Price Increase

Amazon noticed that people were buying my book, so they started jacking up the price. Sorry about that. I don’t know of a cheaper way to get it. You can get a discount by buying from the publisher, but that kills the cheap or free shipping. Thanks again for the support.

Kind of a busy day today. Back when time permits.

The Food Apocalypse Arrives

NOTE: CLICK “DEATH BY FORK” LINK IN LEFT SIDEBAR FOR MORE INFO.

It occurs to me that I have readers now who may not know much about my cookbook. So I thought I should tell you a little about it.

I can’t remember when I had the idea. It was probably in the Nineties. A little voice in my head told me to write the world’s unhealthiest cookbook and call it “Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man.” I coined that phrase, regardless of where you may have seen it since. I thought people were getting too damned self-righteous and contentious about food. People actually get angry when you talk about meat and lard and eggs and so on, and that’s insane. A person who can get angry about the food another person eats is a controlling person with no sense of boundaries. It’s nobody’s damn business what you eat.

Aside from that, the Food Nazis are attacking our culture. We accumulated a lot of food knowledge over the centuries, and these self-appointed dictators are erasing it from our memory. Want to know the real way to make a fried egg? You fry bacon in a cast iron skillet and fry the egg in the grease. Want to know what kind of shortening real biscuits are made with? Bacon grease. Or lard. The best pie crusts are made with lard. The best fries are cooked in beef fat. People have forgotten things like that, because of the damn Food Nazis. There are many dishes that simply can’t be made well without unhealthy ingredients. There is no such thing as a good, healthy cheesecake. There is no such thing as a good, healthy brownie. There is CRAP which people PRETEND is good. But it’s not.

I get sick of hearing people who don’t know what good food is, perpetuating the tired, transparent lie that you can cook just as well with healthy ingredients. And it irritates me that they’ve managed to get their awful vegetable grease and lowfat milk and so on into products like ice cream and cookies, which exist solely to taste good. It’s like putting a Prius engine in a Ferrari. It does not work.

Obviously, you shouldn’t eat fattening food every day. But what if you do? Isn’t that your right? Of course it is. You have a right to eat what you like. What you don’t have a right to do is to tell other people what they can put in their bodies. It’s a horrifying encroachment on a person’s most basic rights. Today they tell you you can’t drive an SUV or own a gun or eat a pizza. Tomorrow, they tell you which books you can read.

Once in a while, just for the experience, you should eat really good food, and sometimes that means food that’s loaded with fat or sugar or white flour or salt. And I can help you do that.

Even though all this is true, the food isn’t really the point of the book. The point was to have an excuse to write humor essays. I really let loose. I had a ball. I wrote a macaroni and cheese recipe in the voice of Hunter S. Thompson. I wrote doughnut recipes in the voices of Al Franken and Bill O’Reilly. I wrote a French fry recipe in the voice of Christopher Walken. Here’s a taste.

Soon we’re in Steve’s living room, and I’m sipping my Campari—which is a little strong, but I say nothing, because Christopher Walken is a gracious guest—while a couple of my boys hold Steve’s head under the water of his fifty-gallon fish tank.

Steve has tetras. Tetras and those other little—what do you call them?—dwarf cichlids. Little pansy fish that don’t even fight. I realize it is a matter of taste, but me, I always went for the heavy artillery. Oscars. Piranha. Small sharks. Some people feed their carnivorous fish goldfish. I fed mine Yorkies.

I cannot abide a small defiant dog that looks like a Slinky.

I give him a few minutes of that—in, out, gasp for breath, in, out, gasp for breath—while I check out his CD collection. I’m an LP man myself. Gotta have vinyl. Gotta. But he has some good stuff there. Hot Fives and Sevens, remastered. Sweet. Needs a little Bobby Vinton, of course, but maybe his tastes haven’t matured to the extent where he can fully appreciate the subtleties of “My Little Neon Rose.”

When the time is right, I have my boys pull his head out and sit him on the sofa and get him a towel and some Bosco. He has Bosco in his cupboard. I respect that. That bought him some points. I’m a Bosco man myself. Some guys like Ovaltine. That’s okay, I guess. I shot a guy in the face for drinking Ovaltine. Once. But I was young. Full of hormones. Exuberant. I would never do that now. Today I would be satisfied with slamming his head on the counter a couple times.

