Study Reveals: The Sky Is Blue

"The news is bound to be greeted with snorts of cynicism by most females. "

Get Armed, Stay Armed

I don't generally write about guns. I like 'em! Especially shotguns! And unlike the New York Times or the San Antonio Express-News, I've read the entire 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, all the way through. It seems pretty clear to me. But I've got some structural problems standing in the way of having guns of my own. For one, I can't afford them. For two, I can't afford buying a membership to a range. For three, I don't have any friends locally so there's nobody to (for example) do anything when I yell "Pull!"

And hunting is Right Out. I got to help eviscerate a deer when I was 8 or 9 and, well, let's just say if I go deer hunting I'm Very Selective. Unless that beast is a true freak--third set of antlers, has my name spelled out on its hide, has a bullseye on its chest a la The Far Side, that deer will will not die by my hand. Not worth the effort. There's all the evisceration, for one. Easy enough. Then you gotta take the carcass to a butcher That Very Night, and mayhap to the taxidermist (in the case of Mr. 3 Antlers). That's just that night. I mean, you aren't gonna get any more reading done that night and you're probably going to smell awful and I hope your truck has a bedliner!

My dad is a gun enthusiast. He doesn't look like it (he doesn't look like the stereotype), but he's a stone cold freak when it comes to these things. He's left-handed, and I think that may have radicalized him to some extent. He makes his own stocks so that they're more comfortable for him--I gather the better stocks are keyed towards the right-handed majority. There's also the problem of brass ejection, which he's only solved by being lightning quick. Like a balding, graying jungle cat. Brass usually ejects out to the right, which is fine for us (let's face it) normal people because when you're shooting a rifle or pistol or pump-action shotgun, your body is positioned to the left of the device. The brass pops harmlessly away from your body. When you're left-handed, you position your body to the right of the thing and You Are A Target. So he builds his own.

Since my dad rolls his own rifles (and shells, but that's common enough), he also buys parts. Functional stuff, like that thingy that goes on the front of the barrel to redirect the gasses. And scopes. He likes to shoot things from far, far away. I think he went a little crazy when he bought one of these parts and a note in the box it came in told him that with this part, he was now only 2 accessories away from owning the aesthetic monster known as an Assault Weapon and his rifle may well be banned.

Well, he's an accountant and he follows rules, so this annoyed him. At its most basic, these accessories did not change the key functions of the rifle. For example, it wouldn't make the rifle full-auto (that's the biggest bugaboo of the left) or magically make the bullets more deadly. And anything to make a weapon accurate makes it more safe, not less so (see the differences in operations twixt ground troops and air support in the current war as opposed to WWII, Vietnam, or even the previous Gulf War). So there was no change in the function of the weapon.

The AWB really annoyed him. He's convinced that the lefties won't stop until we get to that scene in Red Dawn where the Commies raid the local sporting goods store to find out who in town has a gun. And you know, the lefties won't stop... but now they're losing that argument! This was unthinkable in the past, but the successful (and pools-of-blood-free) implementation of concealed-carry and "shall-issue" laws took a lot of teeth out of the arguments the left used. The lefty argument for gun control equated guns in circulation with criminal use of same, which is ridiculous. And it's hard to argue that more guns make for less crime when you can't get more guns floating around to prove the point. It's one of the right's few social experiments. John Lott's book helped out quite a bit.

I, being a right-winger, have a strong philosophical attachment to the idea of as many guns as absolutely possible. As long as you're sound of mind and know how to handle a weapon, you should have a weapon and stay armed as much as possible. I'm best at this, so I'll argue this philosophy from the left. Or what should be the left. I believe every minority population in the world is best served by being armed. Blacks, homosexuals, women (my mom packs heat, my sister's a crack shot), hispanics, Jews (it's worked well for Israel!); any population that stands to be oppressed stands a good shot of staying unoppressed as long as it's armed. This has worked in practice! See the movie Deacons for Defense to see this in action. When the local representatives of the Democratic Party insisted on wearing sheets and riding horses through the black part of town, the oppressed minority took up arms and sorta ceased being the oppressed minority.

