IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!

IT'S HERE IT'S HERE OH WOW IT'S FINALLY HERE IT'S GORGEOUS OH WOW IT'S REALLY HERE . . .

There. I'm okay now.

Yes, my custom built Wilson Combat 1911 finally arrived. Yes, it is absolutely wonderful.

One hundred and seven days from ordering to delivery. All black Armor-Tuff. Smooth, not stippled as they usually do, Ed Brown bobtail. Single-side tactical safety. Tritium night sights. Two sets of Wilson logo grips, one in aggressive G10, one in smooth slim Dymondwood for carry. Not a MIM part to be found anywhere. People can say all they want that Wilsons aren't "true" custom guns like a Nowlin or Clark Custom. This is a true custom gun.

Excuse me while I go breathe into a paper bag.

It came with a quality control checklist with every production step initialed by master gunsmiths, another sheet with all of their names including who shot the test target, two instructional videos, and paper documentation for everything from the Armor-Tuff finish to ammunition selection.

The care-and-feeding manual is very emphatic about not cleaning the gun until 300 to 500 rounds have been shot. Anyone who knows what a clean-gun fanatic I am will wonder how I'll handle that little detail.

Must . . . resist . . . urge . . . to . . . clean . . . gun . . .

AAAAAGHHH!

I was tempted to shoot it right away, but being tired at the end of a rotten work day is hardly the way to do it justice. Better to wait until the weekend and do it right. In the mean time, I can watch both DVD's that came with it, read the manuals and documentation about fifty times, and field strip and reassemble it over and over again. With a heavy bushingless barrel and a full-length two-piece guide rod, it's about like trying to take a Browning Hi-Power apart and put it back together without using the safety in the takedown notch to hold the slide. Oh, joy.

The test target, benchrested at 15 yards, is a sub-1" five shot group. Off a Ransom Rest, the gun is guaranteed to shoot 1" groups at 25 yards. I believe it. Nothing like "being worthy of your gun" as an incentive to improve your shooting skills.

So the range report will follow shortly, hopefully with a few more "keeper" targets for my office wall. Stay tuned . . .

With Experience Comes Wisdom

Kittens aren't the only dangerous, vet-dismembering monsters among us. Twenty-odd years ago, when I first got involved with Greyhound adoption and brought dogs from the track to my local vet clinic for heartworm tests and rabies vaccinations, the vet there said it was a bad idea.

Greyhounds are vicious, he said. Greyhounds aren't suitable to be pets, he said. Greyhounds are killed after they're finished racing for a reason, he said. Of course, I ignored him.

Fast-forward a few years. By now, I've brought a few hundred Greyhounds through his doors. When I arrived with three new dogs in tow, the client ahead of me had brought in a Cocker Spaniel puppy for a nail trim. A puppy-mill Cocker Spaniel puppy, recently bought from a shopping mall pet shop.

The vet ushered the lady and her little dog into an examining room, closing the door while my Greyhounds and I stayed in the waiting area. Interesting noises soon followed.

They included much banging and crashing, barking and screaming, assorted bad language, and a call for the assistant -- who normally was only needed on farm visits to help with cattle. The reinforcements arrived, and the noises were repeated. Finally the door opened.

Puppy-mill Cocker was by now blowing enraged spit bubbles out the side of a gauze muzzle and had his nails trimmed, all right. The saucer-eyed owner was cowering in the corner. The walls, floor, and table in the examining room were liberally splattered with blood and, ah, other things. One whiff confirmed the puppy had let go with bladder, bowels, and anal glands. I was truly impressed by the amount of ick that could come out of so small a dog.

The blood was the vet's. He excused himself to wash up and bandage his arms. The assistant was left to clean up the mess.

After Cujo Junior was gone, the vet came over to draw blood and vaccinate my three brand new racetrack rejects. As usual, they stood perfectly calm, wagging their tails, through the whole thing.

And the vet said, "I wish they all were Greyhounds."

I just smiled.

Just Give Them What They Want

And the criminals won't hurt you.

That's what police departments and elected officials tell you to do when confronted by violence.

Linda Susan Raulerson, live bait a clerk in a convenience store, gave the criminal what he wanted, and he killed her anyway.

I am not willing to bet my life that the scumbag who wants to rob me will immediately turn into an honorable person as soon as I turn over the goods. And what if the criminal wants your body or your child?

I don't think so.

I don't want a criminal to think attacking me is a safe bet. I want him to think if he attacks me, it may be the last thing he ever does. Or if he attacks any law-abiding citizen, because any one of us may be armed, trained, and willing to defend ourselves.

Remember, The Authorities who tell us to just surrender meekly either carry guns themselves or have armed bodyguards.

Kitten, Part II

There was just no way I could keep the by-now-$250 kitten.

An active kitten in a house full of large sighthounds would have the life expectancy of a mayfly. And responsible people willing to take a kitten are nowhere to be found, at least by me.

So I had to give up and call Merlin's Refuge.

Merlin's Refuge is a true no-kill alternative for unwanted animals in the eastern Nebraska/western Iowa area. My vet, Dr. Michael Bosilevac at Best Care Pet Hospital, works with them, and they are the real deal. Check them out and hit the tip jar if you can.

The Burden Of Proof

I recently engaged in a gun-related masochism exercise thread on a web forum infested with teenage drama queens (or adults indistinguishable from teenage drama queens) who just know guns are baaaaaad and people who have guns are arrogant, swaggering rednecks.

