Author: Kim du Toit

Melting Snowflakes

Seen On Campus, Snowflakes

This one made me giggle like a little girl:

Academic researchers condemned students’ irreverent and offensive responses to an LGBTQ survey, claiming the pushback indicates “fascist ideologues” are “living ‘inside the house’ of engineering and computer science.”

In an article for the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, academics from Oregon State University wrote about their shock at receiving sarcasm and mockery in response to their research into undergraduate LGBTQ students studying in STEM fields. 

The team claimed 50 of 349 responses to their questionnaire on the topic contained “slurs, hate speech, or direct targeting of the research team.” Labeling them “malicious respondents,” they adapted their project to examine how the joke responses “relate to engineering culture by framing them within larger social contexts — namely, the rise of online fascism.”

Oh, diddums.  So the “researchers” asked a bunch of engineering students some stupid questions, and a few of the responders responded with ridicule, the little scamps.

The result?

The research team declared that the mockery they received “had a profound impact on morale and mental health,” particularly for one transgender researcher who was “already in therapy for anxiety and depression regarding online anti-trans rhetoric.” The paper claimed that “managing the study’s data collection caused significant personal distress, and time had to be taken off the project to heal from traumatic harm” of having to read students’ responses in the survey.

Sorry, I can’t carry on because tears.

Of scornful laughter.  Fucking snowflake weenies.

Oh, and the response to their survey’s conclusions?  Rejection.  Read it all for the full flavor.

Proper Ranking

Funny Stuff, The Gun Thing

From my friends at the Texas State Rifle Association:

Let’s just look at that for a moment:

  • Grand Prize:  an old rifle, last used in the 19th century, firing a black powder cartridge that’s mostly unavailable except to hobbyists and reloaders
  • Consolation Prize: the Mattel AR-15 Plastic Fantastic

LOL.

Hey, I didn’t set the competition up, they did.

En passant:  I fired the 71/84 once, and like a most black powder shooting, it was a lot of fun, but very messy. [insert sex joke here]

Gratuitous Gun Pic: S&W M&P22 Magnum (.22 WMR)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Longtime Reader Mike S. sends me this missive:

“Knowing your fondness for the .22 Mag cartridge…”

[whimper]

And the Outlaw almost likes it too, mostly because of a couple of feeding issues (something I noticed with the Kelt-Tec model as well, but the Kel-Tec was terrible — multiple FTF in a single magazine).

Still…

Can you say:  “Kids’ Joint Birthday Present For The Father Figure”?

Want.  WANT.

Sticking Out

The Gun Thing

An interesting take on the concealed-carry thing:

So how do we blend in? Well, for starters, when you decide to join the concealed carry lifestyle and have a defensive gun on you whenever you can, you’re going to have to figure out how to conceal your gun. For years, the conventional wisdom on this was that a gun should be comforting, not comfortable, and that you had to “dress around the gun.”

We should keep in mind, however, that the source of that advice was usually someone with a military or law enforcement background. The mission of both of those professions is radically different from the mission of the armed citizen, and that affects how they think about their guns. Fashion and cultural issues aren’t really applicable for most military servicemen, and aside from undercover work, not really an issue for law enforcement as well. For the rest of us, the idea of “dressing around the gun” is yet another roadblock on the path to the concealed carry lifestyle.

What we’re seeing now, though, is a new generation of firearms trainers whose roots are in the world of the armed citizen, not in the precinct or barracks. Trainers like Claude Werner and the crew at Citizen’s Defense Research stress training with real-world concealed carry solutions. In addition to this, the popularity of small and thin 9mm pistols like the Smith and Wesson Shield and Springfield Armory Hellcat and new methods of carry like the PHLster Enigma mean that it’s easier than ever to have a pistol on you when you need it the most, but not look like you have a pistol on you.

For various reasons, I find it very difficult to blend in, and I have no explanation for it.  You know that situation when a comedian or magician picks out someone in the audience to participate / be humiliated in his show?  If I’m in the audience, there’s a 90% chance that I’ll be the one picked out.

And that’s before I carry my big ol’ 1911 in its Don Hulme leather holster.  Now, given that I have a body shape that’s more like Lizzo’s than Amanda Holden’s, it means I have to wear a tent-style shirt to ensure that my carry rig doesn’t “print” to any interested onlookers.  (In summer;  in winter, one of my several coats or gilets generally does the trick.)

However, I do have a sartorial characteristic that may help in the concealment business:  I wear a hat.  And of course never a stupid baseball cap because I’m a.) not a baseball player, b.) not a farmer and c.) not a nine-year-old boy.  Generally speaking, it’s a Panama-style or fedora in summer, and a wool cap in winter:

Now what those lids do, I’m told, is make me even more distinctive in appearance.  So how does that help me to “blend into” a crowd?

It doesn’t.  What it does do is draw attention towards my head and away from my gun, giving me if needed a precious second or two to respond to a potential threat.  And, of course, if things start going sideways, my plan is always to ditch the hat to take away the identifier and make me less conspicuous.

Not that I’ve ever thought about the situation, or anything.  [eyecross]

I know it’s not perfect, but it’s what I’ve got.  At least I have a plan, flawed though it might be.