And, because I'm a total sucker for cute kids...

Here's one who makes the point better than I ever could.

You're doing it wrong.

As if waking up the day after election day, and realizing that shit really happened, all over again, isn't irritating enough, imagine seeing this on Ye Oulde Facebook notifications tab:

Facebook, you couldn't do it more wrong with a month of planning.  I already know who represents me, and despite various claims to the contrary backed by men with guns, attitude, and impunity, it is, and ever will be, nobody beyond the extent of my own skin.

There's a reason they call it the TwitFace.

Behold:

Well there, Massuh Superior Being suh, that's quite a statement there.  (Personally, I'd say the worst insult anyone could throw at me is to call me a v*ter in the first place, but then I'm a known heretic.)  It deserves a far more thorough fisking than I have any time to assemble here.  Nonetheless, presumably you, paragon of civic virtue and All That Is Good, Healthful, and Nonfattening, "supported" a different candidate, and very likely "supported" the current administration through both of its terms, as well.  (I suppose it's possible you didn't, but somehow that seems vanishingly unlikely from the evidence here.)

It would be childishly simple to ask you, in light of your strong declarative statement, why you would prefer a candidate (and a sitting president) who believes that dead Mexicans (that's brains-blown-out dead--we're not talking about a bigotry of words here) are an acceptable political cost of manufacturing the public impression that American gun dealers are arming narcotraficantes on the sly.  (Oh, you never heard about Operation Fast And Furious, reported on almost daily for what, a year?  In which the ATF deliberately armed the cartels so that their crime guns could be traced back to US gun dealers, supporting the FedGov's claim that 90% of Mexican crime guns trace back to the US?  Yeah, both Hill and Barry were all over that one.)

It would be similarly easy to ask you, again in light of your morally upstanding and good-for-the-climate statement, why you would support candidates and presidents that not only argue openly for extrajudicial killing and indefinite detention, but practice it regularly.  As but one example, assassinating not only an American citizen without trial, but shortly thereafter his teenage son, offering the functional equivalent of "sucks to be him, he should have had a better dad" by way of explanation.  How many hundreds have been killed with drones, or more traditional methods of extrajudicial war?  

You're okay with all that, right?  Seeing as how "there is no middle ground", and all.

One could go on.  It's not difficult.

But you're smart, and enlightened--so much moreso than half the American public, which you keep telling me has simply lost its mind because it doesn't move in lockstep with your beliefs.  (Oh, you don't put it that way, but that's always what it comes down to.)

Obviously they must have been conned.

I'll bet you think you appreciate irony and wit, too.

So when do we find out...

...that this sudden rash of caricature-level stories about "Trump supporters" is pure post-election agitprop?

Oh, I've no doubt that there are a few loons out there, who may feed all the right stereotypes.  This, though...it has that same "too perfect to be true" feel as the mass shooting that happens almost on cue for some scheduled push for (further) victim disarmament.

I don't know what they're all bitching about anyway;  it's not like this wasn't perfectly inevitable.  By casting their v*te at all, they willfully legitimized a system they knew perfectly well was going to put one of two revolting, horrible, awful people in a position of power over their lives.  And guess what?  The Establishment heard this call for legitimacy loud and clear.  Just about a hundred twenty million people sent the clear message:  You can even give us two choices as crushingly insane as Mein Trumpf and Hitlery Clinton, and we'll still v*te for 'em, rather than even consider something so crazy as simply saying no*.

What do you suppose the chances are that your protest v*te--your "anyone but [impostor of real human being]" v*te--got interpreted for what it was?


_________________________
*Still, there is hope.  If I can believe the numbers, the clear plurality of eligible v*ters did stay home--and it sounds like the percentage was even bigger than it was last time.

It takes a special snowflake...

...to be that committed to not learning the takeaway lesson in the "shocking" Trump victory.

"Shocking"?  Please.  The American public has been begging for this farce for years, even generations.

It's been pretty ridiculous thus far, among the channels I follow.  People who I know are otherwise intelligent, and even reasonably perceptive, are nonetheless shamelessly shouting out their best entries for Fainting Couch Theater, and looking like utter and complete fools doing it.

