As further proof that Oklahoma has its' share of idiot politicians,

I give you the statement of State Rep. Mike Shelton:
"During states of emergency, I think police need total control. They don’t need to worry who has guns and who doesn’t. If the governor calls for Oklahomans to relinquish their guns, the public needs to do so,”.

This was his comment on a bill that would prohibit the kind of confiscation order that happened in New Orleans. "Shelton said his battle is not over, and he intends not only to ask the governor to veto HB2696 but also to overturn the stand-your-ground bill."

Ok, it's sad to know that an elected rep of this state is such a statist asshat. Apparently he thinks that if someone threatens your life outside your home you should have to run for your life no matter what, only being legally able to use lethal force if you can't run any further. And from this we know that he thinks your 2nd Amendment rights should be cancellable by a stroke of the governors' pen. I may have to dig into it and see how this clown voted on the SDA and the Make My Day laws; if these are any indication, he was probably against those, too. Can't have the peasants thinking too much of themselves, now can we?

"That was the idea in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, when police confiscated guns from residents even if they were legal. This new Oklahoma law removes that power." Let's see, a bunch of citazens held at gunpoint and their property and means of defense stolen- property which the city of NO is STILL trying to avoid giving back- while security guards hired by the wealthy are walking around unmolested even though they've got AR or M16 rifles and sidearms... Awfully selective 'total control', wasn't it, Rep.?

As I say further proof that no state is without idiot politicians who worship at the altar of Power.

Originally found at Alphecca, further at Cam Edwards place.

Remember what I said about John McCain?

Well, it gets worse. Or just more blatant. Saw this this morning and couldn't write 'till now, and the Geek beat me to it, but I need to say my piece anyway:

John McCain is a corrupt statist politician with no concern for anything but his personal advancement. This little jerk wants into the White House as occupant so bad he will sell out anything and everything, including the oath he's taken more than once. You know, the one about PROTECTING the Constitution as opposed to TRASHING IT?

""He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform....I know that money corrupts....I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government."

That, of course, is 'clean government' by his corrupt standards.

Arizona, you need to start that recall petition back up. Now.

Some serious rain at last!

It's been dry for months here. Not just dry, damn dry, way below normal average. The state has had some relief over the last month or so, but mostly in the southeast and east; here in the central area rain would build to the west & southwest, as normal, then wind up splitting and moving around us. Frustrating as hell.

But today it all came together and some actual, good rain came in. And better yet, it's been what I think the Navajo call a female rain- no thunder & lightning except some rumbles in the distance, light to moderate rain with some breaks, the kind that has time to soak in and prepare the soil for what follows with less runoff than you'd expect for as dry as it's been. Absolutely wonderful.

The last round just moved through, some nice moderate fall. My rain guage showed about 1/4 inch when I got home from work, but the pecan has grown & leafed out enough it may have shaded it somewhat from the fall, so I moved it out into the yard; come morning we'll see what the total is. And it's supposed to give us some more overnight. Everything should green up wonderfully, and the threat of wildfires should be pretty much knocked on its ass for a while at least.

Speaking of my pecan tree, it's now about 7' tall, pretty green leaves all over. I mentioned a long time ago that I'd planted this the summer after I moved in, and sweated through that first winter wondering if it'd survive. It did in fine shape. And the blackberry I planted last spring is leafed out and has some blossoms; I may get some berries off it, if I can keep the birds and squirrels off long enough.

I think I'll sleep well tonight.

I'm officially sick of these 'immigrant rights' clowns

Huge problems with health care and law enforcement being run into the ground by illegal aliens, illegals who demand that driving tests and VOTING BALLOTS for Gods' sake be written in Spanish so they don't have to bother learning English(and the bastards shouldn't be voting in any case).

Now a bunch of sympathizers have rewritten our National Anthem- in Spanish, of course- to show support to the illegals(but that makes me a hatemonger, according to them; they're 'undocumented immigrants'). And various idiots in government, particularly in California(no surprise), are doing crap like this to help the clowns.

