Found On Facebook

From the NAGR Facebook feed.

How are you supposed to tell a threat from someone going about their life?

Gonna answer your question with a question.

Are they being threatening or going about their life?

If they are going about their life, then you're fine.  This will be 99.99999999999999999999999% of the gun owners you see open carrying.

Even if they are carrying at you.  Which isn't actually being threatening with a gun, it's just being really blatant and obvious that they ARE carrying a gun.  Technically they aren't going about their lives, they're carrying a gun openly as the only thing they are doing.  Ignore them.  They're attention seeking and don't feed the trolls.

A threat will be pointing the gun at people.  Probably followed by shooting the gun at people.

A decent rule of thumb for the people who are scared of open carry is, "if you wouldn't freak if a cop was carrying like that, then you shouldn't freak if a citizen is carrying like that."

Backpedal Monkey Backpedal

I've been seeing a lot of backpedaling from several dancing monkeys who've been particularly inflammatory about political topics.

The View and Ron Perlman stand out to me; but there's lots of them making conciliatory statements now.

I've also noticed that a common, right wing, response to the Charlie Kirk murder has been, "fine, WAR!  You started this."

That, I think explains the backpedaling.

Fear.

Knowing that if the gloves are off, they're off for everyone, and being a prominently political liberal dancing monkey means there's a target on your back; and not a figurative target this time.

Who said an armed society is a polite society?

Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.

--RAH

I think they might just have realized that they are perilously close to having to back up their acts with their lives and they're not fond of the notion.

I'm not either.  Shooting these idiot dancing monkeys for spewing their bile is wrong and it's murder.  I happen to like the 1st Amendment, thankyouverymuch.

However, I think they have been screaming "FIRE!" in a crowded theater and some measure of punishment is due.  But I'm thinking fines or jail time, not death. 

Some Come Here To Be Americans

Some born here never will be.

Sad, really.

But Islam is a colonial movement.

THEY Get To Have Nuke Plants?

Microsoft is going to get to use all of the output from Three Mile Island, but we scumbag unwashed normies have to use wind and solar to recharge our government mandated electric cars?

Why can't we all use nuclear power?

Oh, the same fucking morons who are forcing us to abandon perfectly functional technologies for unreliable boondoggles.

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion cars.

There's nothing wrong with burning coal or natural gas to make steam to spin turbines.

There's never been anything wrong with using fission to boil water to spin turbines.

I cannot shake the idea that the entire impetus behind EV's is control and keeping us within a small circle around where we live.

Even worse, you can disable EV charging remotely where you can't stop someone with a fossil fueled vehicle from storing a meaningful quantity of fuel to escape that small radius.

I stopped feeling paranoid about this watching one paranoid conspiracy theory after another turn out to be valid in 2020.

Not Public Places Per Se

36% of Americans avoiding public spaces over mass shooting fears.

I don't avoid public spaces, I avoid gun-free zones.  Most of which happen to be public spaces.

I am at a loss to recall a mass shooting (a real one, not the stupid two people involved definition) which happened outside a gun-free zone.

Pipe In The Conservatory

Someone has already said that it was an AR.

I reiterate:  Wasn't me, didn't do it.

What makes me worry about this is when I was wanting to watch Air Force One land in Des Moines with President Clinton, I noticed all the likely places to be shooting at the president were already taken by the secret service.

That included all the good places to watch the plane land, so I didn't get to see it until after it was parked.

It really makes me wonder whom was the shooter, I haven't found any news about that yet.  I note that they're being reported as dead.  I'm going to assume their social media and any manifestos are long gone by this point.

Hello Nightmares

Having nightmares again.

I don't care for them even a whit.

Even more fun is being exhausted and dealing with the joys of anxiety while I contemplate sleeping.

Most of the time I can fake being normal...  Then there's weeks like this.

I Should Put Luck On My Character Sheet

Ian went well South of me instead of just West as predicted for days.

I'm looking at footage from during the storm and I am, once again, awed by nature.

We're high enough that the water wouldn't have been a problem, but the wind...

That might have been an issue for hunkering down.

We are, indeed, fortunate that we were missed.

Our decision to hunker, though, was colored by the predictions that if it had gone just west, it would have been greatly weakened once it was abreast of my locale.

Update: The last "Me" I made for GURPS was my Technomancer Coyote chimera, and he has Luck as one of his advantages.

The People Who Need To Hear It Won't Listen

I keep repeating it to the liberal people that still bother to talk to me.

Many of the things they are most worried about are symptoms, not causes.

They think that by attacking and eliminating the symptom they are "alleviating" the cause.

What people were demanding at the early TEA party rallies and getting a President Trump are symptoms.

