Firearm related Podcasts of note

With podcasts coming into their own I figured I would give you a few leads to firearm and related podcasts for you to check out. These are ones I have found by way of iTunes. There likely are a lot more and if you know of one leave a link to it in comments.

GunCast

Welcome to the GunCast! I'm the host, and my name is Kevan Thoman. I am an expert at nothing! This is a podcast and community dedicated to gun enthusiasts everywhere. Episodes feature listener mail, firearms-related news and reviews, and commentary from an expert at absolutely nothing, along with the occasional interview with people who actually do know something. Enjoy!

This is one that I have not had a lot of time to listen but I do like what I hear so far.

Firearms freedom Podcast.

A semi-monthly podcast, sponsored by Ohioans For Concealed Carry, dedicated to self-defense rights and freedoms.

Ohioans For Freedom has become a big player in Ohio gun rights and in the firearm rights field in general. They took the lead in the battle for concealed carry and trying to protect card holders from the newspapers. A good podcast in my personal view.

The X Ring

We'll talk about guns, competition (mostly high-power) shooting, reloading, and other shooting related activities.

A podcast that updates about once a month, and he is way behind this year. For awhile he was the only firearm related podcast I could find. I enjoyed hearing him yell the first time his brother shot their new Barrett.

These three are the non hunting podcasts that I feel you might want to check out.

Nice, but hold on people

Drudge has some quotes from Bush about the new media and it brings up a question. If instead of Dan Rather being torn anew one it was him would he be singing the praises? Not sure if this is opportunism on his part, true honesty, or just a well written bunch of lines he has been told to mindlessly say.

It's not revenge when the government does it....Right?

A Buffalo newspaper did a nice writeup about police NOT ticketing their own peoples vehicles during a ticket crackdown.

Buffalo police say they are enforcing a new "zero tolerance" policy on parking violations that has quadrupled the number of tickets normally issued.

But the police don't seem to be enforcing their new policy on cars right under their noses - around police headquarters in downtown Buffalo.

Every day, scores of vehicles park in the "No Standing" and "No Parking" zones in front and around the headquarters building - and don't get ticketed.

Just seven tickets have been issued on cars parked on Church Street so far this year.

A good detailed story that the newspaper followed up on to see if this problem still was occurring.

Monday, many cars were seen parked in "No Standing Any Time" zones on Church Street and Franklin but not nearly as many as usual.

Just one vehicle parked on Church at Franklin on the block next to Police Headquarters was observed Monday with an orange parking ticket on its windshield.

One fire hydrant was blocked on Church, but another was left unblocked. Those did not appear to have been ticketed.

In the meantime, Buffalo police cruisers were seen around The News building giving out parking tickets Sunday and Monday. Two vehicles on Scott Street were ticketed Sunday at about noon, and one truck making a delivery to The News on Monday was ticketed at about 11:15 a.m.

Officers have written four times as many tickets this year as they did in a similar period a year ago. Brown said he would hope the motivations are not malicious. He added that he didn't think media vehicles on official assignment to cover news events should be ticketed.

Four times the tickets. Now if there was four times the tickets being written in the few weeks before I would not read much into it. The problem is the paper would most likely have mentioned that.

Is it revenge when the police do it, or just following procedures?

here is another nice police scam article.

Shotgun item of interest.

For those shotgun lovers who need just one more item to seperate them from the rest of the shotgun owners out there.

Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people. — Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

Homeland defense - Protecting us from signs
insert ominous thunder

In the continuing war against damn near everything the homeland defense corp enforcement agency attack dogs department goes after signs.

Dwight Scarbrough's idea of political dissent is one that rubs some people the wrong way. He likes to blame his compulsion for peaceful troublemaking on his birthday: October 2, the same as Ghandi. However, a few of Scarbrough's techniques are all his own--especially when it comes to his truck.
For instance, when the Iraq War was looking imminent, not long after September 11, Dwight attached a garbage bag to the back of his truck bed. He splattered the bag and the truck with ketchup and added a sign reading, "This veteran knows that our children are worth more than a $6.95 body bag." When he drove down the freeway, the bag would inflate and appear occupied.
.........
Around 2:15 p.m., Scarbrough says, he answered his office phone and found himself talking to a man who identified himself as Officer R. of the Department of Homeland Security. (I'm withholding the officer's name; you know, what with Plamegate and all.) Scarbrough was told that he was in violation of the Code of Federal Regulations, the set of rules that govern all executive departments and agencies, and that he was in danger of being cited unless he came out to the parking lot or let the officer come up to his office. Scarbrough chose the first option, and took along a co-worker--also a veteran--and, being an experienced peace activist, a tape recorder. Downstairs, they found two armed officers with "Homeland Security" insignia patches on their shoulders, waiting for them in large white SUVs.

Well thank God that the homeland defense agency is there to protect us from sign and even pr0n.

You belong in Starship Troopers. Your idea of a

good time is bouncing across an alien

battlefield blasting the foes of humanity

into extinction.


Which Heinlein Book Should You Have Been A Character In?
brought to you by Quizilla

Papers please

Good read.

Growing up as a child in World War II, I saw countless movies in which a German soldier in uniform, or a Gestapo agent in plain clothes, would utter the spine-chilling words “Papiere, Bitte” (“Papers, Please"). What made those words spine chilling was the fact that whoever they were uttered to was in imminent danger of arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution. This was almost certain to be the fate of any hapless soul who was unfortunate enough not to have his “Papiere” or whose “Papiere” did not satisfy the German who examined them.

Now, over sixty years later, it appears that those dread words, “Papiere, Bitte,” will soon be spoken in English—“Papers, Please”— and with all kinds of British accents.

There's more.

Brass balls

The internet is full of people's views on a local TV stations investigation into something rather simple. The question was "how hard is it to get a police complaint form". The answer they received was less then admirable.

Most police officers are a credit to the badge, serving the community and the people who pay their salary, getting criminals off the street, making the community safer for everyone.

But on occasion, a police officer and a member of the public they serve don't see eye to eye, and the citizen feels a need to complain. In many departments around the country, the process starts out simply: a person just requests a complaint form.

Police departments around the country, like here in Tallahassee, give citizens police complaint forms all the time, no questions asked. But walk into a police station in South Florida, trying to find out how to file a complaint, and watch what happens.

After visiting a lot of police stations they returned and reported.

The I-Team conducted an extensive hidden camera test, carried out by a police abuse watchdog group called the Police Complaint Center. Remarkably, of 38 different police stations tested around South Florida, all but three had no police complaint forms.

Paperwork, for any government agency, is it's lifeblood. So the question of why they do not have it comes forth. With no paperwork it will be hard to prove you filed a complaint and get a problem solved.

