We Eat Ham and Jam and Government Cheese a Lot

I am looking at a Drudgebart-linked story about a 12-year-old boy who killed a nutcase who was in the act of strangling the boy’s mother. Salomon Noubissie, a family friend, flipped out and started beating Cheryl Stamp, and he eventually ended up with his hands on her throat, and he refused to let go. So her son took a knife and killed him. This is the story, as told by the boy and his mother. So far, the authorities say it’s consistent with the evidence.

They’re trying to decide whether to indict the child. The Washington Post felt the boy’s unusual height and weight were somehow relevant, so they mentioned them. Fine. I get to call him “the child,” the way the gun-grabbers call 24-year-old pimps killed legally with pistol bullets “children.”

At first, I was outraged by the story. Then I realized it was reasonable to look at the evidence before making a decision, and I figured the authorities were doing their jobs. Then I thought about the situation. An attack inside the victim’s home, in front of a 12-year-old. And I started to lean toward outrage again.

This happened in Washington, DC, more or less. It was actually in Maryland, but it a lot of what we think of as DC is in Maryland. So it happened in a heavily liberalized area. Presumably, then, the authorities there are hostile to the second amendment, and to self-defense. When politicians represent an unruly constituency in which many voters have relatives who commit crimes, they tend to support the public’s view that self-defense is mean and that criminals should be allowed to live long enough to reform themselves. After killing a few dozen people. Who are somehow less valuable than the criminals.

Had this happened in Florida, I am fairly sure it wouldn’t have made the news. First of all, most newspapers have a policy of killing stories about successful acts of self-defense, especially when they involve dead criminals. Second, in Florida, if you’re in a person’s house and you act up, and you get killed for it, the prosecutors know they will have a very hard time putting your victim in jail. We have the Castle Doctrine. It’s not really a doctrine. It’s a statute. Anyway, barring some indication that there was foul play–and a dead body does not automatically qualify–I doubt the cops and prosecutors would waste their time on a matter like this in Florida. The authorities wouldn’t want to act on it, and the newspapers would not want to report it. And the public would go insane, reading that a child might be prosecuted for defending his mother.

There isn’t enough money in the world to make me move to a place like DC or New York or Detroit or LA. Jesusland is where it’s at. We’re citizens. The Blue Staters are subjects. Sharecroppers for the Mommy Dearest state.

Honestly, sometimes I think secession would be a great move. We keep the wheat, the guns, the cattle, the vast majority of the natural resources, and most of the military. They would defect to Jesusland anyway. You keep Fire Island, San Francisco, Broadway, and the cast of The View. I’d jump at that in a heartbeat. Think of all the miserable, annoying people who would leave Jesusland and move north and east and west. Now that I think about it, that kind of migration is already underway.

It’s possible that the authorities have a good reason for considering an indictment, but if that’s the case, it’s not apparent from the story. If such evidence exists, it will have to be powerful. They’ll have to ask a jury or judge to go after a kid whose mother will testify that she was attacked in her own home. Maybe they think she was involved with the dead man, and that the child just didn’t like it. But the story also says the attacker was combative even after he was cut. He fought the police. That’s not consistent with an unprovoked slashing.

If it’s true that this guy went nuts and refused to stop choking the woman, then what the child did was completely appropriate, except that he didn’t finish the job. You don’t point a knife at a nutcase and ask him to be reasonable, after it’s obvious that he won’t listen. You have to stick him right away, because the alternative is to risk having him take your knife and stick you. If the boy hadn’t acted, we might be reading about a mother and child slashed to death by a lunatic.

Look at the attitude prosecutors have up there: “‘In Maryland, there can be a legitimate defense of third parties in the event of a violent attack,’ State’s Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said. ‘That is a possibility in this case.'”

“In Maryland”? Is he seriously suggesting he thinks there are jurisdictions where you can’t kill to defend someone else? News to me, if there are. Thanks for the chilling effect, Glenn. And why does he use the word “possibility”? Judging from the story, it’s damned likely. Clearly, he’s playing to his liberal public. Brilliant. Law-abiding people will see that and hesitate to do the right thing. Criminals won’t pay any attention. Besides, they can’t read.

What a snake pit Greater DC must be. Imagine, coming to someone’s aid, knowing the alternative is to watch a murder, and then having Mr. Ivey say there was “a possibility” you might not go to the penitentiary for your bravery. I guess places like that are lost, and the only answer for decent people is to flee. Flee, and let the fools who remain suffer the consequences of their irrationality and unfairness and immorality. That’s the time-honored solution, and I’m a hundred percent in favor of it. If you want to see justice in action, go to a city where the parasites have driven out the hosts. Mosquitoes make a damn poor living, biting each other. Thank God people in America are still allowed to move. If the kooks were in charge, they’d take it away from us, in order to keep the tax dollars flowing. It’s funny how leftist utopias have to seal their borders to keep people from leaving.

Let’s all leave. God bless the warmhearted, enlightened socialist fascists; they’re so smart, they don’t need our help. We would just be in the way. Let’s get out and let them create their Marxist paradises without our interference. I’m sure everything will be fine. Their new nation, the People’s Republic of Kumbayah, will be…the Macintosh of countries. Perfect in every way. Even the climate. Global warming will continue in Jesusland, but in the PRK, they’ll have frost in May. And not just in Hillary’s bra.

I feel a song coming on!

The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For holding up a liquor store
Than here in…Cam-e-lot.

STOP THAT!

I suppose people will say this article proves newspapers don’t kill stories about self-defense. Wrong. That rule only applies to stories with happy endings, i.e. dead criminals and defenders who aren’t charged. And sometimes they print stories about people who defend themselves without violence, to “prove” a rape whistle beats a switchblade every time. They printed this story because the defender is in trouble. They printed Mr. Ivey’s ridiculous, ominous, veiled threat. The message isn’t, “Brave Child Kills to Defend Mother.” It’s, “See What You Get?” Self-defense is almost as vile as…being a snitch!

Jesusland, Jesusland. I feel like going outside and kissing the ground.

I Look Back on Ignorance With Fondness

Oh, God. I hate it when I try to make a responsible effort to gather information, and I only succeed in learning that I don’t know anything.

I have been reading The ABCs of Handloading, in order to help me figure out how to get started making my own ammunition. I figured it would help me decide which of the free bullets I should order in the Hornady promotion.

I was leaning toward .45 bullets. Simple, right? I want good accuracy in a bullet similar in weight to typical self-defense loads. This ought to do it.

But hold the phone! I read a chapter about accuracy, in the above-mentioned book. And the accuracy guy talked about the difference changing the ammunition in a .45 can make. Now I’m wondering…do I want to fool with the free bullets, knowing that if I perfect an accurate handload, I’ll have to use expensive jacketed Hornady bullets from now on, OR shoot all the Hornadys and then start from scratch with cheaper cast bullets? I plan to use cast bullets in the future, because they’re way cheaper than jacketed. And the Hornady .45 rounds are not optimal for self-defense, according to web lore. Supposedly they don’t expand very fast. So saving them for that purpose would be pointless. Besides, who needs 1400 bullets in one pistol caliber for self-defense?

Maybe the best move is to get .308 rounds instead, for the K31. But that’s a can of worms in and of itself.

I considered getting .38 bullets, figuring they could be used for the .357 or the .38 Super. But it turns out the .38 Super requires a bizarre bullet, the diameter of which which differs from the .357 by a thousandth. Is that an important difference? Damned if I know. Do I have to slug the barrel? Overload…overload…brain melting…

I’m also bummed out because the accuracy-chapter guy posed with a couple of .45 targets he was relatively happy with, and they were not all that much better than the results I get now, with cheap ammunition. The difference was very significant, but he was still putting rounds as much as maybe eight inches apart. He was shooting at 75 feet, and on my last outing, I got similar results at 50. And unlike him, I don’t use a rest. So I’m wondering…is it worth it to try to come up with accurate 1911 loads? I should not expect to outshoot this guy; it’s what he does for a living. So presumably, if I have perfect ammunition, if I continue shooting without a rest, I will still be all over the place at 50 feet.

I always thought pistols were more accurate than that. Now I don’t know what to think. Why…it’s almost as if all those cowboy movies contained factual inaccuracies.

I’m starting to think my Glock .40, which gave me such nice results in the past, is a much better gun than I realized.

Of course, if I make handloads for that, I’ll have to get a new barrel with a support chamber. Arrgh.

Anyway, the book is wonderful. You can’t open it and follow the directions and make pistol ammunition, but there is a ton of good information in it.

Adrift in a Sea of Seemingly Contradictory Facts

I learned a few things about hard chroming and the .38 Super today.

I was planning to have a ramped, supported barrel put in my bright stainless Colt. And I wanted to get it chromed, to reduce the inevitable scratching of the finish. But I called Tripp Research–incidentally, they are shutting down their chroming business in June–and someone there patiently explained that while hard chrome is wonderful, the gun would not have the shine that it now has. So screw that, I guess. He also informed me that the gun is almost certainly very safe in its current configuration. He said Colt’s chambers are probably deeper than they need to be, and that you don’t see problems until you get up around 1400 fps. A guy from Briley told me .38 Super cases are stronger than they used to be, so I suppose I should not be terrified of shooting reloads that are not too hopped up.

