Call me Ahab

posted by Caleb on Aug 31

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

posted by Caleb on Aug 31

Who is responding to Tom Gresham’s question about what we should call the AR-15. Sebastian says we should call it a service rifle, which seems to be pretty accurate to me. Kevin thinks the whole thing is stupid, and I sort of agree. I don’t think that coming up with a new industry term for the Evil Black Rifle is going to change people’s perception about AR15s.

But in the spirit of cooperation, (and because I can’t think of anything else) I have a top ten list of new names for the AR15.

1. Pansy Poodle Shooter
2. A Girl’s Gun
3. The M14’s retarded little brother
4. A .22 on steroids
5. Evil Black Rifle
6. The Rifle I bought so I could look cool at the gun shop
7. I can’t believe I spent $1400 on this
8. Seriously, I could have bought two or three good lever actions for what I paid for this
9. PSH Inducer
10. The Underwhelmer

Or, you know, we could just call it what it is. A self-loading rifle.
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posted by Caleb on Aug 31

And today is as good a day as any. In all seriousness though, these shenanigans need to come to a close.

Allow me to explain something here. Renting is not financially superior to owning a home. Yes, by renting you have avoided the whole sub-prime mortgage collapse, and you are not currently getting raped because your ARM just shot through the roof. Newsflash bucko - not everyone who owns a home has an ARM. We all know that you weren’t renting specifically to avoid this fiasco, so stop saying that you were.

Now, someone who rents because they’ve realized that they’re not in the financial position yet to own a home and would prefer to put money into savings, etc; that person is smart. Similarly, people who buy homes that are inside their price range and get good, stable financing because they can now afford a home are smart.

Stop saying that you’re smarter than people who bought with ARMS because you’re renting. Owning real property is better than paying someone to live on their property.

Now, don’t think that homeowners aren’t going to get some of this. If you got an ARM, or bought a home that was beyond your means and now you’re getting screwed, stop blaming other people. It is no one’s fault but your own. The mortgage company did not put a gun to your head and tell you to sign on the line, you chose to do that yourself. If you expect the government to bail you out of your own financially foolish decisions, then you should be beaten with a Louisville Slugger until you aren’t retarded.

Honestly, what the hell is wrong with all these people? I swear, basic principles of economics should be beaten into every man, woman, and child in this country so that people will not do stupid things like this.

Finally, to the mortgage companies that are coming apart right now because of a shitty business model: You guys are retarded. Seriously, that was your plan? Talk about an utter lack of foresight. Stupid wankers.
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posted by Caleb on Aug 30

With Sebastian, who is tired of being a cheerleader for the NRA to his fellow pro-gun people.

I hate being a cheerleader for the NRA. I would love to be able to sit down with pro-gun people, and have a reasonable discussion about things that I think the NRA could be doing better, things I wish they wouldn’t do, and things I wish they’d pay more attention to.

I am 100% in agreement with him on this. Additionally, I’m tired of defending the NRA from my left-wing friends, who can’t seem to realize that the NRA is not a titanic organization that eagerly feeds babies into the barrels of cannons.
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posted by Caleb on Aug 30

Chris discusses his desire that Midway USA would stop sending him fliers, because he is going to go broke.

As I said, I feel your pain. I currently have fliers Beretta, Cabelas, and Cheaper than Dirt. Midway USA sends me catalogs, emails, and fliers. Century International sends me catalogs and emails.

I only have so much money that I can spend on gun stuff, and I just don’t know. Not that I want them to stop, because otherwise I’d never have known that Century has Manurhin Walther PPs for sub $300.
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posted by Caleb on Aug 30

Short story - I won the auction for the vintage 1920s-ish Beretta .25 Auto. I literally got it for a steal, so as soon as I get my FFL and the money out to the seller, it should be on its way home to me.

I love having a C&R license.

Now if I could just get Midway USA to get some Speer Gold Dots in stock in .25 ACP, I’d be all set.
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posted by Caleb on Aug 30

Exactly how I feel about the Red Sox performance in the first two games of the series against the damn Yankees?

This article is a perfect, beautiful, summary of my feelings.

posted by Caleb on Aug 30

Sometimes, I forget how smart my brothers are. This from one of my younger brothers.

