Carnival of Cordite #24

What yours truly the neophyte shoots:












I don't know if a pistol can truly put a warranty on my lifetime... but its judicious application certainly has the capacity to extend it so that I can get home to my wife... whose idea of the same is a little different...












Boo-boo can be a very obedient little cat after my wife has taken him by the paw and, gently and lovingly, explained both the facts of life and her long, heartfelt affair with cookbooks...

Welcome, to the Carnival of Cordite!

First out of the gate, since I've taken a roundabout way of playing "I"ll show you mine," James Rummel over at Hell in a Handbasket has posted the "what's next to your headstand?" challenge. Some interesting replies, both in terms of firearms and books.

Okay, now we're going to change gears a little bit, and go from serious to progressively lighter.

LONDON:

This week has several responses to the shooting in London...

Confederate Yankee points out that they're not fooling around in England after the 7/7 attacks. If you think the bad guy might have on a suicide vest, why shoot at the explosives? Similarly, he has this to say:

London Cops made a mistake when they killed the man who ran from them in a
packed subway car. Under their own doctrine, he never should have made
it that far.

Shoot/No-Shoot is a serious issue, and one of the ones most in the public eye. So, for this week's "random question by the host," I'd like to hear some feedback on when theory meets practice. Confederate Yankee just came down with both feet on "theory." Agree? Disagree?

POLITICS

The Countertop Chronicles has a quick update you might want to see: how does our new Supreme Court nominee stack up on the Second Amendment and other rights of the people?



They named this Center, for a guy named Brady,
and they're rabid about no-one having guns;
they bend and stretch the truth just like a pretzel,
but it helps their members raise a lot of funds!
The Brady Bunch, this crazy bunch...

I don't get these guys and the other rabid anti-gun nuts. I've got guns, and I haven't hurt anybody since this kid Terry and I got in a fight back in seventh grade. I even managed to get out from under being mugged by three gypsies in Budapest without having to hurt anybody. But these guys are somehow convinced that the Devil is going to crawl into my pistol or rifle late at night and make it run around like something out of "Not without my handbag." My pistol is a zombie, from hell? ::Shakes head::

Well, these loonies are at it again. Retired Geezer at Blog Idaho got a letter from his buddy, John, a pro-gun Democrat, that has made the Geezer think that perhaps they're not just terribly mislead, after all.

Well, apparently S.397 really got under the toenails of these guys in the tinfoil hat brigade. I think that Zell Miller says it best, when he describes why gun manufacturers need protection from lawsuits:

By any standard, S. 397 is common-sense legislation.
Let's think about it for a second but remove firearms from the equation. We'll
substitute some other products. Do you believe that Ford Motor Co. should be
dragged into court to be held responsible for damage to life and limb caused by
drunk drivers? Do you believe that Callaway Golf should be held accountable
because someone was assaulted with one of that company's Big Bertha irons? Of
course you don't.

And as the Oregon Firearms Federation points out, if lying about legislation isn't low enough, then how about getting the Senators in your pocket to try to load up your bill with anti-gun amendments? (hat tip, GOA)

On the same lines, Kevin at Technogypsy is on the ball with amendment updates, and smells a rat: trigger locks?

Owen, on the other hand, has a much more serious problem with the trigger lock amendment... what to do with all of them?

Also, Why are they suing a gun store? asks Shamalama at Common Folk, Common Sense. Hrm... because they can? Because they forgot their tinfoil hats?

Philosophy
Jay G from Toys in the Attic thinks that to some extent, gun owners are bringing it on themselves, by selling themselves a pile of bunk: It’s the notion that when you pick up a gun you have the “power of life and death” in your hands. Well worth the read.

The Countertop Chronicles engages in a bit of why do we bring these people in alive, again? musing, after reading about, well, a truly hideous mother.

File it under "why do we have a Second Amendment?"

Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit notes that some Buddhists in the South of Thailand are arming in order to resist the recent Islamist religious ethnic cleansing going on. (Geez, do these guys ever let up?) Glenn says that they should be sent some guns... and having been right next door to the Balkans a decade ago, I couldn't agree more.

Then again, freedom can cost you, as when some myrmidons over at Pacific Northwest National Labs apparently fired a guy for supporting the Second Amendment. Michelle Malkin has the scoop... apparently they're not real fond of the First Amendment, either.