The worst station in my view was Lauderhill P.D.. Here are a few sections from the transcript.

officer: No, you don't leave with forms. You tell me what happened, and then I help you from there. Do you have I-D on?
tester: Why?
officer: You know what? You need to leave.
tester: Why?
...............
officer: Where do you live? Where do you live? You have to tell me where you live, what your name is, or anything like that.
tester: For a complaint? I mean, like, if I have --
officer: Are you on medications?
tester: Why would you ask me something like that?
..............
officer: So leave now. Leave now. Leave now.
tester: I'm not doing anything wrong.
officer: Neither am I. It's a free country.
officer: I'm not in your face. I'm standing on the sidewalk. It's a free country. One more step forward, and you'll see what happens. Take one more step forward.)

At this point the officer unclipped his holster and gripped his gun for a moment. Damn those hidden cameras!

A followup with interviews of the police chiefs was good. The Miami police chief openly said that if a police chief does not have a complaint form system on hand they should be fired. One smarmy chief was not happy with that comment. His officer was one of the worst. VIDEO LINK

Now here comes the brass balls. The officer who threatened the investigator has gone to court to have the film of his illegal acts removed from the stations site. VIDEO LINK

I mean what is this world coming to. a nice cop cannot even threaten a person without getting in trouble. Such a harsh harsh world.

Build Grow it and they will come

With a need that needed a supply a enterprising Tennessean operation was set up. This, if anything will, shows you that there will ALWAYS be a supply no matter how illegal something is.

This is how they grow it in Tennessee . This grow was underneath a house in a cave. The entrance was through a secret hydraulic door in the garage that led to a concrete ramp that went about 50 yards into the ground. Inside the cave was living quarters and a secret escape hatch that led you through a tunnel that exited via another hydraulic door that opened up a rock on the outside. It was very elaborate. The set up allowed them to harvest every 60 days which resulted in multi-million dollar sales. One of the guys busted was living in a house on the water in FL and had a nice yacht.

The pictures are simply awe inspiring.

Theft of the day.

Seems someone really wanted to steal back what the government stole for your own good took for testing.

Whoever broke into a state probation and parole office left with items that can be key evidence - urine samples of those under court orders not to use alcohol or illegal drugs.

Agents who work out of the state Department of Corrections Probation and Parole office periodically require people under the court orders to submit the samples for testing.

Police Capt. Mike Babe said someone broke into the Waukesha office Monday night or early Tuesday and took all the urine samples that had been stored in the office.

what is the monetary value of urine for insurance purposes?

Supply and demand

If you outlaw an item an illegal supply for that item will be created. A basic truth that no government wants to admit. Australia has become an example of this.

Police have charged a 41-year-old man with firearms possession after he allegedly fired a homemade gun in a block of flats in South Yarra last night.
.........
Police spokesman Greg Jenkins said: "He apparently fired some shots into a laundry on the fifth floor.

Since multiple shots were fired I would say it is more then a zip gun in construction.

Why, oh why, do they delude themselve into thinking that outlawing guns will control them.

This website is a great example. Full of PDF files of firearms you can build at home. A basic workshop is all that's needed. Now whatever you do I ask that you not go there and download these files. No sir! That would be wrong. Do not burn them to a disc for safe storage. Do not share them.

White Rose

this is what happens when I write the wrong date down to do a post. I end up two days late.

February 22 1943 three young adults were executed by guillotine in Germany for the crime of free speech.

White Rose (German: die Weiße Rose) was a World War II resistance group in Germany that called for nonviolent resistance against the Nazi regime.

The White Rose consisted of five students, all in their early twenties, at Munich University. Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie led the rest of the group, including Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf. They were joined by a professor, Kurt Huber, who drafted the final two leaflets. All six members of this group were arrested, tried, convicted, and executed by beheading
............
At the end of July 1942, the male students in the group were deployed to the Eastern Front for military service in the between-terms academic break. In late fall the men returned and the White Rose resumed its resistance activities. In January 1943, using a hand-operated duplicating machine, the group is thought to have produced between 6000 and 9000 copies of their fifth leaflet, "Appeal to all Germans!", which was distributed via courier runs to many cities (where they were mailed). Copies appeared in Stuttgart, Cologne, Vienna, Freiburg, Chemnitz, Hamburg and Berlin. Composed by Hans Scholl with improvements by Huber, the leaflet warned that Hitler was leading Germany into the abyss; with the gathering might of the Allies, defeat was now certain. The reader was urged to "Support the resistance movement!" in the struggle for "Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, protection of the individual citizen from the arbitrary action of criminal dictator-states". These were the principles that would form "the foundations of the new Europe."
..........
The Scholls and Probst were the first to stand trial before the Volksgerichtshof — the so-called People's Court that tried political offenses against the Nazi German state — on February 22, 1943. They were found guilty of treason and Roland Freisler, head judge of the court, sentenced them to death. The three were executed by guillotine the same day. The other key members of the group were also beheaded later that summer. Friends and colleagues of the White Rose, who helped in the preparation and distribution of leaflets and in collecting money for the widow and young children of Probst, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to ten years.

A bunch of young kids who knew right from wrong. Their weapon was a hand-operated duplicating machine. We know from our own governments action that the free flow of information and thought is a threat to authoritarians everywhere.

Last words of Sophie Scholl: "…your heads will fall as well."

The march goes on

I posted in the past about METH-MART. Tennessee's attempt to create a database of meth dealers and users. I guess to make it easier to find a dealer when you're visiting from out of town. Nothing like feeling at home then knowing how far the nearest meth dealer is from you.

Well as the Tennessee's march against meth goes forward they now have taken a new step into a full service state.

A mass mailing intended to warn young people about the dangers of methamphetamine inadvertently included a hotline number that rings to a telephone sex line.

The mailing was part of a statewide anti-meth campaign sponsored by a prosecutors' group.
...........
We've distributed thousands of brochures to school children and adults throughout Coffee County," Lane said. "All that information is correct. It's just this one mailing."

Well I can understand why it happened. You figure meth is to harsh for kids at that age. Start them on phone sex. The people involved in this full service state knows their stuff.

Damn I love this state.....of incompetence.

Let them break the law in peace

That seems to be the message delivered by the Judge in this article brought to my attention by Nashville files.

A college student who honked his car horn when he saw police stop their patrol car, turn on blue flashers to go through a red light and then turn the flashers off got a ticket for violating the city noise ordinance.
.........
"The horn blowing is not the real problem here, it's that you were trying to correct the police and they didn't need correcting," Judge Russell Bean said.

I don't know if the cop was breaking the law or not. What I do know is his reaction when someone had the audacity to question his actions.

When Palmer honked his horn, the blue flashers came in his direction.

Palmer said officer Matthew Puglise forced him onto the hood of his car and issued him a ticket for honking the horn when there was no reason.

Never question THE MAN!

"Government cannot bestow rights and liberties to the people. It can only take them away." - Donald Tichenor

Quote and my view

In our inner cities, where firearms are outlawed, only outlaws are armed. When our "philosopher kings" sit back and do nothing, this is the tyranny and terror of "gun control." —CHARLTON HESTON

I don't live in the inner city, or even a large city. That fact aside I feel he leaves something off.

