Unexpected Gun Control - Inflation...

...is shooting down my ability to buy guns or a least the guns I want as often as I would like. I would have thought that the law of supply and demand would have meant that the prices of guns would have dropped under President Trump as ammo has done. Yet, that seems not to be the case, in fact from what I have seen, while ammo prices have dropped markedly now that Obama is out of office and less folks seem to be panic buy (thus increasing availability of ammo) at least some gun prices have gone up.

Take for example a pistol I bought on Halloween 2016, just over 1.5 years ago. The price was $369.99 plus $9.99 for shipping or $379.98 total. I had been considering giving it to my son and transferring it to his FFL when I drove down there. Did not happen as NY State gun laws are so convoluted I am not certain if that would be legal or not. I would have shipped it but since UPS requires next da air for handguns, the cost of shipping and transfer fees making that idea ridiculous: shipping at approximately $107; FFL in NY $50; county PD to remove from license $10; FFL in AR $25 for a total of $192!

So, I thought of buying him one or at least giving him a new one minus what 'he' would have had to pay for shipping and transfer fees (cause I sure was not about to pay for that) of the one I already own. Anyway, the cost of a new Rock Island Armory 'Rock Standard FS -  45ACP M1911-A1 FS Tac - 51431' (their nomenclature for the pistol) from the exact same place where I got it, for $369.99 plus $9.99 shipping, is now selling it for $479.99 plus that same $9.99 shipping charge or a total of $489.98. Wow that is a $110 increase or about 22% more in price! While shipping fees seem not to have been affected by inflation - the gun price has skyrocketed. Of course, I realize that dealers change their prices now and then and that another dealer might have a much better price. So, I took a look over at https://gun.deals; more specifically at this page: https://gun.deals/search/apachesolr_search/Rock%20Island%20Armory%2051431.

The lowest price shown, at various gun dealers, was one for $419.99 but that was a bit deceiving. When I went to the site with that price, they were offered at that price  but only if you bought two. If you bought just one, the price went up by $10 to $429.99. Now that did not seem all that bad until I saw that shipping to my area would be an additional $30.96 for a new total of $460.95. That's a $80.97 raise in price. Still better than the current price at the place I originally got mine but also still much more expensive than the one I got just over a year and a half ago.

While I cannot say, and do not believe for a moment, that this is happening with all guns - I have noticed a similar phenomenon with some other firearms as well. Prices just seem to be going up, up and away. That's got me wondering - is it just the few guns I have wanted lately that seem to be going up in price? I checked on the prices of another gun I had bought recently. The current lowest price I could find, using that same website, for a Marlin 1895 GBL was $599.90. I picked one up for $513.97 back in July 2017 - a mere 10 months ago. I don't know what you think but I think a price increase of $85.93 in less than a year, for a $514 item, is pretty friggin high being it is an almost 17% increase. My pension has certainly not increased anywhere nearly as much, in total, in the 6.5 years I have been retired.


Oh well, I suppose it is a good reason to keep working part time in retirement since you can rest assured I will not allow it to stop me from exercising my RKBA.

All the best,
Glenn B

Obveeuslie You Done Not Past Spelling & Grammer Klass...

...so no congrations fer yu.

 

Do people really fuck up that badly with basic English; if so, are they the same ones who will become our future politicians.  Heaven help us - PLEASE!

All the best,
Glenn B

What Royal Wedding???

I being the American Patriot.

All the best,
Glenn B

Camo That Works - Almost...

 

...but even if it really doesn't work, at least its worth a chuckle.

 

 

All the best,

Glenn B

A Link To Happiness...

...for manly men. Go to this link to view 63 Years of Playboy Calendar Models from 1954 through 2016. Yes, that supposedly means that you can view every Playboy calendar model - I'll kinda say it again - every one of them.

http://myplaymates.club/1954

A hat tip and my everlasting thanks to Herr Rich M for that link. To him I say: Das ist sehr gut, mein Freund! Danke.

All the best,
Glenn B

Watching Out For Motorcyclists

 I have seen a lot of signs like the one above on the side of country roads, or on stickers and decals, stuck to other vehicles or in bar room windows and so on. Yet, I have never seen a biker post a sign saying watch for cars or for kids crossing or for anything else on the road other than their bikes. To tell the truth - I am sick of them.

When I drive my car along a street, road or highway: I do not look out for bikes or bikers in particular. I look for every damned thing on the road including semi-trucks, box trucks, flatbeds, commuter buses, school buses, railroad crossings, SUVs, large cars midsized cars, small cars, Asshole err Smart Cars,  motorcycles, trikes, deer, bears, box turtles, pedestrians, bicyclists, potholes, uneven pavement, ice patches, puddles and so on. I prefer to try to see all hazards so as not to hit, or otherwise conflict with, any of them. 

