Month: April 2024

When The Prince Of Darkness Got It Right

Drive Time

We all know about the dreadful Lucas Electronics, or in shorthand:

But what if they got it right?

Iain Tyrrell talks about how Lucas’s fuel injection system was the bees’ knees, and dominated racing from the late 1950s all the way to the 1980s.  Even Ferrari were forced to use them in their monster P3 and P4 Le Mans cars.

Take a few minutes to learn about it, from the master mechanic his own self.  Then watch as he makes an old TR6 work properly again.

And by the way, I would take a (Tyrrell-restored) Triumph TR6 into my garage, any day of the week.

Rule Britannia, and all that.

 

Lone Asshole

Crime, Psychos

If we’ve learned nothing else from history, it’s that it will be almost impossible to stop one lone asshole (e.g. ex-Marines Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Whitman) from doing bad things to people in a public place.

As happened in gun-free Sydney AUS over the weekend:

Authorities received calls around 3:30 p.m. local time that a knife-wielding man was attacking people at Westfield Bondi Junction, NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said during a press conference.

Footage obtained by 9News Sydney showed the suspect, wearing a gold and green rugby jersey and shorts, brandishing a long knife and approaching several horrified shoppers.

Point of interest:  the “gold and green jersey” is in fact the team jersey of the Oz national rugby team Wallabies — no doubt, the OzGov should ban sale of said jerseys to prevent future events like this from happening.

Or, as Reader Mike L. suggests, the OzGov should institute commonsense knife control laws, like:

  • No one needs a knife longer than 18 inches
  • No one needs a knife with more than 10 serrations
  • No one should be able to buy a knife more easily than borrowing a library book
  • etc.

Much praise is being heaped on the “hero” Oz coppette who ventilated said stabby asshole and reduced his body temperature to the “room” setting.  Doing her job, in other words, and not going all Uvalde, running away and hiding.  And yes, good for her.

Of course, had a situation like this occurred in, say, Arizona, Florida or Texas, there is an equally-good chance that a Concerned Citizen would have applied the same solution as the hero Oz coppette did, perhaps even before he had a chance to stab anyone.  (We call that “pre-emptive goblin disposal” — okay, “fear for one’s life”, see next post — but cops usually have to wait until the stabbing actually begins before applying the appropriate trigger pressure.)

As I write this, we don’t know why our Wallaby supporter went all Apache in the mall, but frankly it doesn’t matter because in matters of this nature, he may have had what he thought was a good reason (Oswald), or else because his head was all fucked up (Whitman).

Sic semper dementis.

Dept. Of Righteous Shootings

Righteous Shootings

Let’s hear it for Idaho grannies:

The 85-year-old mother of a disabled son committed a “justifiable homicide” in Idaho when she shot an armed burglar who snuck into her home and threatened to “kill her multiple times,” a county prosecutor said.

Christine Jenneiahn presented “one of the most heroic acts of self-preservation” that Bingham County prosecutor Ryan Jolley has ever heard of when she shot and killed 39-year-old Derek Condon, according to an incident review written Tuesday.

Yup.  The only bad thing that happened in all this shooty goodness was that before expiring, the goblin was able to get off a few shots himself, wounding Our Heroine (may she have a complete and speedy recovery).

In the meantime, please do the usual:

News Roundup

Bad News

And if ever we needed beer:


...I don’t wanna say “I told you so!!” but…

And completely unrelated to the above:


...no, you shouldn’t buy “an” AR-15.  You should buy at least two because, as the old saying goes, “Two is one and one is none.”  Three would be better, and four (one or two for you, and a couple for your friends, if needed) is just dandy.

Some International News:


...wait:  Japan’s getting upset by this?  It has to be bad.


...not so nice when it happens to you Arab assholes, is it?
#Payback


...and then were promptly arrested for destroying an endangered species, I bet.

Some Murkin News:


...name ONE, asshole.  Get specific.


...did they overturn Kelo?  No?  Then nobody cares.


...priorities:  they’re important.

And in the Dept. of Education:


...it’s called “free enterprise”, guys;  leave her alone, dammit.  Also, keyword:  Houston.

In Business News:


…

And now, ’tis time for  

...welcome to the boys’ club, honey.

And on that note, it’s time for our little journey down  :

Unlike the news, that’s just the way we like it.

