Enter Stage Somewhere

I see that the NRA has promised to “work with gun owners to swamp the first hearing of the Virginia Senate committee considering new gun bans”.

NRA spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen told the Washington Free Beacon that the gun-rights group is mobilizing its members to appear at the first meeting of the Virginia Senate’s Courts of Justice on Jan. 13. The organization hopes that pressure from constituents will make newly elected Democrats, who helped the party capture control of the state legislature, think twice about supporting gun bans pursued by the state’s Democratic governor.

Uh huh.  Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but over the past three decades or so, whenever some state government has decided to crap all over the Second Amendment, the NRA has been more conspicuous in its absence than in its action.

I remember down here in north Texas, a long-established and much-loved gun range was being targeted by a housing development, whose new residents were aghast that there was a working gun range a whole mile away from their backyards.  So said developers put pressure on the TX legislators to declare the range a public nuisance / danger and force it to close.  As it happened, there was already a weak law on the books which prevented this kind of thing, but as it was a weak law (it’s since been toughened up) it required legal representation which the gun range couldn’t afford, and the Texas State Rifle Association couldn’t afford to cover, either.  So the TSRA appealed for help from the NRA but was told that the NRA had more important things to do with its money at the national level, and as such it was up to us locals to come up with the funds (from memory, the shortfall was just over half a million dollars, or fifty of Wayne LaPierre’s shiny suits).

The range closed six months later, bankrupted out of existence by lawyer’s fees;  despite raising a goodly amount (I donated nearly a grand, as I recall), it wasn’t nearly enough and so they just said “fuck it”, moved over fifty miles away into the boonies, and we all lost a fine range and an excellent little gun shop located on the premises.  Every time I drive past the place (now a nondescript strip mall standing between the road and the McMansions of the development), I want to toss bricks through the windows of every single one of the buildings.

If I were a cynical man, therefore, I would suggest that the only reason that the NRA is suddenly so interested in what’s happening in Virginia is because that’s where NRA HQ is located, and most of the guns in their basement museum would become illegal overnight and have to be either moved or handed in.

Not so fucking funny when it happens to you, eh, Wayne?

Hoofbeats? Not Really

I am always banging on [sic] about how the West is in decline because of moral degradation and such, but of late I have been much more forgiving of this kind of thing, when it is practiced by individualsHere’s an example:

“Since I started swinging, I’ve been having the best sex of my life, and have met so many new people.  Swinging over New Year is so fun, everyone is in such high spirits. It depends what you’re into, but for me swinging on New Year’s Eve is much more fun than a traditional party.”

Compare this kind of immoral behavior with teaching grade-school kids about anal sex, and I think you’ll see where I’m drawing the line.

I’m not saying that I’d ever do it, myself — just thinking about it makes me feel a little queasy — but if grownups, and especially Olde Pharttes with no encumbrances as in the linked story want to butter their bread that way, it’s NOMB.

Sharing Rides

Over in the UK, somebody had an Uber drive from hell:

Uber driver , 51, exposed himself to young female passenger and asked her to perform sex acts on him

What struck me most about the above incident was that it took a whole year to get this asshole into court.  I don’t know if that’s peculiar to Britishland, but I have to think it would have taken less time Over Here.

The other thing I noticed was that the guy was an immigrant from a Muslim country, where such behavior would probably never have seen a courtroom — in fact, the passenger might have been arrested for being out and about unaccompanied by a male relative, had she dared to report the incident.

Still more interesting was the fact that the dickhead thought he could get away with it — that he wouldn’t be reported and even if caught would be let off with a slight reprimand, if that.

No wonder some of my female passengers are a little nervous.

Of course, were I the judge, I’d have sentenced Chester The Molester to a short prison term, but with daily ball-kickings.  And publicized the sentence, pour encourager les autres pervertis.

No doubt someone would have a problem with this.

Update

I see that National Geographic has released a new map of Australia.

Old Map:

Since then:

New Map:

On the positive side, I note the complete disappearance of man-eating koalas, mosquitoes and poisonous snakes, all fuel for the Greens’ barbie (see below).

Now all that’s left is for the Aussies to find a way to set fire to the ocean, and the shark problem will likewise disappear.

Tragedy, Repeated

While we all feel for the folks in Oz whose environment is being set to BROIL, it’s worth noting that many of their problems have been caused by the same people as the California genus:

But let us not allow the heartbreak and the emotion to distract us from the truth about this natural disaster: it has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘climate change’.
…[charts and graphs etc]…
So, to be clear, there is zero evidence of any change in climatic conditions that might have increased the likelihood or severity of these bush fires. This is not — repeat NOT — a man-made climate change story, and anyone who claims otherwise is either a gullible idiot or a lying charlatan.
There is, nonetheless, good reason to believe that the stupidity and irresponsibility of man is at least partly to blame for this disaster — just not quite in the way that the left-liberal MSM and the green wankerati would have you believe.

