September 15th, 2024 (Sunday)
We are a species with generational amnesia, who repeatedly believes it was we who invented fire and the wheel.
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It is an incredibly difficult thing to be a human. Never forget that, and I think we do.
We forget that we are beings with super powers on this planet. No other creature can match us. We are born with no ability to run on our first day, nor swim.
We can not survive the elements and therefore must use our God given bandwidth to live, to survive, though we oft do it poorly.
We live out of balance from the rest of creation, because we are different from the rest of it while simultaneously being of it.
The deer wages no great war. Their fights are singular in combat. The tiger does not lie to gain favor, yet they build no great cities, nor write a song.
Our intelligence is a power and a source of unimaginable strength, yet we struggle to find perspective both as a people and as a person.
It is an amazing thing to possess a cognitive ability such as ours. Do not waste it.
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Have manners even when others do not. Hold open doors for women, and older people. Say “good morning” or “good evening” when encountering someone, even briefly. Compliment someone for no reason. Take your hat off when talking with a woman, even if it is just a ball cap. It matters.
Much has been made about being the “hard ass” of which I have found most of them phonies upon confrontation, or just an angry person who hates everything.
Social media likes to encourage the behavior of the “I hate people” mantra. I for one do not. I actually like people. Which can seem contrary as I am one who likes to be alone, and enjoys the company, but I have never suffered in life from displaying common decency toward my fellow man.
To be polite and kind, does not by default neuter the man, nor make him a fool. I have for a few decades held a door, said “good morning” while remaining rather confidently dangerous should the circumstance call for it.
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The job of any politician is first and foremost to be a shepherd of the citizens freedom. Their occupation is to safe guard your pursuit to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Remind them of it, and be cautious of those who do not speak of it.
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Though a fan of Hill People Gear’s products, particularly their “kit bags” or chest packs, my personal advice would be to pass on their “snubby” kit bag. Advertised as being for smaller framed people, I bought one of these a couple years back for Utilivu when she was still in elementary school. Unfortunately the bag is too small to do anything well, or carry anything of significance.
For the money I feel one would be better suited to simply by their normal size Kit Bags, of which I have three. I purchased an original Kit Bag in the Manatee color just over a decade ago and it has seen heavy use. A few years ago I picked up a Runner’s kit bag to handle the task of carrying a pistol, blade and wallet while driving the Daughter to school and then going on a trail run. Used the least often of the three I like it minimal foot print for that task. Then last year (maybe two) I picked up a third to convert to a messenger bag for everyday carry, which is in constant use.
I of course do not “need” three, but I have them. Consumerism bests all of us from time to time, or in this case over time.
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Good Timber
By Douglas Malloch
The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.
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The strongest economy ever would not require price controls.
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“It may seem difficult at first but everything is difficult at first.” -Miyamota Mushashi _____________________________________________________________________
The worst thing that can happen to a young boy is an abnormal amount of women in his life. We hear constantly about “male toxicity” and “violent men” or “violent boys”, but without a strong and honorable father figure a boy will struggle. I grow weary of being told that men are the problem with society, when it is in fact an absence of them that has created the problems we now incur. _____________________________________________________________________
Having now spent four years carrying the Smith & Wesson Model 325TR (Thunder Ranch) chambered in the old .45 ACP warhorse I can not help but think that we missed an opportunity somewhere along the way. The moon clip reload is about as fast as it comes. While the WonderNine continues it’s reign I will happily continue my relationship with the .45 handgun. One may save the “Boomer” comments. I am a fully integrated GenX’r.
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“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”
– I Corinthians 13:11
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In countering an attack the only round count that matters are the ones that make contact. Contact creates a wound. A wound is painful, and facilitates blood loss in the attacker. This is a win. The miss is none of these.
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“They began by controlling books and, of course films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressures, there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.”
-Fahrenheit 451 _____________________________________________________________________
The Texan Chauncey, who if you are on Instagram goes by the handle Stateline Shootist wrote not long back the following quote:
“Why choose a revolver for every day carry?
They’re limited in capacity, generally slow to load, and require a high degree of proficiency to shoot and use well. It’s a 65’ GTO with a 4 on the floor vs. a 2024 BMW with an automatic transmission. Sure, they’ll both get you where you’re goin’ in a hurry, but if you like to drive, really drive, then brother, I bet you’re gonna pick that GTO. Revolvers are the manual transmission of the gun world. Not everyone shoots them well, they’re susceptible to user induced malfunctions, and there is a learning curve to using one and using it well. But they’ve got the power, aren’t ammo sensitive, generally accurate, and will go bang even when you’ve got the barrel buried into Billy Bobs beer gut.
The shortcomings of the wheel gun are the reasons that I prefer to carry one. Revolvers are an experts weapon. And while I’m by no means an expert, I embrace the challenge. I won’t ever kick rocks at an auto, I’ve used, carried and trained with them extensively. In a way, that’s why I’m a revolver guy now. The challenge just wasn’t there anymore. Although revolvers are touted as a “beginners” defensive gun, they are far from it. Use your guns.”
_____________________________________________________________________ Speaking of Texas. Barranti Leather has successfully relocated from the NorthEast to Texas. Doc has operations up and running at Bear Track. The vast majority of my holsters have been made by Doc. Though I am predominately an In-The-Waistband carry guy, I will say that his on the belt CCR holster is personally my favorite of all of them, and think it is the perfect holster when paired with the 3 inch Smith & Wesson 686+. _____________________________________________________________________
One may be surprised to learn that the word Democracy does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence nor The U.S. Constitution. _____________________________________________________________________
Theodore Roosevelt daily carried a pistol. In the summer of 1902, No .26 was attending the church in Oyster Bay, when someone seated behind him noticed the butt of a .45 Colt revolver sticking out from the back of his suit. Ironically, or perhaps, unironically, that same year Roosevelt received a Fabrique Nationale M1900 semi-automatic pistol chambered in .32 ACP. It was said the pistol became a constant companion of the President.
Even old Teddy carried a subcompact.
August 31st, 2024 (Saturday)
One can not help but notice the recent trending on Social Media of the venerated Smith & Wesson Model 10 .38 Special Revolver, and I am glad for it. The Model 10 is a well balanced sixgun, it’s medium size frame lends well to conceal carry.
In the modern era there are other guns that are readily concealable with greater cartridge capacity, but that does not by default render The 10 obsolete.
It is very much a shelf stable firearm, up to handling most tasks when properly loaded, and there are plenty of proper loads for it.
It does well for the urban dweller, the single mother, or the outdoorsman. I have known personally three individuals who shot it out with badmen on the streets in 1970s and 80s. All three sent their aggressors into the next life. None of them emptied the cylinder of all six shots.
Down-loaded with wadcutters or lead round nosed bullets it can be used very nicely on small game, such as rabbits or squirrels without substantial meat loss. Anything the .22 pistol will do, the .38 Special will simply do better. The cartridge itself being a breeze to reload.
It remains at the top of my list to recommended handgun list, and I contend that the Smith Model 10 may be the most practical handgun ever devised.
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Dressing “tacticool” is apparently nothing new. In 1777 during the American Revolution, the upper-class of Virginians took to wearing fringed leather shirts and the open carrying tomahawk, much like the frontier fighting-man of the French & Indian War of the 1750s.
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On a recent trip through the Bighorns of Wyoming we made our annual stop to the Brinton Museum. The little gift shop there always has a decent library of books for sale. A couple years back I picked up a copy of Chris Warren’s “Ernest Hemingway in the Yellowstone High Country” which any reader of Hemingway would enjoy as it acts as source material for much Hemingway’s writings and passing references to Wyoming.
This year I picked up Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs through it and other short stories” and was glad to have done it. I have a deep fascination with The West from the turn of the last century through about the 1930s or before the Second World War, the 1910s and 1920s in particular.
Maclean, if you have never read him, is about as beautiful of a writer as they come. There is a passage in USFS 1919, also known as The Ranger, The Cook, and the Hole in the Sky in which he describes his idol, Forest Ranger Bill Bell packing horses through the Bitterroots. I am not sure I have ever read a better passage, though I can not explain why and happy that I can not.
I am forever now heartbroken that I will likely never see a lone man run half a hundred pack horses through the mountains. A different time.
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I have made the bold declaration, this month of August 2024 in that I have purchased my last firearm. I will allow some wiggle room on buying a new firearm for the Daughter or, in the case of some great boating accident.
There is something to be said about the rampant consumerism that is pushed in the gun industry that bothers me. I have come to have little regard for the social media influencers who peddle the latest “gun of the month” which looks suspiciously like the previous month’s.
My fiftieth birthday approaches and as I look into the gun vault I see every need met, and every interest covered. This last purchase was a lightly used Ruger Vaquero chambered in the original man stopper, .45 Colt.
One may think this is some sad moratorium that I denote, but quite the opposite is true, I am happily satisfied over this.
Ammo on the other hand. Can any man really ever have enough?
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In an age of obvious artifice the world hungers I think for authentic voices as beacons of inspiration, against a generation whose dreams have not been stolen but, rather replaced with ideologies. Having never been given the opportunity to imagine, nor dream for themselves.
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“Citizenship is what makes a republic; monarchies can get along without it. What keeps a republic on it’s legs is good citizenship.”
-Mark Twain 1906
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The Freedom of Speech, is in fact and absolute right. We depend upon freedom of speech, it is essential to any free minded person. A government that regulates the speech of it’s people has no citizenry only subjects. History has proven this.
For those who would raise a finger and say “you can not yell fire in a crowded theater” are often under the belief that this stemmed from a literal statement. It was in-fact an based upon the 1919 Supreme Court case of Schenk vs United States in which the crux of the case was centered around whether or not handing out anti-draft pamphlets violated the Espionage Act of 1917. In his opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
As Greg Lukianoff wrote ”Anyone who says ‘you can’t shout fire! in a crowded theatre’ is showing that they don’t know much about the principles of free speech, or free speech law—or history. “This old canard, a favorite reference of censorship apologists, needs to be retired. It’s repeatedly and inappropriately used to justify speech limitations.”
Agreed.
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I have maintained for sometime that we are already in World War III. The conventional mind refuses to accept the notion however. Largely due to tanks and bombers, and having an attributable enemy.
Those days are over. The world far more opaque, and warfare being conducted in unseen electronic battle grounds. Until it is not.
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And then Clarisse McClellan said:
“Do you mind if I ask? How long’ve you worked at being a fireman?”
“Since I was twenty, ten years ago.”
“Do you ever read any of the books you burn?”
He laughed. “That’s against the law!”
“Oh. Of course.”
“It’s fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn ‘em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That’s our official slogan.”
They walked still further and the girl said “Is it true that long ago fireman put out fires out instead of going to start them?”
“No. Houses have always been fireproof, take my word for it.”
“Strange. I heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed firemen to stop the flames.”
He laughed.
She glanced quickly over. “Why are you laughing?”
“I don’t know.” He started to laugh again and stopped. “Why?”
“You laugh when I haven’t been funny and you answer right off. You never stop to think what I have asked you.”
He stopped walking. “You are an odd one,” he said looking at her.
-Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451
Chapter 1
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If you do not plan your time, someone or something else will.
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“Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.” -Oscar Wilde
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As we head into election season, and likely a new round of uncivil “civil” unrest from the Marxist Huns, it would be wise to pickup a copy of “The War of the Flea” by Robert Taber, and read it. Taber was to put it mildly a Communist sympathizer.
His work became, in essence a “how to manual” for guerrilla warfare. While one may tend to think of this in terms of rural jungle settings the reality is, Taber discusses how to manipulate minority groups, use the media, and actively involve women in “the cause”, and always propaganda.
Taber credits himself with coining the term “The Climate of Collapse”, going on to say:
“This is the grand strategic objective of the guerrilla: to create a climate of collapse. It may be taken as the key to everything he does.”
