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!

The unexpected hazards of an air rifle match.

Had a delightful afternoon providing a bit of assistance at a small 4-H air rifle match about 80 miles up the road.  It was held at a gun club that I may have to look into further, as they do have bona fide facilities to run rifles at a distance (meaning:  300m plus), which is oddly missing around here.  For this event, we were in a pistol bay, with a tow-strap-in-the-sand firing line and a rather clever clothesline-style target apparatus at the 10-meter line.  Add in an unusually sunny, brilliant day, and things were looking good.

A lot went wrong.

The poor fella running the match (who I know to be both perfectly competent and a genuinely nice guy) just couldn't catch a break.  One by one the rifles (Daisy Avanti 888 Medalists, powered by removable 2.5g CO2 cylinders), ran out of gas, and of course the refill tank was with someone else.  It got down to one working rifle, and thus one shooter working at a time, before the ability to recharge arrived--and even then it was not a slam-dunk.  "Recharged" cylinders...weren't.  Some didn't seat correctly.  A couple of new shooters repeatedly dipped muzzles into the (very fine) sand on the prone mats.  The same sand found its way into bolts, making it a challenge for some of the kids without well-developed hand strength.  Once new cylinders started making it properly seated into rifles, sights needed to be adjusted for the fresh fill of gas (normally this wouldn't be much a problem as the CO2 is largely self-regulating, but there is a difference between a cylinder at exhaustion and a completely-topped-off one).  And of course what to do with a shooter who was interrupted by a failing rifle in the middle of her string?  Some of the kids are good enough shots that it doesn't seem fair to handicap them with erratic equipment.

Oddly enough, I had recently been thinking about what I'd do myself, with what I've learned about airgunnery, if I were asked to build a "school set" of rifles to handle a wide variety of conditions.  The 888 Medalist certainly seems a nice rifle, but the dependency on specialized fill equipment seems to make this sort of problem inevitable at some point.  Personally, I find the 888's trigger spongy, the bolt a little awkward and stiff, and the loading tray a challenge for the tiny .177 pellets.  And I admit, I just do not care for target aperture sights--I can't stand not being able to see around what I'm shooting at--but this is probably just part of the game and not something I'd have much influence over.

What I'd do is go with the Benjamin Discovery, instead.  For about the same money as the 888, you get the "Disco" rifle and a hand pump to feed it!  I'd spend a little more, though, and find a simple receiver sight to replace the open rear that comes on the gun, and replace the fiber optic front with a plain square post.  With this slight upgrade, I think we have an outstanding training and match rifle which can be entirely self-supported.  The Disco is renowned for being durable, accurate, and easy to work with.  The fill pressure is much lower than most PCPs, and so almost anyone can operate the hand pump.  It can still be filled from a tank, of course, if need be, but I rather like the idea of having each shooter fill her own rifle prior to stepping up to the line--knowing exactly how much air is in the gun on account of having just put it there.

Especially with a ghost-ring aperture in the rear, the Disco is a much more suitable rifle to learn and train on, than a specialized 10m competition gun.  I think we do people a disservice to start them on a sight system so specialized that it deliberately obstructs everything around what you are supposed to shoot at (honestly, how can you even observe Rule 4 when all you can see is the bull?), and then wire it so specifically to that precise little bullseye that it's essentially useless for anything else.  Sure, maybe I'm a slave to practicality, but I also know that I am very little, if any, better with target sights than I am with general-purpose sights, and the latter is far superior to the former in every realm other than formal competition.

And besides, I remind myself, I am not looking at the 10m competition as the end point, but the starting one.  Once you can get shots in the bull at 10m, it is time to start a) going faster (acquiring position), b) going farther (effectiveness of position), or c) both.  This is what will develop you beyond basic mechanics, and which will set you up to appreciate the use of efficient sights, shooting slings, and good ergonomics, along with understanding why the technique is what it is.

Which then segues into the Scout-Rod* concept all over again.  See?  There's at least a convergent consistency to my geekery.  :-)


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* And the Scout-Rod, at least at this writing, is modeled on the Disco's refined descendant, the Marauder, which takes many of the Disco's nice features and adds to them (e.g., a bolt-action repeating mechanism, internal sound suppression).

