An Open Letter to Anti-Gun People

Recently, a hunter was arrested in Denver during the Democratic Party Convention. A number of blogs mentioned the story, but the first time I saw it was on Bitter’s site, which includes a link to the newspaper article.

In short, a man checked into the same hotel that Nancy Pelosi was in. He was preparing for a hunting trip in Africa and carried cased rifles and had handguns in his luggage. The Secret Service and Denver Police arrested the man on concealed weapons charges, took him to jail, and let him out on a $10,000.00 bond. Pelosi congratulated law enforcement for their quick action.

There’s no evidence in the article that the man presented any sort of threat to Pelosi. Not only that, there’s no evidence he broke any laws. (I will grant you, that we’re talking about a newspaper article and they don’t always get the story straight.)

His guns were unloaded and in locked cases or suitcases. That’s exactly how the TSA lets gunowners transport guns in checked luggage. It’s how gun-fearing states like Massachusetts says we must transport guns to a range. He was following the law.

He was arrested because of arbitrary law enforcement. Granted, the Secret Service has to take executive protection very seriously. But, given the facts as we know them, did they have to arrest the man? Couldn’t they have interviewed him and suggested the hotel lock up his firearms?

Unless there’s some unreported fact, he won’t be convicted of anything. He will need a lawyer, probably cancel his hunting trip (possibly losing money), and he suffered the indignity of arrest.

Let me explain my chagrin in a way that even the most ardent gun hater will understand. Let’s imagine you’re driving 63 mph in an area clearly marked 65 mph. It’s a sunny day, there’s no construction, and traffic’s light. A cop pulls you over and gives you a ticket for speeding. He tells you that he thinks the speed limit should be 55 because it’s safer and saves gas. You fight the ticket and win, but you lose time in court and at least some of your trust in law enforcement.

Law-abiding gunnies by definition follow your laws—some of which make no sense at all. Even when we do that, we still get arrested. Is it going to get to the point where we can be arrested for even thinking about a gun? Is that what we’re coming to? Do we really want to allow cops and federal agents to arrest anyone on a whim?

I thought we were a nation of laws agreed to by our representatives. I thought that if we followed those laws we could have freedom within those well-defined limitations. I hope I’m not wrong, because if I am, then tyranny or strife lies ahead.

Criminals and Gun Skills

SayUncle points to a report on a study of criminal versus police shootings. It illustrates very well that too many police officers underestimate the shooting abilities of gangbangers. I would say that’s also true of those of us who carry a concealed gun. Here are some important takeaways, but be sure to read the whole thing:

• Some criminals start to carry a gun from 9 to 12 years old;
• Nearly 40% of offenders have formal firearms training, primarily military;
• More than 80% practice more than 23 times a year;
• More than 40% had been involved in earlier shooting incidents;
• Offenders fully expect to kill or be killed and have little or no moral or ethical restraints;
• Most carry their guns in their front of their pants without a holster;
• Whatever handgun that is available is their weapon of choice;
• Some have a female companion carry a gun for them;
• Criminals laugh at gun laws.

What surprised me most in the study was the finding about practice and formal training. Too often we gunnies picture criminals as holding their guns sideways, being untrained, and never practicing.

Instead, we see a picture of criminals practicing about twice a month. We find that a large minority of them have professional training. That suggests that those with training are able to teach those who don’t have that training. Also, in a confrontation with more than one criminal, a female may have a gun that she can pass to her boyfriend or shoot you herself.

This is a very clear picture of armed criminals. It is also very sobering. While it is better to face these miscreants armed, remember that they are likely to have real street combat experience and possibly more training and practice than you. As they said on Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there.”

A Good Use for BATFE

Well, here is one good use for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. I hope the BATFE and other agencies catch the people who firebombed these researchers’ houses. It is only a matter of time before these domestic terrorists start killing people here in the USA.

I am an animal lover, but I don't think "a pig is dog is a boy." We should never be intentionally cruel to animals who can and do suffer. But scientists must be able to do research (not necessarily test cosmetics) on animals. We are also omnivores and we must use animals for meat. We also keep pets and dogs and humans have been together for a long, long time (cats only less so). Such are the facts of life and these animal activists need to grow up.

