Petreaus helps a wounded 'Band of Brothers' soldier recover

General David Petreaus performed a miracle on the battlefield of Iraq as the leader that turned what appeared to be a sure defeat into a victory for our troops. But off the battlefield, Petreaus was instrumental in another miracle, when he uttered a single word that brought a wounded soldier back from the darkness and into the light. The word is the motto of the 101st Airborne, "Curahee!" immortalized in "Band of Brothers" by Stephen Ambrose.

Lieutenant Brian Brennan was severely wounded in Iraq and faced unbeatable odds but he made a remarkable recovery with a little help from that special Cherokee word.

Disprespecting the cross and Old Glory, idiocy in the news

Absurdity, thy name is ACLU, the Abusurdity Cult of Lawyers Union. Before the highest court in the land, we have the lastest case of anti-Christian absurdity pursued by the ACLU, their attempt to force removal of a small cross on a lonely hill in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. -- It would be easy to miss among the yucca and Joshua trees of this vast place -- a small plywood box, set back from a gentle curve in a lonesome desert road. It looks like nothing so much as a miniature billboard without a message.

But inside the box is a 6 1/2 -foot white cross, built to honor the war dead of World War I. And because its perch on a prominent outcropping of rock is on federal land, it has been judged to be an unconstitutional display of government favoritism of one religion over another...

"It's just a little cross in the middle of nowhere," said Wanda Sandoz, who with her husband Henry is the cross's unofficial caretaker. Henry built the cross that currently occupies the spot -- there have been three -- and the Sandozes say they are fulfilling a WWI veteran's dying request to look after things.

Hiram Sasser, a lawyer with the Liberty Legal Institute, which represents the Veterans of Foreign Wars and assists the Sandozes, agreed.

"I always say you have to risk life and limb to be offended by this cross," he said.

But don't despair that absurd idiocy is the watchword of the day. There are still a few bright spots in the land of the free and the home of the brave, such as around the flagpole where Old Glory waves in front of the VFW Post in Valley Falls, N.Y.

VALLEY FALLS, N.Y. -- This is a red, white and blue village that is still seeing red after a flag that flew over Iraq was burned by a 21-year-old.

The payback? He was publicly humiliated last Sunday by being duct-taped to the flagpole of Veterans of Foreign War 1938 say he desecrated Sept. 18.

Nick Normile, post commander and Vietnam War veteran, said he's been flooded with calls from media outlets since the events of last week received attention from local TV stations and newspapers. He's been asked to go live on a veterans radio show program from Tennessee, another radio show from Chicago and even received a call from NBC studios in New York City.

But Normile said he's not planning to let the story get any more attention and has declined appearances.

"I'm not trying to be some martyr or hero," Normile said. "I just did what I thought was right."

The 21-year-old appeared intoxicated when he entered the VFW post on the day of the alleged act, Normile said. When the man was refused service for not having a proper ID, he ran out in a fit of anger. He cut the rope of the flag, which had once flown over troops in Iraq, and ignited it with a cigarette lighter.

Two days later, Normile said the man was forced to sit in the sun pilloried for six hours as townspeople gathered across the street for a youth soccer picnic. A sign was hung around his neck detailing what he had done. It recalled the Middle Ages punishment, subjecting him to public humiliation and scorn.

"He'll never disrespect the flag again, I can tell you that," Normile said on Friday.

That'll larn 'im, as we say down South. Maybe we oughta tie a few ACLU lawyers to the rocks in the Mojave Desert and let the buzzards teach 'em a lesson about disrespecting the cross.

And finally, I can't embed the video here, but take a second to click on this link to watch Does God exist? A young German schoolboy uses impeccable scientific knowledge to rebut his professor who argues God does not exist, or that God is evil, two obviously contradictory views.

When should you carry a concealed handgun?

What's the last thing you check before you go out the door as you leave home? Car keys? Wallet? Is the door locked? How about, "What am I going to carry today?"

I first got my concealed-carry permit in 2006 and did not carry at all for a while. Then I started carrying occasionally, just when I thought I needed to. Then I thought it through and eventually decided to apply a truth I learned as a Boy Scout. The Scout motto is "Be Prepared."

Since nobody knows what's going to happen when you leave home, how can you be ready to confront a deadly threat? Be prepared by never leaving your home or anywhere unarmed.

Here's a short answer to that question from a Sig Sauer Academy senior instructor.

"I only carry when I think I need to . . ."

Have you heard this before? I have, many times. Recently I was working with a large group of law enforcement personnel. We were having a casual conversation about what we carry "off duty" while out and about. I was surprised to hear the answers (no I wasn’t). Many of them stated they only carry when the think they'll need it. After about the third time I heard this I had to ask., "So, how do you know if you are going to need it?" The responses ranged from, "Well, if I'm going into a bad part of town", or, "If I'm going to be out with the family". The reality is that we will never be presented with a criminal intelligence update that tells us the day or time we may need our firearm. So how do we mitigate not being prepared for a deadly force encounter? We do it by carrying all of the time. Yes, this includes running out to the corner store on Sunday morning to pick up the paper or hitting the deli for a sandwich on your day off. Make the commitment to yourself right now. Never be accused of not being prepared. Especially when your life or the lives of others may depend on it. A wise NCO once said to a new paratrooper standing in the door of an airplane, "Son, you're about to become either a training success or a not too amusing anecdote."--Adam Painchaud, Senior Instructor

Here's the latest commercial from SIG SAUER Academy, "Training for Armed Professionals and Responsible Citizens." They have satellite classes in various locations around the country with the closest to me being Midland, Va. Maybe one day I'll be able to attend one of them.

Rediscovering God In America II: Our Heritage

The current trend in our nation is to cast out God and Christianity from every corner of our lives, as if our founding fathers had believed in freedom from religion instead of freedom of religion. If there is any hope of turning this ungodly trend around, we need to rediscover the faith of our founding fathers.

Citizens United Productions has released the trailer for its latest documentary Rediscovering God In America II: Our Heritage, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich.

Would you listen to a friend who lied to you frequently?

I've never had trouble sleeping, but my sweet wife does so I sympathize with insomniacs. So the headline at World magazine today caught my eye: An insomniac's Psalm 103: Verse 1

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!

I notice first of all that the psalmist is talking to himself. The whole psalm is, strictly speaking, a note to self—except for verses 20, 21, and 22a. Like the psalmist, I am learning the indispensability of self-talk. My fears talk to me all day, and so the truth must also. Someone once said, “What would you do to a friend who lied to you as often as your fears have?” Indeed.

I think it was Mark Twain who said almost all of the things he has worried about never happened. And that's what worrying is, listening to our fears, which are usually lying to us. True, sometimes our fears do warn us of troubles we can avoid. But most often, fear is just a big liar.

I'm not a worrier usually, but also I don't frequently bless the Lord with all that is within me. And we all should every day, every minute. If we keep our focus on faith and not fear, we'll all be better off this day and every day.

Rookie President unsure about 'right strategy' to win the war

One "first" of the Obama administration may well turn out to be the most significant. This is the first administration in our history with neither the President or Vice President having served a single day in our nation's military service. And now the fat's in the fire for sure as the Washington Post has leaked a confidential report to Obama from the general in charge of the war in Afghanistan, wherein the general pleads for more troops and warns of failure without them.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a confidential report that without additional forces, the war against insurgents there will end in failure, The Washington Post reported Monday.

