Stolen from TSLR: great pictures from the Graduation Ceremony. Here's the whole story.

Say what you will about the man, he does seem to have a great sense of humor.

I borrowed this from Inbetween Naps.

Left Libertarian
(You scored 82% Personal Liberty and 78% Economic Liberty!)

"A left libertarian believes in little to no government intervention on personal matters and little to moderate government intervention on economic matters. They generally believe in a government that is extremely small and limited to the extent of protecting people's liberty. They tend to be strongly opposed to war, police powers, victimless crimes, foreign intervention and what they consider to be a welfare state. They strongly support self-ownership and support property rights. They support capitalism as an economic system. Libertarian thought is individualist in nature."

Take the test!

That's a change since the last time I took the test.

I had to swing by the Home Despot today, so I grabbed some of their transplant ready seedlings to hurry my garden along. One cherry tomato, one yellow tomato, one white eggplant (why not, right?), one basil and one dill. Nothing special, just some variety. They're all in the ground now.

Viking for TEOTWAWKI.

Here's this month's installment of maybe helpful, maybe funny answers to what you want to know.

glock 27 weak hammer
Technically, Glocks are striker fired, rather than hammer fired. Stripping the slide is easy, and replacing the striker spring is trivial.

shooting a glock gives me sore hands
I've encountered this with sharper shooting ammo, like NATO and +p stuff. You end up tightening your grip to better control the recoil, and the checkering really starts biting into you. The solution is to man up, increase your grip strength, and stop whining.

black power dualing pistols
Must. Behave. Myself.

shooting the loudenboomer
I've got no experience here, but hey, people are hitting my blog on the term loudenboomer! How cool is that?

ar15 truecrypt
I don't think TrueCrypt will run on an AR-15, due to hardware incompatibility.

best kydex owb holster for glock 19
Best is subjective, depending on how you'll use it and what you like. I've had good luck with BladeTech and SideArmor. I also like Raven Concealment if you can get over the uglyness.

is galco ankle glove good carry method for glock 26
Functional, yes. Even reasonably comfortable. Not as fast or easy to access as I might like, but better than being armed with only a harsh word. You'll either need to wear bell-bottoms, or be prepared to explain that it's your colostomy bag - wanna see?

calibers survivalist
My preference is to stick with common rounds - .22LR, 5.56, .308, 9mm, 12 gauge - for survival purposes. The rest are toys or speciality tools.

9mm for survivalist
Yes, a 9mm is sufficient for survivalists, so long as you do your part. Shot placement is everything. Be aware that the season is very short, bag limits are strictly enforced, and they tend to shoot back.

survivalist convention
This year's will be held at an undisclosed location, again. I believe Rawles will be the keynote speaker. Commander Zero will be giving a reloading seminar, and RangerMan will have some books for sale. You should have received your invitation by PGP encrypted mail by now.

best stocked survivalist
I believe they give out the award at the convention.

We've had quite a bit of rain in the last couple of days. The garden has loved it - most of the corn I planted has come up, the beans are busting out, and the carrots have graced me with their wispy presence. Nothing from the pumpkin or watermelon hills yet, but we will see.

I assembled one of the Stag AR lowers I picked up a couple of months ago. I didn't take any photos - it looks almost the same as the last build I did, only with a fixed A2 buttstock. I'm planning on this gun being a match / varmint type gun, so I installed a Geissele Match Trigger rather than the Mil-Spec one. It's a nice two stage, set to 2# 6oz / 3# 6oz. I don't have an upper for it yet. It will be something like this - 24" stainless bull barrel in .223 Remington. I toyed with the idea of chambering this gun in .204 Ruger, but decided to stick to a standard caliber. I'll probably top it with the 3.5-10x Leupold currently on my PBR, and replace that scope with slightly higher magnification MilDot glass.

I started getting ready for gun school by transferring the ammo for the class from it's cardboard packaging into an ammo can, to eliminate trash and speed reloading. Turns out you can fit 2000 rounds of loose 9mm into a .50 caliber ammo can, but it is DAMN HEAVY. I tried to order another case from AmmoMan to round out the recommended 3000 rounds, but they're currently out of the 124gr American Eagle I like. I've got a couple more weeks to get it, but worst case is I dip into my stash.

