Cut Off

http://www.twitter.com/KyleGarnerMO/status/1854009224025534680

I accept your offer, but only if the cities are cut off from the water, food, and energy that they need for the same amount of time. Let’s see what happens.

Edited: Looks like there are issues embedding Twitter again. Here is a picture.

Meltdown

The margin of cheat was not enough to overcome the massive gains that Trump made in the electorate. The odd part is that 20 million Democrat votes simply disappeared between 2020 and 2024. In fact, Kamala did worse than Biden from 2020 in every single county in the nation. If you want to figure out how many votes were fabricated in 2020, I would begin with that number. It’s obvious where those votes went- they were purely fabricated in 2020.

The meltdowns on the left are delicious. They are blaming everything from racism, misogyny, and stupidity to cheating, fascism, and people lying about who they were voting for. There are morons blaming the electoral college, even though Trump won the popular vote.

The Republicans picked up gains in every phase of the election. They won the Presidency and now also have majorities in the Senate and House. In Florida, the Amendments to legalize marijuana and abortion both failed. This was a complete repudiation of everything that the Democrat party stands for. Let’s hope that the Republicans actually use this to their advantage.

Enjoy the day today, but remember that this is only the beginning. I still think that we haven’t seen the end play. The left and the swamp can’t let Trump become president again. They will do something desperate.

Bicyclists

Watch this video to see a couple of bicyclists get in an argument with a local. One of them tries a faggy looking, sloppy spinning kick.

That kick was slow enough that if you try it in a real fight, you are going to get your ass kicked.

One of the interesting things about this video is that the cowboy starts to blade off and reach for his right hip. The two bicycle idiots were about a second away from becoming the subject of some future CCW classes.

I am about tired of dealing with stupid bicyclists. Why do they all have to dress like they are in the Tour de France? Why do they have to take over the road? Even when there is a bike lane or bike path, they still block the road like a bunch of assholes.

I don’t know who instigated what, but I am inclined to believe that the guys on the bikes were just being assholes.

Avoiding the News

The reason my posts for the last couple of days have not been topical is due to one simple fact: I am avoiding the news and reading current events. The wall to wall coverage of the election just got to be too much. It’s a constant barrage of ads for Amendment 3, Amendment 4, and a slew of attack ads for one politician or another.

I miss the political ads where candidates put forth their political positions, but those days are gone. Instead, the only real issue for Democrats is abortion. The only issue for Republicans is that they hate Democrats. The only issue for Harris is that she isn’t Trump. Then there are the ugly comments from both sides, each side calling the other names, then the left complains that they are being attacked.

I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I decided to clean my guns, clean the house, load some magazines, and get a bunch of projects done around the house. I haven’t turned on a TV in over a week.

The election only has two possible outcomes:

  1. The cheat steals the election, tosses Trump in a camp, and begins their 2025 revenge tour, or
  2. (less likely) Trump wins, the left loses their collective shit, and the riots start

Micro Dot

We moved back in January. I had placed the Performance Center Shield Plus into the cold safe and had been carrying the standard Shield Plus. The difference between them, other than the fact that the Performance Center has the ported barrel and slide, is the PC pistol came with a Crimson Trace microdot sight on it.

When I went to do the annual run through on the cold safe, I discovered that the microdot wasn’t working. No sweat, just a battery change. After changing the battery, the microdot still didn’t work. Luckily, I had another in storage that I had been planning on putting on one of the standard Shield Pluses, but hadn’t yet. So I decided to swap out the CT microdot on the PC Shield Plus.

The sight that I put on it is a Holosun 507K with the Green combo reticle. I like the green better than the red, because it is just more visible of a color for me. YMMV. The only problem is that Holosun’s K series of sights is designed to fit on handguns that have a two post mount, but the Shield Plus has a 4 post mount. This requires that you have an adaptor plate like this one between the sight and the slide. I chose the Aluminum version, and it cost $36.

The reticle looks nice, and you can choose brightness level as well as circle, dot, or both as your reticle. They are very eye-catching, which is what you want in a reticle.

I use the circle without the dot. My split times are faster like that, but you give up a small bit of accuracy for that extra speed. It doesn’t seem to matter much with my shooting. Again, YMMV.

Gun Talk

Today is annual firearms maintenance day. This is the one day of the year that I spend going over each firearm in the gun safe, making sure it is in working order, and then placing them back into the deep sleep until they are needed, or until next year, as the case may be. Are the night sights still bright? Are all batteries either removed or working? Does the firearm need cleaning? It takes 4 or 5 hours to give all of them the once over. If a firearm needs repairs that take more than 10 minutes or so, then it gets red tagged and goes on the ‘to do’ list. With that out of the way, here is a filler post about firearms:

Choosing an EDC is a personal, opinion driven choice. Each of us has that one handgun that we like to carry, and none of them are wrong, because it’s a matter of opinion. Unless you carry a Taurus Judge, but even then, I know a woman who shot a rapist 5 times with one. He was found by the cops, dead in the bushes about 100 yards away. That’s a story in itself.

