Fun Turns to Tragedy!!!

The Skinny

I am a gun enthusiast trapped in the People's Republic of Maryland. My political affiliation is Independent, as the Ruling parties are both full of crap, and long ago stopped representing the common man. If the Libertarians weren't such freaks I would probably be one. I am a member of the Nation of Riflemen and damn proud of it. I once took an oath that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As far as I know I never broke that oath, and will continue to follow it. I am not Politically Correct and will NEVER be Politically Correct. If you need to know more, feel free, Ask.

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“The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.“

—Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts:
Massachusetts’ U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788

Well it is that time of the week, the time of the week when I do my new blog introductions. 

First off is Random Nuclear Strikes.  I have been reading this blog for quite some time now, and have been impressed with the writing and the spirit behind them, his defense of home series is quite good.  The fact that he is also going to boomershoot does not hurt a bit either.  He lives in the crazy state of Washington, which is showing the rest of the country just how voter fraud should be carried out…

Second is Carnaby Fudge.  I first read his blog last week after he linked to my “Slight of Hand” post.  He has some interesting thoughts on the Washington state legislatures attempt to ban all semiautomatic weapons.  Seems he is a Canadian gun nut (an endanger species by all accounts), and a recovering windoze addict who has seen the Unix light.  I look forward to reading his writing.  Wonder if we can convince him to go to boomershoot as he lives in Washington state also.  Humm something to work on…

Well My Savage 10FLP arrived last week.  I had read many reports on the sad state of the factory stock prior to receiving the gun.  The factory stock is pretty flimsy but should easily last through the break-in period.

As you can see I have already changed the bolt handle to an after market product from Sharp Shooter Supplies.  They seem to be one of the few companies that are producing quality after market parts for the Savage.

The Trigger on the Savage is very nice out of the box.  It brakes crisply and cleanly with no creep and no take up either.  It is also a very light trigger for a factory trigger.  The AccuTrigger allows savage to make their triggers lighter out of the box because you have to have the little silver portion of the trigger pulled back for the sear to engage.  So if the trigger is knocked or pulled without the center silver portion being depressed there is a click but no bang.  I usually have my triggers worked over but this time I think there is no need for it.  I will have to reevaluate it after I have broken it in.

Here is a close up of the action with its nice shiny new bolt handle (I have digitally removed the serial number that followed the G).  I have already mounted the 20 MOA scope base.  Now all we need is a scope… 

90 days till boomershoot 2005… And so much to get done before hand.

I got a gift of a two day Evasive Driving Course from my friend Bob.  I would love to have had a few pictures and a couple of video clips, but as some of the students were not really there and were not really taking this class, it was not to be. 

Day one was all about car control.  an hour was spent in the skid pad going in circles while the instructor did his best to spin the car out, through a combination of a very slippery circle of wet concrete, and lots of throttle.  Your only job as a student was to keep the car in the general vicinity of the circle.  Far easier said than done.  Oh yea, no ABS…  they also had a nice little piece of road that was ultra slippery, they placed cones on this piece of road and you had to brake and steer the car through the cones.

Day one also had a good deal of high speed lapping around Summit Point’s original track.  Once you got comfortable with the car and course they put an instructor into a second car that was to do its best to make you nervous.  This often meant a bit of tapping of your car in the rear to try and make you lose the race line.  My car contained a former police officer and another gentleman.  Well, the former police officer and the other gentleman had a hard time with the concept that you owned the whole track, they tended to stay on the left hand side of the course.  When the instructor was “chasing us” he was all over the car, bumping and pushing the car almost all the way around the course.  It appeared that he had about fifteen more horsepower than we did. 

My turn came around and the instructor had very little to say in order to help me improve my line through the course.  The first four laps were supposed to be spent in a walk, jog, run, and then run flat out mode.  But after my first walk/jog lap the instructor just told me to go, go, go. So I had 3 laps at full speed (which in a former chevy police car is only 100 MPH down the front straight).  The instructor had very little in suggested improvement for me.  When it came time for the other instructor to give chase I made it quite hard for him to catch me.  He only got one tap in on the second lap of running, mostly because I did not execute the last turn just right, so I was not able to carry enough speed around the last corner to keep him off of me.  I got the lightest of taps cresting the hill after turn nine.  Later his students noted that he was working very hard to catch me and was a bit frustrated at not being able to catch me…  Sweet…

My next car will definitely be something with high horsepower and two seats as I see some Friday at the track events on the horizon.