Got news for you people. Screwing with our Anthem does NOT give us sympathy for you. Telling us we're invaders and this is YOUR land just pisses us off. And waving Mexican flags while claiming you're loyal Americans just pisses us off more. And having a bunch of racist clowns like La Voz de Aztlan threatening a 'reconquest' and spreading shit like that in the 'press release' makes us want to add a strip of mines to the fence.

To borrow what someone else said, come here legally; learn English; and come to be an American and you're welcome. Come here illegally, demand we change to make you happy and threaten us, and you're cordially invited to get the fuck out of this country.

That was unusual...

Couple of days ago a tornado hit El Reno, a few miles west of Oklahoma City. During all this, one of the chasers for KTOK radio said "I've seen kidney-stone size hail in this storm".

???

KIDNEY STONE SIZE? I dearly wished I had his phone number: "Hey, is that 'discomfort-size' or 'Oh Lord take me now and end it!' size?"

Well, that's done

The smiling FedEx man delivered the new rotors for the Vulcan this morning. Now have new rotors and pads in front, and new shoes in the rear. Let's just say there's a noticeable difference in slowing down and stopping. MUCH better.

Fired the forge for the first time in a while today, and got a bit done. Now I need to make a last pass through the yard and make sure I put everything up, as they're expecting some rain to move in late tonight. We're hoping. Hell, if I thought it would help pull it in I'd go out in the dark and wash the truck and the bike. And leave the truck sitting out in the open.

Meant to mention this the other day. There are two big holly trees- they're too tall to call 'bushes'- in the front, one on each side of the door. Went out the other day and heard buzzing. Looked closer, and both bushes were swarming with honeybees














Ever tried to take pictures of busy bees? Little bastards won't hold still. I've always liked these critters; my dads' father used to keep several hives, and when we visited I'd watch them going in & out and feeding on the clover in the field. Helped rob the hives once. Honey fresh off the comb, God that was good!

Speaking of forgework and metal, anybody starts talking about going all the way back to the 'good old days', kick them in the ass. I had to drill two holes through 3/4" hex stock, which with a drill press and a titanium nitride bit(with cutting oil, of course) took a couple of minutes per hole taking it easy. Doing that by hand? Not if I can help it.

Ok, it's a late BAG day buy; K31

I'd looked these things over a number of times, but always held off on buying one. Heard lots of good things about them: accurate, well-made. But kept putting it off, even though prices were good.

Well, when I was in Texas a couple of weeks ago I went by Military Gun Supply in Fort Worth to look around, and noticed a BIG area of one wall empty. That had been full of K31 rifles last time I was down. I asked about it, and the guy said a lot of people had decided to buy them all of a sudden. After I got home I checked around on some of the gunboards and read several references that the supply of them was running out.

So I checked a few places, and found that AIM Surplus had some for a hundred dollars listed as "Excellent bores, expect stock and finish wear". So I ordered one, and it came in today:














Swiss K31 in the(as Kim puts it) manly 7.5mm Swiss cartridge. Square-profile blade front sight, notch rear marked from 100 meters to 1500. That ring in the back of the bolt is the cocking piece and safety(such as it is); when cocked, pull it back and turn clockwise about 1/8 turn. And it's a straight-pull bolt, grab the handle and pull straight back; it unlocks, the body rotates to disengage the lugs and it slides back. Push forward to close.

Looked it over real good. First thing, not much grease on it. Second, there are a bunch of little dents and a few dings in the wood, but not bad at all. Third, crown is shiny; wings of the front sight worn shiny at the top; barrel just behind the sight has a slightly shiny patch; blueing on the receiver is quite nice; the usual worn edges on the trigger guard and barrel bands; overall quite nice condition. Now, even though AIM has done well for me in the past, comes the part that really makes me nervous: is the bore as promised? Open the bolt and look down, and yuck, it's icky in there. But it looks like mostly grease, so to the table.

Dry patch through, which came out nasty. Oily patch, then a dry patch and look again and shazam! Beautiful! Mirror bright, sharp rifling, you could use a picture of this to illustrate 'excellent bore'! Much relieved, I took the thing apart(surplusrifle.com has a section on the rifle in general and the bolt) and found the condition to be very good. Tight, fast working action. And on the barrel & receiver covered by the stock, the only worn area of the bluing is on the barrel where the front edge of the stock & handguard bear on it; a band a little over an inch wide. Otherwise, looks damn near new.