When guns are outlawed only outlaws and the law will be armed.

At that point I will be an outlaw.

The people get a win.

In Oregon the people, and their property come home carrying their Shields.

The Oregon Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Measure 37, clearing the way for Kenny and Marta Gee of rural Creswell and other Oregon landowners who chafed under government land use restrictions to move ahead with plans to develop their properties.

"It's wonderful," said Marta Gee, who along with her husband filed the first Measure 37 claim in Lane County. "It restores my faith in the Supreme Court, that they have finally upheld what the voters wanted."

The law, passed by state voters in 2004, requires governments to pay property owners if their land values have been reduced by zoning and other land use rules. Instead of paying, governments can waive the rules.

Best translated as "Pay up or get the hell out of our way"

This ruling from the state supreme court likely has become a primer for teaching the people about what the government feels towards you.

The public referendum is an example of true democracy the people creating a law through a vote of common citizens.

But when a law created by referendum restricts the power of the legislature to act, an Oregon trial court ruled, it puts an unconstitutional limit on the people's representatives.

(That Measure 37 violated the Oregon Constitution by, in effect, depriving the legislature of its regulatory power by forcing the state to pay for exercising it. )

It puts unconstitutional limits on the people's representatives. Now hold on to your hats people because I noticed something. They are the PEOPLE"S representatives..Therefore the people should tell them what they can, and cannot do. Otherwise they are rulers and need to be disposed of. hanging party forms to the left please.

Judge's should not get their law degree from crackerjack boxes. That's just my view.

The people won. Limiting the government is what a constitution is all about.

Unless you are this lawyer

"I will put a couple of enlightened attorneys up against a million Oregonians any day, since the masses do not make right in this Republic, no matter how many you stack up against the wall!!"

"MASSES!" That's you and me for all of us stupid folk. What's with the "stack against the wall" comment? Would love to meet this individual in a dark alley one night.

This is a lesson for everyone. Those representatives feel that a limit on their power is an attack. They will spend your tax money to fight you in the courts all the way to the supreme court.

Gun bloggers from over seas.

India is known for many things, but good gun blogging is not one of them..Until today. Abhijeet Singh has a good gun blog were he speaks on many issues, and here where he speaks rather poetically on firearms.

I love shooting for many reasons. In the first place, holding a gun means that I am not helpless in the face of aggression coming from another. I also love the very act of shooting, for one simple reason, it is the ultimate form of self-control. If I pull the trigger, and the bullet doesn't go where I wanted it to go, I, and I alone, am at fault. In other words, I have to practice self-control when I shoot, there is no point in losing my temper when I miss, no point in blaming the gun, bullet or sights. I simply have to take a deep breath, and try again. It is a constant process of self-improvement, and to achieve a goal of perfection, or even near-perfection, brings me immeasurable satisfaction.

At the end of every shooting session at the range, I come back at peace with myself and with the world. The noise of shooting, the power I've unleashed (and which I've had to control), the calmness which I've had to achieve, all combine to bring me into a state of Zen-like stillness. It's something everyone should experience. I've taken many people shooting with me, a lot who have never shot before. Without exception, they've all come away as fans of the sport, and wanted to do it again.

There's another thing that's not just personal; and it's a guy thing. Guns are almost perfect machines. When you take one apart, and see what I call its "simple complexity", you are in awe as to what happens - cams move, sears disengage, springs coil back, metal moves along metal, all within tolerances of thousandths of an inch, and all within a couple millionths of a second. Then you reload, and do it all over again. I have a pistol in my collection which was manufactured circa 1942, and it still works as advertised. Find me another machine that still works about as well as the day it was made sixty two years ago, has detonated and contained a mini-explosive device many thousands of times, lasted through who knows what weather, endured rough handling and neglect, and travelled through at least two continents (it was made in U.S.A, for the Army). Like I said, the love of so perfect a mechanism is a guy thing.

His blog, like many blogs, links to some good, and horrifying articles.

On the fringe of north India, five sweating men expertly scythe their way through a golden-green field of paddy. The air is thick with the whoosh of sharpened blades. Nearby, bullocks loll and veiled women walk carrying cowpats on their heads for use as fuel.

Beneath the rural idyll, however, lies a village in torment because of a radical new population control measure: guns for sterilisation.

Three months ago, officials in three districts of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest and most populous state, announced that to obtain a single-barrel shotgun, two people would need to be sterilised; for a revolver licence, the price would be five.

What happened to the quintet of farm workers perspiring in the fields around the village of Shashitanda appears to be the unhappy result of the radical policy. In late July, a rich farmer seeking a gun licence is said to have had all five forcibly sterilised at a nearby clinic.

Damn! Costing an arm and a leg I can understand. What sick government gives this as an option? Our ally.
[Oleg Volk's Journal]

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government. — George Washington

The weakening power of words

This is a "I remember when" post. Words have power but the abuse of words weaken that power, and even can change the meaning of words. I remember when I was younger the title "racist" was really bad. Something you did not want to be called in the finer circles. Now with the abuse of the word by national race pimps like Sharpton or Jackson the term "racist" has the effect of calling someone "poopy head". It simply just does not cut it today.

I normally try not to address the Muslim/Middle east situation because why involve myself in that whole clusterfuck?

Why now you ask? The main reason was the headline on one article that made me sadly shake my head.

Arab Americans see bigotry behind ports uproar

Oh my God! They used the "bigotry" word. We must be real bad.

BULL!

I like the traditional view of bigotry.
Bartleby Bigot

One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

I can live with that title proudly. Until the Arab American community does more then release small press releases that speak against evil and do something they can go take a flying leap. Until then your words are hollow.

Happy birthdays to me.

This last week there were two quiet celibrations. One was the two year mark for this blog. Started on Feb 11th 2004. The other date was my birthday, as my wife has noted on her blog. I was started about 9 months before Feb 18th. 1967.

ATF
A law unto themselves

A good question was asked at the ATF hearings

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) expressed curiosity that federal law enforcement officers would not know that the actions described by White and McComas violate federal statutes.

"Did anybody mention that it is a federal crime to deny women or minorities their civil rights?" Feeney asked. "Did anybody mention to the ATF that denying civil rights, including the right to bear arms, is a federal crime?"

Feeney suggested that, since ATF had refused to comply with the Freedom of Information Act requests from the gun show promoters, the subcommittee should request the information they were seeking. Coble noted that such a letter had already been sent.

This whole article mentioned and goes into more detail the ATF's bully tactics. Enough so that it has bothered me more then normal. I have a large dislike of the ATF and their actions here justify them nicely.

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? [...] The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!" —Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (Chapter 1 "Arrest")

"If you're not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"

The exact words that are required to make you my enemy have been spoken by the Police chief of Houston. He has what can best be described as a "damned bad idea" in my view.