I am sick and tired of bikers demanding I watch out for them - especially the ones who drive like arsehats by driving 3 or more abreast; those doing wheelies on an interstate highway or any roadway; the ones who race on public roadways on their rice burners, those driving down a quiet residential street at 60 mph; the ones who weave dangerously in an out of traffic or ride the lane marker between lanes in heavy traffic or ride on the shoulder of the road to pass traffic and so on. You know the type, don't you: The ones who think they own the road and who do not look out for anything yet who want us to look out for them - the same ones who are against helmet laws. They need to grow up and start obeying the traffic laws, wearing helmets and driving responsibly. If they did so then we would not have to look out for their sorry asses as much as they demand we do if only because they would be easier to spot when driving lawfully and respectfully.

As for the ones who obey such laws - you guys are a whole lot easier to spot and less likely to wind up in an accident caused by you or by the other guy.

Me, I am just going to keep looking out for everything.

That is all,
Glenn B

Charity Fraud Detection

All the best,
Glenn  B

Dah - Use The 'Other' Door

All the best,
Glenn B

The True Racist Trump Caught In Action

All the best,
Glenn B

Something You Don't See Too Often Nowadays

 

 

A man with an afro.

All the best,
GB

#METOO - Ha-ha-ha-ha, hearty ha-ha!

Going to be a classic.

All the best,
Glenn B

They May Be Dummies But...

...the folks who sell dummy rounds certainly are not - certainly not when they are charging up to $70.99 per box of 50 9mm dummy rounds (price source). Dummy rounds are inert rounds without  primers and lacking any gunpowder so they cannot be fired. Thus, they can be used in several different types of firearm training scenarios such as malfunction drills, one handed loading drills, testing shooters to see if they are anticipating recoil and so on. If you are not familiar with dummy rounds, and are a shooter, you are missing out on using an invaluable training aid.

As I noted above though, they are not inexpensive. A typical box of 9mm practice ammo can be had for around $11.00 plus or minus a dollar or two. Yet, dummy rounds - that lack any gunpowder and do not have primers and are essentially a bullet in an off colored empty shell casing, or are a solid piece of plastic, or are a more complex Snap Cap with plastic and brass body and an internal spring mechanism to absorb the impact of the firing pin - are way more expensive that actual live rounds. I suppose it somewhat has to do with supply and demand and I know that they are not very high in demand. When you consider that the price I quoted above for a box of 50 9mm dummy rounds means they are selling for almost $1.42 for a round it is no wonder that more folks do not purchase them. The thing is, you can use them over and over again to a certain extent before they break or otherwise become unusable and as I said they are an excellent training aid.

From left to right: metal dummy rounds, plastic ones
and snap caps which are probably the most expensive.

I recommend them for anyone who dry fires. My thought is that having them in the chamber helps prevent the firing pin spring (on semi autos) to overextend as the firing pin hits something stopping its forward travel as would happen when striking a primer. I also highly recommend them to anyone who wants to practice malfunction drills.

These metal dummy rounds never had anything resembling a
primer to stop the forward movement of the firing pin and just
take a good look at them. There is an indentation well beyond
where the base of the primer would have been seated proving
that a firing pin will go well beyond where it was meant to stop.

Randomly loading one or maybe even three of them into a magazine along with your live rounds (when shooting at a range) is one of the best ways to practice live fire malfunction drills. For instance, say you randomly load a 15 round magazine with 12 live rounds and three dummy rounds (just mix up the proper caliber rounds and load them as you pick them up without looking at them but first make sure there are no rounds of other calibers within reach). You do so with as many magazines that you have available. Then begin to fire at your target. The gun goes bang, bang, click. You have just simulated a failure to fire - what do you do to correct that? If that gun is the only gun you have, you tap, rack and reengage. Note I did not say you tap, rack and fire. While you may need to fire, you need to assess before pulling that trigger again.


Okay, you need to fire - so you pull the trigger. The gun either goes bang, bang, bang with a click sooner or later if there is another dummy round remaining in the mag or it just goes click. If it just goes click, you have obviously loaded one dummy round right after another and again have simulated a failure to fire and possible a failure to feed due to a magazine malfunction by which the mag is not feeding ammo into the chamber. What do you do? Nope, you do not tap, rack and reengage. You strip the magazine out of the gun (hopefully you have another loaded mag), rack and lock the slide open as you tilt the pistol up to assure and look to assure it does not have a round stuck in the chamber or the action, shove a new mag into the mag well, slingshot the slide and reengage as you assess. Of course, you fire if necessary. Dummy rounds are perfect for this type of drill. Of course you can also use spent shell casings and there is a good chance they will not feed properly and thus cause a failure to feed instead of a failure to fire. They sometimes get stuck and do not go into the chamber but this often results in the same type of clearing drill as the two I just mentioned.