There's a large number of people whom, not only, feel that they have been disenfranchised, they have been systematically excluded from many aspects of controlling their own lives.

They've always been a plurality in American politics, and it looks like they're heading to be a majority if they aren't there already.

Perhaps even a significant majority.

There's a huge swath of things that Americans think is wrong, and are sick of being told that nothing can be done about it by the people committing the wrong in a space they've carved out to be immune from the consequences.

Our, would be, rulers have forgotten that legal and right aren't actually the same thing.

They are confronted with, "what you are doing is wrong!" and replying, "I'm not breaking the law!"

Those are not mutually exclusive positions.

In a day long passed, Mr Nancy Pelosi's stock trades would have been a career ending scandal for her despite nothing illegal going on.

In a day long passed, the families of those in office would have been held far from their dealings; because it was bad form for even the appearance of nepotism to be hinted at.

Now it's the fucking norm and people don't like it.

Most Americans are really in the A = A camp about things and think that's how things should be run.

What remains to be seen is if they will need to kill someone to get back there.

What's obvious is the people in power are signalling that they're willing to kill someone to keep things as they are.  If some of the theories are right, they've already started killing people.

Remember

10 stages of Genocide.  What step are we at now?

Just like the stages of grief, they don't always come in order.

I think we have at least 3 of 10 going on right now.

Making Racists

When you take a moment where everyone was united and on the same side against racism then, literally overnight, make people regret that unity.

You're creating racists.

It hardly matters that a white Anitfa member broke the window to the store when all the media records and transmits into people's living rooms are black people carrying off loot.

Considering how black people behaving like uncivilized savages without the benevolent care and control of The White Man is a core tenet of idiots like the KKK...

You're making racists of normal people!

If you don't want more racists, you have to avoid being seen acting in the exact manner that the racists predict you will behave.

It's not a uniquely black problem either.

Gun owners are often depicted as wantonly and psychopathically violent.

LGBT people are often depicted as predatory pedophiles.

Where they both made headway in public opinion was to just be civilized and normal.

Being the uncivilized savages the racists claim you are makes them look like they have a point.

Look at the trap you've been caught in.

Remember that white dude who broke the windows and screamed "free stuff!"?  Wasn't he gone before the media showed up?

Did you ever consider you're being set up?

Are you familiar with the phrase, "Don't scare the white people?"

The riots, not the protests, are scaring the white people.

If you're unfamiliar with the phrase, you need to look up why you shouldn't scare the white people.

It's rarely good for the people doing the scaring.

Antifa should also take note of this, because more and more average people are seeing them for what they are and it's not reassuring them.

Not Necessarily Comparable

Let's all wet our pants about how bad this has been in Italy.

Done?

Stop for a second and ask why it's so much worse in Italy than Korea?

Why is it so much worse in Italy than on Diamond Princess?

What about what makes Italy so much worse is also present in The United States?

If you don't have the answer to all three things then you don't really know how bad it will be here.

Do I think some parts of the US are going to get as bad as Italy?

I think California is.  They were severely strained before this and didn't need the extra load on the system.

I don't think Florida is going to get that bad for most of the state, but God's Waiting Room down in Broward/Miami-Dade has nearly all the cases.  The demographics are very similar to Diamond Princess.

Hope for Diamond Princess.

Actually, I think we're going to do much better than Diamond Princess because we're less on top of each other for the most part.

There's a lot of people in the media yelling 'FIRE!' into the crowded theater, and a couple of bloggers who just fucking jerking themselves off that this is the end times and BY GOD! they were right!  This time, for sure, they promise.

Not that it matters, if they were the experts at this they claim they are, we'd all have died of ebola already.

Note that we have not died of any calamity they've predicted was an absolute certainty.

Cull them from your reading list until this is over and you should probably stop bothering with the folks who're linking to them as well.

They don't mean you well and are happier than a pig in shit to be spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Refurbishment

When the '94 Assault Weapon Ban hit I was ill prepared.

I'd just ditched my Mini-14 and a huge pile of working USA Brand 30-rounders for a home-built L1A1.


The good news about an inch-pattern FAL is the magazines are useless in a metric gun, so most of the magazine sellers at the gun shows had a couple.

But then I decided I needed 5.56 back in my life.

The Daewoo DR200 seemed to fit the bill.  Affordable, good pedigree, uses M16 mags and the 1:12 rifling wasn't a problem since 55gr FMJ was plentiful.  The only down side was the thumbhole stock.

Did I say "only"?

Finding M16 magazines in 1996 was getting tough.  They were around, but the prices in Iowa were stupid.  Still, I managed to get a stash of about ten and I called it good.

When the AWB was gone and I discovered build-your-own AR-15's I also discovered that only three of my magazines still worked in an AR.  They worked just fine in the DR200, but not in an AR.

Happily, everyone and their brother had brand new USGI style AR magazines for sale, so no problem.

But I'm a tinkerer.

The problem magazines were all ancient black-follower USGI mags.  Several were literally ex-GI because I got them from a friend who was "disposing" them from his Guard unit.

They fed fine until the last three rounds where the follower stopped raising their little noses past the top of the magazine.

I'd been reading about Magpul's self-leveling follower and the Army's battle with tilt; so I ordered a 3-pack and new springs.

Suddenly I had three functioning magazines.  So I ordered more followers and springs.

I even started ordering new magazines with the Magpul followers already installed.

I strongly suspect it was the springs and not the followers, but better safe than sorry.

Magazine Hoarding

Those of us whose gun-owning life straddles the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban have an... attitude about normal capacity magazines.

We accumulate them.

Lots of them.

We never ask, "do I need more?" because the answer is burned into our souls now.

YES! Buy them while you can.

Which leads to a situation where, even with a spreadsheet, I cannot honestly say how many magazines I have.  Every time I think I've gotten a compete inventory, I find another stash.

Nerd Chic

I have noticed on my infrequent trips to the comic and game shop that there's not so many folks who are like I was.

I'd say like I am, but there's not so many late-40's early-50's folks just like when I was prime gamer age.

The Beautiful People are there.

Trim, fit, socially adjusted people go to comic shops now!

The female of the species is present in nearly equal ratios as well.

It freaks me out.

The Beautiful People were the source of about half of my bullies in the way back.

They've a gaming area, I know I've changed, I wonder if The Beautiful People have too.  Maybe I should hang my GURPS GM shingle at a table and see if anyone comes to play.  With Westworld being popular, there might be an audience for Sixguns and Spellcasters.

I'd still be twitchy.  I'm still that 14 year old kid when it comes to pretty girls.  Whom now abound in the comic shop.  Couple that with a streak of old-fashioned gentleman, it's a wonder I can talk to anyone of the opposite sex.

Darn Tootin' I'm Scared

I find I am constantly surrounded by people who discount my humanity.

People who seek to make me an 'other'.

Creating the other is one of the first steps in eradicating a people.

It's literally dehumanizing someone so that they can be killed without feeling bad about killing them.

That's scary.

The people who are actively dehumanizing me because I am white, straight, male and own a gun have shown no reluctance to use violence to achieve their goals.

A propensity towards violence that is approaching the point where it's going to be legal to preemptively shoot first because they're making actionable threats with a history of carrying them out.

That's scary.

John Aquilino was right.

I don't want to be scared any more.

But it's not my decision.  Someone else needs to stop being scary.

It should also be noted that I know the measure of fear.  I know how I respond to it.  It's not a crippling situation for me to be frightened.

Someone who's bent on scaring me should bear that in mind.

There are peaceable solutions to this problem, but it has to begin with the other side of this debate acknowledging and defending my humanity!

I'm especially angry at being dehumanized because I've gone against the grain of "my" side and argued for the humanity of others.

You might even know one of them.

Irma

If we can't predict what a hurricane will do in three days, what makes you think we can predict the temperature within a degree 100 years from now?

Irma is not doing what she's been predicted to do.

That's very worrisome as the longer a storm on this track takes to "hook" north, the more likely it is that it will hit my AO near Tampa.

Some of us amateurs are getting pretty good at reading the data.  It sure looks like Irma is following a trough that will steer her into the gulf, sliding along the length of Cuba, before hooking north at Texas.

Things could and probably will change, but the amateur predictions have been successful in saying it was going to keep tracking W to WSW the past few days where the pros at NOAA didn't.

I know we're using the same data!

Killed Him With A Sword. How Weird Is That?

It's odd for me to remember my dreams at all.

But last night was odd.

For some reason I was confronting a friend's deadbeat ex-boyfriend.  For some reason it was at her trailer.

The trailer in my memory is one of the ones The Shitheels once lived in.  Very detailed recollection.

The other players in my dream weren't people I know.

The deadbeat had battered my friend, but she'd given better than she'd gotten and I was just there to make sure he stayed put for the cops.

Suddenly he's back on his feet and he's got a basket-hilt claymore.  And I have a rapier.

I poked him in both forearms and thighs and he didn't get the hint so I ran him through the heart.

Dead right there.

Then the alarm did a fine job of making me think it was police sirens and I woke up thinking the cops were coming to MY house in real life.

Best Laid Plans

I had planned on regaling you with a range report about my new AK.

Circumstances prevent it.

If things go really pear shaped, this blog will be a place where one learns about the life of a formerly activist gun owner become felon.

After my release.

Speaking Of Too Much Time To Think

A week of a low-grade panic attack is very exhausting.