"With my Smith and Wesson, I'm never alone." Countertop takes a quick look at expanding the nation of riflemen (through some GREAT ads that put it right in perspective).

Technical
Peter Davis at Shakey Pete's Shooting Shack has installment two of his guide to basic handloading. Thanks, Mr. Davis. If you're a complete neophyte like myself, reading about handloading has always seemed to bear a startling resemblance to translating Linear A. This installment is very heavy on safety, which is a Good Thing(tm).

I'm not ashamed to admit that PawPaw, on the other hand, has just completely mystified me concerning how to modified a standard .45 load so that it shoots like his service revolver. I'm thrilled, on the other hand, to know that there are good guys around who shoot like this.

Cutter, over at Wadcutter, answers one of the exact sorts of questions that newbies like me ask: ”How much heating of a gun barrel comes from friction and how much from the burning powder?” Not only does he do it, he also makes the answer easy to comprehend with a spiffy comparison, too.

The Lighter Side
Mr. Rummel pipes up again with the latest and greatest of modern firearms dressed up in the far future of Battlestar Galactica. NEAT little carbine!
I think this is legit, though. Even in the far future, slugthrowers of some sort will still have a place, simply because they derive their power from chemistry that is very hard to gimmick or shut down at a distance. As opposed to lugging around a power pack. Or will it be like B5, where the battery is considered the ammo for plasma ejectors? (Knowing me, I'd probably push left even with a ray-gun.) My other question was as much about law enforcement as about firearms, so pipe up, especially you guys who went back and forth on Anti-Zombie munitions...

Recreation
"Stuff to put your stuff in," says Cowboy Blob, home of the harmonica-playing varmint. Because let's face it: if you're going to spend an afternoon having fun at the shooting range, carrying your gear around in a slowly-disintegrating cardboard box just doesn't really cut it. Hmm... I like my pistol's box... but I have to admit that Cowboy Blob is definitely inside the ring on this one.

Bill at the Freeholder lets us in on some serious quality time he picked up with his Dad, 81, and his Dad's grandkids at the range. Dad hadn't pulled a trigger in thirty years: go check out how he did.

Bill, you're the Blog of the Week. Usually that's a Second-Amendment post, but I'm awarding it based purely on putting it all in perspective... if more folks understood just how naturally guns fit into everyday wholesome lives, a lot of the rest of the gun debates would simply fold in the public's eye under their ow weight.

El Capitan over at Baboon Pirates has two posts for us this week. The first is a mine mine mine description of two lovely new rifles in his collection, an FN49, and a custom gal you've got to see, chambered for .257. SWEET rifle, Capitan. Along those lines, he's worried about the expense of the obscure ammo, and wants feedback on whether to change barrels for reloaded 45 long? I'm a total newbie in the rifle world -- I own two rifles, a Marlin and a Mosin-Nagant, both picked because they were reliable and cheap -- so I officially wimp out and punt, even though I kind of like the idea of a fast tackdriver.

Recreation: Matches and Tournaments

Mr. Completely has the low-down on a couple different tourneys:

-->First up, Mr. Completely has some entries in the "Flyswatter" contest... " You just wouldn't think that something that looks so easy could be as tough as it is." Um, Mr. Completely, that's just an indication of how far out of my league you really are. Yours truly took one look at it and realized he didn't even dare.

-->Next up, the CWSA bowling-pin shoot in Coupeville Washinton, and the Missoula MSSA Celebrity shoot from the next day (with some really wild entry classes, too. Bowling-pin shooting with an M-60?)

--->Keewee wins herself "High Lady" at the Missoula shoot, too. Congratulations ma'am!

And "Cabinboy" at the Revolutionary War Veterans Association has an after-action report from the First Annual Wyoming Riflemen's Challenge. And for those of you who couldn't make it, you can still make the Wyoming Riflemen Association's "500 to 50 Challenge" on August 27, as well as the Nation of Riflemen/RWVA Texas Riflemen's Weekend on October 29-30. "Grab your gun and gear, and we'll see ya at the range!"

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Thanks for waiting so long into the evening, everybody. My intuition was right, and we had several late submitters. Don't forget next week, when we swing by ... oh, heck, the new host list isn't up yet. Okay, well swing by the Main Cordite Page for updates, and have a great weekend.