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Wisdom of the Duke, April 13th

Posted on by Caleb

Welcome to the Friday the 13th edition of Wisdom of the Duke. Next week I’m going to do a companion piece to What I Learned from my Dad entitled “What I Learned from my Mom”; wouldn’t want those mothers to feel left out.

Anyway, on to this weeks edition.

A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job.

I’m not precisely certain when exactly John Wayne said this; but it does line up squarely with how I feel about a lot of things. When you look at people, you’ll see an almost insatiable need to define ourselves with something. You see this trend very commonly with religious folk, who will tend to self-identify as Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. Even under those broad categories, people will further identify with specific sects of their faith, Catholic, Baptist, et al.

The trend is not confined to religions, as people will choose all manner of things with which to identify, such as race, ethnicity, sports teams, hobbies, the list goes on and on. People are very social monkeys as a general rule; it creates an incredible desire to belong to something that is larger than that person.

For example, I have a friend who is an atheist. He would scoff at the concept of needing to “belong” to something larger than himself, and yet in his opposition to religions, he willing chooses to self-identify as an atheist – as part of a group, something bigger than his individuality.

A lot of people derive a huge chunk of their personal philosophy from their sense of belonging. There are times that because I identify myself as a veteran I do (or don’t do) certain actions because of how they would reflect on that reputation.

Everyone believes in something. Whether it’s science, Jesus, the flag, money, or the Red Sox; everyone believes in something. The Duke was quite right in his statement, he might have not known how right he was.

humor

Things at the range

Posted on by Caleb

Because work is super busy today; I’m going to treat you with a short post on Things you shouldn’t say (or do) at the range.

  1. Yell Allahu Ackbar while waving your new AK47 in the air. Especially if you’re standing next to a Mall Ninja.
  2. Turn around to point out what a great shot you just made…without tabling your firearm and thusly sweeping the entire range.
  3. Shoot the target carrier. On purpose. To demonstrate what a great shot you are.
  4. When shooting a Free Pistol match against the Naval Academy, you certainly shouldn’t catch your empty brass and throw it at the calf of the Navy cadet standing next to you to try and break his rhythm. Even though he tried to call an alibi on practically every string of Standard. And stepped on your toes. Dick.
  5. Write “Ex-Wife” on all your targets, at a range frequented by cops.
  6. Write “ex-husband” on your targets and shoot at the pelvic region (although that’s kinda funny).
  7. Run your mouth about what a great shot you are to the old grizzled guy there with the Colt Woodsman set up for target shooting, you’ll just end up embarrassed.
  8. Sneeze with your finger in the trigger guard of a pistol with a 0.5 lbs trigger pull.
  9. Hold your gun sideways.
  10. Shoot the target carrier on accident because you were holding your gun sideways.

I could go on and on about this, but I think I’ll let you guys have at it in the comments.

hoplophobia

Don’s Guns

Posted on by Caleb

In a recent entry on a proposed expansion to Indiana’s gun laws, I mentioned one of “our” local stores called Don’s Guns. I want to expand on that entry about gun control with a little piece dedicated to that worthless heap Don himself. So sit back and enjoy my collection of “Don’s Greatest Hits”.

April 6th, 2007 – Owner Don Davis calls Mansfield’s proposal a good move. “Indianapolis has grown and it used to be right out here at 38th street was the city limits. Under Unigov, they’re now out to the county line roads. And, all the guns I sell today are not like I sold 35 years ago. These guns go a long way. So this is a big city, it’s time we should do it, and it doesn’t effect the indoor shooting.”

March 30, 2007 – “Any gun they take away, (the person) can get a new gun almost instantly,” said Don Davis, owner of Don’s Guns and Galleries on the Northwestside. “They say it’s an illegal gun. But all the guns probably were first purchased legally at a gun shop. Indiana cannot survive with the gun laws that they’ve now got in place.”

Those are just the juicy quotes that I could turn up on Google News; the local NBC affiliate had one on their website but the article is no longer available.

