I tried. I really tried to like Dollhouse. I tried because I like Joss Whedon, and I want to support the work he does. But I watched it on Hulu, and it was not good. It just isn’t that good.
Sorry Joss Whedon, maybe next time.
Don't worry, we'll protect the horrible post-apocolyptic world
As a member of the video game generation, this Onion Video touches me in a way few humor videos can.
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?
When the balloon goes up, my gun-owning-Fallout Playing Brethren and I will be well-prepared to scrounge the hellish landscape for weapons, ammo, and stimpacs.
Speed Shooting
A user over at TFL posted the following question the other day: how do I shoot faster? It was met with the predictable response of “practice”, which while good doesn’t help as much if you don’t tell the new guy specifically what they need to be practicing. I’m recycling my response from TFL because it’s Friday and I have things that require doing, however it’s still decent info. My post is essentially a collection of things I learned from other people, so YMMV:
1. The first item that will help you shoot faster is to develop your recoil control skills, which are primarily a function of your grip and stance. For stance, all of the top competitive pros use the modified isosceles stance, which keeps your knees soft (bent) and your body “forward” so you’re “on the gun”. The second component of recoil control is your grip. Todd Jarrett likes to say “grip the gun 20% tighter”, a technique which (I think) Mas Ayoob refers as the “crush grip”. To establish your optimum grip pressure, hold the gun in your firing grip and grip the pistol until the front sight starts to bounce and shake from your grip pressure, then relax your grip until the sight stops bouncing rapidly – that’s your “ideal” grip pressure for rapid shooting. The 3rd aspect of recoil control is strength – holding the gun that tight takes a considerable amount of grip strength, so I recommend looking into training exercises for your upper body/forearms.
2. The second aspect of “shooting faster” is trigger control. Your average semi-auto cycles in something like 0.06 seconds, which means that the gun is always waiting on you. When you’re shooting fast, you want your trigger finger to come all the way off the trigger of the gun, and then re-engage the trigger, especially if you’re using a revolver or striker-fired pistol. Jerry Miculek keeps the return springs in his revolver at an “unusually” high weight, as he wants his finger to come just off the trigger in between shots. Some guys feel like you should “ride the reset” on the trigger, which means let just enough off for the gun to reset and keep constant contact with the trigger. The problem with riding the reset is that you’re depending on an extremely fine muscle skill to know when that trigger’s reset, and for speed it’s much easier to just come off the trigger in between shots.
3. The third aspect of effective speed shooting is the draw. Back to quoting Todd Jarrett: “If you blow the draw, you blog the string”. So true. Practice your draw at home, using a “progressive draw drill“. That will allow you to up your speed on the draw in a controlled environment.
Buckeye Firearms Foundation Sues City of Cleveland
I guess Cleveland doesn’t rock so much after all:
The suit seeks a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction to stop the City of Cleveland from prosecuting law-abiding gun owners under local ordinances that restrict gun ownership and concealed carry.
The lawsuit also asks the Court to declare 20 different local ordinances unconstitutional on the grounds of state preemption of firearm laws.
HB347, the preemption law, became effective in March of 2007. It replaces a patchwork of varied and confusing local rules with “uniform laws throughout the state regulating the ownership, possession, purchase, other acquisition, transport, storage, carrying, sale, or other transfer of firearms, their components, and their ammunition.”
I wish the best of luck to Buckeye Firearms Foundation with their suit – it’s good to see Ohio moving back towards liberty on the gun issue. Now if I could just get them to have reciprocity with Indiana, we’d be all set.
Coming on Monday
On Monday, due to reader prompting, we’re going to have a post about malfunction drills on your mousegun – specifically the Beretta 950, aka Jetfire. Look for that Monday, complete with pictures.
More AWB Stuff
It seems that the left can’t run away from a new AWB fast enough. Now the AHSA, our favorite fake gun group – is saying that an AWB would be bad policy.
Impressive.
Thank you, Eric Holder!
The United States Senate has voted, with overwhelming bipartisan support, to adopt an amendment offered by Senator John Ensign (R-NV) that seeks to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens in the District of Columbia. The amendment, attached to S.160, the D.C. Voting Rights Act, will repeal restrictive gun control laws passed by the District of Columbia’s (D.C.) city council after the landmark D.C. v. Heller Supreme Court decision. The vote margin was 62-36.
