Unfitting The Narrative

   --And yet impossible to ignore.  Sunday, a cowardly and evil man shot worshipers in a church in Texas; when he emerged from the building (and here's the money quote): 

A man who lives next door to the church grabbed his own rifle and engaged the suspect[...]. The gunman dropped his "Ruger AR assault-type rifle" and fled.

     Yeah.  This is the usual behavior for this kind of murderer: confronted with effective opposition, they flake out.

     I expect this story to drop out of sight quickly, or to be accompanied by a lot of pushing for "gun control;" but it was Texas state law forbidding firearms in churches that gave the killer a sanctuary full of unarmed victims, and* the Texan gun culture that meant an armed citizen was able to respond in an effective and timely manner.

     At least for now, the oldstream media has to sit up, swallow their bubblegum and report the facts: to stop a spree killer, you need a citizen with a gun.  And it doesn't make a bit of difference if that citizen has a spiffy uniform, a badge and the sanction of government or not.  I'm only sorry the killer wasn't stopped more quickly, by one of his intended victims.
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* Not so!  This was true until 2015, when the law was changed; since then churches must post specific signage forbidding the carriage of firearms openly and/or concealed, or it is allowed.

"As Long As You Have Your Health--"

     Turns out the converse of the old saw works, too: get into health issues and other considerations drop by the wayside.  This is both good -- I have hardly even thought about the Presidential-election mudfight nor the Cuban clown show -- and bad: I gave the atrocity in Belgium short shrift.  The barbarian is at the gates but in this souped-up world, the "walls" are mere philosophical constructs and those who have no use for the many modern conveniences of 21st-century civilization can attack with impunity.  They need to start to be shot more often, and earlier in the attempts at their crimes.  It probably won't happen in Europe before the lights start going out.

     As for me, I'm off to the doc-in-a-box.  I'm better this morning but not, as it happens, all that much better.

Eagle Creek Park Pistol Range Update

     I called the Mayor's Action  Center, and was read a press release claiming "a 70% drop in attendance..."  I find this doubtful.  The period cited includes the time it was closed and then re-opened with a new operator, which puts a real bobble in the stats.

    Also, dammit, I have a couple of ten-visit passes with only a few punches out.

     I left a complaint, pointing out it was the most affordable range in town and the only public outdoor range in the county (I think in the surrounding ones, as well); all the others are members-only clubs.  Does the city think only wealthy people should receive safety training and adequate practice?

     For now, they have slammed the door and are claiming it's financial.  Mind you, they didn't solicit new bids to find a cheaper operator -- and the current operator was not under the impression negotiations were ended.  There's a year left in their current contract, so who knows.

     It's worth a call.  (317) 327-4622. Ask about Eagle Creek Park Pistol Range and express your hope it will re-open to the public soon.

Elect The Wrong Guy, Lose The Public Pistol Range

     The new Mayor of Indianapolis is making his mark -- by shutting down public access to the Eagle Creek Park Pistol Range.  For vague, nonsensical reasons that appear to boil down to, "'Cos guns're bad, mm-kay?" 

     Might want to call up the Mayor's Action Center and ask them to reconsider. (317) 327-4622. Ask about Eagle Creek Park Pistol Range, and when it will open this Spring.

Pac-Lite Problems

     The Pac-Lite upper on my Ruger Mk. II .22 pistol is a source of much joy, a big improvement for the little target handgun -- except for the small machine screw that holds the ejector to the upper.

     It has gotten loose in the past and been tightened, but this time when the gun started having feeding and ejection problems, I took it apart (paperclip, toolmaker's hammer, brass punch, mild cursing) to find the screw gone!  Looks like a flat-head 4-40 x 3/16" and probably mild steel.  I put in a binder head, brass, and will see if it runs more than a couple of rounds.  (Liable to shear, which may be unfun.)  Reassembled with the usual grief, wooden mallet and a lot of test-fitting.  It's not that the Mk. II is all that difficult to take apart and put back together, it's just very different to most handguns and has a higher "have to hold your mouth right" quotient.

