Month: March 2012

Match Report: Bowling Pins, 3/11/12

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Today was a beautiful day for a match.  Ten people joined me in shooting the March match, seven brought Major guns, seven brought Minor guns, four brought revolvers, and ten brought .22’s.  There were three new shooters to this match, which hopefully means that attendance will continue to improve.

Major was won by Jim Burnett with his Clark Custom pin gun.  I took Minor with my brand-new S&W M&P9.  I also won Revolver with my S&W 327, and .22 with my Ruger Mk II.  Not a bad weekend for a guy who just turned 50!  I think I could have won the overall match if I hadn’t run out of 9mm ammo, but I did, and Jim Burnett took that match beating me two out of three for the win.

Next month I’m bringing a Major gun again.

Skip Blecker won the drawing, taking home seven dollars more than his entrance fee.  He got to shoot for free and got a little gas money out of it, too.  It had been a while since he’d attended one of these matches, but said that the last time he did, he won the drawing too.  Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good?

The next match is Sunday, April 8.  Hope to see you there.

Compensating for the Size of His Penis

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I get to beat Say Uncle for once:

Elderly farmer near Bois D’Arc pulls gun on 3 thieves who came back for more

BOIS D’ARC, Mo. — An elderly cattle rancher recently came face-to-face with three thieves on his property, and he took the matter into his own hands. The thieves might have been arrested if Vance West had been able to get someone to help him.
Vance West, 92, is a veteran and father of three. He lives by himself outside Bois d’Arc on more than 100 acres.
“See, there’s where they left,” he told a reporter, pointing out tire tracks. “They will be back. I think they will be back.”
West says three men stole nearly $3,000 worth of equipment from one of his sheds. He missed the first time they came around, but not the second.
“He started climbing over the gate, and I told him not to climb over. He climbed over anyway, so I pulled a gun on him,” West said.
“I told him, ‘Do you see where it’s cocked?’ He says, ‘I can see,'” West said. “He was sassy. He told me he wasn’t going to do it.”

The men got away when West tried to flag down someone on his county road.

And in a related note:

Retired librarian holds three burglary suspects on property until police arrive

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. –A retired school librarian and his brother-in-law held three burglars at gunpoint until police could get to a property on West Kearney Street near West Bypass on Monday morning. The three arrested men could face burglary charges.
“It was way out of character for me,” said Ken Richardson, the retired librarian.
Richardson said, when he saw an unfamiliar vehicle parked in his family’s driveway, he knew he had to do something. The home belongs to the grandmother of Richardson’s brother-in-law.
“Gary grabbed his gun and said, ‘Let’s get in the truck and go,'” said Richardson.
Richardson said the two drove over to the house on Kearney. He said they spotted three burglars in an outbuilding. Richardson said that’s when he pulled out a machete, normally used on his farm, and his brother-in-law pulled out his gun.
“We made it real clear to get down on the ground and show us their hands,” said Richardson.
The brothers-in-law said they did not have much time to think about their own safety. They said their concern was protecting the property. They were able to keep the three men on the ground until police arrived.

According to the anti-gunners, these can’t be Defensive Gun Uses! No one died!

Interesting Data Point

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And Snopes says it’s true.

I received via email a copy of this letter to the AARP:

Dear Mr. Rand,

Recently you sent us a letter encouraging us to renew our lapsed membership in AARP by the requested date.

I know it is not what you were looking for, but this is the most honest response I can give you. Our gap in coverage is merely a microscopic symptom of the real problem, a deepening lack of faith.

While we have proudly maintained our membership for several years and have long admired the AARP goal and principles, regrettably we can no longer endorse its abdication of our values. Your letter specifically stated that we can count on AARP to speak up for our rights, yet the voice we hear is not ours. Your offer of being kept up to date on important issues through DIVIDED WE FAIL, presents neither an impartial view we have come to embrace. We do believe that when 2 parties agree all the time on everything presented to them, one is probably not necessary. But, when the opinions and long term goals are diametrically opposed, the divorce is imminent. This is the philosophy which spawned our 200 years of government.

Once upon a time we looked forward to being part of the senior demographic. We also looked to AARP to provide certain benefits and give our voice a power we could not possibly hope to achieve on our own. AARP gave us a sense of belonging which we no longer enjoy.

The Socialist politics practiced by the Obama administration and empowered by AARP serves only to raise the blood pressure my medical insurance strives to contain. Clearly a conflict of interest there!

We do not understand the AARP posture, feel greatly betrayed by the guiding forces that we expected to map out our senior years and leave your ranks with a great sense of regret. We mitigate that disappointment with the relief of knowing we are not contributing to the problem any more by renewing our membership. There are other organizations which offer discounts without threatening our way of life or offending our sensibilities.

This presidential administration scares the living daylights out of us. Not just for our selves, but for our proud and bloodstained heritage. Even more importantly for our children and grandchildren.

Washington has rendered Soylent Green a prophetic cautionary tale rather than a nonfiction scare tactic. I have never in my life endorsed any militant or radical groups, but now I find myself listening to them. I don’t have to agree with them to appreciate the fear which spawned their existence. Their borderline insanity presents little more than a balance to the voice of the Socialist mindset in power.