So I sit next to Steve and put my arm around him, and I ask if the Bosco is to his liking. And of course, it is. I showed my boys the right way to mix it. None of that business with the dark smear around the bottom of the glass, with spoon marks in it. The key to a good Bosco is thoroughness. The KEY, amigo.

I have a rule. If I see streaks of undissolved syrup in my Bosco, I got to snap somebody’s pinky toe. I don’t care whose. Finding the culpable toe is not my department. They can draw straws if they want. But somebody’s toe is going to snap. When they hear that snapping sound, it really drives the message home. Call it a mnemonic device. Snap two or three pinky toes at one shot, and you’ll be drinking well-mixed Bosco for a good five years before you have to snap another one.

“Steve,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t like your work. Truly, I am nothing if not a patron of the arts. Especially my first true love, which is the dance. I think you know my history.” And I got up and gave him my best Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Lovely man, Bojangles. Got that monicker because he ate a lot of fried chicken. I prefer Popeye’s. But let’s not reopen that can of Pandora’s worms.

That’s the kind of thing I wrote. I’m thrilled with it. This is what I wanted to publish, back when I was only able to sell the Nigerian spam book and the caveman book. I wrote those books because I had to. I wrote this one because I wanted to.

If you bought the self-published version of this book, I thank you, but I have to tell you, you still need the big-time version. It’s longer. It has more recipes. The recipes are better. And the writing is better. The first version doesn’t compare.

I hope you’ll give it a try. I believe in this book more than I believed in anything I put on bookstore shelves in the past.

Just for reference purposes, I’ll close with a list of the chapters.

Chapter 1 – Ribs
Chapter 2 – How to Smoke Your [Boston] Butt
Chapter 3 – BBQ Beans, Texas Toast, & the Inevitable Blazing Saddles Reference
Chapter 4 – Breakfast as a Mind-Altering Drug
Chapter 5 – Chicken-Fried Rib Eye on a Huge Biscuit
Chapter 6 – Grease Burgers
Chapter 7 – Cornbread and Navy Beans
Chapter 8 – Turducken: Flight of the Hindenbird
Chapter 9 – Aged Prime Steak Cooked on a Propane Griddle
Chapter 10 – Champagne Chicken With Fettuccine in Cream Sauce
Chapter 11 – Smoked Pork and Andouille Jambalaya
Chapter 12 – Pizzeria-Style Baked Ziti With Sausage
Chapter 13 – Stuffed Hog With Apricot Glaze
Chapter 14 – Unauthentic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Chili
Chapter 15 – Super-Giant Fried Patacon Tacos
Chapter 16 – Deep-Fried Chinese-Style Honey-Garlic Chicken
Chapter 17 – Rotis and Jamaican-Style Goat Curry
Chapter 18 – Doro Wat – Ethiopian Chicken Stew
Chapter 19 – Hash Brown Casserole with Cheddar and Sour Cream
Chapter 20 – Dreadfully Fattening Macaroni and Cheese
Chapter 21 – Twice-Fried Fries Cooked in Beef Fat
Chapter 22 – Perfect 10-Minute Street Pizza
Chapter 23 – Peach Cobbler
Chapter 24 – Yeast-Raised Fried Doughnuts With Coconut/Banana Sauce
Chapter 25 – Coconut Flan
Chapter 26 – 540-Calorie Brownies
Chapter 27 – Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Hot Fudge Dessert/PMS Remedy
Chapter 28 – Blueberry Butter Cheesecake
Chapter 29 – Baklava With Cheesecake Filling
Chapter 30 – Red Lager and Room-Temperature Brewed Ale
Chapter 31 – Five Greasy Pieces: Quick Recipes for the Hopeless

Bon appetit.

One More Tool I Must Have

I saw something very cool at Northern Tool today, while buying a jack I don’t need. FOR TEN DOLLARS MORE THAN THE INTERNET PRICE. They had a tiny sandblaster. The brand name is “Badger.” It has a little jar on it that holds about a pint of sand. I’m wondering if this would be a handy thing to have.

On the one hand, I’ve been intimidated by sandblasting, because I don’t want to buy a cabinet. On the other, who cares about a pint of media ending up in their yard?

I wonder how big a job this thing will handle.

I bought a Northern Tool T-shirt. It says “Borrowing is for the weak.” They had a poster I liked. It said, “There is no shame in not owning tools, just like there is no shame in holding your wife’s purse for a minute.”