Nutritional Experts(?)

Work has been exceedingly poopy lately. Poopy is a technical term for being very busy, but never feeling you’ve accomplished much. Frustrating in other words. I haven’t posted lately. Oh well. I really don’t have much to say today either. Because of work, I haven’t been following blogs or gun news or much of anything.

I thought I would break my silence here though and mention something about nutrition seen on the New York Times’ TierneyLab. Once again medical experts are changing the paradigm about what is healthy. Saturated fat and its handmaiden cholesterol, was the big boogieman for most of my life, but recent studies show it ain’t necessarily so.

This bugs me. Hell, this infuriates me. I have tried to follow doctors’ advice and eat right. I followed the USDA Food Pyramid. The result; well, people who’ve met me can tell you that I’m big (polite for fat).

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on diet. It seems like Dr. Atkins, of all people, was more or less right. A low-carb diet or one with very low processed carbs (white rice, white flour, potatoes, etc) is good for you.

Yosemite Sam (who is not fat) and I went on my version of Atkins. I did not use the menus in the book, but I read it for ideas and used them. Yosemite Sam and I ate meats, butter, whole milk, nuts, eggs, bacon, and green vegetables for about three months. We were never hungry. (Travel interrupted the diet for me, but I will return to it soon.)

During that time, I lost about 10% of my body weight—that’s ten percent not ten pounds. Yosemite Sam tends to high-cholesterol (I don’t). At last measurement, his good cholesterol levels were up, his bad cholesterol levels were down. In other words, we both got healthier.

Why do experts screw us over so much and why do we let them? I feared the Atkins diet until I read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes (mentioned in the link above). Similarly, experts tell us that having a gun in the home is dangerous, that more guns equals more crime, that cow farts overheat the planet.

We do it to ourselves. We seek words of wisdom and believe we find them from doctors, social scientists, and others. Instead, we see that the last fifty years of nutritional science is the medical equivalent of “bleeding” patients and the last thirty years of anti-gun scholarship is worse than worthless.

Maybe we should listen to our parents or grandparents more. I remember my mom saying, “don’t eat pasta, it’s fattening,” or my granddad saying, “let’s go shooting.”

What happened to my Country?

Denise has been cajoling me for awhile to do a blog post, but I’ve always had excuses for why I couldn’t do one. Too busy, too tired, or nothing to say cover the most common excuses. But I don’t think any of them get to the real reason why I haven’t felt like posting. Despondency: a growing feeling of despondency and despair over the current state and future of this country. Here is an example.

Now that I live in the DC area and with the price of gasoline at over $4 per gallon, I take the Metro to work. It’s not all that bad. I get to read during my commute and I get a subsidy for it through my work. I don’t particularly like the crowds, but I’ve learned to adapt.

Everything has gone more or less the same for the last 3 months. Then yesterday, I noticed a ramped up police presence. When I got off at my stop, police were all over the platform; making me wonder if there was an incident or high profile arrest, taking place. I left the station and continued to work, forgetting about it for the rest of the day.

In the evening, though, a curious incident took place. The train stopped at a station and two police officers, with M16’s, got on the car, one at the front and one at the back. My interest was immediately piqued, but soon, I could feel resentment and anger boiling up inside of me.

This was happening in America.

This wasn’t some airport or security zone. This was on a subway car, full of commuters, going home. I remember when I traveled to Kenya, when I was in the Air Force, and I noticed that soldiers and police with machine guns commonly patrolled civilian areas and I remember thinking with pride that I lived in a country where that didn’t happen.

No more.

The police stayed on the train for 3 stops and got off. The anger stayed with me until I got home and mentioned this incident to Denise. She told me that she had heard on the radio that they were doing some kind of terrorist training exercise and that what I had encountered was probably part of that.

Not to sound like a Nutroots Leftist, but I have a few questions and comments concerning the incident I just related.

1.) What is the purpose of having police patrolling in public areas with M16’s? If there is a terrorist incident, the two cops would have ended up shooting half the car. The M16 is completely ill suited to this kind of close quarters situation. If anything, they should be armed with shotguns, which would greatly reduce the likelihood of killing innocents.

So, if the M16 is so ill suited to this kind of situation, then why do the police carry them?