Facing a shortage of police officers, Police Chief Harold Hurtt called Wednesday for a new type of patrol: surveillance cameras on downtown streets, apartment complexes and shopping malls - and in extreme situations, private homes.

"If you're not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Hurtt told reporters.
...........
And when asked whether the need for cameras extends to private homes, he said, "If they're putting a burden on the criminal justice system and cheating the other residents of Houston, yes."

Now maybe this idiot is using hyperbole to try to show how under funded and manned he is....in his opinion.

What is sad is that he likely feels this is a good way to fight crime. The modern generation of government clones seems to be more inclined to trample upon the protected rights we have in the cause of making us safe. Little do they know is that the Gazelle that is safest from the predator is in a cage at the zoo. Building electronic cages for us simply imprisons us, and makes us at risk from you, the government.

Another article has a slightly longer quote from him.

“I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?” Hurtt told reporters Wednesday, according to the AP story.

The wall.

A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms. — Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Framer (1788) at p. 169

Carnival of Cordite is up

Hosted this week at Revolutionary War Veterans Association Weblog it is full of gun goodness.

No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. — EDMUND A. OPITZ

Well I'm not surprised.

The news from Washington is that the whole NSA crime will not have an inquiry from congress.

Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel -- made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats -- was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

I do want to say this. Even if they did have one nothing would happen. Remember the great ones of the past. The Starr commission, the investigation over oil prices during the first gulf war, the investigation into anything. Name me more then one congressional that has done anything more then grab headlines for it's members.

Thus the headline should read "Congress has decided not to pleasure themselves for the cameras for some bizarre reason".

NEWS FLASH - The government lied

I am shocked! Not really because hell people. It's the government.

There are times when knowing your exact location is useful, of course. It would be handy for a phone to help you find a gas station in a pinch, or bleep when you're about to take the wrong highway exit.

But the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have seized on the ability to locate a cellular customer and are using it to track Americans' whereabouts surreptitiously--even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing.
.......
When lobbying for that law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh assured the U.S. Senate that location surveillance would never take place unless there was evidence of wrongdoing.

Bold type for effect

The problem is that the Justice Department's current official position--a flip-flop from its previous official position--says police should be able to secretly monitor your whereabouts as long as they claim that tracking could possibly be "relevant" to some investigation. Not only is that insufficiently privacy-protective, it doesn't track what the law actually says.

Now I am going to have to be sure my phones are GPS free, or is that going to become illegal soon?

This makes my day.

With all of the ignorant hate out there a good mocking is a delight to see.

A Danish paper publishes a cartoon that mocks Muslims.
An Iranian paper responds with a Holocaust cartoons contest -
-Now a group of Israelis announce their own anti-Semitic cartoons contest!

Out anti-semitic'ing Jew Haters. Gloriously funny.

Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, from Tel-Aviv, Israel, has followed the unfolding of the “Muhammad cartoon-gate” events in amazement, until finally he came up with the right answer to all this insanity - and so he announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest - this time drawn by Jews themselves!

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

I like this guy a lot.

The cost of regulations

Think starting a business is hard. Try purchasing one in Colorado. The regulatory issues are a sight to behold.

Of course it is all there to protect you who are to dumb to walk in a straight line.

Today the taxing power, rather than chattel slavery, is the instrument by which the parasitical element of the population subsists. And that element, which includes politicians, panics at the slightest reduction in the state's power to plunder. Once you start liberating taxpayers, even a little tiny bit, nobody knows where it may end. —Joseph Sobran

Call to Gun Bloggers

We are missing the boat on something rather important. Wiki.

Wikipedia is in the news lately as a user built online encyclopedia

Welcome to Wikipedia, the communal encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The content of Wikipedia is free, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit entries simply by clicking on the edit this page link. Begun in 2001, Wikipedia has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which has created an entire family of wiki projects. On Wikipedia, and its sister projects, you are welcome to be bold and edit articles yourself, contributing knowledge as you see fit in a collaborative way.

Gun bloggers for the most part like to know their guns well. Talking about the esoteric nature of old weapons is standard for Arrgghhh! as this post shows.

The problem is that so many people go to Wiki for information and I have found several gaping holes in their articles that gun bloggers should sally up to the bar and fix.

On the John Browning page the links to the Model 1886, 1892, 1894, 1895 and the Browning auto-5 all go to article not found pages

On the M1 garand page the M1E7, M1E8 and BM-59 models have nothing written on them.

On the bullet page the term Frangible has nothing on it. Better we help form this article then an anti write a nice "exploding bullet" article instead.

The Winchester page has bad links for Volcanic lever action rifle, Volcanic repeating arms company, and the new Haven Arms company.

On the Smith and Wesson page a third of the ammunition types introduced by them have no information on. A chance for a reloader to show their moxie.

And last but not least.

The M1911 page has nothing listed for the Colt model 1902, 1905 or the Marine Corps special operations Command-Detatchment One.

While articles on newer rifles like the AK47 and M16 have good links throughout, the older firearms have a lot of repairable holes in their history and technical information.

So for Gun bloggers who enjoy reading about the esoteric nature of firearms and their history I would recommend a sidetrip to WIKI to see if the information is correct, or even there.

I guess I keep good company

While I like to rant and bring forth issues of government idiocy I never knew I was in such company as this.

The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.

Activists and hackers!?! Great! Now I have to go out and buy a black hoodie, a balaclava and cases of Jolt cola.

Should we be impressed that they put us in the same category as hackers? In reality I always thought the government looked at us as loud drunkards. You know the type. The guy at the bar who proclaims "Well I know 'hick' what we ought to do to those damn (insert latest threat)" and then slugs down another brewsky. That assured viewpoint on a subject that only cheap beer or vodka gives you.

Instead it seems that our unregulated nature may be a threat to them. With the government's nature of destroying what it cannot control I see their looking at us as a threat not that surprising.

BATFE in hot water...or so they say

The BATFE is going to be in the hot seat in Washington.

In August of 2005, participants at gun shows in Virginia were shocked to discover that while they were purchasing perfectly legal firearms, BATFE agents visited their homes and their neighbors' homes (1), asking questions like, "Do you know your spouse/neighbor is buying a gun? How do you feel about that?" Agents obtained the residence information from purchase forms that buyers are required to fill out ... a clear violation of federal law.

Now, seven months later, the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security will hold an oversight hearing to investigate apparent wrongdoing by BATFE. The hearings will be held on February 15, at 4:00 p.m. While we applaud the fact that _someone_ is looking into the issue, we remain skeptical as to the outcome.

Skeptical! I think the worst that will come is new rules to follow the old rules and law and maybe, just maybe, severe letters of reprimand.

What a city
What an election

This story should be an example of what happens when one group controls all political power

In most cities, elections happen at least every four years. In Vernon, officeholders haven't faced opposition in a generation.

