posted by Caleb on Mar 30
The first match of the ‘07 E-Postal Match season is up at Mr. Completely’s place.
It’s pretty straightforward and looks pretty fun - I’ll definitely be in for it.
Archive for March, 2007
posted by Caleb on Mar 30
And go to jail. The landowner in the article is tired of his property being trespassed on, which is relatively reasonable. He approaches three fellows in a vehicle and asks them to stop, their reply is “Go back inside, old man”.
Unfortunately, before he approached the young men in the vehicle, Walter McPherson had drawn his concealed handgun, which according to the landowner he kept down by his side, however the chaps in the vehicle claim he was waving and pointing it at them.
Of course, Mr. McPherson, who will be 71 years old soon, was arrested.
While I disagree with the way he handled himself (should have kept that weapon holstered), I feel as though he was within in rights to act that way. It’s his property, and if he wants to walk around with a gun in his hand you shouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Additionally, I can’t fault him for being concerned about his safety when confronting a car full of belligerent young men.
While John Wayne would have simply kicked the hell out of the trespassers in question and been done with it, I think the best course of action would have been to leave your weapon in the holster, tell the trespasser to kindly “get the fuck off my property” and then call the cops yourself.
Or, you know, you could just watch the rights of property owners circle the drain.
Edit: I’ve written an email to Hamilton County Sheriff’s office to express my concern over their arrest in this situation, their website is here. If you do choose to write them, please I implore you to be courteous, polite and dignified.
I’ve directed a snail mail message to the Prosecutor’s Office as well on behalf of the defendant. Again, if you choose to write, courtesy and logic. Hamilton County Prosecutor’s web page.
posted by Caleb on Mar 30
Today’s Wisdom of the Duke might not contain any actual quotes from John Wayne; however I feel that the message contained within lines up precisely with the message that I try to communicate with this blog.
Today’s Wisdom of the Duke should probably be titled “Things I learned from my dad”; and as my father introduced me to John Wayne movies, it’s only fitting that this entry be placed under a Wisdom of the Duke. My father was easily my greatest role model when I was growing up, his influence on my life cannot be understated. After he met my then fiance, his words when I asked him about the future Mrs. Ahab were simply “you did well”. That was enough.
Things I learned from my dad
- It’s okay to be scared. There’s nothing inherently wrong with fear, I was scared when I left for the Academy, I was scared when I was getting married, I’ve been scared a lot in my life. It’s what you do with that fear that defines you - if you allow your fear to dominate you and keep you from reaching for things that you want, that’s when you have really lost.
- If you fail, don’t fail to learn. I discovered that sometimes despite my best efforts, I would not succeed at something. In those situations, failing to learn from your lack of success only compounds your failure. Not only did you not accomplish your goal, but you didn’t end up any smarter.
- Your word is all you have. A lot of things can be taken from you; but your ability to inspire trust in others, to literally have your word be your bond is something that no one can take from you. However, it is very easy for you take that from yourself. Even in the worst of situations, your word, your integrity can not be taken from you by force.
- Character is what you do when no one is looking. It doesn’t matter if you do the right thing when everyone is watching, what matters is when you do the right thing and you know that no one will ever see you.
- Certain things are worth fighting and dying for. It’s up to you as an individual to decide what they are for you.
- Finally, your family comes first. My dad never told me this explicitly, it was never verbalized to me. But I saw it every day. I’ve mentioned before that my father was an LA County Sheriff’s deputy, which means that you get to do all the dirty work and watch LAPD get all the glory. Not once in 17 years that I lived at home did I ever get the impression that his job was more important than his family. I have three brothers. My father would take a sick day on each of our birthdays every year, and just spend the day with us. We could go shooting, go the movies, play mini-golf; it didn’t matter because it was our day with him.
I learned a lot more than six lessons from my father. I learned how to love my wife by watching how he treated my mother, I learned how to throw a good jab, I learned that a .38 Special with snake shot cleans up rattlers. When you combined everything he consciously taught me with everything I learned from watching him, it added up to one thing: I learned how to be a man that my dad would be proud of. That was easily the most valuable lesson of all.
posted by Caleb on Mar 29
Rooster Cogburn would mop the floors with Jack Bauer’s little girl face.
You may now resume your regularly scheduled programming.
posted by Caleb on Mar 29
Or as Jeff Cooper called it, “An answer in search of question.” That notwithstanding, I actually prefer traditional double-action pistols to their single-action counterparts. That’s right, I would rather have the trigger set up that you find on an M9 than I would on a 1911. I’m not sure what it is, but I just prefer that first shot come from the long rolling double action stroke. It might be the amount of time I’ve spent shooting revolvers, or the silly amount of trigger time I spent with an M9, but not matter which you slice it, I like DA/SA triggers.
I don’t have anything against a single action trigger, mind you. They’re great for competition, and I certainly wouldn’t want a DA/SA trigger on my target .22s. Despite my knowledge that they’re perfectly safe when carried properly, there is a small part of me that gets nervous around cocked and lock firearms. Additionally, I dislike safeties, which are essentially mandated by carrying cocked and locked with a single action. I would much rather have the hammer down on a live round with the safety off than single action cocked and locked. Again though, this could simply be a case of familiarity.