I mentioned the straight-pull bolt, three other different things about it. One, to adjust windage you move the front sight, but not side-to-side; it's in a diagonal track in the sight base. so you drift it back and it moves to the left, forward and moves to the right. Second, the magazine holds six rounds instead of five or ten. Stripper clips are available, made of metal and paper(I'll have to get a few). And the trigger mechanism is unique: trigger, sear and a link are fitted together as a unit with a coil spring with long arms providing tension. The link fits over a pin at the rear and the sear slides vertically. I'll try to take a picture of it later, it's a very nice design.

One last thing: I dry-fired it a few times, and wow! Long first-stage takeup, solid stop, then a clean break at- I'd guess- about 3.5 pounds or so. No drag, no creep. It's like the M39 I wrote about a while back, I've handled expensive new rifles with inferior triggers to this.

So now I need time to hit the range. I've got some ammo and it's cleaned, oiled and ready. After sighting in and testing, I'll kitty-litter the stock- it's got not enough grease soaked in to be a real problem, enough that it has that smell and feel to it- and do a little refinishing to it, but the metal I'll leave alone, it's quite nice as is. Range report will follow when circumstances allow.

Ref gas prices and that idiot Arlen Specter

Apparently he's been sucking up to various Democrats and news weenies so long his brain has suffered from oxygen deprivation, so I've got two questions for him:
1. Do you remember a period in history we generally call "the Seventies"?
2. Do you remember Jimmy Carter and his 'Windfall Profits Tax'?

Yeah, that was just such a wonderful success, wasn't it? Did so much good, didn't it, you friggin' idiot?

Among the other 'wonderful' effects of this mess: there's a thing called a stripper well. It's a well that produces enough to make it worth keeping in operation(at the current prices; if prices go up enough, it's worth further development), just. Lots of people with some land in some states have a stripper well on it belonging to some oil company, who pays them a percentage every month for the oil that's pumped out. There was a lady at my employer who had one on her land, and every month it gave her & her husband about(as I recall) $70. Then the full effect of Carter's "punish the theiving oil companies" tax kicked in, and that month she displayed the check they'd received: fifty some-odd cents. All the rest taken in "Windfall Profits Tax". I kid you not.

So now, having either forgotten or not caring about the history of this kind of crap, this jackass, in company of the rest of the herd he's sucking up to, wants to do it again. So I wonder why a: Specter doesn't just change the 'R' after his name to 'D' and be honest and b: why the President and co. don't kick him in the ass for being the treacherous, untrustworthy little shit he is.

By the way, for some further background on the cost of gas, check out this at Wizbang, on how Specter and his greedy little friends have their prints all over the high price.

Stand Your Ground law in OK

House Bill 2615 passed in the House a few days ago. According to the article in the Sunday Oklahoman(not available online unless you buy an account, which I'm not doing) it's patterned after the law passed in Florida last year. In the article it says it expands the Make My Day law-which allows use of deadly force "to protect themselves from someone who breaks into their home, whether the intruder was using deadly force".

It also allows:
Drivers or passengers to use deadly force if someone is trying to car jack their vehicle.
Guests in a home to use deadly force to defend themselves and their acquaintances.
Ny understanding is that if attacked by someone using deadly force, you can use the same to protect yourself, "But the bill establishes situations where people can use deadly force to defend themselves even if the perpetrator isn't using deadly force."

No, haven't read the whole thing. Didn't even know it this bill was around 'till I saw this in the Sunday paper. It says the OK Association of Chiefs of Police have some concerns but don't object to the idea itself. From what I'm reading, I don't really understand their concerns, that a: "the legislation doesn't jeopardize the lives of plainclothes officers or officers trying to execute search warrants" and b: "wants to make sure officers can detain people after a shooting to determine whether a shooting was legal". ??? If an officer identifies himself to serve a warrant, the bill would not affect that that I can see. And they already have the power to detain people after a shooting; unless there's some wierd wording in here somewhere, that would not be affected.