Twenty-five years after its elected officials last had a contested ballot, eight strangers took up residence in the tiny city four miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Last month, after just a few days in town, three of the newcomers filed petitions to run for City Council in the April 11 election.

Within days, city utility trucks had turned off their power. The building they shared was slapped with red tags by inspectors who said the property was "unsafe and dangerous" as a residence. Strobe lights flashed through their windows. They and some of their relatives were placed under surveillance. Shortly, city police and other officials drilled holes in the locks and evicted the would-be office-seekers.

Next time you wonder why third party candidates have so much trouble just think of this small example of what true power politics is about.

Freecycle

Just a small break from the normal "politicians and authority figures are scum" variety of posts. I thought I would do a small public service announcement.

Everyone has crud that builds up in their life. Stuff to good to throw away, but you have NO use for anymore. You might want to look into freecycling it

Welcome!
The Freecycle Network is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It's a grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is run by a local volunteer moderator (them's good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your community by clicking on the region on the left. You may then go directly to your local group by clicking on "Go To" or you may immediately join by clicking on "Join." It will generate an automatic e-mail which, when sent, will sign you up for your local group and send you a response with instructions on how it works. Can't find a group near you? You might want to consider starting one (click on "Start a Group" for instructions). Have fun!
.....

How does it work?
When you want to find a new home for something -- whether it's a chair, a fax machine, piano, or an old door -- you simply send an e-mail offering it to members of your Freecycle group.

Or, maybe you're looking to acquire something yourself. Simply respond to a member's offer, and you just might get it. After that, it's up to the giver to decide who receives the gift and to set up a pickup time for passing on the treasure.

Our main rule: Everything posted must be free, legal, and appropriate for all ages.
......

Who can use The Freecycle Network?
Think globally, recycle locally. The Freecycle Network is open to all communities and to all individuals who want to participate. Freecycle groups are run by local volunteer moderators from across the globe who facilitate each local group - grassroots at its best!

I have been a member for about half a year. In that time I have given away an extra recliner, and a wooden cabinet that someone now uses in their refurbished garage. In the same time I have gotten about 150$ worth of clothes for my wife, a pressure canner, and a computer printer.

An example of what is being given away at the Smyrna Tennessee freecycle group is the following.

Sectional sofa
Women's clothing(LOTS) size 6-12
3 ladies sweaters small
scotch guard, woolite, citronella oil, planters, washing bag
bathroom accessories
3 non working power wheels
infant/toddler girls shoes

Your clutter could be someone's treasure

Reverse Mohawk

My Norelco clippers finally died, at the worst possible moment. I keep my hair short and when I think it needs to be combed I buzz it back to stubble. Today was going to be one of those days.

I pulled my aging, but still working Norelco out and started to buzz. I started at the peak of my head and buzzed a bald strip to my forehead. A reverse Mohawk.

THEN IT DIED!

As I write this my dear wife is sprinting to WalMart, after a good laugh at my expense, to purchase me a new set of clippers.

Pictures will not be included!

I love freedom

I have the death cough and I was trying to find the nyquil package in my nightstand. I started to laugh when I realized I had to move two handguns and a box of ammo to get to the medicine.

Dear Brady. Go cough!

Brady's comments on Cheney shooting incident.

Short press release.

Now I understand why Dick Cheney keeps asking me to go hunting with him," said Jim Brady.

Did he just imply that Cheney wanted to take him out to kill him? Now who is paranoid Jim old boy?

"I've thought Cheney was scary for a long time," Sarah Brady said. "Now I know I was right to be nervous."

Did he also invite you hunting? No. You know why? You never take a harpy hunting as it scares away the game.

A random thought

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. — Edmund Burke (1784).

Would this war on Terror, drugs and everything else be called a delusion?

Political dumb moments.

A politician is either showing the world she is two faced, or oblivious to her own actions, or both.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., said Friday she believes she did not sign forms to co-sponsor legislation she in fact opposes that would sell off lands in the West, saying she was listed as a co-sponsor through a clerical error.

"I sincerely believe I did not put pen to paper to sponsor that legislation," she wrote in an opinion piece submitted to the Casper Star-Tribune. "I believe the error that occurred was clerical in nature, but how do I prove a negative? How do I prove I did not sign?"

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., introduced the bill Sept. 21 with a dozen original co-sponsors listed, including Cubin.

Now maybe, just maybe, it was an honest mistake. The thing that got me was this.

"If (her signature is there) we can only surmise that what happened is the wrong piece of paper got signed at a weekly members' lunch meeting when a number of bills and letters get passed around to sign while speakers are giving their presentations," Cubin spokesman Joe Milczewski said in early January.

So is it me, or did her spokeman admit that his boss signs bills without knowing what she really is signing. I guess you have to be dumb, or a politician, to sign things without reading them.

I'm not surprised. I have spoken in the past about politicians voting on major bills that they did not have enough time to read, or likely really care.

A funny footnote to the whole fiasco is this.

Tancredo spokesman Will Adams told the Star-Tribune in early January that his office had Cubin's signature on the paperwork to list her as a co-sponsor of the bill.

On Friday, Adams said his office had searched for the document but had either lost or disposed of it. "We went through our pile and tried to find it and we couldn't find it," Adams said.

Wow! what are the odds the incriminating document would vanish into thin air?

LMAO!!

I could have titled this post "paybacks a bitch" or something that involves karmic justice, but I will decline to. I simply feel that LMAO works best.

The police in New York are being sued for heavy handed practices.

The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.

Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984."

"That's Big Brother watching you," the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.

Now this is not a delayed lawsuit from the Republican convention, where tactics like this were used daily, and even worse.

No. This is a lawsuit by poor poor cops who feel their rights were trampled on.(insert hysterical laughter)

Mr. Liddy's complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.

Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.

This can best be translated as

"We can do it to you, but it's wrong to do it to us because we serve the system and have special rights."

I pause and shed a tear at their suffering

From the bottom of the Keep and Bear Arms news page

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.— Benjamin Franklin Historical Review of Pennsylvania. [Note: This sentence was often quoted in the Revolutionary period. It occurs even so early as November, 1755, in an answer by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to the Governor, and forms the motto of Franklin's "Historical Review," 1759, appearing also in the body of the work. — Frothingham: Rise of the Republic of the United States, p. 413. ]

Grumble

Yesterday at Walmart I remembered one of the many reasons I love my wife. she likes guns also. Now not as much as me mind you, but a goodly ammount.

We were at the firearms stand and I was looking at the prices of Winchester white box ammo. They had a nice 100 round box of 38 special 130 gr. FMJ that was only a bit more then what I could get at the range in the next town. Counting in the cost of the trip I figured it was worth the price to get it here. My wife and I were planning on going to the range today.

She spoke up from behind me and said that since she was going to be bringing one of her rifles to pick up a brick of .22LR. "I do go through a lot". So I picked up a brick of federal 36 grain copper plated hollowpoints for her. I feel sorry for guys who have wives who are not into shooting with them.