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Cowardice is a very real thing. Bravery is also a very real thing, but in my experience I have met more cowards. One should very much strive in their life to be brave, especially men. Especially men. It is often thought that a battlefield is necessary to show bravery, or some violent action. While those locations certainly require it, one should strive to be brave in their daily life.
I have known many a cowardly man, they were nothing to emulate. Do not confuse meekness for weakness, as I have often seen, especially among the men in churches. “Oh he was just the sweetest meek man you would ever want to meet.” While in reality they meant he was the most neutered man you could imagine.
Meekness is the direct opposite of weakness, with it’s definition being “strength under control.”
Be Brave. It is quite rather important to a society.
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One has a hard time imagining how promoting free speech is fascism, when the literal definition of fascism is “oppressive, dictatorial control”.
Not exactly the environment that would foster self-expressive and individual thought.
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The reality of a gunfight is to shoot the attacker or attackers as quickly and cleanly as possible, while understanding that you may have to do so from the ground. You may also have to win the fight, with your left hand on your kid’s shirt collar, while screaming at them to get out of the way or move.
Which to further the point, you must have leadership over your family. Which one may find, if they lead well, the family will follow. Women and children admire a good leader, because competency is an attractive feature in any human.
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“I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened Gandalf.
“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings
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“Consider it all joy, my brothers when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” -James 1:2-3
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February 18th, 2023 (Saturday)
Wisdom does not come with age. Wisdom comes from making observations and following that observation through with rational thinking.
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One should never shoot faster than you can assess the threat.
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Camping is learning. Learning to improvise. Learning to adapt. Learning what to pack, what not to pack, and what to never forget again. Camping teaches you to think, in the sincerest form, if you do it enough. We all “think” we think, but in reality we have “thoughts”. The two are very different. One has to to talk themselves into viable solutions, sometimes inwardly, sometimes outwardly, and those solutions don’t always work the first time. I’ve spent many a deep and quiet time inside my own mind only to be heard saying aloud “Think Stupid. Think.” Or stand almost motionless for twenty minutes in my workshop formulating a plan, or design imagining the project through to completion. That is thinking.
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Some men go on to become who they were meant to be. This is not always a good thing.
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Now that we have all questioned authority to the point we understand that it should be kept an ever watchful eye on, perhaps it is time that we question a few additional things. Such as, lacks in discipline, morality and this ever present chaos being pushed down our throats.
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The job of the tactical community is to teach one how to think tactically. Not teach one how to purchase.
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There is a significant amount of difference in how well one can see fifteen minutes before sunrise versus how well one can see fifteen minutes after sunrise. A little patience goes a long way in waiting for situational clarity.
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Communism always cloaks itself behind social injustice because it relies on deceit to seduce all of it’s victims.
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“Sensitivity makes cowards of us all.” – Florence King
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There is this on going notion that both the revolver and the 1911 pistol are antiquated with no place here in the 21st Century. I would like to point out that the most advanced military in the world, with nearly unbelievable technological resources has recently been left mystified by the fact that the “Chinese Spy Balloons” are undetectable to our tracking systems. 18th Century technology married to that of the 21st is now seen as a threat to our national sovereignty.
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Of that note, the topic has been “will we soon be at war with China?” One should point out that we already are. The populace tends to think of the spy as wearing a tuxedo, bedding women, and carrying a PPK. The reality is that the job of a spy is to spot and recruit sources to sensitive information, sow seeds of dissent among those fringe elements who will, with the right encouragement, commit acts of sabotage. Of course pointing out the several dozen fires at food processing plants, avian bird flu among chickens, shooting power transformers, train derailments carrying toxic chemicals that poison the ground water is nothing more than wild conspiracy theories. The average American is now completely unfamiliar with the such things as guerrilla warfare, insurgency, and saboteurs. Worse still is the willingness to suspend the belief that it is happening all around them.
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“Marksmanship is one thing, but crisis management is still another.”
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The free market has one glaring difference from that of Communism. No mass graves.
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Greatness is never fully maintained. If something starts out as a “great thing”, it will , if left on it’s own path break down as it progresses forward. Often growing bigger with more machinations than ever needed until the “great thing” eventually comes to ruination. A thing that was once “great” must suffer set backs, and near destruction in order to avoid being destroyed. Nothin is too great to fail.
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Having sympathy for another person’s plight is one thing, being manipulated by it is another.
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As a kid I was profoundly terrified of the the dark. In my mind there was always something terrible just beyond the reach of my hand waiting . To overcome this became the great challenge of my remaining childhood. Eventually, learning to overcome this allowed me a great advantage in my adulthood, often to my professional credit. I have crossed many miles of land and city scape in the dead of night without the aid of a light, or a sense of dread. But it took a lot of mental toughening to accomplish this. I say that, to say this, be cognizant of children and their fear of the dark. Do not mock them for it, or worse ignore their fears. A light left on, a door cracked open is a reminder to them that there is a safety in you. There remains a hope that if you understand this not so small thing to them, then you can be counted on. And to be counted on, dear reader is in short supply these days.
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April 10th, 2022
(Sunday)
It is best to remember that human behavior is complicated.
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“Science investigates. Religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power, religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly in facts, religion deals mainly in values. The two are not rivals.” -MLK
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It should alarm all of us that we have devolved to such a place that the National Park Service has to issue PSA’s reminding people that their cell phones are not a light source, a map, survival kit or always going to have reception. One would think such things are obvious to the point of being laughable, until you see people on the trail.
For instance we once were day hiking a mountain in Idaho to see an alpine lake near the summit. We encountered a young couple on the trail who were coming back down wearing shorts, t-shirts, flip flops and were sharing a bottle of water. When we asked if the made it to the top, the young man said “I wouldn’t try it, we keep twisting our ankles”.
He would have been surprised to have discovered a moderately, yet properly outfitted eight year old made the climb without incident.
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Apparently CZ-USA has discontinued production of their extremely fine, and compact CZ-527 bolt action rifle chambered in 7.62x39mm (the infamous AK round for those of you outside the religious order). I was fortunate to pick one up late last summer and have thus far run a couple hundred rounds through it.
The trigger is superb, as is the fit and finish of the blued rifle to it’s Turkish walnut stock. I did replace the rear barrel mounted sight with one of NECG’s stellar peep sights.
It is currently at the local gunsmith having it’s action glass bedded, along with one of Dove’s Custom Guns “Scout Rails” drilled and tapped onto the rifle. I look forward to it’s return and future writings on this particular piece.
The shame is that CZ halted the production of this rifle, but it shows one more nail being placed in the coffin of nice firearms being produced for the American shooting public, due to being out marketed by the Walmarting of America.
The plastic 9mm pistol and AR style rifle is fine and all, but there is much to be said for enjoying other things in life beyond the status quo.
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I admit to being late to this news, but Federal Ammunition has released a new cartridge called the .30 Federal. According to the data it falls somewhere between the 380 ACP and 9mm in the ranks of energy.
Now clearly, innovation and new ideas have to be tried to see what sticks. That is after all how we have every cartridge of this current era, but this hardly seems the time. While I am no great fan of the 9mm per se it undoubtably reigns supreme these days (with good and obvious reasons).
I have a very distinct memory of reading of a then new secret “10mm Lite” that was set to take the world by storm way back in 1989. This of course was the 40 S&W and it ran well for a good many years, primarily during the AWB years. It effectively killed an odd ball competitor called the 41 Action Express, that had a rebated rim of that of a 9mm, so it’s pistol, the Jericho 941 could easily convert from 9mm to 41 AE. No one of course really remembers this round, and it does not take much bandwidth to see that the 30 Federal cartridge may be as easily forgotten ten years from now. Of course there will be some segments of the “Must have new trend” crowd that will latch onto it in some small way, but it lacks any real viability to do anything better than what is already being done. We have after all the 9mm Makarov and 30 Luger, which is poplar in Europe, that already falls in this category.
But, who can say. Cartridges like the 38 Super, 357 SiG, 41 Magnum and 32 H&R Magnum have managed to hang on.
