During our semi-regular phone call yesterday, the fiend Mr. Free Market breezily informed me that this coming weekend he will be blasting birds out of the sky at this address:
Even worse, the weather forecast is for “sunny with mild temperatures”, so I can’t even wish that he’ll freeze his nuts off.
ENVIOUS.
Via Insty, I saw this little snippet:
WHO asks people not to attack monkeys over monkeypox
…which makes sense, of course. Killing monkeys because the thing’s named “monkeypox” makes as much sense as burning the town of Lyme to the ground because of tick bites.
However, that doesn’t mean that killing monkeys is a Bad Thing.
You see, monkeys have always got good Press because they look human, with their sweet little faces and tiny fingers and toes; and they look so cute as they swing through the trees, chattering and gibbering away.
In fact, monkeys are as evil — or more so — than humans. They attack human babies, they attack pets, and they’ll attack adult humans, all without reason. They’ll kill each other — even their troop’s own babies, which is why the babies are always clinging to their mothers, by the way — and woe betide any monkey from one troop who wanders into the “territory” of another.
Ask any farmer about monkeys, and you’ll be rewarded by seeing his trigger finger twitch. Farmers shoot them on sight, because monkeys will absolutely devastate crops — a 50-strong troop will empty an orchard of its fruit in the space of a couple of hours, and take half a field of corn in a day.
So whenever I see some animal lover wringing his hands because some wee likkul monkey was shot by some eeeevil hunter, I just laugh. Put said animal lover in the middle of a large troop (of whatever breed), and the odds of survival are about 50-50.
They are truly evil little bastards, only marginally less so than socialists, and like socialists, they should be shot whenever and wherever possible. And if not for monkeypox, there’s always herpes.
Thanks to Reader Evan M for sending this verified data about bears and handguns:
I engaged in a search for instances where pistols were used to defend against bears. I and my associates have found 37 instances that are fairly easily confirmed. The earliest happened in 1987, the latest mere months ago. The incidents are heavily weighted toward the present, as the ability to publish and search for these incidents has increased, along with increases in bear and human populations, and the carry of pistols.
The 37 cases include one that can fairly be described as a “failure”.
The pistol calibers, when known, range from 9 mm to .454 Casull. The most common are .44 magnums.
I’ve never been in bear country (I dunno if Wisconsin- and Michigan forests count), but if I were ever to visit Montana or Alaska, for example, there’s no way I’d get out of the car or house without one of these puppies :
For those unfamiliar, they’re the Ruger Redhawk (top) and S&W Mod 629, both in .44 Magnum… and inside a chest holster:
…AND my 1911 (loaded with 230gr FMJ boolets) in a waistband holster.
(Heh heh heh… a 1911 as a backup.)
Screw that bear spray bullshit. If the Fishcops want me to use it, they can give me a can beforehand.
Because of all this woke bullshit, we are no longer allowed to use the word “Mozambique” for our favorite shooting drill (two shots in center-mass, one in the head) because raayyycisss.
As always, the solution can be found in the Old Country. At the suggestion of Mr. Free Market, allow me to present the new drill, the Rittenhouse:
Two in the skateboard, one in the elbow.
Of course, the silhouette is white on a night-black background so we don’t get accused of Black genocide or some such, and most of the Pantifa Skateboard Set are White anyway.
Apologies for the poor artwork, but I only had a couple minutes to do it in MS Paint.
As the searing North Texas summer temperatures have begun to slide into glorious fall cool, I received these pics from Mr. Free Market, currently experiencing the usual Scottish weather for this time of year:
Not that it’s stopped him from doing the usual…
Doc Russia’s also Over There, but no reports of his activities. (He’s probably sleeping outside in the rain, because USMC.)
As much as I enjoy being in Britishland, that weather is best endured by sitting in a warm pub with a roaring fire on the background:
…and with the usual fare at hand:
That’s my idea of roughing it. I’m too old for all that running around in the rain–freezing my nuts off–falling over screwing up my knee–without ever seeing a deer nonsense.
