Gun Free Zone

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.

Shooting is a perishable skill.

Don’t ask me where I heard this, but it is one of the greatest truths out there. We can be dumb enough to spend a bunch of money in a class and then turn around and figure we don’t need to do anything else. Hell, we have a cute diploma proudly displayed in our wall which indicates we are certified in whatever shooting skill we chose to pay and we don’t need anything else. I am A Bad Hombre now.  Rubbish!

If you are one of those, I ask you to go to the range, set up a target at 7 yards, set up your rig as a normally do for every day carry and draw and shoot the one perfect shot. The one perfect shot is defined as the one that will stop a Bad Guy for good. It is the shot that will save your husband/wife/kid from imminent death, it will save YOU. And you don’t have all the time in the world to do it! Now, if you make that shot, cold bore without a fuss, great you can either be frank and admit it was the luckiest shot in the world and know that you did not account for the crapload of adrenalin that should be running through your veins during a Lethal Force confrontation plus other goodies that will affect you. You will also admit that you have been lax in your practice and shame yourself in retaking those basic drills and even look for some extra instruction. Or you can delude yourself and go back to the couch to watch your favorite TV show or playing the latest version of HALO in your video magic box… which contrary to wishful thinking, it is not gun practice.

So practicing on your own is boring as hell. True but it usually means we do not have a well defined system to practice acquired skills. There are many guides out there in the net on practice drills, but I am particular fond of CCW Handgun Drills because it gives you a wide variety of shooting exercises to select. Some are very quick and simple others more involved and with a higher round count. I would recommend to download, save and print a copy to keep in your range bag so you don’t have to figure out with a thumb doing a self-proctological examination what will you do next time you go to your local shooting house.  Pass it along to your shooting friends, I am sure they will appreciate it.

Practice is not good if we do not improve the areas of our shooting that need improving. You can be good at accuracy, but you are having troubles drawing your weapon from your regular concealment location. Or maybe it is your reloading process that needs work. Give yourself an honest examination, determine your weaknesses and then work on improving them. Some will be just simply repetition of drills you already know and might not even include firing a gun but others will escape you lever of knowledge and may require the use of an instructor. You can look for a local Certified NRA Instructor on line or ask other shooters about instructors they know. Call, fax, email the instructor and tell him about your problem. I am sure he will be able to come up with a suite of training plus exercises to fix that problem you are having.

And yes! Dare to learn more. Many great instructors and schools are out there for you to take b asic and advance defensive shooting classes. Valhala, Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, Blackawter, U.S Shooting Academy…. the list goes on and on and their instruction is first class. They are not cheap, but then again you are not taking classes on advanced funnel cake cooking but life saving skills. A trip to one of these places will be worth your money plus it would be a great vacation project.

And if attending an advanced school seems a bit far right now, try your hand at shooting sports like IDPA, IPSC, etc. Yes, I keep beating this drum, but it is more fun than just standing there and it is a great way to improve on your basic skills plus learn a few more for an immodest amount of money.

Snowflakes in Hell calls attention to the new Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Concerning the Use of
Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.  This is creepy to an insane degree. Read it with calm and you will see that the vagueness in its language sometimes brings out specific and scary targeting such as:

Thus, a consumer who purchases a product with his or her own money and praises it on a
personal blog or on an electronic message board will not be deemed to be providing an
endorsement.21 In contrast, postings by a blogger who is paid to speak about an advertiser’s
product will be covered by the Guides, regardless of whether the blogger is paid directly by the
marketer itself or by a third party on behalf of the marketer…..For example, a blogger could receive merchandise from a marketer with a request to review it, but with no compensation paid other than the value of the product itself. In this situation, whether or not any positive statement the blogger posts would be deemed an “endorsement” within the meaning of the Guides would depend on, among other things, the value of that product, and on whether the blogger routinely receives such requests

Example. My buddy Dale is a dealer for EOTAC and I do buy from him regularly as I can. My next purchase will be a pair of Vickers Duty Gloves because I attend sometimes SFDCC Rifle Drills and my hands end up a mess after two hours or so of rifle manipulations. Now, if Dale ( a third party) decides to give me the gloves cfor free and I just write a review of them in this blog, whether I give the gloves a praising review or a truly destructive one, I would be in violation of this FTC directives.

An advertiser’s lack of control over the specific statement made via these new forms of consumer-generated media would not automatically disqualify that statement from being deemed an “endorsement” within the meaning of the Guides.

Do note that there are no guidelines set so the FTC hound dogs can pretty much decide how much is too much the way that ATF does with its lab stuff. So it will be basically decided on a Case by Case issue and probably in every case the result will be a screwed Blogger.

It gies much more than just that. The Guide explains how Government shouldn’t care if this new reulations curtail Freedom of Speech for Blogs (cleverly disguised in the statement “interfere with the vibrancy of these new forms of communication”), or that if somebody gets hurt by the product because he or she is too stupid to breathe without the use of a diagram, the injured party might be able to sue not only the manufacturer but the advertiser, blogger and everybody who ever mentioned the product.

It gets MUCH worse: we gonna be siccing coppers on you dirty Blogger!

And although industry selfregulation certainly can play an important role in protecting consumers as these new forms of marketing continue to evolve and new ones are developed, self-regulation works best when it is backed up by a strong law enforcement presence.

But what really takes the cake and provided for the tittle of this blog is the following statement:

The Commission acknowledges that bloggers may be subject to different disclosure requirements than reviewers in traditional media. In general, under usual circumstances, the Commission does not consider reviews published in traditional media (i.e., where a newspaper, magazine, or television or radio station with independent editorial responsibility assigns an employee to review various products or services as part of his or her official duties, and then publishes those reviews) to be sponsored advertising messages. Accordingly, such reviews are not “endorsements” within the meaning of the Guides.

That means they are the Chosen Ones, The Professionals. The great minds that gave us the Exploding Pick Up Truck (with the help of carefully hidden rockets), the Great apple/dioxin scare (we are all gonna die because we eat them Granny Smith apples!) and let us not forget the Bush National Guard scandal brought to you by CBS, Dan Rather and the 1960’s fake National Guard documents made in Word for Windows. They are the reliable ones and should not be punished for sponsoring items, ideas or anything else, even though they get more freebies than a quarterback after winning a championship game.

There is no doubt this document and intentions behind it. It is censorship b y economic hardship and threat of police busting down your door because you may have gotten a Sham-Wow for review. It is also the first payment on the Newspaper and Other Traditional Media Rescue Act (soon to be followed by your taxes) because that way they weed out the competition and rescue advertising dollars.

Is this the Hope and Change you voted for? I hope that you are happy now. Please leave any comments before I get shut down. I just got some Papa John’s Pizza coupon in the mail and, since I mentioned the company and product, the feds may bust my door in the near future for violating FTC BS.