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Man At Arms
How We've Fallen
As I understand it, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, our nation was set up thus:
- The majority takes precedence over the minority, but the rights of the individual are protected.
- The government is only allowed to do what the Constitution says it can, and no more.
- The Bill of Rights is designed to protect the rights of the individual, as I said before, from the wishes of the majority; as such, they're supposed to be actually, you know, followed. They're not guidelines, they're rules. They're not privileges, they're rights, and what is not granted can not be taken away.
This is what's actually going on, generally:
- Minorities are granted vastly disproportionate political power and the silent majority is trampled. The individual takes it up the ass from everyone.
- The government does whatever the hell it wants, legal or not, and rarely does the government's own court rule against it. They frequently legislate from the bench, as well. We all love power, right?
- The Bill of Rights is meaningless and misunderstood. The government tramples the first, second, fourth, fifth, and tenth every minute of every day. Who knows how long it will be before the rest fall under the feet of the raging elephant and the hooves of the cranky jackass?
What do I think we should do? I'm glad you asked. I find it hard to believe that we can reverse the condition in a peaceable manner, much as I hate to say it. Let me clearly state that I am not advocating revolution or civil war, nor do I encourage violence except in defense. I do not believe we can win in the courts. I believe it will take some great upheaval to fix our problems. If I were King for a day, I know what I would do: I'd revise the Constitution to insert the pertinent civil rights, cut the amendments back to the original BOR and add one more amendment stating that the Constitution can't be fucking amended. Would that fix the problem? Probably not, because Jefferson surely had it right when he recommended watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Okay, so I paraphrased. There's a lot more to be done than simply rewriting laws; the biggest problem we face is that the government feels free to ignore its own laws, and is so corrupt throughout that there is no check but We, the People. It will continue to swell and the cancer of corruption will only grow deeper and more insidious. I truly pray it does not come down to a time when I must pick up my guns and fight, but should that day come, I'm ready and willing to lend my own blood to the tree of liberty.
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Blogging Structure
I really need to figure out some kind of formula for my posts.
Frequently I spend a good bit of time writing them, and by the time I'm done my focus has shifted pretty far from where it was when I began. Perhaps if I use some kind of outline it will help, and if I write each entry as though it was an essay... something to think about. This lack of cohesion is bugging me a lot. The problem is I sit down to write a random post about some small thing and it turns into a deeper entry as my thoughts get going, and the conglomeration is hideous. I'll figure it out eventually, I guess.
I'm doing it in this one too! Agh!
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Music
Not just any music. Music played by me. I've been into music my entire life, starting with violin at age... 4 I believe, if not 3. I played violin for a few years, but one fateful day at a violin camp in Ithaca I decided that I would no longer play violin. It was to be piano for me. So, my mom set me up with piano lessons, and we rented and eventually bought a piano of our own. For the next two years, I was solely a piano player, unless you count singing along in church. In the summer after third grade I began cello lessons, in order to play in the school orchestra. For three years I played both piano and cello, which was something of a load of practice, around 2 hours a night, which then seemed like an eternity
(that's typical of a practice session for just cello, now). After seventh grade I dropped piano in favor of simply playing cello. I regret dropping both violin and piano now, of course, but I only had so much time and the violin decision was one made when I was only six years old, so thirteen years later it's hard to turn back the clock and pick it up again. We just sold the piano so that's not really an option either, even if I had the willpower to practice through the horrible lack of skill I've acquired over the years.
Now I play the cello and sing
(to myself), and I dabble in guitar occasionally when the mood takes me. I'd love to pick up mandolin, but the unfortunate reality is you have to spend several thousand dollars on a mandolin to get anything halfway decent, and I don't have that kind of cash lying around. I'd also love to play violin again, but the same problem exists and the cost of a good violin is roughly twice to three times the cost of a decent mandolin. Some people don't realize how expensive good string instruments are, but let me tell you, they ain't cheap.
