Recently in Weapons Category

This last weekend, I bought a Surefire G2 Nitrolon high-output flashlight at a Reno gun show, about $35. It's a very good alternative to the more expensive, earlier metal version, the Surefire 6P. For those of my friends who are getting into defensive pistolcraft for the first time - and who have budget constraints - I recommend this lightweight version.

Today's QOTD is a bit of background on the graphic novel "Roswell, Texas" by L. Neil Smith and Scott Beiser, which has been serialized in webcomic form on the Bighead Press website. It's a kick, and I recommend it highly.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I met my friend Dale Seago at the Pleasanton Highland Games this last weekend. Both Dale and our dojo chum Garland were wearing the new version of the Cold Steel Special Projects Scottish Dirk, which Dale reviews today in Swordforum.com. I was deeply impressed, and took Dale's advice to order it from the vendor indicated by Froogle as the lowest price supplier, Premium Knives. Noticing how Garland's unmodified Cold Steel-supplied dirk sheath loop seemed flimsy, I took Dale's advice at the Games to pick up a Scottish Dirk Frog from onsite vendor Ravenwood Leather, for the amazingly low price of $10.

I'm looking forward to receiving the knife in a few days.

Part of the human condition is that we make an emotional investment in our hardware. We allow a caliber, cartridge, or specific firearm to define us rather than the other way around. It is understandable, as many of us are happy to say we are a "Bud-man," a "Harley-man," a "Swaro kind of guy," or a variety of other tenuous ways of describing nothing in particular. Though we talk of "inherent accuracy" (a dubious concept, indeed), few would attempt defining it, only parroting that it exists.

We take the same path in using unsophisticated terms to describe sophisticated events. "Knock-down" is one, a physically impossible concept that is never the less widely used. The same strained, tortured approach is used to define "kinetic energy" and "energy transfer." Autopsies are not fun reads; nor are obituaries. We will search long and hard to find a medical report that lists "kinetic energy" as the cause of death.

Surely, after all these years, there must be one recorded instance where a human being lost his life to a sudden gust of kinetic energy? Yet, medical journals are generally void of energy and velocity as causes of death. Perhaps it is because neither ever is. Those waiting for the Surgeon General to alert us to avoid kinetic energy exposure are in for a very long wait, indeed.

The Gut-Wrenching Nightmare of Caliber Worship
by Randy Wakeman

Gunshot taken at 7:07am east Texas time, photo shot taken at 8:43am, Tuesday last week:

As mentioned in a previous post tonight, this was taken from about 110 metres, from a blind near an identified hog trail, on a very large ranch of a friend of mine. I waited for 20 minutes before determining that none of the hog's clan would be following in his hoofsteps before calling my buddies (also in blinds about a mile from mine) for retrieval.

Last week, I took a coyote, a feral hog, and assisted in a friend's take of another feral hog, using one 150-grain Remington Core-Lokt in .308 caliber shot from a Jeff Cooper edition Steyr Scout in each encounter. This particular round (or remains thereof) I dug out from underneath the skin of the one I took:

This particular round hit the hog midships, high, and completely busted the spine, spleen, and vented the lower lobes of the lungs, causing pneumothorax evidenced by a "deflating balloon" sound when I first moved the hog carcass. Intererestingly, the lead core seems to have punched through the hog, leaving the copper jacket:

Here, I show the path of the bullet, taken by the hog from about 110 metres, entering starboard and (partially) exiting port:

You know, in this shot, I look almost as (literally) knackered as the hog itself. East Texas is hot and humid this time of year...

L. Neil Smith finally does a real blog, "L. Neil Smith at Random", with comments enabled. I've long thought that Neil's writing would fit the format, and now I'm sure of it.

Now that I've wrapped up what turned out to be a surprisingly subtle and difficult volunteer Japanese translation job (which I'm very happy to have done, I should note), I'm going to blog a bit more for fun. Combing my bookshelves, I pulled another several titles with interesting cover copy and art. Here's one: "Strike From Space: A Megadeath Mystery" by Phyllis Schlafly and Chester Ward, 1965, Pere Marquette Press:

I picked up a decent sword stand in San Francisco's Chinatown yesterday. It's 23 inches high, $25 (apparently non-negotiable in the store from which I bought it) and comes in four matt-lacquered wood pieces with a set of wood screws. Power screwdriver in hand, I assembled it in a couple of minutes. Here it is with my Bugei Samurai Koshirae Katana:

The base is indented to hold the end of the saya in place, and seems fairly sturdy. They're available in most of the tourist gift shops in San Francisco's Chinatown. Not as common as the conventional over-the-mantlepiece (or in the tokonoma) horizontal stand, but has a nice "shotgun ready rack" aspect to it.

I'm just about to crash soon, having come back from the first of a multi-day Bujinkan training seminar by Arnaud Cousergue of Paris (Vincennes, actually) at the Bujinkan Martial Arts Center in Sacramento, a couple of hours' drive from here.

That's Dr. Pete Lohstroh, a UC Davis reproductive biologist, and myself. Pete's interested in medical nanotechology too, by the way, but that's deliberately off topic. I really do meet cool people in this art.

The shiner I acquired Thursday night is even more pronounced in this photo, but it doesn't hurt at all anymore. On a related note, Arnaud ended the day insisting on the use of padded training weapons through the end of the year, for various reasons with which I entirely agree. To that end, on the way back from Sack-of-Tomatoes to Saint Jose, I stopped at the Home Despot near the Sacto dojo and acquired the requisite materials:

- a $1.97 bag of thin 6' bamboo rods from the Garden section
- a $1.97 6' section of 5/8" inside diameter foam copper pipe insulation

I then duct taped 3 pinky-width lengths of the bamboo together at 9-inch intervals, put that inside the foam, and placed styrofoam caps at the ends, duct taping those. I finished by taping the entire thing lengthwise.

Looks surprisingly good, and not at all like a late-night vodka fueled project. I took photos of every step of the project which I will be posting in a few days.

Time to crash now.

A gift from my training partner last night, and proof that padded training weapons are a good idea for some types of waza:

I'm rested now and recovered from last weekend's attendance at the 4-day tactical shotgun course at Front Sight Firearms Training Institute near Las Vegas, Nevada. I surprised myself by making Distinguished Graduate, so I'm now qualified to come back to attend the 4 Day Advanced Tactical Shotgun course. On the second day of training, Greg Carroll snapped this pic of me after the two of us had done our respective runs through the outdoor canyon "clean the hostage takers out" simulator exercise:

The (visible) firearm is my Benelli M1 Super 90, with a nylon tactical sling and a GG&G M3 Tactical Illuminator mounting rail in the 2 o'clock position on the foreend, not the 10 o'clock position GG&G recommends on their website (experience in a previous course having shown me that, as a right-handed longgunner, the 10 o'clock position allows the light to bump on.)

I'd last done a tactical shotgun course about 4 years ago, and so I was quite interested to see how training doctrine had changed in respect of that weapon at Front Sight. The men in the evolution I attended - those 13 in the class who were there for the full 4 days - were all at least previous attendees at another weapon systems class (e.g. defensive handgun, practical rifle) so the class was run at a slightly accelerated pace befitting the audience. Attendees were about evenly divided between cops, active duty military (a Marine heading back to Iraq soon) and private citizens, all of whom were treated exactly the same by the instructional staff, the excellent Chuck Burnett and John Pierson.

One difference I noticed was the much heavier emphasis on incorporating movement, keeping the fight dynamic, and training that way to the limited extent allowed in the "square range environment." I was particularly pleased that, after the Monday (4th day) afternoon skills test, and the "load and go" indoor tactical simulator, I was allowed to do several rounds of 2-man team shooting on the move, with my new friend David L. Loads of fun, and I was pleased to find that a walking skill I'd been cultivating the last few years, walking fast with very short tank-tread heel/toe action to keep the hips and shoulders on level planes, allowed me to get good hits moving both forward and backward, without muzzle bob.

I'm at a level of membership at Front Sight that allows me to take any firearms course free for the rest of my life, much like some golf club memberships. So, I get to take these courses again and again, which allows me not only to revisit, revive, and refine my skills, but also to work out equipment issues. I've discovered I really don't like the Lyman TacStar SideSaddle mounted on the left side of the receiver: it catches on my clothing, when loaded it dampens recoil (and hence reliability) on this recoil-operated weapon, and with the standard provided cross-receiver screw, was coming loose even though I'd installed it properly and Lock-Tited it. I guess a couple of thousand rounds will do that to the Lock-Tite. That, and I'm leery of over-tightening that screw for fear of impeding bolt travel. Oh, and there's the issue of potentially "egging out" the screw holes on the aluminum receiver. My friend David assures me that, should I care to keep the SideSaddle, I can send the weapon to a gunsmith who specializes in Class 3 firearms with aluminum receivers, experienced in setting up weapons to resist receiver failure, but I'm going to switch to keeping my slug rounds on a belt carrier anyway.

Nor am I going to solve the "problem" of having extra ammo by changing out the tube magazine from a 5 to an 8 round capacity. This is my home invasion repellant device... if I can't solve The Problem with what's available in that weapon, then I'm in a very serious situation indeed. I'm more and more preferring lighter, more maneuverable weapons the more I train, with as few bells and whistles as I can get away with. I've heard more than one long arms instructor over the years comment on how students will arrive at a course with their all-singing, all-dancing Space Gun rigs, everything mounted everywhere, only to find themselves quickly shedding equipment after the first day... especially when training in the 105 F degree desert heat. Heh.

Recommendation: check out Estate Cartridge's low-recoil 12-gauge 9-pellet 00 SWAT loads. I've used this buckshot at a previous shotgun course, and had made the decision to attend this most recent course with too little lead time to order more of the same for this class. So, I had a mere few dozen of them to use at various times during this course, instead using a mix of Winchester and Federal buckshot for most exercises. No comparison. At half the price of Federal, the Estate-branded cartridges gave outstandingly tight and nicely distributed (e.g. no annular "donuts of death") patterns, turning heads on the firing line and eliciting a number of "what are you shooting, man?" enquiries.