Day one ended with the same chase scenario but only at night.  The instructor gave us our reduced visibility briefing and warned us that they hit a deer once every three weeks doing the night drive.  I of course asked how long ago the last deer strike was?  Three weeks was the answer.  Of course before we had even gotten out of turn two, the radio came alive with the report of a deer strike.  The instructor who had warned us had hit the deer….  By the way It is a bitch to keep the car on the road when they are shining a million candle power light into your eyes. 

Day two started out with “disposable” cars.  They taught us to spin out another car that you are pursuing, and how to defend against it.  We then were given a lap with the instructor doing his best to spin your car.  That was one cool adrenaline filled lap.  I only got spun two or three times which was pretty good.  We went through four cars during this time, I spent 1/3rd of my lap with a flat and shredding rear tire.  The flat tire really did not make much of a difference in the performance of the car at the low speeds we were traveling. 

We also got to practice ramming a car out of your path without disabling your own car.  Cool and not very difficult.

The last thing that we were taught was forward and reverse spins,  which enabled you to get the car turned around and out of a sticky situation very quickly.  The instructors then put you into 4 different situations and expected you to use the knowledge that you had acquired over the last two days to get out of the situations. Very cool application of the course material.

All in all a very fun two days. 

Blogging will now continue as I am no longer sick and back in civilization.

Well the first Maryland assault weapons bill of the year is in committee.  This is a fun one too.  It is entitled “Assault Weapons Criminal Penalty Enhancement Act of 2005”.  After reading through this little bill it is not about penalty at all, it is really is all about creating a list.  But first lets get on to the meat of the text.

“AN ACT concerning
Assault Weapons Criminal Penalty Enhancement Act of 2005

FOR the purpose of designating certain firearms as assault weapons; designating assault rifles and copycat weapons as types of assault weapons; making it a misdemeanor to use an assault rifle or a copycat weapon in the commission of a felony or a crime of violence; providing certain penalties; defining certain terms; providing for the effective date of this Act; and generally relating to assault weapons.
“

Now for a bit of fisking on this little gem.

“FOR the purpose of designating certain firearms as assault weapons”

Maryland legislators are famous for making lists.  They then go on to use these lists to make it hard to get things. 

Here is an example of said lists.  In order for the sales of a handgun in the state of Maryland it must be on an approved list, that is approved by an arbitrary panel over at the state police HQ.  If it is not on this list you can’t get it in Maryland.  They did the same thing with the integral firearm locks in MD (and are currently being sued) by not approving new types of locks.  This did a very nice job of banning new guns in MD for the last 3 years.  Now many manufactures include the integrated (you can open most of them with a bent piece of wire) locks which not many use.

“designating assault rifles and copycat weapons as types of assault weapons”

“copycat” Wow they have gotten this one strait out of the anti gun lobbies press releases.  You see, this one would allow the list to encompass everything that they see as “Bad and Evil” by saying, it looks a little like one; there for it is one.  They are trying to take a piece of failed legislation (the federal assault weapons ban) a step farther than they did last time.

And now on to my favorite part of this piece of legislation.

“making it a misdemeanor to use an assault rifle or a copycat weapon in the commission of a felony or a crime of violence”

Misdemeanor?  I repeat Misdemeanor? This is the portion of the legislation that proves; they really are not serious about stopping crime, but are all about creating a “list”. 

Had this bill been about creating a law that made it a felony to use a firearm in the commission of a crime, you would not be now be reading me blog about this.  But this bill is all about creating a list that will be used in the (probably near) future in an attempt to ban firearms.  They are trying to hide that fact from the average person.

The more I see of politicians trying this kind of crap the less honorable I think they are, and they are less worthy of making decisions for the good of the people.

If you want to see the list of the firearms you can find it in Senate Bill 116. 

Oh and I did foretell of this little bill long before it happened in a comment to a post from Ben’s Dad. Oh and I told you so, But I missed by a day as this was first read on the 19th of January not the 20th, damn.