All I was trying to do was get even one of them to defend their positions with anything more substantive that this is how I feeeeeel and everybody knoooooows it's true. Well, that and perhaps get a fence-sitter or two to actually read the citations I linked to in my posts and maybe learn something.

Alas, it was not to be.

That whole venture into the twilight zone unfortunately occurred before D. J. Moore posted his incredible essay on where the burden of proof lies in citizen disarmament, "The Nonviolent Lie." I would have loved to quote this section to the members of that forum:

From here on out, anyone who reads this blog, and wishes to discuss gun control with me, needs to show that they have read both Ethics and Fraud, and understood them. Let me say frankly, in all good will and friendship, if you haven’t, and if you aren’t willing to sit and listen to me make these points, and if you cannot refute them — not, mind, just wave your hand and tell me I shouldn’t worry my gunsmoke-rotted, troglodyte brain over such obvious offenses to the Way Things Oughta Be, but actually refute them — you are too ignorant and close-minded to be worth arguing with.

Oh, well, who am I kidding? Based on their command of grammar and spelling, I doubt they would have understood.

READ THE WHOLE THING!!!

Another Blog With A Kitten Post

I was just getting in the car Monday morning when I heard, out in the road:

Car stopped.
Door opened.
Door closed.
Car drove off.
Loud meowing.

Yep, some quasi-human turd dumped a nine-week-old black kitten right outside my gate.

The drive in to work was interesting, with a detour to the vet's office to drop off said furball for shots, neutering, etc. Since I couldn't find my cat carrier, most of the trip involved picking the kitten off the gear shift, off the power window switches, and off my head, then setting him on the passenger seat. Repeatedly. There are only a few scratches left on my arms.

Nothing like coming in to the office with cat hair and little muddy cat feet all over your khaki 5.11 pants.

Could have been worse, though. At least he wasn't a full-blown four-legged Cuisinart. Or the spawn of Chthulu.

Now to find the little stinker a nice, responsible, permanent home. With somebody else.

When Hats Are Outlawed . . .

Only outlaws will wear hats?

Britain is at it again. Pubs in Yorkshire have been ordered to ban customers wearing flat caps or other hats that might prevent them from being identified by the government's omnipresent CCTV cameras.

When Big Brother is watching you, make sure he gets a nice, clear view.

Nicki at The Liberty Zone is on a ROLL!

Check out her take on the consequences of defending yourself in Britain and the hypocrisy of world "leaders" regarding the global food crisis.

Please note I really have nothing against Formerly Great Britain. It's just that they are constantly held up as a gun-free utopia by the factions here who want to see American citizens disarmed. When the ugly consequences of citizen disarmament and utter abdication of personal responsibility appear over and over, the sane among us are obliged to point it out so that we may hope to escape their fate.

More U.K. Madness

Yet another example of how ineffective gun control is in preventing violence.

Doctors and teachers in Britain are being given body armor.

We're talking Britain here, not Baghdad. When was the last time you saw a health care professional or teacher here in the supposedly-gun-crazy U.S.A. wearing Kevlar?

Didn't think so.

Of course, this is the same country where the National Children's Bureau has declared toddlers who reject spicy or unfamiliar foods from other cultures to be racist. Staff members at nurseries are being encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council.

Pay attention, people. This is what can happen happens when cowardice, political correctness, and enforced helplessness take over.

UPDATE: Too late, it's already happening here. I forgot about the four-year-old who was accused of sexual harassment in Texas and now has a charge of "inappropriate physical contact" in his permanent record.

Good Thing They Can't Have Guns In England, Part II

Know what you get when you ban guns? Criminals who just use other weapons.

To the tune of 14,000 knife victims last year, where the total population is only about 20% of the United States*.

Incidents involving 16-to-18-year-olds increased 75% over the previous year. And please note, they included sword incidents in the total. Swords, a weapon that's been around since the Bronze Age.

That's okay, though, because now they're banning knives. After all, if what you did the last time didn't work, you just need to do more of it.

Now if they could just do something about the criminals . . .

* For some fascinating insight into American statistics on causes of violence-related fatal and non-fatal injuries, check out the CDC's WISQARS database. For example, in 2005, the most recent year available, 87% of violence-related deaths and injuries in the U.S. did not involve firearms, cutting, or piercing.

The Torch Has Passed

For many years, I happily drove a little 1997 Saturn SW2 station wagon, like this:

I bought it in 2000 as a lease termination with 36,000 miles on it. The car couldn't pull my horse trailer, but got great mileage and other than normal expendable parts like a serpentine belt or brakes or a catalytic converter, it never ever broke.

It sailed past the 100,000 mile mark, and then sailed past 200,000 miles without a stumble. So I was terribly surprised when, just short of 270,000 miles, it said, "I'm done now." Well, I suppose I could have replaced the entire electrical system and dropped a crate motor into it, but doing so would have cost as much as a new car.

So . . .

I now have a 2005 Saturn Vue lease termination with 46,000 miles on it, like this:

It feels like driving the Queen Mary after my little wagon, and rides like a truck. It still can't pull my horse trailer, but should get decent mileage. Such is life.

It'll take some getting used to. But even though I just picked it up today, there's no doubt already that it's my car:

Horse junk, dog junk, IPSC targets everywhere. Now as soon as a dog barfs (or worse) in it, the assimilation will be complete.