There are the usual suspects unhappy about it, of course. The were only two House members who voted against it, Opio Toure(D) and Darrel Gilbert(D). I think Gilbert was, and I know Toure was one of the big opponents of the OK Self-Defense Act, the 'shall-issue' concealed-carry law that passed a few years back. And for the same reasons: "There will be bodies in the streets, blood running in the gutters, it will be like the Wild West all over again!!!" and so forth. No, that's not a direct quote, it does seem to sum their thoughts up. "Toure also is concerned the bill would give young people the idea using guns is the way to resolve conflicts", which I think was one of his objections to the SDA. And from Gilbert, "Gilbert said his objection is that anybody could use the law as an excuse to kill.

It's back to the good ol' West having shootouts in the street", Gilbert said".

Same objections, same fear-mongering. Same crap that hasn't happened anywhere such laws have passed.

So now to the Senate, and we'll see what happens.

Additional: unless I'm mistaken, Toure was the guy who, during debate on the SDA, said that if it passed 'more blacks will get shot' or 'be killed'. Been a while, so I don't remember exactly. It does give an interesting window into his thought processes, doesn't it?

The Lawdog speaks on the thieving bastards in NO

Specifically, the sorry excuses for law officers committing the thefts:After a lawsuit by the NRA and the SAF, plus contempt of court citations, NOLA jackasses reluctantly admitted that they were in possession of a thousand-plus confiscated firearms.

Thousand. Not 'tens', not 'hundreds'. Thousand.

ARE YOU BLOODY WELL ****ING ME?!

Those knuckle-dragging, nit-witted, mouse-dicked, pea-brained, lard-arsed, desk-driving, cork-screwed little dacoits with delusions of adequacy must have been running around stealing guns at warp speed!

Did they bloody well organize shifts for this? "You , you and you: loot Wal-Mart. You, you , and you: steal guns from any citizen who'll let you get by with it."

That's ... that's ... I really don't have words to express how I feel towards public servants (who are sworn to protect the citizens) stealing from those citizens their only means of protection. WHILE, I might add, LOOTING EVERY FECKING WAL-MART IN SIGHT. ON CAMERA.

Sweet evil Loki, y'all blotted your Eternal Copybook something fierce, I'm here to tell you.

You really need to read the whole thing here for the full flavor. It's noted in the comments that it wasn't just the LE clowns, but a bunch of National Guard also, including this:
"A close friend, "G" is an Army Guard officer who was on the ground in N.O. 4 days after Katrina. I spoke with him every other day or so for several weeks, and listened to him agonize about taking guns away. He's very pro-2nd. He was given lists compiled by the rescue and city people as to the address location of firearms, and detailed to go and get them. He was also ordered to confiscate ANY firearms he saw, anywhere. A week later, he was given part of one of the worst wards to control. He was relieved because he saw only criminals from then on, and had NO problem taking such down. The NRA contacted me around Katrina+25 to learn who "G" was, and would he be willing to talk to the NRA lawyers. Serving officer? No way!"

Two things in this. First, the 'rescue and city people' had lists of who owned what firearms and sent people to get them("No, the registration is not for confiscation, oh no! It's for public safety!"); I have to wonder if this was all city/state records, or did some dickhead call someone at BATFE and ask for records?
Second, at the time I read several comments at different places from military/former military stating that if a superior had ordered them to do this, their first response would have been to say, in proper language, "Sir, are you out of your mind?". Maybe some did and it kept the level of theft down, but it seems many, maybe most, did not; and they carried out their orders to steal the only protection people had.

I'm still so damn pissed about this it's terrible. I keep remembering that OKNG troop basically saying "it's terrible, but I've got my orders" while holding some homeowners at gunpoint so their home could be officially looted.

One other thing about Med-Fair,

is the people you meet and see year after year. Speaking of such, I mentioned the folks who have Fenris, the wolf who likes to drink from my forge bucket. Meet Shelley



















I have to tell you, this picture does not do her justice. Woof, in other words.