You Need Many Copies

I bought a new low-profile jack because my old one won’t fit under the car. I came home from Northern Tool, looked at my comments, and saw two people suggesting I put something under the tires to raise the car. Now I feel like a complete moron. But I can take that jack back.

In other news, THE COOKBOOK IS OFFICIALLY SHIPPING. So if you’ve been putting off buying it, the wait is over. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a thousand times better than the first one.

Crap

I have all these tools now. Compressor, floor jack, welder, hoist…you name it. I should be able to do anything, right? Wrong. Yesterday I couldn’t even rotate my damn tires.

I’m not happy. I bought a low-profile jack at Northern Tool, and I even asked T-bird owners how low it had to go to get under my car. But yesterday the silly thing would not fit under the jacking points. I was sitting out there with my pretty, mint-condition impact wrench and my urethane hose and my Helm manual, ready to go, and I had to pack it in and put everything back in the garage.

Can you believe it? I have no idea how other T-bird owners rotate their tires. I guess I’m going to have to go to a damn garage and pay twenty dollars. I could do it with the T-bird jack, but it’s horrible.

As long as I had the compressor pumped up, I decided to put the needle scaler on the hose and take a look at the iron railing on the back steps. The iron goes straight down into the concrete, and water accumulation has nearly rusted it through. In addition, there are layers of rust and old paint on the iron. I hit it with the scaler for a few minutes, and the crap really flew. Problem: it won’t fit into all the corners and bends. I’m not sure what to use in the tight places. And it doesn’t get all the rust off. It just polishes it down so it’s pretty rust.

I should saw the iron off at the concrete, weld new pieces onto the bottom, drill out the concrete so the old iron is gone, shove the new bits in, and fill it with epoxy. Or maybe I should fabricate a whole new railing.

I could get a sandblaster, but I’d have to leave the sand wherever it landed. No cabinet.

I thought I had a fifty-foot hose, but apparently, it’s a hundred feet. I must have forgotten. It’s pretty sweet. It goes all the way through the house and out the back door.

Is it possible to have enough tools to guarantee that you can do nearly anything you’ll need to do? I don’t know. But I am determined to find out.

Full of Caffeine

Busy day today. Obligations. Connections. Whatnot. That’s why I haven’t been around.

I just put an FFL in the mail for the guy in Texas with the 27-2. Got a couple of emails from Jim, regarding pistol upgrades and care. He says not to store the gun in a holster, because it will mess up the finish. I never really thought about that, but I’ll follow his advice. I don’t have a holster, anyway.

I’ll probably want new grips, primarily in order to avoid beating up the originals. Generally, on a range gun, I’d want something rubbery. But this gun is too pretty for that. I’m thinking I should find something in walnut or rosewood. I haven’t decided.

Kim du Toit is filling my head with dreams of a Model 65, which is another Smith & Wesson .357. I will not listen. I will not. I will not.

Maybe I will. Damn it.

It’s an L frame, which means .357 rounds will wear it out. So maybe I’ll be able to resist it.

I feel horrible today. I barely slept. Last night I kept wondering why I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t drink coffee yesterday, and I only had one glass of tea. Then it occurred to me…I had eaten one item without knowing the ingredients. And sure enough, it turns out you have to be careful about protein bars. They’re putting caffeine in them now. They could say so on the label, couldn’t they? I’m really mad.

Mike will be in town this week. Hopefully I’ll be able to drag him to the range. He still has not bought a gun. Every time I hear from him, he’s looking at a different model. His current idea? The Sig 229. Looks like a Glock clone. I know nothing about it. Seems like a boring gun to me. My guess? Near-Glock performance at a Sig price. I’m sure I’ll get lots of comments for saying that.

You can get a Glock for like 600 bucks. Let’s see what a Sig costs. Yeah, this is what I figured. Cheapest web price: $778. Oh my God. You can buy a Glock now for $480. Less than I paid in 1991. I very much doubt the Sig is $300 better. And it’s even uglier than the Glock. And the Glock holds two more rounds. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL.

Anyway, Mike must suffer until he buys something.

New Baby on the Way

I am out of control. And I have another blogger to blame. Jim from SOTW called me today and told me he had found a Smith & Wesson 27-2 with a 5″ barrel, in 95%+ condition, for a very nice price. How was I supposed to turn that down? I called the guy in Texas who was selling the gun, and it will be in my sweaty paws next week.

