Rioting in France

As you know, there is more rioting in France. Two years ago Paris' northern suburbs erupted and youths of indeterminate religion and origin (wink-wink) burned cars and generally made royal nuisances of themselves.

This time around, they are using shotguns and the police believe the "youths" are trying to get more guns. About 100 cops have been injured and about a third of them from gunfire. So far the police response has been restrained.

This is a truly serious situation for France. I can't pretend to be an authority on France, but Yosemite Sam and I have traveled there several times. I took more than one French history course in graduate school. I can read and speak French (not as good as when we traveled there--use it or lose it). So, take my following observations with those grains of salt.

France has a seething problem with its immigrants (no shit Sherlock). Unlike some European countries, France has a clear road to citizenship. For one thing, you learn the language, which is no problem for immigrants from Francophone North African countries. But, the French expect you to adopt Frenchiness, for lack of a better term. That's what so many of the North Africans cannot do.

Most, if not all, unassimilated youths are Muslim and won't adopt French concepts of liberty, equality, and fraternity. They don't want to give up their cultural notions of women, gays, Jews, and their ethnic identity. They have a hard time getting and keeping work. This is not
necessarily true of their parents who came to France to work or set up shops. They wanted to assimilate, but their children want to keep the outward trappings of their cultural and religious identity.

In turn, this has led a sizable minority of the French people to turn against the immigrants. While we were there, we heard certain Parisian suburbs described as homes of the black beasts. We saw graffiti carved deeply into a park bench in Lyon, "Interdit aux arabes" (forbid all the Arabs).

This situation is only going to get worse in France. The youths don't want to assimilate and many French people don't want them to assimilate. Two years ago, they burned cars. Now they're shooting at police. The question is, when will the French military (if they still have one) shoot back?

The situation in not pretty and the French are perfectly capable of channeling their inner Robespierre. If they do, it will be another one for the history books.

On this issue, I have a confession to make that will shock many of you. I actually like France and the French. Yosemite Sam and I have been all over the country. I met and talked with some very good people--the ones in Normandy in particular. It saddens me that they haven't been able to solve their immigrant youth problem and I see no good solution.

It will be awhile before we return and I hope there's something worth visiting when we do.

Torchwood--A Gunnie TV Show Review

Lately, Yosemite Sam and I have been watching a BBC import, Torchwood, set in Cardiff, Wales. We’ve been able to see every episode thanks to our cable company’s On Demand feature. It’s entertaining and surprisingly gunnie friendly.

First, it’s a spin-off of Doctor Who. If you don’t know about the Doctor, I can’t explain it here. Suffice to say it’s still on the air and still popular. Yosemite Sam grew up with it and is more of a fan than I am, but I really like Torchwood.

Its lead character, Captain Jack Harkness, was in a few episodes of the recently reincarnated Doctor Who. He was a con man who ended up more heroic than not and comes from Earth’s 51st Century. Through various permutations, he can’t be killed, but is stranded on Earth beginning in the late 19th Century. By the time of the TV series, he’s head of Torchwood Institute Three which investigates alien incursions and related.

That’s enough background, let’s get to the gunnie stuff.

One character, Gwen Cooper, is a police officer who observes Torchwood a little too closely and becomes a member herself. Torchwood members are expected to defend themselves with guns. Gwen doesn’t know how to shoot, because she wasn’t an armed constable. Harkness teaches her in an entertaining session. She fears the gun at first, but finds out she can shoot well and loves it. A surprisingly pro-gun message given the BBC’s track record on gun control.

Captain Jack carries a World War II era Webley Mark IV in an old leather holster with a flap. Unlike the Doctor who refuses to use a weapon, Captain Jack has no problem shooting someone who needs it. In one episode, he shoots a very evil woman several times at close range. BBC didn’t spare the stage blood and squibs.

A British show that allows self-defense is interesting. Of course, Torchwood members are not average citizens, but they’re not the police either. The Torchwood Institute is beyond government and beyond police.

It’s not all gun-friendliness though. In one episode a very scared teenager wounds Gwen with a shotgun thinking she’s one of his deadly neighbors. However, he used a pump-action shotgun illegal in Britain, so it begs the question of how did the character get it (it’s unpossible to get something that’s illegal isn’t it?).