McChrystal's grim assessment of the war was published on the Post's Web site, with some portions withheld at the government's request.

"Although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress, many indicators suggest the overall effort is deteriorating," McChrystal wrote in his summary.

The report was sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates in August and is now under review by President Barack Obama, who is trying to decide whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

While asking for more troops, McChrystal also pointed out "the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy." The U.S. needs to interact better with the Afghan people, McChrystal said, and better organize its efforts with NATO allies.

The Pentagon and the White House are awaiting a separate, more detailed request for additional troops and resources. Media reports Friday and Saturday said McChrystal has finished it but was told to pocket it, partly because of the charged politics surrounding the decision. McChrystal's senior spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the report is not complete.

"The resource request is being finalized and will be sent forward to the chain of command at some point in the near future," Smith said from Afghanistan.

Obama denied asking McChrystal to sit on the request, but he gave no deadline for making a decision about whether to send more Americans into harm's way.

Obama said in a series of television interviews broadcast Sunday that he will not allow politics to govern his decision. He left little doubt he is re-evaluating whether more forces will do any good.

"The first question is, 'Are we doing the right thing?'" Obama said. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"

Lemme see if I got this straight. The general in charge has sent the Prez a report outlining his strategy and calling for more troops. But the Prez, whose strategic expertise starts and ends with being a community organizer in Chicago, has no military experience at all and has never run nothing but his mouth, this idiot who is now our Commander-in-Chief isn't sure if trying to win the war in Aghanistan is "the right thing?" He's still trying to determine "the right strategy?"

God help us. Our troops are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FBI is arresting terrorists in New York and Colorado and meanwhile what is Obama doing? Investigating the CIA because they poured some water up the noses of three terrorists responsible for 9/11.

Pardon the hell out of me if I'm not too optimistic about the future of our failing government.

And permit me to outline the winning strategy for all wars since the beginning of time, as outlined by a Confederate general. The winning strategy is to "git thar fustest with the mostest."

From a tiny ACORN, a mighty scandal continues to grow

Our eloquent Dear Leader suffered a teleprompter glitch Sunday during his "grand slam media blitz" as the Noo Yawk Times terms his rounds of all the so-called mainstream media talk shows.

Little Georgie went off topic and asked the Prez about the ACORN scandal, about which our Dear Leader knows "nothing, I know nothing..." After all, it's been years and years since he was ACORN's lawyer.

Obama sat down with George Stephanopolous on ABC's This Week and had the following response to the ongoing ACORN scandal:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But have your — have some of your allies made it easier for — handed your opponents some ammunition, like ACORN, for example…

OBAMA: Well, look, the — you know, I think that — are there folks in the Democratic camp or on the left who haven’t — haven’t always operated in ways that I’d appreciate? Absolutely.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congress said they should cut off all funding for ACORN.

OBAMA: Is — is — is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: … all funding for ACORN. Are you for that?

OBAMA: Is that true on the other side, as well? Of course that’s true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA: You know, it’s — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

Boy, there's some Clintonian eloquence if I ever heard any, and I quote "Is — is — is…" I suppose that translates the ACORN scandal depends on what the meaning of "is" is. Got it?

And if you're yearning for some background about ACORN, don't miss Doug Giles giving the straight poop on how his daughter Hannah and another citizen journalist exposed ACORN for the shysters they are. Giles explodes all the conspiracy theories with the simple truth of whodunit.

And today, Ken Blackwell explains how ACORN is caught between a rock and a hard place as they threaten to sue Fox News for reporting on the scandal that was ignored by the MSM.

In the wake of Fox News reporting on the unfolding ACORN scandal, ACORN is now threatening to sue the network. Now that Fox is actually breaking news on this story by showing new videos, ACORN might just do it. Fox News should pray that ACORN does sue, because it would blow the doors off this story, possibly destroying ACORN and erupting into a political scandal in Washington.

As bizarre as it seems, ACORN is threatening to sue Fox for reporting on these incriminating videotapes. Glenn Beck broke news with a new tape on Monday, and Sean Hannity might be doing the same shortly. Evidently, ACORN is accusing Fox of coordinating with the filmmakers, arguing that somehow these reports make Fox legally liable.

ACORN’s unavoidable problem, however, is that suing Fox News would give Fox — or any other media organization — the ultimate Christmas present: a legally enforceable way to compel ACORN to give up all its secrets.

Andrew Breitbart discloses his role in the ACORN scandal and promises more to come.

Everything you needed to know about the unorthodox roll out of the now-notorious ACORN sting videos was hidden in plain sight in my Sept. 7 column, “Katie Couric, Look in the Mirror.” ACORN was not the only target of those videos; so were Katie, Brian, Charlie and every other mainstream media pooh-bah.

They were not going to report this blockbuster unless they were forced to. And they were. What’s more, it ain’t over yet. Not every hint I dropped in that piece about what was to come has played itself out yet. Stay tuned.

Pass the popcorn. This is gonna be good. Breitbart, Beck, Hannity, Giles and O'Keefe are just getting started.

Why I'm glad Friday was a stressful day at the gun shop

I realized while I was laying around resting up yesterday that I should be honored that Friday was such a stressful day for me at the gun shop. With most of the crew off setting up for a gun show, the Griffin family owners trusted me to run the gun shop while Mama Griffin handled the pawn business.

Daddy Griffin came strolling in about noon, which is usual. Why not? He's the daddy rabbit who started the business 20-some years ago. He can work when he wants to, or not. And after arriving, he stayed in the back office unless he was needed. And their daughter took the day off almost completely, coming in at 4 p.m. with her little girl.

So I handled the gun business solo virtually all day, fielding local calls and calls from gunbroker sales all over the country, plus helping in-store customers select and purchase guns, ammo, whatever they needed.

And the main job is just being vigilant. Believe it or else, there are some hoodlums dumb enough to try to rob a gun store. It happened at our store recently when Mama and Daddy Griffin were there alone one Saturday night. They were loading up some extra guns to take to a gun show. Daddy Griffin was unlocking and locking the door as he loaded guns in the back of his truck.

The store was obviously closed at 9 p.m., but two hoodlums tried to barge in anyway. Daddy Griffin spotted them sprinting across the highway, heading for the door as he went back inside. He didn't want to be caught fumbling with the keys as they arrived, so he left the door unlocked and retreated inside while drawing his Glock. The two hoodlums came in with the one in front not showing a gun.

Our video surveillance system showed the hoodlum behind him was drawing his pistol while hidden behind the one who came in first. Daddy Griffin greeted the two hoodlums with a Glock .40 and a few choice words. They suddenly decided they had urgent business elsewhere.

We told law enforcement about the incident and were able to identify the pair as two local hoodlums, 18 and 19, who were out on bail after being charged with a home invasion-robbery nearby.

I'm honored that the Griffin family will trust me to get the job done alone in the daylight hours.

Mainstream media lies and Marines die in Afghanistan

Mainstream media lies, Marines die. How many headlines have you seen in the so-called mainstream media about "civilian casualties" in the war in Afghanistan? Every time our troops kill some Taliban terrorists, the Taliban PR spokesman rushes to the nearest cell phone and calls the AP to report "civilian casualties" and guess what happens? AP and other outlets swallow the lie, again and again, and report it as truth. Earlier in the war, the Taliban wore out the same lie about our troops attacking "innocent wedding parties" until they realized they didn't even have to invent some fancy lie when the media would report anything they said as truth.

