The Palmetto State's victory and the fall of Vicksburg in Old Dixie

I'm on vacation and a couple of days behind on blogging. So how did South Carolina come by it's moniker of The Palmetto State on a fateful June 28th? Human Events reports on this famous military date.

June 28, 1776: In what has been described as the “first decisive victory of American forces over the British Navy” during the American Revolution, the garrison at Fort Sullivan, S.C. (today Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island in Charleston harbor) under the command of militia Col. William Moultrie repulse Royal Navy forces under the command of Admiral Sir Peter Parker.
The 12-plus hour battle begins around 9 a.m. when Parker’s ships open fire on the fort: many of the British shells sinking harmlessly into the soft palmetto logs of which the fort is constructed. The ships, on the other hand, (some of which run aground on the harbor’s shoals) are constructed of oak, which Moultrie’s artillerists quickly shatter sending deadly splinters into the unfortunate British crews.
Moultrie is destined to become a Maj. Gen. in the Continental Army and a S.C. governor. And S.C. will forever be known as “the Palmetto State.”

 Now you know.

And what happened on July 4, 1863?

July 4, 1863:  The Confederate city of Vicksburg, Mississippi falls to Union Army forces under the command of Maj. Gen. (future U.S. pres.) Ulysses S. Grant. It will be decades before the city celebrates the 4th of July again.

Also known as The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

I love the smell of napalm and burning Bradyites early in the morning

I was on the road Monday when the decision was announced, but I gotta give an attaboy to the NRA-ILA for the victory for gun rights in Chicago.

Fairfax, Va. -- The National Rifle Association of America today praised the U.S. Supreme Court's historic decision in another landmark Second Amendment case. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment applies not just to Washington, D.C. and other federal enclaves, but protects the rights of all Americans throughout the country. The opinion in McDonald v. City of Chicago brings an end to the nearly 30 year-long handgun ban that the city has imposed on its law-abiding citizens.
"This is a landmark decision," said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. "The Second Amendment -- as every citizen's constitutional right -- is now a real part of American constitutional law. The NRA will work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges defiant city councils or cynical politicians who seek to pervert, reverse or nullify the Supreme Court's McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way."
As a party to the case, the NRA participated in oral arguments before the Court in March. The NRA persuasively argued that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment and that handgun bans, like those in the City of Chicago and the Village of Oak Park, are unconstitutional under any standard of judicial review. This same view was shared in friend of the court briefs by a bipartisan group of 309 members of Congress from both chambers, 38 state attorneys general, and hundreds of state legislators. Public opinion polls show that it is also shared by the overwhelming majority of the American people.
"This decision makes absolutely clear that the Second Amendment protects the God-given right of self-defense for all law-abiding Americans, period," said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. "Ironically, while crime in Chicago runs rampant and lawmakers there call on the National Guard for help, Mayor Daley has insisted on leaving the residents of his city defenseless. Today's opinion puts the law back on the side of the law-abiding. We will be watching closely to make sure that Chicago abides by both the letter and the spirit of the Supreme Court's decision." 

And what do it mean? Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox tell us.

Today marks a great moment in American history. This is a landmark decision. It is a vindication for the great majority of American citizens who have always believed the Second Amendment was an individual right and freedom worth defending.
The Supreme Court said what a majority of the American public believes. The people who wrote the Second Amendment said it was an individual right, and the Court has now confirmed what our founding fathers wrote and intended. The Second Amendment -- as every citizen’s constitutional right -- is now a real part of American Constitutional law.
But, Supreme Court decisions have to lead to actual consequences or the whole premise of American constitutional authority collapses. Individual freedom must mean you can actually experience it. An incorporated freedom has to be a real freedom.
The intent of the founding fathers -- and the Supreme Court -- was to provide access. Words must have meaning.
The Supreme Court has now said the Second Amendment is an individual freedom for all. And that must have meaning. This decision must provide relief to law-abiding citizens who are deprived of their Second Amendment rights.
We are practical guys. We don’t want to win on philosophy and lose on freedom. The end question is, can law-abiding men and women go out and buy and own a firearm? Today the Supreme Court said yes – anywhere they live!
This decision cannot lead to different measures of freedom, depending on what part of the country you live in. City by city, person by person, this decision must be more than a philosophical victory. An individual right is no right at all if individuals can’t access it. Proof of Heller and McDonald will be law abiding citizens, one by one, purchasing and owning firearms.
The NRA will work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges, defiant city councils, or cynical politicians who seek to pervert, reverse, or nullify the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable, or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way.
What good is a right without the gun? What good is the right if you can’t buy one? Or keep one in your home? Or protect your family with one?
Here’s a piece of paper – protect yourself. That’s no right at all!
Victory is when law abiding men and women can get up, go out, and buy and own a firearm. This is a monumental day. But NRA will not rest until every law-abiding American citizen is able to exercise the individual right to buy and own a firearm for self defense or any other lawful purpose. 

I love the smell of napalm and burning Bradyites early in the morning.

Remembering Ernie Pyle, best combat correspondent of WWII

In honor of approaching Independence Day, Michael Yon posts a link to a blog entry on Ernie Pyle's Home, now a museum in Indiana threatened with closing due to state budget cuts.

Yon is undoubtedly the best combat correspondent since Pyle, the pre-eminent reporter of World War II.

Pyle was killed by a Jap sniper off Okinawa after surviving the war in Europe and moving on to the Pacific war.

One commenter on Facebook said:

Pyle was a good journalist. What is shocking, if you see a full-face photo of the man without a hat, is that he looks closer to 70 than being 45. I wonder if his proximity to the front-lines aged him prematurely. I cannot help but think though, that his was a good death. I don't want the man to die young, but he died a hero in my book.

Here's a blurb from Pyle's reporting.

IN THE FRONT LINES BEFORE MATEUR, NORTHERN TUNISIA, MAY 2, 1943

Now to the infantry – the God-damned infantry, as they like to call themselves.

I love the infantry because they are the underdogs. They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities. And in the end they are the guys that wars can’t be won without.

I wish you could see just one of the ineradicable pictures I have in my mind today. In this particular picture I am sitting among clumps of sword-grass on a steep and rocky hillside that we have just taken. We are looking out over a vast rolling country to the rear.

A narrow path comes like a ribbon over a hill miles away, down a long slope, across a creek, up a slope and over another hill.

All along the length of this ribbon there is now a thin line of men. For four days and nights they have fought hard, eaten little, washed none, and slept hardly at all. Their nights have been violent with attack, fright, butchery, and their days sleepless and miserable with the crash of artillery.

The men are walking. They are fifty feet apart, for dispersal. Their walk is slow, for they are dead weary, as you can tell even when looking at them from behind. Every line and sag of their bodies speaks their inhuman exhaustion.

On their shoulders and backs they carry heavy steel tripods, machine-gun barrels, leaden boxes of ammunition. Their feet seem to sink into the ground from the overload they are bearing.

They don’t slouch. It is the terrible deliberation of each step that spells out their appalling tiredness. Their faces are black and unshaven. They are young men, but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion make them look middle-aged.

In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory – there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.

The line moves on, but it never ends. All afternoon men keep coming round the hill and vanishing eventually over the horizon. It is one long tired line of antlike men.

There is an agony in your heart and you almost feel ashamed to look at them. They are just guys from Broadway and Main Street, but you wouldn’t remember them. They are too far away now. They are too tired. Their world can never be known to you, but if you could see them just once, just for an instant, you would know that no matter how hard people work back home they are not keeping pace with these infantrymen in Tunisia.

And this brief report on the D-Day invasion of France.

NORMANDY BEACHHEAD, JUNE 1944

The strong, swirling tides of the Normandy coastline shift the contours of the sandy beach as they move in and out. They carry soldiers’ bodies out to sea, and later they return them. They cover the corpses of heroes with sand, and then in their whims they uncover them.

As I plowed out over the wet sand of the beach on that first day ashore, I walked around what seemed to be a couple of pieces of driftwood sticking out of the sand. But they weren’t driftwood.

They were a soldier’s two feet. He was completely covered by the shifting sands except for his feet. The toes of his GI shoes pointed toward the land he had come so far to see, and which he saw so briefly.

Yon carries on in the spirit of Pyle, living with our troops at war and reporting honestly on their troubles and travails. As Hebrews 11 says, this world is not worthy of men of honor and courage such as these,

Never ask a question unless you already know the right answer

In the category of lawyers should never ask a witness a question they don't already know the answer to, I stole this gem from Brownell's Just Jawin'

In a trial, a Southern small town, the prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grand-motherly, elderly woman to the stand.

He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?" She responded, "Why, yes I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper-pusher. Yes, I know you."

The lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?" She again replied, "Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, ! I know him."

The defense attorney almost died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench, and in a very quiet voice, said, "Neither of you guys had better ask her if she knows me."