When we got home I was examaning the boxes and noticed a stamp on the side. A small green stamp marked "State of Tennessee" and "10 c"(not sure how to make a cent symbol on the computer). What the heck was that!

I went to the state of Tennessee codes site and found it pretty fast.

70-3-101. Tax on shotgun shells and metallic cartridges.
(a) All persons, firms and corporations engaged in the business of buying, selling, distributing, storing, receiving, having in possession or using shotgun shells or metallic cartridges, shall pay a special privilege tax in addition to all other taxes in an amount equal to ten cents (10›) per individual container upon all center-fire ammunition, and ten cents (10›) per individual container on all shotgun shells. A similar tax in the amount of ten cents (10›) per individual container shall be paid on all rim-fire ammunition.
(b) All taxes collected under this chapter shall be applied to the wildlife resources fund.

Not horrible mostly. A good cause. Wished they had asked. Not likely it was voted on by the people.

Sadly today when I woke up my wife, who has had the death cold for three days is still coughing, my throat is now starting to get sore, and there is snow on the ground. Thus it looks like the trip to the range may be off for today unless we start feeling better.

State controlled marriages

How did if feel to ask the state permission to get married? Now most people would automatically say they did not have to ask for permission, but hear me out.

The simple truth is this. Without that marriage license you are only playing house. Outside of a rare few states the only way to way to get married is to ask permission. Some states have common law marriages, but they are getting fewer as time passes. After all, the state must control everything.

Now back to asking permission. Asking for it requires a lot of hoops to be jumped through.

ID Requirement: Valid driver's license or certified birth certificate or valid passport. You must also provide your Social Security number. It is a non-negotiable requirement. You must have proof of Social Security. Passports from those who are not US citizens are acceptable.

I need to know how to drive a car to get married, or know how to travel out of the country to get married. Damn that's strange.

Also note the "non-negotiable requirement" fact that you need to have a state ID number to get married. Now before you ask why I call it a state ID number and not a social security number think of what you use it for. You need it to damn near do anything today, and almost none of it involves your social security benefits. It is a state ID number no matter what they call it.

I guess what I am saying is that what the state can control, the state can withhold.

Ask Mara Antonia Calvo

A woman was yesterday celebrating the end of a seven-year battle to be removed from Spain's register of deaths after officials insisted she died in 1992.

Mara Antonia Calvo, 43, from Malaga, had a double reason to celebrate as a court's decision to declare her alive now paves the way for her to marry her fiance, Antonio Guzmn.

Previously, bureaucrats had refused to allow the wedding to go ahead as her entry in the Civil Register clearly showed that she had been dead for 14 years.

All it took was one error in one databank for he to be declared a non=person.

Everyday here in the US you read of new plans to build super inter-connected databanks to do things more efficiently. What would happen if just one strike of a computer key in error declared you dead, or worse an enemy of the state. The news is full of people with children declared terrorists and even Senators declared threats(alright. The Senators may be a good catch for the TSA but they still made it to Washington to do their damage). One thing they hold in common was the inability to get it fixed.

The state should deregulate almost totally the marriage system of this country. The most complex part of the marriage should end up being you and your other finding a notary public to stamp your own drawn up marriage document. 5 dollars and you're married. Past that the ceremony is up to you.

Get the state out of our marriages, and out of our personal affairs.

...to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. — George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380.

Alternative fluids

Armalite released their finding in a search for alternative fluids for upkeep and maintenance of your firearms. While this may be old news for some I find it rather interesting.

Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) as a cleaner and light lubricant. ATF performs admirably as a carbon remover, and protects steel surfaces excellently (ÂHave you ever seen a transmission that's rusty inside?).

Twenty weight engine oil serves in an environment that is far more strenuous than normally found in small arms so is normally quite successful. The Army authorities recommend synthetic oils such as Mobil 1. (In fact, one noted authority has used Mobil 1 as his personal firearm lubricant for over two decades.

I will admit something here openly here. When I clean my firearm I normally stick to the basic Hoppe's powder solvent, copper solvent, and a small wipe down with Breakfree CLP. When I am done there is nothing sweeter then the smell of the cleaning fluids on the rags and small pieces of cloth I cleaned the weapon with. I guess I'm just an old romantic.

Laws for me but not for them?

A whole bunch of state troopers have been arrested for messing around with fully automatic weapons. Now I'm all for everyone having them freely without paperwork. The issue of today is a letter sent to the state from what a call a group of idiots. What gall that they think they should not be criminally punished.

Nine chiefs of police have endorsed a letter written by Belleville Police Chief Dave Ruebhausen urging that three Illinois state troopers charged with weapons violations not to be prosecuted.

If they are guilty, they should be punished administratively, according to Ruebhausen's letter given Tuesday to the News-Democrat.

The letter also was endorsed by two state senators, two sheriffs and retired Belleville Police Chief Terry Delaney, a former U.S. marshal.
..........
The troopers -- Greg Mugge of Jerseyville, John Yard of Collinsville and James Vest of O'Fallon -- are charged in federal court in East St. Louis with illegal possession of automatic weapons. They face a maximum of 10 years behind bars and a $250,000 fine.

Now why do these fuck'tards feel they should not be sent to prison like the rest of us proles?

Ruebhausen urged that the troopers, who are said to have unblemished records, be disciplined internally.

His letter stated, "We do not see how the citizens are made safer by placing these troopers in jail."

In an interview, Ruebhausen said, "You're not supposed to own (illegal) weapons... But the bottom line is that

So if I never have a record and I'm caught with a "machine gun" I should get a letter of reprimand in my file?

The one item in this whole thing that bothers me the most was this line.

The statement added, "Many would say that at the charging level, they (troopers) should be treated the same as any other citizen."

He talks from the viewpoint that they should be treated differently. I agree. The punishment should be HARSHER.

Well I'm now in a pissed off mood for the day.
[gun law news]

No duty to retreat and what seems an unusual Tennessee law.

I was reading this article with a damn fine quote.

The law says you must act like a coward. In your own home. Even when your life is threatened.
Many states have criminal-friendly "duty to retreat" laws. A victim in his house is mandated to retreat from an attacker until he is cornered. Only then is the prey allowed to use lethal force on the predator. Prosecutors in those states have been known to victimize the victim (such as charging him with manslaughter) who prefers to fire back rather than to back off.

I agree. To say that you must role over and beg not to be hurt is so distasteful that I see red.

Now that brought to my mind a question. What does my home state of Tennessee say about protecting yourself.

39-11-611. Self-defense.

(a) A person is justified in threatening or using force against another person when and to the degree the person reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force. The person must have a reasonable belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury. The danger creating the belief of imminent death or serious bodily injury must be real, or honestly believed to be real at the time, and must be founded upon reasonable grounds. There is no duty to retreat before a person threatens or uses force.
(b) Any person using force intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily injury within the person's own residence is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or serious bodily injury to self, family or a member of the household when that force is used against another person, not a member of the family or household, who unlawfully and forcibly enters or has unlawfully and forcibly entered the residence, and the person using the force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred.