And now, our new general in charge in Afghanistan has decided to buckle under to the B.S. from friggin' United Nations lawyers and changed the rules of engagement so our troops don't get help when they need it. And we see the results immediately. Mainstream media lies. Marines die.

NATO-led forces are investigating the death of four Marines in eastern Afghanistan after their commanders reportedly rejected requests for artillery fire in a battle with insurgents, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

Tuesday's incident was "under investigation" and details remained unclear, press secretary Geoff Morrell told a news conference.

A McClatchy newspapers' journalist who witnessed the battle reported that a team of Marine trainers made repeated appeals for air and artillery support after being pinned down by insurgents in the village of Ganjgal in eastern Kunar province.

The U.S. troops had to wait more than an hour for attack helicopters to come to their aid and their appeal for artillery fire was rejected, with commanders citing new rules designed to avoid civilian casualties, the report said...

The incident comes after the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, issued new restrictions on the use of military force and air raids in a bid to prevent civilian deaths.

I'm so damn mad I could spit.

What's the best handgun? What's the most effective pistol caliber?

What's the most effective handgun for self-defense? What's the most effective handgun caliber? Those are two of the most-often asked questions by those considering purchase of a handgun or concealed carry of one.

There are almost as many different answers as there are different people. But as an NRA Basic Pistol instructor and a N.C. Concealed Carry Handgun instructor, I have to answer both those questions as succinctly as possible within a few minutes during an 8-hour class.

Exhibit one, the handgun penetration and expansion chart for various calibers at right, showing the results in ballistic gel tests, which is how the FBI judges effectivness of handgun cartridges. As you can see, there's precious little difference between 9mm, .40 S&W, .357 Sig and .45 ACP, the main choices for modern handgun calibers. They all penetrated a minimum of 12 inches in ballistic gel (the best comparison to human flesh) and they all expanded, creating quite similar wound tracks, the red areas.

And now exhibit 2, from noted self-defense expert John Holschen at InSights Training.

Get a gun/cartridge combination that goes bang every time you pull the trigger and which you can shoot quickly and accurately. No common defensive handgun cartridge will quickly and reliably stop a human being who is committed to causing serious bodily harm, unless the bullet from that cartridge is applied to the correct anatomy. When the bullet is applied to the correct anatomy ANY of the 3 will serve equally well (9mm, .40, .45).

Holschen is a genuine expert, whose experience has been tested on the battlefields of the world.

John Holschen is a frequent guest instructor with InSights. John served for over 20 years in the Special Operations and Intelligence branches of the U.S. Army. He is a former US Army Special Forces Weapons Sergeant and Special Forces Medic. John taught at the JFK Special Warfare School and was the Senior Hand to Hand Combat Instructor/Master Instructor for 1st Special Forces Group.

Or as I heard a retired cop said about his choice of a .32 pistol for off-duty and backup carry, "It don't matter what you shoot 'em with as long as you hit 'em between the shirt pockets."

Reliability and accuracy are numbers 1 and 2 concerns for an effective self-defense handgun. If you take care of those first, you can argue about 9mm vs. .45 vs. whatever to your heart's content. And if it don't go bang when you pull the trigger, or you don't hit what you're shooting at, and hit it in the right spot, it won't matter if you're carrying a .500 caliber wheel gun.

A small victory in Florida; a huge retreat in eastern Europe

Victory! Sanity broke out in a courtroom in Florida yesterday proving once again that God is in His Heaven listening to the prayers of His saints here on earth. The two Florida school officials charged with the heinous offense of saying grace over a meal on school property -- with no students present -- were found not guilty by the judge. Even the Anti-Christian Lawyer's Union spokesman in Florida had to agree that the judge made the right ruling in applying the law.

Two rural northern Florida school officials were found not guilty of violating an injunction against praying in school, a Florida judge ruled late Thursday in a contentious school prayer case that spurred a reaction from Congress earlier this week.

Hundreds of people waiting in the rain outside of a federal courthouse in Pensacola cheered just after 7:30 p.m. when U.S. District Judge Margaret C. "Casey" Rodgers ruled that Frank Lay, principal of Pace High School in Santa Rosa County, and his athletic director, Robert Freeman, didn't intentionally violate her order to not offer prayers at school-sponsored gatherings.

"We're very pleased," said Mathew Staver, spokesman for the Liberty Counsel, the Orlando-based legal group that represented the two men. "We'll now focus on getting the underlying order set aside or overturned by a higher court."

Glenn Katon, director of the Florida American Civil Liberty Union's religious freedom project, said the judge "made an honest evaluation of the facts and applied the law."

But the battle goes on. My prayers now will continue to be that the ACLU will join ACORN in the dustbin of history, along with the Communists. And speaking of commies, guess who's on the rise again? Communism in Russia may be officially dead, but the raw naked power for evil underlying the defunct Communist regime is not only alive and well, but won another round yesterday.

And guess who handed over the victory on a silver platter? President Barack Hussein Obama abandoned the missile defense shield plans for eastern Europe yesterday, effectively allowing the Russians to resume work on erecting the Iron Curtain the eastern Europeans tore down in 1989.

Wesley Pruden of The Washington Times (who unlike our rookie President and like me is old enough to actually remember the bitter lessons of the Iron Curtain and Communist rule of eastern Europe) spells out what this historic action of retreat by an American president means.

Barack Obama looked Thursday to the lesson of Hiroshima. Sometimes one bomb won't do it. Nagasaki had to follow to "reset" relations with Japan. Six decades later, the Apology Bomb the president dropped on Moscow during his visit last May didn't do it, either. He had to drop another one Thursday.

When Mr. Obama, eager to "reset" relations with Russia, decided to abandon arrangements carefully worked out by the previous administration to base missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland, he dropped amends the size of the H-bomb. Surprise was so important he only told the Czechs and Poles about it in a midnight telephone call so they wouldn't read about it first in the morning papers.

Then, while the Czechs and Poles were marinating in the bitter juices of double-cross and humiliation, the president made the official announcement on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of eastern Poland, the first fruit of the infamous Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. To be fair, Mr. Obama may not have been aware of the history - important to the Poles, but to a community activist from Chicago, not so much. This president is about sweet talk, not history. Maybe the young president-to-be was home with a tummy ache the day his high-school history class learned about World War II, the Cold War that followed, why that history is so important to the Poles, or why Americans revere Winston Churchill, or the fact that America is made up of only 50 (not 57) states. You can miss a lot by playing hooky.

Accusing a president of selling out an ally is a lot more serious than merely accusing him of lying, impolite as that may be, but the Czechs and the Poles can be forgiven if they think "sell-out." What's scary about this is not how it was done but that it was done at all, that the president and his men (and women) were acting in well-meant good faith. Said the White House: "We ... welcome Russian co-operation to bring its missile defense capabilities into a broader defense of our common strategic interests."

Never before has an American president put the defense of the country's "common strategic interests" in the hands of an unreliable rival's "defense capabilities."

Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. And as G.K. Chesterton said, before you tear a fence down, it's best to ask "Why it was erected there?"

The eastern Europeans took matters into their own hands after 75 years of Communist rule and tore down the Iron Curtain. President George W. Bush led the way to getting the Czech Republic and Poland into NATO and started the process of building a missile defense shield that would deter primarily Iran with it's growing nuclear ICBM capability, but also future Russian evils.

