Make your own glowsticks.

Via Rx.

Product Review: Tactical Underwear

Mentioned how the quality of underwear has slacked off in recent years. I guess the Pakistani kids they pay to sew them up are having some quality control issues. Anyway, I snagged some of these. The package says something to the effect of: 17 countries, 6 weeks, one pair of underwear. I’ll pass on wearing them for six weeks. Or even more than a day. But nice to know I could, I guess. But so far, I’m impressed. The pros: Quality, lightweight and snug. The con: expensive. $25 for some underoos is steep.

Russell Simmons: Mr. President, If You Don’t Come Out Fighting, You’ll Not Only Lose Elections, But Respectfully, Also Your Soul

A bill in congress would exempt firearms from claims by creditors in case of bankruptcy. So, I could convert some assets to expensive NFA weapons, file bankruptcy and profit. Ok, that wouldn’t work. My only debt is my house and you get to keep that. I could see someone trying something like that though.

However, I don’t inherently have a problem with the logic. After all, other items are exempted for legitimate reasons. Cars so you can travel, for instance. Gun so you can defend yourself doesn’t seem that out of line.

The Violence Policy Center and The Brady Campaign quickly marched lockstep with the talking point that someone going through bankruptcy is more likely to be stressed and start killing people. There’s no proof of that, they just say it.

Of course, I guess they’d both know a bit about the mindset of someone facing bankruptcy.

Les Jones says knives are the new guns. And before that, cameras were.

Not even seeds.

Sad:

A wedding photographer in Sicily was accidentally killed when he asked the prospective bride and groom to pose for a picture using hunting rifles as props – and one of them went off.

Mr. C. is worried that attendance will be low for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. So, if you plan on going, get to registering. It’s always a good time.

The editor of the local news rag is butthurt because someone “ripped off” one of their stories. Only, not so much stole a story. The blogger just has better search engine results, after quoting the story that appeared on the newspaper’s site. Newspaper responds by actually stealing the offending blogger’s photo. That being real stealing. As opposed to quoting and linking, which happens a lot on the internet. Or so I hear.

The number of times the press reportedly steals a story from a blogger without credit is apparently quite high.

I do find these examiner pages a bit odd, though. There are a lot of them and apparently search engines treat it like a news source.

Via MKS.

Carry without a permit goes into effect this week.

Jay reviews the DL Classic from Dragon Leather Works.

New Bladetech Eclipse.

One gun a month opposition grows. It should. If one a month is OK, then why not one a year?

Via Breda, I am 4% hippie.

One of my faves: P3AT with a lasergrip.

The prettiest one of those I’ve ever seen.

Upper for sale.

A thread devoted to ugly guns.

Alan:

Texas still has a functional economy because we only let the state legislature meet for a few months every other year.

The last HAVA charity auction: AR-10 goodness.

Junior is registering for first grade today.

Heard of large people getting kicked off planes. But now, they kicked off a skinny person to make room for a fat person.

Commanding officer: So, did you get him?
Soldier: Yes, sir.
Commanding officer: Are you sure?
Soldier: Yes, sir.
Commanding officer: How sure?
Soldier: Well, his head is in this bag I got here.

A shift:

With the mid-terms looming large in a year where incumbents are expected to take a beating at the polls many Democratic candidates are favoring gun rights, aiming to win endorsements or positive ratings from pro-2nd amendment groups.

Gun control these days is less along party lines and more regional.

My kids would love that.

Linoge reviews Exile Machine’s Hammerhead AR-15 rifle grip. A grip to make your AR California compliant.

SVI Infinity first 1,000 rounds. I have to say, that is one sharp looking gun.

‘43 Colt 1911

Ugly Guns. Not sure which is worse.

Size Matters

John Lott points out the lies of Denis Henigan.

Ya know, a common theme here in the past was that they had to lie to win. Now, they’re still lying but they keep losing. How times have changed.

US Citizen decided to take a trip to Alaska to help out Joe Miller’s campaign.

