Tam was freezing as well, but she was shooting and freezing. She shot some pins, and apparently her Gun Blog 9mm runs just like mine – almost boringly reliable.
Boiler Up!
I’m off to Purdue for the annual Old Oaken Bucket Game – holy cow is it cold.
Fun with Numbers
79% of all voters say the views of the NRA were not important to their vote for President; 78% of “New Blue” state respondents agreed; 74% of gun owning voters agreed.
Well, you see, that means that 21% of voters say that the views of the NRA are important. Can you name me one other interest group that can lay claim to influencing 27 million voters in an election? Have the Brady Campaign conducted a poll to see what percentage of the electorate consider their views important?
There is a word for what Sebastian just did to Paul there, and that word is “pwnd”. In all seriousness though; he’s exactly right – while Paul would spin the “79%” to mean that no one is listening to the NRA, what it also shows is that 27 million voters are listening to NRA; and the whole point of a representative republic is that the rights of the minority (all 27 million of us) need to represented and not trampled.
The other factor that Paul fails to consider is one of education and organization, because I’ll take 27 million motivated and educated voters with a cause in a fight against a nearly irrellevant lobbying organization any day of the week.
Waxman replaces Dingell
Waxman is considered more liberal on issues like climate change, energy and business regulation, and potentially more aggressive on healthcare. Dingell, the longest-serving House lawmaker, is close to the auto industry and autoworkers.
Waxman, as mentioned, is also extremely anti-gun – which means that we could see heavy handed attempts to regulate the gun industry come out of Congress. This is a big victory for Pelosi’s hard-left contingent, as they were able to replace John Dingell as committee chair. Dingell had repeatedly bucked Pelosi on bills and other issues, so I guess that hard left partisan politics eats their own party memebers as well. Too bad.
Army orders 20,000 more M9s
From Strategy Page via Gunpundit, the Army has gone ahead and procured 20k more M9 pistols for TACOM (Tank and Automotive Command). The article at Strategy Page then goes on to bash the M9 for the usual specious reasons; and then proceeds to make the following reference, and really just toss any credibility right out.
What resulted was the Mk 23 SOCOM. This .45 caliber pistol has a 12-round clip
I’m not normally a nazi about proper terminology, but come on. It’s a magazine. This is an article that other people will read. The word here is magazine. Of course, the article doesn’t stop there and goes on to sound very much like it was written by an HK fanboy who doesn’t know a whole lot about military unit procurement. For example:
But when the other guy is likely to shoot back, you want as much knock down power as you can get. Thus cops who shoot a lot, prefer 10mm and larger calibers (like the 11.4mm .45). The Special Forces, and SOCOM in general, have the authority to get any weapons they think they need, with no interference from anyone. SOCOM has lots of small unit operations that use pistols. The SOCOM operators believe that the 9mm pistol is not adequate, thus the adoption of the Mk23.
Activate: SNARK MODE. Really? Knock down power? And man oh man my favorite line about how SOCOM operators can get whatever weapons they want without asking permission, I love it when that one is repeated, because all you have to do is look at the SEALs and see that their standard issued sidearm is a…wait for it…wait for it…9mm Sig Sauer P226.
Now, I’m not knocking the .45. The Marines Expeditionary Units carry 1911s in .45, and they love it, and I think it’s a great gun as well. However, the reason I think it’s a great gun is not because of the caliber, but rather the package that it’s in. You put that .45 ACP in a 1911 and it becomes one of the most user friendly and shootable guns on god’s green earth.
But back to the issue at hand – it is nice to see that the Army is making sure that their tank and vehicle guys at the very least have new M9s, are aren’t being issued ones that have been all shot to pieces in the various combat theatres we’re in right now.
Bob Vogel Takes Gold at IPSC World Shoot
Congrats to Bob, who won the gold medal in the production category at the IPSC World shoot in Indonesia.
Is it beer o’clock yet?
Today is not my day.
Emmy Nominated
Joe Huffman’s media spot on Boomershot was apparently nominated for an Emmy back in ’06. Neato.
Pins this weekend
At the usual place, Marion County Fish & Game. Unfortunately, as pointed out on the radio on Tuesday, I’ll be punking out on pins this Saturday, which marks the 2nd month that I’ll miss the pin match. Now, before you can get too mad at me, I have a good reason for missing this month’s match. I’ll be up at Purdue University attending the Old Oaken Bucket Game, the annual clash between the hated Indiana University and the Purdue Boilermakers.
Unfortunately, this year the game doesn’t have the same lustre for Purdue fans that it’s held in previous years, simply because IU and Purdue are tied for last place in the Big 10. That means that we’re playing for the honor of not being the worst team in the Big 10 conference. I will say that a win would be nice, since it will be Coach Tiller’s last game as head coach – so going out with a win and reclaiming the Oaken Bucket after last year’s bullcrap loss would be pretty neat.