I don’t know, I think a lot of people could use a bit of a reminder that the safety they take for granted is not always guarenteed. I mean, I live in (white-bread Seattle suburb), for god’s sake. But there’s still crime here. I mean, a couple weeks back some vandals went through my apartment complex smashing car windows and jacking everything in sight.

“Prepare for nothing and hope for the best” seems a terrible philosophy, and if encountering someone who takes the opposite tack can stimulate some thought, then why not?

The genesis for this conversation was the aforementioned open carry conversations that ensued at the cookout last weekend. The key part of my brother’s line of thinking is “stimulate some thought”; and lately I have begun to wonder if that’s even possible. I find the concept that my friends could be so dogmatic as to not even consider other positions and just be paying lip service to be “nice to me” rather disheartening.

I would much prefer to have someone disagree with me, and say so; the alternate course of pretending to agree is entirely too dishonest for my taste.
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posted by Caleb on Aug 29

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend a cookout at a friend’s house. I carried my favorite gun, the Ruger GP100 in a nice Galco high-rise holster. During the course of the evening, the status of my personal armaments went from “concealed” to “out in the open” due to some unfortunate circumstances entirely beyond my control. Now, most of my circle of friends are aware on a peripheral level that I prefer to conduct my daily affairs while armed. However, that understanding has always been more of an academic sense, as I tend to take great pains to avoid having said armaments revealed.

Upon the shocking revealing of my firearm, the usual slew of questions ensued, such as “why do you have that”, and “do you think you need that at a cookout in the suburbs”, and of course the crowd favorite “do you think you’re going to get into a gunfight”. I explained a few of the multitude reasons why I choose to be armed, which seemed to satisfy the majority of the people. My perception of the event is that I managed to avoid “scaring whitey” that evening, and despite the rather undignified position I was in (which is what lead to exposing my firearm); I managed to decently explain my views.

Now, the part of the evening that rather unfortunately stuck in my craw were the few token comments from the peanut gallery. Namely, someone raised the issue of accidental shootings, to which I responded that I have not shot anyone on accident, and briefly touched on the four rules. This lead to the portion of the evening that I found insulting, in which the person continued in that line of questioning, and eventually rather directly insinuated that I had the potential to fly off the handle and shoot people at the cookout.

What I find bothersome about that (aside from the insult in regards to my self-control) is the ignorance displayed there. The person who made those statements has unquestionably bought into the stereotype of gun owners as hair-trigger maniacs, eagerly awaiting their chance to blow someone away. It’s frustrating because I’ve known this person for a while, and had thought that we’d managed to move that perception of gun owners. It seems I was wrong, and that the saying “in vino, veritas” is more true than I would like.
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posted by Caleb on Aug 29

A recent study of world firearms ownership rates shows that there are 9 guns for every 10 Americans. My reaction to that would be “awesome”. What’s interesting about the study, conducted by a group based out of Geneva, is that 1) there are a lot more guns in civilian hands than previously believed; 2) there is no apparent correlation between high levels of gun ownership and high levels of crime.

That last bit will more than likely be completely ignored by the anti-gun crowd, because it doesn’t fit their definition of how things work. However, straight from the horses’ mouth:

“There’s no clear relationship between more guns and higher levels of violence,” Krause said, pointing to low ownership and high crime rates in Latin America.

Fascinating. Krause appears to work for a group called the Small Arms Survey which actually appears to be relatively neutral on the issue of personal gun ownership, a stark contrast to IANSA.

One of the major problems that the survey points out in the actual illegal traffic of firearms is corrupt government organizations.

The problem is worsened when members of government or police forces sell ammunition on the black market, Krause said.

In Rio de Janeiro, “a combination of factors suggest that state security forces — most notably the police — are the source of much of the assault rifle ammunition in the hands of criminal gangs,” the report said.

Fascinating. For whatever reason lately, it’s like all the bullshit that the anti-gun movement surrounds themselves in is just coming unraveled. Of course, I highly doubt that facts and reason will have any effect whatsoever on their efforts, if anything it will cause them to “try again, only harder” because their ideology simply cannot be wrong.
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