       I've got a call in to Pac-Lite and I'll be investing in some Loctite once I lay hands on the proper hardware -- may have to buy a bag of 50 or more from McMaster-Carr to get decent quality if I can't shake one out of the manufacturer.

We're All Charlie Now

     I haven't commented on the cowardly terrorist nitwits who shot up the editorial staff of the French Satire magazine but it's not for lack of noticing; I figure you don't need me to read you the news and if you are reading this blog, you don't need me to point out that murdering the staff of, say, National Lampoon because they disrespected your religion is plain evil, authoritarian garbage behavior.  Persons who do such things should be shot in the act and it is a great sadness to me that the two most recent affronts to civilization happened in nations where armed self-defense if difficult if not impossible.  (L. Neil Smith has addressed this,* pointing out that these attacks are "a diffuse phenomenon, best dealt with by diffuse means."  Shoot back!)

     The current outbursts of Islamanoid terrorism are based on an approach to the world that makes Racoona Sheldon's The Screwfly Solution look humane.  It's not the way the guy who runs the corner Middle-Eastern restaurant thinks or lives (at least, at the one in my neighborhood) -- and the solution to the present mess depends not only on stopping evil but encouraging good.
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* Help a brother out! I was alarmed to learn that LNS suffered a stroke last summer. Evidence is he's recovering well but if you were ever inclined to tip me -- or if you weren't but you'd like to help out L. Neil -- tip him instead.  You'll find ways to do so in the essay linked above and at this article.

Went To Gun Show, Bought Paperweights

          Saturday, Tam, the Data Viking and I trundled off to the Tri-State Gun Show at Stout Field National Guard Armory in my SUVesque vehicle.  It was my first time taking it on the freeway.  As I am no fan of freeway driving and the route slithers through the downtown "spaghetti bowl," this was slightly white-knuckly, but it went okay.  (The RX300 has just a little bit more vroom than my Accents had!)  I'm still working out where the corners of the plush truckwagon are.

     It was the usual interesting show.  I think Tri-State's shows lean to more collectorish sellers than does the Indy 1500; you don't see the big aisle of mostly not-for-sale shinies and tables crowded with new guns from the big dealers ending in a line of buyers filling out 4473s.  Instead, interesting and obscure stuff abounds, offered by smaller dealers, collectors, pawnshops.  This is not to say you won't find pink-and-white Taurus revolvers ("for her!" assuming her fits some stereotype on the Donna Reed-to-Vargas-model line) and brightly-colored derringers (please, don't buy derringers.  You'd be better off with a pastel Brazilian wheelgun), but there are a lot unusual and/or old firearms and the better-known classic manufacturers are well-represented.  

     Tam found herself some kind of Miami Vice S&W wondernine -- 12 +1 shots and a grip that's only moderately 2x4ish.  The Data Viking looked at High Standards, as is his wont, but the semi-autos were too new for his taste and the very clean Sentinel (R-101) .22 revolver is something he's still thinking about.  (I love 'em, but that's just me.  .22 plinkers grow on you.  Or not.)

     And me?  I hadn't planned to buy anything.  Hey, I just bought a car!  Looked at some knives but I've got just about any kind of knife I might ever want, from practical work/general purpose knives to carpenter's marking knives to razor-sharp scalpel knives for removing wire insulation to knives for eating, "fruit testers" like folding steak knives and hobo knives with fork and spoon.

     And then....then....  Well, there was this guy, see?  With a few very old revolvers, see?  Both are some variety of .32.* One was a missing-parts velocipedist's revolver from the late 19th Century, short barrel, folding trigger, the holes where a safety used to be and a short, rounded grip.  The hammer-spur shape and safety make it likely  to be European.  Belgian proofmarks confirm it.  There was a near-twin a few tables over, intact and complete, for something over $225.  One nice touch to the design is that with the hammer down, the (fixed) firing pin is held well away from the chamber unless the trigger is held all the way back; it's a "rebounding hammer."  As late-1800s designs go, this would have been considered pocket-safe with every chamber loaded.  This one's missing the loading gate and ejector rod as well as the hammer-locking safety, so it's a curiousity.