Some of these are pretty cool.

Video shows a whale jumping out of the water and hitting a boat.

Congrats:

A Chicago man will likely soon have a gun weeks after winning his fight for the right to own one.

Otis McDonald, 76, went to Chicago Police Department headquarters Monday morning to request a firearms permit.

Gunny sorts used to make fun of the restriction on bayonet lugs during the Assault Weapons Ban by pointing out that drive-by stabbings weren’t really an issue. Apparently, they do happen.

Mike’s Holsters is having a contest.

I have one of his holsters and like it a lot.

Shooting Illustrated: Build Your Own AR—Part I: The Lower

David Codrea reports that reader, commentator and all around contrarian Straightarrow passed away last week. My thoughts are with his family and he will be missed.

Rest in peace, Charles.

Lots of pics at NRA Blog.

Sounds tasty.

A good read.

How they count members.

And they’re they taking the Amway approach to fundraising.

A look at how gun registration is going in the windy city. My favorite:

Believe it or not, we are trying to make registering handguns in Chicago as easy as possible

Pics and a report from the SC Military Museum.

And here’s a report from the NC Museum History.

Via insty, Congressman introduces resolution to protect citizens who videotape cops.

Robb has made one.

How did Benton’s bacon become a craze?

Browning Hi Power with stock.

VZ grips

B.A.D.

If you’re a redneck like me, odds are you’ve had these while tailgating or from a street vendor in the mountains. But our yankee friends probably haven’t had them. They’re tasty and easy to make. Most folks just do this with salt and water. I like to kick it up a little bit. Assemble ingredients:

From Home Life

Green peanuts, unsalted
Chicken stock or bullion works
Beer
Kosher or sea salt
Creole seasoning

This is a small batch. Usually, over a campfire, do five pounds or so. But it’s hot out (105 currently), so I won’t be starting a fire. And I’m just cooking for the family.

Crack open a beer and have some if you want. Then get another and poor in a large pot. Add peanuts. Add about two cups of chicken stock then fill the pot half way with water. The nuts float so you can’t really cover them completely. Add 1/4 cup of salt and three or so tablespoons of Creole seasoning:

From Home Life

Boil for three hours. Taste the stock mixture occasionally to see if you need to add salt or anything else. And add water or beer as needed. When done, let cool. You’re not eating the shells, though. Just crack open and enjoy.

Now, I must wait for three hours.

Pretty awesome pic.

Anchorage police officer tasers a wayward bear.

For German troops.

Awesome.

So you know, their new blog called RackAttack has nothing to do with boobies. Disappointing. But still cool that they’re blogging.

They chat with someone you may know.

I’m hearing all kinds of things. Like:

We’re less manly because women take birth control and their pee gets in our water and that shrinks our dudes.

That it’s not so much we’re less manly but women are doing more and therefore are more manly than they were.

And so on.

But TennGoodBoy wins with:

What kinda men sit around and analyze what is manly? Oh, I know. Girly Men…

Heh.

Thanks all for the various responses and emails to my camera bleg. We decided on the Nikon D5000 and we snagged a zoom lense to go with it. I’m not much of a photographer but it works quite well for the 15 minutes I managed to play with it. It snaps pictures really quick, which is what I wanted. So far, so good.

And, regarding my multi-tool bleg, I snagged another Skeletool. I like them a lot because, unlike other multi-tools I’d keep in the car, it’s light enough to carry in a pocket. This time, though, I got the one with partially serrated blade. Seems more practical.

Rutherford County:

Federal agents confiscated an arsenal of weapons from a rural Rutherford County home near Bell Buckle on Tuesday.

The ATF confirms agents served a search warrant, but declined to comment about the case.

Sources close to the investigation told NewsChannel 5 agents confiscated an arsenal of weapons including high explosives, fully automatic weapons including AK-47s and Mac-10s, ammunition and gun silencers.

Apparently, the explosives were too unstable to transport. So they set them off in the woods behind the house.