Ask Georgia and the Ukraine about future Russian evils. Georgia has already been invaded by the Russians and the Ukraine is staring down the muzzles of Russians tanks today. And history is getting ready to repeat itself as BHO becomes the Chamberlain of our time, appeasing the Russians. But I'm sure BHO has no idea who Neville Chamberlain was, the prime minister of England who appeased a dictator named Adolf Hitler, green-lighting his launch of World War II.

Take two minutes of your time to consider how important this issue is for our national security.

How to shoot straight: A TV cop who actually gets it right

Wow. I'm impressed. A TV cop show that actually gets something right about handgun safety.

At right is Kyra Sedgwick, star of The Closer as an assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, demonstrating one of the basic rules of gun safety.

If the photo doesn't show this rule clearly enough, let me state it as clearly as I can: Keep your booger hook off the bang switch!

Now Kyra, as the polite Southern lady she portrays, wouldn't put it so crudely, but keeping your finger off the trigger until you're actually ready to shoot is one of those "duh!" rules that gets broken all the time in TV shows and movies about cops and crooks. And while I'm on the topic of Hollywood idiocy, notice something else about Kyra's pistol technique. She's actually holding her pistol with the sights at the top, where her lovely eyeballs can align the sight picture properly.

Turning pistols sideways only works in the movies. In the real world, it's almost a guaranteed way to miss what you're shooting at. But there's always some good in the bad as in this case, it keeps all those idiot gang members and other crooks who watch movies from shooting straight.

I could be a nit-picker and point out that Kyra's two-hand technique leaves much to be desired as she has neither arm locked, making her stance neither Weaver -- which locks one arm -- or Isosceles -- which locks both arms. Her relaxed pose has both arms unlocked, but let us give her the benefit of the doubt and say she's checking out the threat and holding her handgun in the ready position. When she goes into shoot mode, hopefully one or both arms will get locked.

But I won't be a nit-picker about Kyra's technique. At least she's got two of three things right.

Freedom to pray goes on trial today in Florida courtroom

Fellow gun nutz and readers of God, Guns & Grits, it's time to pray. This morning at 9 a.m. two school officials in Florida go on trial for the heinous offense of saying grace over a meal at a school with no students present, despite what the lede says in The Washington Times story today.

Two Florida school officials facing possible jail terms for praying in the presence of students arrive in court Thursday enjoying the support of more than 60 members of Congress.

Some of those members, who signed a letter of support and sent it to the two school officials Monday, took to the House floor Tuesday night to denounce what they called a "criminalization of prayer" that "tramples on the First Amendment rights" of Christians.

"The Founding Fathers would be appalled" at the trial of Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and his school athletic director, Robert Freeman, said Rep. Jeff Miller of Florida. His Pensacola-based district includes Santa Rosa County, where the lawsuit is based.

The 9 a.m. trial "is one of the first times we've literally had the potential for the criminalization of prayer in the United States of America," said Rep. J. Randy Forbes of Virginia, chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus.

If the two men are found guilty, "there will come a day," Mr. Forbes predicted, "when the speaker of this house will be hauled into federal court and threatened with jail because she dares to stand at that podium where you stand tonight and ask the chaplain to start our day with the prayer."

Mr. Forbes, Mr. Miller and Rep. Mike McIntyre, North Carolina Democrat, were signatories to the Monday letter to the two educators, assuring them that "we are standing with you in prayer and support as you face your trial." More than 60 members of the House have co-signed.

I have been praying that this case will be the cause that hoists the Anti-Christian Lawyers Union by its own petard. The ACLU has been the bully on the block against everything Christian for far too long. It's about time they get slapped down and this case is so ridiculous on the face of it, I can't seen how any sane judge would not throw it out. But sane and judge may not necessarily go together. Pray that sanity will break out today in that courtroom in Florida.

And I am proud to say we've got 60 members of Congress who have gotten into this fight on behalf of the two Christian gentlemen who have done nothing illegal except in ACLU idiocy.

God bless Mike McIntyre of my home state and the other 59 members of Congress who have stepped up to the plate to defend God and country and the liberty most of us still hold dear.

This S&W 686 .357 Magnum is just too pretty to shoot

Never thought I'd ever say this, but I've seen a Smith & Wesson revolver I don't want to buy. If you've been reading my ramblings, you know I'm a tried and true Smith guy. I love Smith & Wessons, revolvers, semi-auto pistols, all of 'em. I've had a few I sold or traded and I've regretted every one I let get away. At present, I'll have to think a bit to run down my S&Ws on hand.

Undoubtedly my favorite is the S&W 29-3, the Dirty Harry model .44 Magnum N-Frame 6-shot revolver with 4" barrel. It's a tad large and heavy for carry, at least for me. Famous gunwriter Clint Smith totes one as a pocket pistol, but he's a lot stronger and tougher than me.

Two of my favorite carry pistols are S&W M&Ps in .357 Sig, the commander-size 4.25" barrel and the subcompact size 3.5" barrel. And I also have a S&W 22A-1 .22LR target pistol.

The ones I regret are a S&W 19 .357 Magnum K-Frame revolver, a S&W 669 9mm subcompact and a S&W 21 .44 Special N-Frame 6-shot revolver, all of which I foolishly sold or traded away.

I feel like breaking out into a Sinatra song, "Regrets, I've had a few..."

But now I have done the seemingly impossible. Seen a Smith revolver I really don't want. It's a special edition distributor exclusive that will likely be purchased only by Smith collectors. It's the S&W 686 Gold-Plated Black Bear Tracks .357 Magnum that I listed on gunbroker today for the gun shop where I work. It can be yours for a mere $999.95.

As you can tell by the descriptive title and the photos, it's a stainless-steel S&W 686 with a special twist, gold-plating all over the place: "satin stainless steel frame with Black Bear Face etching on right side, gold-plated nonfluted 6-shot cylinder with Black Bear Tracks etched around face, gold-plated trigger, gold-plated hammer, gold-plated cylinder release, gold-plated ejector rod, checkered walnut fingergroove grips with silver S&W medallions" the auction says.

We also have listed on gunbroker a similar distributor exclusive with etched black bear tracks and face on the stainless finish, the S&W 629 .44 Magnum Bear Backpacker 2.5" Ported Barrel and I'd love to have it because it's intended to be actually shot by backpackers in bear country.

But this gold-plated 686 is not only too pretty to shoot, I'd hate to think what it would look like if some fool, like me, should actually shoot it. That fancy gold-plating would probably peel off like tin foil. Or even if it didn't, can you imagine trying to clean burnt powder off gold plating?

If the gunpowder didn't blow it off or burn it off, you'd scrub it off trying to clean up afterward.

Totally impractical, but then it's not intended to be practical, this is a collector's piece. And if somebody gave it to me, I wouldn't keep it for my collection because I don't have one. I don't collect guns, I shoot guns. And if by some miracle I did get one of these, I'd sell it so fast your head would spin. And take the money and buy me a genuine stainless 686 or another nice Smith.

Colt Python joins 'Big Gun' blowout sales on gunbroker.com

The "big gun" blowout continues. This morning when I checked gunbroker sales overnight, lo and behold a Colt Python .357 Magnum in gorgeous Colt blue with a 6" barrel and Pachmayr grips has sold for a mere $1200.