Once again the politicians are trying to squirt through a piece of legislation that does nothing to help the people and everything to push forward an anti gun agenda.  They are using the slippery slope method on this one.  First they make a list while we are not looking. Then they will try and hide a few more provisions in other bills under the guise of public safety. It goes on and on till they get what they want.  Their agenda is the banning of all privately owned firearms.  The first step to an enslaved people.

Oh yea, they can still be issues a Concealed Carry Permit in MD as they are the elite, but the average law abiding citizen; nope, they are not to be trusted.

Update:  Say Uncle covered this from a crime standpoint rather briefly, but he had a link with an article in which a group called Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms states that the bill is an attempt to demonize a certain class of weapons.

They are right to a point.  They miss that the legislature is just taking baby steps to get all guns banned.

If you want to see just who sponsored this little bill here is the list. 

MORE...

Ok here is a picture and quote from the AP.

Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Due, right, a U.S. Army recruiter, is surrounded by protesters at Seattle Central Community College, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Seattle. After about a 10-minute standoff during which protesters tore up U.S Army literature, the protesters were successful in getting Due and another recruiter to leave their table under escort by campus security officers. Several hundred students walked out of classes at several Seattle colleges and universities to protest the inauguration of President Bush (news - web sites). (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

I am surprised that this photo got published at all, on second thought it does depict something bad happening to a soldier.  That does seem like what the MSM is all about now.

Now my question is this.  Are these students just stupid being led around by their illusions of grandeur, or are they just Ignorant.  They obviously have no concept of America.  Their education is extremely lacking, they should really have to spend a few weeks in some nice little third world, lets say Syria for instance.  It seems that the education that they have been given entitles them to act like school yard bullies.  They think it is fine for them to have the freedom of speech, but not the very person that enables them to have that freedom.  Hypocrites all of them.  Not fit to receive an education subsidized by Americans.

Scenes like this in a public school system make me wonder just what those students have been taught to this point.  On second thought I don’t wonder, I am also a product of the same school system that they went to.  Responsibility and respect are no longer taught, not by the parents and certainly not by the school systems.  It is all about making little Johnny/Jackie feel good about themselves. 

If I had taunted, and done my best to humiliate a soldier my father would have kicked some sense into me one way or the other, even if it meant using a big stick.  You just don’t behave like that to someone who is putting his life on the line so that you have the freedom to live yours as you see fit.  If you think that behavior is acceptable maybe it is time you find another country to live in where it really is acceptable.  Oh yea there is no other country that would put up with that kind of behavior. 

Maybe all of these fine upstanding people that succumbed to the mob mentality where all of their IQ’s were reduced to Zero, just were not responsible for their actions. Maybe they just got sucked into the moment.  Not.  To act like that to a fellow American, especially one in uniform, you have to lack a few things, Respect, Integrity, Honor and probably a few more I am missing.

My father taught me at a young age that I have rights, and set of responsibilities to go with those rights.  If I see an injustice being done I have a responsibility to try and fix it.  It may not be within my power but I will try. Funny thing, it only took me thirty years to recognize that I have that responsibility.  I fear that there are whole generations of Americans whose fathers and mothers did not teach them that they have any responsibilities.  It may be that not having to face real hardships in their lives has allowed entire generations to grow up selfish and feeling entitled to what they have not earned.

Oh and by the way for all those little people out there who hate America and hate our “Imperialistic warmongering country” (dammit I left out Fascist) you will be pleased to know that the U.S. Army has once again exceeded its goals for retainment and recruitment.  Seems that not everyone out there got the far-lefts message about America.

Denise over at The Ten Ring hits one out of the park when she writes about having to support your sport.  She writes about growing up with firearms and then later in life having to justify her firearms to co-workers in a state hostile to the second amendment. 

I too live in a state that is hostile to the second amendment.  I rarely run into people that are GFWs.  I have yet to run into someone who is a rabid enough GFW to suggest that I should get rid of my guns. 