Although I use both dummy rounds and spent shell casings in malfunction drills, there is a very important thing to consider before using spent shell casings in certain types of training. Spent shell casings are the same color as live ammo, so I do not use them while dry firing. It's too easy to mix them up and mistakenly load a live round. It is a good idea never to have any live ammo anywhere near you while dry firing and even more so when using spent shell casings because it is just too easy to confuse the two. Another reason I prefer to use dummy rounds is that they can help diagnose things a shooter is doing wrong when firing whereas spent shell casings may not if they do not properly feed.

Even the best of instructors cannot always tell why a shooter is missing the mark - it is truly difficult to tell sometimes what action it is that the shooter is taking that is making his shots go anywhere but center of target and that is often because the recoil comes on so quickly and does not allow one to clearly see what the shooter is doing wrong. With dummy rounds though, the problem often become obvious. Take for example a shooter who is anticipating recoil and is pushing forward and downward with the shooting hand(s) just before firing. An eagle eyed instructor may catch it or may not when live ammo is being fired. If on the other hand you have a couple to few dummy rounds loaded in with the shooter's live ammo you are in for a good show. As the shooter is firing and the gun goes bang, bang, bang, bang then click something quite remarkable often happens. The gun dips very noticeably on that shot that went click. That is because there is no recoil to obliterate the dip by almost immediately pulling the pistol back up. Not only does the instructor now clearly see the problem but so too does the shooter. It is an eye opener and a big step in correcting the problem. This works as well with faults such as jerking the trigger, palming (pivoting the muzzle of the handgun upwards before a shot) and so on. You can train with dummy rounds in semi-auto pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns. There are dummy rounds available in many different calibers, especially in the most popular ones.

When using dummy rounds, even when you think your firearm is completely loaded with only dummy rounds, never assume that the gun is not actually loaded wit a live round. Follow the rules of firearms safety and treat it with the same respect that you do a gun that is loaded with live rounds. In other words don't become a dummy just because you think you are loaded with dummies. Playing with it like a toy and or pointing a gun loaded with dummy rounds at an improper target could lead to you killing someone if a live round somehow gets mixed in. One other thing you want to assure when using dummy rounds is that you completely unload them from your guns after using them and then separate them from any live ammo you will be loading for carry. It would not be a good thing to wind up in a self-defense situation only to have to tap, rack and reengage because you somehow mixed a dummy round in with your live ammo for carry purposes. Anyway, as I said, they make an invaluable training aid and if you do not have any for certain types of training drills, I strongly recommend you pick some up and start using them. I also strongly recommend that you get your first experience using dummy rounds during training given to you by a certified firearms instructor  but I know some folks do not follow such advice and will take it upon themselves to train themselves. So, bear in mind that if you are for some reason going to do it yourself, at the very least - do some additional research into the proper application and use of dummy rounds in training scenarios before actually beginning to train with them.

All the best,
Glenn B

It Wasn't A Python In His Pants...

...no matter what he thought about his masculinity.

A man in South Carolina was recently arrested for indecent exposure after he reportedly got naked on the side of a road in plain view of motorists. Allegedly, he claimed to police that snakes in his pants had been biting him. Who woulda thunk it but police supposedly believed he was intoxicated at the time and said there were no evident snakebites! More at the source.

Thankfully, I have never been that smashed.

All the best,
Glenn B

Hitler Reincarnate In Jerusalem

Yes that title refers to President Donald Trump, about whom a commentator at CNN reportedly said:

“This man is even worse than the Nazis,”

...and who reportedly said:

 “President Trump is literally—and I say this without any exaggeration or embellishment—he is literally Adolf Hitler reincarnated.” (source)

Funny isn't it how the reason for President Trump being in Israel is to open the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. A Nazi, the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, I think not.

All the best,
Glenn B

 

Great Advice To Survive A Knife Attack

This really is some good advice on how to survive a knife attack if you actually have the opportunity to do it. Of course, if you are armed, you could always draw your weapon while fleeing - just in case the other guy starts to catch up on you.

A hat tip an my thanks to Mike G for that one.

All the best,
Glenn B

Is It Allergy Season Yet

All the best,
Glenn B

One Never Can Be Certain How One Will React...

...to any given situation but I hope I would react this way in such a situation:

All the best,
Glenn B

On Which Side Are You

 

God help us.