I would say intimidation.

They dress in black tactical gear and carry automatic weapons to intimidate both potential terrorists and the public.
Face it, by militarizing the police, we have created a de-facto army, that is starting to take on the characteristics of an occupation force. Being militarized, the police have to have an enemy to fight and face it, that enemy just might be all of us.

2.) What is the purpose of this training exercise? Does anyone actually believe that all of this actually would dissuade any would be terrorists. The police states of the Middle East don’t stop terrorist acts, why should a nascent one in this country discourage them.

No, I think one of the reasons they have these exercises is to get the American people more used to the idea of seeing paramilitary police, parading around with automatic weapons. Enough exercises and most people won’t think anything of it.

This gets me to my final point.

I don’t see any possible change of direction from this course that the nation has taken. Both political parties support policies that support the militarization of police.

The Republicans directly through their support and sponsorship of the War on Drugs and the Democrats because they just love the idea of Big, Coercive Government.

Nothing will change about that. To all of you Leftists that say that Obama will change everything, give me a break. Already, he is shifting his message to appeal to more people and if he is elected, I guarantee that he will continue the same policies (while adding even worse ones), including Bush’s Iraq policy.
And to the Republicans: I remember all of the complaining about exit strategies concerning Bosnia & Kosovo. Guess what, Bush has been President for 7 ½ years and we still have troops in the Balkans; so much for an exit strategy.

Finally, and the real cause of my despondency, I can’t even blame all of these politicians that much. They are just doing and saying these things to get elected. The real cause of our problems is the American people.

Somewhere along the line, the majority of people in this country decided that liberty and freedom was just too much gosh darn hard work. They voted in people to pass laws that would make their lives easier and make them feel safe. And guess what, the politicians they hired did what they were told to do.
Until the American people, on a wholesale basis, support the idea of freedom, not just for themselves, but for the people they disagree with as well, we will continue to get more of the same.

The thing is, I really don’t see that happening any time soon.

Heller of a Good Time (I Hope)

Okay, I'm sitting here on pins and needles. I have ScotusBlog open and ready to see what the Heller decision is. I did the same Monday and yesterday; so much for productivity. I think it will go our way, but who knows. More later.

UPDATE: 10:10 and nothing, these pins and needles are getting uncomfortable.

UPDATE: 10:13 SCOTUS has confirmed what we already know. There is an individual right to own a firearm. Breyer, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg dissented and Scalia wrote the majority opinion. I was hoping for something better than 5-4, but we will have to see how this all shakes out.

I believe that one phase of our fight to protect our right to keep and bear arms is over. We won that phase. Now will come battles to determine what reasonable restrictions might be allowed. These battles could be worse than the Second Amendment battles. Gun owners could divide into several camps; those who believe reasonable is having a revolver and shotgun and those (like me) who like all kinds of guns--other camps are possible.

Let's stay together and fight the next battles. Now back to my real work. (10:20)

New Terms (and Vote for Me)

Thanks to the inestimable Rachel Lucas, I just found a new term that I must figure out how to use; "butthurt," or "a butthurtin'."

Maybe something along the line of vote for me in the ParaUSA contest by July 1, or I'll have a butthurtin' when I don't win. Or something like that.

Seriously, I like that term or word in our present political situation. Expect to see it here soon.

My Campaign Disappointment

I haven’t posted much about politics. It doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the presidential campaign. There’s a lot at stake. You see, I’m disappointed about the whole thing. We have Obama and McCain. What a choice. What a sad choice.

If Obama gets the nod, I’m not sure how he truly intends to govern. I suspect he may not even know. He’s inexperienced and has no idea how to deliver on his promises. Also, we don't know the real Obama yet. We know he’s liberal, but just how much his vaunted bridge-building temperment will affect his decisions we just don’t know.

We do know that his followers want payback. They want their free health care, what I will call greenism, “social justice” (whatever that really is), and an immediate retreat from Iraq.

I believe Obama will disappoint them. He won't be able to pull out of Iraq on any sort of rapid timetable. He can't create “social justice,” because for some of his followers there is no justice if any one person is richer than another. A total adoption of greenism will lead to an economic breakdown and so many unintended consequences that Obama and others would be fools to try (they still might). As to free health care, Obama’s current ideas don't please all of his followers now.