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Most of us are old enough to remember that adults who had predilections towards talking to children about sex were called sexual predators.
There were numerous “after school specials” and “movies of the week” back in the day that dealt with warning children and parents alike about the grooming techniques of said monsters.
Now we call them Progressives.
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Be the culture you want to see in the world, to borrow a phrase. Because lest you have not noticed we are in a rather rapid descent to the ground level of the next dark ages.
As with the original period, this came about with the fall of a western empire. Specifically the Western Roman Empire when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer in 476 AD.
When Frederick Nietzsche proclaimed that “God is dead” he was issuing a warning, not a celebration as many a modern Communist and atheist would believe. He warned that man’s future inability to find meaning in life would result in nothing short of a global catastrophe for humanity.
In his own words, he noted “What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism… For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.”
It’s no wonder, faced with such a prophetic vision of the future he died in madness.
Thus we are tasked with combating the despair and hopelessness of the current, with the sincerity that life has meaning, and that there is value in living.
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Midway through 2020 I had the opportunity to purchase one of Smith & Wesson’s 325TR revolvers chambered in the old war horse cartridge (the 45 ACP), built off their N frame, though made from Scandium to reduce the weight. Without question it is a large handgun in it’s own right, despite weighing very close to that of a loaded Glock 19.
Stowed in one of Mike Barranti’s Summer Classic In-the-Waistband rigs, it carries like a dream and one can achieve remarkably fast reloads with moon clips. Despite it’s bulk it has moved to the front of the pack as my absolute favorite carry and general use pistol. Recoil is completely manageable and in no way unpleasant for a typical range session, and the engagement of targets out to fifty yards has been no issue.
Given that the general loading of the 45 ACP is the 230 grain bullet I think Smith missed the boat by not building the six gun with a stout set of fixed rear sights instead of their traditional adjustable sights.
Personally, I think a seven shot version built in identical fashion but on their K frame and chambered in 9mm would make for an outstanding revolver. A three or four inch barrel being ideal.
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“Need is a relative thing and without a proof-positive performance benchmark, it is also something that is damned hard to prove. Needs vary as do the speculations on how to fill them. Your needs and speculations on fulfilling them do not support the alteration of another man’s concept, they only mold and define yours.” – Richard Mann
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A few years back we had a client, despite never having been diagnosed with schizophrenia certainly exhibited many of the characteristics. Most notably her bizarre paranoid tendencies. One of these was the sudden awareness of large amount of electrical wiring that ran throughout her basement, that according to her “suddenly appeared overnight”.
Upon investigation this proved to be the wiring that provided power to her home. When we made several attempts, including showing inspection dates for approval down to throwing the breakers to the off position thus powering down the house, which led to an moment of behavior that one would have believed we had transported someone from the 16th century to present day middle America.
She was at the time, and for several months prior to our involvement living on two hours sleep a night, and less than a thousand calories a day. All of this culminating into a perfect storm over her mental and physical health.
I have since learned that long term increases in cortisol levels mimic schizophrenic types responses in the brain. With paranoia and hallucinations being very prevalent.
Never underestimate your brain’s need for not only rest, but food as well.
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Far too much nonsense has been made about the so-called “tactical reload”. It was originally conceived to reload your handgun should you find yourself in a brief lull in the fighting. Today it is how one “teaches” handgun tactics as a social media influencer as they are largely responsible for it’s general misuse and misunderstanding.
All of this clicking, popping, and racking came about from the “modern auto-pistols” failure to be repeatedly dry-fired without racking the slide. It has now turned into the abomination you now see amongst “the reels”, where our social media hero fires a single shot from their fully loaded pistol, changes magazines for another fully loaded magazine and then completes the course of fire. I have had this explained to me, by persons who are members of the single shot cult as “not understanding”.
Allow me to part with some very worthy advice. Use as much ammunition you already have in your pistol, because this is where the rubber is going to meet the road in a gunfight, and you will likely resolve your bad life circumstances with the first few rounds. If you find yourself in the middle of a gunfight and your gun runs dry…then one should reload.
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“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.
Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.
For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bendigo Strange's 