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The Old Question

The Gun Thing

TTAG posits the suggestion that the AR-15 is the ideal home defense weapon:

The AR-15 has earned a reputation as one of the most versatile and effective firearms available today.

…and then the article goes on to compare the AR to other gun types like shotguns and handguns, listing all the pros and cons of each choice.

In the past, I would have come down on one side or the other.  My dislike of the AR poodleshooter notwithstanding, there’s nothing wrong with having one as a home defense weapon, albeit with some reservations.

Side note:  I am curious, in an academic kind of way, whether that super-loud CRACK! of the .223/5.56mm cartridge causes more damage to one’s hearing than would, say, a shotgun blast, the .357 Mag’s report or the 7.62x39mm coming out of an AK’s short barrel.  If anyone has actual data on the topic, please feel free to share it.  Suffice it to say that I keep about me several pairs of foam earplugs — trouser pocket, bedside, car and next to my living-room chair — which, if time permits, I would certainly try to insert before shooting any gun inside the house or car, or even outside.

In terms of which gun you prefer, therefore, I would support just about any choice, as long as you have a damn gun handy in the first place.  Locked up in a safe is just plain silly, of course, despite those of the Nanny State persuasion trying to impose such “safety” measures on us, all of which I pretty much ignore anyway.  I own several guns, I’m extremely careful about the handling thereof, and I try to keep myself “well-regulated” in their use.

In my own case, I have a .357 revolver next to the bed as my “first line” of defense, and a semi-auto rifle under the bed as my preferred long gun option.  Next to my chair in the living room is of course my 1911 (which I carry every single time I leave the house, without exception — unless I feel in an old-fashioned frame of mind, in which case I strap on one of my revolvers, along with a couple of speedloaders, of course, ditto spare mags of .45 ACP for the 1911).  If I’m going to be away for an extended period, e.g. on vacation or even just an overnight stay, I also carry a backup piece.  In the car there’s another semi-auto rifle in case of an extra-busy social occasion.

Those are my choices.  Others may vary, and whatever their decision, I’m okay with it.  (I know a guy who carries a .22 pistol, and who can dump all ten rounds into a head-sized target in about four seconds, 100% of the time.  Pity the fool.)  As long as you are proficient in the use of whatever gun you choose, that’s okay and I will never really argue with your choices.

“Why not a shotgun, Kim?”

I dunno.  I find the recoil of the 12-gauge cartridge unpleasant, and the low capacity of cartridges (5-odd) and lengthy reload time a little off-putting.  Of course, I’m never going to argue with the deadly efficacy of the shotgun — one or two rounds usually suffices to end any hostile encounter anyway — but I’ve just never been a habitual user of shotguns outside of sporting clays with friends and family.  (It’s a social choice rather than an anti-social one, in other words.)

As I said, go ahead and make the decision that suits you yourself, not the choice that the Smart Set and/or Tacticool Dudes think you should.  (I suspect that most of my Readers are of similar mindset anyway.)

And all that said, I think I’m off to the range.  Semi-auto rifle time…

News Roundup

Bad News

And speaking of crossing water:


…

On to Silly News:


...okay, I got nothing.

More silly news:


...as long as we can also cancel Juneteenth, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo and MLK Day, I’m okay with this.

Some Election News:


...after the first three words, you just know that what follows will be absolute bullshit.  And it is.  Ditto this opening phrase:


...man, it must really suck to be a vegan environmentalist right now.

And from the Dept. of Health:


…

And not to be outdone:


...keyword:  Canada.  Let’s hear it for the planet of Euthanasia!

Some Lawn Order:


...nice to see that the Britcops have solved all other crimes Over There, so they can devote time and man/womanpower to tackle this pressing social problem.


...more proof that the Britcops have so little crime to investigate that their cops become crack addicts out of sheer boredom.  And he’s not even French.

Over Here:


...am I the only one who thinks it’s a pity they stopped it?

Musicians Behaving Badly:


...P Diddy:  the early years.

From the Dept. of Education:


...one would have thought that at that age, just the sight of her mimsy would have been sufficient;  but evidently not.

And in thankfully link-free 

   

...four words:  single mom, eleven kids.

And in keeping with today’s sponsor, some Good News:


...remember her?  Here’s a reminder:

Now that we know who she is, here’s more of her:

 

Finally:

And that’s the bottom of the news.

Missing The Cold

Beauty, Weather

From Reader Joe Donuts (probably a pseudonym):

“Your wallpaper got me pondering as do many of your posts about what used to be Great Britain.  I spent most of my 20 plus years in Uncle Sam’s Traveling Air Circus stationed in East Anglia. Miss it terribly and shudder at what it, and the rest of Europe, has become.

“Fall left here last week.  The snow has been on the ground since Monday and is here to stay until late April. I’ve woken to single digit temps the last day or two; they’ll have a negative sign soon enough. Call me odd, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Nor would I.  Possibly the strangest thing is that as much as I wouldn’t live pretty much anywhere in the North that I used to (Chicago, New Jersey etc.), I do miss the seasons thereof.

I loved the spring:  the way that one day it’s brown and ugly after the snow has melted, and a week later the trees are in full bloom and the grass has somehow recovered after being buried in snow for a few months and is now green again;  the joy of a warm, occasionally-hot summer when it feels good to be outside and life just seems more worth living after the February-April dreariness;  of the fall, where the trees change from uniform green into a kaleidoscope of many colors and the sweaty heat of summer is replaced with cooler temperatures;  and finally, that first snowfall, the beauty of the white covering over everything and the incredible hush that falls after the snow has fallen…

I miss it all, terribly.

And yes, I know that raking the leaves is a pain in the ass, that shoveling snow every morning at 6am in sub-freezing temperatures can become tiresome, and that after the snow has more or less melted away in the late winter/early spring that everything looks dirty and ugly.

As the man said:   “Show me paradise and I’ll buy us the tickets.”

HOW Much? (Part 2)

Marketing / Advertising, Old Fartism, The Gun Thing

Never checked my email over the weekend because I had other stuff to do.  So I opened  the program just now, to find this in my Inbox:

It’s not the sale price that offends me (that much):  it’s becoming increasing difficult to find a decent rifle for less than a grand nowadays (sigh).

But two grand (regular price)?  For a Marlin lever rifle?

Has the world gone fucking crazy?

Then again, there’s this:

…which seems too good to be true.  (I don’t know who “SDS” is, but whatever.)  If I were to guess, that might need a few hundred bucks in gunsmithing to make it acceptable, but I could be wrong.  (I do like the lanyard ring, by the way.)

Healthy Drinks

Health

…or not, as recently revealed by A Doctor:

A Harvard and Stanford trained gastroenterologist has revealed four scary facts about diet soda — and why you may not want to drink them anymore.

I’ll spare you the need to click on the link.  Diet pops (Diet Coke, -Pepsi, whatever) mess with the following:

  • Heart
  • Kidneys
  • Gut biome
  • and make you crave chocolate (or something like that)

Of course, they all taste like shit, without exception, so there’s also that.  In my experience, people who claim the opposite have generally been drinking them for an extended period — i.e. their taste buds have become accustomed to that battery acid tang.  I tried a couple of them, many years ago, and found that they made me thirstier than I was before drinking them.

For those who read John Sandford’s Prey  novels, this will come as Bad News to ace detective Lucas Davenport, who seemingly chugs a Diet Coke with every meal.  Then again, he also drinks that foul Leinenkugel beer, so his taste in drinks is questionable at best.