At around the age of 12, I suddenly got the notion in my head that I wanted to go fishing.  I had never been fishing.  I knew nothing at all about it.  All I knew was that I just had to try it.  I’m really not sure why I had such a desire, but I can be sort of funny that way.  Around that same time I decided I wanted to listen to country music (which I also knew nothing about), and I actually sat down and looked through the newspaper to find a local radio station I could tune in.  I listened, and I liked what I heard.  Today I’m still a diehard country fan.  Fishing was another relatively inexplicable impulse that just called to me somehow.

How little did I know what a lifelong obsession it would turn into.

Fortunately for me both my grandfathers were anglers, and one of them was willing to part with an old rod and reel that was busy collecting dust in his garage.  The rod was probably late 1960’s or early 1970’s vintage, made of fiberglass with a wooden butt; the reel was a similar vintage Penn baitfisher with a star drag.  No fancy line leveler or anything; if you didn’t guide the line back and forth across the spool with your thumb while you retrieved, you ended up with bare metal on one side and a hot mess on the other.  Grandpa filled the reel with 20- or 30-pound test line, gave me a handful of hooks and weights and other terminal tackle, spent five minutes showing me how to set it all up, and my great adventure was underway.

I had a lot to learn.  As the saying goes, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. 

I had no idea that fishing gear, not to mention techniques, weren’t “one size fits all.”  I vaguely understood that bait of some sort was going to be necessary, but I had not a clue as to what type of bait worked for various types of fish.  For that matter, I didn’t even know exactly what I was fishing for.  I just knew that there were fish out there, somewhere, and I was bound and determined to try to catch one.  I didn’t even have the lingo right at first – thanks to my grandpa’s Japanese accent it took me about a month before I figured out that that brass thing with the little snap link on it is properly called a “swivel,” not a “shrivel.”

Obviously, for quite some time, I didn’t catch a thing.  My ignorance led to episodes that make me laugh now when I think back on them.  Since I didn’t have an experienced angler to mentor me, fishing knowledge came slowly and hard, and the lessons were often painful.  My father, good sport that he is, took me to the sporting goods section of the local Montgomery Ward, where I decided that a jar of salmon egg-flavored Zeke’s Floatin’ Bait should be just the thing for attracting lunkers down at the local pier.  If said pier hadn’t been in the middle of Dana Point Harbor, I might just have been onto something.  In the event, none of the denizens of the briny deep were particular interested in my offerings.  Dad put up with my attempts at angling for about half an hour before steering me back to the car.

Oh, and that old Penn reel?  Nobody told me that if you flip the freespool lever and let the line go out without using your thumb to slow down the spool, you’re going to end up with the biggest, gnarliest bird’s nest anyone has ever seen.  The first time I dropped my bait toward the water far below, the result looked more or less like a fishing line explosion.  It was a bit discouraging, to say the least, until I finally got the hang of it.

Somehow, in spite of a less than auspicious beginning, I stuck with it.  I figured out which baits worked and which didn’t.  I learned, through reading books and watching other, more experienced fisherman, how to properly rig a pole.  I began catching fish, although they were still few and far between.  My dad used to joke about how much we were paying per pound for each fish I managed to catch, once we figured out my costs for bait and tackle and his for the gas he burned hauling me down to the pier.

But the key thing here – the whole reason I say I have my father to thank for my love of angling – is the fact that since he didn’t fish himself, he never pressured me to go fishing.  I honestly think that if someone had made me go, and I had experienced as little success as I did while having to do it unwillingly, I would have dropped the entire sport like a sack full of dog turds and gone on to the next thing.  As it was, the pursuit may have seemed like folly at times, but it was my folly, and I wasn’t about to give up on it, fish or no fish.  I persevered, and had the time of my life.  Still do.

Thanks, Dad.  Happy Father’s Day.

timesunion.com – Jerome M. Hauer, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s director of homeland security, took out his handgun and used the laser sighting device attached to the barrel as a pointer in a presentation to a foreign delegation, according to public officials. It happened Oct. 24 in Albany at the highly secure state emergency operations center below State Police headquarters.

These officials, one of whom claimed to be an eyewitness, said that three Swedish emergency managers in the delegation were rattled when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads before Hauer found the map of New York, at which he wanted to point.

Hauer, commissioner of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, was disabled by a stroke a few years ago and can be unsteady.

(Emphasis mine.)

Apart from any rumored “unsteadiness” Hauer may experience, I really think this isn’t a guy I want waving a gun around anywhere close to me.  Let’s see – he definitely violated Rules 1 and 2.  Here’s hoping he left Rule 3 well enough alone…

h/t Say Uncle.

