Negroes and guns.

Rational gun people routinely argue that gun control mania is often a tool for   -- and result of -- racial bigotry. Lately we're getting more help from academia.

From a review of  Nicholas Johnson's Negroes and  the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms:


“Race has always been part of the unspoken motive for gun control in the United States. Johnson provides the best, most thorough history of the topic, telling the story mainly from the perspective and voices of blacks themselves. Shattering the myth of black passivity in the face of violent racism, the book is full of inspiring stories of genuine American heroes—some of them famous and many who were not—who used their Second Amendment rights to defend the civil rights of their people. Never shying away from the hardest questions, Johnson addresses the moral and practical complexities of armed self-defense, past and present. A major contribution to cultural studies and to the history of race in America.”

—David B. Kopel, research director, Independence Institute, Denver, Colorado

Miss Mossberg of 1948...

(...or so)


Hardly anyone sets out to collect Mossberg .22 rifles. Among firearms aesthetes it's declasse, like acquiring a hoard of museum quality Vegomatics.

I think that's a shame, though I concede that Winchester, Remington, and Browning made prettier rifles for the 1930-1950s mid-price market, good shooters, light and with finer "feel" and more graceful lines than the slightly cheaper Mossies.

O.F. Mossberg and Sons hardly ever played the anorexria game. Steel was cheap, and what are a few  more ounces in a tool designed to contain explosions and deliver energy precisely and consistently?  So some of them could look a bit clunky, like the 144ls or the 151.

I have a near-ugly 151* on the rack, seldom cleaned and never treated to spa day. It sometimes goes afield when the population of dirt clods gets out of hand. It kills them quickly and reliably, hardly ever bitching about the kind of ammunition it is fed.

Trading off the 144 ls was one of my all-time great errors. In the 70s I was mildly interested in four-position, 50-foot bullseye shooting, and it yielded nothing to Winchester 52 shooters (although I often did).

The other one I love is the fake Tommy Gun. I've mentioned I picked up a nice one recently to replace another I gave to a nephew. She's been my companion on the two marginally decent plinking days of this evil January.















Mossberg 152. Not for sale. Or trade. Or gifting.

I may even waste time rooting around in old gun magazine for paper copies of contemporary ads.

This one is from late in the 1948-57 production period.  The flipper became plastic about 1954.

Even in those calmer days you had to cut ad writers some slack. While the 152 was about the size and heft of the M1 Carbine, the forearm made it a Thompson to its target demographic -- imaginative 12-year-kids.

Minor geekery: The same flip-down marketing ploy was used on the bolt-action Model 142. The 152 came with a "peep" sight, the 152 K with opens.  The scoped option never sold well.  Most retail prices were a  few pennies under $30. Factory magazines held seven rounds, and they are now hard to find. Triple K aftermarkets hold 10 and cost $42 with shipping. Mine required tinkering with a file to even seat, then a little more to feed -- which is still does only about two-thirds of the time. After that dreary drill I ran across an OEM.

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*The 151 and some others reflect a period in O.F.'s history when it had a serious love affair with Mannlicher stocks and Monte Carlo cheek pieces.  If you like retro-Kraut look, fine. If not you wonder, "what the hell? It's a ,22."

Other recreations

The MB Heretic; 30'6" loa; 29' lwl; built by Marinette in 1963; welded aluminum; powered by a monster V8  through a Velvet Drive straight-through transmission. Call  it a big boat or a small yacht, what ever you like. Delphine (RIP) and I had raised our kids and usually thought of it as an extended-stay,  second-honeymoon, abode.

As Water Rat said: ""Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

Up and down the Mississippi from the St. Croix River southward to the Keokuk lock for five or six nice years.

A warmup; anarchy; a little light porn for desert rats

Assemble the trumpet chorus of tall vestals in flowing white gowns.  We need to rehearse for the big day tomorrow.

At the coordinates of Camp Jiggleview, of which I am Commandant,  winter is being put to rout. Statistically anyway. On January 19, the average daily high advances. From 25 to 26. Ta da.

As soon as the girls are in good tune, if will come time to unpack my spring fashion ensemble, even to the Speedo in anarchy black.

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Anarchy could be a lot of fun, and I have a soft spot in my heart for anarchists, even somewhat dreamy ones like John Zerzan. The internet persona he projects is one of a nice, very thoughtful,  guy who dead centers some of our post-modernist (what the Hell does that mean? dunno.)  ills.

He's part of the anarcho-primitivist school, yearning for a return to the hunter-gatherer system of economics.That makes him a romanticist Luddite, just like me when my reality connections are a little corroded. In some of my nicer fantasies I battle the sabre-tooth tiger approaching my woman in our cave.  She looks a lot like Kim Novak. I always win.

Philosophically, the dream breaks down the next morning when my clan huddles to plan the death of a nice, juicy, mammoth. Quite naturally, I am the leader -- in 20th Century terms the Minister of Plenty. There goes the egalitarianism that Zerzanites like so much.

There are probably some serious Zerzan students among the readers. I've been only vaguely aware of him and his work, but something  triggered a net wander this morning. I think I'll read more of his stuff. He seems too smart to have fallen completely for the serene glamour of the noble savage, and he makes a decent point or two about the dehumanizing effect of this and that in the digital age.

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Also before I hie myself off to work, I need to pacify my buddy John of the GMA, a commendable man but also a dude always grumping about the aesthetics of my WWCO selections -- most recently Twiggy of London. He wonders why I didn't choose Whatzername. I'll tell you why, Pardner. Because my apology to Bernanke had substance enough only for an A-Cup.  Anything larger would have been a waste of good silk and wire.

But since you insist: