The marketing firm called Ruger

The latest news from Ruger is that the same top-notch engineering and quality control that went into the LCPs and SR9s now may infect the LCR . Like  its black plastic sibs it  is proving itself capable of surprise, namely strewing gun parts and shards of cartridges, over a wide area.

The report, via Tam, is here. 

Full disclosure: I have personal beef with this company. After months of trying to get some one's attention to a badly botched safety conversion of a three-screw, I finally tore the thing down and fixed it myself. It is still tough to get over the fact that the returned Single Six was accompanied by a signed statement that a certified technician had test fired the weapon and found it flawless.  Could the lack have been in me for being unable to cock the hammer without multiple tries and jiggling the cylinder and trigger? That it wouldn't lock up  when cocked? That the trigger would only randomly release the hammer? Mind you, this was out of the box, and many weeks worth of emails to Ruger were rewarded with silence.

My Ruger disgust goes deeper -- to the LCP fiasco, the SR9 recalls, and now the case of the exploding plastic wheel gun.  As an RGR stockholder I watched the company being delivered into the hands of the MBA marketing shamans who may never have fired anything more lethal than an Andre cork. They looked around, saw that other gun companies had proved black was beautiful, or at least profitable,  and started ordering vats of the plastic crap while their interns researched abbreviated time-to-market possibilities. 

The result is exploding guns, and, quite probably, a corporate decision that it is cheaper to get sued a few times and to spend more on public relations  than it is to build proud firearms. 

For decades I was a Ruger addict. Getting over it requires a 12-step program, including dumping the last of the RGR stock. Who the Hell wants to own stock in --  or a gun built by -- the new Lorcin of the firearms industry?

The process  is much like watching a once beautiful and faithful  wife go emotionally awry and wind up down  at a Scully Square corner,  desperately motioning "c'mon" at slowly passing cars. 

Criminal intent

Josh is five, and the day before his kindergarten graduation he and some buddies found a pocket knife under a bush on their way to school. He stuck it in his backpack, thought better of it, and left the knife in a park.

His principal got wind of the "incident" and suspended him for having intended to bring the knife to school.

Principal Chris Lineberry of Queen Creek, Arizona  then spent the rest of the day wiggling around, trying to evade blame for a stupid act of biblical scale. He  finally relented, apologized, and allowed as how Josh could go ahead and graduate with this class.

We send our kids to school so  that they may sit at the feet of wise educators, don't we?

(Another H/T to GMA John.)

A friend reminds me that "life is what happens while you're making plans."

It will be an unusual weekend, a passing to mourn, a confirmation to celebrate. Who knows what else?

TEOTWAWKI

Experts like Soros and Volcker have proven themselves full of gobshittery before, not to mention being part of the establishment which got us into the current economic mess. So it is just  for what it may be worth that I cite their most recent rendition of, "Holy Libido, Romulus. This  really is the Decline and Fall."

Their gloom probably accounts for some part of today's panicky pre-market business reporting which includes:

"S&P futures fell below 1,060, the level hit at the bottom of the still-unexplained market "flash crash" on May 6."


What? Me worry? I bought an extra five tins of chicken breasts at the Fareway yesterday, and there's still 20 pounds of  rice stashed away in a cool, dry place.