Now let me tell you one of my daddy's favorite stories. His father was a fox-hunting buddy of the prosecuting attorney for Richmond County, the late Elsie Webb. My grandfather was testifying as a character witness for a defendant who was being prosecuted by Webb in court.

After testifying what a fine man the defendant was, Webb cross-examined my grandfather.

"Mr. Myers, are you a drinking man?" Webb asked.

"Yes, I take a drink now and then," my grandfather answered.

"When was the last time you had a drink, Mr. Myers?" Webb asked.

"I'd rather not say," my grandfather replied.

"Well you're sworn in as a witness and you gotta say. So when was it?" Webb shot back.

"Well, if you insist," my grandfather replied. "It was last night while we was fox-hunting and you handed me the pint bottle from your back pocket."

"Come down, Mr. Myers, no more questions," Webb concluded hastily.

Gun Motivational Posters motivate me to want to go shoot more

You've probably seen these circulating by email, titled "Gun Motivational Posters."

I like them and I added one of my own, a family and friends shootout at the farm, last photo.

Enjoy.

First step taken on the way to my first S&W Nightguard revolver

I finally pulled the trigger today, so to speak.

The gun-buying frenzy has died down for sure and I got tired of waiting for my two chosen sacrifices to be sold from amongst my small herd of handguns.

My Dan Wesson 22 .22LR 6-Shot DA/SA Revolver 6" Bl. and the S&W 469 Mini 9mm Compact DA/SA Pistol-4 Magazines are both nearing the end of another cycle of 14-day gunbroker auctions with no takers.

So today I took the measly $100 cash I had in hand and make a down payment on my first S&W Nightguard, the Model 396NG .44 Special DA/SA 5-shot revolver.

It's a lightweight L-frame and the more I carry two guns every day I work at the gun shop, the more I appreciate lightweight but still potent handguns.

And though it's light, it's not too light to be a good shooter, with a comfortable rubber grip and a set of C&S sights, U-Notch Rear and Trijicon Tritium Big-Dot Front Night Sight. Even these tired ancient old eyes can see these sights.

And five rounds of .44 Special is far more better than five rounds of .38 Special, all day every day.

That big hole in the end of the barrel means a big old .44 caliber hunk of lead comes out it with ballistics that's even better than that favorite man-stopper, the venerable .45 ACP. Faster ballistics, more foot-pounds of energy, what's not to like about .44 Special? I love .45 ACP, too, but I love .44 Special more better.

On days I work up front in the shop instead of back in the bowels taking photos of guns for gunbroker, I usually wear a .45 and a .44, just in case some idiot decides again that a gun store is a good place to rob.

It's happened at the gun shop before twice, so it most definitely can happen again.

So now all I gotta do is save up or raise another $700 or so and I'll get to take my first S&W Nightguard home.

Ruger Bearcat finally comes home and is going to the range tomorrow

Today I finally paid off a stainless Ruger Bearcat .22LR single-action 6-shooter I had on layaway since May 25 at the gunshop where I work.

Somebody traded in a barely used Bearcat that doesn't have a mark on it and may not have even been fired. Let me quote Ruger on the Bearcat.

Understated Elegance. The Ruger® New Bearcat® is different from other single-action revolvers. Smaller, lighter, and based on older Remington® single-actions of the 1800's, it has a one-piece cylinder frame that also forms its compact grip. It has been described as "a mechanical jewel," and is the smallest and lightest .22 LR caliber single-action made by Ruger.

Compact and perfectly proportioned for .22 LR caliber ammunition, it is easy to carry and fits comfortably in a backpack or tackle box. Fulfilling the ideal of a smaller "kit gun" style .22 LR caliber single-action revolver, it is perfect for hikers, campers, boaters, small game hunters, or just about anyone who needs a dependable .22 LR revolver for the trail.

It's 24 ounces of stainless steel and rosewood with some of the best "understated elegance" I've ever seen. It's probably a bit too small for my big mits, but I think I can manage it. I'm hopeful I'll find out tomorrow at the range, if the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise. Even if the creek does rise.

 

And I'm betting it's gonna be just right for my three grandsons, all of whom are already big enough to shoot, plus my two granddaughters who will be big enough before I know it.

It's been so long since I've shot anything I might have forgot how. Grass to mow tomorrow and no doubt there'll be a poolful of friends and family, but if at all possible I'm gonna sneak off the range sometime. I just gotta shoot the little Bearcat.

Descendant of horse thieves creates excellent gun glossary of terms

Daddy always joked that the only royalty in our family was an uncle who got shot with a king up his sleeve.