I had the pleasure of remaking the acquaintance of at least one old friend, who was taking a course on an adjacent range. Additionally, I was happy to have a couple of libertarian friends, longtime (but previously untrained) gunowners, take the full 4 Day Defensive Handgun course on the same weekend. Both men, Alan and Chris, came away from the experience very much more competent than when they arrived.

My teacher Dale Seago sent this reference to "Oppressive Knife Laws" to our dojo's mailing list. This summary dates from 1998, but is a nicely written short piece on the key features of this particular type of prohibitionism.

A couple of years ago, I posted a short entry about an auction titled "Rare Mid to Late 19th Vampire Killing Kit" on eBay. Today, a fellow posting as "Michael de Winter," whose IP address indicates he's writing from Gibraltar, has posted a rather long and interesting commentary claiming the phenomenon as originating from a hoax he perpetrated in 1972. I have no way of knowing whether the guy is for real, but he spins an interesting yarn nonetheless, so I'll mention it here in this separate entry.

I should do this more often for those blog entries that surprise me by taking on lives of their own. Undead threads, anyone?

My friend L. Neil Smith emailed this today:

"Russell --

I thought you and Dale [Seago] might enjoy seeing a project I put together a long time ago, possibly before you came to Fort Collins the first time. As you can see, it's a Camillus Marine Corps knife wedded to a bayonet. It fits my M1 Carbine, the standard issue bayonet for which is a disgrace.

Note the serrated portion at the base of the blade. That was done with a
checkering file. Ahead of my time, I guess."

Here's another:

My Bujinkan teacher Dale followed up:

"Very sweet piece of work -- nicely done!!

BTW, the Marine Corps has adopted a new official-issue bayonet which largely retains the look of the old Ka-bar, but with a longer blade (8" instead of 7"). It's an issue item for Marines, but available commercially for private purchase as well."

This is the new Marine issue item, the "ON3S ONTARIO Marine Bayonet Khaki Brown Handle And Sheath 8" Blade":

Dale Seago received his Imperial Weapons replica of a Joseph Musso Collection Bowie very recently, and has posted pictures of it on Sword Forum International. Very nice.

Another image from my recent trip to Beijing, this one a sign at Beihai Park admonishing visitors not to do or bring certain things into the park. I'm still trying to figure out what it all means. One is a pictogram apparently forbidding rifles in the park:

One afternoon last week I rented an electric boat and plied around the north lake in Beihai Park. After returning the craft to the boathouse, I came across this guy doing taijiquan near the shore, practicing a jian form:

When he'd finished several iterations of the same form, he walked over to the bench where a couple of older women had been watching intently. He then started pushing the tip of the jian into the bench near them! What the hell?

Ah... it was a collapsing practice piece, neatly converting into an 8-inch assembly, which he then slipped into the carry pouch his wife held out for him. Neat! I wanted one of those jian then and there, but didn't have time left in the trip to shop for one. Rest assured it's on my shopping list for my next Beijing visit.

I mentioned here a couple of years ago that I attended a seminar given by Don Angier of Yanagi Ryu Aiki Jiu Jitsu. I missed last year's event in northern Californa, but I managed to make this year's event last weekend. I attended both days (as did another Bujinkan practicioner), and met one other Bujinkan student during the Sunday session at Aikido of Diablo Valley.

As has always been the case with Don's seminars, I enjoyed it immensely. Both days were Yanagi-style taijutsu training, no weapons this time (e.g. the jojutsu we did in April 2003.)

The first day, we did 3-man training involving breaking from 2-attacker both-arm wrist grabs (morote in aikido parlance). The second day, we did 2-man Yanagi "kiri dori" with reversals. Both days ended with recap training.

As usual, the training was incredibly useful: the principles of Angier's art are shared with our own, with an interestingly different emphasis on how to convey them. I didn't attend with the intent of "learning their art" - that really only happens with core Yanagi students, in their dojo environment, as is the case with us and our art - but what I do expect, as I've experienced in previous years' training with the Yanagi folks, is that I'll be able to see aspects of our own art from an outside perspective.

One solid claim I can make for training with these guys is that I'm forced to re-examine all the "unclean" (or sloppy) elements in my own movement.

Really, I can't recommend highly enough that Bujinkan students take the time to attend a seminar by this incredible 73 year old practicioner of a rare Japanese family art.

I should also add that the people I trained with, mostly aikidoka, were very good training partners, and incredibly welcoming, which made the experience all the more rewarding.

For a martial art to be a martial art, rather than some other form of physical expression (some other "art" entirely), its focus must remain on fighting. A truly accomplished warrior may renounce violence -- but only his or her mastery of violence makes this possible. If the style or system you study leaves you unable to defend yourself in a realistic self-defense scenario, it may indeed be an art -- but it is not martial at all. Its practitioners delude themselves if they believe that it is.

In the same vein, a martial art or martial artist whose attitude towards weapons is one of contempt, mistrust, fear, or condescension tells you volumes about its, his, or her "martialism." Weapons are force multipliers -- tools that perform the same function as hammers, levers, and pliers in that they make it easier to accomplish a specific task. As the purpose of a martial art is to deliver force against another human or group of humans, only the most ignorant of martial artists would dismiss or reject tools that make performing this task more efficient and less risky. There is no such thing as an immoral tool. There are only immoral tool users.

Phil Elmore

The infamous "Assault Weapons Ban" died today. I wish I had more time to express my happiness about this, but I'm extremely busy.

By the title, I mean I didn't expect that my friend Andy would be taking a picture of me at this moment:

It was pretty dark in the shade of the shooting stall, in stark contrast with the sunny range, and no fill flash was used. I managed to extract a bit more information using the GIMP.

Firearm was a full-frame H&K USP in .45ACP, firing on a "hostage rescue" metal silhouette at 15 meters. Hard shot, wouldn't want to have to do that for a living. I would never seek to be in such a horrifying predicament, and certainly wouldn't want to have to use a pistol, at relative long range, unsupported, to try pulling it off. Still, one should always train for the unthinkable.

Anton Sherwood informs me of this funny little cartoon rant against "smart guns"; the lead character reminds me very vaguely of Cerebus the Aardvark.

Chris Claypoole has some interesting commentary today inspired by his recent reading of Eric Raymond's essay "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun."

I had already known that disarming the public was a standard tactic of repressive governments. I have always been a "no compromise" supporter of the right to bear arms, but from the perspective of the right to self-defense. I had not made the connection between bearing arms (not merely gun ownership, but carrying as a normal part of life) and development of a responsible adult. The kind of person that will take responsibility for his/her actions, regardless of the consequences, motives, or lack of full information. Which means that this kind of person tends to think before acting when possible, and act decisively from a sound set of ethical principles when necessary.

This brings me to the tangential epiphany: When Robert A. Heinlein wrote that "An armed society is a polite society," I had always thought he meant that people tend not to act like an asshole if it might get them ventilated. Now I believe that what was also, and more importantly, meant was that people in an armed society grow up polite because they are armed! Knowing that a careless act or moment of unguarded anger could ruin your life and end someone else's will make the vast majority of people act more responsibly.

An excellent essay by Eric Raymond, "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun: What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life." (Thanks to Steve Pegram.)

To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is... to live in corroding and almost always needless fear of the self — in fact, to affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from the dignity of a free man would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal arms, is, ultimately, most important.

This is the final ethical lesson of bearing arms: that right choices are possible, and the ordinary judgement of ordinary (wo)men is sufficient to make them.

Armalite announces how they'll deal with the AWB sunset (thanks to Steve Pegram): "the ArmaLite® Post-PostBan ™ Rifle Program."

Kristopher Barrett passes along this amusing photolog of colorful AR-15 furniture. Someone should inform the Pink Pistols.

Security is an important aspect of a good life, but if you live in a society where a government potentate can nullify your citizenship and completely strip you of your rights just because he doesn't like your looks, with no real accountability for his actions, then you are not secure at all.

Self-defense is as basic a bodily function as eating and defecating, and cannot truly be delegated -- unless you want to live life as an effective cripple, or as someone else's property.

Scott Bieser

Personally, while I like [L.] Neil [Smith]'s idea in Hope of a "Bill of Rights Party", I think a better idea would be a "Mind your own damned business party":

Don't like guns? Don't own one, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like homosexuals? Don't associate with them, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like pagans? Don't associate with them, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like nuclear power? Don't use it, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like hunting? Don't hunt, and mind your own damned business!

See how easy it is? All the individual has to do is live and let live, follow the basic precepts of ALL major religions, as far as love, tolerance and respect, and mind their own damned business!

Ron Beatty

Reed's Sporting Goods in San Jose, California is having its 46th Annual Firearms, Ammo, and Reloading Sale, which started yesterday and runs through this Sunday, 18 July 2004. They generally have excellent deals on a very healthy selection (for California) of goods. Every year, too, Winchester shows up with at least a semi-tractor load of their high-quality ammunition. I'm going to try to make it today or tomorrow. Any of my local friends are welcome to join me.

Duncan Frissell just today posted a jaw-dropping bit of what he claims is history, the 1953 testing of an atomic cannon, "Shot Grable 10" at Frenchman's Flat, Nevada:

When I was looking for a nuclear weapons photo for a previous post, I immediately thought of the only live firing of an atomic cannon (in the US, that is). So I hunted up the famous photo of Shot Grable 10 (isn't the Net convenient?) and found that most of the images were poor scans. Finally I "borrowed" a good one and thought I'd actually post so you don't have to follow a link to see it. This is an actual photo of an actual atomic cannon firing an actual atomic shell. No editing or fakery involved.

Whoa. There's more here and also here.

Bob Tipton has a less than stellar experience with a Savage Scout.