Yes, she's married. Large, formidable guy. Nice guy, too(see, Darren, I'm being nice!). Matter of fact, he sent me the shot. "Shelley, I need a picture of you in your fair outfit, I'll make you famous!"

Next time, she'll believe me.

I WAS going to go out tonight,

to a bookstore or maybe to a bar for a drink, but after hearing
a: the 3-car crash(from the sounds) about two blocks away,
b: the near-crash right out front,
c: the two fire trucks, one ambulance and a PD unit going to a:,
I'm staying home.

And now, for your daily dose of idiocy,

if you really, really need it, go here. Then read as many of the comments as you can stomach.

Ah, us corrupt, evil, baby-killing conservative types and the bloodthirsty, Armageddon-seeking President, how do we do it?

NOT how a criminal justice system is supposed to work

Looking around Stephen Pollard's place I found his post on and link to this :
"A WIDOW who was repeatedly raped and beaten during a “pitiless” attack by two teenage burglars spoke yesterday of her determination to rebuild her life.

The woman, aged 65, was alone at home when the 19-year-old men — high on alcohol and drugs — forced a window and embarked on a frenzied attack. Armed with a knife and screwdriver, they bound and gagged their victim, forced her on to a bed and raped her several times."

Ok, two scumbags who deserve to be tied up to a whipping post- for a start, anyway- commit a horrible crime. How bad?
"She was “crippled with terror” and suffered “horrendous” blows to the face before her young attackers fled with jewellery, cash and a mobile phone.

The woman had passed out from the pain and regained consciousness to find that she was alone. She dragged herself to a telephone, called the police and was taken to hospital for trauma and severe facial injuries."

In this case, the two wastes of oxygen were caught:
"Seven months later the grandmother was at Teesside Crown Court to see David Humphrey and Lee Beazley jailed for life yesterday." Hurray, the bastards are going to prison! For life(it ain't the noose they deserve, but...)! But hold on, don't cheer yet, for it turns out:
"They were told that they would serve a minimum of six years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. They were placed on the sex offenders register for life."

Six years. SIX STINKING YEARS of their 'LIFE SENTANCE' and they're elegible for parole. Oh, but we shouldn't be too hard on them, for they DO repent of their sins:
"Humphrey told police that he was sickened by his actions. Beazley, the court was told, regretted his “despicable and inexcusable” behaviour." AND they'll be on the sex offender registry, I'm sure THAT'LL be a problem for the little bastards, won't it?

Anybody else have this problem with Remington?

For the second time, I've bought Remington 12 guage #4 buck and found the crimp open just enough to leak the buffering material out. Which caused me to have to a: clean out the shotgun action and b: dump the buffer out of the other box and use some superglue to seal the shells.

Hey, Remington: not good, guys.

Suicide

I mentioned in the '6 things about me' post I once tried to talk someone out of suicide. This was a nurse who'd had a marriage end in divorce. She started calling me at times, always late night, to ask how I'd do it. I always tried to move it to "I've had bad and good, but it hasn't been worth that", which irritated her. She'd never speak of why she asked, she'd just call up and ask.

One night it got more specific: "If you were going to kill yourself with a .32 pistol, how would you do it?" followed by "in the mouth, in the temple, where?" Scared hell out of me. I'd known she was thinking about it, this time the questions and voice said she was near to it. Spent a while trying to talk around it/out of it, starting with "I wouldn't", until she got pissed and hung up. Tried to call her back, no answer. Tried to call some people. No good. Finally called the police and described the conversation and they said they'd check(yes, strictly speaking it's anyones' right to check out; I was so rattled I wanted to do something to prevent it). PD called back a while later- it's now about 0230- to say she'd answered the door, said she was with a friend, and had no idea what the officer was talking about. I figured at this point if there was someone else there she was less likely to do it, so I went to bed.

Next night, got home to find a message: "I'll make a deal with you. I won't bother you with my problems again and you won't send the police after me. OK?" And no further calls.