Gun blogger My Ancestors Were Horse Thieves is certainly honest about his forebears. And he has also put together a truly excellent gun glossary of terms. He're my favorites:

ARSENAL - Any number of weapons higher than one according to the MSM

EBR - Evil Black Rifle.  See: "Tactical", "Shoulder Thing That Goes Up"

GUN FREE ZONE - More properly termed a Second Amendment rights denial zone.  Also a good place for car thieves to go gun shopping.

INSTEAD OF DOING SOMETHING - This is what most politicians do on a daily basis

JMB - John Moses Browning, inventor of every cool gun you've ever shot (probably)

MAKE SARAH BRADY CRY - Doing anything that the Brady Campaign would disapprove of.  Such as having fun. 

ONLY ONES - Law enforcement officers who feel that they are the "only ones" qualified to handle firearms.  It comes from a popular video of an officer uttering his famous last words.

And my top three:

• PSH - Pants Shitting Hysterics or Pants Shitting Hysteria.  More info on the types of S involved in PSH can be found here.
•  SHOULDER THING THAT GOES UP - An infamous quote by Carolyn McCarthy that does an excellent job of illustrating how ignorant of guns most gun banners actually are.
• THREEPERS - Supposedly the 3% of gun owners that are either crazy brave or just crazy

Feel free to add your own to the list. You're welcome.

I love God, guns, Old Glory and America -- and grits too

While I'm bragging on my gun photos, here's another one I really like.

It's a high-bright stainless Colt National Match Royal Stainless Gold Cup 1911 .45 and reflected on the bright polished stainless slide are two stars from the American flag we use in the gun shop for a backdrop on our gunbroker auctions.

If a Colt 1911 .45 and a couple of stars reflected from Old Glory don't make you want to stand up proud and say out loud "Thank God for America!" .... well then just sit down and shut the H--- up.

We started using the flag for a backdrop some time back out of patriotism. Plus the red, white and blue colors give you an excellent color register to indicate whether a photo has off-register colors. We don't have studio lights, just regular bulbs and florescent lighting, so sometimes we get color shifts.

But would you believe we have had complaints about using the flag to show off our guns? If you're one of those who gets your panties in a wad about guns and the flag, well, as I already said, just siddown and shaddup! I love God, guns, Old Glory and America -- and grits, too. And if you don't like it, you can kiss my grits.

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine -- and a woman with a 1911 .45 pistol

I love 1911 .45 pistols and I love good-looking women and I love taking photos.

And sometimes I get to love all three together at the same time.

I took the photo at right to illustrate a gunbroker auction for the gun shop where I work for a Kimber Ultra CDP II .45 ACP 1911 with Crimson Trace Lasergrips.

That's one of the gun shop family owners modeling the pistol, a young woman named Jennifer, with her hair hanging loose.

I'm just saying a small woman's hand holding a .45 pistol with her hair hanging down is just a beautiful photo, if I did take it myself.

And like all good photos, it has a very clear message: Do not mess with this woman!

Why Nashville, Tenn., had no looters during the recent flooding

One of my good buddies sent me this photo with the headline, Why Nashville, Tenn., had no looters during the recent flooding. My kind of people.

Who says beer and guns don't mix?

I think the guy in sunglasses on the left end of the sign has a S&W 629 .44 Magnum Hunter.

Stephen J. Cannell flubs facts about Charter Bulldog in LAPD cop novel

I'm reading "The Pallbearers" by Stephen J. Cannell, TV screenwriter and novelist, and it's a pretty good tale of an LAPD homicide detective named Shane Scully. I've read other Cannell books but this is my first in his series about Scully and I'll go find more after I finish this one.

With Louis L'Amour and Robert B. Parker no longer with us, I'm always glad to find something good to read.

But Cannell proved he's no Stephen Hunter by flubbing a gun mention. Scully goes to the rescue of a woman who is surrounded by four gang bangers about to pick her clean or worse. But the woman says she didn't need rescuing, showing him the Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Special Revolver she had her hand on in her purse.

"It subtracts up to six and there was only four of them," she tells Scully about the gang bangers.

Wrong. The Bulldog has only five holes in the cylinder. I'm no math whiz, but you can't get six shots out of five holes in a cylinder without a reload. BlueBook says thusly of the Charter Arms Bulldog, old manufacture.

BULLDOG- .44 Spl. cal., 5 shot, 2 1/2 or 3 (disc. 1988) in. barrels, wide trigger and spur or pocket hammer, checkered bulldog grips (walnut or neoprene), blue or electroless nickel finish. Disc. 1991, reinstated 1994. Disc.1996.

