what I can recall, the smoke detectors from my youth - the one you payed a nickle for and got ten free at the bargain bin at the local flea market - always worked like their supposed to for twenty years or more. You replace the battery when it starts to chirp, and they only go off when there's real smoke, like when you're burning some delicious bacon.

Somewhere along the line the manufacturers who make these detectors have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Last night we had another one go down - the second this year - at a quarter til' three in the morning. Knowing my wife, she no doubt lost the rest of the night's sleep over the event, which means she'll suffer at work today over an item that I would gladly pay three times as much for if it just worked like it's intended. If not, it's back to the flea markets for the nicotine coated one's that some farmer took down when the battery died. I know those will work.

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

I met my first bloggers yesterday!

I'm somewhere around my 4th year of blogging and I had yet to meet a single blogger. Yesterday I met with Nancy from Excels at Nothing, and Michael W. from Doin' the Time Warp for some time at the range shooting handguns. Both of them are genuine good people, and it was a great time having a group therapy session with them.

Michael W. let me shoot a vintage Webley Mk VI and IIRC a Polish P-64. Fun stuff! The Webley is a substantial handgun that takes some getting used to for someone who is not accustomed to revolvers. Michael W. has no problem at all grouping with it; something tells me that he has had a double action sidearm in his holster once or twice. The P-64 is more familiar in my hand, and despite being all steel would make for a fine carry piece. Nancy let me shoot her Springfield XD-9, which is the first time I've ever been able to shoot one with any purpose. As a Glock advocate (not fanboy) I have to say that the ergonomics of the XD pistols are excellent, much more so than a Glock, and it has a better trigger to boot. And while Nancy claims to be a noob, I wouldn't want her shooting at me! She has a wonderful teacher with the kind of experience most shooters pay big money for.

It has been quite awhile since I've put that many rounds downrange from a handgun, and it was very therapeutic. Thank y'all for the experience! Let me know the next time you want to meet up!

For the warring gnomes in your cupbard

Via the Overnight Thread at Ace of Spades comes this Youtube video of the world's smallest functioning crossbow:


I'm counting down til' the lamentations of the Brady Campaign start, and the feds across the country release a message about deadly mini-crossbow threats to law enforcement.

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.

The Nightlife of Prince George's county teens

Prince George’s County police said they arrested one person after a fight and stabbing outside a club Monday night.

What are teens doing outside of a nightclub? On a Monday night? Just looking to dance, I'm sure; they're probably misunderstood and mad at their dad. No biggie, except they're in the hospital.

The story doesn't mention it, but this whole violence thing has got to be caused by the evilness of guns, as well as Go-Go dancing. Especially the Go-Go dancing. That stuff breeds violence like you would not believe. One thing's for sure, it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the general lawlessness that is rampant around the DC area. Not at all - in fact, maybe some tough knife laws will help to prevent teen Go-Go nightclub violence in the future. Make it hard for angry teens who only want to take their frustration out on the dance floor to buy sharpened pieces of metal, so they won't do something dumb that they might regret. That's the ticket!