The only bad handgun choice is the one that is so poor that you leave it at home and wind up not carrying anything.

All handguns are a tradeoff. They have low power, short range, and don’t have as much firepower as a long gun like an AR-10 or an AR-15, as well as not having as much punch as say, a shotgun. We carry handguns because we aren’t sure whether or not we will need one, but it is useful to have one just in case. The chief advantage of a handgun is that it isn’t inconvenient to carry- not like a long gun, which is a pain in the ass to carry everywhere.

Remember, you carry a handgun in case you might be in a gun fight. If you KNOW you will be in a gun fight, endeavor to not be there. If that is impossible, bring a long gun and bring a friend with a long gun, if possible.

There is no such thing as “knockdown power” in a man portable firearm. Any firearm that produces enough force to “knockdown” a target will also, thanks to Newton’s laws, knockdown the person firing it. With that being said, there are a number of considerations that went into me selecting a firearm. The most important of them (in order of importance) are reliability, how accurate I am with that firearm, concealability, capacity, and the caliber.

I have owned a good variety of handguns. According to my logs (yes, I keep a log of every gun that I have owned in the past 20 years, but sadly don’t have a list of anything from before that time.)

  • Beretta: Tomcat
  • Colt: Combat Commander
  • Glock Models 17, 19, 26, 27
  • Kimber Pro Carry, Eclipse Custom, Ultra Carry 2, Raptor
  • Para: 1911 Black Ops
  • Ruger: P-95
  • Smith and Wesson: Models 59, 5906, 4506, 4566, 4586, 637, 642, 686. M&P models 22, 9, 9c, 40, 45, 45 2.0, Shield models 9mm, 40S&W, 380ez, 45, Shield plus, Bodyguard
  • Sig Sauer models 220, 226, 229 in 9mm and in 357 Sig, the Mosquito
  • Taurus: PT45, Millenium

If a handgun has any sort of failure- whether it is a soft primer strike, a failure to feed, eject, or any other failure more than once in every thousand rounds, it isn’t a carry gun that I will rely on. It becomes a safe queen that is fun to shoot on range day, but won’t get close to EDC status.

Reliability

I found the 1911s to be too finicky, requiring customization and a good amount of work, and even then they weren’t reliable enough to bet your life on. Some of them are jamomatics- they jam every 50 to 100 rounds. Others are better, jamming only every 250 rounds or so. That still isn’t good enough. I’ve heard tell of 1911s that are good shooters, but most of those are $5,000 or more custom jobs, or the owners are constantly fussing over them, replacing springs and such. Still not good enough.

The Smith and Wesson Model 59 (my very first handgun) was not drop safe. I dropped mine once and it went off, shooting a hole through my dresser and into the wall.

The Third Generation Smith and Wessons are all of the ones with 4 digit model numbers- 4506, 5906, etc. They had a nasty problem- there were times that you would pull the trigger when the hammer was back, and nothing would happen. The hammer would stay back and not move. I don’t know why, but it would happen periodically. That was it for the Third Generation Smiths. I stopped carrying them after that happened a couple of times. This problem bugged me so much, that I didn’t buy another Smith and Wesson handgun for 15 years, and that one was a revolver.

Accuracy

The Glocks are good handguns, but I just don’t like to shoot them- they don’t feel good in my hand. I still have a few, but they just don’t go into the EDC rotation. The Ruger felt like holding a brick. For those reasons, I am just not as good at shooting them as I am others.

Concealability

The full sized and even compact handguns just aren’t concealable enough in Florida’s casual, hot weather dress. For that reason, we are limited to the subcompact and smaller handguns most of the time.

The Sig Sauers are great handguns, and I put a few trophies on the wall shooting IDPA with them. I loved shooting the 229 in 357 Sig. Hitting targets was almost intuitive with them. At one point, I was buying the Black Stainless version of them 2 or 3 at a time at a steep discount from CDNN, but that was so long ago that I was getting 357Sig ammo for $125 for a 1,000 round case. The 229s are no longer available from there. Still, they are a bit too large to be concealed very well, so you don’t see me carrying them very often.

Likewise, the Smith and Wesson 686 is an L frame revolver. It’s as hard to conceal as a full sized auto. I have toyed with getting a shoulder rig for it, but never have. That large of a handgun with only 6 shots is just a non-starter for me. It’s fun to shoot, but I likely will never carry it.

