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This past weekend, Wizard, Linoge, Linoge’s wife, and I went down to Manchester for a Project Appleseed rifle clinic.  First, a couple bullet points:

I witnessed Linoge getting into Wizard’s pants.

I’m not a bad shot, but still have room for improvement… like making sure I’m hitting the right target.

Concrete is hard.

Yes, you really should clean your .22 rifles (who knew?).

40-something degrees + light rain + wind is cold.

Saturday morning, I got up and left the hotel for the range at the Arnold Engineering Development Center somewhere between Manchester and Tellahoma.  They have multiple ranges (including a 1000 yard range that they have to close off the access road to use), and we were using the 25 yard range.  I was not the only one that showed up with only a light jacket, as the weatherman told us it was supposed to be in the 50’s or 60’s that day and made no mention of wind.  The weather man is a dirty liar.  It was in the 40’s, lightly raining, and with a rather bitter wind.  Everyone quickly went to their cars to see if they had sweat shirts, extra jackets, and in the case of Linoge, who was wearing his new 5.11 kilt, pants.  Fortunately, we all either had extra gear with us or someone was willing to lend something (Wizard randomly had extra pants in his car, which Linoge changed into).  I was happy that I had left a second light jacket in my trunk, and the layers worked out well.  I know 40-something doesn’t sound bad, but when I told MrsWizardPC later that *I* was cold, her response was “but you never get cold.”

The First order of the day was a quick introduction to the staff, and what they expected the weekend to look like.  After that, they gave the first of four speeches about the Revolutionary War.  The three they give on Saturday are refered to as the “three strikes of the match” and are about the events at the beginning of the war.  After that, we went over the four safety rules, which are different from the four rules I’m used to, but are good ones to follow at a range.  They are: always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, do not load your rifle until instructed by the line boss, keep your finger off the trigger until the sights are lined up with the target, and make sure that the people next to you are following the rules.  Like I said, different than the NRA 4 rules, but they work in a range situation.

After that, we went down to the firing line to prep our rifles and get down to work.  I will have to say this is one of the only times I can think of for being chastised at a range.  Apparently their range policy is that the rifles should be pointed up or down range at all times.  This includes when they are in a case.  I found this out while carrying my rifle case by its handle.  It’s not a big deal, and I appreciate the concern of safety, but worrying about the direction a cased rifle is pointing is a bit overkill in my book.  It’s straying a bit too far into the realm of “gun is dangerous.  Might jump out and start shooting people on its own” in my book.  Of course, this being their range and their rules, I did what I always do when confronted with something that really doesn’t inconvenience me.  I asked for clarification (“even when it’s in a case?”), shrugged my shoulders, and complied.

For the rest of the day, we shot one of three types of targets.  The “Red Coat” target has silhouettes of a man’s head and shoulders shrunk down to simulate 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards, plus a rectangle to simulate a head shot at 250 yards.  These were primarily used to see where you were in your shooting ability, and check on progress.  We used a quarter inch grid target for most of Saturday.  The grid really helps you understand how close/far you were from what you were aiming at or how tight your groups were.  The last was the AQT. This is the Army Qualification Test, and is the target used to score whether you’ve made rifleman or not.  It’s not easy, but it’s definitely possible.

One thing that they tell you is recommended, but to required that should be is a shooting mat.  You’re going to be spending a lot of time in the prone and sitting/kneeling positions.  You’ll also be doing a lot of drills dropping into the positions.  This means your knees, elbows, and ribs are going to be meeting the concrete a good bit.  I only had a fairly thick fleece blanket with me, and, while it did protect my from the cold of the concrete, I have a few bruises from those drills.

The next thing that really needs to be emphasized is that you should not only bring a sling, but the right sling.  They really push the “loop sling” method of shooting, which pretty much requires the old M1 Garand GI style sling.  The “hasty sling” is another method that they teach, which is also the method that I’m more familiar with.  Most two or three point slings can be used for the hasty sling, but you need to make sure that the sling won’t loosen over time like mine did.

One thing that I can’t stress enough is make sure you go with a clean gun!  I failed to do this, and it hurt me.  My Marlin 795 started to fail to strip rounds off of the magazines and had a couple failures to extract.  Both of these I attribute to it being dirty, since a hit of CLP got it working.  I did bring *some* cleaning suplies with me (a can of CLP, a bore snake, and some patches), and did some cleaning in the hotel room, but it really needing scrubbing.  To quote Linoge after he looked at my chamber Sunday morning “Oh! there’s metal under there!  I was thinking it was entirely held together by fouling!”

Sunday was pretty much entirely an AQT grind.  The stated goal was to run through the AQT over and over until either everyone qualified rifleman, we ran out of ammo, or we ran out of daylight.  Predictably, we ran out of daylight.  We had a lot of folks that did, in fact, get their rifleman’s badge this weekend, including Linoge and his wife.  Sadly, Wizard and I were not in the ranks.  I don’t know exactly what he scored, but I know I scored pretty high in the “sharpshooter” range a few times, including the last time when the rear Tech Sight on my Marlin slid off the rifle (note to self: put some Lock-Tite on that thing).  I did try Linoge’s rifle for the last Red Coat target, and I’m pretty sure if I had been using it instead of my mostly stock Marlin, I would have made it.  That thing is nice.  I think I might have made it just by using a scope instead of iron sights.

