Gun Porn, Courtesy of the Young Bill Ruger

If Bill Ruger were alive and running the show in Southport, this three-screw .22 would hold nothing but pleasant memories, including the time Dad shot it into the ground to scare off a bunch of thuggy teenagers who kept farting around in his back yard. (Bad procedure, of course, but it happened to work this time.)

And including the buddy I bought it from in about 1970, Mark Brown of Blackfoot, Idaho, a good friend and outstanding journalist who died way too young.

The good vibes stop with a decision to have the "safety" conversion installed and a factory refinish. The reblue was excellent, and a metal polisher in Connecticut is to be congratulated for outstanding restraint and attention to the owner requests.

After that the new Ruger company behaved in a way designed to send gun buyers running to another maker. Any other maker, probably. Not to put too fine a point on things, the damned revolver wouldn't shoot, even though a Ruger "technician" certified he had tested it and been pleased as punch with how well it worked.

Maybe gremlins invaded the shipping box and arranged things so the cylinder wouldn't lock, the hammer wouldn't reliably cock , and, sometimes, the entire set of innards would lock up. Email after email and two USPS letters went ignored until, months later, I was advised to return the gun "for evaluation."

A guy gets angry enough and does something he hates to do. He disassembles a single -action revolver and looks things over. Transfer bar actually broken, its selvage edge snaggable on the firing pin. Bolt burred. The fix on the shop bench took maybe 30 minutes. It taught a lesson: Retain the utmost respect for Bill Ruger, but never again trust the company which has passed into the hands of marketeers and cost accountants.

Now that it shoots, it's a lovely little thing, as is the western rig built for it by Janine Ann for Ottis Rollin.

Ah so, Toyada-san, Part Four

All will be shocked to learn I am among those who don't think congressional hearings fix things. But the one in Washington today is going to generate barrels of ink and eons of air time.

So it would be an good opportunity for someone to make the point: There comes a time when technology as applied to machinery meant for general public use becomes so complicated as to be self defeating.

No sane citizen is asking for an automobile which, avocationally, advises on investments and analyzes the theology of Niebuhr.

The issue at hand will be Toyota's gas pedal, excitable as a Celtic maiden and no more predictable by any logic yet confided to humankind.

So maybe someone could just note that by 1930 automobile engineers had perfected a fully observable, serviceable, and replaceable control loop for feeding fuel to an engine. A spring, a couple-three steel rods, and a sentient operator. Sticky accelerators could be cured with a couple of squirts from an oil can, and you hardly ever had to consult with Washington about it.

Tam has ferreted out one of the latest California stupidities, and her shootin' buddy comments:

The problem is that we have lawyers dealing with social problems. Lawyers will always seek to copy laws that were "successful" in other areas and apply this via analogy to the current problem.

The solution lies in mommies and daddies, not lawyers. However, the Left has been doing everything they can to destroy mommies and daddies so we are left with lawyers.

If you think about it hard enough, that doesn't leave all that much else to be said.

N.B. -- I'm sure SB would exempt your occasional barrister such as my pal who sometimes comments here and who is as quick as anyone to mock stupid over-reaching legislation.

Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin -- in that order

But I wouldn't get my libertarian gonads in a steamy state if I were y'all. Ron Paul is a figure of fun even when he wins as he did today when young conservative activists straw polled themselves at the CPAC convention. Politico sneered:

Paul’s victory renders a straw poll that was already lightly contested among the likely 2012 GOP hopefuls all but irrelevant, as the 74-year-old Texan is unlikely to be a serious contender for his party’s nomination.

Paul earned 31 per cent; Romney 22, Palin 7.

Politico goes on: "CPAC organizers were plainly embarrassed by the results, which could reduce the perceived impact of a contest that was once thought to offer a window into which White House hopefuls were favored by movement conservatives. A spokesman for the conference rushed over to reporters after the announcement to make sure they had heard the unmistakable boos when the screen first showed Paul had won the straw poll."

It appears that the organizational leaders of "movement conservatives" fear the idea of free markets, honest money, and limited government just as much as the barmiest of Barack Obama's statists.

Straw polls don't amount to a bowl of horse apple pudding, but, still, it is pleasant to see the good doctor so well thought of -- and to panic the movement's conservative arses who are still bemoaning the loss of Tammy Faye's subtlety and Jimmy Swaggert's singular leadership.