Bummed for David.

I learned this morning, first from David himself on Facebook, and then again via...everyone else, that he has now had to follow through on his promise to leave the new Gottlieb-controlled JPFO, if it ever got to the point where he felt censored in writing content.

Gives me no joy to hear it, but it sounds like that's exactly what happened.  (Yes, I understand that the backbreaking straw was at KABA, not JPFO, but I cannot fault Codrea for recognizing the very clear writing on the wall.)

Well, there it is, then.  I can't say it's a surprise, but I suppose I did want to be proven at least a little wrong at least a little...or at least a little longer.  In the end, that didn't take long at all, and that just makes me bummed for David. 

I can say this:  Codrea has handled this whole unfortunate affair with a considerable amount of class, and has reaffirmed for me why he is one of the lasting giants of gun rights.  Long may he ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth.

I never knew him personally, but from what I understand, I do suspect Aaron would have backed him on this.

The Zelman Partisans

I caught first wind of it from Kent McManigal on Facebook, and the realization of what was going to be behind the link hit me even before the mouse pointer got there. 

I'll echo Kent's thought:  may it succeed wildly.

JPFO and the curse of the institution.

Today I learn from Claire that JPFO--or rather, the (and this is gonna sound hauntingly familiar) arbitrary control structure that pretends to represent JPFO members--suddenly seems hellbent on presenting itself for what seems like certain self-destruction in the form of a business takeover by Alan Gottlieb's Second Amendment Foundation. (For anyone happening across this who needs a primer on why that is a terrible, awful idea, read these items from Claire, who knows the history better than most.)

I must confess that I cannot personally confirm the veracity of most of the details I'm hearing, but I will say that I trust Claire, and David Codrea, and Mike Vanderboegh, in their judgment on this, and I would not be surprised to see El Neil pop back up over the whole matter, recovering-from-stroke or not.  From my own limited exposure to Gottlieb's recent shenanigans with the Manchin-Toomey(-Schumer) pre-emptive surrender, I certainly don't have a great deal of confidence either, that he is not in fact the cat in this observation from the late and much-missed Aaron Zelman:

“A housewife and a cat will both chase mice out of the kitchen. But the cat wants more mice to come back.”

Details sound bad.  Bad enough that it's tempting to wonder if there is not a hand of some Bloomberg-like creep in all of this.  I mean, jeez, where have we heard the "hurry,-we-gotta-do-this-now-before-the-little-people-find-out-about-it" line before?  Again, Claire has details if you need 'em.

My observations at this point are two:

1) This is another (and extremely ironic) example of the risk of vesting power in a centralized authority structure--in institutionalizing.  Claire notes that the board of directors is three people--meaning that any two can destroy the organization in an instant, and it's all "legal and proper".  And in this case (presuming that past history is the way to bet), moreso than in most takeover cases, it would really be tragic to lose the organization's identity, as it is unique.  The tragedy is amplified further by the specific who is "bidding" for the takeover:  the way I understand it, Zelman would never have had anything to do with Gottlieb, going back for some time.  The sense of betrayal among the JPFO rank and file must be seething, and once again, unless I'm getting some pretty bad information, it seems very likely that Gottlieb must have known of Zelman's opinion of him, and stipulating that, it does not exactly cast much positive light on Gottlieb's intentions here.

all of which brings up

2)  If the fix consummates the way it appears to be intended, and the result performs the way long-timers seem to believe it will, it will cost the perpetrators, whether they realize it or not.  It's one thing to take over an organization with no soul or passion, but another entirely to do the same to people who are devoted to speaking plainly and rejecting compromise.  Maybe SAF really does see JPFO as just another list of protection-racket customers, newly available for exploitation.  First of all, I'd say they're simply wrong.  Second, even if that's what they believe and they are right, there is this:  protection rackets can work famously, right up until the moment when they don't.  If it really is Gottlieb's business to perpetually stump for money while never intending to kill his cash cow, he presumably understands that his ruse depends on others not figuring out they're being taken.

He would do well to remember that having a name on a list doesn't constitute...ownership.