If you carry a traditional double action pistol, that first shot is important. It has got the longest trigger pull you’ll find, and of course from a tactical standpoint it is rather important that your first shot land where you’d like it to go. My favorite drill for this is to draw (or go from low-ready) and acquire the sight picture while pressing through the double action stroke. Fire one shot; decock the pistol to return to double action mode and go again. Back when I was 19 and shooting for the Coast Guard, I would occasionally shoot tighter groups during double-action practice than I would during regular fire.
With that and my love of revolvers in mind, you might expect that I’d like Double Action Only semi-auto pistols. Honestly, I don’t. Those really are an answer searching for a question. I can’t quite figure out why I’d have a gun with a worse trigger than any of my revolvers and the same magazine capacity as my DA/SA pistols. I will say that I exclude the Para-Ord Light Double Action from this group, because that trigger is so good it’s almost sickening.
My all time favorite DA/SA pistol, despite my deep and abiding love for the M9 Beretta, is actually the Walther P38 and P1, used as the primary sidearm of the German (and West German) Army until 1990, when the P1s were finally phased out in favor of (I believe) a Heckler & Koch sidearm. The best thing about the P1/P38 designs is that it’s a single stack, and the grip is just the perfect size for my hand.
The last thought I’ll leave with you on DA/SA pistols should be familiar to my four readers: practice practice practice. If your carry gun is DA/SA, shoot it often and learn to get that first shot out accurately.
posted by Caleb on Mar 28
I dislike conspiracy theorists as a general rule, because most of them are raving lunatics. However, every now and then something awesome happens that involves a conspiracy theorist, such as this clip right here.
Our main characters are Buzz Aldrin (the astronaut) and one of the leading “we didn’t go to the moon” nutjobs out there. About 13 seconds into the video, Buzz delivers a lovely right hook to the guy’s face, proving once again that you don’t fuck around with astronauts.
I love it. This guy deserves several severe beatings, and it’s nice to see ol’ Buzz hasn’t lost a step.
posted by Caleb on Mar 28
New adds to the blog roll!
First, we have Better and Better, a blogger who found his way here from LawDawg, and should really update more often.
Next up is Ronocracy, who should also post more.
Finally, we have Prester Scott, whom you shouldn’t hate just because he has a LiveJournal.
posted by Caleb on Mar 28
I have (and love) a Walther P22, which I’ve ran well over 1000 rounds through without having a single gun related failure. In fact, I’ve only two failures, and those were both the fault of the ammo I was using. That being said, there are a lot of P22 haters out there, who for whatever reason think that the little gun from Walther is a piece of junk. Their opinion isn’t completely without merit, as the early runs of the pistol did have some quality control issues with the safeties and occasionally the slides.
My particular Walther has experienced neither of these issues, and has even served in a stop-gap role as my carry gun from time to time. In an effort to encourage people to buy the P22 and to silence the haters out there, I’m going to be conducting a durability test on the little gun. I’m not going to immerse it in sand or run it over with my car or anything silly like that, however I’m not going to clean it again until it has a pistol related malfunction, or until I’ve run past 1200 rounds w/no malfunctions.
This in and of itself will be a difficult task for me, as I clean my guns almost obsessively, and certainly clean them after every single range trip. Of course, I’m also very curious about the durability of the little gun and would like to see exactly how well it’s going to perform when it has been all dirtied up by constant shooting.
Here’s the plan for how it will break down. I go shooting every other weekend, so about twice a month. Each time I go shooting, I’ll run 100-200 rounds through the P22, then plop it back into its case. Since even the manufacturer recommends that the P22 only be used with quality ammo, it’s going to get the same ammo I always use, CCI Mini-Mags or Stingers. I could just shoot until it breaks, but I also don’t want to break my favorite gun. What I’ll do is shoot it twice a month for six months (through September) and post bi-weekly updates on the project. That’s 12 outings with the gun, at a minimum of 100 rounds per range trip. That works out to a minimum of 1200 rounds without a cleaning, with a possible maximum of 2400 rounds (if I fire 200 per trip).
Assuming 100 rounds per range day, the breakdown will be as follows:
- 20 rounds fired in 5 shot strings from a rest to observe accuracy
- 30 rounds fired off hand, slowfire.
- 50 rounds fired rapid fire, as fast as I can change magazines, which by the way is so much fun it’s almost illegal.
If I go with 200 rounds, just double the numbers. Each week I’ll report on accuracy or if there were any malfunctions, and if so what caused them. This should be quite fun.
posted by Caleb on Mar 27
By way of Housewife, I find Acme Cleaning Services, which is now basically my favorite blog. I really despise pedophiles, so go Acme!
posted by Caleb on Mar 27
Thanks to Xavier, I have what is the funniest Ebay listing I’ve ever laid eyes on. In case you can’t believe your eyes, that is actually an auction that claims to be for Billy The Kid’s holster for his…1911.
The story is just so fantastic that I couldn’t even make it up. The only way it would have been better would have been if aliens were involved somehow. Because time traveling aliens might have been more plausible, actually.