Same is true for new Bulldog manufacture, which adds stainless steel, one of which I have. Oh well, I guess all novelists can't be as accurate with their gun facts as Stephen Hunter. He's the best gun writer I've seen so far.

Gun shop sales and gunbroker sales slowing back to "normal"

The gun boom is officially over. Business has slowed to "normal" at the gun shop where I work and gunbroker is also slowed to a walk or even a crawl instead of a steady run.

We currently have 750 auctions running on gunbroker and for the past while we're getting few sales and tons of offers to trade old wore-out junk for our new or top-quality used guns. Thanks for the offer, but we'll pass.

Like the gentleman today who wants to trade his Winchester 70 .300 H&H Magnum for our Colt Cobra.

Now with all due respect, Winchester 70s are fine guns, but we've already got at least two or three used ones selling for less than $500. And the folks in our area don't do a lot of elephant hunting so there ain't much call for .300 H&H Magnum rifles.

And anything with the Colt pony on it is always a good seller, particular a fine double-action revolver like the Cobra. So let's think about this. Should be trade for a rifle we'll probably die with before we sell it for our Colt Cobra?

Don't think so.

I know Obama's busy with the gulf oil spill at the moment, but I wish he'd find time to say something mean about grabbing our guns. The gun business needs a shot in the arm or a kick in the pants right about now.

Bill Ruger Sr. rolls over in his grave again. Twice: 2 new LCR models

As Tamara and no doubt many other Smith & Wesson lovers have commented about the Ruger LCR, Bill Ruger Sr. has rolled over in his grave again. Twice.

Two new models of the Ruger Lightweight Compact Revolver are out, an LCR with Hogue Boot Grip and XS Sight System, pictured, and a .357 Magnum all-steel barrel-cylinder-frame version of the steel-alloy-polymer grip-frame LCR.

I'm a S&W lover also, but though it sounds like blasphemy to say it, the Ruger LCR does have a better trigger than a standard S&W revolver. And to add to the blasphemy, it's the same weight as an Airweight S&W .38, but shoots better and more comfortably. Shooting a S&W Airweight with +P loads is no fun at all, it's downright snappy and after a few rounds, painful. Not so with the Ruger LCR, it's shoots the hottest loads with no red hands to show.

And the first time I shot an LCR I discovered the iron sights were dead on the money with the Hornardy Critical Defense 110-gr. .38 Spl.+P load, my preferred carry ammo for .38s. Most S&W .38s are factory-sights zeroed for 158-gr. lead roundnose loads, standard law-enforcement issue of bygone days and not a very effective load. It's certainly not as good as the guaranteed-to-expand Hornady Critical Defense JHPs. (I don't know what you do if they don't expand. Dig 'em out of the victim's hide and send them back to Hornady?)

Anyway, I just handled and took photos of the Ruger LCR-BGXS model with boot grip and XS front night sight and it's just more of the same but better for the LCR. And the price with better concealment grips and night sight is still lower than a standard S&W Airweight.

The Ruger LCR hasn't really caught on at the gun shop where I work to seriously compete with S&W Airweight sales, but I bet it will sooner or later.

Here's our Ruger LCR-BGXS gunbroker auction link, where you can have your very own for only $440.

More guns in hands of Americans while firearm-death rate drops

P.S. to the N.C. crime rate vs. concealed-carry permits post below.

National statistics show gun possession is steadily rising while firearm-death rates are steadily dropping.

Conclusions: Obviously, both the population of America and the number of firearms in America have been increasing over the past 26 years. Additionally, the number of firearms has been, very slightly, increasing faster than the population.
On the other hand, firearm-related deaths have declined, despite a significant bump in the early 1990s. Those deaths have very slowly started increasing again in the past five years, but at a rate roughly commensurate with the population’s.
And on the third hand, the rate of firearm deaths in relation to both population and number of firearms has been steadily decreasing (with a few bumps, here and there) over the course of the 26 years graphed.
This post graphically demonstrates that the hypothesis that more firearms result in more firearm-related deaths is historically and demonstrably false.

 Need I say more?