I started out in private lessons on a $5,000 cello, 3/4 size
(or I'd probably still have it today) that I loved. It was German, made in the 60s, and well cared for. Good instrument. We traded that one in for my current cello, and paid another four to five thousand dollars on top of the trade in, plus another five hundred dollars for my now-demolished bow
(the tip is chipped, twice, and should cost around 200 dollars to fix). This cello was brand new when I bought it, made in 1999, and required some work to get it playing well. For years I suffered through a high nut
(the piece of wood by the scroll that determines how high the strings are over the fingerboard) and we had to pay a hundred dollars to get that trimmed down. As soon as it was trimmed my playing improved drastically, thanks to much simplified fingering. Net cost for this cello is around ten grand, not including the soft and hard cases. Not cheap at all. Oh, I didn't mention strings. Strings only last six months to a year under hard to moderate playing conditions, and a full set of Larsen strings for my cello costs around 350 dollars
(might be a little off, but I believe that's fairly close). Ten thousand dollars plus maintenance, and this isn't even a great cello. My last private teacher had a cello that cost her over 40,000 dollars, which she can justify because she makes her living playing it. Just about the only good news is if you take good care of the instrument, it doesn't depreciate in value.
I love playing the cello, even if my skill has atrophied a bit
(okay, a lot) in disuse, but sometimes I want to try something different. I'd like to play Celtic fiddle, for example, and while I've tried adapting some Celtic music to the cello, it's not quite the same thing. I'd also enjoy playing mandolin, like I said, because I love the sound and I'd like a smaller instrument I can take with me when I travel without getting another ticket on the plane for my cello to sit next to me
(I don't really do that; I have a hard case rated for plane travel, but I was trying to be witty. Some of my mother's friends DO buy second tickets to take their dogs on planes, though. Crazy dog agility people.) My voice is the one instrument I have with me all the time, but I'm so shy about singing in front of other people I won't even sing in the car unless I'm alone. I don't think I have a bad voice, but I know how much vocals can grate on my nerves unless they're perfectly in tune, and I guess I think others feel the same way, even if they don't.
Update: This is what made me write this post, even though I didn't actually make any points in it. I was playing one of my Bach suites, which are pretty interested because they were originally written without any bowing or loudness instructions, which leads to a lot of different interpretations, and I thought how it'd be cool to record some of my music and post it on my website. Unfortunately, I'm using blogspot for the time, obviously, and I can't even post pictures, let alone music. It's something I'll get around to someday though, so if you like instrumental music
(I'm NOT singing and putting it on the net) maybe someday you can hear me play!
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Whoa, Comments
Wow, I had no idea anyone was even reading this, except perhaps a few friends that got bored and followed the link in my AIM profile. Comments! By people who I deeply respect! My day has been brightened. Now that I know someone reads this from time to time, however, I'll try a little harder not to sound like a dumbass.
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I Love Fall, but...
I hate going hunting before deer season. We went down around Rushford and hunted the three big state forest areas, Hanging Bog, Rush Creek, and... some other one I don't remember the name of. We ran about seven drives, which meant I was standing around all day and my dad was walking all day. I'm not sure who had it easier; standing sure sounds easier but it's not easy at all to just stand still, not daring to move because turkeys have vision that's ten times better than yours. My feet were killing me after the first two drives because I wore the wrong boots... I thought they fit my feet better. So, I can see how walking the 10-15 miles my father had to walk on those drives is tiring but I'd probably rather do that than stand.
What did we get? I almost got slaughtered by a pair of deer, a large doe and what looked to be a yearling doe. I was standing there minding my own business when these two deer jumped over the log right next to me and almost landed on me from my left flank, literally landing about a foot away from me. That encounter left me kind of shaky because they scared the living shit out of me, but if it was deer season I would have bagged the big doe easily. She stopped five yards in front of me, perfect broadside shot, with her head behind a tree so she wouldn't see me move. Best shot I'll have all year, I'm sure. Other than that, I saw a single squirrel well outside my range and a flock of turkeys a good hundred yards away, and I didn't have any calls or anything so I couldn't even try to call them in. My father saw the same turkeys on his drive, a few squirrels, and a few deer. We brought home one squirrel.