Denzel Washington
Is once again a bad ass
Saves the day again

A snap on suppressor. Oh sure, we’ve seen those before. But the cool part is how a weapon sight is integrated onto the suppressor. It has a front bead and a rear post on the suppressor. I would presume that you would just line up the suppressor’s sights for use. Lining up four different objects for a sight picture would be tough.

More pictures here.

In PA, looks like someone shot someone at the firing range and stole their guns. More here.

Dave Foulk was a local facebook treasure. Local traffic, weather and news guy. He’s still a treasure, just not on facebook. See, you could hop on facebook in the morning or evening if you were one of his thousands and thousands of friends and see where there were traffic problems. He provided a good service.

But it looks like his station pulled the plug on him updating his personal page with traffic, weather and news reports. Weak.

I mean, I kinda figured it out when they were in Alaska digging through her trash but not one of them really commented on Wright.

But it seems that the media coordinated its attack on Palin. I never understood that, really. Palin was not ready for prime time and she kept screwing up all on her own.

Police interaction.

Mr. Completely reports.

Turns out, if you have your three year-old in the car unrestrained and he grabs your gun and shoots you, it’s not the fault of the gun manufacturer.

Tactical Balls. See them in action here.

A round of 13 ridiculously tactical items.

I have to admit, I did buy some tactical underwear. Even after making fun of it. I dunno what’s happened to my trusty brand of Hanes boxer briefs but they’re crappy quality these days. The last few I bought didn’t last long. Even tried Fruit of the Looms, same deal. The elastic around the leg wears out too fast. Lately, after wearing them twice. And I can’t deal with that. I like it snug down there, not trailing off down my leg. Keep your friends close and your junk closer. So, I ordered some tactical undies. We’ll see how they do.

The new Thumper

1911s

Colt carbines

Man shoots wife with black powder gun loaded with toilet paper.

Via the duck

So, does this mean this distributor isn’t carrying them? Or that there will be no more OD green or RTF glocks?

A reader who used to blog (and should take it up again) emails regarding my post on manliness:

Nice post; you hit the nail pretty square with that one.

There is a question here which is worth exploring, I think… given that the trappings of manliness have changed over time, and given that people all have different ideas of what real manliness is, I believe there is now a legitimate, open question about what these core values really are. It’s the sort of thing that you can feel, that you know when you see it, but I have yet to find anyone who can really articulate it well.

I’ve found a useful way of exploring this question: make a short list of what you consider the most important attributes of good men, and then SUBTRACT from that list the attributes that also apply to good women – in short, make a distinction between manliness, and adulthood. Once you get past the violence stuff, the conversation gets pretty interesting. For example, courtesy and kindness for weaker members of society is essential for both ‘real’ women and men; as important an indicator as it is, it does not seem to indicate the essential distinction. Cowardice is always bad, honesty and responsibility are always good. A man must be a good adult, of course, but he most also be more than that. Something else is afoot here.

My current conclusion is that nobody I know really has a handle on it. Men and women alike appreciate manliness, respect it, and can usually recognize it when they see it, but they cannot really define it. I find that fascinating. Was it always that way, I wonder?

Is this part of the point, or part of the problem?

I have an incredibly unlikely touchstone for illustrating this distinction – George Costanza, from Seinfeld. In one episode, George lies about being an oceanographer to impress a girl on the beach, and soon finds himself in the presence of a whale in distress, lying just offshore. The girl, of course, implores him to ‘do something’, and of course he has utterly no idea what to do… eventually, and inexorably, he finally takes of his cap, throws it down into the sand, and wades off into the surf to go save the whale. That image of this fat, helpless little guy, striding into the sea to do god-know-what against incredibly stupid odds, was both hilarious and poignant. But the key here is that this scene totally could not have worked with a female lead – it would have made no sense whatsoever. The underlying values that made this moment so funny and so memorable are distinct to men.