I was told of this by a poster to the smith2004-discuss list, an incredibly meticulous comparison of the performances of a number of common ammunition types: "Terminal Ballistics Comparison in Water Media", a compilation of many years of data generated by 84 year old Carmon Crapson (published by Stephen Ricciardelli.)

If a politician isn't comfortable with any individual being able to walk into a hardware store, pay cash for any firearm without producing identification or signing a single scrap of paper (and that individual being able to carry that protection concealed or open), then that politician does not support freedom.

Gun-control laws only disarm potential victims, thus creating a safe work environment for criminals - kind of like an OSHA for felons. And criminals won't be deterred from getting a weapon because of a law. Criminals don't follow laws. Any attempt to rid the world of a tool that would give my 130-pound wife a fighting chance against a 230-pound man would be immoral.

Ernest Hancock

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Steve Pegram passed along a detailed and fascinating online version of a military report generated last summer, "SOLDIER WEAPONS ASSESSMENT TEAM REPORT 6-03". Much of the report is rather dry, given the nature of such a document, but scattered throughout are a great many little observational gems such as this:

...soldiers rank reliability and durability as key weapon characteristics and are not willing to trade them for anything – to include weight. Similarly, soldiers do not consider the weapon as part of their load, but rather as an enabler. They are willing to carry the weight if the weapon or device increases his lethality. This is best illustrated by soldiers purchasing their own magnified optics and the strong desire to carry an additional sidearm or shotgun for defensive and offensive purposes. Lethality is more important to the soldier than any other consideration or factor.

Here's empirical verification of the usefulness of white lights in combat, a point which I've had driven home by anecdotes from trainers at every school I've attended:

Several soldiers were observed with flashlights taped to their weapons and some using the Weapon Flashlight Mount. But all soldiers described using the tactical light for temporary target incapacitation.

My friend Franklin sent along this ironic bit of news from Saudi Arabia: "Saudi: Foreigners can carry guns."

Brian Smith informs us that Bushmaster now markets an AR-10 semiclone that accepts FN-FAL magazines (both inch and metric). This is fairly interesting to me, since I've been mulling over picking up a carbine in .308 caliber since I encountered the Springfield Armory SOCOM 16 in a gun store a few weeks ago.

I'm sure this is old news now, but I just found out that the ultralightweight carbon-fiber Carbon 15 rifle is now a Bushmaster offering. I've had the opportunity to handle one of these 4-pound carbines in training, and found it rather pleasant. I'd be interested in knowing how rugged they actually are.

Steve Pegram passes this on:

Note the name of the castle first build specifically to protect against firearms.

The first castle in Britain to be designed specifically for defense by guns was Ravenscraig Castle located in Scotland. Built in 1460.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason people don't just "throw the bums out" and vote for freedom, is that they genuinely are afraid of their neighbors. They fear freedom for other people, thinking that regulation is the only thing that stands between themselves and violent death.

Handguns are an excellent example. Someone who wouldn't think twice about balancing their own checkbook, and "looking both ways" before crossing the street, dreads a handgun because it represents no longer relying on those regulations for personal safety.

They cannot admit that regulations do not provide "safety", so anything that reflects badly on those regulations is itself anathema. They fear what firearms in private hands truly represents.

This adds yet another layer to hoplophobia. It makes it still harder for someone with the condition to admit they are irrational, because they might honestly say they do not "fear" guns.

They fear their neighbors. What an awful fear that must be.

Curt Howland

Today's the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. I'm reminded that a couple of weeks ago, a couple of friends of mine and I went shooting at a rifle range in northern California, taking a number of weapons including an M1 Garand rifle which probably saw action in WWII. Here, my friend Andy Chen, a brand new shooter (and 18 y/o college classmate), fires my other friend's Garand:

This was Andy's first time out shooting... and on steel reactive targets set out at 100 meters - after having been briefed on safety and weapon operation - he kept up with us two trained, experienced shooters, at least on the sandbag rests. He's spent his high school years reading military history, and knows an incredible amount of factual data on weapons history. He's also used to playing first-person shooter games - in which I've never been interested, thinking them useless for training - causing me to start to re-think my opinions of twitch games.

An older gentleman at an adjacent shooting stall took some time to discuss the Garand with Andy, pointing out that he had ordered his own Garand (which he was also shooting) from the U.S. federal government's Civilian Marksmanship Program, which I've heard about over the years, though I'd bought my own past two Garands from commercial sources.

I'm encouraging Andy to join a local CMP-affiliated club and shoot a match this summer, so that he can be eligible to buy at least a "rack grade" rifle for as low as $350... shipped Fedex directly to his door (yes, they do that)! I don't see Garands selling at gun shows for less than around $800 nowadays. Here's a very detailed and interesting account, with photos, of the experiences of two CMP participants in the purchase and shooting of their own CMP Garands.

It's especially worth noting, for California residents, that a Garand is "Kalifornia legal", making it an excellent rifle to keep locked in the trunk of one's car... just in case. Also note that a number of companies (such as Smith Enterprises) do "tanker conversions" to shorten the overall length, and one can convert the weapon to .308 caliber.

Curt Howland passes on this very interesting piece on the Abu Ghraib incident by John Ross, author of Unintended Consequences:

Those pictures said volumes. They said "We're your worst fucking nightmare: We're Americans. Our women are stronger than your men. Our littlest women will strip naked the strongest men you can muster, and make fun of their puny cocks while enjoying a cigarette. Our women love to get naked, love sex, and revel in the sexual prowess of their American male partners. They'll put impotent "men" like you naked on leashes whenever they want. America is the most powerful country in the world, and guess what? Women control 70% of its money and 100% of its pussy. What are you going to do about it? Behead some Jewish "contractor"? Fat lot of good that's going to do. We'll put on some hearings for show, but you know the truth: we'll do whatever we want whenever we want, and we'll have our women do it. Just for fun. Think we're kidding? Wait 'til you see our beer ads."

Just heard on our dojo mailing list that Discovery Channel will air "Ninjas" tonight twice, at 1800 and 2100 PST. I've heard Stephen Hayes will put in an appearance. I have no idea whether this show will suck or not, but I'll be recording it regardless.

Is it moral to carry arms? You bet it is! When I enter your home or your business with a firearm, concealed or otherwise, I am tacitly agreeing to share with you the responsibility for defending your property and your family. When I eat in the same restaurant, I am prepared to shed my blood in your defense. There are survivors of the horror at Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, who would appreciate what I am saying here.

I will never, never need to ask some poor cop to die for me. I value my own life enough to defend it myself. I carry arms proudly, as a free American.

Do you?

Kathryn A. Graham
"Handguns - A Moral Imperative"

Just because I'm feeling like it: a plug for my friend Jeff Chan's Right to Keep and Bear Arms website.

I first heard about this on the local news today or yesterday, and through one of "small world" circuits I've gotten used to since I discovered the Internet in the late 1980's, my friend Steve Pegram forwards me the local news station's coverage of it, "Mountain Lion killed in Palo Alto neighborhood":

The media think this footage is graphic. The officer made a good shot. She used an M4 with an EoTech. Based on my limited knowledge of cat physiology (from reading hunt reports and watching OLN) it appears to be a lung shot. I surmise this from the cat's reaction based on known lung shots I've observed on hunting shows.

Perhaps we should rename the 5.56 Poodle Shooter to Kitty Killer?

The video does go on to say that the shot was lung/heart/lung, which is almost as good as such a game shot can get (additionally breaking one or both scapulae to keep the cat from running would have been even better, and a brainstem shot would have rated "perfect".) The only thing that would have made this better is if the householder had dispatched the threat herself. By the way, I should mention that there have been several recent public accounts of mountain lion attacks on hikers in the nearby Stanford hills (The Farm really is farmland)... good riddance to bad cats.

Well, it didn't take long for this to happen. We've been "adopted" by a stray dog. This is Pesky.

I found him at our gate, shivering and obviously starving, a couple of days ago. At first, it was a toss-up: have him put to sleep, or try to nurse him back to health. In the end, his sweet disposition won me over. If he's this nice of a dog when he's near death, he must be a genuinely nice dog. I'm keeping a watchful eye on him, however, just in case he starts to show menace. One of the side benefits of being always armed is that I can be comfortable taking controlled risks with something like an unknown dog. In an unarmed society, there would be only one route for dogs like Pesky - some gov-goon would show up and either shoot him on the spot, or lock him up for a few days until he was gassed.

Bob Tipton

BTW, do you know what you say to a person that walks into a gun store where you work, asks to see a "9mm Automatic" and then, when it is handed to him/her, slide back, promptly lets the slide slam jarringly shut on an empty chamber and then ejects the magazine onto the floor?

"How are you today, officer?"

Forrest Halford

Wiley Clapp has an article on the BAR [Browning Automatic Rifle] in the current Shooting Illustrated. He sums it up thus:

"The BAR is like a blind date that is a little overweight and not very pretty, but redeems herself with enthusiasm and skill in the activities of the late evening."

Steve Pegram

Aaron reminds me that today is the 2nd annual BAG (Buy A Gun) Day!

The concept of porn invading our homes all by itself is simply the right-wing equivalent of the left-wing nonsense of guns (ahem) pulling their own triggers.

Dave Aronson

Apologies for Bob Tipton for not having gotten back to him in email, but I'd like to take the time to announce here that he's launched an interesting new blog, "Serenity: A diary of our family's experience in moving to the country." Included is a review of handgun training at Storm Mountain and other interesting material. Oh, and he does post photos; I'm a sucker for eyecandy, so I like that.

When the Governor-General requested that the Miao be prevented from having weapons, and that Chinese merchants be forbidden to trade with them in such items as lead, saltpeter, and sulfur, I did not grant his request. It was not only that the Miao depend for their livelihood on the game they could kill by hunting with crossbow and fouling piece -- it was also that effective control of them had to depend on the sensitivity of the local officials. Besides which, of course, there was the question of how you can get the common people to hand over their weapons to the government officials at all -- as I pointed out to the Board of Works vice-president Muhelun when he presented his crazy scheme of disarming the people of Shantung province.