Nobody does deep blue like Colt. God only knows why the company ever stopped production of their double-action revolvers. But they did and now Pythons, Diamondbacks, Anacondas, King Cobras and others Colt "snakes" are going for premium prices.

And though not a "big gun" like the Python, a Ruger GP-100 .38 Special in blue with 4" barrel also sold overnight for a more pedestrian price of $375. We've had the GP-100 in inventory for a while and the boss decided to list it on gunbroker to see if we could move it out. Voila, one GP-100 sold. Ruger has discontinued the GP-100 in .38 Special only, with all current models now in .357 Magnum, which of course will also chamber and fire .38 Special.

I'm sure when I get to work and take the beautiful blue Python out of the Colt baby doll counter where it resides, there will be mixed emotions. Glad for a sale but sad to see it go. As the family members who own the gun shop have said before, they aren't tired of looking at the Python yet. It joins some other "baby dolls" that have departed the Colt counter in recent days.

But we've still got a pretty good collection of classic Colts, Smiths and other gems listed among our current 427 new and used guns on gunbroker. There's even a few Colt "snakes" left.

I don't know what's fueling this spate of high-dollar guns being sold in recent days, but let the "big gun" boom roll on.

Two smokin' hot "Big Gun" sales days on gunbroker

You may have heard the big "gun boom" business is over. Don't believe it.

It has slowed down some from the frantic frenzy since shortly before Obama got elected.

But the past two days have been absolutely insane with the 400+ guns listed on gunbroker for the gun shop where I work.

Sales have been steady of a few guns a day with an occasional big purchase sprinkled in among a lot of lesser ones.

But suddenly starting Saturday night, the "big guns," those for $1K and higher, are selling like hotcakes. Very expensive hotcakes.

On Sunday morning, I was amazed to see we sold a matched pair of Ruger Talo Vaquero John Wayne Stainless .45 Colt revolvers that are engraved as John Wayne Commemorative issues.

It's a fairly big deal to sell one of those engraved beauties, but a matched pair? For $2100 smackeroos!

The insanity continued today with the sale of not one but two World War II German P08 Lugers.

First this morning we sold a Luger P08 1938 S/42 Mauser 9mm Matching Serial Nos for a mere $1450.

Then later today, we sold a 1937 Mauser for $2000 after having not just one, but two potential buyers showing interest. One pulled the plug before the other one could get it.

Then as I was calling it a day this evening and checked gunbroker one last time, some fellow gun nut shelled out $1K for a very nice Colt Mustang Plus II Mk. IV Series 80 .380 ACP SA.

Toss in a few sales for other guns of lesser value, like a $400 Walther P22 Nickel/Pink .22LR DA Semi-Auto Pistol and it all adds up to perhaps the biggest day my shop has had yet on gunbroker.

And this follows a pretty good week last week with two $1,000 sales, a Winchester Super X2 12 Ga 3.5" DU, Made in Belgium and a SIG P226R Elite Stainless .40S&W Nite Sights, SRT plus a Weatherby Mark V Sporter 7mm Rem Magnum Bolt-Rifle for $900 and a Armalite AR-10 A4F 308/7.62mm 20" Bl OD Green Stk for $1350.

I don't think the boom's over just yet.

Obama's advertising icon coming back to haunt him

Work, or as the late Maynard G. Krebs used to shriek "Work!" has been taking up all my spare time lately so my apologies to both or maybe all three of the regular readers of my blog.

I taught my first N.C. Concealed Carry Handgun class this Saturday and I'm still recovering. In addition to being mentally exhausting, it was hot at the firing range and I was sweating like a hog. And obviously I didn't drink enough fluids because when I got to my car to leave, this massive cramp hit my right calf like a hot knife. I'm still limping around today. Excuses, excuses.

Anyway, after working at home today posting firearms on gunbroker for the gun shop where I work, I finally found time to look at this 8:09 minute video about Barack Hussein Obama's iconic logo. Bad news is it seemed to bamboozle enough people before the election to get him elected.

But good news is now that voters are beginning to wake up and realize what a shoddy bill of goods they bought, that same logo is becoming a swiftly growing symbol of protest and ridicule.

Pajamas MediaTV sez:

Barack Obama ran an unprecedented Presidential campaign - utilizing the power of design to help secure the seat of the President of the United States of America. However, his iconic emblem, the ever present "O", holds more power than even Obama knows. Bill Whittle points out the dangers of branding an ideology with an icon and how, perhaps, the powerful symbol will be used against the very man it built up. - http://www.pjtv.com

Sounds like poetic justice to me. Live by advertising image, die by advertising image. You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Another politician from Illinois said that once upon a time. Haven't heard Obama quote that.

Reminds me of one of Dave Barry's better lines. What does the "O" in the O'Possum's name stand for? The last thought that goes through the poor dumb critter's brain when he sees the headlights of an oncoming vehicle while crossing the highway, "Oh hell! I'm a goner now!"

Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, 2 strikes, Obama swings...

The dust has settled after President Obama's "big speech" to "rescue" his healthcare "reform." The quotes are appropriate because the speech wasn't big, just more of the blah, blah, blah he's been blathering in 28 previous "big" speeches on healthcare. And the "rescue" obviously failed as even his supporters can't find a single member of Congress whose vote has been changed.

And as to whether his healthcare socialism plan will be "reform," well only in Obama's mind, certainly not in the minds of the vast majority of Americans, who rank changes in our healthcare system way down their priority list on urgent matters that the President should be "fixing."

Truth is, Obama has proven absolutely incapable of fixing anything since he moved into the White House, and a lot of stuff that ain't really broke, like healthcare, top his Mr. Fix-It List.

The Washington Post, which always tries to put the best spin on whatever nonsense comes out of the White House, had this gloomy headline this morning: Details Still Lacking On Obama Proposal, White House Unclear on How Some Far-Reaching Goals Would Be Met.

One day after President Obama pitched his plan for comprehensive health-care reform to a joint session of Congress, administration officials struggled Thursday to detail how he would achieve his goal of extending coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans without increasing the deficit.

To use Obama's own baseball analogy, his "big speech" to the joint session of Congress was the bottom of the 9th, two outs, nobody on base and two strikes down. And what drew the only chuckle of the night from Congress during the "big speech"? When Obama admitted what the WaPo says this morning, "details still have to be worked out." He's got it all figured out and he's ready to pass this bill, except for one minor detail. How are we taxpayers going to pay for it?

So Obama points to center field with his bat, takes a mighty swing at the final pitch and ...

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

But though there is no joy in Mudville or out there in the leftwingnut stands, there will indeed be joy all across the land in the hearts and minds of Main Street America when this farce is over.

And the irony of this crash-and-burn administration thus far was pointed out by one of the panel members on Fox News before the big speech Wednesday night. I think it was Stephen Hayes who said that polls had shown a slight uptick in public support for the healthcare reform bill during the recent 10-day period when ... wait for it ... Obama was on vacation.

So Mr. Narcissism who so loves the sound of his own voice that he's given more "big speeches" thus far in his presidency than any previous occupant of the White House, is in fact his own worst enemy. The more he talks, the more people distrust him. In fact, Obama is giving a whole new twist to the "bully pulpit" of the presidency. The more he talks and the more he blames all who disagree with him of being "bullies," the more he exposes his own paranoia and bullying ways.