I’ve had very much that same feeling at a few of the times when I’ve felt like I’ve lived up to my own ideals of being a fairly good man. A sense of duty, an awareness that things have stopped being strictly logical, a willingness – indeed, a compulsion – to step into the unknown and just make whatever is wrong, right. Isolation. Knowing that you don’t really know what you’re doing. An almost humorous sense that things are just about to slide outside the norm, maybe way outside, and that you’re going to ride it where ever it goes. All of that fits, somehow, and I’m certain that most women don’t experience it nearly the same way.

Can you articulate what I’m looking for here? It’d make a hell of a post, if you can

It’s one of those things where I don’t know what it is but I know when I see it.

Meanwhile, Michael Bane hits it squarely: You Just Can’t See Him From the Road…

of perfectly good guns.

Heh.

A reminder that Breda and Bonnie’s radio show (B B and guns) debuts tonight.

Seems about once every year or so some blogger mentions the end of men, real men, manly men or whatever. Or talks about the pussification of men. Men and women both do this. The former do it in a woe is me sort of way that other men aren’t manly like they remember men being. And the latter tend to do so lamenting they can’t seem to find a real man or how equality ain’t all it’s cracked up to be and, gosh darn it, they want a cowboy to sweep them off their feet. Yet, all they run into are best buds who take them shopping.

The latest one I’ve run across is this piece, wherein our heroine asserts she may have married the last manly man. A new twist on an old classic. And I can sympathize.

Except that it’s nonsense. Manly men, real men, etc. are everywhere. They’re out working in their yard now; at the office; working on a car; playing with kids; teaching a dog to fetch a beer; getting manicures; or where ever else. Yeah, that’s right. Getting manicures. A lot of folks seem to think there are certain lists of specific behaviors that indicate what is and isn’t a real man. That’s also ludicrous. Personal grooming preferences make you no less a manly man than drinking beer, farting and scratching your ass make you more of a man. Real men are still there but perceptions have changed. Social roles have changed. Men may or may not be the primary breadwinner and that doesn’t make them more or less a man. And men now take a far more active role in childcare. Hell, that definitely makes them more of a man. Being a real man or manly man is more about stepping up or down when you have to.

Also, social perceptions of the ideal man have changed. We’re quick to jump and say that this person is or isn’t a real man. Even though that man is portrayed as a sex symbol in popular culture. Before, it was rough and tumble men of action. Now, it’s men of action who wear nice clothes and get manicures. There’s not a man I know that hasn’t looked at a trailer for one of the Twilight movies and laughed at the feminine male vampire lead. But none of us have met Robert Pattinson and don’t know if he’s a real man or not. Meanwhile, soccer moms are acting like the hyper tweens they were when they attended that New Kids on the Block concert in high school.

I do agree with the author that a lot of the issues with men these days are the result of the death of manners. It costs nothing to be polite. Take your hat off. Open the door for a woman. And ladies first. But I think the death of manners is because people don’t get their asses kicked any more. That is, folks don’t encounter one of these manly men for guidance that often. A good friend of mine has a son older than both my kids. His son is into sports and as rough and tumble as they get. But he opens the door for my little girl, lets her go first, and offers her the first juice box. He’ll be a manly man. His dad has done well.

Via Glenn.

In case you haven’t heard, some right wing blogger posted a video of some official at a NAACP shindig saying that she discriminated against white people. And the NAACP folks seemed to support the idea. The blogger left out the part about her later saying she came around and helped the white guy anyway. A few things:

Next time, post the whole video or you lose credibility.

She still admitted to being discriminatory in her job duties.

Accusations of racism are usually weak and stupid. And this was no exception. The accusation is the real story here.

If this was a white guy who admitted that and then later came around, he would not have been offered his job back.

The Armed Citizen, which chronicles defensive guns uses reported in the press, is being sued:

Today, The Armed Citizen received informal notice in the form of a media inquiry about a lawsuit against this website and its owners, David Burnett and Clayton Cramer. The lawsuit, reportedly filed in US District Court on July 20th, alleges that The Armed Citizen and its owners “willfully copied” original source content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Lawsuit over links and quotes.

