aubreyturner.org

I ended up buying quite a bit more than the requested 100 rounds yesterday.  I got a case of .38Spl for my Windicator and the Ruger, some .380ACP for my Sig, and several different types of .308 for the Remington.  It came to 1470 rounds total.  I also bought a bunch of cleaning supplies and accessories, like this “maintenance center” (scroll down to the RMC-1).  I was impressed by how sturdy it was, despite being made of plastic.  It also can be used as a shooting rest.

My coworker, who went with me to Cheaper Than Dirt, ended up buying 2600 rounds (one case of .38Spl, one case of 7.62×39, a brick of .22LR, and a couple of boxes of .45ACP).

I was looking forward to trying out my new rifle, but it appears that the rifle tube at Bass Pro is booked up for today and tomorrow and the only open slots for Friday are in the afternoon, which interferes with work¹.  Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait until Saturday or Sunday.  In the mean time, I’ll take the Windicator to the range tomorrow and report back on its performance.

¹ That’s been one of my pet peeves about range time.  There’s an outdoor range not far from here, but it is only open from 9:00am to 6:00pm (or when it gets dark).  Their fees are pretty reasonable, but they just don’t fit my work schedule during the week.  Bass Pro isn’t as convenient for me in terms of distance (it’s in Grapevine), but their hours are better (so I can go after work).  I’d go more on weekends, but I usually have some other activities planned during that time.  Oh well, if that’s my only problem, then I haven’t got much to complain about .

National Ammo Day is upon us.  Remember to get out there and buy at least 100 rounds (GFWs, please see me after class for alternate assignments).

I will be searching for fodder for my newest arrivals:

I’m going to get several different brands/types of .308 to see what my 700P likes and I’ll probably acquire some .38Spl for the Windicator.

I’ve updated my guns page with my recent acquisitions (here and here).  I’ve also reconverted all the image files to blur out serial numbers and to make them smaller (by as much as 800K in some cases).

I expect to have a range report on both of them sometime this week.

Just a quick thought on the issue of Libertarians taking votes from Republicans, which has been covered here, here, and here.

I’ve heard this from Republicans before, and it doesn’t move me very much.  In fact, this kind of argument strikes me as being arrogant in the extreme.  As if the Republicans think that the votes belong to them and were stolen somehow.  That’s utter crap.

I will admit that I’ve voted for Republicans in some instances to keep Democrats out of office, but my vote does not belong to the Republican party.  I’m merely using them to keep what I consider the bigger evil out of office.  However, if I consider the Republican candidate unacceptable and there’s no other alternative, I will not vote for anyone.

Republicans damn well better keep this in mind over the next two years.  I’m watching this Homeland Security bill with a gimlet eye.  I’m very suspicious of what may be included in the bill, since our representatives have a nasty habit of loading their favorite pet programs into these things.  I can only support this as a reorganization of existing agencies to provide better communication and information sharing.  I do not in any way support the expansion of any powers for these agencies.  I was appalled at the USA PATRIOT act (the very name of which is a masterpiece of Orwellian doublespeak).

Anyway, Republicans better get over this idea that they somehow own a certain set of votes or voters.

There will be a gun show and military expo at the Dallas Convention center this weekend (see this link for my summary of shows in the area).  I haven’t been to this particular venue before, so it’ll be interesting to check out what’s on display and what’s for sale.

I’ve always been primarily interested in semi-auto handguns, as you can tell from my collection.  However, I’ve taken an interest in trying my hand at rifle shooting.  I’ve been doing a little research and I’ve decided on a bolt-action in .308.  I have several reasons for this choice.  First, .308 is fairly plentiful since it’s a common cartridge, it has good long-range potential, and it has good “knock-down” power (not that I’ll be using it for such, I hope).  The bolt-action mechanism appeals to me somewhat as an interesting departure from all the semi-autos I currently have (simpler to operate, less to go wrong, etc).  I won’t get into the semi-auto vs. bolt-action accuracy debate (I know it’s possible to be very accurate with a semi-auto).

I’m going to be looking closely at what’s at the show with an eye towards finding something that feels right in regards to how it fits me and how it balances.  I’ll also be looking at scopes.  I know that some people regard variable power optics as too much complication, but given my intended usage (it will be for range use only—I don’t hunt), I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

I guess all this is really just rationalization for my decision to add another gun to my collection .

On the news front, this situation with the liability verdict in Florida has left me steaming mad.  The killer broke into the gun owners house and stole the gun.  That, in and of itself, is sufficient grounds in my book to shield the owner from liability.  A person’s home is his castle, meaning that he may store firearms there any way that he sees fit and that satisfies his own needs for safety.  If I were to leave a loaded gun on my kitchen table, it’s nobody’s business but my own, since I don’t have any kids (or anyone else, for that matter) running around the place.  Anyone who steals that gun is automatically in violation of the law.  This is simple common sense, which seems to be in short supply in that Florida courtroom.

I think the thing that really pisses me off is that the jury found no fault with the killer.  Despite his claims that “the gun just went off” (yeah, right, they do that all the time), let’s not forget that when he stole the gun it wasn’t loaded.  The killer loaded the gun himself and took it to school.

Finally, if I was the distributor (who was found 5% liable), I’d file for bankruptcy or go out of business before I’d pay this.  Hopefully, it’ll be overturned on appeal (or maybe the judge will see the light and change it).  It’s a matter of principle.  The verdict is assinine.  If we let these bastards win here, they’ll be going after other industries next.

One other infuriating thing about this case is that the lead attorney has an anti-gun agenda and was involved in the lawsuits against the tobacco companies (unfortunately, I don’t have the link handy, one of my coworkers showed me the news site with that bit of info this morning; I think it was a Florida newspaper).  This speaks volumes about the real motivation behind this case.  He’s got a hatred of affordable and concealable guns and he repeatedly uses the (horribly offensive) term “Saturday Night Special” to describe them (conveniently forgetting to include the original first word of the phrase).  Perhaps I should also pick up a small, affordable, and concealable handgun this weekend, just to spite bastards like this (I’d get a Raven if they were still made).

Wondering where all that crap in your inbox is coming from?  It’s coming from people like this.

Here’s the full details on her “business”.

She claims that all of her lists are “opt-in”.  Given my experience with spammers, that’s usually a blatant lie.  It’s people like her who force the rest of us to take extreme measures to protect our email addresses and to eye everyone who asks for an email address with suspicion.

I create a new email address for each place that I do business with, which includes the business name and sometimes the promotion.  I examine privacy policies when I sign up for an account to see how they will use my email.  I make sure that all “opt-out” checkboxes are checked.  I don’t post my email address to newsgroups.  I mangle my email address for this web page (even before anyone knew this page existed I was getting crawled by spambots).

What I’ve found is that the majority of reputable companies are honoring my requests.  However, there are a few out there who conveniently decide to “forget” my settings and start sending me crap.  Maybe they’re thinking I’ll have forgotten about telling them not to send me stuff.  Anyway, I always tell them to stop.  If they don’t stop after a resonable amount of time I’ll stop doing business with them and then redirect all email to that address to someone in their customer service organization (or to their sales address).  When their own spam gets back to them, it seems to get their attention (or at least it worked with marketing -at- carparts.com—I’m not mean enough to post their unobfuscated address here ).

This is why you should be careful about what data you put out on your web site.  Just because there isn’t a link to it doesn’t mean that someone can’t find it.

…  Scan your company’s Web servers. Find the files that aren’t linked to your public Web site. Then track down their owners and remind them that whatever they put on a Web server is accessible to anyone on the Internet.

Point out that if someone on the Internet can guess the URL of a piece of business information, even if it’s not linked, it’s not safe. And that’s true whether the information is financial data, marketing plans or personnel records, and whether the guesser is a reporter, an employee, an investor or a competitor.

