Looks like I forgot to include LouG of Mad Gun Blog in the June E-Postal results. I have revised the results accordingly. Lou scored an 8 in Rimfire w/ Optics.
Category: Guns
My Glock Made Me Do It!
Once again, my Glock will one day apparently call out to me to kill myself:
What the authors of the Second Amendment did not foresee, however, is that when people own a gun, they unwittingly raise their risk of getting hurt and killed — because the odds that they will one day use their gun to commit suicide are much larger than the odds they will use their gun to defend themselves against intruders, muggers and killers.
There’s a big problem with using statistics like this to determine risk. My gun has a 0% chance of being used in a sucide, because I am not suicidal! Once more, I have never been, and don’t ever see myself becoming suicidal. I can think of few suggestions more condescending than suggesting I not possess something because “you might hurt yourself with that!”
That the media has been reduced to selling the idea that “Guns cause suicide” rather than the idea that gun cause crime seems to indicate we’ve won on the latter debate, and the former is so utterly ridiculous to thinking people that I don’t expect it’ll find much resonance in the public.
Gun Blog Rifle League
Recently my club has had to suspend its CMP matches for lack of participants. I suspect the reason for this is that ammunition has gotten so expensive that a lot of folks simply can’t afford to shoot large bore rifle matches, much less practice. This has made me consider that maybe, in the spirit of Mr. Completely’s e-postal matches, we might be able to do something for rifle shooters like the e-postal series has done for handgun shooters.
I’m wondering how much interest there might be in a gun blog rifle leauge. Rules would be roughtly in line with CMP, except you could participate with any centerfire rifle capible of rapid fire. I’d like to keep classes limited to open sights and optics. I’d be willing to consider a small bore category if enough people were interested. This is something that would be open to blogger as well as readers.
Obviously, the rifle league would require a 100 yard range to shoot. Because ammo is so expensive these days, I think we’d all go broke doing a once a month match, so I’m thinking about doing one match per season, with fall, winter, spring, and summer matches. If I were to organize and coordinate such a thing, how much interest would there be? Rules would be spelled out, and you’d basically just scan or photograph a target and submit it, just like with the e-postal series. The idea, basically, is to have a way to compete against each other, without having to burn $4 dollar a gallon gas to travel to matches, and without having to do monthly matches people might not be able to afford.  We’d be saving the planet, one bullet at a time.
[poll 7]
IHMSA Match Day
This month’s e-postal match was difficult, but it was roughly in line with the difficulty of the sport under real conditions. I decided to load up forty rounds of .44 Special and shoot field pistol at the IHMSA match this morning with my Smith & Wesson 629 Classic. Our of forty animals, I made contact with 12 of them. Mostly chickens and pigs. Using the factory open sights, it tends to be difficult.
Switching to small bore, this time with a Millet SP-1 red dot scope on my Ruger Mk.III 22/45 Hunter, I managed to score an 18. Generally if I score anything over 20, I’m pretty happy. Under 20, and I start to think I need more practice. The hard thing about shooting outside, is you have ballistics to contend with, so you have to know where to dial your sight settings to in order to be on target. Chickens and pigs for the most part are on the flat part of a bullet’s trajectory. On turkeys, you’ll drop about 5 inches. On rams, you’ll drop about 10 inches At least for most hunks of lead heading out at about 1000 feet per second.
If you ever try IHMSA, here are some things I’ve learned so far. Keep notes on your sight adjustments, and where you have to aim to make contact with the animal. This is especially important if you’re shooting field pistol, using a production gun. Sight adjustments will be coarse, and you might have to aim above or below certain animals, or more to its tail or head. Have someone spot for you. If you’re following through properly, on chickens and pigs, you should be able to see where you’re hitting/missing. But on turkeys and rams, it’s far enough away you might have difficulty seeing with the naked eye, or with 1x or low magnification pistol scopes. I don’t recommend making a huge investment in equipment. Start out with cheap stuff. When you get to the point you can shoot better than your equipment, upgrade. Most of the time, your equipment can shoot better than you can. If you shoot silhouette with a semi-auto, pace yourself. Silhouette isn’t a race. Between shots, lower the gun with your finger off the trigger, and breathe. Get comfortable, raise the gun again, and take your next shot. The temptation with a semi-auto is to treat it like a race. This is one thing I’ve been trying to overcome. As much as I would probably to better with a TC pistol, I’m determined to discipline myself with the Ruger, and shoot it to its limits.
You know you’re a gun nut …
… when you use the space under the bed to store large 200 yard targets. Additionally, if your two bed side tables have his and her pistols (she has a SIG P239 and I have a Glock 19, true love is sharing calibers) you might be a gun nut.
Gun Self-Defense in Austin
Another law abiding gun owner defends herself. As a side note, it would seem the weather isn’t the only thing that’s hot in Austin.
The Six Views of the Second Amendment
Quote of the Day
From Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club:
And as anyone who has mis-spent his youth can testify, what constitutes a bladed weapon is limited only by the imagination. A wine bottle rapped against a railing. An artfully folded aluminum can. Forks bent to fit around your hand. Ballpoint pens. Sticks cut at an angle. Flathead screwdrivers. Hard wire. Anyone who works in corrections knows that a determined man can make a weapon out of practically anything.