And the more enemies he makes in Congress and across the land with his bullying ways, the more this old saying applies: You ain't paranoid if everybody really is out to get you.

He's fast becoming the bully pulpit in reverse. Keep on speechifying BHO. You're doing great.

Why Obama's healthcare reform plans are going nowhere

Fox News won't let me embed the video, but here's a link to Brit Hume's commentary tonight on why President Obama is having such a hard time selling his "urgent" plan to "fix" healthcare.

Britt lists the long litany of big issues facing our nations, two wars under way, the continuing recession/depression and many other genuine crises, then asks: Why is Obama doing so little about all the big stuff and focusing all his energy on healthcare reform when most Americans place that issue far down the list of their top priorities? The answer is this guy could care less about what most Americans think or care about. It's all about him and what he wants to do to reshape our government and our nation into his own image, that of a leftwingnut amateur who thinks he knows everything but really hasn't got a clue about how to pour pee out of a boot. God save our nation.

Now here's a video I can embed, Jack Webb and his sidekick on Dragnet, Harry Morgan, give Obama "just the facts" on his plans to socialize America.

MSM anti-military lies exposed again in Afghanistan

Anti-war, anti-military media leftwingnuts make me ashamed to admit I spent 30+ years as a photojournalist, reporter and editor for newspapers. I guess I should take the AA approach, "I'm John Myers and I'm a reporter. It's been 1,456 days since I wrote a news article."

Cases in point, among many current, is the Associated Press decision to publish a photo of a dying Marine in Afghanistan, despite the wishes of the Marine's parents and even ignoring a plea from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for "common decency." The AP ain't got none of that.

And then there's the New York Times reporter who rushed to the scene of an attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan where U.S. and German troops allegedly killed "innocent civilians." The Taliban has told that same old lie so many times since the war started, you'd think maybe the clueless media would finally stop believing it, but they believe it because they want to believe it.

And when the Taliban kidnapped the NYT reporter, guess who came to his rescue? British commando troops rescued his sorry carcass, but in the process one of the British troops was killed. But the NYT's rescue story focuses on the reporter's translator who was killed in the rescue instead of the British soldier who gave his life. I refuse to link to the NYT, but here's the gist of the story from The Washington Times.

KABUL -- British commandos freed a New York Times reporter early Wednesday from Taliban captives who kidnapped him over the weekend in northern Afghanistan, but one of the commandos and a Times' translator were killed in the rescue, officials said.

Reporter Stephen Farrell was taken hostage along with his translator in the northern province of Kunduz on Saturday. German commanders had ordered U.S. jets to drop bombs on two hijacked fuel tankers, causing a number of civilian casualties, and reporters traveled to the area to cover the story.

So what about those "civilian casualties" claimed by the Taliban? Same old lie told once again.

Here's the facts about that from The Weekly Standard blog by Ulf Gartzke.

Friday’s deadly air strike on two Taliban-hijacked tanker trucks, which was called in by German Bundeswehr forces and carried out by USAF fighter jets, has prompted a sudden barrage of domestic and international criticism vis-à-vis Berlin’s handling of this particular incident and, by implication, the Afghan mission in general. At a press conference in Berlin Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was unusually blunt in hitting back at her critics -– including key NATO allies like the United States and France –- and made it clear that she opposes making premature judgments and jumping to conclusions before all results of the on-going military investigation into potential civilian casualties, etc. are known. Just to recap, the Bundeswehr had called in the night-time air strikes after a source said that the Taliban would use the hijacked tankers in suicide attack on the nearby German military base in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz region.

In an interesting development, SPIEGEL Online just published an interview with Kunduz governor Mohammed Omar who strongly defended the Bundeswehr’s actions. Governor Omar singled out the German top commander in Kunduz, Col. Georg Klein, by stating that he “made the right decision at the right time and acted in a very level-headed way” when calling in the U.S. airstrike.

Omar visited the German military base in Kunduz on Monday. He said he didn’t know how many civilians were killed in the air strike. “But the Germans have the support of the population. We didn’t receive any of the complaints one usually gets in cases where civilians are killed.”

Eyewitnesses said there were 60 armed Taliban on the scene along with 15 to 20 other people. “But at half past two at night, no normal civilians would dare to go out in this area, which is more than four kilometers from the nearest village,” said Omar.

Anyone in the vicinity of the fuel tankers must have been criminal or a supporter of the Taliban, he said. The US criticism of the attack appeared to be a gut reaction, he added.

Gut reaction? How about a gutless reaction? The entire mainstream media ain't got enough guts among 'em to string a fiddle. And they cause a gut reaction with me. 'Scuse me while I go barf.

Can you pass the 'Citizen's Guide to Firearms ID' test?

I shoulda saved it but I didn't when I was clicking around the other day and saw this photo of a cop holding up an AR-15/M4 variant, which some clueless journalist had labeled in the caption as an "AK-47 assault rifle" used in a crime somewhere.

I worked as a journalist for more than 30 years and stupidity about firearms is just one of the many failings of the vast majority of the leftwingnuts that populate the media these days. And they can't spell either.

Anyway, I stole the image at right from Fark.com where it was used to poke a bit of fun at the clueless about guns.

So let's use it for a Gun IQ test. I'll go first. Starting at top left, we have a genuine AK-47 7.62x39mm then an AR-15 .223/5.56mm. Either could be semi-auto or full auto.

Second row is FN PS-90 5.7x28mm semi-auto bullpup carbine (or perhaps the full-auto version) and then the Israeli Uzi 9mm submachine gun, could be full-auto or semi-auto.

Third row, Barret .50 cal. semi-auto sniper rifle (or perhaps Armalite, certainly I got the type and caliber right) and then a Walther PPK or PPK/S .380 ACP semi-auto pistol. It's hard to tell the two apart without a ruler.

Third row is a CZ-75 9mm semi-auto (or one of the many clones of that great pistol) and a Russian RPG launcher with the rocket-propelled grenade it launches (or maybe a Chinese copy).

Fourth row is some kinda pepper spray device, don''t know for sure. And last could be a Plymouth Valiant, but that's just a guess. It is a genuine klunker and I seem to associate that awful shade of puke green/blue with the Plymouth Valiant. Now you give it a try.

Sig P250 9mm Compact Nickel Slide is tempting deal

Dang, just when I figure I'm gonna lay low for a while on purchasing handguns (before my wife kills me) the gun shop where I work gets this great deal on Sig P250 9mm compact pistols with a nickel-plated slide.

I guess free enterprise is at work here as the price has dropped significantly on the P250 since it was first released. Prices started out well above $700 but have been dropping since.

We have this same model listed on gunbroker with a camo polymer frame for $675 and now we're competing with ourselves with this great deal on the nickel slide model for only $485.

The P250 is a double-action-only pistol, unlike the classic Sig pistols which are all double-action/single-action. And the response from the buying public has been a bit lukewarm up until now. But with a price drop like this, I imagine demand will rise quickly.

One of my co-workers at the gun shop bought one of the camo models and likes it a lot. And it's a great concept, buy one any size or caliber and then change the polymer grip frame, slide and barrel to a zillion different combinations in 9mm, .40S&W, .357 Sig or .45 ACP in subcompact, compact or full-size.

At prices like this, even the old die-hard Sig classic lovers like me may have to come across. I've got several DAO pistols already, two Glock 10mm, G20 and G29; two S&W M&P .357 Sigs, commander size and compact; and a Steyr M9A1. So the DAO Sig P250 isn't off-putting to me.

