Picked it up.
Oh, but first, our Spanish visitors left yesterday for Las Vegas in the company of my son, who knows his way around Vegas better than Elvis ever did--worrying, that. What euros our guests have left will soon clatter into the vault of some casino or another. Watch the euro-dollar exchange rate.
Yes, I picked it up.
California's absurd ten-day waiting period over, I drove my 'Stang this fine sunny Saturday morning to Turner's and picked up my new S&W 44 mag with a 6.5 inch barrel. A magnificent piece of work. Clint Eastwood has nothing on me now . . . well, except rugged good looks, international fame, and hundreds of millions of dollars . . . but besides that, nothing.
As I oiled and wiped my new S&W and put it to rest in the safe with the other 20 or so handguns (until range day, Monday), I couldn't help but think, "Does anybody really need a .44 Magnum?" I mean, "Aren't .357s and .45s enough for anybody?" Hmmm? The answer, of course, is, those are the wrong questions. The proper question is, "Why as a free citizen can I not have any gun I want?" In other words, where in the Constitution does it say the nanny state can determine what gun I can and can't own? I have no intention of holding up a liquor store, shooting up a church, or killing the neighbor's hideous cat. Why should the actions of criminals determine what I can or cannot do? Perhaps it's true that nobody needs a .44 Mag, a GT Mustang, a cigar, a fine whisky, a Harley, a speed boat, a large tattoo of an eagle, or an ill-fitting suit with a pink carnation in the lapel. But what if I want one, and can get one without taking anything from anybody or hurting anybody?
Freedom, baby, that's what it's all about, and freedom and its corollary fun are what progressives hate. If you are having fun, they are not in control.
This made me think about the current "uproar" over Trump's refusal to endorse the results of the November 8 election beforehand. That's the other thing progressives do. Not only do they tell you what you cannot have, they tell you what you must do and have: such as, give an ever increasing portion of your wealth to the progressives; wear a motorcycle helmet; wear seat belts; not eat your meat medium rare, and on and on.
In fact, I am going to go on about some of that "on and on."
Above all, the progressives want you not only to tolerate certain things they favor, they want and insist you endorse them. We, therefore, must not only go along with the progressive gag that there is no electoral fraud, we must endorse now the November 8 results of an electoral system we know is rife with progressive corruption of all sorts. We must not only tolerate gay marriage, we must endorse it; we must not only tolerate the sexual perversion known as transsexualism but must endorse it and allow these perverts to use bathrooms with our children. A baker, or a pizzeria owner must cater events his religion and conscience tell him not to. Speech codes determine the limits of discussion and even redefine the words we use.
We must all chant, "Diversity is our strength," when in many cities in our beleaguered Western Civilization, we cannot walk safely down the street, or take a bus thanks to the diversity that has been imposed upon us by progressive immigration laws and practices. Stockholm, once one of the world's safest cities, is now the rape capital of Europe thanks to progressive immigration policies; in fact, police there are instructed no longer to mention the "ethnicity" of the rapists. Here in the US, Trump states a truth that any Central American migrant headed north knows: women migrants in Mexico will be raped. He gets chastised for being a racist, for not refusing to see what is in front of his nose. We must not only tolerate the importation of thousands upon thousands of Muslim refugees who adhere to a creed that advocates our enslavement and death, we must embrace them; we must make up history showing that they have always been part of our culture; we must encourage MORE of them to come to the West. Any violence emanating from followers of Islam is to be attributed to lax gun laws, and the failure to embrace the Muslims in our midsts even more lovingly.
They want us to be like Rohm's SA "Brownshirts" screaming, "Heil Hitler!" as they were executed by the firing squads sent by Hitler; like the victims of Stalin's purges forced to proclaim the greatness of the Comrade as they were lead off to receive a bullet in the back of the head.
Trump, win or lose, has managed to demonstrate how rotten our civilization has become under the tutelage of the progressives. We see in the volumes of Wikileaks documents how these progressives are so confident in their corruption and in their ability to manipulate us that they lay out their comments and plans in insecure emails and other texts. They can't imagine a world in which the stuff they say and plan might just be "triggering."
Triggering? Back to my .44 mag.