K'ang-hsi, Emperor of China from 1661 to 1722, quoted from page 35 of
"Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-hsi", compiled by Johnathan D. Spence, 1974

Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.

Yoshimi Ishikawa, author of Strawberry Road

After chemistry class yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking a friend and classmate pistol shooting for the first time in her life, at the excellent Reed's Indoor Range in Santa Clara, California. She did very, very well, and handled my Glock 23 (.40S&W/Liberty) competently. She confirmed my long-standing impression that women learn basic pistolcraft much more quickly then men, on average: they know that they don't know, so they absorb training with intensity and sincerity, no chips on their shoulders.

I always leave the range feeling very good about the world when I introduce a friend, especially a female friend (who's much more likely to need a pistol), to the art of the pistol. I urge you to do the same: take a woman to the range this weekend.

Yesterday I posted a note about Jeffrey Jordan's indictment for concealed weapons charges in Ohio. I placed a link to that note on Packing.org, which has generated some interesting response from High Power shooters who plan to boycott attendance at Camp Perry, Ohio in protest. An example from miller1952:

You should be aware that the felony indictment of Jeffery Jordan for the "crime" of traveling through Ashland County and failing to secure his legally owned handguns in his trunk is viewed with some level of alarm in the shooting community. I am advising everyone I know to avoid Camp Perry in the future. Over the last few years rifle matches with three day venues like Perry have sprouted up in Missouri and Minnesota as an alternative to the expense of Perry. If the State of Ohio follows through with ruining this young man's life via a felony conviction I think you can expect a widespread grassroots "Boycott Ohio" movement in the gun owning community. Take a hard look at K-Mart.

[This entry was originally published on my other, dormant blog 27 April 2003. - Russell]

I had the pleasure of meeting Fred Weissberg today at the Cupertino Sakura Matsuri, and was pointed to several websites of his and his cohorts. For those of you - like me - who are into traditional Japanese martial arts, here's a useful resource: a Visual Glossary of the Japanese sword.

I've been slightly busier than usual the past few days. I did manage to meet up with friends Mark Quon ("Genghis Khan") and Alan Weiss on Friday before Alan's departure for Austin, for lunch and for some indoor shooting at the excellent Reed's Indoor Range in Santa Clara, California. Here's Alan with his EAA Witness in .45 ACP with Wonderfinish coating (he favors the isosceles stance):

I'm still waiting for permissions to post some more of the pics from last night's Firefly shindig. In the meantime, while I'm waiting, I'll post one of the pics from the set which Fred Moulton handed me on a CD when we met at the event:

That's Anton Sherwood on the left, who was also in attendance at last night's Firefly shindig. I think he's dressed as "The Man with One Brown Shoe." Me, I'm dressed as myself. Really. Or, at least an aspect of myself. And yes, the blades are real. Party was at the home of Romana Machado Reynolds and Dr. Kurth Reynolds, Halloween 2003. Romana has always held cool parties.

From "cats on grass" to "cat with brass":

There's nothing a kitten doesn't find interesting. I'd just laid out 15 expended .50 BMG cases for photographing before putting them in the cleaning tumbler, for before-and-after pictures. Not a minute had passed before the kids jumped on them and started batting them around.

I'm no longer looking for a copy of the Steyr Scout Owner's Manual in PDF form: I have it now, thanks to private mail from Claudio in Zaire, and Mikael Häggström in Sweden on the Yahoo! Groups ScoutRifles mailing list (who posted it into their "Files" section for other seekers). Thanks to both of you, and also to Bill St. Clair and Steve Pegram.

I know my paper copy of my Steyr Scout Owner's Manual is around the house somewhere, but I can't find it. Remembering that Steyr's erstwhile U.S. distributor GSI published a PDF version of the manual online, I went looking for it, and discovered it gone from the GSI site, unavailable from the Dynamit-Nobel site... and as a side effect, saw that Steyr is once again changing U.S. distributors!

I went to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and was delighted to find snapshots of GSI's site from 2 years back... but no stored PDF documents! I've looked all over the Scout-related sites, Googling widely, still no luck. Does anyone know where I can find this file?

After several hours of putzing around with my Steyr Scout (after having taken it out yesterday to test functioning with a range of old NATO surplus ammo), trying to figure out how to re-install the extractor (it's a long story), I got everything back together and continued the cleaning job I'd started before the re-assembly odyssey. I pulled out an item I picked up at a gun show a few months ago: a C.J. Weapons Chamber Maid flexible cleaning rod. I originally bought the Chamber Maid with the AR-15/M-16 dual-diameter chamber brush, but I also bought a range of additional brushes, including .308, 12 gauge, and 20 gauge (because it can be used with a 50BMG chamber).

"The Chamber Maid is a special bore cleaning system. Unique brush is actually two brushes in one, utilizing two different bristle materials and diameters. The rod supporting the brush is a flexible steel braid coated with a clear rubber to keep it from scratching your barrel or receiver."

I was rummaging around a couple of boxes trying to find my Steyr Scout's owner's manual when I ran across this photo, which I popped into my Epson flatbed scanner:

That's me about 7 years ago hanging out with my good friend in Arizona. I like this picture.

Speaking of content on the AnCap Wiki, Terry Egan just posted a pointer to John Ross, author of "Unintended Consequences," pointing out that Ross does have a personal website.

I mentioned a few days ago that Sciscoop's Ricky Roberson had written on interesting piece reflecting on my earlier report of a day at the range with an Armalite AR-50. He asked some very general, open-ended questions about the motivational psychology of shooters. I just now noticed that a couple of days ago, someone named Dirk Koenig posted a long and spot-on followup comment, "An interest in Long-Range Shooting", with which I completely agree. An excerpt:

Ultimately, you're attempting to apply scientific repeatability to an endeavor which relies on human sensory input (or a small weather station) to determine nearly all of the factors, none of which are necessarily constant from shot to shot. (or from muzzle to target, for that matter) This is to say nothing of the skill of the shooter, which has to improve alongside the equipment which can get the bullet to a target farther and farther away and where being half a millimeter off in aim will cause a miss at 400 meters, provided all your estimates about wind direction and speed were right in the first place.

In reviewing all this, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun. But, like the sound of a golf ball draining into the hole after travelling 20 feet on the green, there are few sounds that warm a long-range shooters heart more than the muted CLANK of a round hitting a steel target that's a long way off...

On the Prospero foxfirefly forum, I asked actor Adam Baldwin - a prolific poster who's racked up 3325 posts on the forum since he joined - what type of knife he wore on the "Firefly" series when he portrayed Jayne Cobb. The knife's name is Binky. When the series ended, Adam was given it as a gift from the properties master. He mentioned he'd check the markings on the knife. He got back about it a few days ago:

Hey Russell:
Sorry for the delay.

I examined "Binky" and to my chagrin, there are no markings on it. :(

Must be a custom job.

Peace,

A.B.

It's a beautiful knife. I can't wait to see what he finds out eventually.

Remember "H.E.A.P." ("Holocaust Education and Prevention") from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon? Well, Ken Holder maintains an excellent H.E.A.P. site.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports today that a "Concealed weapons compromise is reached" in Ohio (as per Matt Gaylor). Note that:

The compromise hinges on allowing broader access to gun-permit records. Under the deal, journalists would be able to get complete lists of permit-holders, rather than single names - but access would still be denied to the general public.

What would you bet one of these journalists will sell his copy of the list to someone who'll leak it to others, say, nosy neighbors? Also, does anyone else besides me object to a government grant of special privileges to the Fourth Estate in this country?

A little over a week ago I was sitting in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon, checking my email, when I discovered that Ricky Roberson (whom I'd misattributed earlier as "Ricky James") of SciScoop had written a rather lengthy post on his site entitled "The Toy That's Not For Christmas" expressing his fascination with my ownership of an Armalite AR-50 single-shot .50BMG. I'd mentioned my discovery of his blog a few days before, and he was apparently returning the favor, in spades.

Ricky expresses his apparently sincere and heartfelt belief that if guns are going to exist, then he'd rather be in the group who has access to guns:

...I do unfortunately see the need to kill humans upon occasion - preferably a selected few key enemies instead of massive indiscriminate "shock and awe." An Armalite AR-50 is the best tool out there as far as I'm concerned for accomplishing this grisly task, and if this fearsome rifle is going to exist, I want to be in the group of people who have access to this technology instead of belonging to the group that doesn't.

While I essentially agree with this sentiment, I should point out a few things. First, I don't think the AR-50 is the best tool for that "grisly task". There are better tools for sniper and countersniper work nowadays, e.g. the 300 Winchester Magnum, or the 300 Lapua. Both these and related types are in increasingly common use nowadays by people whose paid jobs require their use as tools. A 700 grain .50 caliber bullet, for long range antipersonnel work, is fast becoming an outmoded approach. The guns are heavy, the ammo bulky, and the ballistics, while impressive, aren't nearly as optimal as the new breed of .30 caliber wonderguns (two of which I just mentioned).

I'd meant to get this out earlier today, but it's been a very, very busy day for me on a number of fronts. Here's the latest today from Matthew Gaylor, reprinted as usual with his explicit permission, on the Jeffrey Jordan situation, told from the first-person perspective; I've added links to his original text, for research purposes:

Hello everyone,

I thought I'd respond in an open letter format to the deluge of comments I've gotten concerning Jeff Jordan's recent arrest for CCW near Ashland, OH this past week.

First I want to thank everyone for the kind words for my helping out Jeff. It was really nothing, albeit my significant other was a little pissed about it being New Year's Eve and all, but I'd want you to help me if I got into a jam. She wasn't all that pissed as she had to work early on the 1st and went to bed early anyhow.