The show is not for everyone. It’s darker and more adult than Doctor Who. For instance, Jack thinks the whole idea of sexuality is a quaint but primitive concept unknown in the 51st Century. There’re intimations that he’ll have sex with any sentient being that walks on two legs. Still, it’s entertaining and nice to see a Webley on TV.

Superme Court Says "Let's Hear It"

Take a deep breath, 'cause here we go. The Supreme Court will finally hear a Second Amendment case, the Heller/Parker case. You all know what it's about and probably already read that the court granted cert.

There's a lot at stake with this one. I predict though that the Court will support an individual right to own firearms and I think that it won't we all that close (maybe 6-3 for instance). The reason it won't be close: the Court will add language like "...subject to reasonable regulation for public safety..." or some such wording. Anti-gun justices will see how useful such language will be.

Then, it will be off to the races to write laws that allow individual ownership while still infringing on our rights to keep and bear arms.

Of course, my predictions have been off the mark before (last time I chose lottery numbers, for instance), so take it with a grain of salt.

National Ammo Day/Week 2007

Monday is the official “National Ammo Day.” I support it even though it’s not blessed by whatever committee declares a day a Day. Blogger Kim du Toit started it and selected his birthday as the first Ammo Day.

The idea is to buy ammo on that day or during that week. There’s no reporting on what people buy, no public celebration, no “official” declaration of Ammo Day, and no real support in tradition. With all of these apparent negatives, why do I support it?

One good reason is there should have been such a day officially declared many years ago. The Federal government is responsible for having a well-regulated militia. The militia is the whole body of the people who can defend the nation. It’s basically what’s found in Federal law.

The government also used to encourage shooting through its Office of Civilian Marksmanship. They supplied guns, ammo, built ranges and supervised riflery matches. Its successor, The Civilian Marksmanship Program, is a quasi-private group that’s still a great source of M1Garands, M1Carbines, runs some matchers, and sells ammo, but is a shadow of what could have been. The government would rather scrap its guns than sell them.

The whole idea behind civilian marksmanship was to ensure Americans could shoot. That way, in time of national emergency, civilians could be called up and would need less training to be able to meet defense needs.

Today, shooting is seen as a dangerous skill and as something that the “right” people never do (unless it’s skeet with $40,000 shotguns). The government certainly didn’t help alleviate this attitude.

Instead, they banned cosmetic features on certain types of guns, put up import restrictions, and more. They should have been sponsoring more school outreach, more gun sales to the public, more urban ranges, and other programs. After all, we all know that the way to break down hoplophobia is to take someone shooting.

So I support National Ammo Day because it’s something our government should do in the first place. There are other reasons. It’s a way to get more ammo in private hands and that’s never bad. It’s a way to reward retailers who carry ammo. Most importantly, it helps us improve our own marksmanship whether it’s bullseye pistol shooting or action shooting, plinking or long-range competition, or whatever type of shooting you prefer.

Go out this coming week and help your local ammo dealer.

Hunting in the New York Times

The New York Times had a surprisingly (for them) fair and balanced article on hunting. It was in the travel section and it covered the impact of hunting on a small Maine town. Jackman, Maine is a village of about 700 souls. Many of its businesses cater to and rely on hunters. The article profiled them and generally didn't call them a bunch of rubes and hicks (there was an element of condescension, but low-key). It's worth a read.

Even more interesting are the comments. As of this writing there are 104 comments, so it struck a nerve. Of course, there's the usual "killing is eeevvvvillll" stuff and the counter-and irrefutable argument that we all kill to eat (even vegans). A few commenters went all anti-gun. Some are quite entertaining in their own hysterical way.

More Fear of Inanimate Objects

From SayUncle we get the latest PSH alert. A gun cleaning kit and empty box of shells was found in a classroom in Baylor's School of Medicine. School officials evacuated the school and closed it until today. Even worse, it was used. They searched the school for a gun and eventually someone came forward and explained that he had accidently left it in the room after he had done some target shooting off campus. At no time, did he bring a gun on campus.

Guys, this school is located in Houston, Texas. I lived there for a few years and it's not the Texas I remember. This type of crap is happening all over and not just in New York, New Jersey, Masschusetts, Illinois, or California. Hoplophobia is getting worse among its sufferers. Be sure to read the comments to the newspaper's article.

(Sorry for the lack of posting, but work has become a big stinky cauldron into which I pour my time and energy and don't see much progress.)

Will Hollywood Ever Learn?

No, Hollywood will never learn. They’ll never understand that they can’t make money by pissing off half the country with a political thriller that stacks the deck against America. Their latest flop is “Rendition.”

It posits that a probably innocent man is kidnapped by the United States and sent to another country for interrogation involving torture. Reese Witherspoon plays his tormented wife and Jake Gylllenhall plays a CIA analyst who overseas the interrogation to his horror. Both well-known actors cut their usual fees to perform in this movie.

The script tries to hit all the leftist notes about the evil lengths our government will go in the “War on Terror.” It cost just south of $30,000,000 to make. Its cast is a roster of famous names including Meryl Streep. Given its topic, its advertising, its wide release on 2,250 screens, and blatant appeals to leftist sensibilities, you’d think it would be burning up the theaters. It’s been out for two weeks and its made about $7,800,000. The re-issue of Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” has made more money.

I hold no brief for the government and realize they make mistakes and do bad things sometimes. However, I’m put off by “America the Bad” messages. How about showing the good our nation has done in the world? How about showing the evil things other nations and groups do (airliners v. skyscrapers ring a bell)? I don’t know when Hollywood will get the message, but keep voting with your feet.

Ruger 10/22, A Confession

The other day, Say Uncle did a show and tell on his Ruger 10/22 rifle. He was responding to Bruce of No Looking Backwards (I still call his blog mAssBackwards) who realized that October 22 would be a good day to show his and others Ruger 10/22s.

I would love to show you my Ruger 10/22, but I can't. I have a confession to make. I don't own a 10/22. I've got a Remington FieldMaster pump-action .22 rifle. Yosemite Sam has a semi-auto Sears .22 handed down to him from his father, but neither of us has a Ruger 10/22.

Is that a gasp of amazement I hear out there? No, it's a gasp of amazement coming out of me. The 10/22 is a fine rifle and belongs in any gunnie's collection. One of these days I will have to buy one and thus end my shame.

More on a Gallup Poll

I posted about a Gallup Poll last week that showed that support for rights to own handguns is the highest it’s ever been since the question was asked. In 1959, only 36% of people polled supported handgun ownership and 60% would ban handguns for “ordinary” citizens.

This has puzzled me since I wrote it. We view anytime before 1968 as being a Golden Age for gun rights. In terms of formal laws I guess it was. You could buy a gun in a hardware store with no questions asked. You could order a 20mm Solothurn rifle from a magazine advertisement and the U.S. Mail would deliver it to your door. There seemed to be less crime then even though guns were more available.

Now we have organized groups who want to ban guns and legislators who try to make this happen. We must undergo an FBI check to buy any firearm. We have gun crime at a higher rate than in the 1950s. One would think that the poll numbers would be reversed, but they’re not. I think there're a few reasons for this.

First, some (not all) World War II veterans came home with little use for handguns. Most of them had been trained as riflemen first and foremost. The rifle was your best friend—if you were infantry. In fact, some military planners hoped the M1Carbine would replace handguns.

I can give one example of veterans having little use for handguns. My father flew bombers during the war and was issued a Colt 1911A1, which he carried in a shoulder holster. He told me that he could have kept his pistol, but he was tired of carrying it. To this day, he’s never had any interest in handguns although he owns rifles and shotguns.

If veterans with this attitude had been polled, they might be part of the 60%.

Second, you didn’t have the very real threat that your handgun and maybe gun rights could be taken away. Such a thought was “pie in the sky” at best. A person who didn’t like handguns might agree to ban them in a poll believing such a thing was impossible. That same person might give a different response if they felt it could actually happen. It’s part of mankind’s paradoxical nature.

Third, gun control may have been in the air. Most of our gun laws were passed in 1968, only nine years after the 1959 poll. That’s not a lot of time. During the 1960s we had terrible political assassinations using guns. These events may have consolidated a feeling that already listed.

I’ve done little research into public opinion in 1959. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here and could be all wet, but maybe not.

A Blog Milestone

The Ten Ring reached a blog milestone sometime this weekend. I checked Sitemeter and found 225,347 hits. That may be what some of the big bloggers to on a good day, but it feels good to have had that many people check into our blog. Thanks to all those who came in for a visit and another thank you to those who keep coming back.

