The problem with a political Pavlovian response is that you are not a dog and that you may end up stepping on a pile of dung, looking stupider than usual.

Nothing gets Antis to bark uncontrollable like mentioning the magic words “Stand Your Ground.”

South Carolina extended protection to fetus via Stand Your Ground and by the reaction of some, you’d think they gave permission to mothers to ingest an Uzi so the baby could come up shooting.

This is the bill as it stands now in the SC Legislature:

A pregnant woman is justified in using physical force or deadly physical force against another person to protect her unborn child if, under the circumstances, she has a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily injury to herself or her unborn child.”

Is this law redundant since South Carolina already has a Fetal Homicide Law? Maybe, I leave the legal analysis to lawyers. Is it a backdoor way to ban abortion as ThinkProgress swears? I don’t see  how. Is the mother gonna shoot herself if she is about to get an abortion on the first place?

The problem is that those screaming bloody murder against the bill look like idiots by trying to deny a mother the right to defend her unborn child that she has voluntarily decided to bring to this world.

Chalk this one up to Battle Selection Failure, level 100.

I’ve written before about the lack of welcome given to the Millennial Generation (and the later members of Gen X) by the shooting community. Their tattoos and piercings put off some, while their voting patterns and interest in social justice causes make others mad. As I’ve said, they look and think differently from the generations which came before — and that makes many people very nervous.
The younger generation is here, and it’s about time we started treating them like fellow shooters.

Go read the article and then come back. Good stuff.

We ain’t getting any younger and that is for sure.  In fact I bet some of us are now to the point of thinking “Well hell, I think it is time I just spend my time relaxing at the range and harassing the wife rather than being on the constant fight. I have earned it!” And you might be right.

All of us have basically created/propelled/maintained/contributed a movement that has no parallel in Human Rights history. Gun Rights about 20 – 25 years ago were as almost-dead and now are the mystery of the world. Who would envision back then 50 states with carry provisions, states with Open carry and even Constitutional carry?  Over 350 million firearms and God knows how many billions of rounds of ammunition in the hands of civilians ? Not even the betting houses in Vegas would have laid money on us.

That said, we know it is not over and it will never be, the price of Freedom and all of that. So it is up to us to “train” and guide the next set of constitutional warriors, the youngins that are benefiting from the labor done. And yes, they may look weird, have different hobbies and talk funny, but that does not mean they have the same heart in the same place about the Second Amendment as we do.

I was going to write a long list of things that we must do but I to help the youngins, but let’s keep it simple and make sure they learn the following and live it by heart:

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, DON’T IGNORE IT ,LEARN IT.

NEVER TRUST A POLITICIAN.

If we achieve that, we can take a break.

And lastly, advice for the Youngins:  Understand that we ain’t going anywhere and we will criticize, bitch and moan till you get it right.

And take the Old Farts to the range from time to time.  It is good therapy for both.

This is something new I am starting. The explanation will come in a future post, but it is my way to start sharing with the new generation of Gun Culture or GC 2.0.

Old Fart Advice #1: Let your body fully recover from an injury. Restart your regular activities slowly. You will not be young forever. 

I just got back from the doctor and even though I am an overweight smoker, the doctor was miffed that my lab work was better than his.  Truthfully, other than an occasional bout with acid reflux, I feel fine. However, all the crap that I pulled, ripped and mashed when I was a young pup, is coming up due and with interest.

From my mid teens to my mid 20s, I was a fool for exercise. If it wasn’t Team Handball, it was soccer of walking/running when I was in high school. When I went to college, I trained & played soccer at least 4 times a week and when the season was down, I would backpack  on my lonesome all over the nearby Andes.  I slowed down some when I came to the US for further studies but the bell finally rang when I was playing a friendly game of football where tore a rotator cuff.

It was not the first time I had an injury. In fact I have at least 4 torn muscles on my back, two in one leg, a thumb that got pulled out of the socket by an indoor soccer ball about 4 or 5 broken toes, 2 broken fingers and one honest-to-god-take-him-to-the-hospital concussion.  In all of them I thought I bounced back pretty fast and ignored the doctor’s recommendations.

I went on to choose more calmer activities so I went full blast 4×4 and exploring out of the way places on barely cut roads and sometimes not even that. I started to notice that my back would protest some as age kept crawling till the doctor again game me a warning to take it easy. I eventually did, but as I figured out a couple of years later, the damage was done and waiting for that perfect moment. Doing something totally unrelated to sports, I managed to crush three disks in my spine that required great amounts of pain killers and emergency surgery.

Why was I so stupid? Well, I was a member of the No Pain, No Gain generation. What they did not tell me is that pure, unadulterated pain like having vertebrae literally squeezing nerves is something so excruciating that I was willing to sacrifice babies and kittens for a shot of Demerol.  Then again I am sure that the Exercise Gurus were chugging pain killers themselves alongside other chemicals. and I was never into that crap.

As i said above, the bill for all that shit has come due and I am paying for it by not being as nimble or flexible as I should be.  That puts a dent on what I would like to do including firearms training.  It sucks.