I do love fall in the woods like that, though. For a while it was very pleasant: good wind and dry air, no bugs out trying to eat me and the sun behind a cloud most of the time. Then came the heavy rain, humid air, and mosquitos. Bastards.
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Happy Halloween
It's Halloween. Yay. I don't have any plans today, yet, though I suppose I might scrape something up... if not, I'm going to stay home and write a scary story or two. I also promised Amy I'd write her something a really long time ago, so I've got a backlog of writing commitments
(that's not the only one); since I got my laptop back friday maybe I can get caught up. I write better on the laptop for some reason.
I told Amy I'd write her an erotic story but I think she knows I was kidding... wasn't I?
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Justification and Logic
I read a lot about people saying 'I believe in the second amendment, but... how do you justify
?' These people are missing the whole point. Their premise is that the guns aren't useful for anything and the implication is that any gun that has no clear niche, no need displayed by someone for it, is unnecessary. I'm not saying there is no niche for such weapons, but clearly these people think that's the case.
It's not about need, folks. Do I really need a cell phone with a color screen with more pixels than my monitor that folds to the size of a quarter and takes pictures? No, I don't (I also don't have one, but that's not the point). Do I need a four wheel drive, five hundred horsepower, supercharged truck? Nope. Is anybody saying that I should justify owning one if I do? With the exception of enviro-wackos for the truck, no, nobody is saying anything of the sort. I can say with confidence that I don't NEED 90% of the stuff I own. As soon as someone mentions the word 'need' in a free society, they should be horsewhipped.
Likewise, the second amendment is not about need, at least not when applied to which firearms we can own. I think it states the need for a check by the people on the government.. That's the only place 'need' enters the equation.
On Madogre.com this morning I read a question sent to him by a reader, which prompted me to write this entry. I think it's somewhat telling of the inexperience and lack of knowledge of firearms of just about anyone that comes out with a statement of 'How can you justify private ownership of a Tec-9 and similar assault weapons?'
I'm not sure what the real argument against the Tec-9 is, by the way, since it's an inaccurate piece of shit that shoots an inadequate cartridge and happens to have a high capacity magazine. No matter that my Ruger P95 is more accurate, can shoot more powerful 9mm ammunition, is easily concealed, and can take 30 round magazines. Despite all that, it's 100% accepted by all but the most rabid gun controllers. Similar 'assault weapons' to the Tec-9, for those of you that care, I suppose would be the Mac 10, Goncz GA-9, and other shitty guns I'd never want to own. They really fall in the class of poor man's semi-auto 'submachinegun.' Semi-auto submachinegun is an oxymoron but I can't really call them pistols because they're too big.
The stance these people take on weapons is completely illogical. What, exactly, is it that has the gun fearing ninnies so afraid of 'assault weapons?' The cosmetics, mostly, it would seem. The Tec-9 is scaaawwwyy but my deer rifle isn't? As a rational person, I'd be a lot more scared if someone took aim at me with a scoped 308 bolt action rifle than if some gang banger tried shooting me with his Tec-9. In the first case, assuming the person manages to miss on the first shot and I even know I'm being shot at, I'm vulnerable to being shot through most of the cover I might be able to find in an urban situation--including cars, telephone poles, and dumpsters. If the person has a decent rifle, a scope, and can shoot accurately, I'm vulnerable out to several hundred yards in a more open area. I'd give myself a much higher chance of survival in situation number two, unless said gang banger walks up and shoots me from behind with no warning. At least there I can draw my own pistol and shoot back, and given the probable lack of skill on his part, I'd win.
For you people who are willing to pay attention to physics, let me toss a few numbers at you. A 308 Winchester cartridge loaded with 168 grain bullets at standard velocities produces about 2,700 ft-lb of kinetic energy at the muzzle. A 9mm Parabellum cartridge loaded with 124 grain bullets at standard velocities produces about 350 ft-lb of kinetic energy at the muzzle. The 308 produces almost 8 times more kinetic energy. True assault weapons, such as the M-16 and the AK-47, produce anywhere from 1000-1500 ft-lb of energy at the muzzle. Weapons like the M-14 and FAL are considered battle rifles, not assault weapons.
