That Was No Lady, That Was My Mom!

Been there, done that, paid the price, never did  it again!

There comes a time in a young man's life when he just HAS to rebel against authority.

I once stole my mom's car for a joy ride while she was shopping.  Didn't get it back in time ... but I DID get it back to her.

Not every young man is as lucky:
Some moms are more ... proactive ... than my mother was.

You can rail against "Corporal Punishment", but that's one young man who now understands that you don't compromise all of your in-home security measures just for a joy ride!

He won't be sitting down for a while.

Texas Mom Punishes 14-Year-Old Son With Belt After He Takes Family’s BMW - YouTube:

Good thing she caught him in his formative years; if he had continued to "get away" with this anti-social behavior, he might someday wind up in the Oval Office!

You want Irony? I'll give you IRONY!

Mexicans are now securing their own Southern Border against a flood of "Illegal Immigrants"!

(How do you like them apples?)

BREAKING. Caravan of Central American Illegals Turned Back By Mexico: A caravan of migrants near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala on Friday has turned back from its planned sojourn to the U.S. in the face of a heavy presence of Mexican and Guatemalan law enforcement officers, according to media reports. The Associated Press reported that thousands of migrants stopped about two blocks from the Guatemala-Mexican border crossing before turning around, saying they would wait another hour or so. The border post, reports the AP, is guarded by a heavy security force and tall metal gates. Dozens of Mexican federal police officers are on the border bridge, with hundreds more behind them. In Guatemala, government authorities closed its border gate and are standing guard with dozens of troops and two armored jeeps. Mexico’s ambassador to Guatemala says his country has decided to enforce a policy of “metered entry” since thousands of migrants are clamoring to cross, says the AP.

Yes, I'm aware that this action has been taken because (our President) Trump has threatened to withdraw all "aide" (money we've been paying them off with) from both Mexico and Guatemala if the mob reaches America's border with Mexico.

Yes, I can use the "mob" word here.

Yes, I can also use the word Schadenfreude here.

The HillaryBeast would have welcomed the mob with open arms.   I'm finally glad to acknowledge Donald Trump as the most presidential President we've seen for a long time.

We needed a leader who could make the hard decisions.

Halloween

Great Jumping Jehoshaphat.

After all these years, just watching the intro to HALLOWEEN still sends shivers up my spine.


I tried to copy the link to the movie, and what I got back when I pasted it to this page, was ..

love

I don't know where that  came from, but it rates a great big WHOA!!! 

(If you don't have a premium  connection, don't bother trying to find the online version of the movie.)

I'm tempted to segue this article to pissing all over internet proprieties, but you already know it.

Just .. go search the movie title and watch it.  It's worth the effort (great movie!) and it's  a wonderful excuse to search the "net", get pissed off, and blog something about restricted access to legitimate files.

And if this doesn't give you an entire new perspective on the theme of "horror",
I don't know what will.

Just my minor contribution to Early Halloween ...

BTW, did you know that "HALLOWEEN" is shorthand for "All Hallow's Ever"?
That's right,  The first day of November is "All Saints Day", so "Halloween" actually means

All Saints Day Evening

Yes, I know this is just a little bit early for a "HALLOWEEN" article.
I claim "FIRSTS!" on Halloween articles this year.

Animal Farm

If you're reading THAT, you should be reading THIS.

Opinion | The Rich White Civil War - The New York Times

I don't think that the NYT intended this as humor.

There will not be a quiz at the end of the class.

I just thought you ought to know that people in New York think that you are all Neanderthals with no sense of civic virtue nor acceptance of people who may be "different from you".

It's a waterfall of bullshit.  I thought of making paragraphs to separate the issues, but i decided it's better that you enjoy the stream of consciousness. You can go to the link to appreciate the original.

All emphases are added:

Opinion | The Rich White Civil War - The New York Times: (T)he report is that ideas really do drive history. Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives organize around coherent philosophical narratives. These narratives aren’t visions of a just society. They are narratives of menace — about who needs to be exorcised from society. Devoted Conservatives subscribe to a Hobbesian narrative. It’s a dangerous world. Life is nasty, brutish and short. We need strict values and strong authority to keep us safe. 

 Ninety percent of Devoted Conservatives think immigration is bad, while 99 percent of Progressive Activists think it is good. Seventy-six percent of Devoted Conservatives think Islam is more violent than other religions; only 3 percent of Progressive Activists agree. Eighty-six percent of Devoted Conservatives think it’s more important for children to be well behaved than creative. Only 13 percent of Progressive Activists agree. Progressive Activists, on the other hand, subscribe to a darkened Rousseauian worldview. People may be inherently good, but the hierarchical structures of society are awful. The structures of inequality and oppression have to be dismantled. Ninety-one percent of Progressive Activists say sexual harassment is common, while only 12 percent of Devoted Conservatives agree. Ninety-two percent of Progressive Activists say people don’t take racism seriously enough, compared with 6 percent of Devoted Conservatives. Eighty-six percent of Progressive Activists say life’s outcomes are outside people’s control; only 2 percent of Devoted Conservatives agree.

Okay ... if you really want to read more, it's available "below the fold".

Bumpstock Ban

David Codrea's article on "Trump's Bumpstock Ban":

Trump's Pending Bumpstock Ban - Firearms News: "In order to eliminate -- terminate -- bump stocks, we have to go through procedure. We are now at the final stages of that procedure," President Donald Trump declared in an Oct. 1 Rose Garden press conference marking the anniversary of the Las Vegas shootings. "We are knocking out bump stocks. I’ve told the NRA -- bump stocks are gone.

Read the whole thing, of course.  Nobody is more erudite nor so well reasoned as Codrea.

My opinion counts for very little, and that's because I'm a "FUDD" when it comes to Bumpstocks.

Oh, what's a Fudd?   That's a pejorative term aimed at shooters who only care about hunting.  Deer, Elk, Quail, Lions ... or Skeet, Trap, etc.  it doesn't matter; as long as the Feds don't mess with their gun sport, they could care less about any other 2nd Amendment issues.   (It's actually defined in the Urban Dictionary.)

It surprised me to learn that I was a FUDD, but actually I have no use for a Bump Stock (spelling varies).  While I've written about the issue before, I find I can't get all that worked up about it.  I mean, who needs a Bump Stock?

On the other hand, who needs an M15?   (semi-automatic version of the M16 Assault Rifle ... which unlike the M16 is NOT capable of "Selective fire").   I don't own an M15, because I have no use for it.

The point is, most people think there is no difference between the M15 (semi-auto only) and the M15 (capable of full auto fire), and so the CIVILIAN M15 is denigrated almost as vigorously as the M15.

The difference is, the people who are pushing to ban the M15 don't know the difference.
And they don't care.  They just want it banned, because it looks dangerous.

All guns are dangerous; that's the whole point.

But the "Bumpstock" does not meet the criteria of the ATF, so it's still legal.  And when the feds get around to it, they will ban the ATTACHMENT because they don't like it, even though it's currently legal.

There are various bloggers describing the future consequences of banning "attachments" and "modifications".  One of the most popular is:

Suppose you lighten the trigger pull on your firearm.  Is that to become an illegal alteration?

Would the addition of a trigger shoe (to improve the ability to touch of an accurate shot, as I did when I was 16 and competing in .22 caliber "Gallery Rifle" matches) become a banned attachment?

When the ATF becomes involved in nuances of equipment to otherwise legal firearms, it may be that they are over-reaching their mandate.

Or I may be wrong; perhaps that is precisely their "mandate".

The trouble is, we don't know what that mandate is, except that we can expect it to be "floating" ... it means whatever they say it means, and will probably be enforced by Rule Of Law.

And there's very damn little we can do about it.

I'm just in ignorant old man, but there's a difference between LAW and REGULATION ... or is there?

Can a "Regulatory Agency" put you in jail because your gear doesn't violate either law or regulation, but they just don't like it?   Can you become a criminal even though you haven't committed a criminal act?

There is only ONE RULE to Gun Safety

Omaha Outdoors has a GREAT article about firearms range safety (see *overlink*), which I recommend highly for everyone no matter how long you have been shooting.

A few years ago I volunteered at my local club to instruct in an "Introduction to USPSA".   I taught the Rules of Competition, and coached new shooters on techniques which they would find useful.

And although almost every student in the class was familiar with the Three Rules of Safe Shooting, I boiled it down to One Sacred Rule:

DO NOT SCARE THE RANGE OFFICER! 

If a student, at the end of a stage, reached down to pick up his dropped magazine before holstering his pistol, I yelled STOP! 

I was scared that he would trigger a round into his hand. (Sure, he had already cleared his pistol because I was standing there to ensure that he had done so.  But what if he was practicing alone on the range and there was nobody there to tell him to "unload and show clear" and "holster"?)   The training was as much in safety as in competition; and if they didn't learn range safety ... they failed.

One of the stages I set up for them was to start facing up-range with a loaded gun; at the buzzer, turn and engage the targets.

I would stand one foot in front of them while they were facing uprange.  I would look right in his eyes, and say:  "okay, at the buzzer, turn and draw and engage the targets.  If you draw before you turn, your gun will be pointed at my feet.  Don't do that. "

Because Rule One was always: "Don't Scare The Range Officer!!!"

New shooters are usually apprehensive; the scary ones are those who are not apprehensive.

One weekend (the weekend immediately following the class) I attended a match where three of my new students were on their "maiden match".   After one of the students (the cocky one) finished his stage and returned to the spectator area to reload magazines, I stood on the other side of the counter and confronted him, saying: 

"Nice run.  Now what did you do wrong?"I don't know.
What did the RO say when you finished shooting?   Exactly?Uh ... "if you are finished unload and show clear.  If clear, hammer down and holster."
And what did you do next?Uh ... I cleared, then picked up my magazine.
And did you sweep yourself because you hadn't holstered?No, I did not.
No, but The RO didn't say "The Range Is Clear" so you could be DQ'd even though you had finished the stage and the gun was unloaded.    

That earned me a dirty look, because I was treating him like a newby.   Which he was.

His range experience had been unsupervised for the years he had been shooting ... and he was a military veteran with lots of range time.   He thought he knew all the important stuff.

But he had not learned to shoot competitively under the direction of Range Safety Officer who was using the required commands to ensure the safety of everyone ... not least the shooter himself.

Both USPSA and IPSC (and other organized competitive shooting sports) consider SAFETY to be the most important consideration; which is a difficult concept for very competitive people to assimilate because all they think about is to get good hits as quickly as humanly possible.  They want to be winners.

Range officers accept that, but their most important consideration is the safety of everyone on the range.   They want everybody to be survivors. (Okay, then there's obeying the stage rules, the range rules, and not using the "F-bomb" every time a reload fails ....)


ORIGINAL ARTICLE FROM OMAHA OUTDOORS: *overlink*

Yeah, what HE said!

Great Rant posted on Never Yet Melted.

It's one of those moments when you fall back in awe, saying to yourself:

"Gee ... I wish I had said that!"

I won't provide the link or the URL to the original youtube video.
The full credit (and hits-count) goes to the source:

https://neveryetmelted.com/2018/10/14/rejoinder-to-the-remoaners/