I have been asked in the past why I own guns.  My answer has always been twofold.  First I enjoy shooting immensely.  Second it all boils down to taking responsibility for my own safety and welfare.  I have long believed that the police are not responsible for my safety.  I look at this way.  I can call the police if someone breaks in, but in the twenty minutes it takes for them respond to my call, I want to be sure I am still alive when they arrive.  At the end of the day it is better to have and not need than to need and not have.

I am going to take Joe Huffmans approach to the firearms debate in the future.  His response to a rabid GFW is “Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?“. 

Even the premier pacifist of our times says “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.“ (Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)).  I look at the UK as a prime example of banning firearms, as they have done to their own citizens far worse that they did to the Indians, and they have a

I am back after two and a half fun filled days at my company’s annual sales conference, which is why there has been no posting.

Highlight of the conference was Sugar Ray.  they put on a great show. If they are playing company sales conferences does that mean that they are finished???

We may have finally worked out our marketing issues…  The new marketing guy is great, time will tell if he is also good.

Got home today and had two packages for my boomershoot trip.
Boomershoot checklist

1) Rifle: Still waiting for it…
2) .308 Brass: Check, 400 pieces of new Lapua Brass
3) 20 MOA scope base: Check, Nice Ken Farrell scope base
4) Scope: Next month
5) Scope rings: Next month
5) Spotting scope: March sometime.
6) Shooting Mat: before April 20th
7) Hotel reservation: Check, 2 bedroom Suite at the Helgeson Hotel (for 65 bucks how can you go wrong)
8) Airplane tickets: Next month
9) Rental Car: Up in the air.  I may have a ride.

I am sure that I am missing things but this is just my initial list.

I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can’t understand it, don’t like the sound of it or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails.

-Charlton Heston
February 11, 1997

I had a good friend for almost 20 years.  We got through the tough times together.  We spent many hours together everyday for years.  I was introduced to a lot of new things and some old things too.  We fell out of touch in the last 4 years or so and I spent a lot less time with my friend as our relationship changed.  Now it is over.

My friend is dead passed away at high noon on the 12th of January.

Yep WHFS has gone spanish…

I never listened to a different radio station for nearly 20 years.  I missed HFS a lot while I was in the Army.  When I came home it was there waiting for me.  It introduced me to Jimi Hendricks and the Replacements back to back.  What a great station.  I went to the best shows (the station sponsored a show called the Hfstival) I heard a lot of great new music.

It started to slide 4 years ago when they started to replace the morning show with a succession of dumber morning shows culminating in the Junkies (sorry Big Enos, not that KML is much better).  They then changed their target audience to what seemed to be 13 year olds.  The Hfstival changed.  The music changed.  I tuned out. 

Then yesterday I turned on the Mickey and Amelia show while I was sick in bed and they started the show by playing Taps, and transitioned into Mexican Radio by Stan Ridgway.  When they finally came on, they told us to tune to 99.1 (HFS) and just listen.  My words were “holy shit” never in a million years did I expect HFS to go Mexican…

So 98 Rock is holding trade your swag parties where you can turn in your 99.1 swag for 98 rock swag.

The one bright note to all of this is that the old staff from when HFS was great is pretty much intact at 103.1 WRNR radio Annapolis.  the bad news is that the signal sucks.  They must be powering their transmitter with 3 gerbils and a mouse…  They play a lot of the music I like and some stuff I don’t so at least there is a station on that plays something good besides 98 rock.  There is always my iPod though…

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

- John Adams, Journal, 1772
  US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)

It seems that not all of the elected officials in MD have their heads inserted into their rectal cavities.

Introduced by Mr. Bartlett

H.R. 47

Citizens Self-Defense Act of 2005

The Congress finds the following:

(C) Don Campbell of Port Huron, Michigan, was arrested, jailed, and criminally charged after he shot a criminal assailant in 1991. The thief had broken into Campbell’s store and attacked him. The prosecutor plea-bargained with the assailant and planned to use him to testify against Campbell for felonious use of a firearm. Only after intense community pressure did the prosecutor finally drop the charges.

All I can say is wow.  It is about time that congress wakes up to the fact that the Police are not there for our protection. 

It is up to you to ensure that you are safe.

Now you can bet that this thing will have so many poison amendments tacked on to it that it will never make it into law…

Big hat tip to One in a row… for this little tidbit.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

- Albert Einstein