It's just that I really love the Sig traditional double-actions. My two P229 .357 Sigs are my absolute favorite pistols and my next acquisition will be a Sig P220 .22LR I tried out over the weekend. Converting it to a .45 ACP Single-Action-Only Sig P220 is the follow-on plan.

After that, a P250 with nickel slide may be next.

What's better than a Sig Pistol? Three Sig pistols!

One of my favorite gun writers, Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch, says if you have a gun you really like, get another one just like it.

Well, I can't afford to get another Sig Sauer P229 .357 Sig SAS Gen 2, which is both my most expensive handgun and my favorite. But when the gun shop where I work bought a used Sig P229R .357 Sig at a recent gun show, that was close enough for me. The R stands for rail, which my SAS Gen 2 does not have, being strictly a concealed-carry pistol. And the P229R also has a couple of features the SAS doesn't have, a stainless-steel barrel and guide rod.

You'd think on such an expensive pistol as the SAS models, Sig would at least give you a staineless-steel guide rod instead of plastic. And the SAS barrel is Nitron-black finish, though it is stainless steel under the black.

Anyway, that's the P229R in the top photo and the SAS Gen 2 in the second. It does have lots of bells and whistles the P229R is lacking, night sights, stainless slide, fancy P229 Elite wood grips, Short Reset Trigger and of course the Sig Anti-Snag SAS treatment on the slide and frame, smoothing out all the sharp edges.

But there ain't nothing wrong with the new-to-me P229R, which has quickly become my second-favorite Sig pistol. It's what Sig calls a CPO, Certified Previously Owned, meaning it was a law-enforcement trade in that was completely refurbished by Sig.

• Before receiving its Factory Certified Pre-Owned status each pistol is stripped, refinished, refitted with original factory parts where needed, cleaned and lubricated, function tested and hand-inspected by a certified SIG SAUER armourer.

If it can pass the Sig factory armorer's inspection, that's more than good enough for me.

And the third photo is very likely destined to become my third favorite Sig pistol. It's a gently used Sig P220R .22LR pistol which some idiot traded in at the gun store.

It's one of a new series of pistol Sig calls their Classic .22s. Buy a Classic .22 Rimfire and you get a $400 coupon to buy the full-caliber slide, barrel and recoil system plus a magazine to covert the .22 into whatever caliber the frame is designed for. In this case, it's a P220 Single-Action-Only .45 ACP which comes with no decocker and ambi safeties. Which is just exactly perfect for a lefty like me. So I get a great .22LR pistol for training and plinking and also what is perhaps the best .45 ACP pistol on the planet, IMHO, including custom 1911s that cost multi-thousands.

All three of these Sig pistols went to the range with me and a shooting buddy on Saturday and we burned up a bunch of ammo and had a bunch of fun. I also took along my customized Glock subcompact G29 10mm (fourth photo) because my shooting buddy has a full-size G20 10mm and wanted to see how the G29 shoots. He loved it.

But this was also his first experience shooting .357 Sig pistols and guess what? This former "Gotta be .45 or 10mm or I won't have it!" guy has decided there is another caliber he loves.

Finally the last photo is my Sig P229R after I got her all cleaned up following the range trip and installed a set of Hogue Pau Ferro grips on her. She dresses up real nice, don't she?

(P.S. The unnamed shooting buddy referred to demands photo credits. OK, he took the first four photos. With my excellent digital camera. Set on "Auto" which makes it foolproof, even for this fool. And I'm leaving him unnamed because I outshot him so bad it would be embarrassing to name him. But I'll give you a hint: His first name is Jerry and his last name is Andrews.)

Zeroing the S&W K-38 Target Masterpiece is work and fun

It's somewhat of a Labor Day analogy to say it took a bit of work to get my S&W K-38 Target Masterpiece Model 14-3 zeroed properly with my jacketed hollow-point load of choice. As I noted earlier, work ain't work if you're having fun.

The defense load I chose is the new Winchester Bonded PDX1 Jacketed Hollow Point Personal Protection .38 Special +P 130 Grain. Gee whiz Winchester, what a mouthful of a name!

But according to the reviews I've read this really is a new, improved defense round and Winchester will be retiring their Ranger law-enforcement SXT ammo and replacing it with this new PDX1, so it must really be good stuff.

So I bought a box and headed to the range with the 14-3, thinking it shouldn't take too much work to get it dailed in properly since I had already zeroed it with CCI TMJ 125-grain .38 Special +P.

Wrong again. Every load is different and though it may have been only 5 grains different in weight, the point of impact shifted a few inches with the PDX1. So I slowly dialed it in with the Bomar target sight rib the previous owner had installed on my 14-3. Emphasis on the word slowly.

The clicks on this Bomar sight can't be any more than 1/8" if that. But slowly, a click or two at a time, I brought the impact down and right until it was right on the money. Trouble was the clicks moved it so slowly, I blew a whole box of 20 rounds at more than $1 a round to get it zeroed.

I finally got it zeroed with that 8" bullseye target shown, shooting from a bench rest at 10 yards. The upper-left small bull was the final test with two shots hitting together.

Oh well, I work in a gun store and we sell more ammo with plenty of the PDX1 in stock at the moment.

And it ain't work if you're having fun, which is exactly what shooting my 14-3 is. But I gotta admit, it's a lot more fun shooting it with cheaper ammo. I also took along some of the cheap stuff and me and a shooting buddy enjoyed shooting that stuff up, too.

Now I gotta find me an old Smith snubby with a trigger like this 14-3 if such a wonderful .38 like that can possibly be found for a price I can afford.

Labor Day Thought: Work ain't work if you're having fun

I was raised on a farm where my daddy raised tobacco, cotton and the whole roster of produce crops, as well as chickens and hogs. The tobacco and cotton were cash crops, the rest we ate.

I thought about my daddy as Labor Day approaches and the lessons he tried (and sometimes failed) to teach his middle son, who was and is pretty lazy when it comes to manual labor. The chief one is: it ain't work if you're having fun. I not only didn't love farming, I hated it. Cutting okra pods in the hot sun in July was the worst. That stuff seemed to grow right before your eyes and just walking down the rows made me itch. Even cropping tobacco or picking cotton all day in the hot sun wasn't as bad as cutting okra. I still won't eat okra today, not fried, not boiled, not any kinda way.

I remember promising the Good Lord when I was about 10 that if He would let me grow up and get off that farm, I wouldn't never be no dirt farmer. I kept my end of the deal and God kept His. To this day, I've survived 62 years without ever having any desire to plant stuff and see it grow.

But daddy did teach me lots of stuff that "took." He taught me how to hunt and fish, both of which do require quite a bit of work ever since Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden and the critters of creation stopped coming when Adam called. You can't toss a hook in the water and call out "Hey you! Yeah, you, the big bass, come over here and bite my hook!" And you can't climb a tree stand and holler out, "Hey you! Yeah, you, the big buck with the nice rack. Step out into the open and hold still for a minute while I line up my sights." Hunting and fishing don't work that way. But if it did, that would take all the fun and challenge out of it anyway.