Perhaps I became American by a great stroke of luck in some cosmic uterine lottery, but in my adulthood I CHOOSE to embrace it and nurture the freedoms it represents as well as the responsibilities it requires.

Your website generously offers the opportunity to receive all communication in Spanish. ARE YOU KIDDING???? Someone has broken into our ‘house’ invaded our home without our invitation or consent.

This president has insisted we keep the perpetrator in comfort and learn the perp language so we can communicate our reluctant welcome to them.

I DON’T choose to welcome them.
I DON’T choose to support them.
I DON’T choose to educate them.
I DON’T choose to medicate them, pay for their food or clothing.

American home invaders get arrested. Please explain to me why foreign lawbreakers can enjoy privileges on American soil that Americans do not get? Why do some immigrants have to ‘play the game’ to be welcomed and others just have to break and enter to be welcomed?

We travel for a living. Walt hauls horses all over this great country averaging over 10,000 miles a month when he is out there. He meets more people than a politician on caffeine overdose. Of all the many good folks he enjoyed on this last 10,000 miles this trip yielded only ONE supporter of this current administration. One of us is out of touch with mainstream America. Since our poll is conducted without funding, I have more faith in it than one which is power driven.

We have decided to forward this to everyone on our mailing list, and will encourage them to do the same. With several hundred in my address book, I have every faith that the eventual exponential factor will make a credible statement to you.

I am disappointed as hell
I am scared as hell
I am MAD as hell, and I’m NOT gonna take it anymore!

Walt & Cyndy
Miller Farms Equine Transport

The sender is another person well past retirement age.

Interesting.

A Farewell to J. Joseph Curran, Jr.

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So U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg has overturned Maryland’s “May Issue” concealed-carry permit system, stating, on the heels of D.C. v Heller and Chicago v McDonald:

…the Court finds that the right to bear arms is not limited to the home.

—

…the regulation at issue is a rationing system. It aims, as Defendants concede, simply to reduce the total number of firearms carried outside of the home by limiting the privilege to those who can demonstrate “good reason” beyond a general desire for self-defense. In support of this limitation, Defendants list numerous reasons why handguns pose a threat to public safety in general and why curbing their proliferation is desirable.

—

Maryland’s goal of minimizing the proliferation of handguns among those who do not have a demonstrated need for them, is not a permissible method of preventing crime or ensuring public safety; it burdens the right too broadly. Those who drafted and ratified the Second Amendment surely knew that the right they were enshrining carried a risk of misuse, and states have considerable latitude to channel the exercise of the right in ways that will minimize that risk. States may not, however, seek to reduce the danger by means of widespread curtailment of the right itself.

—

At bottom, this case rests on a simple proposition: If the Government wishes to burden a right guaranteed by the Constitution, it may do so provided that it can show a satisfactory justification and a sufficiently adapted method. The showing, however, is always the Government’s to make. A citizen may not be required to offer a “good and substantial reason” why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.

Compare and contrast with former Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran’s 1999 manifesto A Farewell to Arms:

The time is now. We must get serious – no more band-aids, no more excuses. The moral fiber of our society will be measured by our response. The problem is not just guns in the wrong hands or a failure to enforce laws already on the books.

—

For me, therefore, the answer is easy. I have added up the costs, and they outweigh the benefits. As a grandfather, I am ready to say enough children have died. In short, I believe that we should no longer allow unrestricted handgun ownership.

—

Thus, our public policy goal should be to restrict the sale and possession of all handguns to those who can demonstrate a legitimate law enforcement purpose or can guarantee that the use of such guns will be limited to participation in a regulated sporting activity. Handgun ownership that advances reasonable law enforcement purposes must be permitted. Individuals with a professional need to have a licensed gun – law enforcement officers, gun collectors, some business owners and certain other professional groups – will continue to keep handguns on business premises or for use on the job. The rest of us, (the rest of you he means) however, must give them up.

—

In the long run, we must go the last mile. These limits must be reflected in the laws by which we govern ourselves. The law must embody the public policy goal of ridding our homes and communities of handguns through restrictive handgun licensing. Handgun ownership which advances reasonable law enforcement purposes can and must continue, but the costs of allowing the rest of us to own handguns are too great. We should endure those costs no longer.

Bear in mind, this was the published opinion of a sitting state Attorney General.

And it was wiped out by the simple statement, “A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”

Take that, J.J.

Good riddance.

Preach It, Sister!

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QotD, Tam (who else?) Edition:

All the probulating, door-kicking, snooping and spying, asset forfeiting, and armored personnel carriering has done more damage to this country than a hundred Woodstocks worth of stoners, to say nothing of the obscene profits we have basically legislated into existence for vicious criminal scum south of our borders and in our own cities.

I’d rather my neighbors smoked a bong every day than run the risk of a dyslexic SWAT team taking a battering ram to my front door at oh-dark-thirty. We need to stop burning the village to save it.

It is Not the Business of Government…

In related news, how to make hard-to-obtain Sudafed from readily obtainable street meth.

This WAS Me, Last Week

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I’m out sick for a couple of days, and WTF?!?

On top of that, I’m buried in work. Normal blogging to resume some time in April, probably. I’ll post what I can, when I can.

Oh, and if you’re interested, the next Bowling Pin match is Sunday, March 11. Hopefully the tables will all remain standing this time.