And if they think it can’t happen to them, tell them about Intentia. And remind them that your CEO probably isn’t desperate enough to call the cops if proprietary information leaks out by way of unnecessary, unlinked files on your company’s Web servers.

But he’ll probably know who’s guilty.

This is why I’m not interested in flying anytime soon.  Maybe this woman got a little out of hand, but the problem is that merely expressing verbal disapproval of airport security can land you in the same kind of trouble.

Sometimes the mind makes associations between seemingly unrelated items.  Our local cable system sells local advertising which the city of Denton uses to push various bits of propaganda.  Since the local utilities are run by the city, we’re often treated to various exhortations to conserve energy.  One of which is the recommendation to set your thermostat to 78 in the summer and 68 in the winter.  This led me to consider the issues of pessimism, left-wingers, and terrorism.

Are most left-wingers horribly pessimistic?  Very often their response to a problem is to tell us to “learn to live with it.”  We’ve had many years of technological advances in heating and cooling efficiency.  What’s the point of having these devices if you aren’t going to be comfortable using them?  If they’re using too much energy, then let’s concentrate on making them more efficient.  But the idea of setting the temperature to uncomfortable levels seems like capitulation and pessimism to me.

But how does this relate to terrorism?  The same people that want us to stop driving SUVs and to be uncomfortable in our homes are the sames ones that tell us that Americans should “just learn to live with” terrorism. 

America has long had a “can do” attitude with regards to just about everything.  It may seem corny and old fashioned, but I believe in the ability of Americans to overcome obstacles.  We’re not the type of people to just sit back and “learn to live with” something.  Whatever the problem, American tenacity, ingenuity, and technology can usually find a solution. 

I think the problem is that some factions see our “can do” attitude as arrogance, especially among the elites in Europe (who have, unfortunately, infected many of the lefists in America).  As in, “Those simplistic American cowboys are going to screw everything up because they just don’t understand the complexities of the issue.”  They’ve been unable to stop the terrorists themselves and they are trying to live with it.  They can’t understand our worldview and they think that we don’t understand the problem.

We’ve decided that we’re not going to live with terrorism, which means rooting out the terrorists and bringing them to justice (or bringing justice to them, Hellfire style).  We’re fully aware of the scope of the problem.  But instead of saying, “it’s just too big, we can’t do it”, our response is “what will it take and how do we make it manageable?”

I’ll take American “can do” spirit over left-wing pessimism any time.

Michele at a small victory had a great response to the hate mail that she’s been getting.

I think it’s quite amusing that you Ashcroft-fearing people run around the streets screaming that the sky is falling because the Republicans are coming, the Republicans are coming, and you scream that our privacy is gone and the government is going to tell us how to live now, but god damn it people, what the hell do you think you’re doing with your slapping stickers on SUVs and throwing red paint on fur coats and frightening little children by telling them their milk is poison? Your disdain and snobbery at people who aren’t just like you is frightening. You think we should all drop the meat out of our mouths and stop having children and trade in our SUVs for gas-efficient but devoid of storage space tiny little cars and if we don’t we are the anti-christ. I got news for you, sweetheart. You are the scary ones. You are the ones who will make the sky fall someday. You, who think more of animals than people, who think more of terrorists and madmen than you do of the innocent people of your own countries, you who have become the useful idiots to the scary regimes of the world.

I’m in total agreement on this.  I’m constantly appalled by the horrible, meanspirited, nasty things that these people direct at anyone who doesn’t agree with them.  I try to keep a calm head on these things, but there’s a limit to my patience.  I was in a discussion about this very topic with a coworker today and I made this same point to him.  How often can you stand being called a murderer or being accused of being complicit in murder or teaching children to kill before you give up on trying to have a discourse with these people?  It’s unfortunate, because without respect or some common ground it will be increasingly difficult for the various factions to live with one another.