That’s straight out of the NRA press release on the vote, which is awesome in and of itself. What’s even more awesome is this tidbit though:
I am also hearing that Holder’s comments were instrumental in helping bring this issue back up, and picking up the votes it needed. So thanks Eric! We really appreciate the help getting this amendment tacked on to a must-pass bill for the Democrats!
Eric Holder may turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes that Obama’s made yet if this kind of stuff continues.
Everybody out of the pool!
It seems that Democrat leadership is already trying to distance themselves from Attorney General Holder’s statements about renewing the AWB. Via Unclesaurus I get this tidbit from Speaker of the House Pelosi:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tossed cold water on the prospect of reinstating the assault weapons ban, highlighting Democrats’ reluctance to take on gun issues.
Attorney General Eric Holder raised the prospect Wednesday that the administration would push to bring back the ban. But Pelosi (D-Calif.) indicated on Thursday that he never talked to her. The Speaker gave a flat “no” when asked if she had talked to administration officials about the ban.
Cool. Now, I’m not suggesting that we should trust Nancy Pelosi, or think that she’s on our side, because you and I both know that given the opportunity, she’d ramrod an AWB down our throats in a minute. What this highlights is the size of the political miss-step that Eric Holder made the other, which is only reinforced by this link, which examines the damage done by suggesting a new AWB.
It would seem that Eric forgot that it’s 2009, not 1993, and he’s not working for Janet “Send in the Tanks” Reno any longer.
Pins this weekend!
There is a bowling pin match scheduled for this weekend at Marion County Fish and Game. Just in time for me, because I think I was starting to go in to shooting withdrawal with all the match cancellations that I’d had lately, I haven’t fired a round downrange since the January steel match. The high for Saturday looks like it’s going to be around 35 degrees, which means it will be much, much colder at 8am when we set up for pins. C’est la vie, if I wanted to always play my sport in good conditions, I’d have taken up basketball.
Come on out this Saturday and whack some pins! It’ll be fun, I promise.
Update From Matt in comments:
Bruce sent an email a couple days ago – they will not be shooting pins this weekend due to the temperature.
They will setup 2 or 3 groupings of steel plates – shoot each stage as much as you like, but it won’t be as involved as Friday Night Steel.
1911 Gun Porn
All from Guncrafter Industries, makers of the .50 GI 1911. First up is their “American” Model, a loaded 1911 on which pricing is still not available on their website, however as you can see from the SHOT SHOW picture (previous published here) it is filled with bells and whistles.
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| From SHOT SHOW 2009 |
I also have a neat picture of their new .50 GI round – previously available in 300 grain JFP or 275 grain JHP, they have a new, all copper .50 GI round, pictured here. I wish I had written down how much the round weighs, as they don’t have info on their site yet about it.
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| From SHOT SHOW 2009 |
Now we can go back to the gun porn, and my favorite gun in the Guncrafter Industries line-up, the .50 GI #2.
Let’s see, full length dust cover, tactical rail, firing a proprietary .50 caliber cartridge? Oh yes, do want. Because it’s so expensive though, the .50 GI is one of those “if I had unlimited funds” guns – I’d love to own one because it would just MURDER bowling pins (a 275 grain at 850 FPS? Yes please), and also because anything with “.50” in the name of the caliber makes Sarah Brady cry. Sure, the .50 GI 1911 is old news, but it’s still fun news.
Model No.2 Specs:
Full Profile Slide with Full-length dust cover frame
Integral Light Rail/Accessory Attachment
Complete Reliability Work
Heavy Match Grade 5” Barrel, Stainless Steel
Slide Stop Fully Machined from Bar Stock
Solid Aluminum Trigger Pad
Squared-Off Trigger Guard
20LPI “Carry” checkering on the Frontstrap
Mainspring Housing with Integral Lanyard Attachment, Checkered 20LPI
Heinie Slant Pro Tritium Sights
High Sweep Grip Safety
G.I. Tactical Thumb Safety
Aluma-grips with Full Checkering
Full Dehorning
Parkerized Finish
Supplied with 2 Magazines and Cordura Case
42.6oz. (without Magazine)
45.9oz. (with Magazine)
I would shoot one of those in Limited-10 just to say that I shot a .50 in USPSA, which you have to admit would be pretty cool. The Guncrafter Industries Model #2 can be had for $2895, and is also available in the more conventional .45 ACP. When Barry Obama’s magical unicorn with saddlebags full of cash shows up…