Beware of open carry

--If  you left your SW Model 59 in the truck and

--If you walk out to fetch it and

--If if it seems too much bother to tuck it into your waist band, out of sight and

--If you sort of let it hang down along your leg so as not to seem to be "brandishing" to nosy neighbors and

-- If your excitable young Labmaraner is jumping and prancing around you, licking at everything she can reach and

--If she can reach the gun for slobbering purposes and

--If you lay the 59 on a shelf before wiping it down and

--If you forget to wipe it down for two days, then

-- You will have a substantial rust spot on your blue steel slide,  proving beyond doubt that dog saliva does not contain WD40.

Illinois concealed carry -- changing the debate

No, we didn't actually lose everything when Illinois lawmakers turned down a CCW bill, and Don at  Push the Pull Door explains it.

The essence is that forcing the argument into a framework of individual freedom and responsibility is an important incremental  victory*, but Don's piece handles it in sharp and cogent detail.  I suggest reading the whole thing even though it's  an older post I just ran across. He is now on the TMR blog roll.

---

*Remind anyone else of Ron Paul' progress?

Oh for God's sake...

Borepatch zeros in on a bit of government hypocrisy and backs his case with a link to a Barack (I DO TOO create jobs!) Obama pledge to dump stupid federal regulations.

Mr. President, you missed one or two.

Still grumpy over that stupid gun show experience yesterday, I went to the BATFE site and doodled around in the half-cured Bondo  describing the  process of getting a C and R license. I learned:


Only Elmer Fudd rates a federal firearms license. PDF alert. It is the application form which demands to know  if you hold a valid hunting license. You check a yes box or  no box. Be careful:


1.  If you answered "NO," you likely cannot lawfully possess a firearm and therefore cannot be a federal firearms licensee. 


The godawful free-range idiocy of that doesn't need elaboration for anyone who ever devoted three neuron-seconds to firearms issues. All I can figure is that the feds are in a tizzy to keep broom-handle Mausers out of the hands of PETA activists.

The form also requires you to list your race. And here I sit all embarrassed for believing all these years that my betters in Washington were sweating blood to create a color-blind America.
.

Loophole sidebar

Otherwise  it was a fine show, hundreds of interesting old pieces, and it's hard to say enough about how well the Dakota Territory Gun Collectors Association operates these things.

The personal take was paltry. I scored a few badly needed Case Guard boxes at less than a buck each.  I also couldn't resist $10 for a NIB Jap scope, 4x32, sold decades ago by Montgomery Wards (EDIT: and/or Western Auto?)  as a   "Revelation."  A guy can always use disposable optics. Come to think of it, I recall that some of these early Japanese scopes were rugged, not unlike Nikon rangefinder cameras.