Photo Envy of the day.

My nephew and his baby. His idea and the great photo taken by Amy Rich.

Found it somewhere in the web today. Don’t shoot the messenger, he shoots back!

Special congratulations to Ted Kennedy. Five weeks sober, today.

I know I’ll stop laughing sometime tomorrow.

I know the economy sucks and people have less disposable income to do things like attending a good school to improve their shooting skills. But that slump in economy should be an opportunity on itself for the half-business-smart instructor. Where am I going with this? Instructors, you’ll get more clients if you stop scaring them.

If you go through the many articles and ads in the trade magazines, you will see that almost every school offers itself as the ultimate bang-bang-I-will-get-you-ready-for-the-sandbox training. The boldest them of all promise you intense physically-involved demanding training “because your life depends on it” well, maybe so because after making me run a mile with a shitload of gear in the middle of the summer, you better have air rescue on tow because I will probably fall down with a heart attack.  I am pretty sure that 90% of the people wanting to get some advanced firearms training balk at the idea of being the guy who collapsed in a class of cool-looking-muscle-ripping operators and decide it will be best to stay home and stain the deck. And yes, I am one of them. Plus, I would consider a waste of time and money to train on Tactical Responses to Caravan Ambushes in Somalia when my biggest threat would be a band of marauding critters coming to plunder my neighborhood after a hurricane. And I really have no desire to know about the 10 clues to detect VBIEDs on the road to Basra or Kabul when what I need is the 5 points on how to detect and avoid being carjacked on my way to WalMart. To summarize: Average Joe does not need to be trained as a contractor going overseas, he needs training on the specific threats he or she will find on everyday America.

So why not do the smart thing and train people on what they need instead of what is fashionable?  Speaking of fashion, Can we put hold on the Tactical Gucciflage apparel and accessories? If you are a Contractor, SWAT member or Operator, OK go crazy and train with as many gadgets and accesories you think you may beed. But if you are Joe Schmoe, I doubt pretty much you will be at home watching Dancing with the Stars while wearing a full Combat Armored Vest with trauma plate and 23 MOLLE-attached pouches with everything from a GPS to locate the mines of King Solomon to a inflatable Emergency operating room with anesthesia included. We need simple gear oriented to the home owner or the urban dweller (Country folks, sorry but Cabelas’ catalog has you covered and then some) and in other colors than olive dram, marpat, army digital and coyote tan.

So Instructors, to summarize: Make a simple class for your average overweight, back damaged, beer bellied urban guy.  Pistol, Rifle & shotgun. From basic firearm operations to hardening & defending the home and surviving vehicle attacks. If somebody can come up with some basic evacuation preparations and drill, it would be a gift for the ages.

So The Governator Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 962 into law making Law Abiding citizens having to jump through hoops to buy ammo. In the meantime criminals will still do their thing without any interference from the Government.

Of course Californians have been assured that this new measure will keep them safe an no, it is not an attack on the Second Amendment. Problem is the great brains behind it could not keep their mouths shuts and had to brag. On TheUnion.com we find this little quote from Amanda Wilcox:

“This bill is about keeping dangerous weapons out of dangerous hands.”

So it was never about controlling the flow of ammunition so it would not fall into the hands of criminals after all. But we knew that long ago, just look on how the bill defines ammunition:

For purposes of this section, “ammunition” shall include, but
not be limited to, any bullet, cartridge, magazine, clip, speed
loader, autoloader, or projectile capable of being fired from a
firearm with deadly consequence. “Ammunition” does not include
blanks.

So, in an amazing leap of logic and common sense, some Brady Bunch genius managed to equate live ammunition with loading devices. Unless I tie down somebody and beat him to death with my high capacity AK steel magazine, I kinda fail to see the imminent danger of school kids being massacred by a Safariland Comp 3 speed loader. Oh! By the way, remember when the Assault Weapons Ban came to be, there were oaths and promises that they were never intending to control revolvers or lower capacity guns but just those evil devices that can carry more than 10 rounds? Guess what? You are seeing precisely the control of LOW capacity devices. A revolver speed loader usually comes for 6 rounds, hardly the “hail of bullets” associated with those cultural sensitive drive-by shootings. Told ya so!

If you can stomach the idiocy, you can click here and read the rest of the idiotic bill.

A good warning from Massad Ayoob. Get quality batteries for your life-saving devices.

Hashish must be frigging good in Stockholm, Oslo or wherever!

UPDATE: Damn it, according to the DNC I am in the terrorist watch list.

Well, in another shinning example of government excellence, it seems that the Census Bureau has hired an unkown number of felons to come into your houses and take census. Nothing like government-sponosored canvasing of potential targets to make me feel all warm fuzzy.

I don’t know you, but come Census day, I will invite my Census taker to sit outside my house over a nice glass of lemonade and I will then decide the amount of info about my household I am willing to share.  There is no way in hell i am letting anybody from the Census Bureau inside my home.