So what happens when these followers get disappointed? What will they do and to whom will they turn? I don’t know. They are unhappy with the current Democratic Party-led Congress and will likely turn on Obama in the same way. Who will they support then? Maybe the “man on horseback” and we could see a fascist government dedicated to “social justice” in our lifetimes. Or maybe they’ll simply drop out (don’t let the door hit ‘em in the ass on the way out).

McCain is another side of the same disappointing and tarnished coin. He has no problem deciding what is right for us, even when we disagree. In the past he’s wanted to institute amnesty for illegal aliens, hamper if not end gun shows, and try to curb free speech about elections with McCain-Feingold.

Who know how he will lead if he gets the nod? He may understand that he was elected by a bunch of people holding their noses while they voted against Obama. On the other hand, he may push his ideas forward and give Obama’s supporters a good part of what they want anyway.

So what an election. I think I’ll go home and sip some Bourbon, followed by a tequila chaser, followed by a vodka chaser, followed by….

Vote For Pedro (er...Vote for Me)

In these times of political strife, there's another election. ParaOrdnance is having a contest for the bloggers who attended the "blogger bash" at this year's NRA Convention. People who vote also enter a drawing in which one person will also go to the session. It closes on July 1, so vote early and vote often.

I am unused to asking for anything on Ten Ring and I had to really think about how to approach this post. I could play the guilt card:
“I’ve given you almost four years of free ice cream. Give me this vote. I don’t ask for much…whine, whine, whine.” I decided I don’t like the guilt card.

I thought about playing the humble card:
“Well, I know I haven’t posted much lately, but I’ve gotten better and though I don’t really deserve it, I would like you to vote for me.” Things to be said for that approach, but not a whole lot.

Then there’s the political approach:
“Okay, vote for me because in your heart you know it’s the right thing to do. A vote for Denise of the Ten Ring will mean there’s a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and a revocation of all gun laws.” I can’t keep those promises, so that approach is out.

Then there’s the manically aggressive pitch:
“Vote for me or I’ll shoot Cooper the wonder basset.” That idea is completely out the window, down the street, and heading out of town.

I thought about the noble approach:
“There’re other bloggers who work harder, write more, have more readers than I do. Be sure to vote for them.” I like that approach, because it’s all true. Just look at the list of blogs for which you can vote. Yosemite Sam of Ten Ring is listed separately from me, so be sure to vote for him too.

Then I decided not to be too noble. I decided to say vote for me and if I’m a selectee, I will write the best I can about training sessions, the people I meet, and all that stuff. There that’s the right approach.

Rememberance

John Wayne died on this day in 1979. I've never hid the fact that I was once liberal and have become more conservative and time and maturity caught up with me.

When I grew up, Wayne was associated with "the Man." We didn't like "the man" even though we had no idea who "the man" was other than "the establishment." We didn't like "the establishment" any better than we liked "the man." We did a lot of circular thinking in those days.

Wayne was seen as this craggy-faced, gung-ho, pistol shooting, pro-establishment man. Liberals did not (and many still do not) see him in any other way. Since then, I've come to appreciate Wayne more as an actor and a human being. In fact, I almost reflexively buy his DVDs now when I see them.

So here's to you, Duke.

Monocacy Battlefield and a Tired Dog

Once Yosemite Sam and I got shed of our house guest, we did some fun things. Living near the nation's capital means there's a lot of history to see, to study, and to learn. We visited the Monocacy National Battlefield not too long ago. We took Cooper the wonder-Basset with us (the park allows leashed dogs).

The Battle of Monocacy was one of those short sharp engagements that few people know about, but helped determine the course of the war. Almost everyone visits Gettysburg, many visit Antietam/Sharpsburg, but few visit Monocacy. All are close together.

When we visited, we had the park almost to ourselves. We roamed around taking pictures and letting Cooper have a good walk. The visitor's center has a good selection of Civil War books and I bought and just finished reading Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz (hmm...might be a book review in there somewhere).