The fractal ironies seem to be lost on this legion of hyperventilating, Holier-Than-Thou thespianics, who with great sanctimony and without irony ascribe to the vast, undifferentiated mass of people who outv*ted them, every single talking point attack that Team Blue managed to come up with.  And so I  am repeatedly informed that there are well over fifty million racist, misogynist, homophobic fascists out there, QED, simply because the Team Red buffoon won, so there.

Keep in mind these are the same people who are so (loudly) frightened of the mindless mob-mentality they see in Trump's authoritarianism.  The irony is simply lost on them, and you will not make any friends suggesting that they should just maybe look in the damn mirror.

And it's just childishly amusing to hear all this doomsday talk from the very selfsame who just about eight years ago went to such pains to..."reassure" critics that all our obviously racist thoughts about BHO were unfounded, and that we really needed to relax and take a nap.  Because this, of course, is different.  (While on that point, betcha we also see the return of the term "war criminal", which has been conspicuously missing in action since January of 2009.  Dissent will no longer be considered racist and antigovernment, but once again "the highest form of patriotism".)

The tone-deafness is really stunning to consider.  As just one example, I've seen multiple calls to abolish the Electoral College, because they are just sure that plain old mob democracy will produce their preferred result, and not this insult to their progressively superior way of thinking.  Did they somehow miss the fact that, for all Hillary's institutional advantages (e.g., "I want a love who looks at me the way the press looks at Hillary"), and against all the predictions and punditry, that very mob just matched them?  (Arguing minutiae is pointless--the popular v*te was supposed to favor Hillary heavily, and instead it was essentially a dead heat.)

This is a crowd who believe themselves to be self-evidently superior beings, and are quite uninterested in the existence and influence of their lessers--so much so that they appear unable to believe that an actual revolt against their rainbow-shitting-unicornverse is possible, even after it occurred!  "How did this happen?" is the exact, precise equivalent of what Jeff Cooper would have called "getting caught in White":  they never really believed that their nightmare could happen in the first place, and now that it has, the excuse-making and condescending rationalization will have its out--"those people" are simply subhumanly stupid*, or they got hoodwinked by all that massive right-wing propaganda, or they cheated...anything at all to avoid the realization that "Never Hillary" is just as valid and rational a position as "Never Trump".

Which doesn't say that much anyway, because neither of those awful cretins should ever be entrusted with the life of a single housecat, much less the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings.  And  there's the biggest punchline of all:  the one thing both Team Red and Team Blue agree on wholeheartedly, is that only by supporting the system that would actually elect a de facto king, from choices representing some of the very worst examples of all humanity, can the system be improved.

And they got their legitimacy loud and clear.  Just about one hundred twenty million people, most of whom probably believed they were protesting by selecting the lesser evil, cast their vote for the other evil.  And once again the system is renewed, staffed comfortably with evil, and in absolutely no danger of actually having to change.  (Why?  Sixty million wanted Clinton, sixty million wanted Trump.  What's the problem here, folks?  It's not like you said "NO" or anything...)

For all the sound and fury, Americans once again, as they always do, elected the Establishment once again.  (Yes, Donald Trump is perfectly acceptable to the Establishment.  How do we know this?  Because he was allowed to remain on the stage.  We know from long experience that actual threats to the established order are removed long before they become a problem.)

See how this works?  Here's a handy review, as it will be precisely the same next time:
Step 1:  Complain loudly about how inevitably awful the Establishment choices are.
Step 2:  Hone your complaints to focus on the jingoistic mob mentality of your chosen opponent.
Step 3:  Go cast your v*te, because not v*ting is insane, fattening, and un-'Murickan.
Step 4:  Wear your "I Voted" sticker with no irony whatsoever.
Step 5:  Act surprised at the outcome you produced.  Tell everyone.

"This time for sure!"

______________________
* You think I'm kidding.  Actually, I have lost count of the number of article links on the TwitFace that go to a title of roughly this construction:  "Half of all Americans simply do not have the mental capacity to understand [insert progressive unicorn here:  climate science, economics, healthcare, voting, etc.]"  The dehumanizing condescension that inheres in this mentality really is breathtaking to behold.

Greenwald on 'nobody is coming to take your guns'.