Clearly, Don’s seems interested in getting his name in the paper – he loves publicity. He also doesn’t seem to care about other firearms owners. So what do people in the Indy/Metro area think about Don’s? I’m so glad you asked.

By now the appearance of Don Davis, the noted Indianapolis bottom-feeding firearms dealer, blowhard and horse’s patoot, in every situation where the local media wants to drum-up support for more restrictions on firearms use or ownership should come as no surprise. His smarmy face, unctuous manner and unabashedly slimey persona are familiar to about anyone in the state from his late-night television ads, and that’s precisely the kind of negative image they’re after. That he’ll actually carry the p— bucket for them is just tasty, tasty gravy. After all, if somebody that disreputable agrees with them what kind of a raving, Right-wing nutcase must anyone who doesn’t be? – From The High Road

While I’m not a great big fan of the ATF, it seems that they have an opinion on Don’s Guns as well.

From 1989 through 1996, this dealer sold 398 guns traced to crime; 311 of those guns had a “short time to crime” as defined by ATF. The guns were involved in at least 7 homicides, 12 assaults, 2 robberies, and 370 additional gun crimes. The dealer also sold at least 2012 handguns in multiple sales.

Numerous gun traffickers have “straw purchased” dozens of guns from Don’s Guns in recent years. For example, between October 2001 and January 2002, Etely Diamond used two straw purchasers to buy 25 handguns from Don’s Guns and then resold them on the streets of Chicago.

Another trafficker, Jerome Steele, used straw buyers to obtain 12 and 9 guns on two different occasions in 2002 from Don’s Guns and then resold them illegally in Chicago. A third trafficker, Willie Soward, also used straw buyers to obtain guns from Don’s Guns for resale in Chicago.

I generally don’t like it when the ATF goes after gun dealers, I usually feel like they’ve just got an axe to grind (ref. Reed’s Trading Post in Idaho). However, in the case of Don’s they actually have legitimate reasons to want to shut him down. I’d support it.

You guys remember Jim Zumbo, and the enormous controversy that started when he called AR15s “terrorist rifles”? That was stupid; but it’s not as bad as what Don does. Don breaks the law, and gives law abiding gun owners a black eye with his actions. Furthermore, he then turns around and stabs those law-abiding gun owners in the back by running to the media to eagerly sound off in favor of whatever idiotic proposal is currently being rammed down the throats of Marion County.

Like I said Monday, I’ve really had it with Don’s Guns. I’ve been in their store twice since I’ve lived here, never again. If you’re in the Indy-Metro area (including Fishers, Carmel, etc) I’m asking you to do the same. Boycott Don’s Guns. Let’s not send any more reputable business to that pompous clown.

sports

Pacman Jones

Posted on by Caleb

I’m sure by now that most of you have heard that the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has suspended Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones for the duration of the 2007 season, and Cincinnati Bengals’ wide receiver Chris Henry for 8 games of the upcoming season. The reasoning behind the suspension were both players numerous encounters with law enforcement during the recently concluded 2006 season.

Both players teams say that they support the decision of the league on the suspension; which came as something of a surprise to me. You might have guessed that I support the decision of the league as well. There has been some talk about this suspension, and the word “racism” got tossed into the fray, which is just damn foolish.

The NFL is first and foremost a business. So are the individual teams associated with the NFL. If an employee of a business was acting in a manner that was considered to be detrimental to the business, that business is within its rights as an employer to take disciplinary action. It doesn’t matter for whom you work, if you break the rules you should expect to be punished.

I am also appreciative of the fact that Commissioner Goodell acknowledges that NFL players should be held to a standard of conduct. For better or for worse, boys and young men are influenced by the on and off field conduct of professional athletes. I am heartened because it appears that the NFL is going to take the steps that the NBA was unwilling to take – and by that I mean ensure that off the field their athletes were acting in a manner that reflects well on the league.