 

All the best,

Glenn B

Surprisingly There Were Two Good & Honest Answers

Usually when you see college students being interviewed about anyone with a conservative viewpoint versus someone with a liberal view, you get answers like most of those in the below video - all leaning far to the left. Surprisingly though, two students  - who seem to be obvious liberals - gave answers that readily admitted they could not fathom why Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize and one even thought Trump may as well get one too.

All the best,
Glenn B

From A Useless Mother F'er...

...as our president - to a man who doesn't let other countries screw with America.

All the best,
Glenn B

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Some flowers for all you mothers out there, enjoy your special day.

All the best,
Glenn B

Whatever Happened To Steve's Pages

Every now and then, when I was in dire need of a firearms manual and could not find one just about anywhere, I would look to Steve's Pages and very often there was exactly what I had been seeking. Should have gone there first I guess. Well, I recently tried to look up a manual or two on Steve's Page 7B. First off I was unable to open any of the files once there. Kept getting some error message indicating that the owner of the site was possibly blocking traffic to it (that turned out to be correct). Secondly, I learned that Steve had passed away. Sadly, we in the firearms community have lost a good man. Damn, based on a copyright notice on the page saying that the info was copyrighted by Chris Hayes in 2015, I am guessing Steve either passed around then or became incapacitated in someway to be unable to run the site and passed later but that is guesswork on my part.

What to do? I contacted Chris Hayes and he sent me a fairly long email about why he site was down. He has that info posted on the main page here. Then he went on to say he might turn it into a members only site. He also said he may start charging an annual membership fee of $10-$20. I could live with that. It seems that some progress may have been made in that now when I try to enter any of the pages, I get a pop up asking for a user name and password, I also get informed that is not secure. I looked around as much as I could on the site but see no way to register for it. I a guessing that is coming soon since the added pop up asking for user info is there now.

I wish Chris Hayes all the luck in the world with getting the site going again, it is an invaluable resource to us all.

All the best,
Glenn B

Foxy Lady

A woman in China reportedly went to a pet shop to buy a pet dog Japanese Spitz. After months of caring for it, somethings about its appearance started to change as it grew and its behavior seemed odd to her. Turned out she had purchased a white fox! She is donating it to a local zoo. More at the source.

All the best,
Glenn B

I've Been A Bit Lax...

...when it comes to firearms maintenance. I cleaned a handful of my handguns this afternoon and realized that three of them had not been cleaned after their last trip to the range with me. Then tonight, or should I say last night into early this morning,  I cleaned another several of them. A few of them also had not been cleaned since their last range trip and I could not remember when I last shot a couple of them. Egads that is terrible. My guess, in my defense, is that I last shot at least a few of them, on the weekends, when I was essentially working full time this winter for three months. While I should have cleaned them right after the range, I must have figured then that I had better things to do with what little time I had on my weekends and neglected them. No excuse is a good one when it comes to not cleaning them after shooting them. Let's face it - a happy gun is a clean gun and I want to keep my guns happy.

I have several more that need cleaning and once I am done with them it will be time to start on the long guns, both rifles and shotguns. That may take me until midweek to complete, if not longer. I am in the groove though when it comes to getting this job done if only because the aroma of hopes has infused my house and I am loving it.

All the best,
Glenn B 

Hey Leftist Lib Loons - Riddle Me This

A man I know very well (don't know any better than I know this man) - an Endowment Life Member of the National Rifle Association, a member of at least two other pro-gun organizations, has a hunting license and has killed animals for their meat and trophies, owns scores of guns, including a so called semi-automatic assault rifle, has thousands of rounds of ammunition, owns a crossbow and a couple of compound bows (all with arrows) has all sorts of firearms accessories, owns camo clothing and other related gun and hunting gear, has taught his children and others to shoot - hasn't gone out and shot up a no-gun zone. He has never shot any innocent person nor has he ever illegally shot a bad guy in self-defense. As a matter of fact he has not: robbed a bank, mugged anyone, knifed anyone, committed arson, nor committed any other violent crime.

I just do not understand how a person with all that so called evil firepower around him, and the ever so evil influence of the NRA in his life, has not lost it and gone berserk like the lib whackos who have shot up schools, churches, nightclubs, an outdoor concert and the like. Is it because, unlike them, he is supporter of the Constitution and a responsible rights loving citizen with a libertarian & conservative lean and belongs an organization that espouses responsible firearms ownership! 

There are millions out there just like the man I just mentioned and mind you - not one single mass murderer has been like that patriotic, rights loving, responsible, NRA member of a gun owner - not a single one. So tell me - why is it that he has not committed a mass murder or other heinous crimes and why is it you hate us - the NRA & its members and gun owners in general - so much!

All the best,
Glenn B