Carry Trends

The Gun Thing

Tami Keel talks about the trend in carry guns that she’s witnessed over the years:

The first [competition] I attended, at DARC in Arkansas back in 2017, was largely after the “Caliber Wars” were over. I’m sure there were a few .40s and .45s in attendance, but 9mm was the overwhelmingly most common chambering and it wasn’t even close. I’d feel pretty comfortable stating that probably half everybody was shooting a Glock of one variant or another, with M&Ps being the second most common, and the remainder a mishmash of Sig Sauers, HKs, and Berettas, mostly

Next year TacCon was at DARC again. Glocks were still the most common gun, but probably only a plurality at this point. Sig P320s were already vying with M&Ps as the second most commonly seen pistol. There were a handful of people using red dot optics in 2018, and John Johnston made it into the man-on-man shootoff with one.

At 2019, down in Louisiana at NOLATAC, there were more red dots, and Rick Remington won the shootoff with an RMR atop a 9mm Wilson. Glock alternatives continued to grow in popularity.

After a one-year hiatus during the Plague Year of 2020, TacCon was held at Dallas Pistol Club in 2021. That’s when I first started seeing significant numbers of the smaller pistols, like Glock 48s and Sig P365s. Red dots were commonly spotted in every class and were no longer limited to hardcore dot proponents who’d had pistol slides custom milled for RMRs.

2022 was back at DPC again. Red dots and smaller pistols were everywhere, even in the shootoffs.

2023? More of the same.

For 2024, the biggest difference I noticed was that there was a greater number of people who were willing to talk openly about living “the snubby lifestyle” à la Darryl Bolke. Gear-wise, dots had become downright prevalent. Walthers had become more common. I don’t know how Walther’s doing in terms of overall market share, but they’ve certainly penetrated the serious training hobbyist demographic. The majority of optics were now Holosuns.

All very interesting.  I couldn’t help thinking how my personal carry choices have changed over the same period of time.

2017:

2018:

2019:

2020:


(briefly, then back to the usual)

2021:

2022:

2023:

2024:

I know, this is carry as opposed to competition, but still.  One assumes that the competitive shooters were carrying the same as, or at least copies of the ones they were shooting.  (If not… LOL.)

The only changes I can foresee in my carry choice would be substituting one 1911 for another.

Occasionally, if I’m in the mood, I may carry my bedside S&W Model 65 instead of a 1911, because that’s the holster belted onto a different pair of jeans and I’m too lazy to swap it out:

So you see, I can be flexible.

I’m just not interested in carrying a little gun like a SIG or Walther in 9mm Europellet, unless one day I decide to substitute it for my backup Model 637.

Don’t hold yer breath.

By the way, I typically carry two or four backup 1911 Chip McCormick mags (depending on whether or not I’m wearing a gilet), and a couple of 5-round speedloaders for the 637.  That should be enough ammo to get me back to the car rifle, after which I can really bring down the thunder.

Update:  Several people have written to me, speaking of their preference for hi-cap mags.  One asked me whether the 8-round Chip McCormick 1911 mags would be sufficient in a BLM-type encounter.

I have two responses to this:  firstly, three CMC mags = 24 rounds, five mags = 40 rounds, and three .38 Spec loads = 15 rounds.  If I wanted to get serious, and with a little foreknowledge, I could just swap out the 8-round mags for 10-round CMC mags, of which I have a half-dozen or so on hand.  Should be enough.

Any more than the above, and I probably would avoid going out to where there’s a chance I may be heavily outnumbered — OR I could just turn the trunk gun into a front-seat gun (with several backup mags), if you get my drift.  I venture to suggest that this combination of weaponry would be adequate for any group of scraggly scrotes.

Private Property

Government Thugs, Rights

Here we go:

A proposed rule from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will soon take effect, forcing many private gun sellers to use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to sell their guns.

The targets of this rule are not licensed federal gun dealers, as they are already required to use the NICS on every gun sale and/or transfer.

Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders are required to conduct background checks on all gun sales and transfers because of the Brady Act (1993). That act created the NICS, and, since then, all retail sales of both new and used guns have been conducted via the NICS. Democrats have pushed to include private sales in the NICS requirement. However, Congress — even when controlled by Democrats — has refused.

But the recently proposed rule does what Congress has refrained from doing by allowing the ATF to set its sights on private, non-licensed Americans who may sell guns at some time throughout any given year…

…and when people refuse to comply with this fucking monstrosity, the rule will create criminals where heretofore none existed (as so many of these “regulations” do).

Oh, and don’t think you can get around this assholishness by swapping or bartering for guns, either.

I know, I know:

But a reminder:

This should be interesting.  My advice (and remember, I am no lawyer, nor any kind of criminal — yet):  if you are going to ignore this un-Constitutional infringement on your rights, make sure to do so only with trusted friends and family members — no strangers, ever, because you never know when the ATF is blackmailing or otherwise pressuring someone into breaking the law on their behalf.

Like they did with Randy Weaver.