Wow. Words fail me. And not in a good way.

Yes, that is a pair of gold and diamond grips for a 1911.  And they can be yours for the bargain price of only $14,999.  According to the description on the auction page, there are over 2,000 diamonds on there, weighing in at 45 carats total.  Oh, and buyer beware – two of the diamonds are missing.  The seller assures us, however, that those can be “easily replaced.”

Eat your heart out, George Patton.

Personally, I think these things look hideous.  But if I did buy them, I’d be afraid to put them on any gun I was going to actually shoot – because as sure as God made little apples, the recoil would eventually cause some of the diamonds to come loose and fall off, and then I’d be really upset.

I think for now I’ll just stick with my VZ Grips Double Diamonds:

Not shiny. Not fancy. But they work.

They work just fine, they’re durable, and I paid a whole heck of a lot less than $15,000 for them.

For a case in point, consider 18-year-old Justin Harder of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  Seems young Justin had somehow acquired a “stab proof” vest made from steel plates and mesh, and he was eager to put its stab proof qualities to the test.  To this end, he asked a friend, 21-year-old Calvin Clackson, to stab him with a knife while he was wearing it.

No mental giant himself, Clackson was happy to oblige.  (Makes one wonder just how much he really liked Harder.)  The result was impressive, but not in the way Harder had doubtless envisioned.

Edmonton (Ottawa Citizen) – According to the agreed statement of facts, Clackson stabbed at his friend with a folding knife. The blade tore through the vest and plunged into Harder’s chest near his heart.

When Clackson withdrew the blade and saw “blood spurting all over the place,” he fled the apartment.

Harder was seriously injured and only survived because of emergency surgery that night, court heard.

…

“This was a pretty serious incident, even though the victim was incredibly stupid, to put it politely,” the judge told court. “It was foolish of the friend to give the invitation, but it was criminally negligent for Mr. Clackson to take up the invitation. Stabbing a person in the heart area, irrespective of a vest or not, is a dangerous activity.”

Clackson was sentenced to six months in jail.  Harder, we presume, has suffered sufficiently for his stupidity and won’t be trying that again for a while.

Sir Knight?  What say you?

I’d say so.

While Second Amendment discussion usually focuses on the right to keep and bear firearms, the good folks over at Kniferights.org have taken pains to point out that knives, too, can constitute “arms” in the 2A sense, and are subject to the same Constitutional protection extended to gun ownership.  If you’re up for a good (albeit rather scholarly) read on this topic, the Kniferights folks have a paper on their site addressing this very topic.  It’s worth a look.  Along with the Second Amendment legal discussion, it’s also got good definitions of a variety of different types of knives.

h/t Say Uncle.

It wasn’t really an impossible question, per se, as I explained to her.  More a matter of comparing apples and oranges.  Telescopic rifle sights and holographic sights (aka “red dot” sights) are not really designed to do the same job.  Which one I prefer on a given rifle depends on how I plan to use that rifle.

An Eotech holographic (aka red dot) sight is the right choice for a defensive/tactical AR-15.  Does that make it “better” than a traditional scope?  Not by a long shot (as it were).

A telescopic sight is designed to be used at longer ranges for precise shot placement, and generally features a crosshair reticle of some sort that allows a shooter to pinpoint the exact spot where the bullet will hit when the shot is fired (dependent on the range and the skills of said shooter, of course).  Because the scope magnifies the target, it permits accurate shooting at longer ranges than open sights or a non-magnifying optic would allow.  Many scopes have some sort of built-in compensation for bullet drop at extreme range, whether it be mil-dots, range lines, a range-compensating adjustment turret, or some other device.  One down side to scopes is that while they magnify the target, they also magnify any movement the shooter makes while trying to aim, which means an offhand or other unsupported shot is well-nigh impossible with a scope at any range.  A scope also typically has a fixed eye relief, which means the shooter’s eye has to be at the same distance from the scope lens for every shot in order to properly see the aiming reticle.  Scopes tend to have a narrow field of view, particularly at higher magnifications, which makes them awkward to use for quick shots at shorter ranges (although some scope mounts are designed to allow the shooter to look through holes in the mount and use the open sights in an emergency).

Telescopic sights, like this Primary Arms 3-9×40 model, are designed for accuracy at long range.

