What a fine little show over in Estherville. Discerning buyers from miles around swamped my table and left happy with pounds and pounds of shooty (and otherwise outdoor-jockish) stuff which a partner and I were just plain tired of looking at. Why, I had to get up early this morning to count the money Federal Reserve Cartoons.
If today goes as well I'll treat myself to something lethal enough to send the Bloomberg Bleating Society scurrying to the sanctuary of the nearest fern bar.
---
Speaking of the Super Bowl, have you seen that Mayor Bloomberg is sponsoring a SB commercial demanding more common-sense gun control? I presume it includes a bleat for ending the mysterious gun show loophole. He probably heard that I reverse loopholed a Bubba-ed, trashed-out Winchester 37 and knows that it can be modified and sniper-scoped to bring down a Cessna 150 at nearly 50 yards. Too bad I'll miss the ad. My Super Bowl plan is to check the internet tomorrow morning to see who played, and, if my interest doesn't wane, who won. Just in case the subject happens to come up in conversation. Wouldn't want to sound ignorant.
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Politics: The anti-authoritarian idea is doing reasonably well in Nevada, considering Ron Paul is running against the Mormon Church, or, rather, the Mormon Church is running against him.
I wonder if he's trotted out that bit of recent history showing that the Government of the United States is the only outfit in the history of the world to lose money on a place peddling whiskey and whores?
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Thank you for your kind attention. See you after the loophole closes this evening.
Feb 3, 2012
Holy Loophole, Batman...
This one is close enough and typically good enough to move me to become an actual vendor. It helped that a bait shop which once tried to get big in the gun business turned over its entire remaining inventory to me. The deal offered was too good to pass up: "I just want to get rid of the (sterling merchandise). I'll split whatever you can get." (I won't actually take that much; the guy's a buddy.)
There will be bargains. My impulse is to announce the price as one-half of the lowest marked sale price, and those numbers were pasted on while we were still anticipating TEOTWAWKI due to Y2K.
No guns occupy these particular swag boxes, but a half-dozen so-so quality scopes, a couple dozen Burris mounting kits, many pounds of sling hardware, and miscellaneous RCBS loading accessories. Why, there's even a cassette of crow-call recordings. And some cute orange caps with built-in LEDs.
To this I add my own three bushels of miscellaneous ("I'm tired of looking at it,") crap, and my 16 feet of hired table space will be jammed, barely leaving room for the three or four bait guns priced at something over 200 per cent of value. If I may say so myself, I'm pretty good at inventing stories about why my Stevens .410 single is priceless.
("Waaahhll, y'see I got this here four-ten from a guy down Looziana way whose grandpa was wunna the deputies when they shot up Bonnie and Clyde. Now I can't actually prove this little rust spot is from Bonnie's own blood, but the fella told me...".)
No one believes it, of course, but some of them enjoy it enough to loosen up and take some of the other junk off my hands.
But then, knowing myself, I'll probably take the money around the hall and come back to my own table with a bag of other interesting but near-useless stuff, that is, stuff I am not tired of looking at. Yet.
I'm glad His Ineptness has not yet issued an executive order banning pointless hobbies.
And maybe I'll even find something shootable to loophole. I still want need something American to shoot up the big stash of .38 Special, and I don't give a diddly about which way the cylinder turns.
There will be bargains. My impulse is to announce the price as one-half of the lowest marked sale price, and those numbers were pasted on while we were still anticipating TEOTWAWKI due to Y2K.
No guns occupy these particular swag boxes, but a half-dozen so-so quality scopes, a couple dozen Burris mounting kits, many pounds of sling hardware, and miscellaneous RCBS loading accessories. Why, there's even a cassette of crow-call recordings. And some cute orange caps with built-in LEDs.
To this I add my own three bushels of miscellaneous ("I'm tired of looking at it,") crap, and my 16 feet of hired table space will be jammed, barely leaving room for the three or four bait guns priced at something over 200 per cent of value. If I may say so myself, I'm pretty good at inventing stories about why my Stevens .410 single is priceless.
("Waaahhll, y'see I got this here four-ten from a guy down Looziana way whose grandpa was wunna the deputies when they shot up Bonnie and Clyde. Now I can't actually prove this little rust spot is from Bonnie's own blood, but the fella told me...".)
No one believes it, of course, but some of them enjoy it enough to loosen up and take some of the other junk off my hands.
But then, knowing myself, I'll probably take the money around the hall and come back to my own table with a bag of other interesting but near-useless stuff, that is, stuff I am not tired of looking at. Yet.
I'm glad His Ineptness has not yet issued an executive order banning pointless hobbies.
And maybe I'll even find something shootable to loophole. I still want need something American to shoot up the big stash of .38 Special, and I don't give a diddly about which way the cylinder turns.