Okay, they're upside down to the text describing them.  I fought the "properties" for twenty minutes to get this far.

      The other one was shiny and appears to be chromed rather than nickled.  A top-break, it has many of the features of a Hopkins and Allen...except for the interesting lockwork that keeps the firing pin blocked from the cartridges until the trigger is pulled.  Instead, it has a rebounding hammer...and an ornate "F&W" on the well-preserved grips.  It's got ratchet issues and a line of sock-drawer corrosion along the barrel on the side away from the camera in the photo above.

     Looking at the rib atop the barrel tells the tale:

---FOREHAND MODEL 1901.---

HOPKINS AND ALLEN ARMS COMPANY, NORWICH CT. U.S.A.

     (Yes, "CT."  Coincidence, not anachronism.)

      The story of Hopkins and Allen is somewhat star-crossed and not for any lack of quality; in 1874, Charles A. Converse (the silent name in H&A) sold his half-share to the Hulbert brothers and H&A became the sole manufacturer of the delightfully strange, well-made Merwin Hulbert revolvers.  Hulbert went bankrupt in 1896 and H&A did the same two years later, but reformed as Hopkins and Allen Arms Company and then lost all their machinery in a fire in 1900.  Through all this, they'd been making revolvers under contract for a long list of names, including Forehand and Wadsworth.  In 1902, F&W was bought by H&A, and this little gun probably dates to about that time period.

     Trouble persisted for Hopkins and Allen: in 1905, their warehouse was emptied by thieves.  They staggered on and even won a contract to build Mauser rifles for Belgium's military at the beginning of WW I.  For obvious reasons, that contact was never completed.  H&A went bankrupt in 1916 and in 1917, Marlin Rockwell Corporation bought the remaining assets.  Finis, H&A.  (Marlin has been collecting and being collected by New England firearms makers ever since; in 2000, they picked up Harrington and Richardson and in 2007, Remington bought Marlin.)  If all this buying, building, patenting and bankruptcy is reminiscent of the semiconductor/computer industry, there's good reason.  Quality mass-production machine work started with firearms, spread rapidly to engines and bicycles, and mushroomed from there along Moore's Law lines, technology spreading and morphing, companies forming, merging and going under.

     That's some entertainment, from a pair of not-fireable guns offered at $50 each and bought for $85 for the pair.
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* Pop quiz: how many .32 cartridges can you name off the top of your head?  .32 S&W, .32 S&W Long, .32-20, .32 ACP (7.65 Browning).... The neighborhood of .32 is thickly populated, though .38/9mm may have it beat.

No, No, No

     ...See, when something's askew, wrong, ill-fitting?  It does not jibe.  Now, if someone can't hack the patois, if they're not hip to the sprach, unable to doubletalk and befuddle The Man, then -- and only then, my brother, my cousin, my no-relative-of-mine, may you say that they do not -- cannot! -- jive.

     But I should'a knowed you'd hone right in on that, no doubt as a part of your constant homing of your linguistic skills.

     Pfui!  Next person pulls one of those, I'm gonna throw my Unabridged at him.  'Salright, I've got a spare -- 'cos "Two is one and one is none," and a goodly number of persons, many of them in possession of keyboards, appear to be well down in the negative numbers.

     Look, there are plenty of common spoken contractions and slang terms you may sensibly use in writing, especially informal writing, but there are other spoken usages that are just plain wrong.  The people who use 'em have never seen the correct versions and probably don't read much other than cereal boxes and the sports pages, lips moving as they do.  Don't let them haul you back down into the crab bucket.

Does Their Reach Exceed Their Grope?