Question from Reader JockC, via email:
“Did you own any other rifles back in South Africa, or was the Israeli Mauser the only one?”
Getting one gun in those days was relatively easy. As I recall, the license application for the Llama pistol took about a month to be granted, and the Mauser only a matter of weeks. “Self-protection” for the handgun required a background check, but “hunting” and a bolt-action rifle was hardly even scrutinized, as far as I can tell.
Getting your second gun always took longer, as the “Why do you need another gun?” had to be justified, and “Because” wasn’t acceptable. Once again, the hunting thing was much easier, especially if one was applying for a larger- or smaller-caliber chambering. A second handgun, unless for a specific sporting purpose, like a target pistol? Oy. It could take as long as a year for the license to be granted. So I only ever owned one handgun at a time, as did many of us.
Officially, that is.
The only other centerfire rifle I owned back in the old Racist Republic was an Oviedo Spanish Mauser in 7x57mm, similar to the one below except that I had the bolt altered so I could use a scope with the thing.
I have spoken many times before of my affection for the old, gently-recoiling cartridge, seen here alongside the other popular ones in use at the time:
The long bullet of the 7×57 allowed for astounding penetration, which often made a “quartering” shot as deadly as a side-on shot.
The Orviedo Mauser was the Model 1893 (similar to the “Boer” Mauser of later fame), and many was the approving nod I got from Oom (uncle) Sarel and his farmer friends whenever I uncased it.
This was the gun I used for almost all my hunting (a.k.a. poaching), and it was never registered to me under S.A. law because reasons. (I did occasionally use borrowed rifles, but the Spanish Mauser was the main one.) I got it from the estate of an acquaintance who’d been killed in a car accident, and whose father just wanted to get rid of it.
Using the unregistered gun instead of the Izzy (which was registered to me), I had no compunction about tossing it into a ditch should the game rangers ever appear… but fortunately that never happened. Just before I emigrated, I gave it to the farmer on whose farm I did all my hunting out in the Northern Cape.
As to the area where we hunted: yikes. I have no pictures of where I hunted, nor any trophy pictures, because under the conditions I hunted, those could be called “evidence” and used against me. But I found some pictures of the terrain up in the northern Cape Province (as it was back then), and they should give you a glimpse of conditions along the fringes of the Kalahari Desert:
Dry as hell, hot as hell, no place for White men (as the saying goes) and only mad dogs and Englishmen etc. etc.
Despite the harsh conditions, game was relatively plentiful, although we usually only hunted for culling purposes — such as when a springbok herd started grazing on pastures meant for sheep or cattle, and had to be made to fear the area. I myself grazed on springbok biltong for about six months after that occasion. Then there were the lions, who just followed the game onto the farm, and had to be dealt with, in the words of the farmer, “so they don’t develop a taste for beef, sheep and humans.”
I would get an evening call from Oom Sarel the farmer: “Neef (nephew) Kim, do you feel like a bit of shooting this weekend?” and if I was free, I’d load up the car and set off before midnight Friday for the six-hour drive out to Kuruman, the nearest town.
I enjoyed it immensely, as much as for the companionship of those weekend hunts as for the actual hunting. What I learned from those outings was that I wasn’t as good a shot as the farmers — hell, the neighbor’s 17-year-old was death on wheels, and when he shot, he worked his rifle’s bolt so fast it sounded more like semi-auto fire. (It was a Sauer .270 Win, I think, but I do remember that his one-shot kill ratio was well over 75%. Astounding.)
Anyway, that’s the story of my hunting days. There were a couple others, in different areas, but those weren’t as illicit, nor as enjoyable, as the ones out on Oom Sarel’s farm.
Side note: In South Africa, younger people address their elders as “oom” (uncle) or “tannie” (auntie) out of respect, even when not related. In return, the older folks will call the younger ones “neef” (nephew), “seun” (son) or “dogter” (daughter) and “niggie” (niece). It is a very affectionate and respectful custom, and I have to admit that I miss it.
The Afrikaans “g” is pronounced the same as the Scottish “ch” as in “loch”.