Capacity

The 642 is a five shot revolver. I don’t like carrying it unless there is no other choice. Still, it’s better than carrying one of the 380s, which I will also do from time to time.

The Shields in 45 have only one round more at a capacity of 6, unless you carry the extended mag to get 7. Now the extended mag makes it easier to shoot for a person with large hands, so it’s still a contender.

The Shield 40 has the same issue as the 45, bit with less power. So it’s largely out.

Caliber

The Beretta Tomcat was only a .32ACP. I got this one in a trade, where I traded a S&W 642 with a customized trigger to her because her hands would hurt using the Tomcat. I only carried it when nothing else would do. Since it wasn’t really suitable for carry, I eventually sold it.

The Sig Mosquito and the M&P 22 are not of a caliber that is suitable for carry. They are out.

What’s Left for EDC

For those of you keeping track, we are now left with the Smith and Wesson Shields and the 642, a J-frame revolver.

Those are the handguns that are in the EDC rotation. They meet all of the criteria that I have for an EDC handgun. The 642 is one I carry in either a pocket holster or an ankle holster. It was my favorite to carry when I worked night shifts on the ambulance. Strapped inside of my left ankle, it met all of my criteria and it was comforting to know that I wasn’t an unarmed target carrying valuable drugs in a bad neighborhood. This handgun was also written about my Marko when we were discussing whether or not the J-frame revolver was still relevant.

My favorite is the Shield Plus. The one l like is the ported Performance Center model that has a red dot on it. There will be a post on that tomorrow. It’s main drawback is how hard it was to find good leather for it. I went with a custom holster from Milt Sparks, but there was an 8 month wait to get one.

Even so, each of my handguns gets an occasional test drive, and some of them do get carried from time to time, but the 642, and one of the Shield Pluses are my main EDC handguns.

More On Enrichment

More on the critter who randomly fired into a crowd celebrating Halloween in Orlando: He had a felony record for grand theft auto from last December. There is a record of him attending elementary and middle school, but no record of high school, meaning that he was a dropout. We don’t have much else to go on, because juvenile records are sealed in Florida.

This is an example of the absolute waste of DNA that has become a large segment of our nation. I am reminded of the quote from Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, comparing raising children to housebreaking dogs:

“Mr. Dubois, you have to! You scold him so that he knows he’s in trouble, you rub his nose in it so that he will know what trouble you mean, you paddle him so that he darn well won’t do it again — and you have to do it right away! It doesn’t do a bit of good to punish him later; you’ll just confuse him. Even so, he won’t learn from one lesson, so you watch and catch him again and paddle him still harder. Pretty soon he learns. But it’s a waste of breath just to scold him.” Then I added, “I guess you’ve never raised pups.”

These children were often caught; police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes, often scathingly. Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. News organs and officials usually kept their names secret – in many places the law so required for criminals under eighteen. Were they spanked? Indeed not! Many had never been spanked even as small children; there was a widespread belief that spanking, or any punishment involving pain, did a child permanent psychic damage.

These juvenile criminals hit a low level. Born with only the instinct for survival, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty to a peer group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to ‘appeal to their better natures,’ to ‘reach them,’ to ‘spark their moral sense.’ Tosh! They had no ‘better natures’; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive. The puppy never got his spanking; therefore what he did with pleasure and success must be ‘moral.’

Shenanigans

Police cut off voting at 1345, when it was supposed to go until 1630. Why isn’t the press going nuts over this? Because its Quakertown, PA. The city is 94% White, mostly Trump voters.

I want to point out that the woman in this video isn’t an election official. She is a Democrat who is posing as one. Look at her badge very closely.

Similar stories are playing out all over Pennsylvania- in areas containing white, mostly Trump voters, the voters are being turned away from the polls. Election officials are excusing it by saying those being turned away can apply to receive a mail in ballot.

“We are aware that, due to a miscommunication, individuals in line to apply for an on-demand mail-in ballot were briefly told they could not be accommodated. In fact, these voters were given the opportunity to submit mail-in ballot applications today.”

Applications. Will those applications be approved, ballots filled out, and mailed in time to arrive for election day, 5 days from now? Of course they won’t be. That’s why they are doing this.

Let Republicans demand ID in order to vote, and the communists scream that voters are being disenfranchised. Let the left cut off voting three hours early and turn voters away, and it’s a long and grueling process.

The left, as well as the Federal bureaucracy, cannot and will not let Trump become President. They are terrified of what he will do if he regains power. The cheat, the fix, is in.

Still, there is a chance that I could be wrong, and you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take. I am going to vote this morning.