Well, actually, no, that's not what he's writing about here:

The reality is that there is ample evidence uncovered by journalists suggesting that regimes donating money to the Clinton Foundation received special access to and even highly favorable treatment from the Clinton State Department. But it’s also true that nobody can dispositively prove the quid pro quo. Put another way, one cannot prove what was going on inside Hillary Clinton’s head at the time that she gave access to or otherwise acted in the interests of these donor regimes: Was she doing it as a favor in return for those donations, or simply because she has a proven affinity for Gulf State and Arab dictators, or because she was merely continuing decades of U.S. policy of propping up pro-U.S. tyrants in the region?

It's a great article (worth a RTWT), and should, if there were actually any sort of popular interest in restraining the ruling class, be more than enough to prevent HRC from ever again holding actual power over so much as a single cat, much less hundreds of millions of human lives.

But it's not about the guns at all.  And yet somehow, the "nobody is coming to take your guns" canard simply keeps popping into my head:

So if you want to defend the millions of dollars that went from tyrannical regimes to the Clinton Foundation as some sort of wily, pragmatic means of doing good work, go right ahead. But stop insulting everyone’s intelligence by pretending that these donations were motivated by noble ends. Beyond that, don’t dare exploit LGBT rights, AIDS, and other causes to smear those who question the propriety of receiving millions of dollars from the world’s most repressive, misogynistic, gay-hating regimes.

I know, I know, it's one thing to say all this about campaign finance, but it's like totally different when it comes to plebes with guns.  You can just sense a politician's scruples come roaring back into line, when it comes to plebes with guns.

Which nobody wants to take.  The guns, I mean.  Not the plebes.  Of course not the plebes.  Well, unless they want guns.  Then, maybe the plebes too.  Wait, is this thing on?

Just stop acting surprised. It's bad for your complexion.

And so we record another step along the pathway to what is shaping up to be Decision 2016:  Mein Trumpf vs. Hitlery (achtung!).  To wit:  Bernie Sanders endorses Hillary.

Some people are even gnashing their teeth about it all, as though it's some sort of surprise.  The TwitFace is no stranger to that peculiar flavor of ire-of-the-betrayed, so often performed histrionically in front of a gen-u-whine Pious(TM) brand fainting couch.

Thing is, it seems to me that someone said this was a foregone conclusion:

Anyway, so here we have the "self-described democratic socialist" Sanders, who is going to wind up doing nothing more than making Hillary look more palatable to the credulous. That is the point.

I know, crazy SOB in serious need of re-education, right?

Sweet Metor O' Death, indeed.  It'd serve "us" right.

Oh gee whiz, what further shocking revelations might yet be in store?

Presuming the veracity of this report (I know nothing about Land Destroyer;  only that the report here reads much like actual journalism, in stark contrast to most of the "urinealism" racing around right about now), it appears that our wholesome and pious protectors at the Eff Bee Eye may have had a hand in incubating this latest creep as well.

Considering the disturbing activities conducted by FBI informants during these "investigations," the FBI appears obligated to tell the American public just what their "informants" were doing with Florida shooting suspect Omar Mateen in the 10 months they were "investigating" him beginning in 2013.

Did they also walk Mateen through planned attacks he ultimately backed out of? Did he eventually change his mind again after the FBI's investigation was allegedly closed?

The American media and US elected representatives have an obligation to ask these questions, obtain this information from the FBI, and to reevaluate the FBI's means and methods of investigating potential suspects through what is clearly a dangerous process of entrapment, indoctrination, and deceit.

I know:  total shocker, that idea.

Just think what we'll learn tomorrow.

So this is interesting.

Still here.  (You know, speaking to the 3-4 of you who comprise my "core audience".  :-)

In the wake of this latest installment of Bewailing That Next Disaster We Keep Insisting on Making Inevitable--all the tiresome tooth-gnashing dances in front of the fainting couch, I did find this article interesting:

Orlando police repeat the gross ineptitude of San Diego cops in the "McDonald's massacre"

If nothing else, it's actually substantive to what happened, as opposed to the usual fixation on How Can We Absolve Ourselves By Going After Some Ginormous Group Of People Who Didn't Do It.

Therefrom:

To review, a white racist who hated Mexicans entered the McDonald's in San Ysidro (very close to the Mexican border) and started shooting. And shooting. And shooting.

The first cops on the scene did nothing, even as the shooting continued. They contacted HQ which in turn contacted the SWAT commander, who was at a social function at Mission Bay.

Until that time, SWAT was primarily geared up for hostage situations. Nationwide they'd never faced a maniacal shooter who just wanted to kill as many people as possible before they in turn were gunned down. So the San Diego SWAT commander ordered officers on the scene (including a sniper with a clear shot at the guy) to wait until he arrived in San Ysidro to properly assess the situation. That's about a 40-50 minute drive. Meanwhile the shooter is calmly walking around the restaurant, systematically shooting primarily Mexican women and children.

FINALLY the SDPD SWAT boss arrived, assessed the situation and gave the sniper the green light. The crackshot quickly dispatched the shooter. 78 minutes after the shooting begin, it was over.

Seems like I'm starting to see a few voices saying that many of those who died at the nightclub in Orlando, only died because it dragged out so long.    This comparison to the San Ysidro shooting, and the damning comment it makes about what Grigg describes as "Officer Safety Uber Alles" policy, is interesting.

Will have to keep an eye on Grigg for the commentary...and (le sigh) on Mas Ayoob, to tell us all how we've got it all wrong, again;  that the cops did absolutely nothing wrong.

See, now this is an intelligent contribution to the safety discussion.

I don't regularly follow John Farnam these days, but he remains a valuable observer on tactics, technique and attitude, in much the way that I recall Mas Ayoob used to be.  And so I just ran across this post from Farnam, on the use of the rifle's manual safety, specifically within the context of the hot range.

It's worth reading, and considering.  Unlike anonymous commenters who try to suggest that Onlier Operatorer types are somehow above Cooper's safety rules,  Farnam has documentable street cred, and a known capacity as an analyst.

And so:

Most modern pistols (Glock, XD, M&P, SIG320, Walther PPQ, H&K VP9, FNS, Ruger AA) don’t have manual safeties, yet we still routinely move with them in our hands during training exercises, relying mostly upon a strong “register” position of the trigger-finger to prevent NDs. Still, we don’t prevent them all, no matter how careful we try to be!

Can we do the same with our rifles, or do we insist students keep the manual safety in the “on” position except when in the process of firing intentionally?

My answer to that question is:

Yes!

I accept it either way, but I teach the former.

Of course, I tell students that I want the manual safety “on” when the rifle is slung, and I want them to check it frequently. Scant argument there.

However, when the rifle is in their hands, the position of the manual safety becomes optional.

The whole article is worth reading;  one of Farnam's particular eloquences is his ongoing defense of the hot range (as ultimately safer than the cold range), and you get a lot of it here.

This discussion of the rifle safety is interesting.  For a rifle with a truly ergonomic safety, like the Steyr Scout's tang-mounted roll switch, I don't really think I could be any faster one way or the other, as with a 1911 pistol.  Many other boltgun safeties are nearly as good as that (e.g., M700, M70, Sako).  But most "battle rifle" and "battle carbine" safeties I've met are not ergonomic to engage;  one has to shift hand positions to do it, and that does take time.

And there is this:  I suspect that Farnam's point is both in acknowledging a measurable raw speed value, and also in the attitude surrounding the use of the manual safety.  We should remember that one can observe all Four Rules with a cocked and unlocked piece;  none of the Rules makes any mention of a manual safety anywhere.  Presentation of the piece for firing always, always includes disengaging the weapon's manual safeties, if it has any.  For any drill that has the student randomly in and out of his sights, this doesn't need to change:  whether or not he re-engages a safety in between, every time the gun comes up to fire, that safety gets wiped off.

So, the discussion of when to re-engage any manual safety becomes intentionally decoupled from the discussion of when to dis-engage...and that does seem like an important observation to make.  There is no need to use a manual safety as any sort of bolster to Rule Three, and in fact it might be too easy to rely on it, however slightly, as a separate "proof" of a safe condition.

If it's really the attitude, and not the hardware--as we all love to say--then Farnam makes a good point here.  I'm happy for the reminder.

Made me think of you, Mama.

Seen on the TwitFace today.

An old woman walked up and tied her old mule to the hitching post. As she stood there, brushing some of the dust from her face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. The young gunslinger looked at the old woman and laughed, "Hey old woman, have you ever danced?"

The old woman looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No... I never did dance... never really wanted to."

A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said "Well, you old bag, you're gonna dance now," and started shooting at the old woman's feet.

