The Free State of Montana

A near-new Texsun camper followed me home the other day, and I decided to keep it. With a little luck, in another week or so it will be back on the 150, pointed westward toward the fur trade country with a stop at the Little Big Horn to honor the military genius of Lt. Col. Custer.

A routine part of any trip is a check of the state firearms laws along my route.

As you'd guess, the Regulators of South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Utah aren't likely to get pantywadded over my veritable arsenal and cache of ammunition, but in checking Montana I was reminded of something wonderful. It is the Montana Firearms Freedom Act which, in essence, tells DeeCee to go regulate up a rope about guns and accessories made in and kept in Montana.

I probably need to be back home before Oct. 1 when it becomes effective. Too bad. I envision buying a Bozeman Trail Silencer for my Bridger Big Rifle, Cal. One Hundred Fifty. I would post a picture here of them and me, defended against the feds by the entire Montana polity, maybe even including the Big Sky National Guard. Damn!! Course I'd have to stay there if I wanted to keep my goodies, but there are worse places to hang out.

(John Steinbeck in "Travels with Charley:" "If I could live away from the sea I would live in Montana.")

Let's hear it for Montana, not afraid to bell the federal pussy. They'll lose in the courts, of course, but the point will be loudly made that some Americans still give a serious damn about the principle of federalism and about Amendments 2, 9, and 10.

No court can change the other pleasant result - the soiled-linen state of the Kalispell liberals -- Redford, Sarandon, that bunch.

Travis McGee in Los Angeles

"...Other ridge areas, lower and brushier, were clotted thick with houses, According to demand, I could imagine each of those far houses was taking up at least a million dollars worth of of barren real estate. In a sane world it would be worth fifty cents an acre, but there it is, status symbol land, rock and brush, ridges and galleys, fires and mud all the way to Pacific Palisades. The highest houses get to see pizza signs and the night sea beyond. ... When San Andreas gives a good belch, they can start again at fifty cents an acre. "

"A Deadly Shade of Gold," P. 305 of the Fawcett Crest printing, a late one, c. 1995. Travis is observing the view from near Cal Tomberlin's mansion high in the western LA county hills.

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Enough fires like this week's and we won't have to wait for the tectonic burp. Assuming sentient beings really need to live in the tinder zone, I suggest they tell the green freaks to pee off, that they're going to clear the brush even at the cost of inconveniencing your occasional rattlesnake and degrading the habitat of whatever sand rat happens to be fashionable lately.

Quote of the Day

"I'm starting to think that Jefferson would look at the current state of affairs and say, "What are you waiting for?"

By reflectoscope over at Tam's place in reference to the government crackdown on an old Korean woman bent on undermining our society with undocumented kimchee.

A Franken-Gun

Miscegenation may produce the most beautiful human beings imaginable.* The same does not apply to firearms.

Its minor caliber notwithstanding, the purebred Mini-14 is a fine and sightly representative of the battle rifle as we understood it ca. 1939-1963. It stands tall in its Class As of walnutite and steel. It is a pleasure to shoot, an aesthetic adornment on any wall.

But mate it to the various Buck Rogers wet dreams, and it becomes ugly -- oily ugly, like the bald guy with the pencil mustache slipping out of the XXX theatre and stabbing you with an inviting leer.

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*Honolulu offers luscious examples, but you do not want to go there anyway unless you lust for cynical services at Tokyo prices.