     Or is it just their hubris?  In the wake of revelations about the Feds spying on, well, everyone, an NRO spysat just went up with this mission patch:

     Yeah.  We don't have an Orbital Hilton or a tourist lodge on the moon and Pan-Am can't run you up there on a shuttle -- in fact, they're struggling to make the trains run on time while NASA astronauts have to bum a lift from the Russians.*  But our .gov can bigawd tune in every cel-phone call, walkie-talkie and baby monitor everywhere, and read everyone's e-mail and web-browsing history to boot.  China plans to put a missile base on the Moon and this country's space program is all about listening at keyholes and peering in windows.

     It makes me as proud as the protagonist  in a Greek Tragedy, it does.  And I lurves me some Big Brother, especially when he dresses up like Cthulhu and looms.  Just gimme a minnit to urp neatly into my shirt pocket first, 'kay?
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* Russians are to spaceships as Cubans are to classic cars, as near as I can tell.

Harmonious Folk

     I'm told Dylan did a version of this--

     Yeah, well.  'Druther have this one.

     Is there any darned thing left that some sick weasel -- corporate penny-shaver or green-weenie or regulator run amok -- isn't trying to replace (or already has) with some ersatz edition made out of cheap, biodegradable plastic slathered in bright colors, all misinterpreted, bendy and useless, and destined to end in tatters along the side of a crumbling road?  Anything at all, except maybe the human voice?  And they'll try'n sell you a chopped-up, cut-rate digitized version of that, too, and claim the tinny simulacrum droning in your earbuds is "just as good as the real thing."

     It ain't.

     Maybe this is a little reminder, a glimpse of memory of a description of a sniff of a full Sunday dinner that's been cooking all day, laid out in the fair-to-middling best china on a freshly-launder tablecloth on a cool Fall afternoon.

Navy Yard Shooter

     Spree shooter at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard?  How damnably convenient for the antis.

     Given the recent revelations about NSA (et al)  and their program of domestic snoopery, I really do wonder if they haven't got a nutjob farley-file and when prompted, the pull the pin on one.

     Implausible?  How many of you (not me! not for years*) said the same thing about the deep complicity of telcos in domestic spying?  -Of ISPs?  Of Google?  ("Don't be evil!"  Heh heh heh, shaddup.)

     It's possible -- even likely -- that the domestic intel wonks have been not farming but hunting/gathering useful crazies for years.  And using them, too.  C'mon, if you'll give LSD to unsuspecting fellow-citizens, you'll play chess with humans in other ways, too.

     (ETA: Semi-relatedly, Tam points out he went into his idiot blitz armed with a single weapon: "He listened to Joe Biden and bought a shotgun."  See?  They really do receive orders from Teh Gummint!  Also, how safe is your high-end skeet gun from the ever-reaching regulators now, d'you suppose?)
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* Once you've learned even a little bit about how phone CO hardware worked for things like "metered service" -- it's even more trackable now -- you realize that a) the BS in TV shows about "tracking calls," how long it took and how difficult it was, was just BS and b) the telcos were in bed with the feds, starkers, and had been for a long time -- and they liked it there, so sticky-warm and snuggly-close to the roots of power.  But day-um, I really did harbor old hippie illusions about Google and the mom & pop ISPs, more fool me.

Don't Get Me Started

     I had a crappy day and a crappier evening, fighting with a crappy job I have put off for well over a year (clearing the curb, where dirt accumulates and weeds grow and the neighbors look at you crosswise if you don't clear it and even more crosswise if you pick out the weeds and sweep the gravelly stuff into the street and then -- then, dammit, when you are chivvied into doing the right thing and sweeping it up, it is almost impossible to parcel the stuff out in small enough lots that the bags you sweep it into don't break) and I'm short of temper and filled with loathing for my fellowman (srsly, if all the rest of you would just leave or just vote yourselves into your own damnable gray dystopian paradisease, I'd be fine for decades, quite fine and unlike Burgess Meredith, I have multiple spare eyeglasses).

