Guess who set off the explosive residue detector…again. I swear to god, this happens every time I fly. I think Dad is calling the Indy TSA and telling them to mess with my head.
We’re off to see the wizard
Needless to say, blogging will be light today – I’ll post periodic updates from my Blackberry as sit in the airport and wait for my plane. And of course, for the people that really, really love those posts I’ll post about any misadventures I have with TSA. I’m not bringing a firearm so I don’t anticipate any problems with my luggage, but you also never know with these guys.
Looking forward to getting in to Norfolk! Also, keep your eyes on this spot; hopefully I’ll be able to post details of our “Live from Blackwater” show for Gun Nuts.
A few more Para thoughts
One of the things that came up last night on the show was Joe wondering how Todd Jarrett is going to compensate for the disparity in the levels of training and shooting disciplines that each of the different shooters have. Just from reading everyone’s blog, the difference in levels of training and shooting styles is a pretty wide dispersion. For example, Robb said on the show last night that he’d never shot while drawing from the holster, and on the flip side Joe has had a lot of civilian training and has competed extensively.
Another good compare and contrast would be between Sebastian and myself – he shoots a lot of Metallic Silhouette, where “rapid fire” is one shot every 15 seconds, I shoot a lot of steel and IDPA where rapid fire is “bangbangbangbangbang”. I think seeing the different level of shooting practices and skill sets, and how that ends up getting managed at the training level is going to be really interesting.
I also had an idea for settling the bet – in the event that we can’t shoot an El Presidente, I know that there’s going to be a shoot house at the course, so we can just compare scores on the shoot house if we don’t have time to run an El Pres at the end of the match. I haven’t done a shoot house since 2003 when I was doing pistol quals, so it should be pretty interesting.
I’m leaving tomorrow – excited!
Gun show ban defeated in Cali
Assembly Bill 2948 was defeated Monday in the California Senate by a 1 vote margin. 20-19 was the final tally of votes; to me that only reinforces the need to ensure that we’re electing pro-gun politicians at every level, even here in Indiana. One single vote would have pushed California even further down the road towards a total ban on gun shows, one different state Senator would have turned this from a really close win into a loss.
Vote, and vote pro-gun.
Dominant Athletes
With all of Michael Phelps‘ record breaking activities in Beijing (and if you don’t know who Phelps is all I have to say is…really?), there has been a lot of talk lately on the AM sports talk shows about who the most dominant athlete of all time is in their sport, and who “the greatest” is. Obviously, this has been sparked by Phelps’ absolutely stunning performance in this year’s Olympics, winning 8 gold medals to put him alone at the top of the mountain for an individual Olympics, as well as owning the record for most gold medals, ever.
As usual, the talking sports heads have bandied about the usual names like Tiger Woods, Roger Federer (who just won his own Olympic gold in doubles tennis); however I’ve noticed one name conspicuously absent from the list. If you asked me who the most dominant athlete in his/her sport is right now, the answer is easy: it’s Doug Koenig.
Back in May, Doug quietly won his 11th Bianchi Cup, and during the mid to late 90s had racked up a string of wins that was unheard of in the sport. In fact, from 1997 until now, exactly two people have won the Bianchi Cup, and that winner has been Doug more often than it hasn’t been.
But unless you’re really tied into the shooting sports, you didn’t hear about Doug winning the Bianchi cup, because it certainly wasn’t on ESPN, and you didn’t hear about from your local talk show guy. In fact, I had completely forgotten the Cup myself until I got my latest issue of American Rifleman, which had a decent little two page spread on Doug winning – so that’s right, I didn’t hear about the championship of an event that went down in May until all the way into August.
Now, the blackout in the mainstream sports media is pretty easily explained – they don’t like “gun stuff”, and despite the fact that the shooting sports is a higher dollar industry than all the recreational golf in the country, it doesn’t crack ESPN’s coverage, which is fine because they’re a business and need to make business decisions.
