Gun Free Zone

Empty Holster leads to handcuffs. Great message to teach young kids.
Police Detain OSU Student for Participating in Empty Holster Protest.

Newbern, the president of Buckeyes for Concealed Carry, was taken forcibly into police custody just after 8:30 p.m., while he was standing at the front of the crowd wearing an empty holster, which was clearly visible on his belt, and with his hands crossed in front of his chest.

A police report released on Thursday indicates two officers drew their firearms before approaching Newbern and removing him from the vigil. They searched and questioned Newbern and confiscated his personal belongings, including his empty holster and camera case, before placing him handcuffed in the back of a cruiser for 30 minutes.

I hope some not so brainwashed young soul saw this and realized that The First Amendment and the Second Amendment are intertwined not only in the Bill of Rights but also in its constant danger of degradation by the powers that think that be.

And when the police did not arrive instantly (apparently the Star Trek-like Transporter Room was not operating) her husband killed her and their daughter at the Cracker Barrel where she worked.

Maybe she did not have time to get one of those magical retraining orders that emit a force field and keep crazed husbands away.

Domestic situations are very volatile and can get out of hand in a snap. Anti Gunners continue to peddle the “solutions” that guarantee death and that is sickening and immoral. But they do love tap dancing on their blood.

I am not into the horror genre and at best mildly amused by the Zombie Fan thing (Shaun of the Death being the notable exception), but I think the movie Exit Humanity might be worth checking out.

(h/t to Dale G for the tip)

When the news that Zimmerman was being charged with Murder in the Second Degree hit the wires, a great disturbance was felt across The Farce. When almost every single defense lawyer and former prosecutor very politely and without stridency comments for the media that Angela Corey might have overreached with the accusation, you know they are saying “Holy crap! She f***** by the numbers.”

Everybody was expecting a Manslaughter charge. It is the one to with a substantially less burden of proof and with a stiff penalty. If Ms. Corey’s strategy is to gamble that Zimmerman will take a plea and quickly sweep everything under the rug, I think she is whistling Dixie in the dark. And it did not help her cause one bit the way the affidavit of probable cause was written: It reads less like a legal document and more like she copy and pasted selected quotes from different newspapers during the height of “Let’s Get Zimmerman” craze.

Two words no Florida prosecutor wants to hear are now starting to bubble to the surface: Casey Anthony.

Nancy Grace surely is licking her lips with anticipation on this one. Let the legal games begin.

UPDATE: John Lott adds his analysis of the affidavit.

“IDPA is experiencing explosive growth with 800 to 900 new members joining monthly. With Paul’s help, IDPA will work to maintain this growth. We aim to capitalize on the social nature that has made IDPA so popular and we are thrilled to have Paul as part of the IDPA team.”

via IDPA Capitalizes on Growth by Expanding Marketing and Communication Efforts | Down Range TV.

Holy crap! I did notice we were getting rather crowded lately 🙂

Since I found myself out of .357 magnum to shoot Saturday’s match, I had to rush and get me some. I reload so I am gonna take this opportunity to share a bit of what I do and encourage others to do it.

Reloading & Handloading is easy. You will obviously need equipment, but if you are starting and don’t mind the extra work, used equipment is available. Some equipment is so cheap you really do not need to go the used way.

Let’s start with case preparation. Unless you are buying your brass fresh from the factory, you are going to be using collected brass from the range. This brass will be dirty and will need a nice cleaning before going to the press. You really do not want dirt in your gun or reloading dies.

The two blue bowls bellow are tumblers. I got them used from a shooting buddy for a pittance and have served me well over the years. A tumbler is basically a covered bowl attached to a motor which makes it vibrate. Inside the bowl you have cleaning media (in this case crushed walnut shells I got from a pet store and that are way cheaper than the media you can buy at specialty stores) add your dirt brass, cover the bowl and start cleaning. I add a teaspoon of Brasso which helps accelerate the cleaning/polishing process. Depending on the level of filthiness, time of cleaning can go from as short as 90 minutes to four hours.

After the 90 minutes, the cases are clean and looking purty & shinny!. Now comes the separation.

Separation, as the name suggest deals with isolating the media from the cases. If you are really really tightfisted, you can use a pasta colander as media separator but it will require a good hand-eye coordination or you will have brass, crushed walnuts shells and a very pissed off significant other. Splurge some and by a proper case separator, they are not that expensive.

Yes! It does look like one of those bingo things and works on the same principle: You turn the lever, the whole thing goes round and round.

As you turn the handle, the media will leave through the slits leaving you with a nice batch of clean brass for your reloading needs. Just place your brass in a container and the cleaning part of the case preparation is over.

Note: Some people like to Resize & Decap first and then clean. I have done it that way and later find myself having to remove media from the primer pocket which annoys me to no end. To each its own.

More to come.

After a decade of working for my club, I am now a free man. Don’t get me wrong, I am damned proud of what I did and fixing the custerflock that the scoring, website and forum was and managed to made it look somewhat professional. But it was literally 10 years that I shot as an after thought in between shuffling papers and updating a website.

As with anywhere were two or more people get together, you will find your small percentage of certified assholes, even in the shooting community. Even Jesus had a huge scumbag attending the Last Supper so you shouldn’t be surprised. These were the people that made working a “challenge” ( I wanted to say a “pain in the ass up there with rectal boils” but I wanted to keep this post classy) but the majority of people did not complain nd I call that a victory.

So I have been in a limbo-plateau shooting IDPA for a decade and I now face the challenge of improving at least somewhat. I am not gonna turn into a gamer since I never was and my speed overall has decreased so I am gonna aim for accuracy once again. The goal shall be a Zero Down Match and then repeat it as many times as possible. My best standing ever in this field was at a sanctioned match in Northern Florida where I took Most Accurate and I think I had some ridiculous 4 points down for the whole thing. That my total time was scored in eons is a different ball of earwax. 🙂

Tis Saturday, while many of my fellow Gun Bloggers will be partaking the joys of the NRA Annual Meeting, I shall be shooting my snub Rossi in .357 Magnum and shooting full power .357 magnum ammo just to piss Safety Officers off. Just kidding, I carry the Rossi whenever I don’t my full size Non-Glock plastic Wonder and I do need to get some practice on it with non-gaming rounds.

And I really need a portable chair with attached umbrella to use at the matches. Sun is gonna be a killer!

I might do a report on the match on Saturday. No, there will be no embarrassing videos of me snorting and flapping like a wounded whale trying to make shots from the ground. Walt does a good job with videos although the poor fella is deluded with IPSC. Go check them out, he does a great job on both the audiovisual and the after-match overview.

And, if you are not gonna be at the NRA Annual Meeting, Go Shoot!

Update: I just checked my stock of practice 3.57 mag ammunition and I don’t think I have enough for a stage. So the Official Word is PANIC!

Tumblers are already in the process of cleaning and polishing the cases.