Gun Sales Brisk in Central PA

This may turn out to be Obama’s great accomplishment in his first 100 days:

Pochron said he sold twice as many guns Saturday as he normally sells in a weekend. Everything from $250 Taurus .38 Special revolvers to $1,600 AR-15 rifles sold, he said.

In contrast, war memorabilia was moving a little more slowly than usual, vendors said.

I could have paid that much for a pre-ban AR in 2000.  I actually hoping the market cools down a bit so I can actually start finding guns and ammo again for something near a reasonable price.  Obama doesn’t have to tax guns and ammo, we’re driving the price up just fine on our own.

MSNBC Hit Piece on Guns

MSNBC ran a hit piece on guns and kids over the weekend.  I think we’re supposed to be horrified.  In this hit piece, we see a kid shooting a machine gun, or rather, two adults holding a machine gun while the kid pulls the trigger.  Unlike what happened in Massachusetts, this is how to do it safely.  Then we see an interview with a 12 year old girl who has an AK-47 that’s really an AR-15.   No attempt is made at all to explain why you might introduce children to shooting.  That is left up to the viewers, which is entirely the point, to present scary images to the uninitiated without presenting any context.

My favorite line?

“Seven year old Teresa has an AR-15: an air-cooled, semi-automatic, shoulder-mounted rifle that is currently used by the U.S. special forces in Iraq.”

No, no, we’re not playing up irrelevant and meaningless terminology, some of which is not even factually correct, at all.  Just enjoy our freak show, and be scared for the children.

Imagine Bush Doing This

Obama sent a letter to Jacques Chirac telling him how much he’s looking forward to working with him.  Problem?  Jacques Chirac is no longer President of France.  What would the media reaction be if Bush did this?

UPDATE: Missing context

Sausage Making Lessons with NRA

Though NRA has still chosen to not update their Annual Meeting website with information that’s been out for days or weeks by mail and email (hint, hint NRA tech team), I received an email from Bitchy Mom with the NRA official session schedule in it.

This year, the highlight may well be the Advanced Sausage Processing Techniques session.

Yes, you can learn how to make sausage with the best of them – whoever the best of them are… And in the Grassroots Seminar, you’ll get an in-depth session on politics and lawmaking.

Hmmm…I guess since these are two things you typically don’t want to see, it’s probably not going to convince you other blogger to come to Blog Bash.

San Francisco Chronicle Raises the From Dead!

Amazingly, the San Francisco Chronicle has managed to raise the dead. Praise be to Jesus! Amazingly, it can’t raise itself from nearly certain death since they could be closed any day now. They can just raise other people from the dead.

On the National Park Service lead ammo ban announced this month, the Chronicle quotes Neal Knox. That’s correct – the Neal Knox who died in 2005. They not only run the story online, but they published it in today’s paper on page H-8. (Someone in the area might want to grab a copy for the Knox family. I don’t know how they would feel, but I know I would find it amusing if someone quoted my father on a current issue when he’s been dead for more than 10 years now.)

How does their team of crack reporters do it? I’m fascinated by their new ability to raise the dead. This should give them a leg up on the competition. Oh wait, they are the only major daily in town – they have no competition and they still lose $1 million/week.

Or, maybe it’s not a new talent by Chronicle reporters. Maybe it’s just Neal Knox. Perhaps he has risen as a zombie and is now working with his sons to issue new statements? This could give some folks at NRA more than a little heartburn tonight.

Of course, if their reporters had done any research, they would find (as best I can tell) that the quote – which indicates nothing specific about lead, so I’m not even confident it is about lead issues – is from almost 20 years ago about a different issue. Shocking – I know – that Neal Knox, more than 4 years after his death, is not issuing statements about recent NPS policy announcements.

But remember, they have editors. They are better than bloggers – always! We’re just sitting around in our pajamas and spreading rumors with no editorial control at all. At this point, the difference is that we don’t even get paid.

Butt Crack of Dawn

One thing I really appreciate about the club’s air gun matches is that the start at 10AM.  IHMSA and CMP start at 8, which means I get up earlier than I normally would for work.  Came down with a cold yesterday too, so I have a Benadryl fog on top of it all.  Should be interesting to see how I shoot with cold medication running through my system.

Either way, the AR-15 and I must be off.

UPDATE: 395 in a 500 point match.  First slow fire prone stage I bombed.  Steadily improved in score up until offhand, which wasn’t actually as bad as the first prone stage!  I think I can reasonably do 425/500 next time.  We’ll see.  I might shoot better when I’m not feeling like crap.  The top shooter, who I was scoring, did a 490/500 with 11X.  I definitely have some practice ahead of me to improve.

CMP Season Begins

Tomorrow is our club’s first CMP match for the season.  Took the AR out today to practice a bit, and to chrony a new load.  27 grains of Varget with a 55gr Remington FMJ-BT bullet.  We only have a 200 yard range, so 55 grains works fine.  I thought 27 grains of Varget ran a little hot.  3380 at the muzzle.  I prefer about 3200 out of the 20″ barrel.

Match starts at 8:00 tomorrow.  I don’t even get to work that early.  Need to load some more ammo before I get to bed tonight.  One thing I definitely appreciate about shooting air pistol and .22LR is that I don’t have to reload anything.

My Tired Eyes

Got an eye exam today.  First in probably five years.  I noticed my eyes were having some difficulty focusing on the computer screen, and seeing distant targets clearly.  I didn’t thnk my sight had deteriorated all that much, but as soon as I was in front of the chart, and could see all the way to the bottom on the left eye, and only down three lines on the right, I knew it going to mean a new prescription.

I’m anxious to see how this affects my shooting.  I don’t have too much difficulty with indoor or air gun Silhouette animals, which max out at 25 yards, but a military SR target out at 200 yards looks pretty fuzzy to me.  I prefer a six o’clock hold on those, and it’s too fuzzy for me to make out whether I’m lollypoping the target properly, or whether I’m a bit under it.  The fuzz kinds of runs together.  Hopefully the new prescription will help me with that.

Other than that, the eyes are fine.  I had one imperfection in my eye lens that they say is congential, and isn’t big enough to affect my vision.  Blood pressure was a little high (don’t ask me why optometrists take blood pressure), but I have white coat hypertension, so that wasn’t a surprise to me.  Put me in any clinical setting and I exhibit pretty severe anxiety.  My resting pulse rate is 60-70 bpm.  The machine read my pulse rate at 120 bpm.  I don’t like doctors offices.  The dentist is even worse.  Good thing they don’t take blood pressure.

Site Chosen for 2012 Olympic Shooting

Looks like they are choosing the Woolwich as the venue for the shooting events for the 2012 London Olympics.  I have to wonder if a big reason choosing Woolwich is that its status as a military facility made dealing with UK law in regards to small arms easier, and avoided problems for the politicians.  The National Rifle Association of the UK had pushed hard for the shooting games to be hosted at Bisley, in Surry, and the British Army previously didn’t want the games held at Woolwich, so I’m guessing they relented.

No doubt there are many disappointed shooting enthusiasts over this decision.

UPDATE: No doubt taxpayers in the UK should also be disappointed, as Bisley’s bid was 10 million pounds cheaper than Woolwich’s.

NPS Shuttering Springfield Armory?

Michael Bane reports that the National Park Service may be shutting down the Springfield Armory National Historical Site in Massachusetts:

Yesterday Jim Shepherd at the SHOOTING WIRE and I received information ostensibly from an insider whistle-blower that the Springfield Armory is quietly being disassembled. According to the information we received, the new director not only has no background in firearms — rather, from “textiles” — but sees no benefit in preserving “old guns.”

Again, according to the information we received, the curator has been removed, the huge arms library has been closed and the new administrator is in the process of locking up the arms collections.

Both Jim and I are working to either confirm or deny the information, but so far no one at Springfield is talking.

If this is confirmed, it would indeed be a tragedy.