The Internet is a good place to buy most things, including new guns. But for used guns, excluding milsurps, it’s not that great. Gunbroker’s prices are completely crazy. Seems like they’re 15% over market, all the time. If you search their completed listings, you’ll see the same guns over and over, re-listed because no one was willing to pay the ridiculous reserve prices. Some shops advertise on their own websites. Generally the prices are bad. Seems like Gunsamerica has better prices; maybe it’s my imagination.

Jim did me a big favor. It’s tough to find nice guns around here, and I can’t inspect the guns I find on the web. Because I know Jim knows what he’s doing, I don’t have to worry that I bought a piece of crap.

I plan to shoot the 27-2; I have no use for safe queens. I’m thinking maybe I should put a better grip on it. That would preserve the factory grip and give me something nicer to shoot with.

I can take one gun off my buy list now.

I suppose you can’t pick one gun and buy it and then pick another and buy it, and so on. I suppose what you do is, you make a list, and then you buy as good deals become available. That’s what happened this time.

I can’t wait to shoot it! Dang, I better buy some .357 brass. I have given up on scrounging it. Thank God it’s not a semi-auto. When I’m done shooting, instead of crawling around the range like a bum looking for cigarette butts, I’ll just pop the cylinder out and remove the cases.

What if this gun shoots better than my beautiful 686+? I’ll never get over it.

Thanks, Jim. I owe you one.

Cyber Squatters Must Hang

Here is some wonderful advice for people who accidentally lose domain names. Do not pay to get them back.

I had a domain name I didn’t care about. It expired. Later on, I thought maybe I should renew it. Godaddy told me to pay some horrendous figure–$89, I think–to get it out of domain name purgatory or whatever. I told them to forget it. The name was auctioned, and some fool bought it. They sent me an email, threatening to build a commercial site on the domain, which would rob all my traffic, and offering to sell it back to me for $500. My response? “Enjoy your new domain.”

That was a week or two ago. I just checked Godaddy. The name is available for ten bucks.

I think I’ll renew the name and send an email to the squatters. I’ll say I made a terrible mistake and that the name is worth ten thousand dollars to me. Then I can laugh while they whois the name and find out it’s taken.

Good Monday Topics

First item today: TC sent me a link to a story about Christianity in China. The Chinese have repressed Christianity, going so far as to commit widespread atrocities. But it looks like it hasn’t worked. It never does. About five percent of the Chinese people are Christians. That’s a lot, in a nation five times the size of the US. And their numbers are growing.

More exciting: the Chinese churches teach the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s extremely important. A lot of the older churches behave almost as though the Holy Spirit were an embarrassment, and that is what has torn the heart out of them and made them so disappointing to believers.

On a personal note, I was struck by the realization that once again, God was answering my own prayers, on a giant scale. The evangelization of places like China is something I include on my prayer list regularly. Looking at this story, it occurred to me that God must be guiding millions upon millions of Christians to pray for the same things, because over and over, I see my global-scale prayers answered. I don’t think God looks down and says, “Steve wants to save China, so I better do it.” I think He must be guiding huge numbers of people to pray for big-ticket items, like change in China, and answers to our energy problems, and victory over militant Islam.

Why mention it? Because it might encourage people to pray for things they think are too big for God to grant. Don’t assume you’re the only one on the job.

I’ve been very pessimistic about China. On the whole, China is our enemy. And if China ever has enough wealth and power to cause us real problems, we’ll be in big trouble. It represents a fourth of the world’s population. You don’t want an enemy that big, with a sound economy propelling it. The rise of Christianity in China is very encouraging, because it could lead to better relations and a profitable alliance. At the very least, it will weaken China’s efforts to harm us.

On the gun front, I got a comment from someone putting down the M1 carbine. As if to confirm what I said this weekend about the dangers of criticizing other people’s guns, people are firing back! They’re seriously annoyed! The commenter compared the M1 to a .22 rifle and essentially described it as worthless.

I’m not stupid; I know the M1 carbine isn’t a battle rifle. But it looks like it would be tremendous fun to shoot. It has a cartridge big enough to be considered a real rifle round, making it more fun than a .22, and it should be much more pleasant to shoot than a K31 or M1 Garand or Moisin Nagant or Mauser.

I don’t know, but my guess is, it would be an easy and fairly inexpensive reload. And each gun has history. Some have been through World War Two AND Arab-Israeli conflicts, on the proper side.