About three weeks later I found out she'd done it. She had a good job, lots of friends, but had decided that if she reached this birthday without being a: married and b: pregnant, it wasn't worth going on(found out all this after the fact). Day before the birthday she'd borrowed a gun from a friend "to go target shooting". He wasn't suspicious because she'd done so before. On her birthday she put on a nightgown, sat down on her bed and blew her brains out.

I mentioned she was a nurse; that's important- to me at least- because of the method. She had access to drugs of all kinds, and could have ended her life with any of them. One of her closer friends(one of those who'd said "as long as she's talking about it, she's not going to do it") related that she'd mentioned that if she did it, she'd use a gun 'to make sure she couldn't be saved'. I call bullshit. I think she decided that if she did it, as many people as possible were going to be affected as much as possible("I'm not happy so why should anyone else be?"), so she borrowed a gun so the friend would have to live with it for the rest of his life. Which pissed me off enormously.

Still does.

And yet more insanity in Britain

Was at Hell in a Hanbasket and found a link to this article simply titled "It's This Bad". It details several 'third time 'round the toilet' situations. In two, lives were destroyed and the punishment for those responsible? A few months in jail. In another, some delinquents are setting a fire in a dumpster and when a lady calls to report it a: the police don't want to take a report, b: finally take a report, c: "This was not the end of the matter. About 15 minutes later, a more senior policeman telephoned to upbraid her and tell her she had been wasting police time with her insistence on satisfaction in so trivial a matter. The police, apparently, had more important things to do than suppress arson. Goodness knows what homophobic remarks were being made while the youths were merely setting a fire that could have spread, and in the process learning that they could do so with impunity."

Oh, the 'homophobic remarks' were made about a horse; yes, he covers that, too.

His summation:
"The newspapers confirmed what I had long perceived before I left Britain: that the zeitgeist of the country is now one of sentimental moralizing combined with the utmost cynicism, where the government’s pretended concern for the public welfare coexists with the most elementary dereliction of duty. There is an absence of any kind of idealism that is a necessary precondition of probity, so that bad faith prevails almost everywhere. The government sees itself as an engineer of souls (to use the phrase so eloquently coined by Stalin with regard to writers who, of course, were expected to mold Homo Sovieticus by the power of their words). Government thus concerns itself with what people think, feel, and say—as well as with trying to change their freely chosen habits—rather than with performing its one inescapable duty: that of preserving the peace and ensuring that citizens may go about their lawful business in confidence and safety. It is more concerned that young men should not smoke cigarettes in prison or make silly jokes to policemen than that they should not attack and permanently maim their elders and betters.

One definition of decadence is the concentration on the gratifyingly imaginary to the disregard of the disconcertingly real. No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems—economic, social, and cultural. Its public services—which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth—are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite. An often cynical and criminally minded population has been indoctrinated with shallow and gimcrack notions—for example, about social justice—that render it singularly unfit to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Not coincidentally, Britain has serious economic problems, even if the government has managed so far—in the eyes of the world, at least—to paper over the cracks. Unpleasant realities cannot be indefinitely disguised or conjured away, however.

Therefore I have removed myself: not that I imagine things are much better, only slightly different, in France. But one does not feel the defects of a foreign country in quite the same lacerating way as the defects of one’s native land; they are more an object of amused, detached interest than of personal despair."

It's really sad to read. And a real big flashing, horn-honking warning to us.

"We should be more like England"

say the people like Kennedy and Pelosi and Schumer. Well, Brit mentioned this in the comments to 'Show your carry gun' and I found it:
"Knife scanners to be used UK-wide

The use of metal detectors to catch people carrying knives is to be extended by British Transport Police across the UK, the BBC has learned.
Operation Shield was launched in London two months ago to target those carrying knives on the Tube network and trains."


This really shouldn't be a surprise. Many crimes you don't even get a jury trial anymore, the police can search you just about any time they please and you have no real right of privacy or self-defense. So of course the cops are going to set up scanners to hassle anyone carrying enough metal to set them off. And do you really think they care whether it's a Swiss Army knife that you carry to open boxes with?