Now, was it that the local KKK decided that these specific blacks were armed and must be avoided? Was the presence of an armed black man required for the necessary effect (that effect being: no more random assault or arson based on skin color)? Nope. The mere idea of an armed man that would defend himself and those around him kept the riders out. This is why the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. Sovereigns (nations) keep armies around not to fight wars, but to keep from fighting wars. Sovereign men should keep themselves armed for the exact same purpose. The body politic (I hate to call them The People) should be understood to be very possibly able to defend themselves with lethal force. Percentagewise, there aren't a whole lot of Texans with concealed-carry permits. But it didn't take much. They don't wear signs that say "don't rob me, attack me, or otherwise put my life or possessions in jeopardy, because I am so very, very, armed." How many others does this uncertainty protect? That's a hell of an opportunity cost for your standard criminal to consider.

Oddly enough, if you remove the uncertainty to the negative, your rationally self-interested criminal will do the math in his head. Concealed-carry not allowed? Great! Marks are just walking around unarmed! Most people obey the law and have been made weaker by this one! Awesome. Then there's the big one: strict gun-control laws. Onerous regulations that keep all but the most determined and patient from keeping a weapon around. Think Great Britain, New York, Washington D.C. The rationally self-interested criminal incurs very little risk in trespassing, burglarizing, or otherwise robbing homes, cars, whatever. Chances are good the marks aren't allowed to defend themselves. Sure, people can use baseball bats or whatever for this, but that's only so much protection. These rely on strength, speed, and a certain level of accuracy to be effective. A firearm relies on accuracy, but generally the threat of armed force is quite enough to halt criminal activity. The rationally self-interested criminal takes advantage of opportunities to extend his life.

That's my spiel.

What he said

Scott Ott rocks. It's funny, I was jabbering about this stuff the other day (mostly because Mr. Goldberg harps on it and keeps it fresh in our minds) and then this morning I woke up to this Drudge snippet:

President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates... MORE... Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in Missouri // audience of 'undecided voters' for second debate was to be picked by Gallup. Bush officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans, WASH POST planning to report in new editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing...

As us Inside Baseball conservatives know, The Elder Bush got in a lot of trouble at the ridiculous "Town Hall" debate when he was up against Clinton. Some hippie started a question with something like "Pretend we're you're children..." and the Elder Bush checked his watch. I would have too. Democrats remember Bush II checking his watch. Republicans remember the question (this one doesn't, not exactly, obviously). I don't think Bush is losing much by avoiding this debate. I don't think it's a question of "were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans", but rather "people have posed as undecided when they actually are partisans." There's an even more depressing third possibility: "People that behave a lot like partisans but don't know enough about either party or the party's candidate to know who to vote for."

Hopefully the mainstream media can make it more clear which candidates believe what. Perhaps even help the whole process along by giving good play to whichever candidate (golly, dunno which!) they would prefer.

Now I've Done It

Judging from the comments in the link above, I may have been misunderstood in this post. I don't normally read comments (get your own blog!) or write comments (I have my own blog!) but it seemed necessary since apparently "healthy looking" is the only euphemism I don't know and Ms K's profanity-substitution engine had to substitute "[kidder]" for some other possibly less complimentary word.

So we're gonna clear this up with a self-disfisking. I will in fact fisk myself with an eye towards self-defense. There's really not anything to apologize for, so you won't see any of that. I want to be perfectly clear, though. So let's take the first and last paragraphs apart. It'll be like that really long thing Paul Harvey did a while back where it took him like 10 minutes to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay, we've got this chick SarahK and this guy Frank J from Mountaineer Musings and IMAO, respectively.

This is not in dispute.

SarahK would be Frank J's "IMAO T-Shirt Babe".

Again, a known fact.

And she's pretty healthy-looking.

Holy cow! Let's say the response on this was, by Being Rupe editorial estimations, mind-boggling! My traffic may well have quintupled just by benefit of that sentence alone! I made allusion to "stone fox" in my previous post. So we're going to elucidate on that. SarahK is in fact one. I didn't think this was in dispute. But we're still going to elucidate! Without me resorting to my normal Walton Hall manner of speaking!

Hm, okay, I can't. The last thing I want, besides being further misunderstood, is to be made fun of on IMAO. But she's hot. Well put together. A splendid collection of features. Plus good use of the language, well-developed sense of humor, a nice person overall, I gather. Good work, Mr. J. And if for some reason you don't believe me, check out her pictures.