For those who haven't figured it out already Ohio is a state with ample law enforcement, I travel frequently by vehicle all around North American and I can always tell I'm home because the police always seem to be around. The Ohio Highway Patrol has a reputation for being one of the toughest agencies in the nation which make speeding in Ohio a risky proposition. The OHP also are vehemently anti-CCW, in fact our Republican Gov. Bob Taft, who the Cato Institute gave an "F" for fiscal policy, cites the patrol opposition to CCW as his reason for not supporting out right to carry concealed. Ohio's legislator's have passed a CCW bill, but Taft is threatening a veto unless law enforcement friendly changes are made.

I'm watching the 1951 classic "Halls of Montezuma," and noticed a couple of interesting costuming details. Here's one: the character of Lt. Carl Anderson, played by Richard Widmark, carries what looks like a Randall Model 1 knife with a double brass hilt... while the rest of the Marines seem to be carrying standard-issue KA-BARs. While a KA-BAR is a perfectly useful utility knife, a Randall Made Knife would have cost its wearer a pretty penny in WWII. These knives have long been sought after by soldiers and collectors since 1937. I recently sold a Model 16 Special #1 Fighter myself for a premium of almost $100 over retail... since you can't get one from the factory any earlier than summer 2007.

My Bujinkan teacher Dale Seago asked me to take some pictures of his new custom dirk last night. This is the first pic I snapped as he was about to place it on the tartan plaid backdrop on the dojo mat on the floor between us. I thought this captured one aspect of Dale so well that I have to share it (the spots on the pic are from the camera lens.)

A couple of weekends ago, I finally took out my Armalite AR-50 .50 BMG for a spin. I've owned it for quite a while, but I hadn't gotten around to shooting it: I wasn't yet convinced until recently that I wouldn't break the scope I was hoping to mount on it, a Leupold Vari-X III mil-dot model with a Premier Reticle (3.5-10 x 40mm). Once I was convinced, I mounted the scope and took it out for a bit of fun, using some surplus South African ammo I'd ordered a couple of years ago. No intention of serious zeroing, but I figured it would be fun to get at least a rough zero at the longest range I could manage.

The range was only about 300 meters deep, so for fun I set up to shoot at a vertical paper target, figuring I'd try to adjust for about one foot over point of aim. My first shot, with the elevation and windage on the scope set to "0", resulted in a hit right over the target... 4 feet over. It didn't take me long to get the hits down to roughly where I wanted them. Like I said, this was simply a set of warmup shots (also remembering that the first few shots through a new barrel will change point of impact.)

One of the things that amazed me about this weapon is how light the recoil was... and how loud it was! Both aspects make perfect sense given the combination of the weight of the weapon (37lb/16.8kg) and a well-designed muzzle brake (the size of a Coke can.) The muzzle brake, in the course of doing its recoil reduction job, introduces a lot of noise to either side and back of the muzzle. You do not want to be within 10-15 feet on either side of the weapon when it lights off! Interestingly, in the shooter's position behind the gun, it's much more bearable... but less so 6 feet behind the shooter. Interesting acoustics.

I plan to take this lovely piece back out to the range in the next few weeks, under more controlled conditions. I'll write about it at length, and may even have someone do a video of the firing sequence, so you all can see and hear it in action. This thing is fun!

I'm on break between school terms, and am catching up on some entertainment. Friends on the smith2004-discuss list had been raving about a short-lived 2002 Fox television series called "Firefly," which had been cancelled due to poor ratings.

I'd actually tried to catch the first episode as it aired in the U.S. last year. I tuned in only to find that some sports event had pre-empted the airing. I tuned away in disgust. It turns out that Fox wasn't airing the pilot ("Serenity") that night; instead, they were airing "The Train Job", which was written hastily over the space of a weekend at Fox's whim... the pilot, which set up the world, the characters, and the arc of the plot, didn't air for weeks later. As a matter of fact, of the 14 episodes that were produced, 10 were aired, and most of those out of sequence.

Fox did nothing to promote the show, and placed it in a suicide slot. The show was pre-empted several more times by sports events. It died a year ago to the protests of a fanatical viewer base spread across continents. In the last year news of the series has spread by word of mouth - the way I found out about it - and seems to have created a larger fan base in its absence.

Less than 2 weeks ago, Amazon.com released the entire, properly sequenced set of Firefly episodes on DVD. As of this writing, the DVD set ranks 17th in sales, with 261 reviews and an average 5-star rating!

Firefly: The Complete Series is also available for rental from Netflix.com. Several weeks ago, I added it to my Netflix rental queue - they allow pre-release reservations - and as soon as it was available to be rented, it was shipped to me. My loved one and I spent several evenings this last week watching the entire set. We are completely enamoured of this series, and now we're wondering how we're going to follow up with anything nearly as good.

A member of one of my mailing lists de-lurked today to introduce himself. He runs an incredibly cool and useful website, "Technical Video Rental", which advertises a carefully selected library of tapes, DVDs, and books for the independent-operator machinist. This should be of particular interest to those in the Free Arms Project.

The Free Arms Project just opened today for business, spun off the smith2004-discuss Yahoo Groups mailing list:

"The Free Arms Project is committed to the development of a patentless, Open Source, Open Engineering personal defense weapon."

It'll be interesting to see where we take this. The Weapon Shops of Isher?

I just got back from attending Michael Janich's Martial Blade Craft Course Levels 1&2 (MBC) this past weekend (Nov.8/9th). The class itself was hosted by Suarez International and was held at the Angeles Shooting Range just northeast of Los Angeles.

In addition to being an instructor renowned among students of edged weapons, Mr. Janich is also the author of numerous survival/self-defense books and videos published by Paladin Press.

Day/Level 1 started off with the usual (and necessary) mission statement as well as the defining of the overall goals of the classes followed by a short but informative lecture. Soon afterward, we were taught the basics which the rest of the course would build upon i.e. grip, stance, different methods of deploying a folder, Five Angles of Attack, Zones of Defense, and Defensive Responses. Afterward, we pretty much spent the rest of the day drilling on the various aspects of attack and defensive responses. We were also introduced to various drills taken from the Filipino Arts e.g. Largo Mano Flow Drill, Six-Count Flow Drill etc. in order to sharpen our technique, teach us to chain our responses and help develop an appreciation for the ability to perceive an attack and responding in a smooth and instantaneous fashion. In between all this, we were given a lecture on things to look for when choosing a folder and the numerous pros and cons of the various carry locations/positions. Later in the day, we were also given a demo on lethality and effectiveness of the fighting knife against flesh and blood targets as Mike slashed and ripped away at a pork roast (tied around a wooden dowel and wrapped in saran which was in turn sheathed by layers of denim) which was meant to simulate a human limb. The results were quite grisly but impressive.

Day/Level Two began with a brief review of Day/Level One before proceeding onto more advanced concepts/drills such as retraction cutting, Crossadas, Sumbradas, varying your range, etc. In between these comprehensive drills we were taught and given the time to practice both targetting and application for all the techniques we had spent the better part of a day and a half practicing. Towards the end of Day Two, we were also shown how the concepts and techniques that we were taught could also be applied to other contact weapons (canes, sticks, chains, belts) or in some cases, empty handed fighting.

Overall, I found the two day course to be a very gratifying experience. Mr. Janich is a top notch instructor who is not only intimately familiar with the subjects at hand but he also able to present the subjects in such a way that was easily understood and the fact that he had a sense of humor sure didn't detract from the experience.

As for the curriculum itself, I found it to be quite practical and thought provoking. The techniques taught were easy to learn and more importantly easy to apply in a real world situation. I think one of the best things about the concepts-based system of MBC is that by attaining familiarity with just a few basic concepts plus mastery over a few techniques the student is prepared for the entire spectrum of conflict involving contact weapons (or even empty hands) and this aspect of it should be very attractive to those of us who are seeking a simple, direct and highly adaptable fighting system to add to our Combative Skills Composite.

I laugh when some trainer advertises his class as “for police only,” as if that phrase somehow makes the class more advanced or the topics more "deadly." Rubbish. The state of the art resides in the private sector salles d'armes, the unofficial shooting schools.

Gabe Suarez

There are three reasons to own a gun: to protect yourself and your family, to hunt dangerous and delicious animals, and to keep the King of England out of your face.

Krusty the Clown

This is just simply embarrassing. In the spirit of Chinese Communist Party Self Criticism, this being the day the Soviets - er, the Chinese - launch their first cosmonaut into space on a 40 year old Soyuz design, I'll criticize this blunder of mine:

About a week ago, I mentioned a scuba diving trip I made to Monterey, California. If you look closely at the picture in that article, you'll see attached to the left side (my left side, as pictured) on the BCD (bouyancy control device [vest]) a Cold Steel Recon Tanto in its Kydex/Concealex sheath. Well, I was so knackered from the surf zone re-entry that I didn't immediately clean off my gear with fresh water and dry it. I did that the next day, forgetting completely that I'd clipped several caribiners (which survived unharmed) and one nice high carbon steel tanto (which suffered) to my technical BCD.

If you look closely at the snapshot above, you'll see rust spots on the exposed cutting edge of the blade. I took that photo as a record, before I cleaned up the edge. It took me an hour of careful work, but I was able to stone out and hone the rust spots. If you ever have anything like this happen to your blades, fix it thoroughly: one oxide spot will catalyze a larger oxide surface. I can say, however, that I'm really pleased at how the rest of the knife held up: flawlessly. The black epoxy powder coat finish protects the body of the blade extremely well.

I'm still going to try to dive this knife again, but next time I will 1.) pre-treat the entire blade surface with oil and 2.) immediately clean and dry the blade as soon as I doff my diving gear. Also, I'll use the same Nonox rust cleaner/preventative I use on my swords as an additional level of prevention in the cleanup.

I'd not heard of this guy before today, but a number of friends whom I deeply respect are throwing their support for Michael Badnarik, who is working to become the Libertarian Party's 2004 candidate for the U.S. presidency. See his blog too, in order to make up your own mind.