If I get one, I want a Rock-Ola, an IBM, or maybe a National Postal Meter. Simply because those are funny names to put on a gun.

Yesterday, I mentioned the fact that joining the Garand Collectors’ Association would enable me to buy Civilian Marksmanship Program surplus rifles. In a comment, a reader says he thinks a carry permit will get me in the door, with no club affiliation. If I read the CMP’s site correctly, this is not true. To buy their guns, you have to prove you’re actively involved in marksmanship, and they’ll accept a carry permit as evidence. But you still have to join an affiliated organization. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m still debating the purchase of a Golani, which is a Century Arms parts-bin copy of the Israeli Galil. As I understand it, this is basically an AK with some real improvements. The big knocks are a. parts gun, and b. heavy. I like the idea of buying Israeli products, even if they’re assembled somewhere else. I like the idea of a military-style rifle with cheaper, lighter ammunition than the stuff I’m used to. And I think the gun will appreciate, simply because they’re not available often. But it’s not a real Galil.

Last note on guns: pray that the Supreme Court will get it right and expand our Second Amendment rights to the greatest extent possible, without alarming Congress to the point where they can get a majority and amend the Constitution. I have to tell you, there is nothing like the sensation of walking around in stores and malls with a loaded gun. This is the power the framers wanted us to feel. Let’s not let effete wimps and hippies on our coasts take it away from us. I hope everyone at the BATF and the Brady Center has indigestion for the coming month.

Speaking of the BATF, I’m holding my breath until I get the go-ahead to cruffle. Once that happens, look out.

Once again, I apologize for falling behind on email. I’ll try to fix it up today. I have been distracted by BS, but things have cleared up.

Useful Knowledge

I am taking a break from Sabbath festivities. I find that you can only go so long without a break. Which is odd, since the Sabbath itself is a break.

I have been utterly irresponsible about answering emails and responding to comments lately. Sorry about that. If you’re waiting for my explanation, you will be waiting a long time, because I don’t have one.

One comment I should have mentioned: I bitched that I couldn’t join the Civilian Marksmanship Program and get decent prices on M1s and M1 carbines, and reader Gromulin pointed out that I can join the Garand Collectors’ Association ($25) and qualify that way. All the clubs near me were high school ROTC outfits, and I didn’t think I could pass. Great comment. Very useful.

Now I have a question. Is it worth it to join the CMP? Seems like they don’t have a great selection of rifles. And the prices on Gunbroker and Gunsamerica seem about the same.

Another question: can anyone explain how M1 carbine collecting works? Apparently, when you buy a rifle, they identify it by manufacturer. BUT–I think–some rifles are relatively pure, and others aren’t. In other words, you may buy an IBM rifle and find that it’s as it was when IBM shipped it, with mostly IBM parts. Or you may buy an IBM rifle and find out it was refurbed with used parts from other makers. If I understand what I’ve read, there’s a big difference in value, and that makes buying confusing.

I Give Up

Baldilocks is hollering at me because I passed on a statement, from Ruth Matar of Women in Green, that Barack Obama is 47.5% Arab. I figured Mrs. Matar must have had some clue what she was talking about, but I don’t really know whether her statement is true or not. I am sure of one thing. Baldi is not buying it.

I am posting this in hopes that she will quit hollering at me and go beat on someone more deserving. How about Amanda Marcotte? I think that would be a swell choice. But I can suggest others.

Bother me Tomorrow

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA it’s the Sabbath. Every time I call Sunday the Sabbath, I cringe, expecting wise guys to post pointless corrections in the comments. Still, for me, it’s the Sabbath. And I reiterate: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Why “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”?

Every week, since I started setting Sundays aside for God, I have had some sort of revelation about the nature of the Sabbath, or the rewards or consequences of keeping it. And this week, payoff is a renewed understanding that the Sabbath is a sanctuary. On the Sabbath, you escape your problems. The busted pool pump, the sidewalk that needs to be repaired, the emails that should be answered…they will all have to wait. I refuse to even think about it. And I count on God to prevent me from suffering because of my sanctioned procrastination. Somehow, He will work it out. The Sabbath is His idea, not mine. I’ll worry about His concerns today, and He can do the same for me.