We learned a little history, but one other thing we learned, Basset hounds get tired when you walk them too much. Cooper started lagging behind us while we were walking a big loop. He then tried to go back the way we came and because we had completed two-thirds of the loop, it would been the long way back. Yosemite Sam came up with the perfect solution for Cooper. He carried that short-legged heavy dog the rest of the way.

One other thing, the battlefield is about a ten minute drive from where we live. We live in the lap of history.

Destroy Them Guns

The New York Time had an article today on how ATF and some police agencies turn confiscated guns into scrap metal. The article cited 13 guns that were cut up into scrap metal with a value of $7.50. The whole story troubled me:

• First, it bothers me that guns are being destroyed in the first place.
• Second, there's the waste of it; the destroying of perfectly good firearms (those that are not safe are a different story) when departments could sell them for needed cash.

What troubled me the most, however, is the condescension on the part of the agents and officers involved. Here are just a few quotes:

“With the destruction of these illegal guns, they’ll eventually be melted down and used as machine parts, piping or whatever the industry can use at this time to help better society,” from an ATF agent (emphasis mine).

“It is smart policing to destroy the weapons,” said another agent.

“There are plenty of guns in circulation without our potentially adding to the problem,” said a New York City police spokesman.

Non-law enforcement people are also involved; the ones who turn the guns into scrap metal. Their condescension is just as bad.

If reminds me that this is the ultimate goal of those who want guns out of society. If they had their way, all the manholes and grates would have once been your or my guns. They have not given up.

Fussing with a Houseguest

Have you ever had the best of intentions and then not lived up to them? So it goes with our blog. Yosemite Sam and I came back from the NRA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky all fired up and ready to blog. We even had notes from speeches, photos, and various other goodies to share.

The best laid plans and all that. On Sunday (May 18), I got a call from one of my relatives. He just got out of the Marine Corps (I thank him for his service) and will start college in the fall. He is bumming around for the summer. He is planning to travel for about two months across our great land, more power to him.

Brad (not his real name) asked me in that fateful call if he could stay with us so he could see the Washington, D.C. area. He intimated it would be for a couple of days. Sure I said. Family solidarity and all that.

He showed up the day after we left Louisville—and we arrived at home after our late night flight sometime in the wee hours of Monday morning. That was cool though. I told Brad that I could not take any time off because of work responsibilities. I gave him an apartment key and told him to knock himself out with the monuments, museums, shopping centers, whatever floats his boat.

I’m not talking ill of a Marine here (once a Marine always a Marine), but the houseguest turned into a housepest. The first day here, he wanted to talk about the family, his schooling, his Marine career (he didn't serve overseas and was really impressed with Yosemite Sam’s Air Force record). We ended up going to bed in the wee hours again and we get up at 5:30 am. Sigh.

Then, Brad stayed for a week. He never left the house; he liked our HDTV, enjoyed the air conditioning, playing with the dog and cat too much for that. He watched TV until 3:00 in the morning (didn’t disturb us though) and stayed in bed until 1:00 pm. He didn’t see the monuments, the museums, but we did see restaurants and shopping centers (on my dime).

Even worse, Brad turned out to be liberal. He thought no one should own an “assault weapon,” that handguns should be licensed and registered, and that Obama would unite the country. I about ground my teeth down trying to politely refute his points.

I blame his mother not the Marines.

Thus, Yosemite Sam and I ended up exhausted and not in a frame of mind to blog about the NRA convention (except for a short post I snuck in at work). Most of our notes and photos will remain unseen by anyone other than us. The next week turned out to be tough for us for other reasons, including a sick dog (kennel cough). But, we no longer have a housepest and can resume blogging. Keep watching this space.

Bourbon and the Convention

Going to the NRA Convention isn’t just about hearing speakers, meeting fellow bloggers, seeing acres of guns. It’s also about going new places and enjoying seeing new things. Because this was the fourth convention in a row, we didn’t tour the exhibit floor until Sunday (hint, some of the exhibits don’t change too often).

There were other things we wanted to do and we took the opportunity to soak up culture. We toured a Bourbon maker and tasted some of their finer offerings (that’s enough culture for me).