I'm doing homework for my only online college class (the rest are on campus), and I have the TV on in the background for noise. It's the Sci-Fi Channel, and one of the first Stargate SG-1 episodes, "Emancipation", is playing. I had to look up when the Daniel character says the people they're meeting are descendants of Mongols. As soon as I did, I saw one bowman nock and draw an arrow in the Western tradition, with the first two fingers (3 is also sometimes used in the West)! You see, Mongol bowmen never used that string draw technique: they used a very distinctive thumb draw instead.

Back to work now.

Someone on the smith2004-discuss list said he'd like me to post a picture I had taken last year of an MBA Gyrojet 13mm rocket carbine. Here it is. The owner had it on display at a gun show in San Jose, and was kind enough to allow me to have a couple of photos taken.

"warren_et" on the same list calls the projectile a - get ready for this - "Single-Stage-To-Obit rocket".

If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid about?

Clint Smith
Director, Thunder Ranch

Thanks to my friend Steve Pegram for passing along this incredibly interesting thread on the AR15.com Forums: "USMC after-action gear assessment". Pay particular attention to the reports on the adequacy of 5.56mm vs 7.62mm carbine/rifle ammunition, and the spectacular satisfaction of operators with their M16 & (especially) M4 carbines.

Especially interesting is a point I've known all along: a lot of issue military gear quickly gets replaced with individually selected commercial "sporting goods" equivalents, e.g. Panoptx goggles replacing the awful issue crap.

Another interesting point: the M9 pistol still sucks. It should be replaced with the Glock or whatever the individual soldier wishes to otherwise carry.

Sean Gabb announces today the publication of "All the Way Down the Slippery Slope: Gun Prohibition in England and Some Lessons for Civil Liberties in America" by Professors Joseph E. Olson and David B. Kopel; an excerpt from this long and well footnoted article:

Is it possible for a nation to go from wide-open freedom for a civil liberty, to near-total destruction of that liberty, in just a few decades? "Yes," warn many American civil libertarians, arguing that allegedly "reasonable" restrictions on civil liberty today will start the nation down "the slippery slope" to severe repression in the future.[3] In response, proponents of today's reasonable restrictions argue that the jeremiads about slippery slopes are unrealistic or even paranoid.[4]

This Essay aims to refine the understanding of slippery slopes by examining a particular nation that did slide all the way down the slippery slope.(p.400) When the twentieth century began, the right to arms in Great Britain was robust, and subject to virtually no restrictions. As the century closes, the right has been almost obliterated. In studying the destruction of the British right to arms, this Essay draws conclusions about how slippery slopes operate in real life, and about what kinds of conditions increase or decrease the risk that the first steps down a hill will turn into a slide down a slippery slope.

Sean Gabb, of the UK's Libertarian Alliance, has himself written a number of superb essays on the RKBA over the years. After reading the piece above, visit the LA's site and look for his work.

Here's something you don't see everyday: "Rare Mid to Late 19th Vampire Killing Kit", on auction at gunbroker.com, the original 19th century text from the enclosing wooden box:

Vampire Killing Kit

The accoutrements for the destruction of the Vampire

This box contains the items considered necessary for the protection of persons who travel into certain little known countries in Easter Europe where the populace are plagued with a peculiar manifestation of evil, known as Vampires... Professor Ernst Blomberg respectfully requests that the purchaser of this kit carefully studies his book. Should evil manifestations become apparent, he is then equiped to deal with them efficiently... Professor Blomberg wishes to announce his grateful thanks to that well known gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plombeur, whose help in compiling of the special items, the silver bullets,etc., has been most efficient. The items enclosed are as follows...

1. An efficient pistol with its usual accoutrements
2. A quantity of bullets of the finest silver
3. Powdered flowers of garlic (one phial)
4. Flour of Brimstone (one phial)
5. Wooden stake (Oak)
6. Ivory crucifix
7. Holy Water (one phial)
8. Professer Blomberg's New Serum

Eric S. H. Ching passes this along: US Map of CCW Laws.

At last night's dojo training, I showed this knife to Russell Whitaker. If you visit the Northerner.com site, you can see they have a few others as well.

The Suomi people would call this knife a puukko. The people themselves live in Finland and the northern parts of Sweden, Norway, and a bit of Russia. (BTW, there is a Tornedalen dialect of Finnish or Suomi spoken by about 30,000 people in Sweden.)

For comparison, here's a pic of another traditional Suomi-style knife with the sheath made from reindeer antler and leather, and yet another using both curly birch and reindeer horn for the sheath. These sheaths, by the way (mine included) are made with a small drain hole on the back side at the bottom, in case water should get into the sheath. Deep pouch-type sheaths are the norm throughout Scandinavia (not just in the Suomi country), to avoid loss of the knife.

Being made without finger guards, the overall design of Suomi knives favors "pulling" or draw cuts (important if you're out in the cold with numb fingers or wearing mittens, etc.), but the size and shape of the Tornedals knife handle also makes it easy to brace into the palm of your hand if you need to use a pushing motion.

I don't know whether the blade of my Tornedals knife is carbon or some sort of stainless steel, but either way it takes an incredible edge. I tried to test the edge last night by shaving a little hair off my arm, but it was hard to measure my success because the hair appeared to be leaping off in terror before the blade could quite reach it.

I'd also recommend checking out the Scandinavian & Lapp knives from various makers here (scroll down the main page).

Y'know, with just a knife like this and a good tomahawk, such as the Rogers' Rangers Field Grade Spike Tomahawk from American Tomahawk Co., I'd feel very well equipped for any situation I might run into in the boonies.

Damn, just wish I had that 'hawk... :-)

A friend just sent me a link to this San Francisco Chronicle article: "How Sean Penn got gun permit" in Marin County, California, which is the county just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco itself.

I'm reminded in the article that Kern County remains a great place to acquire a permit to exercise your fundamental human right to carry, but hadn't known that Shasta County seems to be another good place to acquire that "permission". Alameda County and San Francisco City remain blatant tyrannies.

Steve Pegram pointed me to this site, which - among other things - sells Kydex holsters.

I'd enjoy seeing more of these shots on their site... I may have to lobby them.

Dale Seago will be teaching at the Schola St. George Swordsmanship Symposium the weekend of 7-8 June 2003 in Benecia, California (near the San Francisco Bay area), bringing a cognate perspective to this historical European martial arts event:

Dale Seago will demonstrate and teach techniques of armoured Japanese combat, and Japanese armoured wrestling.

See Dale's excellent comments of today on SDF on the rebirth of traditional European martial arts.

Phil Elmore, a prolific contributor to the Self Defense Forums, has his own related site: The Martialist: the Magazine for Those Who Fight Unfairly.

As I looked at my two young sons, each with his gun, and considered how much the safety of the party depended on these little fellows, I felt grateful to you, dear husband, for having acquainted them in childhood with the use of firearms.

Elizabeth Robinson
The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss
Unabridged version

Posted to my other blog: Visual Glossary: the Terminology of Swords.

"...and I'm a selfdefenseaholic."

A few days ago, I discovered the Self-Defense Forums, and have been reccommending that high-quality site to a number of people. My teacher Dale Seago has been doing a lot of posting there, including this introductory piece with lots of great photos of Scottish dirks.

In a February post, "An ancient Japanese hideout gun", I showed a grainy picture of a "tanto pistol" which Jeff Sherwin had photographed recently in the arms museum at Matsumoto Castle in Japan. Tonight at the dojo, Jeff lent me a small stack of photos to scan with the better scanner (an Epson 1260 Photo) I picked up a few days ago; here's a sample:

Still a bit indistinct, but here's a breakout of the image on the left:

And the one on the right, which appears to be a mortar/rocket assembly:

I'm not able to make out any detail of the text on the placards in the display case, so I'll have to take pictures of the text on my own visit, whenever I get back to Japan. I promise a translation: my kanji knowledge has been getting reasonably adult in recent times.

I recently bought a new pistol, one that I have craved since it was announced nearly a year ago. It is a Sig-Sauer P226ST chambered in .357 Sig. It is the all-stainless configuration. It differs from the standard P226 in that the frame is made from stainless steel, whereas the standard P226 frame is alloy. It has heft, to the tune of nearly 40 ounces. Shooting it is a dream. The action is very tight, recoil and muzzle flip are reduced by the heft, and delivers outstanding accuracy. It also has the new M1913 Picatinny rail for attaching a light, if desired. It is also available in 9mm and .40 Auto.

Another discovery from my server logs: "Self-Defense Forums: For A Fighting Chance".

Proof that some of us pay very close attention to our server logs: howdy, Australian Survivalist readers! A special hello to "Warrigal".

If Wendy McElroy is correct, then there may be a bit of a culture shift happening in the midst of at least one demographic usually opposed to gun ownership.

Der größte Unsinn, den man in den besetzen Ostgebieten machen könnte, sei der, den unterworfenen Völkern Waffen zu geben. Die Geschicte lehre, daß alle Herrenvölker untergegangen seien, nachdem sie den von ihnen unterworfenen Volkern Waffen bewilligt hatten.

[The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.]

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitlers Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942. [Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters 1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951)

I just now saw a flash of news preview on Fox News, apparently related to a raid on one of Uday Hussein's villas. What a shocker: an apparently gold-plated AK-47! The AK was intended to be a low-maintenance, idiotproof carbine to be issued to dirt-poor illiterate peasants. Amazing to see one gilded.

Reminds me... a few days ago on the same news channel I saw coverage of the booty from another raid, this time on one of Saddam's own hidey-holes. The usual motley assortment of weapons. The Marine guide did what I would have done: he saw a piece he'd not expected and in a "I only have eyes for you" moment picked it up and shouldered it for the camera: it was a new-in-box, pristine Steyr AUG, with the Austrian muzzle cap (plastic dustcover) still attached! Never fired. I had to change my drool bib.

Now that I'm mostly recovered from this weekend's training - though still moving slowly - I'll mention this weekend's training I attended in Concord, California, conducted by Soke Don Angier of Yanagi Ryu Aiki Jiujitsu at Aikido of Diablo Valley, graciously hosted by Rick Rowell and Shari Dyer (who provided the photo below).

Mr. Angier is the only American soke of a Japanese family martial art, Yanagi Ryu Aiki Jiujitsu, an offshoot of the Daito Ryu tradition. He'll be turning 70 this year, and has been doing his art since 1958. He has an interesting story to tell, recounted in the article "'So Sorry! Jiu-jitsu Please, Not Judo!' My Career in Yanagi-ryu Aiki Jujutsu", originally printed in the May 2001 edition of Aikido Journal, and reprinted by the Journal of Combative Sport (an interesting venue, since Yanagi Ryu, like the Bujinkan arts I study, utterly lacks sporting elements).

My American teacher in the Bujinkan, Dale Seago, some years ago strongly recommended that his students take advantage of the fact that Mr. Angier was visiting San Francisco for a weekend seminar on the principles of his art. A number of us did indeed take Dale up on his recommendation, and a small core group of us make a point of training with Mr. Angier on the roughly yearly schedule he visits the San Francisco Bay area.

Don Angier teaches these 2-day seminars with a very small number of very specific techniques, which are vehicles for the important lessons: the principles behind martially effective movement, e.g. commutative locking, finding the opponent's weak lines, taking advantage of hardwired mammalian and reptilian visual responses to misdirection, etc. All physics, all anatomy & physiology.

As is usual at these events, we had a larger (18-20 people) group training the first day, and a small group of about half that size training the second day. Mr. Angier and his direct students Jeremy and Mort (great guys) circulated the room giving intensely minutely specific directions for correcting our movements.

The attendees were predominantly aikidoists, with a much smaller number of Bujinkan students. The purpose of the training was not to make us practicioners of Mr. Angier's art, but rather to take home the lessons of his training to our own arts and our own movement. I can't recommend his training highly enough. At $70 for the weekend, too, it was practically given away free. Train with him, if you have the opportunity.

We have tried to reward overall self-sensitive and self-controlled performance with a sportsman's trophy. To sophisticated folk's way of thinking, this prize, given to the entrant who best used his equipment and best exercised his judgment, is the most important categorical award of all. That riflist may not have a notably high score, but he will see everything, he will shoot at nothing he should not, and he will not miss. That riflist is truly a hunter in the greatest sense.

Dr. David N. Kahn, speaking of the Keneyathlon

A reader, Zach Lunderville, today posted a comment on a posting of mine from January, a recommendation of the book Unintended Consequences by John Ross. His website, "Revolt", has some excerpts from various training manuals. Check them out.

Those who do not have swords may still die upon them.

J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers

Steve Pegram pointed me to this 3-part article in "Film Threat" magazine's on-line edition, "The Fictitious Truths of Michael Moore", which ends with an online petition to have Moore and Michael Donavan's Oscar award for "Bowling for Columbine" revoked.

An excerpt:

The movie uses this tragedy as a springboard into the great gun debate, but the Columbine massacre is obviously about more than guns. A quick look at the story shows these two ghouls were plotting the event for some time and their acquisition of guns was a late bit of fortune for their designs. Along with firearms, this aberrant duo brought with them a propane tank modified into an explosive device, as well as a quiver of napalm fueled pipe bombs. It is doubtful the absence of guns would have stalled their quest for long.

and:

Another target in the film is the NRA, and specifically, its president Charlton Heston. The movie uses creative editing and a fluid timeline to paint Heston as a reactionary, who rushed into towns in the wake of shooting deaths of children to hold pro-gun rallies in an effort to stave off anti-gun sentiments. We get to listen to Heston’s Denver address, in which he sounds like a heartless boor in light of the current events in the region, but what is actually broadcast is a judiciously edited version that also contains segments from another speech that was given across the country, nearly a year later. Heston’s original speech was somber and conciliatory, but the audio cut-and-paste transforms him into a state of bloodlust. Moore not only fails to make this distinction, but he edits the scene with visuals so that the audio sounds to be seamlessly delivered from the Denver podium.

It gets worse.

I've got a set of Tim Bathurst's "Sword bound handle" training shinai which I picked up last May on a training trip to Japan, and highly recommend them. I especially like the tsuka on my daisho set, which are wrapped with ito over an imitation same. Great training tools with a really good feel.

I've recently heard Fox News reporters calling found weapons caches "arsenals". Guys, an "arsenal" is a place where weapons are manufactured (and sometimes designed); an "armory" is a place where weapons are simply stored.

While I'm ranting, I also noticed that one of Fox's talking head retired military analysts actually misused the term "decimate" to mean "annihilate". This is a somewhat understandable mistake, had it been committed by someone not schooled in the arts of war, but rather shocking on the part of a professional officer.

To those who don't understand my quibble, see this definition of "decimate". I disagree with this guy, by the way: I'm aware that words do change meanings over time, but "decimate" still retains the distinction of "to reduce (in force)". And yes, I'm aware of the arguments of Pinker against "language mavens" in his superb The Language Instinct and related works - I actually agree with most of them - but I'm annoyed at the degradation of language where caused by several generations of horrible government schooling.

(Bitch mode off)

I've had the pleasure of taking firearms training twice with Eric S. H. Ching: once in a day-long special defensive pistol session I put together for my friends, and once in a 6-day defensive pistol course, where he was a line instructor under Col. Jeff Cooper.

Eric is an educated, methodical, and analytical man... who first started shooting in his 30's, but is now a world-respected firearms innovator. Those of you who've not yet taken the first steps in firearms ownership and training, take heart: Eric is your paradigm example. You can do it.

Eric has followed up his invention of the 3-point Ching Sling (featured on the Steyr Scout iconic to this blog: the favorite in my personal collection) with a 2-point version of the same, the "Safari Ching Sling", intended for mounting on rifles without the extra sling point (I'm thinking of the Savage Scout in particular).

Last night at the dojo, our teacher Dale Seago held an auction of a number of his blades. I picked up a very nice and extremely stout little Linder (Solingen) skinning knife, and this interesting piece, a Kris Cutlery Visayan Pinuti:

I sometimes go places where a machete could be useful. I really hate standard machetes: flimsy, clumsy, and crude. This piece is much better: attractive and servicable, weighted toward the tip (as befits a bolo), and a good enough practical travel short sword. I agree with Jeff Sherwin who commented to me last night that Kris Cutlery does these types of blades best: quality Filipino blades made in the Phillipines. Interestingly, the Kris Cutlery description mentions that the tang is simply glued in place, which is not true: it's also pinned. Oh, and the pommel as you can see in this picture is a nice, oversized knob: great for striking.

I've also owned one of their 26" Japanese-style katana, which was a great little piece for the price. I eventually sold it when I made the leap to a Bugei Samurai Katana last year, for about $800 more.

Just saw footage of U.S. troops fighting alongside Kurds in northern Iraq. Looked a lot like northern Nevada mountain country, complete with snow-covered peaks! I wonder if they've got something like mule deer out there too... hmmm... I wonder if hunting is good out there.

Speaking of which, I've heard quite a bit about Iraqis being a hunter culture, and gun ownership being a common thing. I'm not thrilled to hear that British forces have been making a big deal of bringing their own special brand of domestic gun control to the population in Iraq. I sincerely hope the Iraqi people have stashed away all those Kalashnikovs they've supposedly been issued.

Don't take this to mean I'm anything resembling sympathetic to the Iraqis' maddog dictator. I'm simply concerned that we recognize the individual rights of Iraqi people. Innocent Iraqis have the right to own and keep weapons too.

Terry Egan passes this along to me; lunacy from the European Union:

The Adam Smith Institute has denounced the latest batch of EU regulations as yet another example of economic illiteracy. It singles out the new requirement, imposed by EU Safety Commissioner Senator Fapirollo, that the maximum length of knife blades permitted within the EU after 1 January 2004 will be 10cm (approx 4 inches).

Even Stalin and Hitler hadn't thought of that little gem of legislation.

Thanks to Steve Pegram for passing along this tale of an M-16 kb. Learn the signs!

This is eerily familiar to my experience with S&B ammo in a Glock 23 a few months ago.

Thanks to Michael Duey for sending me this digipic he captured at a recent training event with Bujinkan shihan Bill Atkins.

I've cropped the face of my victim training partner per request of He Who Must Not Be Named (AKA "Robert"), who's tangled in my training kyoketsu shoge ("ring & dagger"), a most amusing weapon system.

[This is new contributor Mariko Kage's first blog post. Welcome! - Ed.]

I just went to watch "The Hunted", which opened Friday night. I highly recommend it.

The Fandango movie synopsis says: "The Hunted is a suspense-thriller about a deep woods tracker (Tommy Lee Jones) who teams up with a female FBI agent (Connie Nielsen) to hunt down a trained assassin (Benicio Del Toro). The killer remains one step ahead, and escapes into the city."

Tommy Lee Jones plays L.T. Bonham, a Tom Brown-like character and Benicio Del Toro is Aaron Hallam, a former soldier tormented by his experiences in Kosovo where he was an eyewitness to genocide. L.T., a tracker in British Columbia, once trained soldiers like Aaron for secret ops in the U.S. military. He explains to the FBI agent played by Nielsen, who is investigating the murder of hunters: "I trained him to survive, I trained him to kill." The movie is partially based on the life of Tom Brown, who has trained, among others, Richard Marcinko and SEAL Team Six.

One of the tracking scenes take place in Oregon's Cascade mountains, where Aaron hunts deer hunters, armed with only a knife. By the way, he uses a TOPS knife custom-designed by Tom Brown and prominently featured in the movie several times (see cover story in April issue of Blade magazine). I have been told that all the knife throwing in the movie was done by Tom Brown himself (with whom I recently trained).

Those who have trained at his Tracker School would appreciate the shots of Benicio using the hand drill, creating a tinder bundle, forging a knife, camouflaging in wilderness and in urban environments, and the attention paid to the art of tracking in general as well as several scenes of knife fighting. I read a terrible review by the L.A. Times this morning... they just don't get it. I say it's definitely a movie worth seeing again and learning from.

