Month: September 2009
Constitution Day
Today is Constitution Day in the USA.
Sometimes calling the police is the better answer.
An 85-year old man here in Austin was just arrested for firing upon city (contract) workers.
Apparently the workers were doing some tree trimming, this man thought they were trespassing, and fired 5 shots at them (claimed 3 were warning shots).
- Regardless of legality, trespassing is not enough reason to use deadly force.
- If you have to shoot, it’s because your life (or perhaps someone else’s) is in danger.
- If someone’s life is in danger and thus you have to shoot, warning shots are not what you fire.
This was irresponsible gun handling and irresponsible situation handling. Armchair quarterbacking this, if you didn’t want to confront the individuals, calling the police to have them look into it would have been the better thing to do.
Birdshot is for birds
Birdshot is for birds, not for self-defense.
Via Joe we have a story of a guy getting shot in the chest with what is believed to be birdshot. The guy chases the shooter for a bit, then decides he needs to stop and get himself to the hospital. If he can get shot in the chest (likely at close range given the nature of the story), run for a while, then make the conscious decision to get himself to the hospital… I think the only thing the birdshot was effective at was giving him a medical bill and a bad evening (and couple weeks while he heals up).
Buckshot. Buckshot. Buckshot. I just don’t understand why people continue to promote birdshot for anything other than shooting birds.
Updated: Some compelling data and information about buckshot.
NRA Country
NRA Country. The NRA and country music joining together.
I really don’t care for country music. There’s some good stuff for sure, but on the whole it’s not my cup of tea.
But I did like this from the website:
Chores aren’t subject to negotiation. The fish don’t bite at noon. Never talk back to mom before dinner. Keep your friends and keep your word. Know what’s worth fighting for. Be proud of where you’re from. And, in life and in the field, always shoot straight.
I’d modify that to say “never talk back to mom” period. I guess it’s fine as-is tho, since once you finish with today’s dinner, it will officially start the period before tomorrow’s dinner. 🙂
We become what we think about
Via the Maku mozo mailing list this morning:
We become what we think about.
— Nightingale
I guess that explains why so many men are boobs. 😉
But seriously…
There is truth in the statement. It’s about mindset, and what a difference it makes.
I never heard of Earl Nightingale before. Went looking for him. Found this.
Good stuff.
Spread the word
CMMG. Doing more than right by the customer. (h/t to Marko)
I love going to their website. It’s almost like LEGO… so many bricks to build with. 😉
Wither COC
Corrosion of Conformity is one of my favorite bands. Their 2005 album, “In The Arms of God” I view as a masterpiece.
But that also demonstrates one problem. That was 4 years ago. What’s been going on?
Oh yeah… Down.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Down too. But Down isn’t COC, and COC isn’t Down. I don’t blame Pepper Keenan for working with Down, because they’re far more successful than COC ever was; man needs to make money and pay the bills. Pepper being one of the main songwriters for Down still means a lot of that Pepper J. Keenan lyrical and musical talent is still present. But still, I keep hoping that time will be taken off from Down and COC will be focused on.
I guess I shouldn’t hold my breath:
“It’s a real band now and not a side project,” guitarist Kirk Windstein told Rock Music Menu. “It’s everyone’s main focus and we’ve toured extensively, we’ve been to 27 countries in the last two years, started touring before the record came out, and played everywhere.”
“We’re kind of, for lack of a better term, taking it more serious because it is everybody’s main focus, and while we still do other things, it’s our real band now which it never really was in the past.”
I guess that means we won’t see another Crowbar album for a while either (it’s been 4 years there as well, tho Kirk was also doing Kingdom of Sorrow). *sigh*
Still, I don’t give up hope for another COC album. But if ITAOG ends up being their last, then at least they went out on a high note.
Meantime… I do wonder what Woody is up to.
Back to the stats
And now, let’s delve back into the blog stats search terms….
the 3 things everyone should know
- Treat others like you want to be treated.
- Freedom is something we must give to others if we wish it for ourselves.
- Don’t eat the yellow snow.
muscovy duck shit
Yes they do, and in copious amounts.
how to shoot snub nose well
Practice. Get some training. Practice more.
is a ar rifle good for home defense
Yup.
opeth smokes what cigarettes
Why would you care about this, unless Mikael asked you to run down to the store and buy him a pack?
how fast can 9mm clip empty
Well that depends. First, find me a 9mm clip. Oh, you meant magazine. Gotcha. We might need to care about how many rounds are in it as I can sure empty 1 round faster than 10 faster than 20. Then we need to know by what means are you emptying it: using your fingers to shave rounds off the top, loading the magazine into the gun and shooting all the rounds. Or of course, the fastest way is to just get a cheap aftermarket Glock magazine, load it up, drop it on the floor, let the baseplate shatter and you’ll see really how quickly you can empty a 9mm magazine. 🙂
truth on shotgun spread
Yes, pellets fired from a shotgun do spread out. That’s the truth.
To really know how that spread works out, you’ll have to take a particular shotgun, with a particular choke, with a particular load, and go try it yourself. Set up some cardboard (large piece of it, 2′ to 3′ per side at least) against a good backstop. Step back to your desired distance to shoot from, then shoot. You’ll see how it spreads out… or more specifically, the pattern of how the load’s pellets disperse. This can vary from shotgun to shotgun, from choke to choke, from load to load. So really, the only way to know 100% how things will go is to check it yourself.
do you really need anything more than 9mm
Last time I made homemade ice cream, a gun didn’t help me at all…. I needed a lot of other things to accomplish that.
But if you mean for self-defense, 9mm with good modern self-defense loads works just fine. Caliber is important, but more important is shot placement. 9mm caliber bullets will do their job so long as you do your job.
is a buckshot rifle good for self defense
I didn’t know rifles could shoot buckshot.
how to use 3 dot sight
how to line up three dot sights
why are there three dots in my sight
Because someone was under the mistaken notion it was a good idea. If you can’t replace them with better sights, at least black out the dots on the rear sight.
can a 13 year old shoot a 9mm
Sure. Tori Nonaka handles one just fine. With proper technique and practice, they can certainly handle it.
Combined Skills Course Weekend- The Review
I spent the weekend of September 12-13, 2009 in a Combined Skills class.
The premise of the class is to provide students with skills that can help you stay alive: skills to avoid violent confrontations in the first place, skills to deal with a violent confrontation should it be necessary. The reason it’s “combined skills” is because a lot of such classes are geared towards a single issue: tactics/mentality, gun handing skills, or empty-hand combatives. This class, as the name implies, combines these things into a single lengthy, advanced-level course. This is not a class for beginners.
Read on for my perspective on the class. I’ll cover who did it, what we did, how I did, what I learned. Yes, it’s a long read, but it’s a good one chock full of information. Note this is all coming from memory after two hard and exhausting days of working, so most should be correct but I may have a detail about a statistic wrong or a quote incorrect. If I do have something wrong, I hope someone will correct me. But you’ll not be able to correct me if you don’t read it all, plus if you skip any of it you might miss the awesome pictures. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 