For the last two weekends, I’ve been unable to do a full-blown Sunday observance. First there was Father’s Day. Someone explain why we let the retail industry force Sunday holidays on us, knowing it will interfere with worship and rest. After that, there were horrendous plumbing problems that could not be ignored. This weekend, things are back to normal. I’m safe again. I can take the day off! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

In addition to plodding through the New Testament in The Complete Jewish Bible, with commentary, I’ve been reading the books of Samuel and Judges. Unfortunately, there is no companion commentary. And it’s pretty confusing. Generally when you read the Bible, it makes sense. You can see the point of each story. That seems less true in these books. The people seem much more worldly and corrupt and aimless than the folks in much of the rest of the Bible.

Some parts, like the history of Saul and David and Solomon, are not hard to understand. But other parts seem to have an almost random nature. The Jews and Fundamentalists tell us that isn’t true, however. Every letter in the original Hebrew is supposed to have a meaning and a purpose. I take it on faith that they’re right, and I read it and assume there will be some benefit eventually.

I can report one benefit. I got to talk to my Dad about it. He’s extremely hostile to Christianity, and to religion in general. But he and I ended up having a conversation about these books during this period, and he was surprisingly willing to listen. That was great. You never know when you’re going to plant a seed.

I think any reasonable person who sat and listened to an explanation of the Pentateuch and the New Testament and maybe the Psalms would eventually have to agree that all these books are connected, and that when read in pari materia, they are convincing proof of the existence of God. But you can’t bind and gag people and make them listen. When it comes to religion, listening is not nearly as popular as talking. I try to think about that when other people talk and expect me to listen, but I often fail to live up to my own ideals.

Here’s a pleasant piece of news. The weather has brightened up. I spend time reading the Bible on Sunday, obviously, and I very much prefer to do it outdoors. There is something about outdoor air that indoor air ordinarily can’t match. The weather has been terrible all week, and I figured today I would be stuck on the couch. But it’s sunny and not all that terribly humid for Miami. Maybe I’ll manage to spend a few hours outside.

All Life Will Cease

June is really here. It has been rainy all week, and today the air is so thick you can cut warm, drippy, moldy, grey slices out of it with a cheese knife. It’s not all that hot outside, but it feels so nasty, you just wouldn’t want to be out there.

On the up side, what’s going on, RE hurricane season? NOTHING. That’s right. NOTHING. Read it and weep, greenies. Another year of Hog on Ice hurricane gloating is underway. OOH! OOH! GLOBAL WARMING KILLER STORMS ARE GOING TO GET US! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It’s not happening. And this is the THIRD YEAR IN A ROW.

We are three weeks into the season, and so far, all we’ve seen is a pathetic tropical storm which shouldn’t even have been named. Even William Gray has decided to bag it. He predicts seven hurricanes, which is pretty lame.

There are two problems with the “killer storms caused by global warming” theory. 1. The storms aren’t happening. 2. Global warming is a fantasy. It’s the first major scientific theory based solely on peer pressure.

I think I’ll promote an equally credible theory. KILLER EARTHQUAKES ARE CAUSED BY CRABBY ELVES. LOOK OUT FOR THE CRABBY ELVES. A consensus of scientists consulted about crabby elves has been formed. One hundred per cent of scientists questioned, i.e. me, believe in elfogenic killer earthquakes. IT’S A CONSENSUS, BABY. KISS THOSE SKYSCRAPERS GOODBYE.

Technically, I’m a scientist. So what I say must be true.

Irate Gun Owners Respond

Yesterday I made an admittedly speculative comment, stating that I thought .38 snubnoses were obsolete. I still think that’s true. The .38 is a weak round; even the +P is not great, and it doesn’t work in all .38 Special pistols. And you only get four or five shots, and the tiny barrel makes the gun hard to aim, and high-recoil +P loads would seem to exacerbate the problem. I suggested that the Glock 26 was a better idea. It’s extremely accurate; you can put bullets right on top of each other at 7 yards. It holds eleven rounds safely, if you holster it right. It’s reliable. It’s light. It’s small. And you can get deadly, low-recoil ammunition for it. What’s not to love? Glocks are boring and ugly, but they work.

But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to write about the response I got. I clearly annoyed people! I didn’t say anything about them; I just offered an opinion about firearms. And I still made people mad. The lesson I learned is this: criticizing a gun (or type of gun) a person likes is like saying that person has an ugly baby. They really hate it.

So I guess I’ll have to tread lightly in the future.