There's a lot more to the killing power of a cartridge than the muzzle energy (though it's a good measure in general), and the biggest one is shot placement. There's a saying: "You're not outgunned if you don't miss." The rest is a balance between bullet design and how much of the energy relies on velocity and how much from mass at given ranges... et cetera. Psychology comes in here too, but since you can't choose whether your opponent is going to be a quivering pussy that drops at the slightest flesh wound or a berserker straight out of Norse legend, that's not worth talking about. Shoot 'til they stop.
Update: Dammit. I just read the rest of that entry by Ogre and he said 90% of what I just wrote. I'm keeping it anyway cause I just spent the time writing it and I believe everything I said. So no, I didn't poach his work, we just think alike.
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What I (Would) Write
I don't write much fiction for a few reasons. There are a number of stumbling blocks, as it were, that I just can't seem to step over cleanly. The most annoying one is a simple writer's block, when I sit down and I can't even begin to think of anything to write about. Sometimes I do write something, but I decide it sounds like crap on re-reading it and just scrap it because I don't like the idea. Of all the things I've written, I only really LIKED two, and only one of those was finished. One was a short story I wrote for a Senior Writing final in high school, written in thirty minutes, inspired by a picture; this is the one I finished. The other was an attempt at a longer piece. Based on the opening it would have been around novel length, though I'm a firm believer in letting the story be as long or short as it needs to be. It was a fantasy piece, inspired by nothing, and I got about 10,000 words in before I stopped writing it. That one I lost the will to continue because of other issues in my life at the time, and I lost it to a reformat a few hard drives ago. No big loss. The reason that story stands out is it was the only time I'd ever, to that point, re-read what I'd written and thought "hey, I really like this," not "wow, I really suck."
I've never given up on my dream of writing. My ideal life would be remarkably similar to how Johnny Depp lives in
Secret Window, really, though I'd probably choose a location that allowed me to have horses and shoot in my back yard. Wyoming maybe, or Colorado. I can't put to words the image I have in my head
(I could but I'm not going to spend the next few hours finding the right words to do it justice and I won't cheapen it with less), but it makes me very happy to even imagine. I believe that some day, possibly even in the near future, I will write something I can be proud of. However, being the realist I am, I know that it's incredibly unlikely that I'll ever be able to live off of my writing, assuming I can even publish.
When I think of writing
something, most of the time I think of fantasy or science fiction, which is really dictated by what I'm reading at the time. If I'm reading fantasy, the fantasy ideas flow, and likewise for science fiction. I have a lot of ideas in both genres, but so far I've hardly been able to force my ideas from my brain into my fingertips and onto the screen. I'm somewhat less interested in writing realistic fiction, or rather, I'm equally interested but I have far fewer ideas. Historical fiction is enjoyable to read, but I doubt I'll ever write any. Lengthwise, I like the idea of the trilogy for science fiction and fantasy, while I prefer short stories and single novels for realistic fiction. I guess the reason for that is when it comes to fantasy/sci fi, I get to create an entire world, and there's a lot more to explain and show the reader than in the world we know. Unless, of course, I choose to write a sort of alternate reality fiction where the reality we know is subtly different but eerily similar. I like the sound of that...
Anyway, the piano movers will be here soon
(we sold the piano... sigh), so I'd better get ready. Maybe when they're done I'll write something.
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No Real Title
I like to think of myself as a pretty knowledgeable and intelligent guy, because all modesty aside, I am. I spend a lot of my time just learning, reading article after article, book after book on topics I'm interested in. Though, a lot of what I know I learned through experience, not necessarily study; regardless of the source, a solid 95% of the knowledge I actually use I learned not in school but on my own.
Perhaps it's not a change in my status and I'm simply noticing it more now, but it's apparent that almost nobody I know respects me. Or, perhaps, they make up their mind before they ask me about
, and when I show them that thus and such isn't really what they think it is, they either ignore me or argue with me and piss me off. Whichever, it's akin to the feeling an expert testifying before the Senate must feel when he's consulted for symbolic reasons only, his opinion ignored and his hard work snubbed. It makes me feel worthless.