I like it. It protects us and does not even mention things like "your dwelling" and such.

Then I read this. How the hell it got included with the union power of the Fraternal order of Police I will never know.

(e) The threat or use of force against another is not justified to resist a halt at a roadblock, arrest, search, or stop and frisk that the person knows is being made by a law enforcement officer, unless:

(1) The law enforcement officer uses or attempts to use greater force than necessary to make the arrest, search, stop and frisk, or halt; and

(2) The person reasonably believes that the force is immediately necessary to protect against the law enforcement officer's use or attempted use of greater force than necessary.

A legal right to protect yourself from cops who abuse their powers and threaten you needlessly.

Interesting is an understatement. More perplexed. I would like to go and find out who the writer and sponsor of this bill was to talk to them about it. Sadly the Tenn system does not include such information. Would love to pick his brain on the subject of defense against state abuse.

I am a bit confused. The Brady group contends that if laws like this are passed the streets will flow red with the blood of innocent children, mothers, and handicapped veterans. I have lived in this quite suburban neighborhood for over two years and have only heard shots fired in anger once, and that was about 5 blocks over.

Where is the flowing blood Brady?

The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them. — Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. — William Pitt

Why am I not surprised?

The news is all over the net so a full rehash of it is repetitive and unnecessary.

KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said. KBR, which announced the contract last month, had a similar contract with immigration agencies from 2000 to last year. [link]

New programs? I guess that translates to new things being made illegal and the sudden need to "hold" a large amount of protestors. I hope people will get off their ass and doing something before it is to late.

People. They are planning on building camps. Maybe just to see if we all go "Baaaa!" like good sheep.

You must understand, therefore, that there are two ways of fighting: by law or by force. The first way is natural to men, and the second to beasts. But as the first way often proves inadequate one must have recourse to the second. — Niccolo Machiavelli in "The Prince."

Hoops and more hoops

You jump through the states hoops to get your permit to carry. You take the tests, you get the forms filled out, and you even get the permit from the state. You then find out one day you are a felon and your life just got flushed.

That is what is happening to a lot of people in Ohio.

Ohioans For Concealed Carry first heard of this news when numerous people saw a story on Channel 19 news indicating an instructor was using spring loaded guns other than firearms to provide training.

The following is an OFCC Exclusive update on this unfortunate course of events. Some sixty-five people in Northeast Ohio are potentially carrying firearms on licenses that have been revoked -- and they may not even know it.

Ohioans For Concealed Carry has learned that more than 106 individuals attempted to obtain a Concealed Handgun License from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office with a certificate that the Sheriff's Office has declared unacceptable proof of training. Licenses have been issued to the majority of those applicants.

Decriminalize concealed carry and the problem goes away. They did it in Alaska and Vermont and the streets are not flowing with blood there.

This is one of many reasons I am against carry permits of any kind.

Guess who the state is blaming for this problem.

Go ahead. Guess!

The people

Lt. Eakins stressed that concealed handgun license applicants are solely responsible for determining that their instructor is both qualified to provide the training, and providing a legitimate class.

Now from the Ross County Ohio Sheriffs website this should be noted

Citizens may contact their local firing range, if one is available, or the National Rifle Association at http://www.nra.org for a licensed instructor.

Who licensed the instructor? The state. The problem is if the state licensed a fool then it is not their fault, it is yours.

Jump through all of their hoops and it is your fault if the system breaks down with STATE certified instructors.

I could not agree more to this statement.

When you disarm your subjects, you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

Range report

Last Friday me and the misses went to the range in Murfreesboro Tennessee during a heavy rain storm. For the last year plus I have been commenting that I need to go and check out the On Target Inc firing range.

On Target Inc
915 North Thompson Lane, Murfreesboro, TN 37129

Thus last week my wife and I went and did the preliminary paperwork that is the standard norm for legal protection now adays at a lot of ranges.

This is the cleanest and nicest setup I have been in. Now I will admit my formal knowledge of indoor ranges are sparse, as I normally just go and shot outside. The On Target range has a supply of handguns for you to rent, and even an AR(colt) to rent if your heart is for an EBR to fire. They stock a good broad supply of target ammo also.

The last range my wife and I were a member of was in Kansas and they left a lot to be desired. While the Kansas range was a plywood home construction the On Target range was a modular construction that very user friendly.

My wife even commented on the high level of sound proofing that they had here.

With us we took two handguns for the outings.

A model 65 Smith and Wesson in .357 Mag. Purchased over a decade ago from a friend at work. This is my first full size revolver. I keep it in a Uncle Mike's sidekick holster that I would recommend in a heartbeat.

While I like my revolver for a lot of things there is one item that ruins it for me. A combination of bad eyes on my part and non glare metal sights on the top. The metal texture simply made it look gray to me. Thus a gray front sight and a gray rear sight on a sandy paper target made my shooting less then admirable.

I purchased a hundred rounds of 38 special for the evening. The Atlanta Arms & Ammo in 38 Special were labeled at 148 gr. TCJ. I noticed that there were a rather wide sampling of brands in it, brass wise.

Winchester
Federal
R . P
R - P
P M C
G.F.L
W C C 7 4 (??)(hard to read this singular example)

The multitude of brands implies to me these might be reloads from AAA. There website, checked after I got home, says they sell remanufactured ammo.

Now up until this moment I have only ever fired the semi-wadcutters as target rounds. These were full wadcutters so the end of the round was almost flush with the end of the brass. Rather interesting to look at. My dad used to bring home lead ingots from his work as a welder and have a friend swag(?) and lube them into semi-wadcutters for him to reload.

The other handgun I brought was a Hungarian PA63 chambered in 9x18 (aka 9mm Makarov). A K.B.I. import I purchased almost 8 years ago. It has at best basic black sights. The black did stand out better against the target, but even that could not help my eyes that much.

A week earlier I had On Target order me 200 rounds of Wolf. 100 gr. Copper FMJ. I have read that 100 grain is the recommended number for this handgun.

The revolver was a joy to fire. The lighter 38 special rounds and the fuller frame made this the one my wife enjoyed the most. She ended up using most of the 38 ammo.

The PA63 was a bit of a disappointment. My wife's first round showed her painfully how NOT to hold it two handed. The slide came back and left a small bloody gouge into her left thumb. A small shift of her hand fixed that problem.

The other problem may be a maintenance issue. When she placed a new magazine into it and with a small tug on the slide let it go forward and chamber the first round it happened. Nothing. It refused to fire. A quick flip of the safety to on and back off seemed to fix it for her. That action might have been enough to "shift" the slide to where it wanted to go. What I plan on doing is getting the needed information to disassemble it and give it a hard going over. Build up on the slide may be the culprit in this issue.