And no, I'm not just saying this stuff in case she has some friends in SA to hook me up with.

Hell with it, I don't feel like disfisking myself anymore.

Coming Up!

Self-disfisking, an explanation of how euphemisms and understatement are possibly still a little better than forthright writing, even when you're being complimentary, and how how the phrase "healthy looking" is preferable to "stone fox". I think I'll stick to talking about funny books and abstract conservative philosophy from here on out. And periodic slams at the educational establishment.

[Jason X. Crow!]

The Cutest Couple

Okay, we've got this chick SarahK and this guy Frank J from Mountaineer Musings and IMAO, respectively. SarahK would be Frank J's "IMAO T-Shirt Babe". And she's pretty healthy-looking. I'll not be linking to her pictures (that's just a bit too creepy) but their fun little cross-linkings and so forth are lots of fun. Trust me. Read them. Hit Refresh on Frank's blog a few times to get the full range of his T-shirt, too. She photographs well. (Work safe)

I ran into these two when I had to expand my blogging range outward since they started filtering websites at work. Pretty much anything that might inspire an emotion or spark a thought, Gone. And I'm not just talking about porn! But blogs, dear lord they'll never kill them all. They got the Corner and Professor Reynolds, though. And Command Post.

Hell, I once killed my blog because I was going to be meeting a chick and didn't want her to get the right idea about me. I'd have to excise pretty much the whole thing to pick up chicks with it now, unless they also nursed a certain (and sometimes contradictory and psychosexually odd) dislike of teachers. I don't think this is likely. Thankfully my 2 or 3 readers don't get any traffic either. And saying a few nice things about some lefty teacher blogger in the Bronx doesn't mitigate the effect. And no, I never met that chick. Scheduling conflicts and fear.

And Mr. J and Ms. K, if you do actually end up reading this, I hope you're not offended. And Ms. K, if you have any friends in the San Antonio area, hook me up.

On Shopping

I bought pants.

I'm not going to go through the standard How Guys Shop thing. It's a cliche now. Suffice it to say, I was efficient. I was meeting my sister and mom at the mall to pick some stuff up. While they were in the dressing room I had time to select AND purchase 3 pairs of pants plus a visit to the dressing room (buying a slightly different style and I had to make sure it was sized right. Twas.) AND I moved my truck closer to my sister's car for easier transfer of goods.

My sister was doing some school clothes shopping. See recent For Better or For Worse strips for illumination on this topic. Ya see, my sister is 16. I don't know how tall she is--maybe 5'8. Athletic. And that ultimate brother-bane, Huge Tracts of Land. She's really quite proud of her rack and most of her clothes serve the express purpose of emphasizing said Advantages. So she jogs up to me and insists I tell her if I like the shirt she's wearing. Well, yeah, it's nice if you don't mind that you can see through it, and won't she be cold? And maybe she should be wearing a larger size? Ah, she helpfully pointed out, I will thusly always wear this little spaghetti-strappy thing UNDER it! She didn't say thusly; that's my word. I'm paraphrasing, hence the lack of quotation marks. And my terminology is admittedly (proudly!) deficient. Then she wanted me to decide twixt a bright pink cleavage shirt and its bright green cousin. I suggested blue. LG was flumoxed because the blue would make her look "washed out". Clean! That's a step in the right direction! But my mom helpfully explained to LG that given a choice, I will always choose the most conservative clothes. Modest, I explained to my mom. Modest.

And frankly, I will choose the most modest clothes for my sister and cousins. Elseways, as they say in wet t-shirt contests: Skin 2 Win. And knee-high boots. Can't go wrong with knee-high boots. There was a chick in high school that had those things and, well, whew. It's seared into my memory. When I got to college, hot chicks in knee-high boots were pretty rare. Lots of guys in knee-high boots and that's not my bag, and the senior chicks in the Corps and their knee-high boots, hm. I don't remember whether or not the Corps chicks wore the boots in their little Corps skirts, but that would have been pretty swell. If they weren't otherwise generally unattractive. And my social circle didn't make any contact with that bunch, except for High Ridicule.