Sixty bucks worth of gun porn, anyone?

Okay, let's start with Asian.











Ho-hum. Another old Jap. However:

A Type 99 or 38/99 with three kanji but no mum, ground off or otherwise. Smooth bore. A  school-boy trainer, never meant to fire live rounds except perhaps as an overly complicated seppuku tool.  It came my way for $40 at an auction two weeks ago, and since it isn't a "gun" I feel free to loophole it out at the local show next weekend. Maybe an even-up swap for a SW 25? Naah, probably not that much.



Switching to mature Americans:


















Boooooring. Old Winchester 1897 12-gauge tubes. But wait!

The little word on the right, just forward of the 20-incher's extension -- "cyl" -- spells factory original r-i-o-t.  Numrich would sell me one for about $275 if they had one. The other barrel, 26-inch full, would be upwards of $150, again if Mr. Numrich had one.

The Winchester tubes came at five bucks each, so if you are keeping track, I'm ten dollars shy of the $60 mentioned above. That's accounted for by:

--A take-off Remington 700 barrel in .222 Remington, with sights, grading somewhere between "damned good" and "near mint."  I'll put it out, but finding a reasonably priced 700 short action would be more pleasing than a sale. That was an excellent round, and I forgive it for grand-siring the .223 McNamara-Stalemate.

--The world's ugliest Mossberg .22 barreled action which I'll price at three or four times cost and probably sell. If you have ever been on the vendor side of the table, you may have been asked, "Gotta bolt for ________ ?" Often enough, it's a Mossy.

Sometimes going to an auction brings out my venality. No, actually I mean my spirit of entrepreneurship, my patriotic desire to stimulate the economy.

Shortest shutdown question yet:

If the government is closed, have we furloughed the Presidential Protection Detail of the U.S. Secret Service?

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Edit to add on Thursday evening:  With the fracas in the White House/Capitol corridor today, the comment above may seem ill-advised. This blog has no Memory Hole, so I'm letting it stand as the off-the-cuff mockery intended. I add only that the TMR has a long history of opposing unprovoked violence against politicians and people.  
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Another shutdown horror; Smoky Bear goes silent

It's a sane report on our October drama. It includes this line:

"The shutdown will keep park rangers from giving tours at America’s national parks, monuments and historical sites. "

That is true, but if it is important we are truly screwed.

I've listened to my share of  government ranger talks, often enjoyed them, occasionally learned something.  It is difficult, however, to view their absence as a signal that all is lost.

Let's consider Yellowstone, the, errr, icon, of our natural beauty bureaucracy. The ranger will tell you it's a big volcano still deciding when to erupt. That explains the geysers and natural hot tubs and the pretty lake's habit of sloshing water from one end to the other, as when you tilt a dish pan.

He'll also get to the wildlife lecture. Buffalo are big and hairy and can be dangerous. The grizzly might prefer a peanut butter sandwich but gladly settle for a bite of your privates. If you hear a buzz it's a good idea to look for a snake. Throwing rocks at the marmots is considered declasse.

In other words, he offers information which is new to the illiterate or, more likely, the bleating sheep dependent on being led to green grass by an all-knowing government shepherd, those ignorant of public libraries or the lacking foresight to type "y-e-l-l-o-w-s-t-o-n-e  w-i-k-i" into the search box.

Mr. Ranger is, therefore, a special needs instructor for those Americans who spent their classroom time doodling duckies and hot rods and -- having learned from President Clinton that he wears briefs -- spend the rest of the hour speculating what kind of undies the teacher is wearing. And I submit to you, kind reader, that stilling ranger's remedial tongue is not be confused with the final collapse of the Republic.

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It is a tiny pebble, of course, in the big debate which is generating all the frantic  (mostly) teevee bloviation. Glue together enough little rocks, however, and you begin recognizing a  mountain, sculpted to look like an over-reaching, over-bearing government.

A coprolite by any other name...

The Affordable Health Care Act is to be preferred over Obamacare. Jimmy Kimmel proved it.

Would it be vulgar to observe that self-government doesn't work very well unless the governed take their heads out of their asses from time to time?

ETA: --   H/T to my man in the MSM