The old woman prospector -- not wanting to get her toe blown off -- started hopping around. Everybody was laughing. When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.

The old woman turned to her pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and cocked both hammers. The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air, and the crowd stopped laughing immediately.

The young gunslinger heard the sounds, too, and he turned around very slowly. The silence was almost deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old woman and the large gaping holes of those twin barrels.

The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old woman's hands, as she quietly said, "Son, have you ever kissed a mule's ass?"

The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No ma'am... but I've always wanted to.

There are five lessons here for all of us:

1 - Never be arrogant.
2 - Don't waste ammunition.
3 - Whiskey makes you think you're smarter than you are.
4 - Always make sure you know who has the power.
5 - Don't mess with old people; they didn't get old by being stupid.

And, of course, "Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Anyway, it made me think of MamaLiberty right away.  Sure, the old woman in the story was (giggle) CCing that shotgun--made for a nice story element with the surprise--but as ML likes to say, CC or OC, just carry!   :-D

Clairespective.

Another capital-R resource from Claire.  This one covers--well--the idea that sometimes the path to better things does indeed go through the technically unacceptable.

Are we likely to see constitutional carry in Massachusetts, New York, or California any time soon? Ha! But I can tell you that a lot of us who were around in the dark old days of 1993 and 1994 never thought we’d see even this much, ever, in so many places.

And “this much” is a lot. A hell of a lot. Better yet, we’re going to see more.

Do I now approve of the “shall issue” permits that laid the groundwork for this? Nope. No way. But even I have to admit that the grassroots “shall issue” ccw movement gave birth to the constitutional carry movement. And constitutional carry is an unreservedly good thing.

I do indeed remember those darker days;  in fact it was right around then that I stumbled across Claire in the first place.  Worth, seriously worth, a RTWT.

The only downside I can see, honestly, is that celebrating a good thing for what it is, isn't going to help the sort of prag mindset that still can't distinguish between long-term strategy and true pre-emptive surrender.  Yes, there is a lesson in all this for those of us who can't bring ourselves to actively support ideas that might turn out later to be valuable incremental milestones.   (Duly noted and appreciated, and to borrow from Joel, the crow tastes pretty fine!)  But we, too, should recognize our important place in restraining the surrender impulse--and keep at it.  The real visionaries, as Claire's post suggests, will recognize us for what we are and work with us.

Here's to more such free-people assertions.  Many more!

Okay, is it just me...

...or has it gotten way past the eye-rolling stage, even by the usual election standards, the way many people are acting at the very idea of a Trump presidency?  

You know, as if he would somehow be materially different from any other "leader" in the same position?

Wait...you mean he might be a bigot against The Little People?

He might curtail basic human rights at home, and ignore them abroad?

He might go dick-swinging around the globe, in a way that might engender blowback?

He might shove societally suicidal policy down the national gullet?

He might do all the above by lying, deceiving, and conspiring with not-nice people to get what he wants, all at our expense?

You mean, in general, that he just might act with the impunity of a dictator, rather than with the accountability of an executive custodian?

ZOMG, your powers of perception are simply off the charts, man.  With informed, enlightened attitudes like that, you have me, like totally convinced that we can totally prevent even the slightest bit of all that by simply electing someone else.  Hill!  Bernie!  Cruz!  Rubio!  Kang!

Ferchrissakes, people:  yes, Trump is frightfully unfit to win The One Ring Sweepstakes.  But all this "leave the country!" "the sky is falling!" melodrama really does little more than out you as either a weapons-grade hypocrite, or as unconscionably, nearly unbelievably naive.  They're all unfit to wield power...over a cat, much less 330+ million people.  And they all have been since before any of us were born.

On the other hand, maybe you should leave, if you can't (or refuse to) see that the the real problem with The One Ring Sweepstakes isn't the competitors, but the prize.  If the office disposes of so much power that just putting a slightly-less-sophisticated buffoon in it can cause the whole thing to come apart, then maybe--just maybe--the office has too much damn power.

Yes, David. Yes.

Saw this from the redoubtable David Codrea today:

I vote for good when I engage in a mutually voluntary and acceptable association or transaction. When I vote for a political candidate, I'm picking up any chair in a bar fight I did not start, with the sole intent of extricating me and mine for the time being with minimal injuries.