     So of course, today we find out yet another IMPD officer got nabbed for DUI.  I'm well over that sack of bastards, too; about the only way I might regain even a smidgen of respect for them would be if their drunkards would either start having the grace to eat their gun after being bonded out or started getting themselves shot while resisting arrest beforehand and neither one is gonna happen. Hell, you can't even get them to an AA meeting or in front of the TV cameras admitting they have gone wrong and pledging Temperance. The department itself has clearly got all the self-respect and self-discipline of a town drunk and no matter how many times it wakes up in the gutter, reeking of stale booze and staler urine, not a single thing will change.  It's a damn pity, it was as good a police department as any, with Marion County Sheriff's Department running neck-and-neck, and then they had to go and combine 'em and suddenly no one was watching the watchmen, especially at the bars and liquor stores.

     Feh.  Today would sour anyone's beer, even those of us who don't drink it.

     (Update: well, here's a bandaid for a sucking chest wound.)

Mayor Bloomberg Despises Civil Rights

     The Mayore Royale of NYC was The Tube this morning, sneering at your right to drink a Big Gulp, light a cigarette and own a gun.  He's proud of it and he (claims) that none of it infringes on any inherent right, not even a smidge.

     As a good Northern girl, I was going to compare him to Lester Maddox, standing in the doorway of his segregated diner with an axe-handle in his hand, but I try to do my homework instead of running with easy stereotypes and  y'know what?  Maddox started out his political career athwart a doorway, yellin' "Never!" but he appears to have grown and changed over the years, becoming more inclusive and appointing African-Americans to executive positions in state government while Governor; at least he gave up drawing lines in the sand and daring the tide to cross. Conversely, Bloomberg's stand becomes ever more extreme, inflexible, dictatorial.

     Sorry, Mayor; you lack the open-mindness, empathy and ability to grow that Governor Maddox had.  Y'might want to chew on that a spell before you open your mouth again

Well, Which Is It? (Pugsly I of Venezuala, Overdue Death)

I'm kinda goin' with the version on the tab, especially at his terminal destination, though not so much for him.

     One down, more to go.

NYC Shooting

Y'know, in old days, if there was a shooting at the Empire State Building, kids would be looking for Doc Savage.

These days, we have Mayor Mike playing shamey-shamey, while some gunnies have averred this is no time to cast aspersions on the strict firearms laws of NYC and the State of New York.

Balderdash! Balder-double-em-dash, in fact, of the highest water and the greatest magnitude. This is precisely the time to point out that, thanks to "common-sense gun laws," the shooter could count on having nothing but defenseless victims, plus whatever overworked and underpracticed NYPD personnel happened to be nearby.

Do I know for sure that if NYC had the same enlightened firearms laws as, say, Vermont or at least Indiana, the killer would have been stopped faster and before he did as much harm? No; I cannot. But I do know that the laws that are currently in place ensured that his victim and bystanders didn't stand a chance. Pen-knives and bare hands against a .45? Mayor Bloomberg, their blood is on your hands. (ETA: Given that most if not all harm to bystanders was at the hands of police, perhaps my focus should shift from "citizens disarmed by law" to "lack of a viable shooting culture," given that most NYPD officers shoot no more quals/practice than is required. In either case, local/state law must shoulder a portion of the blame.)

Dammit, let's have fewer tragedies, and a fewer deaths when they occur: Mister Mayor, put down that axe-handle and step aside from the gun-store doorway. Power to the people!

Getting Creepier

Remember my "What's in your backyard?" post the other day? The answer, for one Indianapolis resident, was "a shallow grave." Well, make that two.

Most people you meet are good and decent folks; good enough and decent enough. But some of the very few who aren't are waaayyyy out there.

O Glorious Holiday

"Happy Co-dependance Day," says the fed.gov, with a warm and smarmy reminder that they're there for us -- and, especially, there for the contents of our wallets. C'mon, you, hand it over! Don't you care about poor people? An' struggling Congressthings?