Read the article for the full story, but if you have insufficient time, here’s the executive summary:

Animal-worshipers, Greens and pyromaniacs.  Just like in California.

I feel the need for mass whippings, hangings etc. starting to build… but no doubt someone’s going to have  problem with this.

The Ultimate Long-Distance Rifle

As I posted yesterday, I’m going to be setting up a fund to buy and then ship a high-quality long-distance rifle and scope to some lucky guy.  Here are the details (and if you enter, please follow them faithfully):

  1. You can only make one $40* donation per household, and only $40.  More than $40, and I’ll send the surplus to Greenpeace.  Believe me on this.  If you send me two checks, one for yourself and one for your “brother”, the checks had better be in two different names and addresses, or the second goes to Greenpeace.  Husband & wife get no exception.  One entry per household.  Don’t test me.
  2. Checks or money orders only, with your current address listed — I need the paper trail — to the sooper-seekrit mailing address (6009 W. Parker Rd #149-141, Plano TX 75093), made out to Kim du Toit.  Make sure the “Note” on the check says ULD Rifle 2020 and your website ID (if you have one) so I know it’s for the rifle and not just a donation.  By sending me a check, you agree that I can publish your name / ID (but not address) as the winner.
  3. The drawing will be notarized, i.e. performed by a third party and witnessed by a notary public or some such official, to keep this kosher and the ATF happy.
  4. I get to pick the rifle, and the scopeand what I get will depend on how much I get in donations.  The winner gets what I picked out, and no whimpering or complaining.  (Sheesh… you’ll be getting a fine long-distance setup for $40.)
  5. It will be chambered in .3x caliber, so that I can get better results past the 400-yard mark (from experience, the smaller 6.5x55mm bullet gets blown around a little too much for consistent accuracy at 400+ distances — and the wind always  blows at Boomershoot).  It will most likely be in .308 Win or thereabouts, but I’m not ruling out .300 Win Mag and the like, if I can get a decent deal.
  6. If there’s a surplus from buying the set, I’ll round off the amount to the nearest couple of dollars by setting aside some for the postage, packaging and such.  If there’s still more left over, I’ll use it to defray some of my travel costs (it’s a six-day roundtrip drive ugh), if that’s okay with everyone.
  7. The winner will be notified personally before the result is posted, and I’ll also add a certificate of the “provenance”.
  8. The gun and scope will be shipped to your FFLeven in the state of Texas.  (That paper trail thing, again.)
  9. My family are prohibited from entering, as are Doc Russia, Combat Controller and Tech Support II.
  10. Remember, I’ll be shooting it at Boomershoot 2020 It may come to you with a scratch or two.  Deal with it.
  11. Regrettably, I can only make this work in the United States As much as it would delight me to ship this equipment off to a GFW country, it ain’t gonna happen.  Sorry.  If you send me a check from England or Japan, the money will get passed on to Greenpeace.  Don’t test me.
  12. Whatever rifle I get, it will be legal in all 50 states.  For that reason, I won’t be getting an AR-10 HB or anything that could be classed as an “assault” rifle (not that I would, anyway).  If your state bans “sniper rifles” during the interim period, however, you’ll be SOL, and I’ll have to make another drawing.  I’m not going to break any gun laws on this, no matter how stupid I think they are.
  13. I reserve the right to close the fund at any time, when I judge that the fund has reached an acceptable level.  Judging from the popularity of the idea the last time I did this, I’m going to set an arbitrary shut-off date of January 31, 2020 but I also reserve the right to extend the date too.
  14. Conversely, if I don’t get enough money to buy a really decent rig, I’ll just close the fund, refund your donations and go with what I’ve got.  I don’t want to do that.

Obviously, this is open to anyone, not just Readers, so if you have a friend, relative or neighbor who fancies his luck, have at it — but via a separate check, or else Greenpeace gets the surplus and he gets nada.

If this idea gets really popular, I might make it an annual event.

*One last thing:  the old raffle tickets only cost $20, but at that time I had about ten times the daily readership that I have today, PLUS I don’t have to tell you what’s happened to the price of guns in the past dozen-odd years.  [20,000-word rant deleted]

If you wanna blame someone, blame Has-Been President Obama and the other Commies for driving up demand with their stupid threats of confiscation.