Molon Labe . . . and I just mailed in my ballot for Trump . . .
Well said, as usual.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that what the communist regimes demand of the people they rule too, enthusiastic approval of the lies that the commie propagandists spewed out onto them? Solzhenitsyn said in the 70s that he did not want democracy or the overthrow of the commies, only that they stop demanding that the people repeat and endorse the lies the government demanded they repeat and endorse. Just stop lying and demanding that we parrot the lies, was his plea. For that the commies arrested him and drove him into exile.
ReplyDeleteOur PC enforcers demand that we endorse and parrot their lies. The progs also demand we overlook their corruption and incompetence, just as Brezhnev (and his predecessors) demanded of the Russians.
Just as the denial of the government's lies was threatening and ultimately fatal to communist regimes, so the denial of PC lies is threatening and will be fatal to our progressive tyrants. They must suppress prevent independent thinking at any cost.
The idea of PC speech controls, to prevent people from having unprogressive thoughts by depriving them of any vocabulary to express such thoughts in, is so similar to the theory of Newspeak that one must conclude that the progressives regard 1984 as a how-to guide, not the warning it was meant to be.
Wow! Well Said.
DeleteThe Soviet Union lost the Cold War but is winning the Culture War. Good essay today.
Deletehttp://amgreatness.com/2016/10/22/seven-degrees-jonah-goldberg/
They are winning the Culture War because the defect of Leftism is ever present in Western thought. A universal acid. Today's "progressives" are the carrier.
Delete"The Soviet Union . . . is winning the Culture War."
DeleteThe "Publius Decius Mus" essay is indeed a come to jesus moment, and a long-deserved, although somewhat wordy whuppin of Jonah and his GOPelite apple polishers!
For the less patient reader tho, may I recommend "Texan 59's" take down, hog tie, and branding of the establishment pretenders so we know what exactly they are!
"If I may be so presumptuous, let me shorten this up for those who like to use the big fancy words. Maybe they will understand this. They won't like it, but maybe they'll understand it. We played by your rules. We followed your marching orders like the good soldiers we are, ever since 1988.
You gave us "No new taxes", "Compassionate Conservatism", Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
We gave you Newt and the republican revolution of 1994, 2010, and 2014. What did that bring us? Not much.
In 2016, Donald J. Trump, who is not who I voted for, nor whom I wanted in this position, whipped sixteen other republicans. Fair and square. Every single one that you (the establishment) wanted dropped out early. Jeb, Perry, Christie, et al,.
Cruz hung in until the bitter end, another one the GOPe couldn't stand, yet you all have the temerity, and gall to tell us to shut up and let you take care of this "problem". Screw you.
At this point, I don't care if the (your) whole apparatus burns to the ground. We heard from Boehner when we only had the House that they were ½ of ⅓ of the gov't. and "what can they do".
Ryan is up there getting ready for a large obamacare induced chiropractor bill from getting whipsawed every other day. Mr. Sam must be laughing his ass off at you rank amateurs.
I am not an "alt-right" wacko, nut-job. I have a college degree, live and work in a major metropolitan area, wear a suit and tie to work every day. with others just like me, who while we didn't go the the fancy-pants east coast schools like y'all did, are being asked to "trust you" one more time.
You guys are the ones who've screwed this whole thing up by begging us for our help and sticking the shiv in our backs. Bite me.
132 △ ▽
"Let's Roll"
Let's Roll...nicely put. Trump is a louder message than the TEA Party. The message after Trump by someone with political skill and savvy will be louder and I believe much more forceful. That man will rise.
DeleteYes, nicely put, Let's Roll.
DeleteOnce again, my apologies. The first time I posted this piece, it got garbled; a couple of paras got dropped and some random notes I had made got inserted. Hope I fixed it.
ReplyDeleteSo if you are looking at for places to buy bulk ammo to feed for your 44 Mag. This is where I shop. http://www.laxrange.com/ They are have a parking lot sale today (23 Oct). I don't know how far you are from 927 W Manchester Blvd, Inglewood, CA 90301,
ReplyDeleteThe UK Telegraph states the the US is tops in gun ownership, but not even in the top ten in firearms deaths. And, predictably, Obummer says that the right-wing media is "pumping out crazy toxic stuff." He is the condensation of all your above condemnations. Our freedoms are on a collusion course with "1984".