“Character is what you do when you think no one is looking” is a lesson that all of these players should bear well in mind. They should also probably remember with the level of exposure that they have, someone is always looking.

humor

Travel Tips & Hotel stories

Posted on by Caleb

Traveler’s Tips
This one is of for people that don’t stay at hotels very often; I’m going to let you in an industry secret here. We don’t like Expedia, Hotwire, Travelocity, and especially Priceline. This doesn’t really apply at low and middle market hotels, such as Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn, etc; however at the Business Class/Convention hotels such as Hyatt, Marriott, Westin, etc we don’t like the resellers.

Here’s how that works. Say you want to stay at the Hyatt in Anytown, Washington. You go to priceline.com and bid whatever, and the Hyatt pops up for some stupid low rate. So you get that; and end up at a 4 star hotel for 75 bucks a night. The reason that the super low rate was available is because the hotel is trying to fill rooms – they’re trying to fill rooms because they weren’t able to attract better (read: higher rates) business for whenever you’re staying.

But there’s even more to it. Priceline doesn’t pay the hotel what you paid them. You could have paid Priceline $99 for that room, odds are that the hotel is getting maybe $50-60 of that. So, the hotel’s not making a lot of money off that Priceline room; sometimes they’re just barely breaking even.

There’s a definite bias against the travel websites in the hotel industry; but it’s not a conscious bias. It’s partly based of the amount of money that Priceline/Travelocity/whatever rooms go for, but the other factor is that there’s also less potential for this person to be a repeat customer. We know that you went on Priceline and typed in a number – you didn’t do anything to pick the hotel you’re staying at. That carries a lot of weight. Hotel employees want to feel like you want to be there, it actually makes the job they do a lot easier. When I would see a Pricline or Orbitz or whomever reservation, my first thought would be “oh goody, someone who wants to pay $60 bucks to stay anywhere”. That’s the start of the bias. It trickles down to the line employees, because they hear me bitching about it to the reservations manager for opening us up, and she bitches to the sales managers for not attracting some better business, who bitch to…well, you get the idea. That’s the bias.

If you’re thinking about making a hotel reservation on Priceline or any of the others, I’d actually recommend that you visit a few hotel’s websites first. Quite often there are special web only rates available on the website which beat the rates you could get over the phone from the hotel. If you book at Hyatt.com or marriott.com it tells the employees that you actually wanted to be at their hotel; and that means something. Also – don’t be a dick. The unfortunate side of Priceline, et al is that they tend to attract customers with a grand sense of entitlement. These customers then complain about silly shit, and then they say stuff like “I’m paying X for this room blah blah blah” and generally act like a dick. Don’t be that guy. No one likes that guy.

Hotel Story
Many moons ago, I was running the bell department during a rather busy convention; pretty much par for the course. However, this particular convention was a cheerleading competition. Now, normally I’d be all sized up for something like that…except that this was a junior cheerleading competition. Which means no girls over the age of 12. Let me tell you, a bunch of teeny girls running around in spandex and more makeup than some hookers is downright disturbing. However, even more disturbing than the 8 year old cheerleaders were the mothers of the 8 year old cheerleaders, busy living vicariously through their daughters.

Tall Christian Bellman comes up to me during the afternoon rush and utters words that I never want to hear. “Ahab, the lady I just checked in wants to talk to you.” My inner monologue instantly says “Oh fuck”; but I button my jacket and proceed to the customer in question.

Angry Cheer Mom is about 350 pounds of pissed off on a 140 pound body. She is mad. I idly wondered what was going to melt first, me, her perfectly applied makeup, or the starbucks cup she was clenching in her left hand.

ACM: Are “you” the manager?

Ahab: Yes ma’am, my name is Ahab. What seems to be the problem?

ACM: You don’t seem old enough to be the manager.

Ahab: (I will kill you) I assure you, I am the manager for this department; how may I assist you?

ACM: Your bellman touched my daughter’s underwear.

Ahab: I’m very sorry to hear that, I can assure you that…he did what?

ACM: He touched her underwear.

At this moment, I’m EXTREMELY confused, as Tall Christian Bellman was one of my most outstanding employees, while he had a crass streak he was nothing but professional while on the job.

Ahab: Uh…how exactly did this happen?