Not sure I've ever seen it stated more honestly than that.  Even as someone who happens to be committed to the other decision that can arise out of that observation (I simply reject the fait accompli argument for the permanence of the state), I'm in full agreement with the observation itself.  

Yet another example of why David is one of the most important "gun writers" we've ever had.  

Peasant humor.

Seen today on the TwitFace:

For the disaffected who yet still use the fait accompli argument to justify their participation, it would seem to be by far the least ridiculous choice available.

(For anyone who doesn't get the reference, it's from this.)

 

A quick nightmare update.

I continue to be impressed with the AUSA assigned to the forfeiture in rem case against Gunsmoke Guns.  From her I now learn, in another timely response to an emailed question, that the paperwork items I recently filed to become an official party to the case (my interest is simply to get my 03 rifle and 1911 pistol returned) were indeed successfully received, and she further added some intel that she is starting to advocate for those parties in my position, directly with counsel for Gunsmoke.  

It's not over for me until I have my property back in my hands, and of course the frustration that any of this happened in the first place is by no means forgotten, but I have to admit I had not expected this much accommodation from an AUSA, and I am thankful for it.  I'm sure I'll have more to say when it's all over, however it turns out, but in the meantime I do have a few things to appreciate, and have a need to say so.  The information and ideas from Claire, Len, Mama, and El Neil were hugely helpful, and so has been the information and assistance from the AUSA on this case.  

That's all for now.

On personal authenticity.

"You will give her an apology."
"Because all this only goes one way, right?"
"Well, maybe we'll just have to settle this ourselves."
"Um, no, we're not going to do that."

Apparently I am to be tested, in my good mood and recent metaphysical recharge, by multiple inexplicably inane events in which my input is irrelevant at best. First it was one of those simply absurd flare-ups of a knee, in which I awake from the staggering physical rigors of a nap, with a suddenly limited range of motion, likely driven by the obvious swelling for which I have absolutely no explanation. Following that, it was being aggressively accosted, yesterday, for failing to admit my unconscionably boorish and self-evidently misogynistic behavior ("Oh, the board has been informed...") during an episode of a few weeks back, when I actually lost my patience with someone's conflicting information, and had the unmitigated gall to call it out and request escalation to sort out what I needed to do. I figured the episode was behind me when two of the board members separately confirmed that I had called out the conflicting information accurately, but apparently not with the principal, nor the nearly comically vengeful spouse, who of course wasn't there.

So okay, I'm being tested. Not on the walking-away-from-the-thinly-veiled-threat part; hell, I've spent most of my adult life studying how to avoid fights. That part is easy. Nor is it the idea that I find it hard to admit when I do something wrong. I do things wrong and poorly all the time, and if anything I'm a bit self-flagellating about it.

The test is in rattling me with the sort of wear-you-down things that are mostly outside your control, yet impact your life in a way that makes things harder, not easier. So, in this case: limited range of motion in the knee, along with the discomfort of swelling; and now a persistent roadblock to working within a group that is very important to one of my kids. (I could be wrong of course, but my perception of the personalities of both my attackers rather strongly indicates a good chance of extended grudge-holding. Lovely.) All within the context of an extended period of unemployment, etc.

Very well, let's pass that test, then. One of the many things I love so dearly about "Brother Sean"* is that I can't lie to him, even when I can lie to myself. As he has done before at times when I really needed it, he put himself out for me on this trip, and helped me to see more clearly where I do lie to myself--where I allow things to get me down by abandoning who I actually am, trying instead to construct a theoretical "better me" that does not yet exist--who may never exist--and thus missing the opportunity to truly adapt.

Yes, I've got bad knees. Yes, I now have an aggravating social problem to unfuck. I've got all the other headaches I had before the trip, too, and clocks are still ticking and the timing is just terrible.  Yup, got all that--and the only guy I've got to deal with it all is the one in the mirror.

He's got a lot of flaws, but he's mine, and in the end "he'll do to ride the river with". He's going to wake up tomorrow morning and remember to be authentic to who he is...and take it as it comes.

_______________________

* My old friend is truly a "brother from another mother".

Seen today on the TwitFace.

Weapons-grade irony right here:

"If it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist."