My real question is why, since the Bianchi Cup is run by NRA, didn’t I get an email or something from them? I’m subscribed to all their mailing lists, and a thorough search of my inbox tells me that I never got so much as a “Congrats to Doug Koenig on winning his 11th Bianchi Cup” email. I don’t really get why NRA wouldn’t want to do more to publicize their own event – especially since Larry Potterfield from MidwayUSA dumped a bunch of money into it this year; I feel like I should have been getting emails left and right back in May screaming BIANCHI CUP.
I’m not often critical of NRA, because I think they take a lot of undeserved crap, but I think this is one time where I’m disappointed. I gobble up Shooting USA‘s coverage of the Bianchi Cup every year, but those episodes won’t air for quite some time. I really feel like a pistol game as prestigious as the Bianchi Cup should be promoted as widely and to as many outlets as possible – put something on the NRA’s front page, have Cam Edwards talk about it on his show, but don’t wait for the August issue of American Rifleman to get the word out to the general public.
But hey, that’s just my opinion, and I may be biased a little bit because I’ve always been infatuated with Bianchi Cup, and I hate to see things like a guy winning his 11th championship go relatively unheralded.
ParaUSA Show on Gun Nuts: TNG
We had a great show last night on Gun Nuts: The Next Generation. Joe and Robb were both excellent guests, and we had a lot of fun both talking about the upcoming shoot at Blackwater’s facility courtesy of ParaUSA. We’ve got the embedded player widget working now, so you can listen by clicking on the link below – the audio is a little quiet, so you may need to increase your speaker volume a bit.
But the real question, after you listen to the show, is what should the stakes of the bet between myself and Joe be? It’s a little hard to figure out, since he’s not a drinking man like I am – right now we’re going with “pride” as the stakes, which if that’s the case I’m probably going to get my significant supply of pride depleted somewhat. Even if I lose, I’m actually looking forward to shooting with Joe – he’s got a lot of experience shooting USPSA, and I could stand to learn a lot just from him, not to mention the actual training I’ll be getting from Todd.
Tonight, tonight
Don’t forget to tune in to Gun Nuts Radio, tonight at 11pm eastern! We’ll have Robb Allen and Joe Huffman on the show – it should be a good one!
Sorry for the light blogging, things a little hectic prepping for the ParaUSA shoot.
That 1911 thing
I swear to Buddha, we just did this 1911 thing like two weeks ago, but because The Breda shot one and liked it, all the cultists are all “OMG 1911 is TEH 1337SOCKS” or something a little less hyperbolic. Now, most folks who know me should know that I believe that your choice of a defensive pistol is a personal choice, and as such you should make the choice which best suites your defensive needs, which is ultimately why I get torqued off when people refer to 1911s like they’re the be all and end all of the defensive handgun platform.
If you have a 1911 and love it, more power to you, but just because it’s a great pistol for you doesn’t mean that someone else might be better served by a Glock, or a Beretta, or a wheelgun or whatever. You should shoot what you like, and be happy with that – but don’t discourage someone from buying a different gun because it’s not The Holy 1911, for pete’s sake.
Honestly, you guys should all strive to be like Tam. She loves the 1911 hard, but in all the times I’ve talked to her about which gun to buy for this or that, she has never once said “don’t get X, get a 1911 because it’s the 1337haxxors of pistols”. I think my fundamental issue is that I don’t understand gun fanboyism, or gun cults or whatever. I certainly prefer quality handguns to cheap ones, but beyond that, it’s a tool. Just like with my hammer or weedwhacker, I like the one that works the best for me to get whatever job I want it to do done.
Of course, your mileage may vary. Just because I have a closet full of Berettas doesn’t mean it’s the best gun, it just means that it’s a gun that works for me, that I’m very comfortable shooting. I’ll never tell someone to not buy a 1911 just because I’m unimpressed by them when compared to any other pistol.
KC Eusebio wins Steel Challenge
Head over to the official Gun Nuts: The Next Generation blog for coverage of the 2008 Steel Challenge World Championships, where KC Eusebio won his 2nd Steel Challenge title in 5 years.
Congratulations again to KC on his fine showing!