ACM: When we were in the room, after he unloaded our bags from his cart; some of my daughter’s underwear was on the floor and he…touched…it.

Ahab: (Oh thank god, he didn’t touch her) So, the underwear was on the floor? Why did he touch it?

ACM: I didn’t want him handling my daughter’s bag with her costumes and underwear in it, so I got it off the cart.

Ahab: Okay – then how did the underwear end up on the floor?

At this point, ACM looks at me like I’ve suddenly grown a 2nd nose right on the middle of my face.

ACM: It spilled, obviously. There was underwear and costumes and make-up all over the floor! That’s when he reached down and touched her underwear!

Ahab: The bag…spilled? And TCB was trying to pick up some of the…contents of the bag? Did he touch more than just underwear?

ACM: Well…yes. He grabbed some of her makeup; I thought he was going to try and take it.

Ahab: I see.

ACM: So, what are you going to do about this?

Ahab: I’ll speak with TCB right away; we’ll review the appropriateness of his actions. I assure you, this won’t happen again.

So, I walk over to Tall Christian Bellman after ACM leaves, and with my sternest look inform him: “TCB; you have got to stop helping people when they drop their shit. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” The moral of the story? People are insane.

hoplophobia

Pregnant Woman shoots robber

Posted on by Caleb

From CNN, I found this story out of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Here’s the condensed version. Female scumbag decides to stick up store. Extremely pregnant wife drills female scumbag while defending her family. Hooray and sundries of course, but I found it even more interesting in light of this post from Uncle the other day. The short version of the is that the Illinois Gendarme State Police have a website which recommends various methods for females to use to defend themselves from attackers.

Use of a firearm to protect yourself or property is not recommended.

  • Guns stolen from residences are a primary way of getting guns into the hands of criminals.
  • Half of all the women that fire a gun trying to protect themselves shoot someone they do not want to, i.e. friend, neighbors, relatives, etc.

As said in several other blogs, I’d like to see the statistics that they used to justify those statements; which if I were a woman would find rather insulting. The general insinuation is of course that “girls can’t shoot”; I personally know several woman who prove otherwise. The section from the ISP goes on to recommend rat tail combs, hairbrushes, and even vomiting on your attacker (I’m not joking) as acceptable methods of defending yourself. That’s right, giving someone a face full of barf is preferred to a “belly full of lead”.

Back to the story in St. Paul, here’s an except from the article, and a quote from the husband who is also the owner of the store that was being robbed.

Khalil said his wife suffered minor injuries to her finger and is home recovering. The couple’s daughter was uninjured and is a little “scared” but OK, Khalil said. “My wife, she’s doing OK,” he said Sunday afternoon. “She’s just a little shaken up.”

“Just a little shaken up”. Not too bad, seeing as she scuffled with and ended up plugging another person. I wonder though how well she would have been able to defend herself and her family, considering her pregnant state, if she had been restricted to the use of a rat tail comb?

Hoosier/hoplophobia

Indianapolis Gun Control

Posted on by Caleb

Well, I suppose that it was only a matter of time before they tried something else new. Councilor Angela Mansfield (for the Combined City of Indianapolis/Marion County) has proposed a new bill which would expand the coverage area of a previous 1975 ordinance to the entirety of Marion county. Link to Indy.gov article. The proposal limits your ability to discharge firearms (including airsoft and BB guns) on your own property unless it’s in self-defense, or you’re in possession of a permit to do so granted by the County Sheriff. The reasoning behind the expansion of the proposal is that Indianapolis has grown a lot since 1975; a lot of formerly undeveloped areas are now subdivisions and communities.

I am as opposed (if not more so) to accidental firearms deaths. That’s why I’m fine with the spirit of this proposal, inasmuch as the stated goals are “for the children”. However, I dislike the fact that the government is again saying what you can and cannot do on your own land; I’m further concerned by the fact that the permits to shoot even airguns on your land are granted at the apparent whims of the County Sheriff. The text from that section of the bill is copied in the box below.