"It will be across the country," he said. "It won't be there all the time. Obviously local police have to use their judgment as to when they deploy officers on the scanning equipment." If you've followed some of the history that Kevin tracks over at Smallest Minority, you've read of long waits for police response to reports of crime; but I doubt they'll let little things like that keep them from spending manpower and money to run their 'knife scanners'. After all, nobody has any legitimate reason to carry a knife, now do they? Oh, there's cutting string and rope and opening boxes and cutting paper and lunch and... but those don't matter! You could wait until you have some scissors or something! So say your betters!

Now look at this:
"But London community worker Shaun Bailey said that many young people carried knives because they felt uneasy."

"Where the real problems start, with the young people in particular, is when they carry a knife for use of defence," he told BBC Radio Five Live.

"They're called offensive weapons for a reason - you cannot defend yourself with a knife, you can only ever attack someone - but lots of young people carry them for a fashion statement because they feel uneasy.

"What needs to be looked at is why so many people feel uneasy, and then carry a knife."

"Home Office figures released in January showed violent crime in England and Wales rose 4% between July and September last year."

For the moment let's pass over the idiocy of "you cannot defend yourself with a knife, you can only ever attack someone", and get to the heart of this: "...why so many people feel uneasy, and then carry a knife." How about because they're scared? How about because crime rates over there are bloody awful? How about because it's the only kind of weapon an honest citazen- excuse me, 'subject of the Crown' can obtain? But instead of busting criminals and putting them in jail and keeping them there, by God they're going to war on the "knife-carrying culture".

Kevin's put it well in the past; it ain't the tool, it's who's using it and why. A sub-machine gun in the hands of an honest citazen is a threat only to those who would attack others; a bottle in the hand of a criminal is a threat. But they just don't seem to give a damn about this, or maybe it's just so much easier to target objects than to actually, I don't know, do something about the criminals?

And just to touch on it, there is no such thing as an inherently offensive or defensive weapon; it can be used for either. To go back in history a bit, a sword could be used to defend yourself; and you could kill someone with a shield just as effectively as with a sword. It's not the weapon; it is how it is used. We've got our idiot politicians too, with their 'only good for killing' rhetoric about firearms. Never mind that killing someone who attacks you in your home is a legitimate use of force; to them all weapons are bad. Unless it's a government minion carrying it, of course.

Brit, you're right. Our Constitutionally-noted right to arms is a precious thing. And we need to defend it from the idiots who would take it away.

"Show your carry gun", says Xavier

Here's his, and here's mine. Kimber Compact .45















Worn spots on the frame, worn areas on the slide. Holster and shooting wear. I bought this pistol when I decided to get my carry permit(still pisses me off that honest people have to get a 'permit' to carry for self-defense), and it's been all over with me. Around town, on the highway, range, woods. Not as shiny and clean as it used to be, but hell, neither am I.

After having tried several different types/brands, I settled on Speer Gold Dot 185-grain hollow points for my ammo. Barring special circumstances, I shouldn't need to shoot through car doors and such, the lighter bullet gives me a bit less recoil for faster recovery and less penetration; in an urban area, generally a good thing.

I've carried others at times, but this is the one that usually goes on my hip or under my arm.

Ok, Head

Having been tagged with this, ok, let's see...

1. Every so often I get an incredible craving for fries. Fresh, hot, crisp ones. Like the ones at Outback in the cheese fries.
Dammit, that made me hungry.

2. In junior high, I decided to fill in a biology exam 'appropriately'. According to my sense of things. Unfortunately the teacher did not enjoy embellishments like spelling 'jellyfish' with shaky letters.

3. Attempting to teach myself something of oriental martial arts- with no books or lessons(except for Kung Fu) I once, on a high kick, hooked my heel over the clothesline. It stayed up there. Until the wire bobbed back up and that leg levered the other off the ground. You know that sound effect of someone hitting the ground flat on their back? It really does sound like that.

4. I once tried to talk someone out of suicide. It didn't work.

5. Did you know that if you pick up a piece of steel that's hot enough, you really do hear a sizzle?
I learned that. Once.

6. My daughter once noted that if I were missing, she'd have a real easy time listing identifying scars and marks. No tattoos, though.

But I'm not passing it on, I have quite enough people who don't like me already.