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.
Feb 3, 2012
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.
Jan 31, 2012
Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground
A House committee this afternoon approved House File 573. Oversimplified, it embraces the sensible notion that your right to defend yourself against violence is well-nigh universal and that you have no legal duty to retreat from threat, in your home or on the streets.
I like to think of it as putting the fear of God into violent criminals, one thug at a time, any time, anywhere.
The antis will resume their snide characterization of a "shoot your neighbor law."
That is their understanding of reasoned discourse, and they will not admit to being persuaded that (a) little, if any, additional gun play will occur as a result of HF573 and (b )the value of the policy is in making thugs think twice before they sneak into your bedroom or grab your wife's purse (or something) as you stroll home from the movies.
---
The politics of the thing is iffy. Conventional wisdom has it passing the GOP-controlled house but faltering in a Senate laden with Democrats and some Republican metrocons.
While that may be a smart-money bet this early in the legislative goat rope, it's also the same conventional thinking that was dead wrong on shall-issue in 2010. Liberals that year eyeballed an upcoming election and scurried to the camp of most Iowa voters, a peaceable lot who really hate shooting other folks but reserve the right to do so when there's no time to summon a cop or even a government-trained crisis counsellor.
I like to think of it as putting the fear of God into violent criminals, one thug at a time, any time, anywhere.
The antis will resume their snide characterization of a "shoot your neighbor law."
That is their understanding of reasoned discourse, and they will not admit to being persuaded that (a) little, if any, additional gun play will occur as a result of HF573 and (b )the value of the policy is in making thugs think twice before they sneak into your bedroom or grab your wife's purse (or something) as you stroll home from the movies.
---
The politics of the thing is iffy. Conventional wisdom has it passing the GOP-controlled house but faltering in a Senate laden with Democrats and some Republican metrocons.
While that may be a smart-money bet this early in the legislative goat rope, it's also the same conventional thinking that was dead wrong on shall-issue in 2010. Liberals that year eyeballed an upcoming election and scurried to the camp of most Iowa voters, a peaceable lot who really hate shooting other folks but reserve the right to do so when there's no time to summon a cop or even a government-trained crisis counsellor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)