Historical Comparisons in A Gallup Poll

Wow, two posts in one day--must be a slow day at work. Anyway, I checked out a couple of blogs this morning and noticed some good news from the wonderful people of Gallup Polls. Arms and the Law mentioned that fewer Americans support gun control after 9/11. Call Me Ahab discusses the numbers in more detail. And they are good news for us--the Brady Bunch must be crying in their corn flakes.

I took a closer look at some comparisons with past and present support for handgun limitations(here's the link and scroll down to Number 21 about 2/3s of the way down the page). There's something that jarred me.

Today, 68% of the people believe there should not be a law limiting handgun possession to police and other authorized people. That leaves 30% of Americans (with 2% on the fence) that would infringe on our rights. Surprisingly, in 1959 the numbers were almost exactly reversed; 36% of the people thought that handgun ownership should not be limited to police and other people while 60% would ban handguns for the average citizen.

In fact, since 1959 public support for handgun ownership is the highest its ever been tracked by Gallup. You could've knocked me over with a feather.

Turning Good New into Bad

I try to keep concentrate on gun issues, but every now and again, I have to expand the blog's horizons. I'm here at work and I was doing some morning news reading (don't tell the boss).

I read an article in the New York Times that discussed the affect more immigration enforcement was having on a large meatpacking plant in North Carolina. The author is Stephen Greenhouse and he laments the impact this enforcement has had on the employer and the illegal immigrants.

Greenhouse tells us sob-stories about Hispanic themed stores having less business, about a woman whose husband is facing deportation, about how illegal aliens may have helped formed unions, and about how they were harder workers than Americans who replaced them.

I don't know about the work ethic part of it, but the article mentions a lot of good news couched as bad news. Here's an example, "Some companies have reluctantly raised wages to attract new workers following raids at their plants." The key words here are "reluctantly" and "following raids." The good news is that companies raised their wages. I thought this was a good thing.

Greenhouse goes on to complain about a woman who now works at the meatpacker and faces a long commute in a company van (she pays a weekly amount to ride it). I don't like my long commute, but this woman more than doubled her hourly wage. That's not a bad thing. Further, Greenhouse had to admit that the plant has hired more black people to replace the illegal immigrants.

The plant has a high turnover rate and new employees complain of sore muscles. But, there's no guarantee that work will be easy or even rewarding. Someone must do the mind-numbing hard work and we all can't get paid to discuss Jacobean poetry.

I am amazed that a New York Times writer could try to turn good news into bad (that's called sarcasm people).

Privacy, Cars, and Guns

From Arms and the Law I see that a Federal judge has struck down an Oklahoma law that ruled companies could prevent employees keeping a gun in their cars if parked on a company lot.

I admit to some mixed feelings about this, as did some of you who commented on the post. Private property should not be subject to arbitrary government rules. I didn't like the state of Massachusetts saying that I had to have a gun license to keep my own gun in my own house. Believe me, that law and virtually all of Massachusetts’s gun tyrannies sucked. The more I have thought about this, though, the more I have to come down on the side of Oklahoma's legislature.

Here's some history. A few years back large employers like Weyerhauser and ConocoPhillips decided they wanted to prevent gun violence in the workplace. They knew that some employees had carry permits and others brought guns to work in their cars during hunting season. They used obscure parts of employee handbooks to order surprise inspections of cars belonging to randomly selected workers. If you refused a search, you were fired. If they found a gun in your car, you were fired. It affected a number of employees regardless of how well they performed or how long they had worked for the companies.

Oklahoma lawmakers thought this was unfair and that it violated the Second Amendment. They passed a law to stop this practice, the same law that has been struck down. Of course, the state could appeal, so the story is not over yet.

As I said, I've thought about this and I must come down on the side of being able to keep a gun in your own car even if it is parked in a private lot. Especially so the lots of huge private bureaucracies employing thousands of people and that may be the only employer of note in a city. There's no comparison between a huge company and a homeowner.

My car is an extension of my home. If I visit a gun-fearing friend and I'm carrying a gun, I will respect his wishes and lock my gun up in my car even if it is parked on his driveway. While he owns the driveway, I expect to be able to store my gun during the visit. If I visit a small store that has a no guns allowed sign, I also expect to store my gun in the car parked in that store's parking lot (ignoring the fact that I probably wouldn't shop there in the first place).

