Shooting – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Rule Four, Folks, Rule Four

Apparently some folks need a refresher: Know your target and what lies beyond it. A quick look on Google to asses the area shows it to be pretty rural, but it looks like there’s been recent McMansion activity. There’s about 800 yards of nothing between the two properties. The range must be recent because it’s not on satellite photos, so it’s hard to gauge how much care was taken in the range’s construction. The article talks about concrete cinder block barriers, ten feet high, between three shooting areas of about 30 yards wide, so clearly some effort went into what the article describes as a “makeshift range”. But if someone’s house got hit with enough force to break glass and lodge in a wall, it clearly wasn’t enough.Â If you’re shooting within 800 yards of someone’s house, you need to take extraordinary care to prevent errant rounds from leaving your range, and that goes double if you’re going to invite 30 people over for a class. If you don’t want to pay for, or do the work to make it safe, don’t do it.

Hat Tip to Common Gunsense, who seems a bit more hysterical today than usual: “Further, who needs ‘tactical firearm training’? What country do we live in again? Are we at war?” It’s called a free country lady, and different people have different ideas of entertainment, get over yourself and mind your own damned business.

We Are Happy To Have Inspired This

Barron Barnett celebrating the birth of his country by blowing up a small chunk of it. Awesome!

From the sound of the reverberations, I’m going to suggest the capabilities of any microphone recording device won’t do that justice.

Gaming the System on Gun Buybacks

We still have some buybacks in the Philadelphia area, but they mostly stopped giving away hard cash. Apparently Chicago hasn’t figured it out, since a pro-gun group managed to fund a summer shooting camp for kids with money they made turning in rusty pieces of junk. It’s already pissing off the right people:

â€œWe host the gun turn-in event on an annual basis to encourage residents to turn in their guns so we can take guns off the street and itâ€™s unfortunate that this group is abusing a program intended to increase the safety of our communities,â€ said Melissa Stratton, a police spokeswoman.

Just imagine if they took the money they saved off these stupid, feel good programs and actually put the money into traditional policing?

Latest from Lucky Gunner Labs

They wade into the 5.56×45 vs .223 debate. Some of the data they have discovered will surprise you.

London Olympic Shooting Venue

I feel sorry for our Olympic shooters this year. They must suffer with this eyesore of a venue.

Pictures are from a walkthrough featured on Dezeen which adds:

The shooting galleries for the London 2012 Olympic games are covered in spots that look the suckers of an octopusâ€™ tentacles.

The rest of their description actually focuses on the function of the buildings, so go read the whole thing if you’re interested.

A Ginned Up Controversy

Tam laments the firestorm created by two olympic swimmers posing with guns on a trip to California, and the ridiculousness peddled in the media as a result. Apparently they are being punished for this by being forced to return early, and even other shooters don’t really want to stand up for them:

“They all used them [the guns] responsibly and I think that’s where the line in the sand is here, that these guys allowed stupid photographs to be taken of them, one depicting criminal activity, and second of all unsafe activity with a firearm,” he said.

How about a nice “Have you people in the media all lost your bloody minds?” But then again, I suppose no one wants to risk the powers that be coming down on them. I don’t for a minute believe that the majority of Aussies have collectively lost their marbles. I’m sure if you polled people on this controversy before the media parade, the reaction would have been somewhere between “Meh,” and “So What?” This is a media and establishment generated outrage if I ever saw one. This is the establishment telling the little people how they need to think. So maybe the establishment needs to be taken to the woodshed and roughed up a bit.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the shaking of the bowcaster is a bit of an American thing. You don’t really see horizontal interpretive communities popping up, at least not that I can see, in other countries. I’m not speaking here of guns specifically, but where is the Aussie, British or Canadian equivalents of the Dan Rather takedown? I’d note that it was an American that took down the Canadian Government. Perhaps it is because we’re a culture that was born from revolution, or perhaps it’s that this country has exceptionally strong speech protections by world standards (defamation and libel suits are next to impossible to win here, whereas in other English speaking countries, that is not the case). Perhaps there is a whole community of bloggers, forums, tweeters and the like, forming all manner of interpretive communities that I’m missing, but if there is, I don’t notice it. If that’s the case, I’d say it’s time to start taking down some media figures that peddle this kind of nonsense.

Competitive Shooting

SayUncle ponders whether those who can’t shoot, blogÂ after getting beat by a law professor. There may be truth to this. I haven’t really been shooting since the job situation went crazy about two years ago, but even when I was quite active, and practicing and shooting regularly, the most I could muster was the middle of the pack in competition. To be a competent shooter doesn’t take a whole lot of practice. A trip to the range once a month or so will keep you competent. To be a good shooter, you’re looking at once a week. In my experience, to be a great shooter, you really have to live shooting, or just have a natural talent for is, which some people do. I can generally stay good without a whole lot of work, but I’ve never been willing, or had the time, to put in the work to be great, nor do I have the natural talent to get to the head of the pack without a lot of work to do it.

And so I blog.

What’s your experience in regards to the amount of work to go from just a good shooter, to a great shooter?

Oops

Apparently Roanoke County cops had some issues with an armorer not sticking a firing pin back in a gun. I’d also add to the discussion here that if I had someone work on my gun, I’d at least field strip the gun to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. All the more reason to learn how to do basic maintenance on your own. It kind of amazes me, given that police are far more likely to need their firearms than ordinary citizens, how little effort many put into not only competent shooting skills, but into basic firearms maintenance skills.

Trap Shooting in the Olympics

Our only athlete competing in this year’s Olympic Trapshooting games is a woman, Corey Cogdell. I have to agree with Wyatt, that Olympic Trapshooting will definitely be worth tuning in this year. Best of luck to Ms. Cogdell.

Hat Tip to Mr. Hippiesmite, who’s friend’s with my neighbor — the person that tipped me off to my bird-roosting-in-the-house woes.

Dueling with Wax Bullets

In New York City, around the turn of the century, after dueling had pretty much died out, a dedicated group of eccentrics dedicated themselves to keep the craft alive. The 19th century seemed to be full of rich eccentrics. For instance, I have a bird living in my wall, a Starling, that are descendants of about 20 birds released in Central Park about by Eugene Shieffelin 120 years ago. He was Chairman of the American Acclimatization Society, and he made it a society goal to introduce every bird species mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare to the Americas. Why? And Why Shakespeare? Maybe this is what happens when you combine money, education and boredom.