I take pride in my intelligence, but as I believe intelligence is only partially earned (genetics aside--my parents are both very intelligent and so is my sister--I did teach myself in some fashion to think the way I do and utilize my intelligence in a smarter fashion, no pun intended), I take a much greater pride in my knowledge. An excellent example is my grasp on the English language. I'll readily admit that it's almost entirely intuitive, because by the time I was taught the mechanics I already knew how it all worked, and only made a token effort at learning the 'science' behind it, as it were. I'm not trying to say I could waltz up to a graduate level English professor and show him what's what, but I've never needed someone to show me how the language works. I learned that on my own.
Another example is my ability to spell, which I attribute to an understanding of the pronunciation of the language. If you understand how each group of letters is supposed to be pronounced, you can spell, it's that simple. There are some exceptions, as always, such as Tucson (when my family was talking about spelling at some point, my mother tried to trick me by asking me to spell Tucson. Ha! I showed her.) Be tough and memorize them, punk. It's not that hard. Spelling errors make me cringe, and there are only a few people I know that spell very well these days.
How did I develop both of those skills? One word: reading. I began reading real books in second grade. The first 'real' books I read, books which are not necessarily adult but can easily be enjoyed by adults, were the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. I still go back and read them from time to time, and the series has been expanded from five or six books (we had the first four, I believe) to seventeen novels to date. I'm not going to say they're great works of fiction, because frankly they're not; there are common themes in each book, and the good / evil clash is very black and white, but they're also very enjoyable, very well written, and the sort of creation that inspired me to write as well. I highly recommend them, and if you allow yourself to believe in the characters, there are some very emotional moments in there that just thinking of bring a tear to my eye. Actually, I first read Mossflower, which was chronologically the first book at the time, and when I found out the main character from that book wasn't in Redwall, chronologically the next, I was heartbroken. I was also seven, but you get the idea.
This is turning from a self-sorry rant to a meaningful post, so I'm going to continue in the thread I'm in now. I figure meaningful trumps feeling sorry for myself.
I recall in high school when people actually thought it was 'dorky' to read books. People couldn't believe it when I would be sitting in the library at lunch or during a study hall reading a book with eight hundred or a thousand pages. They actually could not conceive of reading a book that long, ever. That attitude is pretty sad for me to hear, though almost nobody I know besides my sister and cousin Kim ever reads. I know a great many people that have never read a book outside of school for the enjoyment of it. Shallow television and movies have trumped the written word, unless it's in Seventeen or Rolling Stone. Pathetic. If you picked fifty people at random from my high school class, I'd give myself excellent odds that I've read more books in my life than they have altogether. I can look at my bookcases and see about a hundred books right there, with another fifty or sixty scattered around, and this is only a fraction of the books I own, let alone have read. I have another three hundred books in the basement, and I ran up quite a few late fees on my library card over the course of my adolescent life getting out half a dozen books every week. If I had to pick a number of individual novels I've read, I'd say somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand or more, and novels only make up about half of my reading material. Not to mention how many times I re-read those novels.
One class of reader that annoys the hell out of me (like my friend's brother, who's a fucking snob when it comes to literature) are people that look down on anything that wasn't written fifty+ years ago (bonus if it's translated from Russian), seven thousand pages long, and written in some esoteric style that you need a god damn translator for. Or better yet, some long winded statement full of recurring themes on the nature of man that ohmygodshouldhaveendedfivehundredpagesago. Look, guys, if you want to make a deep statement, don't couch it in prose that's so incomprehensible that I throw the book out the window in frustration, and don't ignore the structure of a novel. There is such a thing as having a good style, and you're doing yourself no favors by making your work unreadable. Nobody's going to read it but English grad students if it's not reader friendly, because someone like me isn't going to put the time in to read your dumbass opinion if you don't respect me enough to write it in language I understand. When your prose is more unreadable than the tax code, you're making a mistake.
I've lost my purpose for this entry, so it's basically a bunch of crap that has no real point. It lacks cohesion and focus. Sorry.