We toured their warehouses and saw thousand of barrels of corn whiskey aging into true Bourbon. Later, an experienced Bourbon guide led us through telling the difference between a good Bourbon and a great one. We tasted a sample that had been aged for 18 years and a premium Bourbon aged the more usual 10 years. Damn that spoiled our palates, now we’ll end up buying their 18 year old stuff if we can find it locally.

They had a bottle of 23 year old Bourbon for sale—the only place in the United States you can find it. The price tag of $350.00 was just a little too painful for us.

If you find yourself near Louisville, drive out of town to Bardsville and hang a right to the Heaven Hill distillery. We’re glad we did.

Glenn Beck's Cummberbund at NRA

Yosemite Sam and I are back from the NRA Convention. We got in late last night and I am sneaking a little blog time in at work. We will have one or two more posts up a little later, but I was reading other's coverage of the Convention, and Ahab asked if anyone got a picture of Glenn Beck's cummerbund. Ask and ye shall receive:


We took this off the Jumbotron, but the quality is decent. He is receiving the customary musket the NRA gives to keynote speakers. Beck had a joke about it; something like, "I was wearing this cummerbund on my way here and someone asked if I were a pirate. No, I said, I'm a politician so I can do all that raping and looting." This is not an exact quote but close.

As Ahab said, Beck gave a very good speech. It was funny, sad, uplifting, depressing all at the same time.

A Professional at Work

This will be a snark-free post about Mainstream Media reporters. As mentioned, we have media passes to the NRA convention here in Louisville. We set in one of the press areas and a professional reporter came in about the middle of the program and plugged in his laptop, got his digital recorder ready, checked e-mail, and a few other quotidian things.

I am going to confess now that was I totally and unabashedly rude. In fact, if Mr. Rick Pearson of the Chicago Tribune reads this, I apologize now. I looked over his shoulder and watched how a professional crafts a news story. It was fascinating.

He had an advance copy of McCain's speech and he copied that to Word. He wrote in his byline and a tentative title and began pulling quotes from the speech. He started framing his story even while other politicians were talking. He wrote about McCain's admitted differences with the NRA and mentioned "polite applause."

When McCain started speaking, Pearson followed the prepared text and used all caps to enter any deviations as well as recording the speech digitally. He bolded a few deviations particularly when McCain discussed Barack Obama's challenge to debate McCain on foreign policy.

I read the story in today's Chicago Tribune and was amazed to see how he and two other journalists had crafted the final version. It started with Obama's challenge and then discussed McCain's appearance at the NRA.

We sometimes criticize reporters, but they do work hard. The man I watched probably travels almost as much as the candidates, lives out of a suitcase, all to record his observations. If print newspapers are dying, we will still need professional reporters to collect and analyze what they see and hear. It is a skill they gain through practice. It was a privilege to see how a professional observes and reports.

Hello Louisville

Since Denise just did a quick post, I thought that I would do a quick one as well. We're having a great time here so far. Most of the day (Friday) was spent at the Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum. Having media credentials and sitting in the press area was an interesting experience. In some ways I felt that we had more access and in others, I felt that we were separated and isolated from everyone else. Of course we were physically separated, but it seemed we were separated emotionally as well. It was very strange seeing things on that side of the fence.

Most of the speeches were the typical political stem winders. Rah Rah Republicans. Rah Rah McCain. I liked Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson's speech a lot and she seemed the most dedicated of the politicians to 2nd Amendment rights. McCain's speech was typical McCain. He just sucks less than the rest of them. The whole thing was basically a Republican campaign rally. The NRA really needs to get more Democrats to speak at these events. I think Rep. David Boren was the only self identified Democrat on the stage.

After the McCain campaign rally, err Leadership forum, we headed over to the Bass Pro Shop for a get together with A LOT of bloggers. It was great to finally put faces to all the names and get to meet people whose blogs I have been reading for many years. Thanks to Bitter and Michael Bane for putting this together and I'm looking forward to the banquet tomorrow night.

Also, when we were in Louisville, 3 years ago, we toured the excellent Frazier Firearms Museum. It now has a politically correct name, but I suspect that it still has a lot of gunny goodness. If anyone has an extra 4 hours(we took the good part of a day), they should really visit this museum. It is, in my opinion, one of the best gun museums in the world. They have an entire floor of arms from the English Royal Armouries, which is worth the price of admission alone. This place is a do not miss for gunnies.