In the Militia Act of 1792, the second Congress defined militia of the United States to include almost every free adult male in the United States. These persons were obligated by law to possess a [military style] firearm and a minimum supply of ammunition and military equipment…There can be little doubt from this that when the Congress and the people spoke of the militia, they had reference to the traditional concept of the entire populace capable of bearing arms, and not to any formal group such as what is today called the National Guard.

Report by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution 1982

Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual’s liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual’s liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.

John Keegan

Thanks to "Buyu Kurt" for posting some photos of Dale Seago's "Guns 'N Blades" seminar to the clubbuyu mailing list.

Thanks to the Liberty Belles for the image above. Relatedly, read "The Racist Origins of US Gun Control" by Steve Ekwall, as well as Tim O'Brien's shorter piece.

News of Mark Morford's latest disgraceful San Francisco Chronicle article has spread like wildfire the last 36 hours. Quite a few people have expressed their displeasure with his irresponsible rantings, writing him directly. I'm not convinced that writing the guy does anything more than let him know that he's succeeding in angering people he obviously wanted to anger. He's a print-medium version of a radio shock jock: he wants to raise our hackles.

I would like to emphasize, as I did in my original post on the matter, that he should lose his job at the Chronicle, since he's going to cost his employer advertising dollars if he continues. That's the way to be truly effective. Certainly, you should copy Morford on your complaint, but he's much more likely to get that special sinking feeling when he realizes that he's simply a 3rd party in the complaint.

The SF Chronicle does have an impressively comprehensive "Address Book" page, from which I'll excerpt this interesting little tidbit:

Reader representative: If you have comments on The Chronicle's coverage, standards or accuracy, please call Dick Rogers, the readers' representative, at (415) 777-7870. Written comments can be e-mailed to readerrep@sfchronicle.com, faxed to (415) 442-1847, or addressed to Readers' Representative, c/o San Francisco Chronicle, 901 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103. For information on delivery, billing or how to become a subscriber, call (800) 281-2476.

The Chronicle has a page listing contact information for the people who run the revenue side (advertising makes up the lion's share of a newspaper's revenue stream).

Consider contacting these people directly:

• George Raine - Business Reporter, Advertising and Marketing
• Beverly Best - Retail/National Sales Manager - (415) 777-7244

And here's the masthead: the people who actually run the paper's operations. Contact them.

I'd written earlier about a piece of trash writing pawned off on San Francisco Chronicle readers today. Geoff Metcalf returns fire against Mark Morford in an analysis piece; highly recommended. Geoff also makes the point that the Chronicle is especially potentially vulnerable in respect of their advertising revenue (thanks to Dr. Edgar Suter for passing this along).

Dale Seago once again alerts us to another wildly hysterical San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece by Mark Morford, this time entitled "Me And My Big Dumb Gun", bemoaning the introduction of the new Smith & Wesson .50 caliber handgun.

I urge you to read the article and see just how vile a writer can be. Search this site for references to "Morford", and also read Dr. Edgar Suter's early commentary on the same, as well as Dr. Jim Finn's response.

These were done in response to Morford's earlier rant, but - surprise, surprise - seem to have done little or nothing to convince Mr. Morford (unlikely, anyway) or his employer to curb his nasty behavior.

I suggest this: do continue to editorialize against the idiot writer, but direct your responses to the advertisers of the San Francisco Chronicle, copying the Chronicle editors. This is a tactic suggested a while back by L. Neil Smith, who is in my experienced opinion correct in stating that the threat of losing advertising dollars is the only thing editors truly fear.

I will very gladly reproduce well-written letters here. Copy me at whitakerATsurvivalartsDOTcom (replace the appropriate tokens with "@" and ".", proving to me you're not a spambot).

Thanks to commenter Dirk for pointing me to this excellent resource! I highly recommend pointing your friends to this site, Oleg Volk's "A Human Right", especially potential new shooters - females, particularly - and political fencesitters.

Aside from being an excellent source of pro-rights arguments, there are so many superb, powerful images worth reproducing. For fellow Bujinkan practicioners, there's an interesting article by a Texas shidoshi on martial arts & firearms.

The Liberty Belles issue this challenge:

Which would you choose?

A while back on the Front Sight Alumni site, there was some discussion about a Miami Vice episode a couple of decades ago, called "Calderone", in which a real-life pistol champion plays a character (in this case, a hitman) who executes one of the most spectacular displays of true gun handling ever caught on film and integrated into a fictional narrative.

Apparently the episode aired a couple of nights ago. Video captures are available too... wow. Do check them out.

Celebrate Diversity!

Thanks to fellow Bujinkan practicioner Jeff Sherwin, who knows my interest in firearms, for giving me copies of a couple of photos he took on a recent trip to Japan. Pictured here is what is apparently either a flintlock or percussion blackpowder single-shot pistol, artfully concealed to resemble a tanto. This would be worn in a samurai's obi, even in a castle, where longswords were often not allowed. This is a digital scan of a low-contrast analog photograph, so please forgive the lack of detail:

Here's a blurb from a Japanese tourist guide:

The simple yet magnificent castle has become the symbol of Matsumoto. The 5 tiered 6 storied castle tower is approximately 30 meters tall and is the nation's oldest among existing castles. The dark stairwell leads to a viewpoint of the Matsumoto plains. The moon-viewing turret and all sorts of crenelations for stones, arrows, bullets and such still remain. The battlements and the scarce windows are all parts of the historic war strategies which display the intense power struggle of the times.

On the 2nd floor of the Matsumoto-jo Castle tower is an exhibit of 106 historic guns [emphasis mine - ed.] as well as references regarding modern weapons.

All the times I've been to Japan, and the year I lived there, I never thought to visit this museum near Nagano. I plan to make the trip sometime, and take a very good digital camera with me. Jeff has enticed me with descriptions of grenadier samurai armor and lacquered blackpowder grenades. I really must see this stuff.

Oh, and relatedly, I guess it's about time I get around to writing a review of Noel Perrin's Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879, as I'd mentioned a while back.

Thanks to my friend Michael for passing this along to me: the Rock SOPMOD M-14 conversion ("Commando Carbine"). I'd love to try one of these 9-pound carbine modifications. It's apparently a smaller overall package than even a typical M-4.

Octagenarian arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov has finally agreed to start licencing his name... to a German firm selling "manly products". Took him long enough: guess he still has a few years to enjoy some benefit from the half-century of marketing of his easy-to-field ingenuity.

I lived in London the early part of the '90's, and had the opportunity to go shooting with the Imperial College Non-Staff Shooting Club - on campus! - at their indoor range, where I learned some neat tactical tricks from a retired Hong Kong cop. Even then, though, I didn't know there existed an "NRA of Great Britain", but now I know, according to a Samizdata article by David Carr.

I do hope the NRA/GB is not like the crowd of statist wimps which characterize the National NRA of the US, crying out to "enforce the existing laws" of the land. I wonder if there's a JPFO/GB or a GOA/GB... until then, the UK Libertarian Alliance is the closest thing they have.

Speaking of the club at Imperial College, I see that while they apparently still exist, and under the name Imperial College Rifle and Pistol Club, there is no mention other than in name of the word "pistol" on their website. I'm assuming that the nice little underground pistol range that ex-girlfriend Nagako and I trained at a decade ago has been turned into a rimfire range, at best. Ugh.

Another glance at the ICRPC website mentions this sad fact, emphasis mine:

ICRPC only owns one fullbore target rifle so we normally organise our shooting trips in conjuction with the University of London Rifle Club. The rifles we use fire 7.62mm rounds, normally 155 grain.

As I implied in a piece I wrote for Samizdata a few months ago, a once-great country has been strangling it grassroots culture of weapon ownership at its base. I predict that the ICRPC will eventually lose even that one rifle... unless the students are willing to fight for it.

I'd meant to post this a week ago, but I just now recovered the digital camera I left at the Bujinkan Stockton dojo in my post-training fatigue.

Those of you who didn't make Dale Seago's Guns 'N Blades seminar at the Bujinkan Stockton dojo last weekend missed a training event worth travelling for.

As had been advertised in the original announcement, and at the request of the Stockton dojo, Dale spent some time talking about the care and maintenance of Western-style blades. Pictured above, Dale speaks about the differences in sharpening techniques between blades with conventional bevelled edges, e.g. most pocket knives, regardless of expense, and the relatively less common convex edge on a blade such as the custom Bowie pictured with Dale here.

Unlike its antonym, 'hoplophilia' does not describe an aberration: a man who loves weapons is no more abnormal than a woman who loves babies. Countless millennia of hunting and war fighting have programmed man with the knowledge that a weapon means LIFE. This stark realization repels some - they are the hoplophobes. To us hoplophiles it is a delight.

Paul Kirchner

Teri Seago will be teaching the 4th installment of her women's safety series on Saturday 22 February 2003 at the San Francisco Buyu Center.

Weapons Disarming is the fourth installation of this popular safety series. For many people who learn self-defense, fighting back is no longer an option when a weapon is involved. If anything, the threat level is increased, adrenalin is pumping, and choices seem more limited. There are still choices, however, and this seminar will address how to remove a weapon and control the person who is attacking.

As I've mentioned before, I highly recommend her to women wanting to learn this approach to self-defense.

I stumbled today on this review of Estate Reduced-Recoil 00 Buckshot. and after having myself put several hundred rounds of it through my bedside Benelli a few months ago at a 4-day Tactical Shotgun course at Front Sight, I would say I wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer. It's what I use now.

Two years ago at about this season, Russell sold me a half-price voucher for a four-day course in practical defensive pistolry. I didn't schedule the trip until late summer.

The weekend after the Disturbing Events in the East, there was (as every few months) a gun show at the Cow Palace; I had been told to bring 800 rounds of ammo to the course, so I went looking for bargains. I also needed a new hat for Nevada sunshine, so later that day I went to the Berkeley Hat Company.