That's the way life is, a challenge, and I have learned in my many years that you can enjoy work, but the key to it (duh!) is finding work you enjoy. I've worked as a photojournalist for newspapers, a web designer for myself and for small businesses, a community college teacher, a technical writer/photographer for industry and now as a gun store salesman and gunbroker.com webpage specialist, using the writing, photography and web design skills I've developed in a life of work. This last job is the best of all the ones I've had in a long career since I graduated from college in 1975 because it's not only using all my skills, it's more fun than anything I've ever done. When you're a gun nut like I've been all my life, a job in a gun store is the best there is. Plus the gun store has supported me in becoming an NRA Basic Pistol instructor and a N.C. Concealed Carry Handgun instructor, so I can add teaching those skills and knowledge as well.

And something else I've learned in my many years of labor. Unemployment is no fun at all. Been there, done that and didn't care for it. I can honestly say it's a good day on a Monday just as much as a Friday. Life without labor would really be no fun at all. But it sure helps to love what you're laboring at and on this Labor Day, I'm the most grateful guy in the universe for my job.

'Fear and Loathing' anti-gun news from Obama's Press Corps

If you get your "news" from the so-called mainstream media (AKA Obama's Pet Press Corps) then you probably heard about the guy in New Hampshire who threatened Obama with a handgun at church and the white guy in Arizona who threatened him with an assault rifle.

Only problem with the reporting of those two "events" is the facts don't support the reporting. The guy with the handgun was nowhere near Obama and Obama didn't come to the man's church. And the man was wearing a handgun because Obama's union thugs had attacked him.

And the "white guy" in Arizona with the assault rifle? Actually he was black and the truth also not reported is the whole "event" was staged by a radio shock jock to get some cheap ratings.

The Washington Times takes a look at the facts vs. the so-called reporting in an editorial:

In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a gun, William Kostric, joined an Aug. 11 health care protest. This was blocks away and hours before Mr. Obama's town-hall meeting in that city. Mr. Kostric was given permission to be on church property where the protest occurred and was not at the place the president visited. What most of the coverage left out was that Mr. Kostric didn't carry his gun only for the protest; he legally carries a gun with him all the time for protection.

While the media regularly used terms such as "hotheads" to mischaracterize the situation, the coverage ignored that union members who opposed the protest had attacked Mr. Kostric and a friend, kicking, pushing and spitting on them. Despite violence against him by Mr. Obama's supporters, Mr. Kostric did not draw his gun or threaten anyone.

On the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric asked, "Are we really still debating health care when a man brings a handgun to a church where the president is speaking?" Deliberately or not, she got the facts wrong. As we know, Mr. Kostric did bring a gun to the church, but the president was not there and never was scheduled to speak there. Mr. Obama spoke at a separate event at a local high school at a different time. Not letting facts get in the way of her hysterical story line, Ms. Couric linked Mr. Kostric's gun to "fear and frankly ignorance drown[ing] out the serious debate that needs to take place about an issue that affects the lives of millions of people."

In another case in Arizona, a black man staged an event with a local radio host and carried a semiautomatic rifle a few blocks away from another Obama town-hall meeting. According to the radio station, the staged event was "partially motivated to do so because of the controversy surrounding William Kostric." This occurrence was not an example of an outraged gun-toting Obama protester, but a stunt to garner attention for a shock jock. Of course, this inconvenient truth was ignored by most news outlets.

MSNBC misrepresented the facts to try to back up a bogus claim about racism being behind opposition to Mr. Obama's agenda. On Donny Deutsch's Aug. 18 show about the Arizona town-hall meeting, the producers aired a clip of the anonymous black man carrying the so-called assault rifle -- but the network edited the tape so the man's race was obscured. Truth be damned, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer said, "There are questions whether this has a racial overtone. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists." Another commentator on the same show worried about the "anger about a black person being president." The supposed result: "You know we see these hate groups rising up."

If you must read a newspaper daily, I strongly suggest The Washington Times as one reliable source and of course Fox News as the only media outlet worth watching on TV.

Sig Sauer offers 'Cash for Klunker Handguns' as trade-ups

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging for a message from one of our valued advertisers (in my dreams) Sig Sauer:

SIG SAUER - Gives you $200 "CASH For your KLUNKER^* Handgun"
Purchase a new SIG SAUER® P220®, P226®, P229®, 1911, SIG556 pistol, or SIG556 rifle from your dealer’s inventory from September 7th through November 30th, 2009, and SIG SAUER will give you $200.00 for your old KLUNKER* pistol or revolver.

Now there's a cash for klunkers program I can support. The wife and I briefly considered trading in her high-mileage Chevy Blazer for something better on gas during the recent guvmint economic stimulus plan for the nation's auto industry unions. (When it comes to "saving jobs" no group of workers ranks higher with the Obama administration than labor union members.)

But we just couldn't bring ourselves to take the ol' Chevy out behind the barn and shoot 'er in the head. She still runs good, gets fair to middlin' mileage and just because the federal guvmint wants to give you a welfare payment, is that any reason to take it? We decided the answer was "no" so we kept the Chevy off death row.

So Sig Sauer takes the idea and runs with it. Only problem I have is none of my handguns are klunkers. And I can't find a barely functioning piece of junk at the shop and use it for a trade-in because we have no "klunkers' at the gun shop. All our guns are there because we bought 'em or accepted them in trades and we don't take in no junk.

But if you've got a klunker, here's your chance to trade it on a genuine new Sig Sauer. Go for it!

Hope for old rockers everywhere: Levon Helm goes gospel!

My favorite rock band will always be "The Band." They haven't played together since their breakup in 1978 and they never will do so again in this age. The brown sepia-tone photo at right was the cover of their 1969 album, their second, which was simply titled The Band. It is widely acclaimed as their "masterpiece" and shall forever be known to their fans as The Brown Album.

From left is Richard Manuel, piano, drums and lead singer; Levon Helm, drums, mandolin and lead singer; Rick Danko, Bass, violin, guitar and lead singer; Garth Hudson, Lowrey organ, piano, keyboards, saxophones, accordion, horns; and Robbie Robertson, lead guitar and song writer.

Yes, you read that right, this group had not one, not two but three lead singers, Manuel, Danko and Helm, and they were all great. Helm did more lead singing than the others, but Manuel and Danko could hold their own against any rock singer of that time or now.

They broke up when Robertson decided he was tired of touring in 1977 and their final concert was filmed by Martin Scorcese as The Last Waltz, which is still known as the greatest rock movie of all time.

I still love their music but there's a tinge of sadness every time I listen to an album. Two members are already gone. Richard Manuel took his life in depression during a brief reunion tour in 1986 with four of the members, minus Robertson. Rick Danko died of a heart attack, much too young in 1999.

Garth Hudson is still making music solo and Levon Helm lost his voice for a while due to throat cancer, but has now healed is back making music also. His latest album (I'm an old fart, so I still think of CDs as albums) was a birthday present for me at 62, titled "Electric Dirt."

And what a joy Levon's new album is for me personally as a Christian. I'm listening to it now as I type and can hardly believe my ears. Old rocker Leon done "got religion!" Several of the tracks on Electric Dirt are out-and-out gospel tunes, such as Move Along Train, Golden Bird, White Dove, When I Go Away, Heaven's Pearls and I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free.

And even the other tracks have a gospel tinge. The old rocker's best days are ahead of him.

There's hope for anybody and Levon Helm joining the ranks of the heaven bound is good news for the whole world.

I can hardly wait to see what I pray will be the long-awaited reunion concert by The Band when they get together just inside the Pearly Gates and jam for a thousand years.