Well, perhaps there is something we can agree on after all.  Personally, I'd fully approve if all you authoritarian dickheads--you know, the entire control structure of that One Institution To Rule Them All--simply oozed on home and never again tried to force yourself on others.

That'd be...great.

This item may indeed be of interest.

I've never really considered the idea of a 9mm 1911 before (what, exactly, would the point of that be?), but since the arrival of Browning's magnificent little 1911-22 for small hands, my thinking has evolved a bit.  And so when I got wind of Springfield Armory's new full-slide, full-grip EMP 9mm pistol, I thought it might be a good idea to get a peek to see if it might be something interesting.

Got an unexpected chance to meet one in person this weekend, and dang, it is.

The point of the EMP, originally, was to scale the 1911 down slightly, to 9mm dimensions--most importantly, in the grip length and width dimensions.  I never paid much attention to it at first, because for me, it's not enough smaller than a slim-lined .45ACP model to make an appreciable difference in size, and all other things being equal I'll always take .45 over 9.  And I admit I've never been a fan of super-stubby 1911s anyway, in any caliber.  (I've long preferred the "Commander slide, LW Officer's frame" arrangement as the best balance between size, weight, and shootability.)

But looking at it with different eyes now, I see much to like.  It absolutely is smaller in the hand, and for smaller hands that is going to make a big difference.  It is all 1911 in operation, and with SA's reputation I'd expect it to run as well as anything out there.  It's a 10+1 9mm of moderate weight, and may well make a splendid training or working gun for whoever's hand it fits.  It's spendy (street price as I saw it was $1050), but then again it already has everything on it you'd want to put on a working gun.  9mm is cheaper to run than .45, and if you can arrange the right loads, it seems to be "enough" for defensive use, even if some of us simply like to use more.  (Hell, the real reason I favor larger calibers isn't because I doubt the 9x19 at its best.  It's because of the worst-case ammo supply scenario:  I know that any old thing I can stuff into a .45 or even .40, that will make the gun work, will do decently well.  That's never been true of the 9.)

Anyway, I'm starting to visualize a set of training guns for people that would employ the 1911 platform, but be sized for hands appropriately.  At the bottom end of the scale is the Browning 1911-22 or 1911-380, at the full-sized end is the slim-lined and then the standard 1911...and dang if in the middle isn't this slightly reduced frame that just may have a solid niche to occupy.

Now, if I could just figure out how to solve the financial problems and start putting all these dang ideas to work!  :-)

Changes coming.

Posting has been pretty light for a while now, for a variety of reasons both highly frustrating and oddly hopeful.  Not my intention.  The overall lightness may continue for a bit, but I do still have plans.

At this point I suspect that migration and resumption will happen in late February or early March, and changes will probably include both a move, and a change in focus.  Ideas abound;  we'll see how the details follow suit.

And cross fingers, for a change in winds on the employment front.  This is getting frustrating.  :-(

Interesting item? The RifleMann Sling.

Via Mas Ayoob, I now hear of the RifleMann Sling, which might prove to be interesting.

Via the Galco website, there are a few further pictures, but I'll have to hear and see more before truly concluding further.  Based just on the pictures, I wonder if it may be more a takeoff of the Safari Ching Sling, than on the original design by Eric Ching.  (Galco certainly seems to consider the Safari Ching Sling to be a full replacement for the original, which it is absolutely not*;  I will be a little bit naturally skeptical at Galco's marketing in this regard.)  And I can't tell whether the use on the shooting arm is anything more than just "hasty"-ing it around the outside, or not.  It seems that this might have some utility somewhere, but it's missing a huge part of the "gun mount" without any sort of support under the rifle, and it would be hard to imagine that the lockup is anywhere near as solid.

I'm willing to be convinced, but the standard is high.  Anyone else hear any scuttlebutt?



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* It's a simple matter of speed, and fidelity to the original idea.  One of the features of the original Ching Sling is that you can get into it--solid lockup--faster than you can acquire your supported position.  The Safari Ching Sling is a great idea when you're limited to two sling studs (I use mine whenever borrowing a rifle that doesn't have three studs), and certainly gives great lockup, but there is no way it can ever be as fast and forgiving as the original.  If you simply want a solid sling on a two-stud rifle, the Safari Ching is probably the best thing going.  But if you want the full, original idea--the ideal sling for solid lockup at maximum speed--you want the original.