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Training
Something a lot of people don't realize when I talk about my training is just how fully committed I need to be to it to get results. I've been in incredible physical condition in the past, and done things that would make me keel over and die if I tried them now. With this training plan I'm going to take it even further, and I'd imagine that if I meet my goals I'll never be in comparable physical condition again after I enlist.
To give you an idea of what I used to do in Cross Country, we would run an average of 65 to 70 miles a week. That alone is more mileage than most people can even comprehend, having never done it, but the intensity was incredible as well. My best time for a mile run is 4 minutes 45 seconds, and while that is not amazingly fast, for a 17 year old it's pretty god damn fast. My best time for the 400m, unofficially, is 49.9 seconds, run the summer before my junior year on an all weather track. Now, though, I doubt I could run much less than a 6 minute mile, and I'd collapse on the track before I touched 55 seconds in the 400m (I was running sub 55 seconds as a freshman). The longest race I ran was a cross country 9 mile 'run around the lake' in about 55 minutes, without shoes on for the hell of it. That's the hardest thing I think I've done in running so far.
I may never beat my personal best times again, but there's a good reason for that. World class athletes tend to be absolute specialists (I don't intend to say I'm a world class athlete, I'm just using this as an example). World class competitors in events like the decathlon or steeplechase are an exception, but they also can't touch the specialists in the various events they compete in. Specialization is all well and good, but it's not what I'm after. I intend to become very good at a wide variety of physical tasks, and while my natural ability in running might allow me to become excellent at middle distance (I'm too heavy for long distances now, and I have a lot of natural speed), I won't be training to specialize. When I was running my personal records, I was a specialist runner.
In fact, the 'specialist runner' training for six years is giving me problems now. Running allows you to develop an incredibly strong back, but the abs and chest are largely undeveloped unless you put a lot of extra effort into them. The result? I can do 20+ chin ups and 20 dips, but barely thirty pushups. I can probably do more hyperextensions (Laying face down on a bench, upper body hanging off, someone holds your ankles down, and you allow your upper body to bend at the waist and hang down toward the ground. Keeping your back and neck arched, you bring your torso up to horizontal with your legs, working the lower back.) than situps. I have a lot of work ahead of me to get my APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test, based on pushups, situps, and a 2 mile run) scores up.
Running, swimming, trail rucking, road marching, yoga, strength training, and my own conglomeration of martial arts are all a part of my training plan. Those are all critical, in my opinion, in becoming the best potential soldier I can be. If I had the spare money I'd incorporate kayaking, but I can't justify the expense just for another (admittedly fun) way of improving my upper body strength. That's just the physical training portion, by the way. I've also including weapons training, land navigation, and a bunch of other skills or knowledge that I want to learn before I ever get to basic: things like making snares, tying knots, and learning Morse code. Anything I think I might need, I'm going to try to learn.
To give you an example of the physical-only portion of what my typical day will be like once I get to full-steam-ahead, just take a look at this running day (there are rests in there, obviously, but that's the order from morning to night):
2½ Mile Morning Run
Strength Training & Yoga
45min to 1hr Swim, Moderate
7½ Mile Training
30min Bag Work
Strength Training
Yoga (Before Sleep)
Basically, I try to include every element of my training into each day with the exception of rucking or road marching, and I simply vary the amount of each depending on what I'm concentrating on that particular day. Also, this is a very rough idea, and I just sketched it out recently. I'm sure I'll shuffle stuff around once I have a feel for what it's like to actually DO it, because that always happens, but I know nothing will be cut out.
I'm aware that many of you might think it's foolish to teach myself a bunch of stuff that they're going to teach me anyway, and for free, but given what I'm trying to accomplish I think it's better to have as few obstacles in my way when I get there so I can concentrate on the psychological and physical challenges more easily. Also, this is not a chore for me. I'm interested in all of the stuff I'm doing and I would learn it anyway. I'm not buying anything I wouldn't buy anyway, either, with the possible exception of a CAR-15 should I choose to buy one. Sure, they're neat, but what the hell use have I for a wussy little 223 poodleshooter? I guess I'll just get a new upper in 6.8 SPC or 10mm when I'm done with the 223. Or 30 Carbine, using M1 mags... now that would be sweet.