ReplyDeleteLAX Ammunition Factory New 44 MAG 240 GR 250 RDS W/FREE AMMO CAN $112.50 https://www.laxammo.com/lax-factory-new/handgun-new/44-mag-new
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip. I just ordered online.
Delete'Mad,
ReplyDeleteA point on the Democrat/Progressive stance on gun control/banning, if I might: Michael Barone, in his book "Our First Revolution" has an appendix showing the "Rights of Englishmen" that the Parliament voted into law after the accession of William and Mary of Orange (The Glorious Revolution). The foundation for the Second Amendment is there. And the why is clear: the weapons are needed to throw off would be Tyrants.
The Progressives have obviously taken the message to heart.
Green Bear
Crossbows are best for cats.
ReplyDeleteI might be one of the few modern surgeons to have treated, successfully, a crossbow wound of the heart. The story is in my book.
DeleteSo the archer missed the apple, then?
DeleteNo. It went right through. One nice thing about crossbow bolts is that they plug the hole they make.
DeleteThank you for not wasting your retirement income on stupid stuff. That Model 27 (I hope!) will do you proud. My dad had a .41 Mag when he became a peace officer. It was a bit of a penetrator and he traded it off. I was 2 at the time. When I found out what he had, I asked him why he didn't save it for me??
ReplyDeleteAnd the classic American muscle your are driving is just beautiful to me. I really appreciate it when someone who can treat them right gets them.
Good work, man! You have my blessing!
George Raft famous quote.
Delete"Part of the $10 million I spent on gambling, part on booze and part on women. The rest I spent foolishly. "
It is also true, my once and, I hope, future friend, that perhaps it's true that nobody needs Carl Lingerholm's Mathematics Made Difficult. But what if I want one, and can get one without taking anything from anybody or hurting anybody?
ReplyDelete(So far, Amazon hasn't taken to shadow-banning the product. And Amazon is a private company.)
Ha!
DeleteI've never needed a special book to make mathematics difficult. Any math book can accomplish that.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteSPAM? Yer writin's fine!
DeleteThat was from me. Google seems to want to make me anonymous.
DeleteMichael Adams
Actually, if we're asking questions like "why does anyone need a .44 Mag," one answer is that for self-defense against vermin of the two-legged variety, handguns are a mediocre choice and do not destroy enough tissue to be reliable fight-stoppers if the user fails to hit the brain or spinal cord on the first shot. If I am fighting for my life against some ne'er-do-well armed with a machete at just past arm's length, when I shoot him I want him to stop what he's doing, right now, rather than split my skull with his weapon then fall down atop my corpse and bleed to death several minutes later. Handguns are very imperfect tools but the .44 Mag is a step in the right direction for this type of scenario.
ReplyDeleteA .44 Mag with appropriately chosen ammunition--I would recommend jacketed hollowpoints in the 180-200 grain range, loaded hot--destroys more tissue. The tradeoff here, of course, is that heavy recoil means longer split times. That can be a bad thing if you have multiple assailants and not all are put to flight by the destruction wrought by the first shot. You pays your taxes and you takes your choice. I have similar reasons for preferring the .40 over the 9mm and the .45 over the .40 in modern magazine-fed semiauto pistols for most applications.
I personally have been thinking about a .44 Mag revolver for a while myself, and had thought about perhaps a stainless Ruger Redhawk in the 5.5" length. It is not quite as smooth an article as the S&W product but perhaps it is a bit more durable, with lockwork more suited to a steady diet of the hottest loads.
Very useful, thanks
DeleteHaving one, two, or even five guns is cool. But doesn't telling people you have twenty guns in your house mark you as an armory-in-waiting for any gang seeking firepower? Especially if you tell people when you're going on vacation?
ReplyDeleteThe bait is set . . .
DeleteYou may find this of some amusement.
ReplyDeleteSubversion.
Now all you need is a 10 day wait for your ammo.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for so interesting article! I agree that you will have readers that will agree with you and but not all, you should know about it. But if you can't write, it is better to order your essay or some other work on good writing service, like this one bookwormlab review.
ReplyDelete