A lawsuit challenging ammo sales restrictions.

The Violence Policy Center has a lot of it, as a percentage.

With a civil rights victory:

Judge returns Pompano Beach retiree’s guns seized by Broward Sheriff’s Office

And good for the judge for asking tough questions:

“Just as a kind of a query, what legal authority does the Sheriff or anybody have to walk in to someone’s home and take property?” Ross said. “Don’t we call that, in the business, stealing?”

Cancelled.

Actual headline: Springfield police charge one-armed man with unarmed robbery

Coexist. It bugs me. You’ve seen the symbol on cars where the word is spelled out in various religious symbols? It grates me. Not only is it simplistic and stupid but such an ideal accomplishes nothing. All you’re saying is exist at the same time and place. No real effort at, you know, solving the centuries old reasons about why they want to kill each other in the first place. Just be groovy. Hit a bong while you’re at it.

Equally stupid is the concept of tolerance. All tolerance means is to put up with. No effort made at understanding or doing anything of substance. For fuck’s sake, I tolerate spiders. It doesn’t mean much.

More my style:

From Political

More on coexist.

If I understand it correctly, a bunch of media sorts got together to label right wing folks, tea partiers as racist. And other things that I tend to label the narrative. Round up here.

Honestly, is it that shocking that this would happen? The narrative has been laughable for years. Bitter notes that right wingers would never be so organized. And some bonus threats of violence.

Lots of spam comments in the past week. And that kicks the spam filter into overdrive. I try to monitor it but may miss some legitimate comments that hit the filter. Sorry about that.

I agree. The church can allow or disallow what it wants to on its property. Even if it’s stupid.

And in Ireland, they really have castles.

Good: Irish gun owners can now shoot intruders

The police welcome the change.

Via John.

Interesting blog started by the local newspaper that focuses on trends and topics of letters to the editor. Via MKS.

So, ‘tigers‘ in Dallas. Coyotes in NY. This is what happens when critters aren’t discouraged from coming around.

XPR15 and various optics.

Surefire mini and micro suppressors.

Apparently, Playboy now has a safe for work website.

Only, not really.

You will eventually run into an idiot at a public range. Tam has advice on dealing with the range. Also, people skills are important. I once had to ask a guy to stop pointing his gun at me. Every time he’d reload or handle it, he would point it at me, on his left. And his response was, as anticipated, but it’s not loaded. Then we chatted briefly about safety and how it takes violating two of four rules to really ruin someone’s day. And it worked. I did not have to get all full blown retard on him.

I dunno but I think I’d write dirty messages on these. Via Joe, who has other suggestions on how to fool with security theater.

I have two twin nephews and they are completely different in personality. One is more literal, hands on, and practical. And the other is a bit more figurative, creative and imaginative. Anyway, I have a minor blemish that requires a band-aid on my neck. Our family met their family for dinner the other night and one of my nephews asks what happened to my neck. And I say zombie bite. My literal nephew says No, really. What happened? My more imaginative nephew asks Can I see the zombie bite?

Ed has a look.

One thing you should always be leery of is any legal advice you get from a gun store.

Lasers for sale to benefit HAVA.

Looks like those charges of racism didn’t take. Now, tea partiers are responsible for an uptick in violence and extreme measures of protesting the government. You know, like showing up.

of 18 monkeys?

Liston endorses Ramsey. Ron Ramsey responded to his gun rights questionnaire here. The Haslam campaign answers without specifics. Why, it’s like there might be something to this parody ad? Just look at that sunset.

ATF publishes lists of FFLs.

CTD interviews Denny Chapman

Denied a gun permit for slamming doors too hard, displaying emotions.

Speaking of Barbie, from TC: Just 23% Say U.S. Government Has the Consent of the Governed

Sebastian notes progress.