Holographic sights, on the other hand, are primarily designed to be used at short to intermediate ranges where a shooter would normally use open sights.  A red dot optic allows for faster sight acquisition and faster follow-up shots on a target.  In the case of those like me who have less-than-perfect eyes, a red dot sight is a welcome alternative to iron sights, which I just don’t seem to pick up quite as quickly as I used to.  Most holographic sights are designed to be used with both eyes open, which gives a wide field of view that you just don’t get with a telescopic sight.  Red dot sights also feature unlimited eye relief, which means you can position the optic at any distance from your eye as long as you can look through it and see the aiming reticle.  This makes it more versatile in terms of mounting it on a tactical or defensive rifle, since it can be mounted anywhere on the top rail as long as nothing else interposes between the shooter’s eye and the sight.  Since holographic sights are usually much shorter than scopes, they take up less real estate atop your rifle.  While red dots run on batteries, which can and will die at inopportune times, they are also designed to (in most cases) co-witness with a rifle’s iron sights, allowing the shooter to simply look through the optic’s viewing window while using the open sights if necessary.  Red dot sights, like iron sights, tend to work less well at long ranges simply because it’s harder to see your target, although separate magnifiers are available that will add 3x or 4x magnification to a red dot optic and extend your effective range.

Another red dot sight. This one is a Primary Arms M3 clone, mounted on a Ruger Mini-14.

So, to go back to answering Crystal’s original question, I can’t honestly say I prefer one type of optic over the other.  It’s really a matter of determining the task at hand and choosing the right tool for the job.

Some situations, though, require a little more caution above and beyond the basic rules, and one of these is muzzleloading.  The black powder (or Pyrodex) used to load these arms is highly flammable, making it important to store extra powder someplace where it won’t be exposed to stray sparks or embers that can be generated by shooting.  Leaving an open container of Pyrodex pellets on the shooting bench near the muzzle of your rifle just might not be a good idea – as the guy in this video can attest.

I sincerely hope that he wasn’t hurt, and that maybe he and his buddies learned something from this.  Let’s all be safe out there.

Seems that earlier this month, 29-year-old Bethany Arceneaux of Duson, LA was picking up her 2-year-old child at day care when the child’s father, Scott Thomas, arrived.  He forced Arceneaux into his vehicle and drove away with her.  (Arceneaux had a restraining order in effect against Thomas, for all the good it did her.)  Law enforcement officers found Thomas’s abandoned car near a sugar cane field later that evening and searched the field, but found no one.

Members of Arceneaux’s family, however, were not satisfied, and decided to conduct their own search of the area.  Good, old-fashioned southern-style butt kicking ensued.

ABC News – Authorities searched the sugarcane field Wednesday night and all day Thursday, but to no avail, Judice said. The cane towers as high as eight feet tall and was “a brutal search area” for officials, he said.

It wasn’t until Friday morning, when Arceneaux’s family members conducted their own search in the same area that they came upon a secluded, abandoned house behind a cluster of trees.

The house was directly across the street from the field where Thomas abandoned his car, but only the home’s roof was visible from the road, Judice said.

“[The family] converged on a piece of property about a mile from where the car was found,” Judice said. “One of the family members heard what he thought was a scream.”

Arceneaux’s cousin approached the home, kicked in the door in and entered, Judice said. Inside, he found Thomas with the woman. Thomas then began stabbing Arceneaux, and a confrontation ensued.

“The cousin, who was armed, began firing several shots at Thomas,” Judice said. “After a couple of shots, [Arceneaux] was able to get free of him and they escorted her out of the house.”

Arcenaux suffered several stab wounds and was taken by ambulance to Lafayette General Medical Center, where she is in stable condition, Judice said. It is not known if Arceneaux had been stabbed before her cousin found her inside the home, officials said.
Meanwhile, officers who heard the gun shots fired surrounded the home, Judice said. Upon entering, they found Thomas’ lifeless body on the ground. He had sustained several gunshot wounds.

Now that’s how you do it.  No charges have been filed against the cousin, who authorities stated was clearly acting in Arceneaux’s defense when he shot Thomas.  I just love a happy ending.

He starts out by nuking a box of .22LR cartridges.  Turns out it takes quite a while for anything to happen other than the arcing I would expect a metal object in a microwave to cause.  When the rounds finally do cook off, it’s pretty underwhelming.

After that, he goes on to a .50BMG cartridge.  (If you’re impatient like I am, the good stuff starts at around 3:05 into the video.)  Quite a bit more energy being released here, but again the microwave served to mostly contain the explosion – although it ended up a bit the worse for wear.

Just goes to reinforce what most knowledgeable shooters already know:  when you detonate a cartridge outside the chamber of a firearm, its energy is considerably diminished.  I still don’t recommend burning or microwaving your ammunition, of course…