May 19, 2013

Otherwise at the gun show:

This was a middlin'-size loophole, somewhere around a couple hundred tables. At the usual busiest time, mid-day Saturday, traffic was brisk but not jammed to the extent we've been seeing since November. You could get to the tables and coon finger the stuff. Observations:

--I've rarely seen so much U.S. military webbing and other field gear from the WW2/Korea era. The market hasn't  decided on values.  For instance, similar  .45 magazine pouches carried askings from $10 to $25.  One entrenching tool was offered at $15, a near twin at $50. And so forth.

--Everyday M1 Carbines seem to have settled to an arguing range centered on $800. (I saw only Inlands.)

--Plenty of 5.56x45 (.223 McNamara Stalemate) was on the tables at $.80-$-1 per round. Heavier popular rifle calibers were at $1 and higher.

--Components continued scarce and expensive. I saw no powder. Primers were tagged at $5 and $6 per hundred. I did see what I considered a bargain by recent standards, .223MS brass polished, sized, and primed at 20 cents.

--Everyone wanted .22LR. Only a little offered, but I saw nothing sell at the prevailing asks of  $60 to $90.

--The dealers I know well enough to chat with reported gun sales slow to non-existent.





May 18, 2013

Is there a .govbot in the house?

Three patriots understood that one can not make America a better place to live by hanging around a tea party. Even personal debt reduction must yield to to the need for action now.

Thus they sortied to a loophole, that is, a gun show, at 0804 this date, all in search of enhanced firepower. One of them was particularly enthusiastic about bringing a battlefield weapon to the mean streets of Smugleye-on-Lake.





Designed in part to resist enemy assaults, the (semi) automatic rifle with quick-change detachable bullet clips, was also intended to permit American freedom fighters, both professional and militia, to participate in  assaults.




This one came from a federally licensed dealer, so the armed American exploited  the gun show loophole by providing identification, a state permit in lieu of an NICS check, and filling out what has become a four-page form 4473.

---

She's been rebarrelled (sharp, shiny rifling) but otherwise appears about original. The condition is somewhere near the high end of average, and I expect her to shoot rather well for a dowager born on the high river bluff of Springfield in March, 1943.

Even if she doesn't, I'm glad she's here, especially for a bride price well below the usual 1,000 FRC asking.

I did remark to a loophole companion that the M1 was not especially fun to shoot and that I never found it handy.

 "So why did you buy it?"

Because an American should own a Garand.

.


'

May 17, 2013

Topic of Crapicorn

Even a dedicated wookie can easily take his eye off the ball. It is simply too much fun to watch the details of the government in power getting a wedgie.

For instance, Miller -- the career "civil servant" who bossed Americans through his control of the IRS --  is sickly entertaining. He been questioned all morning by the House Ways and Means Committee. Two things stand out. His attack of Alzheimer's, and his sweat. The latter makes a person think of a Golden Gloves welterweight after eight rounds with Sonny Liston.  ('course, like the Arias legal team, Miller doesn't have much of a case to work with.)

Then there is the congressional committee in charge of Obama polishing. They continue to assert that the real outrage must be reserved for two interns sharing the smallest cubicle in the Cincinnati office of their Inner Party's finance branch.

Such details are vastly entertaining, but if I'm to deserve my fur I need to lift my eyes to the big idea. The crime rests on questions of huge tax-free money to influence a huge government.

Everyone from the Koch Brothers to the Farm Bureau to Acorn is willing to spend billions of dollars to buy political favor for one reason. One. The payoff is hundred of billions of dishonest dollars, money extorted from you and delivered into the hands of whatever lobby happens at the moment to be most successful.

If American people continue to vote for big bloat, they continue to vote for big crime. That's how government is.