Plus Ham

Today has been a very good day.

Yesterday, I finally gave in. Rib roasts have been on sale for about two weeks, and I was tired of passing them by. I grabbed a small one, and this morning before breakfast, I seasoned it and coated it with butter and garlic. It sat at room temperature until not long ago, and now it’s cooking at 250 degrees.

After I prepared the roast for cooking, my cousin called, and we had a long conversation about God. I helped her out with some information and Youtube links. Very productive. I think she, her mother, and her son are going to get a lot closer to God.

We also discussed other things. For one, my grandmother’s country ham recipe. My aunt had it. My cousin sent me photos of the cards my grandmother wrote it on. I am in business. The nearest grocery has already confirmed that they will sell me an uncured ham.

While I was on the phone with my cousin, my neighbors invited me to Easter lunch. I enjoyed free food and good conversation. Among other things, those assembled discussed our shared hatred of squirrels. I said I never lifted my foot off the accelerator when I saw one on the road. My neighbor’s wife said she always tried to hit them.

Nice.

After lunch, her husband took their grandchildren out in their front yard for some healthy childhood activities: shooting a compound bow and a BB gun. He put some clay pigeons on a cardboard target and let his grandson and granddaughter do their worst. I took a photo.

Naturally, like any red-blooded American male, I sensed a challenge. I talked some smack and said I could do better. Then I pulled my Glock, put the laser dot on the upper clay pigeon, and graced my hosts with a mag dump.

The kids protested that they were only 7 and 9, but I wasn’t having any of their excuses. Then I told them the Easter Bunny wasn’t real.

Actually, I stood back quietly and told them they were doing great. They did pretty well with the bow.

In any case, I was inspired. I got out my VZ.58 and giant Chinese laser and shot 60 rounds in my pasture.

People have a lot of different strategies for home protection. Many choose pistols, which seems ridiculous. It’s easy to miss, or shoot yourself, with a pistol, and they don’t hold much ammo. And the ammo is weak. My current solution is a folding semiauto rifle with a laser, shot from the folded position.

Everyone says you shouldn’t shoot from the hip, but with a laser, you don’t really need to see the sights. That’s my theory.

I took the gun to the pasture in bright sunlight, and I found I could shoot a pretty tight pattern at 30 feet with very little effort. I’ll put up a couple of targets. The third target, which I shot first, isn’t quite as good (because I wasn’t trying at all), but the rounds still landed within a five-inch circle.

I feel like my theory makes sense. Keep electronic hearing protectors by the bed with your rifle. Put them on when you realize you have guests. Use the laser to pop them from 30 or 50 feet away. Your average criminal would be lucky to hit a cruise ship at 30 feet, so even if they shoot back, you have a huge advantage.

I don’t know if I would actually choose to shoot another person in a situation like that, but I feel I should have the choice.

The laser is easy to see in bright sunlight at 30 feet, so it’s impossible to miss inside a house. Even if you manage to find 100 feet of open space, you will still have no problem seeing a green laser.

I like it. I think it’s a great idea. My guess is that 0.01% of the shooting world will agree with me, but then they love dumb ideas that defy common sense. They tell women to carry crummy little revolvers instead of compact Glocks, for example, as if women are just too stupid to work semiautos. They take pistols seriously as home defense weapons, when there is no conceivable reason to forgo the superior performance of long guns in the home.

Pistols are for carry, period. That’s the whole reason they exist. A pistol should only be used when you can’t have a long gun. When you’re in your own house, you can carry a bazooka if you want, so there is no reason to settle for tiny guns that fire small numbers of weak rounds with poor accuracy.

In a famous 1998 shooting, a war veteran with an M1 carbine shot a deputy with a pistol 10 times, and he shot from the hip part of the time. The deputy emptied at least one magazine and only hit him once. Using a long gun, the criminal disabled the deputy with accurate shots to his limbs, and then he was able to approach him and execute him with a shot to the right eye. It was a complete mismatch.

If you want to see why I don’t like pistols, check out the video below. Two trained cops armed with pistols take on a nut armed with a pistol, at close range. Many bullets fly. Not one hits a human being. What else can I say?

Tell me that would have happened if one particpant had had a long gun.

I guess you could say I have an opinion.

People have told me you can’t fire a shotgun from the hip. Well, I’ve done it, and it works just fine. I fired a Saiga-12 at 50 feet using a laser, and I didn’t shoulder it. No problems at all. I don’t know where people get their weird ideas.

They say you can’t reacquire a target with a shotgun if you fire from the hip. Like it’s easy when you fire from the shoulder! And if you have a laser dot telling you where to shoot, reacquiring targets is not hard no matter what you’re shooting.

I like lasers and rifles for home protection. What can I tell you?

I hope your day is going as well as mine.