I see the new generation going absolutely maniacal about stuff like CrossFit and I see myself in them.  I worry that the “Walk it off Cupcake” mentality may create a new generation of future damaged bodies that could have been prevented by doing exercise in a more moderate manner.

So be smart, do what you need to do to stay fit and not because you enjoy get all juiced in endorphins. If you break something, let it get fixed and return to slowly to your normal routine.  After 25, you heal, after 35, you patch and after 45 you are screwed and run with the bad part.

DETROIT (WWJ) – The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality is challenging what it’s calling the Detroit Police Department’s irresponsible rhetoric defending vigilantism.

“We are appalled at recent statements made by the Public Information Department of the Detroit Police Department and attributed to the Chief which separate which separate the so-called ‘good citizens’ from the ‘bad citizens,’ suggesting individuals that shoot someone in defense of their home will have the full support of the Detroit Police Department as ‘good Americans,’” said DCAPB spokesperson Ron Scott, in a statement.
Group Condemns ‘Irresponsible Detroit Police Rhetoric Defending Vigilantism.

Sweet Mother of Thor. What kind of idiots would even try to rehash this 1970s Gun Control line of BS? Are these guys taking money from Criminal crews?  I cannot imagine anybody (rational) in the 21st Century US that would have a beef with anybody defending his abode.

I am not that naive to think that there are organized “gun safety advocates” that think people should be forced to retreat even in their own homes, but even CSGV knows better than make that idea public as they would risk losing more people and money than they already do.

If anything, the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality is another indicator why Detroit is suffering the social maladies that makes it the armpit of the country, We can only hope that more common sense as demonstrated by Chief Craig becomes the norm.

I was going to talk about the Daily Kos article, but the comments were just so good, I could not pass them up:

This first one is not one of the first ones, but kinda sets the tone:

Heidi Stewart I agree with all of these points. I feel the urgency in helping people look at this critical issue differently and more rationally. However, I disagree with the use of the term “gun nut”, for one reason only. The pro-gun population goes out of their way to rapid-fire insults and derogatory names at those of us advocating for safer gun legislation. That’s really all they’ve got. For the most part, gun control advocates respond with logic, facts and Socratic questioning. None of which appears to work, mind you, but I take pride in this population for consistently taking the higher ground. The NRA works extremely hard and spends millions trying to keep the pro-gun movement alive with thoughtless fear and propaganda. It’s not surprising that it works so well. Insulting those same people who have been convinced we are out to get them and steal their guns is not going to get us anywhere. We can’t respond at their level.

Let’s see the examples of ‘higher ground” from the same thread:

Aviva Luria Someone must have photoshopped the drool out of this photo.

Adriawa Evans Why is this old fuck even in the public eye. Don’t you just love how all these old white fucks just do whatever the hell they want fostering hate, making millions, and avoiding prosecution? This – not democracy – is the marvel of America!

Jennifer Unruh Walls Guess Cheney is getting ready to “accidentally” shoot someone else in the face.

Timothy Scanlon We MUST pursue them as a terrorist organization and treat ’em accordingly. 

Mariamma Jones it’s gotten so bad that every time I see a (fat) white man grinning like this, I get scared and wonder if he’s going to lie, cheat, beat, shoot or con me. Not all white men, just the ones that are kind of fat, overly pasty with lizard-like grins. Because let’s be honest, these guys are slightly insane and will kill me to make their day go better. These power-hungry lizard-brained freaks make it difficult for men of honor to be seen and taken seriously.

Betsy Hansbrough They are still little kids who believe cops and robbers is a fun game. and they are still, playing cowboys and brown people….like killing them is no big deal.

Oh yeah… classy.

And that is why we win….

I just bumped again on this subject matter in a forum somewhere.  And what I see it is pretty much the same idea: “I feel safer carrying an empty chamber.”

Bull.

Modern sidearm technology has given us amazingly safe weapons that do not go bang unless you start screwing around with the trigger. That might be because you inserted your booger collecting appendage (finger) inside the trigger guard or something caught the trigger and made it move. Either way it is your fault.

When you say you feel safer carrying on an empty chamber, it is telling people you have had little or no training and practice with your firearm or (on a lesser extent) that you are carrying your pistol in such a manner that might not be safe to carry such a pocket pistol in a pocket with some foreign crap sharing the space or in a cheap holster that keeps folding on itself. And yes, negligent discharges have happened by these causes.

So, if you don’t have instruction, get some. Practice that instruction on the range with live ammo and at home with dry-fire. And please, don’t be carrying your $600 gun in a $20 nylon holster that you picked up at the bargain bin of your local Army Surplus store. With good Kydex holsters from reputable companies like Comp Tac going between $65 to $90 for a OWB and $40 to $90 for IWB,  you have no excuse not to properly and safely carry a gun. Since I do not carry inside the pocket regularly, I can’t give you advice other than if you do not have a pocket holster, make damn sure the gun and only the gun is in the pocket.