I don’t identify with my guns too much. You can insult them all day, and I won’t care. With one exception. When I was 12, my dad bought me a Remington Nylon 66 rifle, which has a SPACE AGE DUPONT ZYTEL™ stock. And my buddy Mike insists on calling it a “plastic gun.” Every time we talk about guns, he says “plastic” like nineteen times. I have to take this, from a guy whose only current gun is missing a frame. That’s right. Mike STILL HASN’T BOUGHT A 1911. He used to have a Dan Wesson .357 with three different barrels, and some crackhead stole the frame, so all he has are barrels. But hey, at least they’re not plastic.

The general rule is, I don’t take it to heart when people make fun of my guns, so I guess I didn’t realize how much I could upset other people by criticizing their pathetic backward underpowered lovely snubnoses.

As a means of sucking up, I’ll point something out. I love revolvers. It was only recently that I became fond of the 1911. When I graduated from law school, I bought myself a present: a sweet Smith & Wesson 686+, not an automatic. That should tell you something. I’m dying to get the 27-2 .357 with a 5″ barrel, which Jim from SOTW recommended, and I think I’d also like a Model 29, just because Dirty Harry used one. And I have dreams of owning a USFA Peacemaker clone. And a Colt King Cobra. And maybe a Python. And a few others.

I could actually see buying a nickel-plated Jack-Ruby-style .38 and putting pearl handles on it, since it’s a pimp gun from the word “go.”

My dad has a Smith & Wesson snubnose; maybe I’ll take it to the range to shut everyone up. I believe he inherited it from my mother. My grandfather had a habit of giving his daughters snubnose revolvers from time to time. When I was a kid, my mother had a rusty Colt. I believe he gave that to her when she got married. Is that foresight or pessimism?

Oh, crap. Marv has released himself on his own recognizance. Hold on while I put him back in custody. I still don’t know how he does that. He only releases himself when he’s sure I’m not looking. And naturally, he clambers over as close to Maynard as he can get, as if he is eager to feed him another toe.

I think I would like to take a chunk of money and sink it into some decent used firearms. Fireable milsurps and lightly used civilian arms. And maybe some new items which are likely to be banned eventually, such as the “Golani” Galil clone Century Arms is making available for $700. I wouldn’t want as-new guns I couldn’t shoot. Collecting those is pathetic. It strikes me as a grotesque waste, putting a gun in a safe and waiting for it to be destroyed by rust or fire instead of shooting it. Seems to me that if I bought wisely, the guns would only appreciate, and they would enrich my life.

In addition to the revolvers, I’m considering picking up a couple of really nice walnut K31s. Also a Colt Woodsman, an M1 carbine, maybe a Lee-Enfield .303, a Finnish Mauser, and a Swedish Mauser. How can you go wrong with K31s? They’re great guns, and you can get a beauty for $240, and the importer is local, so I can pick them out in person. I worry that the availability of ammunition will suppress their value; don’t know if that will actually happen.

Enjoy those snubbies. Marvels of engineering that they are.

Dead Men Can Kill You

Earlier today I mentioned a reference which claimed to debunk the notion that there is such a thing as one-shot stopping power. I finally found a place where you can read it. A PDF can be found on this thread at The High Road: CLICK.

The PDF contains a piece written by FBI employees. Here’s a quotation:

In one case, the subject attacked the officer with a knife. The officer shot the individual four times in the chest; then, his weapon malfunctioned. The offender continued to walk toward the officer. After the
officer cleared his weapon, he fired again and struck the subject in the chest. Only then did the offender drop the knife. This individual was hit five times with 230-grain, .45-caliber hollow-point ammunition and never fell to the ground. The offender later stated, “The wounds felt like bee stings.”

That was the part that got me wondering if center-of-mass is always the right choice.

Here is a more disturbing quotation:

“Physiologically, a determined adversary can be stopped reliably and immediately only by a shot that disrupts the brain or upper spinal cord. Failing to hit the center nervous system, massive bleeding from holes in the heart, or major blood vessels of the torso causing circulatory collapse is the only way to force incapacitation upon an adversary, and this takes time. For example, there is sufficient oxygen within the brain to support full, voluntary action for 10 to 15 seconds after the heart has been destroyed.”

That’s interesting. John Lennon was shot through the aorta, and at the time, the authorities claimed he died instantly. Maybe that was an exaggeration.

One lesson you can definitely take away from this is that you don’t want to be in a situation where you have to shoot to defend yourself. You may kill your assailant and still get carved up.