N.C. crime rate decreasing while concealed-carry permits increasing

According to the N.C. Department of Justice crime report for 2008, the latest year statistics are compiled:

The rate per 100,000 people of Crime Index offenses reported to law enforcement agencies throughout North Carolina decreased 2.2 percent during 2008 when compared to the figures reported in 2007.
The rate of violent crime (which includes murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) decreased 1.3 percent statewide. Individually, the murder rate decreased 3.5 percent, the rape rate decreased 6.3 percent, the robbery rate increased 2.2 percent, and the aggravated assault rate decreased 2.7 percent.
The rate of property crime (which consists of burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft) decreased 2.3 percent across the state.
The rate for burglary decreased 0.4 percent and larceny decreased 2.7 percent. The motor vehicle theft rate decreased 7.0 percent. A property crime not included with the other Index offenses, the arson rate decreased 6.8 percent.

Meanwhile, as crime has been decreasing, something else has been on the rise in North Carolina. Since 1995, NC has been a "shall issue" state for concealed-carry handgun permits and the NC DOJ has also compiled carry permit records for the period of 12/1/1995 through 6/30/2009.

Regular Permit Applications: 290,406
Regular Permit (Valid Permits): 158,590
Regular Permit Applications Denied: 2,598
Regular Permit Applications Revoked: 864

So there's been 290,406 permit applied for in the total period, of which 158,590 are still valid, meaning that sligthtly more than half of the permit issued were not renewed for whatever reason, probably not reapplied.

And of that nearly 300,000 permits applied for, only  2,598 over the entire period were denied. The only reasons a permit can be denied are a criminal record or mental health problems that have caused a person to be legally judged dangerous to themself or to others.

And of that nearly 300,000 applicants, only 864 permits issued have been revoked for violations over nearly 13 years of permits being issued.

Statistics do seem to show that NC concealed-carry permit holders are not the wild and crazy cowboys that the lamestream media claim we are, now don't it? No "blood in the streets" in NC, except for the blood of the bad guys who have become victims of acute failure of the victim selection process by picking on concealed-carry holders.

Do you suppose those nearly 300,000 legal concealed-carry guns on the streets and byways of North Carolina might have has a little something to do with our decreasing overall crime rates? Ya think?

Village Pawn & Gun Shop Special triple-threat concealed-carry package

Sometimes we just have fun at the gun shop where I work.

Like our Village Pawn & Gun Shop Special triple-threat concealed-carry package.

It's a North American Arms .22 Magnum 5-Shot Mini-Revolver with a couple of kick-a$$ accessories installed, a LaserLyte red laser sight and a Laserlyte/Ka-Bar pistol bayonet.

It's the ultimate concealed-carry weapon.

Trouble looms and you pull out your persuader.

First you blind 'em with the red laser. Often the laser dot alone will make a bad guy decide he's had an acute failure of victim selection process.

But if that don't work, let 'em eat five rounds of .22 Magnum hollow-points.

If there's any fight left after that, finish it off with the pistol bayonet. A couple of inches of double-sided razor-sharp Ka-Bar steel has finished more than one fight.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Ruger LCP-TEX "Coyote Special" sets gunbroker record for fast sale

We have a new record for Gunbroker auctions posted for the gun shop where I work.

Today at exactly 3:23:10 PM I posted an auction for the new Ruger LCP-TEX, the "Coyote Special" in honor of Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

At exactly 4:04:02 PM today a gentleman from Nagodoches, Texas, bought that LCP-TEX. I ain't real good at math, but that's around 31 minutes more or less for an auction to sell. God bless Texas!

I gotta say all our best gunbroker customers come from Texas. They don't try to haggle down our already low prices, they just buy-it-now and pay up quickly. Hardly ever have any trouble from a Texas customer. Wish I could say that about some other states, which I shall not name to protect the guilty.

I thought a particularly nice touch for sales P.R. is what the distributor had Ruger stamp on the LCP-TEX boxes, "For Sale To Texans Only."

Here's my auction text:

New In Box: Ruger LCP™-TEX "Coyote Special" .380 ACP Double-Action-Only Semi-Auto Pistol, Model 03708, 2.75" black alloy-steel barrel, black alloy-steel slide, right slide white laser-etched "Coyote Special", left slide etched "A True Texan" and top of slide etched with coyote howling at the moon and a Texas State Star; black Glass-Filled Nylon frame with checkered grips with embossed Ruger logos, fixed sights, (1) 6-rd. magazine. Ships in factory carton with (1) magazine finger-rest extension, Ruger gun rug, fired cartridge, padlock, manual and registration card.

The special edition Ruger LCP is in honor of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who used his Ruger LCP to dispatch a rabid coyote which attacked his dog while the governor was out jogging. The factory box is marked "For Sale To Texans Only" but if you have the spirit of a Texan, we'll sell you one. 