If we allow anyone to state that you can't have a gun in your own car while it is parked in their lot or driveway, we make our self-defense and gun rights meaningless. You won't be able to run a few errands while carrying a gun. You won't be able to stop at a store and buy supplies on your way to a hunting spot. You won't be able to store your gun in your car while you're at work and then holster it after work.

If enough businesses promulgate such rules it will become impossible to carry a gun for self-defense no matter how many permits you have from state governments. My property rights do not end when I park my car in someone's lot. My Second Amendment rights do not end just because a private party wishes them gone. My right to self-defense does not end because some private nanny wants me to be defenseless.

I will cede this though, I think a company, store, or person does control what happens inside their buildings. Carrying a gun when they wish you to refrain does violate private rights. Storing a gun in your own car even in their lot is not the same thing.

I hope that this decision is reversed.

Arbitrary Government

Via Kim and Say Uncle, we have the story of Ronald “Bo” Ward, an owner of a barber shop who needed a zoning variance in order to stay in business. His request was denied and Mr. Ward exclaimed “Ya’ll have put me under ... I’m out of here,” and then shot himself in the head.

On the surface, most people will say: That seems to be an extreme reaction to a minor setback, but the first thing I thought was that I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.

You see, I work in the land development field and I deal with these zoning boards all the time. Massachusetts zoning boards. Massachusetts has 351 towns and each town has different rules and requirements for zoning. Thus, we have to keep track of the rules in every town in which we do business. This doesn't even take into account the restrictions caused by various environmental regulations like the River's Act.

All that is bad enough. But now we get to the real fun.

For example, a client wants to add a pool to his property in one of those W towns in the western suburbs of Boston. OK, this shouldn't be too hard. Look up the Zoning rules for the town, check if he has wetlands on his property, apply the rules and regulation, design the pool accordingly and then we're done.

Right. Not so fast.

We go to the board and the board mentions that our client's house is on a Scenic Road and that his landscaping needs some work. Well, I can't seem to find the zoning rule that mentions landscaping, but the client agrees in order to work with the board and to facilitate approval of his pool.

Time passes.

Another meeting.

Now the board has issues with our client's lighting. Lighting that can't even be seen from the road. The board wants low environmental impact lighting with a low wattage.

Now our client is getting pissed.

He wants to get his pool built before the end of summer. We draw up lighting plans that show the negligible impact of our client's current lighting arrangement. The board still wants the low impact lighting and now wants tighter development restrictions on our client's property.

Restriction that would guarantee that our client would no longer be able to add improvements to his property.

Now you might say: Why doesn't our client sue the town? Well assuming that our client has enough funds to afford a long, protracted law suit, the outcome would still be far from assured.

The town doesn't care, they have a nice tax base to defend any potential law suit. So our client finally gives up and decides to try again later, even though, according to the town's zoning rules and regulations, he had a legal right to build a pool on his property.

This is arbitrary government at its finest.

I have seen scenarios like the one outlined above, over and over. It does not surprise me in the least that a few people reach their limit and push back.

Where Have I Been Lately?

Well, here it is almost a week since my last post. I've promised myself to do better. I really have. Honest. Good thing I haven't promised that publicly...D'Oh!

I have an excuse. I've been in a pharmaceutical haze for much of the week. There's a good reason. I was at work doing a collateral duty (workspeak for something that isn't in my job description, and for which I have absolutely no training, background, or experience). I helped a co-worker lift a few heavy things and then bent over to pick up a roll of shrink-wrap. Bam, my lower back spazzed up and I went limping around for a day and a half.

I said a day and a half because the people I worked for told me to walk it off and do my regular job. Yeah, okay, fine. When the pain got too bad, I told them I needed to see a doctor and they agreed, finally. I found out that I had a lumbar back spasm. A real doozy too. No real damage, just a lot of pain that caused my toes to tingle and not in a good way.

The doctor prescribed Flexeril to relax my muscles and Vicodin for pain. Now, this is only the second time I've ever taken anything with opiates in it (Vicodin). The first was in a cough syrup when I had a lingering flu. I have no tolerance for anything stronger than Tylenol. I spent the next four and a half days off work including Saturday and Sunday.

Now normally I'd be celebrating days off by heading to the range or doing something else fun, but oh no I spent those days, including my sacred weekend, sleeping on the couch, in the bed, in my dinner plate, and everywhere else in between.

