Latest Posts

Not Really, Colt

The Gun Thing

I read with interest Colt’s fuck-you statement (via these guys) about discontinuing AR-15 sales to the consumer market:

There have been numerous articles recently published about Colt’s participation in the commercial rifle market. Some of these articles have incorrectly stated or implied that Colt is not committed to the consumer market. We want to assure you that Colt is committed to the Second Amendment, highly values its customers and continues to manufacture the world’s finest quality firearms for the consumer market.
The fact of the matter is that over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity. Given this level of manufacturing capacity, we believe there is adequate supply for modern sporting rifles for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, our warfighters and law enforcement personnel continue to demand Colt rifles and we are fortunate enough to have been awarded significant military and law enforcement contracts. Currently, these high-volume contracts are absorbing all of Colt’s manufacturing capacity for rifles. Colt’s commitment to the consumer markets, however, is unwavering. We continue to expand our network of dealers across the country and to supply them with expanding lines of the finest quality 1911s and revolvers.
At the end of the day, we believe it is good sense to follow consumer demand and to adjust as market dynamics change. Colt has been a stout supporter of the Second Amendment for over 180 years, remains so, and will continue to provide its customers with the finest quality firearms in the world.

The second paragraph (as emphasized) is the only one I can actually go along with.

You know, I might have been somewhat mollified about Colt’s so-called commitment to the civilian market if they’d added something like:  “To demonstrate our commitment to the consumer market, we’re going to re-introduce manufacturing of our heritage double-action revolvers — specifically, the Python, the Trooper and the  Diamondback models — and reproduce them to the same strict quality engineering standards that make them, even today, the best revolvers to be found anywhere in the world.”

(Here’s a Trooper MkII in .22LR… just because)

In other words, take one gun away, replace it with another.  As it is, however…

And an afterthought:  in the Comments section to the statement, one guy made this observation:

“If Sam Colt was alive today, there would be pure hell to pay, the board of directors would be applying for welfare.”

Nope.  If you’ve read anything at all about Sam Colt (and I have), you’d know that he was, more than anything else, a salesman — and he was constantly  in pursuit of big military contracts.  If he were alive today, he’d be as happy as a pig in muck;  and he’d be the first to tell us to go and fuck ourselves.  The current Colt management is probably just keeping to Sam’s principles.

Old Times, Good Times

Good Stuff, History

From Mr. Free Market comes this observation:

As I pointed out to him in my reply, it goes deeper than that.  In the old days, people used to leave their back doors open so the deliveryman could check the supplies of milk, butter and eggs in the fridge, and refill as needed.

I leave it to everyone’s imagination as to what would happen should such a service be reintroduced in Britishland today.  (Or, for that matter, in any urban center in the U.S.A.)

Ordnung

Travels

Saw this pic over at CW’s place (part of his fantastic Open Road series) and I could not help be amazed at the fact that people adhered to the traffic circle even though it was covered with snow.

Then it occurred to me that  the picture was doubtless taken in Germany or one of the other OCD countries, and the lone tracks which do  bisect the circle were probably made by a lost American tourist.

Quite Rightly So

Grammar Nazism

Perry De Havilland has a few choice words to say about this little situation:

Japan aims to change the way Japanese names are written in English by putting the family name first, the same way they are written in Japanese, in a triumph for conservatives keen to preserve traditional ways in a fast-changing world. Education Minister Masahiko Shibayama proposed the change to Cabinet ministers on Friday and the government will now study how to implement it, the top government spokesman said […] Foreign Minister Taro Kono raised the suggestion in May saying foreign media should write the prime minister’s name in the traditional way – Abe Shinzo.

And Perry’s response:

Shinzo Abe can fuck right off, because that is not correct when using English. Follow your own heathen customs when using Japanese, old chap, but no government gets to decide how English is used, that sort of bullshit only happens in France and Japan.

Perry and I have had our issues in the past because I’m conservative and he’s a librarian, but on this topic we are 100% in accord.

Still No Need To Panic

Lies and Untruths, The Gun Thing

OMG the Second Amendment is in danger!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to Rasmussen, 24 percent of survey respondents “favor repealing the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment which guarantees the right of most citizens to own a gun.”

In other words, about one in four of the respondents don’t want the Second anymore.  Why is this statistic a load of fear-mongering bullshit?

  1. We don’t know the composition of the survey sample — who was surveyed, where they lived, age groups, and so on.  So we don’t actually know how representative that sample of people is of the population as a whole.
  2. Popular sentiment means diddly-squat when it comes to amending the Constitution (for all those who were too busy wanking or sleeping during Civics lessons, or who never saw Schoolhouse Rock).  51% of the people might want to ditch the Second, but that’s still irrelevant.

Wake me up when the percentage of support for eliminating the Second grows to a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate — like that’s ever going to happen — or even if it does, let’s see if 38 of the 50 state legislatures agree to ratify the amendment.

Note to the Left:  there’s no magic wand and pixie-dust here;  if you want to make guns disappear, you’ll have to do it through the normal legal process, or (as Beta-Boy suggests), by forcible (and illegal) confiscation of all guns in private hands.  Good luck with that, too.  You may get just a little pushback, as the modern idiom goes: