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So you want an AR…

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This isn’t as much a how-to buying guide but merely a disclaimer that right now is not the time to buy.

The most annoying thing about the post election panic is that it throws a wrench at planned purchases.  I was planning on buying more blasting ammo for Boomershoot, well when ammo started disappearing from shelves, that changed the time frame.  I did an inventory last night and confirmed, yes I needed more steel cased ammo. Since the new replacement ammo is lacquer coated steal rounds I picked up some P-Mags with it and had a nice long discussion with the owner since he’s also my neighbor.  Seriously, he lives 2 houses down from me on the opposite side of the road.

While chatting phones ring and emails come in.  The result of the calls and emails is that  I’m promptly helping them retag every AR in the place.  Now they weren’t gouging nearly as bad as they could, or probably even should.  But every rifle went up by at least an extra 100 bucks.  Now here’s why.  There is no replacement supply anywhere on the horizon, their friends were reporting they were sold out and couldn’t get replacement stock.  Their suppliers were sold out and back ordered for the foreseeable future.  Even manufactures are listing as back-ordered.  Given the sudden demand increase and a fixed supply, prices are going up.

So my advice is if you’re wanting an AR, now is probably not the best time to buy.  Prices will probably drop back now in 6 months and deliveries will move back to normal.

The same goes for ammo.  If you can survive on your current stock, do so.  Come spring thaw it will be back to normal rates and you’ll also have people trying to unload excess stock they didn’t need.  Right now a bunch of people are panicking and buying, but honestly if you wanted one for preparatory purposes, you should have done this a while ago.

On Carelessness and Curiosity

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I previously wrote about an entirely preventable incident.  I didn’t full realize though how much of a classic style incident that was.

Paul said Carlile, 31, was in a rush to get to a wedding with his family on March 10 when he got into the family’s van, put his off-duty handgun in a cupholder between the front seats and drove to Stanwood to drop off business cards at a friend’s store. 

First off, getting a good gun and holster helps prevent this because it should get put on your belt, ankle, whatever and left there for the day.  If in needs to come off, the holster needs to come off with it.

Second is the thing people always seem to forget:

Carlile’s son, Steele, was a curious and active 3-year-old with a fascination with guns and a disdain for car seats, Paul said.

I’m not surprised by this, honestly no one should that’s ever been around kids.  Kids are naturally curious.  The best thing to do is satisfy their curiosity in a safe and controlled environment.  Most certainly though, never leave something around a curious kid that’s dangerous or deadly.

What the father did was careless and negligent given the fact they were leaving their children in the car.  Not to mention the fact he was leaving the firearm in plain sight for anyone walking by the vehicle.  That is otherwise known as a great way to have a weapon stolen.

The worst part about incidents like this is gun owners as a whole get a black eye because this man was “anointed“.  The argument of the banners being, “If he can’t properly handle a firearm, how can anyone else be expected to?”  Never mind the fact that we push education instead of prohibition.  Prohibition in this case probably lead to the accident.  It’s the appeal of the forbidden fruit left within arms reach.  The better option would be to satisfy curiosity whenever possible while reinforcing safety and discipline.

ESS and Boomershoot – Part V

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Previously on Masterpiece Theater:

For some extra humor, the blue canopy in the back ground is a couple of guys right next to the ESS crew that were shooting without eye-wear.  They even refused to try the stuff ESS had.  Yes, when I was told that story, I’m reasonably this was my reaction.

I chatted with Ari a bunch while at Boomershoot, awesome guy.  As I’ve said before, I highly recommend the Cross Series of products.  Just to show how much I like them, the FTC can suck an egg, I was paid nothing for saying any of this.  I got a free pair, no strings attached, but it wasn’t even really with a review in mind.

This One’s for Sean…

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So, I kind of batted at Joan in my Priceless video but it wasn’t really a good solid hit.  It was more of just a fun video.  Joe took a good solid swing here which I felt was on the right track but the more I thought about it, more needed to be done.  I had piles of video of pumpkins blowing up between 2010 and 2012.

Sean posted a comment when Joe did his first post on Joan’s PSH stating we should have a self contained video that explained her break down and put everything in one easy to see spot.  Well I did just that.  Now while overall this really didn’t need to be made, it was more practice and work with the Adobe tools.  The learning curve is steep but doing projects, no matter how pointless is how you get over them.

So this one’s for Joan!

Besides, it’s quite fitting since it’s Halloween with the pumpkins and all.

Interesting Map

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So I stumbled across this from Kiro TV in Seattle today.