Poor Yosemite Sam didn't know what do to. He wanted to go shooting on Sunday, but said he wouldn't really want to see me falling asleep with a gun in my hand. So poor guy ended up in the house all weekend with me sleeping, the dog farting (nobody ever told us that Basset hounds pass a lot of gas), and the cat crying for food. Boring.

I'm recovered now. The muscle relaxant did its job. Now I want my weekend back.

Why We Support Thompson

Back in June, Yosemite Sam mentioned we support Fred Thompson for President even before Thompson was officially in the race. Now that he is in the race, I want to explain our reasons.

As you can imagine, our primary reason is protecting the Second Amendment and with it our gun rights. We believe Thompson supports and will help protect these rights if he is elected President. We both know that Thompson is not a perfect candidate. Speaking only for myself now, he doesn't have a lot of experience and no executive experience. In fact, he has about the same experience as Barack Obama and John Edwards. So why Thompson?

I know he has made a few questionable votes in his Senate career, but no Senator can be pure thanks to the practice of tacking riders to necessary bills (like spending bills). Even with that, I believe he respects the Second Amendment. He campaigns in gun stores and at gun shows. More importantly, he vocally supports gun rights.

Unrelated to gun rights, Thompson has charisma and can speak well. He projects authority. He probably learned some of that in his acting career, but we've had about seven years of a President who cannot speak eloquently or project authority or charisma. The ability to talk and connect with people is a significant skill in a leader. It may seem like a small thing, but eloquence matters.

Those are the positive reasons to support Thompson, the others are negative in the sense that he's not any of the other candidates. Let's look at the Democratic field. Believe it or not Hillary is not the worse of that field for gun rights. I don't think she would actively campaign against gun rights, but she would be more than happy to sign any anti-gun bill that crossed her desk and veto any pro-rights bills. Let's not even imagine what her Supreme Court appointees would be like.

Obama is a Chicago pol--enough said. Edwards would probably do pretty much what Clinton would do. Let's not even mention Kucinich. Other than the also rans, that leaves Bill Richardson. He's not a perfect Second Amendment supporter, but at least he gives it credence. If it turned out to be a Giuliani versus Richardson race, I would go for Richardson. Still, I would worry about what the Democrats would do to gun rights if they held the House, Senate, and White House.

On the Republican side, McCain has proven he's no friend of gunnies. Giuliani is a New York City pol--enough said. Romney did little to remove onerous gun laws while governor of Massachusetts. The rest of the field doesn't have a chance, so I will ignore them except for Ron Paul.

Paul is an interesting figure. Some of his ideas intrigue me. He certainly would be a great supporter for gun rights. But his foreign policy thoughts are unworkable and perhaps dangerous.

Paul lost me completely though when he didn't repudiate 9/11 "truthers" completely and immediately. I don't believe he is a truther, but he's too close for comfort.

This post is not about the merits of truther arguments. I have read or viewed their arguments and came to the conclusion that all but a handful of them are self-deluded fools. Truthers irritate me even more than anti-gunnies. My irritation is nothing compared to Yosemite Sam's.

Thus, the field has narrowed down to Fred Thompson and Bill Richardson as a reluctant second choice. This is not the best of reasons to support a candidate, but the process of elimination leaves only these two.

Thus, run Fred run.

Proud NRA Apologist

Sebastian has a post up that addresses a critic that thinks he is an apologist for the NRA. As both Denise and I have frequently stated, we are proud members of the NRA and think that the NRA is the most effective gun rights organization that we have.

Anyway, I left a comment at Snowflakes and thought that it may be of interest here as well.

Quoted from Sebastian's post:

"If you’ve ever spent any time talking to real people about the gun issue, you know that most people believe that some level of gun control is necessary."

My comment:

Here Here. I think we in the gun rights community often forget this fact. We have gun control in this country because the citizens of this country wanted it. We fool ourselves when we get the idea, amplified by our group think, that the general public is interested in removing the gun control laws. They aren't. Particularly law regulating fully automatic firearms.

For example, I was talking to my aunt about 4 years ago, who is not really anti-gun, and mentioned that machine guns ought to be fully legalized. She said, No Way.
If you talk to most Americans, they will tell you the same thing.

We have nearly 50 years of lies and propaganda to overcome and it will only be defeated by hard work and persistence. In particular, work needs to be done to bring women into the gun rights fold. We are having some success. What we don't need is members of our own community calling the most effective gun rights organization we have, the NRA, a gun control organization. It is silly and destructive.

I will readily admit that the NRA isn't perfect and has made mistakes. But it is the most effective gun rights organization we have. I urge anyone reading this to become a member. Add your voice to the membership.

New Bloggers--A Welcome

I had a little time to do some blogroll maintenance this morning. It’s like cleaning house, you gotta do it once a year or it just gets away from you (I’m joking I clean house at least once every six months).

I removed a few blogs and could have taken out more. I used ad hoc criteria—if a blogger hadn’t posted for awhile but the blog was still up and had something on the front page, I left it in. I hope they return to blogging. If the blog was “not found” or had nothing on the front page, then out it went.

I added three blogs and probably should add more later.

“Call Me Ahab” is really a name and address change. Ahab has moved to snappy new digs. He dropped his former blog name “What Would John Wayne Do?” I loved the name of the old blog, but “Call me Ahab” resonates too, especially for someone who reads as much as I do.

I want to welcome “New Jovian Thunderbolt” to the roll. He is fairly new to gunnie-hood and mentions several times the influence "Ten Ring" has had on his interest in shooting. We are flattered and your blog is now a daily read.

Finally, we are welcoming a professional blog: Outdoor Life Magazine’s “Gunshots.” The magazine brought together several excellent gun writers and told them to go forth and write. Michael Bane is among the writers. Yosemite Sam and I are also flattered and happy to see “Ten Ring” listed on their blogroll, despite my recent dearth of posts.

There is a certain ego-boost to this blogging thing. It's great to hear how we inspired someone to go shooting. Appearing on the blogrolls of so many bloggers that we respect is certainly welcome. If you would like us to add your blog to our blogroll, just put a message in comments.

Also, we recently had an e-mail problem, so if you e-mail or have e-mail us and not gotten an answer, your message was probably spam-filtered out of existence. Such is life in the digital world.

Let Me Eat my Steak in Peace

I'm not always popular here at work. I work in Massachusetts and most of my co-workers are to the left of Lenin. I don't look for political or social discussions, but I don't hide them either.

When people found out I was a gunowner, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth, let me tell you. I am, so far as I know, the only gunowner now in this building with about thirty employees. I italicized "so far as I know" on purpose, because you never know.

I'm also a carnivore. We have a vegatarian here who preaches her diet like Billy Graham preaches Jesus. She has added a new theme to her sermon. Not only does meat equal murder, but also meat equals a bigger carbon footprint. Like I care. Besides, I'm doing my best to increase my footprint given my 40 mile one-way commute.

I checked the InterTubes for information on her sermon and found an article that discusses some Japanese study on meat production. It made me wonder what a vegetarian diet's impact would be. What about here in New England when one's fresh fodder must be shipped in? What carbon footprint would that leave?

Besides, I love steak. I'm a woman and I'm not "supposed" to admit that. I'm supposed to love green salads with a teaspoon of lean chicken placed so artfully on top and then drizzled with no-calorie vinegar. I guess I didn't get the memo and if anyone sends it to me I'll sic Cooper the basset hound on them. Granted, he would lick you senseless, but dog slobber is a serious matter.

I'll say it again--I love steak. I love it medium rare, juicy, and with just a hint of char around the corners. I broil it, grill it, or saute it depending on my passion at the moment. I've always loved steak and my love affair has aged to where I avoid the round and chuck steaks and go for the loin cuts. Perhaps it's more a function of income.

I basically told my co-worker that she would have to pry my steak out of my cold dead jaws.

Anniversary of 9/11

It is 9/11/2007. Six years after we were viciously attacked. In fact, we were attacked on Tuesday, the same day of the week as today. Six years ago, that Tuesday was bright and clear. Today it’s cloudy, cool and drizzling. Appropriate in some way.

I thought about writing a memorial post and realized I had done so a year ago today. In that post, I said all I could say now. Give it a read if you wish.

Today I only wish to say that I still grieve for those innocent people killed on 9/11. I still loathe the bastards that did it. I am still angry at those people who spin conspiracy theories simply because they cannot accept the truth. I still honor the courageous passengers of United 93. I will never forget and I will never forgive.