I am still wondering if I should get Briley to put a new ramped barrel in it. I don’t know how accurate a 1911 is supposed to be. Using Aguila FMJ +P at 7 yards, I put 25 rounds in an area the size of a golf ball. I don’t know how much of the error is me, how much is the gun, and how much is the ammunition. For all I know, the gun is perfect. But if there is no down side to a ramped barrel, and it’s safer, why wouldn’t I want to get one? The guy who runs .38super.net claims he fired Cor-Bons in a gun like mine, and that the cases bulged.

I was also considering getting it set up with a second barrel that would accept 9 x 23mm cartridges. I’m totally confused about that. I don’t know if the magazines will work with 9mm, and I’m sure they would cost a lot to duplicate, if I wanted the gun to keep its stock look.

One thing is certain. It needs to go back to Colt to get the rollmark and the asymmetrical dehorning fixed.

The guy from Tripp said Colt and Smith & Wesson have very highly trained individuals who dedicate their existence to polishing guns, and that Tripp could not do it as well or restore the gun to its original appearance after chroming. I thought that was damned honest of him.

Have a Safe and Happy Breakfast

I appreciate all the info on reloading. I’m sure it will be useful, and it reminds me of something important. I never got around to buying a reloading manual. I have The ABCs of Reloading, but that’s not a manual. I think there was some sort of delay with the latest version of the Speer manual, and that’s why I didn’t buy one. Not sure. Anyway, I’ll be all over it now that I’ve remembered.

I don’t understand reloading yet, but the one thing everyone seems to be sure of is this: you absolutely have to have a manual, and no other source of information is worth a crap. Don’t look at the web. Don’t ask your friends who reload. Read the manual. I don’t get it, but I will assume it’s gospel. When information I get from other sources is inconsistent with the manual, I will obey the manual. I guess.

It’s too bad I’m all excited about the .45 and the .38 Super. One thing I’ve learned at the range is, nobody who likes .40 S&W should ever have to pay for brass. It’s far and away the most common item on the pistol-side pavement at Trail Glades. Big ol’ drifts of it. All over.

People are advising me to buy stuff at gun shows. Wish I could. I keep checking all the listings I can find, and it looks like gun shows in Miami are damn rare. Hard to believe, given our proud tradition of violence.

I had an interesting experience this morning. I have been trying to get more serious about concealed carry, because it’s just a good idea, and because I feel silly walking around unarmed, with an expensive carry permit in my wallet. How would you like to die under those circumstances? Tragic, and also embarrassing. Today I had my usual Tuesday breakfast with my father, and I took a Glock along. It’s surprising how quickly you get used to it. That’s what I was hoping for. Carrying can make you self-conscious, and that discourages you from doing it, so I want to get past that.

As we left the restaurant, I passed the cop who always watches over the strip mall. I think this was the first time in my life–in Miami–I had stood within a few feet of an on-duty cop, with a loaded piece on me. The fact that it felt odd shows how successful the gun-hating pansies have been. It ought to feel as natural as carrying a cell phone. My right to my carry gun is as strong and as reasonable as the cop’s right to his. In fact, it’s more reasonable, because civilian guns stop crimes more effectively than police guns. And unlike the police, armed civilians cost society nothing, and the potential supply is gigantic.

The cop had no idea I was carrying, and neither of us had any idea who else in the area was carrying. Did that make me feel uneasy? Far from it. It gave me hope and made me feel more secure. I realize that lawful carry by ordinary citizens makes life infinitely safer in a crisis. Imagine what one person like me could have done at Virginia Tech. Well, you don’t have to imagine. Because two armed citizens not affiliated with the police recently put a quick end to a similar massacre in Israel. You can argue that an untrained person like me is more likely to soil himself and faint than shoot an armed criminal. But statistics don’t bear that out. The general rule is, people who fear for their lives step up to the plate and use their guns effectively. The press conceals it from us, but it happens all the time.

It’s too bad the press works so hard to hide successful incidents of self-defense by armed citizens. Because publicizing them would prevent a lot of crimes. If the criminals in Miami understood that every coffee shop is likely to hold one or two armed individuals–people the criminals can’t identify in advance–they’d be a lot less likely to cause problems.

Imagine you’re a criminal. Contrary to anti-gun BS, most gun crime is committed by habitual slimeballs, not ordinary people who go insane the second their skin touches bluing. So you’re a criminal, and you want to hold up a store to get money for meth. But you live in a carry state AND the TV talking heads have been yammering persistently about how common carry permits are. And it’s a very high rate. Are you going to be crazy enough to commit a robbery? Almost certainly not. Criminals who are willing to take on armed victims are very uncommon. That’s why we see massacres on school campuses. They’re stocked ponds.