Even if you ain't a Texan but just want to be one in spirit, you can have one, too. I relisted the auction and for as long as our supplies of LCP-TEX last, it can be yours for a mere $360 buy-it-now on gunbroker.com.

P.S. Auction no. 2 lasted a little over two hours and we sold another one. We got a hot one here with two Texans buying the first two Coyote Specials. Here's auction number three. Let's see how long it lasts.

P.S.2 Or should it be 3? Number three LCP-TEX sold shortly after number two and we're outa stock. Looking for more but none so far. Ruger has suddenly got a very hot special edition going.

A late D-Day salute to two cousins, genuine war veterans and heroes

I missed D-Day by a few days, but I just got some photos by email of my cousin Roger Moore from South Dakota, 88 years young and a veteran of Utah Beach on D-Day June 6, 1944.

That's me on the far right (appropriately as I'm politically somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun) and cousin Roger at center and my lovely daughter Layla and her son Nicholas next in line. Roger visited from South Dakota with his wife Delores and daughter Debbie and her husband Wayne.

We're chatting on the front porch of my sister's home in Olanta, SC, during our recent family get-together for Roger and family's visit here.

And I also met there cousin John Timothy Ratliff for the first time, that's him and his lovely wife Patricia in the next photo. Cousin Tim and Pat live in Florida and Asheville and he is a Green Beret veteran of my war, Vietnam. But he fought the real war in the jungles of Southeast Asia while I enjoyed three hots and a cot and liberty ports of call every 35 days.

The war in the jungle vs. aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer, USS Mullinnix, DD-944, are two totally different experiences. My hat is off to cousin Roger and cousin Tim, two genuine war veterans and heroes.

Unusual S&W Long Tom sports 10.5" barrel and adjustable front sight

I don't usually get tempted by Long Tom revolvers, but I just listed the longest of Long Toms I've ever seen and I gotta admit, it is tempting.

I generally like 4" or shorter barrels on wheel guns, but this S&W 29-3 .44 Magnum has a 10.5" barrel with a micrometer click-adjustable Patridge front sight. There's two firsts for me, the barrel length and the front sight, never seen either one before.

BlueBook makes no mention of a 10.5" barrel for the 29-3, but here it is. There is also no mention in the BlueBook listing of an adjustable front sight, but this one has no manufacturer's stamp on it so it leads one to think it is a factory sight. Who knows?

BlueBook on SMITH & WESSON : NUMBERED MODEL REVOLVERS (MODERN HAND EJECTORS)
MODEL 29-1 & LATER VARIATIONS (3 SCREW)
- .44 Mag. cal., 4, 6 1/2, or 8 3/8 in. barrel, eliminated top screw on sideplate and screw in front of trigger guard. Disc. 1999. 

I shall resist temptation for a couple of reasons, mainly because I'm flat broke. But if I was gonna buy a Long Tom, this one sure is tempting, plus it's even priced pretty reasonable for a S&W 29-3, a mere $700 buy-it-now price on gunbroker.com.

Let's retroactively call this one the Smith of the Week since I have no other candidates in mind so far.

Irwindale Arms 10mm Longslide Javelina is a hog-hunter's delight

I quit hunting decades ago and since the sweet wife and I settled into our home in Rockingham, NC, in 2002, I've turned into such a city boy that we even feed the squirrels. Seriously.

We've got a squirrel feeder in the front yard to feed the white squirrels in our neighborhood, but of course the regular gray ones pig out too.

But after all the gray squirrels that I sent to squirrel heaven during my hunting years, I figure they're due a break now in my "golden years."

But if I was going to hunt again, hog hunting is the kind of sport I could get into, the wild kind of course.

And if I was wanting to go hog hunting, here's the handgun for it we just purchased at the gun shop where I work.

It's a 10mm stainless Javelina longslide Hunting Model, made in 1990-91 by Irwindale Arms Inc. of Irwindale, Ca., the company that later was bought out by AMT and made the series of AutoMag pistols from .22 Magnum to .44 Magnum and larger.

BlueBook on IRWINDALE ARMS, INC. (IAI) : PISTOLS: SEMI-AUTO
JAVELINA
- 10mm cal., semi-auto, 5 (disc. 1991) or 7 in. barrel, 8 shot mag., Millett adj. sights, wraparound Neoprene grips, stainless steel, wide adj. trigger, long grip safety, 48 oz. Mfg. 1990-91.

If you're a hog hunter, this Javelina is just for you, only a mere $850 buy-it-now on Gunbroker.com

P.S. Too late, already sold. Damn that was quick. We musta had it priced too low. Live and learn.