My wife's off to Europe for work this week, so I'm on my own. Wish me luck.

An example: Man performs tracheotomy on himself with a steak knife... Twice.

I stopped at the big warehouse store on my way home today. Wandering down the rice isle, I was in the land of plenty. Clearly, the reported rice shortages of last month have resolved themselves, or people have forgotten all about their fear now that the next American Idol is soon to be revealed. Perhaps this would be a good time to grab a few hundred pounds more, hmmmm?

Speaking of food, I took a walk through the garden this afternoon. Sprouts have come up where I expect broccoli, green beans, and corn. I've got freshly harvested spinach in the kitchen just waiting for dinnertime. My seedlings are still on the windowsill, longing to make the move outside. The annual herbs have returned to life with surprising vitality. So far, so good.

So I'm reading the above article about people illegally searching 29 Palms for scrap metal. It's become such a problem that the Corps has "assigned Marines from its Special Reaction Team, similar to a SWAT team, to work primarily on nabbing scrappers and trespassers."

The article then continues: "But they are often up against a savvy enemy that uses high-tech communications and GPS systems, and often works in teams."

Say again? These aren't the girl scouts, or some podunk sherriff's department. We're talking about the United States Marine Corps. Who also, I might mention, use high-tech comms and GPS, and who also often work in teams. Outsmarted by "drug users looking for easy money"?

This isn't a challenge, it's a training mission.

Woke up at 7am this morning to no power in the house, thanks to some heavy storm winds. According to the mechanical light timer in the living room, the juice stopped flowing at 3am. It was restored just after 10pm. I can't help but notice not much got fixed after the last time. So, some observations:

1. Need to buy the generator to go with that fancy transfer switch


2. Need a couple of deep cycle batteries & an inverter


3. Need a few battery powered fluorescent lanterns


4. A coleman stove or the like would be handy


5. Still need freezer thermometers

Wife mocked that I wasn't "prepared enough". I dare not point out that her priorities frequently trump mine for purposes of immediate domestic harmony.

Morning-After Edit:

This post wasn't to say the evening was a complete failure. Mostly it was to remind myself of some known deficiencies. Many things went fine: flashlights abound (including a Fenix P1 I love). I pulled a half dozen big pillar candles out of storage for light sufficient for navigation. The house temp dropped to about 55F - Wife was cold (as she is at any temperature below 80F), I pulled her sleeping bag out of storage. Wife wanted entertainment, I pulled the Grundig out of storage, and we listened to the local ABC affiliate, which broadcasts it's audio on 88-something FM.

It wasn't as bad as my initial post made it out to be. It would have been better without the whining.

... shoveling bullshit. Got a good bit of the planting done, too.

Carrots, broccoli, green onions, bush beans, watermelon, pumpkin, and sweet corn. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as that big patch of dirt seems mostly dead to me. It probably needs a lot more compost than I've given it.

My friend is in the process of picking his first (and he says "only") handgun. I started to write him some notes on my opinions, trying very hard not to come across as a FKIA, then realized I could get some blog mileage out of it. So, here we go - general thoughts on selecting a handgun.

Form follows function
What do you want the gun for? Is this a fun gun for the range, or a working gun?

With range guns, everything that follows in this discussion is moot. While range guns can be used for serious work, they won't be your go-to guns, and thus get treated a little differently. You may or may not have holsters for them; you have only one or two magazines, and no spare parts; your ammunition supply for this gun is small, maybe only enough for a single range trip.

A working gun, on the other hand, you're depending on to protect your life, and that of your family. It's the gun that will wait on your bedside table while you sleep. It's the gun that will ride on your hip throughout the day. It's the gun that you will have with you when you need it, when you least expect. As such, it will be the gun you're most familiar with, the one you shoot the most. It's going to be abused - sweated on, scratched, banged against doorways and furniture, shot a lot, rained on, dropped, and shot some more. You will lightly maintain it daily; meticuliously after each time you shoot. The first time it goes click when it should have gone bang, you're going to lose confidence in it, strip it to individual pieces, clean everything to a shine, replace the springs and worn parts, and make it earn its way back to your good graces. You'll have multiple holsters to accommodate multiple styles of dress, many magazines, a box of spare parts, and enough ammo to keep your gun running if you can't get any more tomorrow.

And here's the real rub - your working gun, your constant companion, is disposable. It is essentially a single use item. If you are involved in a lawful self-defense use, you can expect your pistol to be confiscated as "evidence". Even if you're acquitted, charges are dropped, or never pressed, it may be years before you see that gun again, if ever. (That might be some Philadelphia bias showing through.) Having duplicate firearms available suddenly makes sense, no?

Manufacturers
You'll find every manufacturer has its own groupies, who claim their gun is the best around - Beretta, Colt, Glock, HK, Kimber, SIG, S&W, Springfield Armory, and so forth. The magazines will rave about any gun company that's paying for advertisement. But, you could post your question on any number of gun-specific forums (GlockTalk, SIGForum, HKPro, etc), and I think you will ultimately get one similiar answer - get a gun that you shoot well. Stick with the major manufacturers, and you should be fine.

Caliber
There's a lot of colloquial advice on caliber selection, like shooting someone with a .22 will just make them angry, or you can't win a gunfight without a caliber that starts with a "4". Carrying a 9mm makes you a girly man, but carrying a .45 says you're compensating for something. Some will say you need the latest high-tech round from the Eargesplitten Loudenboomer family. (I'm not making that up - it's a real cartridge.) Others say if .45 Long Colt was good enough for Bill Hickok, it's good enough for me.

My advice is pick a common caliber (9mm/.40/.45/.357SIG in Semis, .38/.357/.44 in wheelies) that you shoot well, and can afford to shoot often. Ultimately, shot placement trumps hole size.

Price
While a $1000 gun is good, a $500 gun and $500 of practice ammo is better. Better yet is a gun, ammo and professional training that will teach you to shoot it well.

Accessories
There are just a couple of things necessary to enhance a good working gun.

I feel night sights are mandatory to know where your gun is pointing in the dark. After that first night-vision destroying shot, you likely won't see them again, so you must make the first one count.

If you're using an autoloader, you'll need a small collection of magazines. I'd recommend at least two, preferably three, dedicated exclusively to carry / defense purposes. Then have at least three more for training purposes - these will get dropped and dirty. If you can afford more, buy more.

You'll need a good quality holster, molded specifically to your gun, that covers the trigger completely. There are many options - which I've covered before. You'll also want a carrier for a spare magazine.

More important than the holster is a good quality GUN belt. Thin, flexible belts don't have the stones to support a handgun. A belt made specifically to support a gun spreads the weight across the hips, and won't flop away from the body like a lesser belt.

My Bias
Here are my biases, not that they should matter in your choices:

- My working guns are Glocks. Yes, they're plastic. Yes, they all look alike, and some would say they're without soul. They're also ubiquitous police firearms - something like 60% of law enforcement in this country is toting a glock. That means accessories and parts are easily available. They're simple to clean and work on. The tenifer finish is second to none in my opinion. Some lament the lack of external safties - I like the simple controls.

- My caliber of choice is 10mm. Granted this is an enthusiast's caliber, and isn't available in every store that sells ammo. Thus, my working guns are in 9mm.

- S&W semis & Berettas: I find these guns unattractive, and thus they don't interest me.

- 1911s: These guns are sexy. I've been a fan since long before I was old enough to drive, let alone shoot or own one. However, it seems to me most folks feel the need to send them to a good 'smith for tweaking and polishing before using them for carry purposes. Add to that a single stack, low capacity magazine, and the weight of a steel frame gun, and I'm not interested in carrying one. Mine are just for the range. Besides, I don't train with one, so those extra controls require too much thinking.

- SIG: I love the look of SIG pistols, and they shoot very well for me. The bore axis is a little high, which always gives me a strange feeling of not quite aiming them properly. The DA/SA trigger takes a bit of work to master, but can certainly be done. The advantage of this action is double strike ability, which is lacking in both glocks and 1911s. (Of course, TRB takes precedence over double strike.)

Those are my opinions, please feel free to stop by and give my friend your thoughts.

Oh, and if you want a reference "text" on selecting guns: Boston's Gun Bible.