Feb 2, 2012
A merry stop to the Terry stop
The hits just keep on comin'.
A vigilent cop stood tall in defending the safety of Council Bluffs citizens with a righteous but, he figured, dangerous bust of a guy riding his unlighted bicylcle after dark.
Officer safety being paramount, he patted the Lance down because "it was dark and people in the neighborhood were known to have weapons." Yep, a smidgeon of reefer and a ride to jail in defense of law-abiding citizens everywhere.
The Iowa Court of Appeals told Officer Friendly he was full of it and vacated the pot-possession conviction.
It's almost like the Fourth Amendment followed us home for cuddling and warm milk.
A vigilent cop stood tall in defending the safety of Council Bluffs citizens with a righteous but, he figured, dangerous bust of a guy riding his unlighted bicylcle after dark.
Officer safety being paramount, he patted the Lance down because "it was dark and people in the neighborhood were known to have weapons." Yep, a smidgeon of reefer and a ride to jail in defense of law-abiding citizens everywhere.
The Iowa Court of Appeals told Officer Friendly he was full of it and vacated the pot-possession conviction.
It's almost like the Fourth Amendment followed us home for cuddling and warm milk.
Lo, the poor eaglet
I'm getting pretty damned tired of complimenting our semi-elected masters in the Iowa House of Representatives. I was comfortable in the days when truth required only occasional reporting that our solons personally didn't steal much compared to, say, the legislators of Illinois.
But this morning --a day afer advancing a stand-you-ground bill --- our guys struck another blow for liberty by saying it's okay to shoot at doves with lead shot. That created another giggle as a horrified, but maladroit, Des Moines Register reporter tied himself in verbal granny knots to get the upcoming environmental Armageddon in his lede.
"A type of ammunition used in hunting that leaves lead remains in the environment and is linked in some studies to deaths in Eagles (sic) and other animals was approved this morning in a House vote."
Oh the egality!
---
There's a background here that leads a fellow to suspect the lead ban debate doesn't have much to do with doves, eagles, or lead-poisoned children growing up to be important politicians.
Iowa got its first dove season in something like a century last year. The debate made the abortion controversy look like a polite chat in the Harvard faculty lounge. When it passed the rivers rose with tears of PETA-type anguish.
The Iowa DNR was especially petatrified and, by administrative fiat, said hunters had to use high-price non-lead shells, making dove-hunting a sport of relative lairds and economically difficult to impossible for the peasantry.
Peasant voices yelled in lawmaker ears. The message was transmitted to lawmaker brains and processed into the takeaway, "Hot damn, but I got an election coming up in nine months." (Well, one or two of the more astute might have added, "Besides, where do a bunch of appointed DNR bureaucrats get off making a law of general applicability. That's what our General Assembly is for."
I know nothing of the alleged science behind the lead-shot scare, but I know something of droop-ass bureaucrats anxious to wonk policy via end runs around constitutions (nodding to Sir Winston).
Anyway, I'll be checking the craws of all the dead baby eagles I run across, and if I find a bunch of cold-rolled No. 7 1/2s, I'll let you know.
But this morning --a day afer advancing a stand-you-ground bill --- our guys struck another blow for liberty by saying it's okay to shoot at doves with lead shot. That created another giggle as a horrified, but maladroit, Des Moines Register reporter tied himself in verbal granny knots to get the upcoming environmental Armageddon in his lede.
"A type of ammunition used in hunting that leaves lead remains in the environment and is linked in some studies to deaths in Eagles (sic) and other animals was approved this morning in a House vote."
Oh the egality!
---
There's a background here that leads a fellow to suspect the lead ban debate doesn't have much to do with doves, eagles, or lead-poisoned children growing up to be important politicians.
Iowa got its first dove season in something like a century last year. The debate made the abortion controversy look like a polite chat in the Harvard faculty lounge. When it passed the rivers rose with tears of PETA-type anguish.
The Iowa DNR was especially petatrified and, by administrative fiat, said hunters had to use high-price non-lead shells, making dove-hunting a sport of relative lairds and economically difficult to impossible for the peasantry.
Peasant voices yelled in lawmaker ears. The message was transmitted to lawmaker brains and processed into the takeaway, "Hot damn, but I got an election coming up in nine months." (Well, one or two of the more astute might have added, "Besides, where do a bunch of appointed DNR bureaucrats get off making a law of general applicability. That's what our General Assembly is for."
I know nothing of the alleged science behind the lead-shot scare, but I know something of droop-ass bureaucrats anxious to wonk policy via end runs around constitutions (nodding to Sir Winston).
Anyway, I'll be checking the craws of all the dead baby eagles I run across, and if I find a bunch of cold-rolled No. 7 1/2s, I'll let you know.
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