I know I’m missing a few things, but I’m still tired and bruised from jumping up and down on the concrete in the cold for an entire weekend.  I know… I know… you guys with military backgrounds are probably reading this and thinking that I’m a weenie, but my usual day is sitting in front of a computer drink tea.

oh, and I already have a few things on order for the next event.

And no, it’s not pants.

Shut up and take my money!

(unlike Rob, I do play such games)

So, I’m up here at my company’s office up in the Boston area, and a couple of my coworkers come down the hall discussing the Fast and Furious debacle. One of them is skeptical that the thing is real, so I jump in on the side of reality (not too hard, but a “yes, it exists,” here and a “it doesn’t fit the media’s view on the world” there.

As they break up, I mention to the guy that I was defending that I’m a bit of a gun nut, so I follow that stuff pretty closely. He responds in hushed tones that he’s into guns, but has to be careful who he tells up here. We quietly talk for a bit about such things, and I tell him that if he makes it to Nashville to let me know and I’ll take him to the range to play with my toys.

Turns out he’s already scheduled to come down in December… I’m thinking he’s adjusting his travel plans so that we can get some range time.

We had one of those bachelor parties where me commenting that I had a tarp, 100′ of paracord, and duct tape in the car was perfectly appropriate for the conversation.

Naienko is very happy about this, but starting tomorrow night, the only time she’s going to see me for ten days is when she’s dropping me off and picking me up from the airport.

This weekend, a buddy of mine is having a truly geeky bachelor party.  None of us are really into the bar hopping scene, so we’re going to shut ourselves up at the house of one of the groomsmen, drink, play games, and watch bad movies all weekend.  There was talking of maybe getting some strippers, but the owner of the house said, and I quote, “if I have to clean up stripper juice, I’m gonna have to cut a bitch.”  There are talks of making T-shirts with that on it.

I’m going to have to abandon that party Sunday morning to catch a flight to Boston for work, and fly back on Friday evening to drive down to Manchester for Project Appleseed.

Speaking of Massachusetts, and believe there’s a couple of folks from that area that read this.  I know it’s short notice, and I’ll only be up there during the week, but any of you guys want to try to get together for dinner?  I don’t know exactly where you guys are, but I’ll be staying in Lowell.

CSI:Rural TN.

Yesterday, the big story around here was that 4 people died in a house fire. It was a couple in their 70s and their two grandchildren. In one of the stories I read, the sheriff said that it was difficult getting to one of the children’s bodies because he was special needs. They reported that the had recovered all the remains.

Until today.

Now, the TBI and local law enforcement are saying they haven’t found the children and have issued a missing persons alert. The ATF is involved, presumably because the TBI found evidence of arson. Or they’re trying to justify their existence. Hard to tell.

Note in the first article that one of the family dogs was running down the driveway on fire when the firetrucks got there. That says accelerant to me, but I’m just a layperson who liked to set fire to things as a child.

Conspicuously absent from the coverage is any mention of the children’s parents, or why the kids had been living with their grandparents for the last five years.

I really meant to post this Monday (along with a review of the 5.11 tactical kilt), and… well… it didn’t happen.  I feel kind of pushed now that Uncle has posted about it.  Here‘s a copy of the story from a local news source.

The reason I feel the need to say something is that Naienko, my mother, and I showed up at that shopping center at maybe 7:30 or 7:45 to go to the Target to shop for a wedding present for a buddy of mine.  We didn’t know what was going on, but we did see multiple squad cars parked with their lights on, and a very large portion of the parking lot was taped off (as in most of the spaces in front of the Dick’s Sporting Goods.

The thing is, from what the reports show, the seller did everything right as far as the meet up.  The Nashville West shopping center is generally considered a good part of town.  Sure, there’s a not great part near by, but that can be said of just about any part of Nashville.  The place is typically very busy on a Saturday night.  Heck, there’s a police precinct damn near in sight of  the shooting.  He took his brother along, so he wasn’t alone.  The only thing that might have been better is if his brother had gotten out of the car instead of stay in it.  Maybe… maybe not.

There’s also the interesting thing that the victim was trying to sell 6 guns, and the potential buyers turned murders apparently failed to take any of them after they shot him.

Ok, so we’re into week 3 of Kilted to Kick Cancer, and you guys have donated… nothing.

I’m going to blame myself for obviously not promoting it enough, and not having anything nifty to give away.  A few folks on GBC have suggested that I threaten you with pictures of me in nothing *but* a kilt, But… uh… I think Wizard would hurt me for scaring off the few regular readers we have.  That, and I’d rather not break one of my cameras.

So, if I’ve guilt tripped you into donating, you can do so for Livestrong here, or the Prostate Cancer Foundation here.  Of course, you could always donate because you’re good people and their good causes.  Right?