While looking up some information on the PA63 this last Saturday I came across this

NEW! PA-63 Wolff Recoil Spring - If you've spent some time on the range, you may notice that your pistol is throwing spent cases further and further. Also, it seems easier to pull the side back. After 3000-5000 rounds (according to Wolff Precision Gunsprings), you've simply beaten your original recoil spring to wax-like consistency and are now beginning to damage your frame. Since the PA-63 has a simple blowback mechanism, rather than a locking mechanism (like many 9mm Parabellum pistols), the recoil spring's tension is the only thing protecting your pistol's frame from the slide smacking into it.
If you shoot hot loads, you'll probably want to go with a stiffer (e.g. 13#) spring. The frame you save may be your own. The original spring is rated for 11#. Also available are 13# & 17# springs.

In general, you want to use the heaviest spring that will still give consistently reliable ejection. This, of course, depends on the type of ammo you shoot and your individual pistol.

I wonder if the spring in this surplus handgun is getting rather old and needs changing.

I was very surprised at the amount of recoil the PA63 had. Heavier then the Smith and Wesson even. I was hoping this might be my wife's concealed carry, but with the heavy recoil she is shying away from it a bit.

I was a bit disappointed in the cost of the range. While it has been a while since I have been to one, it did seem a bit "steep". A nice clean place but not sure the cost is worth the coke machine and cushioned seating.

A friend at church recommended STONES RIVER HUNTER EDUCATION CENTER. About the same driving distance as On Target it costs only $5.50 each (two hours) verses the On Target $15($7.50 for next person to share a lane. Limit two per lane). The Stones River range does have limited hours and that is a negative.

My wife and I found our laughable shooting skills are sorely in need of practice. Unless things get strange in our life we will be checking out the other range next weekend.

I will remember to bring a few targets home to show you the sadnes of my shooting.

Who gets arrested first?
Shooters or leakers?
PART TWO

I asked a question in September with this information provided.

In London police went and executed a young man on his way to work. They held him down and fired up to 8 rounds into his head.

Then the gun happy police found they killed in cold blood an innocent man. That's the point that they kicked into bureaucracy overdrive. In this overdrive they tried to lay ALL of the blame of the death on the victim. Lies upon lies were released as truth and the press ate it up. After all the state would not lie, would they?

One small problem arose for them. The truth.

Someone who thought maybe the truth was worth knowing started to release information to the press of what really happened. To say the police and British government were not happy would be an understatement. Day after day their lies were exposed and splashed on the front pages across the world.

Now we come to the main issue here. You have a group of police who executed a man and names ARE KNOWN to their superiors, and in the other corner an UNKNOWN person letting the truth out.

Being the state, and the state is always right, the Whistleblower was arrested.

Later, in a story I missed, a reporter who received the "leaks" was also arrested.

A British journalist was reported Wednesday to have been arrested over the leaking of controversial details of the mistaken police killing of a Brazilian national at Stockwell underground station in south London last July.

The reporter, who works for Independent Television News (ITN), was said to have been arrested last October on suspicion of theft by detectives investigating the leaking of statements from the official inquiry into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the unnamed journalist is a news producer who is believed to have obtained copies of document passed to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation.

The story about the state sanctioned killers still walking free has gotten more interesting.

Undercover London police officers faked vital evidence to cover up their fatal role in the shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, mistaken for a suicide bomber, a newspaper has alleged.

Special Branch officers from London's Metropolitan Police tried to change a surveillance log detailing the electrician's movements to hide the fact that they had wrongly identified him, the News of the World weekly claimed
.............
A Special Branch officer mistakenly reported that De Menezes was Hussein Osman, 27, who is facing charges of conspiracy to murder in connection with the July 21 incident.

However, once they realised their fatal error, the log was altered to read that no positive identification had been made.

A government department source told the tabloid: "It says the log was actually tampered with in a major way.

"In particular the words AND and NOT were inserted about the Osman ID, so it read 'and it was not Osman' rather than 'it was Osman'

Now with this "Major" investigation and arrests you have to ask the BIG question. Have any government killers or their commanders been arrested?

No. They are walking free at the present time.

If the War on Terror means that we can be executed on the streets with no punishment to the state killers then we need a war on our own government.

Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them. — WALTER MONDALE

There are other things so clearly out of the power of Congress, that the bare recital of them is sufficient, I mean the "...rights of bearing arms for defence, or for killing game..." These things seem to have been inserted among their objections, merely to induce the ignorant to believe that Congress would have a power over such objects and to infer from their being refused a place in the Constitution, their intention to exercise that power to the oppression of the people. —ALEXANDER WHITE (1787)

Attempted murder?

When a cop gives you one of those lawful orders you have to obey like a good little soldier. Then get shot for obeying. A lose-lose situation when the law has all of the power.

Fun

Have FUN, but do not have "unknown FUN".

A Valley man who legally changed his name to a single word - "FUN" - ran into a bureaucratic buzz saw last week when he discovered that his driver's license had been revoked, ostensibly in the interest of homeland security.

Homeland Security hates FUN.

Free speech felons

Interesting little article today

WASHINGTON A new provision tucked into the Patriot Act bill now before Congress would allow authorities to haul demonstrators at any "special event of national significance" away to jail on felony charges if they are caught breaching a security perimeter.

Sen. Arlen Specter , R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sponsored the measure, which would extend the authority of the Secret Service to allow agents to arrest people who willingly or knowingly enter a restricted area at an event, even if the president or other official normally protected by the Secret Service isn't in attendance at the time

Now remember those "free speech zones" that Bush has used so well to keep protestors blocks and even miles away from cameras and him. If you walk out of that zone you are a felon. I would like to say accused felon, but in todays climate due process aint.

“disrespect for belief”

The UN, in it's desire to be the big daddy government for all others, has stepped in to a free speech issue according to this report. While this news is older(month or so) I find it telling what the UN really desires . A newspaper in Denmark published some cartoons of Mohammed's face and image. This pissed off and caused threats from that peaceful group.

Never fear.. The UN is here.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour responded to the complaint of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), and expressed her feelings of grief at the publication of images, assigning two experts to investigate the incident that Arbour describes as a “disrespect for belief”.
...........
“I understand your attitude to the images that appeared in the newspaper. I find alarming any behaviors that disregard the beliefs of others. This kind of thing is unacceptable,” Arbour wrote in her letter. The OIC worded its letter to request the UN to contact the Danish administration about the images, and take action before the situation gets out of hand.

Disrespect!

Disrespect this

This is one of the bad images that upset so many

I'm mainly iritated over one thing the UN individual said in her letter.

Arbour said in her letter that the two officials she assigned, experts on the freedoms of religion, faith, as well as on racism and discrimination, have already undertaken their tasks: “These experts whom I heartily trust will return with significant recommendations as to what strategy should ultimately be followed.”

The Un should make a simply recommendation to the newspaper using a quote from Voltaire.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

Somehow I do not think they will though.