The implements of mayhem were always ready to hand. What was lacking once was the wolfpack social infrastructure to wield it at random. The hardware remained largely inert until the right software was downloaded to animate it into chopping, slashing and stabbing motions. Maybe what we need is a software patch, not downrated hardware.
Arms control really does boil down to a form of ludditism; a desire to uninvent certain technology, and drive it from the knowledge of man. The British experiment has shown that this does not cause violence to cease.
Most of us don’t have the time or inclination to learn to fight with bladed instruments, and my understanding from people in the know is that such fighting is likely to result in being stabbed even for a skilled fighter. One reason the firearm was such an important technological achievement is because it gives ordinary people of moderate fighting skills the same power as someone much stronger and well learned in fighting. As the old saying goes, “God may have created man, but Sam Colt made them equal.”
June E-Postal Results
We have the results for our June E-Postal Match, Silhuetas Metálicas. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone for the extreme difficulty of this match! I scored what I typically score during my IHMSA matches, which is about half the animals, so it was a good approximation of the sport to some degree. Despite its difficulty, we have some shooters who would make pretty good silhouette shooters if they tried out an IHMSA match.
Class 1 – Rimfire, Iron Sights
| Shooter | Score | Pistol |
| Sailorcurt | 8 | S&W 22A |
| David N | 7 | Ruger Single Six |
| Mr. Completely | 6 | High Standard 103 w/4.5†Barrel |
| Danno | 41 | Ruger 22/45 |
| Merle | 4 | Ruger SSS .22 Mag |
| BillH | 4 | High Standard GB |
| Mr. Completely | 3 | Jennings J-22 .22LR2 |
1 Shot at 11 yards
2 An apt demonstration that Saturday Night Specials do have a sporting use, especially if you don’t mind running up really close to the target to “pop a cap” in the ass of the animal, which is about the only way you’ll increase the odds of hitting it. Still, I’d take a 3 shooting a SNS at 10 yards at those little things!
Class 2 – Rimfire with Optics
| Shooter | Score | Pistol |
| Yuri | 161 | Ruger 22/45 |
| Conservative UAW Guy | 15 | High Standard Supermatic Tournament |
| Mr. Completely | 13 | High Standard Supermatic Citation |
| Sailorcurt | 11 | S&W 22A |
| Sebastian | 10 | Ruger Mk.III Hunter 22/45 |
| Merle | 9 | Ruger Mk.II |
| LouG | 8 | Magnum Research Picuda, .22LR w/ 3x Scope |
| USCitizen | 3 | S&W 22A |
| USCitizen | 3 | Ruger Mk.III |
1Shot at 7 yards. Because Yuri shot at 7 yards, I would consdier him to be tied for first with Conservative UAW Guy
Class 3 – Centerfire Iron
| Shooter | Score | Pistol |
| Danno | 71 | Taurus PT-92 |
| BillH | 4 | S&W Model 39 (.38 Special) |
| Merle | 3 | Enfield No. 2 |
1Shot at 11 yards.
Class 4 – Centerfire with Optics
| Shooter | Score | Pistol |
| Merle | 8 | Dan Wesson 10†.357 Mag |
Class 5 – Rimfire Rifle, Iron Sights
| Shooter | Score | Rifle |
| David N | 6 | Marlin 39 Century Ltd. |
| Firehand | 6 | Martini Model 8 |
Class 6 – Rimfire Rifle with Optics
| Shooter | Score | Rifle |
| Firehand | 7 | Remington 512 (4x Scope) |
| Merle | 5 | Marlin M39A |
| Danno | 4 | Ruger 10/22 |
Bonus Class – Masochist
| Shooter | Score | Pistol |
| Mr. Completely | 36 | High Standard Supermatic Citation |
Thanks to all who shot in this month’s match. I wish I could have shot in more classes, but time was limited because of Bitter’s moving in this month, and also, once I got to the range, I realized I had left the bolt to my rifle at home! Otherwise I would have shot Rimfire Rifle, Iron Sights with all you guys. Sailorcurt is hosting the next match. Good luck to all!
Breaking Down Stereotypes
Inquirer reporter Natalie Pompilio has written an article on the book Armed America by Kyle Cassidy. The reporter interviewed me for the article, but it doesn’t look like I made it into the final cut. But that’s just as well, since it turned out just fine without me. I also helped put her in touch with Dan, who I think made much better print than anything I had to say:
Daniel Pehrson, 26, bought his first gun for target shooting but began carrying one for personal protection. Recently, he was glad he did.
The Spring Garden resident was walking near Front Street and Girard Avenue when three teenagers surrounded him. One pulled a stun gun, zapped it a few times, and said, “Hey, check this out.”
“I drew my gun and they ran like hell,” Pehrson said, noting that the small pistol barely left the side of his leg. “It was a difficult and an easy choice. . . . The last thing on earth I want to do is think about hurting someone.”
What if, he wonders, it had been his girlfriend walking alone unarmed when the men circled? What if he’d been listening to his iPod and someone decided the $250 device was worth more than his life?
Pehrson runs a nonprofit organization – the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association – that aims to provide information about the state’s nearly 500 pages of gun laws. In Cassidy’s book, Pehrson looks barely out of his teens, a pile of pizza boxes in a corner.
My congratulations to Ms. Pompilio on a very good article.