Disassembly-reassembly of Para P12-45 monumental pain in posterior

Thanks to a friend who has Kimbers, I finally managed something Saturday I haven't been able to do since I bought a used Para-Ord P12-45 several months ago -- get the cussed recoil-spring/guide-rod assembly out.

I bought a pair of barrel-bushing wrenches. No joy.

I was talking to my friend about it and mentioned that the guide rod has a hole in it like the Ultra and Pro-size Kimber models and he suggested we try the Kimber slide-tool removal method.

So we bent a paper clip to improvise the slide tool and after about five minutes of fidding and a modicum of cussing with it, we had it apart. After cleaning and lube, it took us a half an hour and a lot of cussing to get it back together. Barrel bushing has got to be just so, the recoil-spring rear bushing has to be just so, the spring has to be just so and getting all three of those just so was a monumental pain in the posterior.

I've heard that having Para install their PXT power extractor will solve the jam problems I've had so I think that's my next step. I've contacted Para in Pineville to see what PXT installation will cost and if it's not too horrendous, I'll do it for the P12 and my P14, though I've had no problems with it. No way can I put up with what it took two of us to just to take the spring-rod assembly out of the P12 and then get it back in.

And every procedure or manual I've found to follow says nothing about a P-12 with a hole in the guide rod. We've got another one just like it at the gun shop with the same set-up, so it must be factory and not custom.

But unless I can get something done to make the P-12 more reliable than it has been, it's destined to be sold.

Hillary Clinton and the United Nations ain't got our guns -- yet

In case you've seen the emails and other "news" items circulating on the Internet that Hillary Clinton and the United Nations are going to take all our guns away, here's the latest from the NRA-ILA.

We continue to receive numerous inquiries regarding UN international treaties, and their impact on our Second Amendment rights.  The latest rumor making its way around the Internet claims that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually signed a UN small arms treaty.
Contrary to this widely circulated e-mail, Hillary Clinton has not signed any small arms treaty.  She could not have done so, in fact, because no such treaty has yet been negotiated. 
As we noted in an update from last November, the UN Arms Trade Treaty will be drafted between now and 2012, and even if signed, would not take effect in the U.S. until it was ratified by the Senate. 
Please rest assured that, as we said in November, NRA will be actively involved in this process and will oppose any treaty that would attempt to impose limits on our Second Amendment rights.  In the meantime, we urge gun owners to follow this issue in NRA's magazines and NRA-ILA's Grassroots Alerts.  We also urge gun owners not to circulate misinformation on this issue.

As always, don't believe everything you hear, especially via the Internet, and not all of what you see. This is the age of Photoshop.

A stroll down Smith & Wesson .22LR Revolver Lane

It's time once again for the Smith of the Week. This time let's take a stroll down Smith & Wesson .22LR Revolver Lane.

At top right, we have the S&W 17(No Dash), also known as the K-22 Masterpiece before Smith took away their revolver's great names and issued them nondescript number. This is a long-tom model with 8-3/8" barrel, all blue-steel with 6-shot cylinder.

BlueBook on SMITH & WESSON : NUMBERED MODEL REVOLVERS (MODERN HAND EJECTORS)
MODEL 17 (K-22 MASTERPIECE)
- .22 LR cal., K-frame, blue only, 6 shot, 4 (mfg. 1986-93), 6 (current mfg.), or 8 3/8 (disc. 1992) in. barrel. Disc. 1993, reintroduced 1996, disc. 1998. 

Next we have a new Classic, the S&W 18-7, which was known as the .22 Combat Masterpiece in days of yesteryear. The difference seems to be a heavier barrel than the Model 17, but still all blue and 6-shot with adjustable target sights.

MODEL 18 .22 COMBAT MASTERPIECE- .22 LR cal., adj. rear sight, 4 in. barrel, blue only. Disc. 1985.

Next is a S&W 34-1 nickel snubby, all steel with service grips.

BlueBook on SMITH & WESSON : NUMBERED MODEL REVOLVERS (MODERN HAND EJECTORS)
MODEL 34
- .22 LR cal., adj. sights in J-frame, improved I-frame and J-frame, 6 shot, 2 or 4 in. barrel, round or square butt, blue or nickel (disc. 1986) finish, this model was reissued for 2-3 years. Disc. 1991. 

Then we have a new S&W 317, alloy frame and 10-shot cylinder.

Then last we have a new S&W 617, all stainless and 10-shot cylinder.

Any questions? (Why is my layout so screwed up? Ain't got a clue. Hell with it, I'm T I D E of trying to fix it.)