Good Time Had By All

Yosemite Sam and I are in Louisville attending the NRA Convention--the fourth convention in a row that we blogged. There are a few differences this year. Thanks to the hard work of Bitter, many bloggers were given media credentials including Sam and me. This is allowing us access to meetings and resources we did not have before. We set in a press area and heard John McCain and a number of other politicians speak at the "Celebration of American Values: Leadership Forum" (more on this tomorrow--it is late for us right now).


Another great thing that Bitter and others did was to arrange a blogger mixer. Michael Bane was our host. We met many bloggers who are on our blog roll and a few that will be on it soon. We swapped stories over beer, ice tea, soda, or spirits. We met Todd Jarrett, one of America's best practical pistol shooters.


We will be writing some essays on what we observed at the forum. We have pictures. We have stories. But for now, we're heading to bed with our alarm clock set for o'dark thirty. We want to thank Bitter, Michael, and Todd for the great time that was had by all.

NRA Convention Bound

Yosemite Sam and I are off to Louisville, Kentucky today. We're attending the NRA convention and most (if not all) of the blogger bash activities. Because of new jobs, Sam doesn't have enough leave to take a lot of time off. Because of that, we're flying down instead of driving as we planned originally.

I'm not a big fan of flying. There's the whole security theater thing. There's walking around in stocking feet with everyone else. Then there's the actual flying. You pay to sit in narrow aluminum tubes smelling of the last 500 flyers, their babies, burbs, and farts. Seats are made to fit something other than people. Then there's the seeming interminable wait at the luggage carousel, which is one reason I always try to avoid checking luggage. One other fun thing, the cost of airport parking. I've flown too much to like even the thought of it.

Oops, deep breath, let's go to my happy place. We o
UPDATE: Some how Blogger cut off the bottom of this post and I'm pretty sure this happened after it had been posted awhile. Sigh. Anyway, I was saying we are heading off and we're sure we will have a good time meeting new people, seeing new things. Thanks
Denise

Deadly Antiques

I read a post on Say Uncle about a collector who blew himself up with a Civil War era cannonball. I started leaving a comment there. It got so long; I turned it into a post. There that gives me something to write about!

I used to work in a history museum. People sometimes brought in "cannonballs" they had found for advice on cleaning or to donate or sell to the museum. Once in a while, they would bring in a shell.

A shell looks like solid shot, can be fired from the same cannon, and once corroded is difficult to recognize. A Civil War shell is hollow and filled with black powder. It has a hole in which a gunner placed a wooden cone that had a fuse inside (pointy-side into the hole). The base had numbers on it and little holes drilled by the numbers. A gunner could prick a hole by a number thus cutting the fuse to set a rough time.

They would load the shell into a cannon with the plug facing out. If you placed the fuse against the powder charge and fired the cannon, you'd end up with a Wile E. Coyote shredded cannon (if you were lucky). The fire from the cannon blast was supposed to "wrap" around the shell and ignite the fuse. Relying on the fire to act like this is not the most reliable ignition method. When it didn't work, the shell acted like a cannonball, did whatever damage it could to whatever/whomever it hit and then settled into the dirt. Many duds have stayed intact over time.

Cannonballs are collectable as is any Civil War artifact. Someone finding one decides to clean the dirt off and sees only a rusty blob of metal. Some use grinders to polish it up. A few get out a propane torch and heat the rust in order to scale it off. Occasionally, their work does what the cannon blast failed to do so many years ago.

Black powder has a long life expectancy. Even if it gets wet and doesn't get washed out, it can remain potent once dry. Granted, a lot has to happen for a shell to go off: it has to be found, it has to be cleaned, it has to have an intact charge and fuse, and it has to be exposed to heat/fire/spark. As the story illustrates, all of this can happen even after 140 years.

When shells came to the museum, we explained to the finder what they had. We photographed them, measured them, wrote down the finders' stories, and then turned them over to the bomb squad. No collector in my experience disagreed with that decision.

Once in a while the bomb squad would let us watch the bang. Since they placed the shell in a bunker, it was not too exciting. Still, it was enough to prove that ordnance is nothing to fool around with.