I'd send 'em a rocket* but the city's fretful I'll catch the place on fire -- also, Officer Friendly will come 'round an' offer me a ticket and a hickory shampoo if I try. It's for my own good, innit? (Yes, it turns out they can ban fireworks, just as long as they declare a disaster first. Drought: disaster. Hurrah! Our Leaders have now arranged matters such that only the least-responsible and most furtive of persons will ignite pyrotechnic amusements. What could possibly go wrong?)
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* PS, we're all still terrists again. I knew it, I just knew it -- it's that beady "don't tread on me, bro" look in yer eyes. So not down with the collective whim. Feds: figure of speech, damn you, figure of speech. Also, it still moves.

John Carter: Underpromoted By The Mouse

Kaor, Jasoomians!

Doggone it, if Walt's kids were gonna bother to make the film, why didn't they promote it worth a damn?

I watched John Carter on the Roku this afternoon.

While they rearranged the plot (or plots) of A Princess of Mars somewhat -- looks like they were after sharpening the conflict and playing up the wheels-within-wheels aspects Burroughs developed -- they treated the original characters with respect. Sadly, if you didn't already know Kantos Kan, as cheerfully go-to-hell a warrior as any before or since, you might overlook him and the complex personality of Tars Tarkas isn't given as much attention as I would have liked. (Some people have complained there were too many Tharks. I dunno; you do need enough to maintain a viable breeding population.) The original story has a kind of Victorian/Edwardian feel and ethos and it probably should have been treated as even more of a period piece than it was -- in this context, read "period piece" as "wholesome adventure," in which mad notions like Honor, Duty, Square Dealing and True Love drive the story. Captain John Carter of Virginia may be tormented but he's not angsty.

The Martian "dog" is a spot-on bit of Burroughs business, froggy face and all. --Wide shots of ancient, ruined Mars (whoa, is that a cliff or a building?) capture very much the sense of the planet I picked up from the books and Helium is plausible -- I'm not so sure about the crawling predator city of Zodanga, which I think gets more screen time than it merits. On the other hand, Dejah Thoris looks just about exactly as I pictured her. John Carter? Not as experienced-looking as he ought to be but the actor did his best; it's not the poor guy's fault nothing's uglied him up any.

But a better film than its box-office returns implied and a real treat for anyone familiar with the books. Sadly, we're not likely to get any more, at least this go-round. A lot of the blame for that has to go to Disney, which had changes at the top between approving the film and releasing it, and which seems to have shied away from spending very much to tell people about it.

...Dammit, it's Barsoom. How could they have treated this film like a red-headed stepchild? Yet they did; it's on pay-per-view now and will be at your local or online video store shortly. Buy it. Watch it. It's two and a quarter hours of good entertainment.

Seen At Dayton: Gernsback Gone Wild

Hugo Gernsback, who all but invented "pulp" SF and promoted hobby radio his entire career. (And a notoriously slow payout to writers, I'm told. Well, you can't have everything).

His magazines were full of ideas from the start: ...I did not say good ideas. Eventually you run out of extension cord, have to stop Westinghousing and fix bayonets! Also: machine guns. Possibly a problem.

(A few magazines down the pile: Great White Fleet battleships, fitted with new transmissions and great big metal wheels, crawling up onto the beach. Slow? maybe, but they'd eat tanks for lunch. At least until they bogged down or sheared a gear or axle.)

Zapgun? Mutant Food?

All part of day before yesterday. Honest!

I bought this with nary a 4473:Should help if we're invaded by Mars, right? (Plenty more where that came from and not all that costly as Art goes: Do Your Part!)

Tam has alluded to A Proper Indiana Breaded Tenderloin; here is an example, slightly eaten already:You'll put your eye out, kid!

Wednesday evening featured the first 2012-edition charcoal-grilled steaks a la Roseholme. No pictures but they just melt in your mouth -- good filet mignon, hardwood charcoal and Irish butter!