Close At Hand

The Gun Thing

I read this story over the weekend with a great deal of sadness, coupled with rage:

An angler has died after yobs allegedly pelted him with rocks using a catapult as he fished with his two brothers in a boat on a lake at a 15th century castle.
Charles Hilder, 66, from Romford, Essex, died in the grounds of Lullingstone Castle in Eynsford, Kent, following the attack at 5pm yesterday by the yobs who were stood on a bank.
…
It comes as locals and MPs claimed the area had been under siege from yobs in recent weeks with some threatening people and even trying to steal a woman’s dog.

Clearly, the Brits need to pass legislation outlawing catapults (Seffrican: catties ;  Murkin:  slingshots) like these:

And we won’t even talk about those eeevil “assault” slingshots made with triple rubber pulls, wrist-braces and carbon-fiber Y-frames.

I mean, nobody needs a triple-pulled slingshot with a wrist-brace, amirite?  [/sarc]

I think I’ve told the story about a man I know who in addition to carrying a handgun when out in public, has over the years also acquired about ten or more Ruger SP101 hammerless short-barreled revolvers, all chambered in .357 Mag, and he scatters them all over his place:  bedside, living room, garage, bathroom, car, wherever.  He also has one stashed in his toolbox and another in his fishing tackle box.

When I asked him why the tackle- and toolboxes, he replied simply:  “Because bad things can happen anywhere, and working in my garage and fishing out in the boonies is where I’m most vulnerable.”

Of course, that makes all sorts of sense.  It doesn’t help our British cousins (and the unlucky old guy above), because they’ve voted away their right to own handguns and their right to self-defense.  But for us Murkins, it’s a cautionary word to the wise.

Never be too far away from the means to protect yourself.

By the way:  that Kainokai triple-pull sling looks awful.  To the surprise of absolutely nobody, I prefer the more traditionally-styled Lodonc:

Wood and steel, baby;  if it works for a 1911, it’ll work for a damn slingshot.

11 comments

  1. I’ve been meaning to pick up another wrist rocket, and a good air rifle.

    I’m feeling like I need to take advantage of all the rabbits in the neighborhood.

  2. I had an original Saunders Wrist Rocket when I was a kid (like your first photo but with a wrist brace). Using marbles as ammo it would put a dent half an inch deep in a 55 gallon drum.
    Seeing this post brought back memories of fun with it so I went to Saunders web site (https://sausa.com/product/sr-7-wrist-rocket-tubular-slingshot/) and saw that it couldn’t be shipped to certain locations which by a weird coincidence matched the cities in your “Burn Baby Burn” post.
    Imagine that.

        1. That crazy Kraut has a love of building all kinds of cool things, God love ‘im.

  4. It’s a good thing you clarified that in British slang, “catapult” means what we would call a slingshot.

    Otherwise, my mind would be alive with visions of disaffected youth roaming England with all manner of Roman catapults, trebuchets, siege engines and ballistae.

  5. “I mean, nobody needs a triple-pulled slingshot with a wrist-brace, amirite?”

    Sheeeeeeit, I have one that shoots freakin arrows.

  6. I can tell you the name of the perps in one word:- Pikies.

    Inbred, ignorant, child-briding, illiterate, too-fucking-thick-to-work-a-gun but can scam the skin off a pensioner in ten seconds flat, bastard Pikies.

    Catapults are about their level – made with grandads braces and loaded with dodgy tarmac. Scum of the earth.

Comments are closed.