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That is the distribution of CPL licenses by zip code.  The deeper the red, the more self reliant the community.  What I found interesting is major urban area’s had a much lower rate, with Seattle having a rate as low as 1%.  What is most telling about that though is that when you get into the rural areas there is a realization you cannot depend on the police.  I’m not making that up either:

“People understand it might take a while for the sheriff to get to Lyman,” Hills insisted.

Mayor Debbie Heinzman also runs the local tavern. She agrees that “everybody has guns” in Lyman to protect themselves and their property.

Next I’d like to see a map that overlays property and violent crime rates by zip code.  Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but I think it would still be an interesting thing to see.  Doubly so since I’m sure it would counter the “more guns equals more crime” myth as well as the “concealed carry means blood in the streets” myth.

I’m reasonably sure this would be the case because:

KIRO 7 Investigators calculated only 2.8 percent of Seattle residents, overall, have sought the right to carry.

In the six zip codes to the east of I-5 (the International District to Capitol Hill, to north of the UW) the number is even lower — just 1.6 percent.

I lived in Seattle for 2 years in the U-District and there wasn’t really a day that went by that I didn’t hear about either violent crime or property crime.  There is an anomaly in that theory as Kent, which is not exactly the nicest part of the area, has a carry rate equal to where I live.  Even worse is Tacoma, which high urban area also has a much higher carry rate than the state average.

So when you pull all that in, it’s like the gun is merely a tool and what really matters are the people carrying it and what their intent is.

Priceless…

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So last weekend Joe came out and did a private party for Barb L. and her son.  This had been planned for at least a couple of weeks earlier and since it was October we figured we’d do a pumpkin shoot.

The last two we actually did after the elections for one reason or another that’s just how it worked out.  The upshot was that’s when pumpkins end up being dirt cheap since it’s after Halloween.  Well I swung by the store the Friday before and picked up over 300lbs of pumpkins. The trick is to buy pumpkins larger than their scales.

Now why would I discuss our plans about pumpkins… Well it seems that Joan Peterson (link safe), went into full PSH(link unsafe) over a video from Hickok45.  Joe promptly stated that he was in agreement with Joan because there’s a better way to carve pumpkins, you just use the gun as the detonator!  So without further ado, here’s a new commercial I did…

Some things are absolutely priceless.  While certainly sending Joan over the edge to spout quotes like:

So wouldn’t it be great if families got together in their neighborhoods and carved pumpkins with handguns?

Or even better, Evil Black Rifles™ like we used here.  But you know what’s even more priceless, something her and her ilk can never recreate.  Go back and look at the smile on that kids face at the end of the video.

Or this smile:

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Or this one:

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And that was despite being soaked to the bone and freezing cold.  But wait, there’s more!

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Honestly I could keep on going with picture after picture and video after video of the grins Boomerite have created.  But since it’s Boomerite, that means a firearm has to be involved too!

We all know why Joan says these things, she’s a delusional Puritan who thinks the world revolves around her and her feelings.  I’m sure she would object to my method of celebrating the 4th of July as well.  (Not to mention this video has yet another grin and expression of happiness!).

The crux of Joan’s rant was that bullets go through stuff, evidently most bullets contain PFM that allows them to penetrate everything and keep going forever.  You see evidently, according to her, the bullets Hickok used after leaving the pumpkin were blood seekers and sought out his neighbors and killed them.  Evidently somehow the bullets can just go straight through the berm and then fly until they find a person.

Now she does use a couple of examples of people who violated the 4 rules and tries to use that as justification for disarming everyone.  First is this quote from Tam:

I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night. I didn’t. So piss off.

Second is that she’s in a world of denial, her side lost, and her only grasps for relevancy are when people break existing law and then she claims just one piece of paper would have stopped evil or stupid.  She’s wanting to prohibit exercise of this right by everyone for the actions of a few.

Honestly the thing I think she hates most about that video, is she knows there is no way for her side to compete with the joy that shooting pumpkins brings.  So I will bring that joy to someone new every chance I get.

*Now while I was actually going to spoof Mastercard to begin with, Joan’s PSH made finding a good punchline that much easier.

Conversation of the Day – 10/27/2012

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Ry: Does anyone sell a "knife-wielding crazy" whistle?

Joe: You can find them at http://www.glock.com/.

Email Thread…

For context there was an incident near where Joe and Ry work yesterday.  To which Ry noted it’s a good thing weapons aren’t allowed at work.  Joe then chimed in that’s a good thing because then he might just “add to the violence”.

I have to admit, those whistles are quite effective.