are ringing after the indoor range session today. I usually shoot outdoors. The Sordin Supreme Pro electronic muffs I have are only rated at NRR 18; evidently, that’s too low for me for indoor range use. On top of everything else, the rangemaster used a bullhorn, and I didn’t need the electronic side of the Sordins at all.
November 25, 2008
November 23, 2008
Roomful of Rocking Chairs
So I waited too late to sign up for a respectable class to renew my CCW and I was forced to join the great unwashed at a one-size-fits-all class from an instructor I didn’t really know.
Oh, my.
Did you know that the Weaver stance was developed by a guy named John Weaver in the late 1800s? Or that it’s OK to carry in a courthouse, but be sure to call first to let them know you’re coming?
And the gunhandling… I thought, before going, “Self, why don’t you put on some concealable armor just in case?” Then I thought, “Self, don’t be ridiculous, it’s just a little CCW class, it will be fine.” About 10 minutes in, I was wishing mightily that I had listened to my first impulse. During the “get yer gun out & make sure it’s unloaded” phase, I was muzzle swept uncountable times, and the instructor basically did nothing about it. Mercifully, that phase was pretty brief, or I don’t believe that I would have stayed. There was literally such a crowd that I don’t think anyone would have noticed that I left. As it was, I had to stand up for 3 1/2 hours because it was literally standing-room-only.
Nearly everyone there was getting a new license, not renewing, and the general talk was about Obama & new restrictions. Whether for good reasons or not, that guy has armed more law-abiding, tax-paying Americans than anyone in history.
Most people shot OK, not great, but passably. Some people had weapons that were unsuitable for them; one older gentleman had a .357 Mag loaded with hot ammo, and it sounded like “BOOM! …………………………………………………………… BOOM! ………………………………………………………………… BOOM!” Hope he connects with the first one if he needs to use it. Another older guy had only a S&W 41, but he tore the X out of the target with it. One lady shooter had some sort of .40 that she was shooting Winchester Ranger Talons out of; she said “It has a 14-round magazine, but I can only get through 12 rounds before my hand hurts too much to go on.” Several of the ladies had J-frames that they struggled to keep on the paper at 6 feet (really), and I told one of them that I struggle with a J on a lot of days too. The J is not for everybody, but it does carry really really easily. It’s impossible, and probably unwise, to force people shoot a lot more in order to get a permit, but man, I would like to see those people at the range more often.
Anyway, I lived through it. Next time, I’m signing up with someone whose name that I, you, and everyone else has heard before. As tedious as this was though, it does my heart good to see so many of my fellow citizens taking responsibility for their own safety.
November 21, 2008
Is That Phone Stand-Alone Level 3 or In Conjunction
with your four-leaf clover?
November 19, 2008
November 13, 2008
I R Stoopid
Today I spent some time reading trying to read The Road To Reality by Roger Penrose.
I made it through the first 5 chapters, barely, but I must admit that by about number 6, the brain I was using to try to understand it was too stupid to permit further progress. The mathematics involved are, frankly, excessively demanding if the reader does not have a university-level math-major education. This is a beautiful but enormously challenging work. Bring brains.
I am also reading The Life of Isaac Newton by Richard Westfall. Did you know that the young Newton was an inveterate graffitist? He habitually carved his name into the desks and fixtures at his school. Before you think “Hey, I have something in common with Isaac Newton!,” well, he also worked out calculus before he was 25 years old; I think at 25 I had just learned to boil water.
November 12, 2008
Mrs. Boater
looking at the choices on the TiVo:
“Hmm. Alton Brown has a Thanksgiving special. ‘Alton Brown Sucks The Joy Out of Thanksgiving!’ Let’s watch that!”
November 11, 2008
Meet The New Boss
From Gunsite Gossip by Jeff Cooper, Volume XVII, High Summer, 1997:
From U.S.A. Today we discover that there is a Senior White House Advisor named Rahm Emanuel. In his words, “A gun in the hands of an adolescent is either an accident or a crime waiting to happen.” Whether he intends to say that all adolescents are criminals, or just mechanically incompetent, is not clear. A man who can say that must be an inhabitant of another planet and thus cannot be expected to communicate accurately in English.
In politics as elsewhere, a bad penny always turns up.