(a) A person may apply to the sheriff for written approval to shoot firearms on his/her property if
his/her property is at least 15 acres for a limited period of time not to exceed one year. The application
must contain the following:
(1) Name of the person who owns the property;
(2) Names of any other persons that the owner is permitting to shoot on his/her property;
(3) Address including boundaries of where the person proposes to shoot;
(4) Time period requested to shoot; and
(5) Purpose of the request to shoot.
Proposal No. 174, 2007
Page 3
(b) The Sheriff in his sole discretion shall determine if the shooting activity on the property presents a
danger to any person, animal or property outside the boundaries of the property.
(c) The Sheriff may revoke the written approval prior to the expiration of the time permitted for
shooting if the sheriff subsequently determines that the shooting activity presents a danger to any person,
animal or property outside the boundaries of the property or is in violation of any section of this code, or of
any applicable state or federal law.
(d) The sheriff may collect a fee of $100 from the applicant.

As you can see, your ability to do as you please with your own land appears to be entirely at the whims of the Sheriff; and of course they’re going to tax you for it.

Additionally, the bill creates a provision for which the Sheriff is responsible for the safety inspection of licensed shooting ranges in the City/County area. That seems all well and good, until you read that the Sheriff is also responsible for creating and maintaining the standards that shooting ranges will be required to maintain. This means that you could get an anti-gun anti-shooting sheriff elected in Marion County, and all of a sudden your shooting ranges are GONE.

As irritating as all of this is, the proverbial cake is taken by our local media, and particularly one of our local shooting ranges/gun shops. If you’ve not read any of my earlier blogs, Don’s Guns (which gets no link from me) is a gun store/range in the Indy/Metro area that has at best, a poor reputation with the Indianapolis gun owning community. Couple this with the owner’s insatiable desire for seeing his name in the news, and you have a recipe for disaster. I blogged earlier in the year about Don’s support for an onerous gun law that they were attempting to pass in the County; if you read this article from our local news channel you’ll see why I’m once again mad at Don’s. I’ve got the highlights from the article here.

At Don’s Guns, the firearms for sale pack much more power than ever before. Demonstrating an AR-15 rifle, Company President Brenda Duety said, “This gun will shoot miles and you know what goes up must come down.”

Owner Don Davis calls Mansfield’s proposal a good move. “Indianapolis has grown and it used to be right out here at 38th street was the city limits. Under Unigov, they’re now out to the county line roads. And, all the guns I sell today are not like I sold 35 years ago. These guns go a long way. So this is a big city, it’s time we should do it, and it doesn’t effect the indoor shooting.”

Now, it’s pop quiz time. How many of my readers can see what’s wrong with both of the above statements? While I’m certain than an AR can shoot for “miles” and yes what goes up does indeed come down, however there hasn’t been an accidental rifle shooting in the County for…uh…well…um…hell, I’ve been looking and I couldn’t find one. Then of course there’s the statement by The Grand Poobah of Stupid, Don himself. Not the guns you sold 35 years ago? Are you telling me that 35 years ago we didn’t have .30-05, .308, 7.62×39, .270 Winchester, .30-30, or a whole host of other rifle cartridges that are more powerful and shoot further than a 5.56? Of course we did, but telling the truth would interfere with Don’s ability to get his fucking name in the papers again.

Thankfully, not everyone in the City/County government has lost their damn mind.

But Republican Councilor Mike Speedy has concerns. “I’m not aware of in inerrant gun problem in our city, I am aware we have a crime problem, that we’re on a record pace for homicides and that’s where our resources should go.”

Speedy says Mansfield’s proposal also restricts personal freedoms.

“This law is about taking freedoms from people who hunt, who have property,” Speedy continued.

I pray that cooler heads such as Mike Speedy’s will prevail. Meanwhile, if you’re one of my four readers and you’re also in the Indy/Metro area, write the city council, call the city council and tell them that you oppose this legislation.

Additionally, boycott Don’s Guns. I’ve had it up to here with the antics of that place. Their constant dance of giving gun owners a bad name/selling us out at the first opportunity for press has got to come to an end. I’ve never purchased a single item from them and I’m certainly not about to start.