Ok, enough of that…

Here I am in my more dressy kilt.  You can’t really see it, but the kilt and vest are pinstripe.  I’m also carrying a cane that can be used to defend myself.  This particular one would not be my choice for defense (I prefer something in oak with a crook), but it is, when it comes down to it, an aluminum pole that no one will question you carrying around.  This is especially useful when you’re, say, in downtown Atlanta attending a convention with roughly 52,000 other geeks and the rules say no guns.

It’s interesting that the cane as a defense tool seems to get rediscoverd ever-so-often.  While I was at Dragoncon, I attended a panel discussing Bartitsu and A.C. Cunningham’s thoughts on the matter.  Of course, any proper fan of Sherlock Holmes has heard of Bartitsu, but A.C. Cunningham was an American Naval officer that wrote about adapting spear and saber techniques to the cane.  Of course, during that time, most gentlemen carried canes as a fashion item whether they needed it or not.  Something I don’t think I’d be upset about should it come back into fashion (although I doubt it will).

While, sadly, both Bartitsu and Cunnigham’s teaching have faded away, there are a couple options for the modern gentleman to learn how to effectively use the cane.  There are a few traditional martial arts that have used the cane for some time.  The most prominent in my mind is Hapkido.  For a modern art dedicated to the walking cane as a weapon, I’d have to go with the Goju-Shorei system.  Of course, the fact that my instructor is the director of the weapons system might make me a little biased.

I know… I know… every time you turn around, you see the people bickering about whether you should open carry or concealed carry, but I rarely see one argument for open carry… normalization of guns in the public eye.

A brief background on myself: at various points in my life, I’ve been associated with goths (before, during, and after the Columbine shooting… and yes, I have a black trench coat), scifi con geeks (you’d be amazed at the crap scifi con goers have gone through), white hat (ok, maybe grey hat) hackers, LARPers, those weirdos that dress up for ren fair, and probable a few other sub-cultures that the main stream has looked down upon/vilified at one point or another.  Sure, a few of these groups just have to put up with being made fun of, but others have had the cops called on them because they looked funny or were “obviously up to no good.”  Heck, there have been times that being a goth meant that some folks were trying to figure out ways to force psych evals onto you.

One thing that all of these groups have learned is that it’s best when people around you decide that what you’re doing is within the realm of “normal” and “safe” to them.  This won’t happen with gun owners that only carry concealed.  Sure, you blend in with everyone else, and no one notices you, but that also means that no one sees you as a responsible gun owner.  We have to remember that there’s a lot of folks that get the entirety of their knowledge from TV.  You know, that place that makes it sound like all guns must be registered for our safety, and anyone wandering around a store with a gun tucked away is automatically either a bad guy or a cop.

The only other way they find out is from us.  There are folks that take that to mean that they should wander the streets trying to cause a scene and then scream that they don’t have to ID themselves to the cops because they’ve done nothing wrong, or that the cop doesn’t have reason to inspect his semi-auto that looks a hell of a lot like a full auto that folks commonly see in action movies or that SWAT typically carries.  Yes.  These people may be technically right, but they’re also, to use a technical term, jackasses.  Being a jackass means that even when you’re right, you still lose.  Maybe not right then, but you just gave credence to the belief that gun carriers are either up to no good or jackasses with something to prove.

Naienko was someone that believed this when I first met her.  She wasn’t against gun ownership, but she saw guns as dangerous items that need to be respected at all times.  Which, to her, included keeping them locked in a safe until you planned on using them.  The only people she knew that carried guns were people that she felt shouldn’t own them.  They were the loud brash types that carried one because it made them feel more manly etc.

Then she started hanging around Wizard and I.  While I didn’t carry a gun(and don’t all the time now), I have carried multiple knives for a long time.  Including at least one that would be suitable for down and dirty fighting.  Wizard has pretty much carried a pistol on him since the day he got his permit.  He often carries a fairly full sized pistol on his hip which, even though he uses a IWB holster, is visible when he’s hanging out and relaxing.  That right there has changed her mind about people carrying guns.  Not right away, but it went from “I don’t like it because these are the types that carry,” to “well, you and Wizard are good, but I don’t know about the rest,” to finally “oh, ok… there are cool people that carry and jackasses, just like any other group of people,” as the number of known non-jackasses that carried increased.

This is how you change people’s minds.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not advocating that everyone carry OC and CC is horrible.  If that’s the way you’re comfortable in carrying, good for you, that’s fine.  I’ve gone the CC route for one reason or another in the past, and I will again.  If you’re comfortable with OC’ing, taht’s great too.  I’ve gone that route for one reason or another as well, and will again.  What I am saying is that OC has its advantages, and one place that it does is long term and you might never notice.  If everyone CC’d, then no minds will be changed.  OC’ing creates opportunities to do so.

Just remember, if you decide to open carry, don’t be a jackass.  I’m not saying you have to go to extremes and let people trample you, but be on your best behavior.  It might just influence the right person the next time a gun rights bill comes up.