So far, physically, I'm limiting myself to running and strength training, mostly because I don't have 90% of the gear I'm going to have to buy. I've increased my running endurance immensely (from 1 mile a day to 10), but I've barely improved my pushups and situps. Blah.
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The Grim Truth
...About nutrition, that is. I'm in the process of developing a nutritional plan tailored to my training, and things aren't looking so good.
The good news is my body fat is lower that I'd expected: 14.8%, which is at the upper end the zone I want to be in, and I'll only lose it from here. I'll want to try to maintain around 13-14% for my training, which is centered around developing extremely high levels of endurance and strength. The reason I want to carry that much fat is simple: fat is critical to endurance activities such as distance running and marching or hiking with a heavy load (road marching, cross country rucking). You can't rely on carbohydrate intake for energy, especially if you're talking about burning 2000+ calories in a run or march. Fat already stored is much easier for your body to use up than recently introduced carbohydrates.
Now, the bad news is the kind of food I'm going to have to eat. I love meat, and I'm not a big fan of most vegetables; fruit is alright but I prefer grainy food. I like eating a meal that actually fills me up, which fruit and vegetables don't. I love cheese—which is unfortunately extremely high in fat—but I'm going to have to eat a lot less of it. All of the food that makes my mouth water is going to have to go, except for the occasional indulgence. No more ham and cheddar omelettes, no more 20% fat hamburgers (it's amazing how much flavor the extra fat gives it), no more scrambled eggs that are as much cheese as egg. No more red meat at all, pretty much; I love my chicken and turkey but I can only eat so much poultry before I start craving some good old ground beef or ham.
The other big sacrifice I'm going to have to make is no more soda. At all. Ever. I'm not concerned with the calories, since I drink Diet Coke 99% of the time, but I am concerned with caffeine and aspartame. One's a diuretic—terrible for water retention—and one breaks down into formaldehyde (a carcinogen) at room temperature. Hell, I'll probably gain weight just by drinking more milk and juice.
Abstaining from food you like is somewhat easier than forcing yourself to eat food you don't like at all. I've starved and I've force fed myself in the past, and I recall the former being more pleasant in the short term. Get up at 6 AM, go run a very hard 4 mile run right away, and then come back and try to eat breakfast. I, at least, always felt sick at the sight of food at that point, but I had to force myself to eat for the rest of the day, which was either a 9 hour hike on challenging mountain trails or 8 miles of various hard running. I had to fight a gag reflex almost every swallow those days.* Anyway, the point is it's going to be somewhat unpleasant for me to force myself to eat vegetables that I don't like unless I get very creative. Of all the vegetables out there, the only ones I really like that aren't 90% water (cucumber, lettuce, etc) are carrots, potatoes, and uncooked green beans. Sigh.
*In case you don't know why it was such a big deal to eat, almost everyone at the camp (It was a week at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid for distance runners one summer a few years ago, for high school athletes. We saw the US men's volleyball team there; they were about 8 feet tall each. The bobsled team was there as well, all huge guys. The Iron Man Triathlon was there the week after, when I stayed for vacation with my family. Cool stuff.) was carrying very low body fat index (sub 10% for me) and the workouts were so intense, in no small part thanks to the heat, that if you didn't eat right you could lose two or three pounds overnight. I did, so this isn't hyperbole; with such low body fat that could be a serious health risk.
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Drafting
I'm not posting much because I've been dealing with stressful issues in my life, and I just never think to sit down and write on here. I have a few essays in the works that I think should turn out well, but they're coming along slowly. It's hard for me to write about news items because I read 25 other blogs every day and I don't really want to just mimic everyone else's thoughts or recap them; I prefer writing essays on more general topics, essays that will have meaning after Nov. 2 and don't deal with fleeting moments in history.
That problem of contamination is also the main obstacle for me when it comes to creative writing. I've read so many books and I have such an excellent memory that anything I think to write I can immediately relate to half a dozen
(and frequently more) well written stories I've read, and I feel like I'm being very unCreative when every other sentence some other author's words pop in my head. I want to create something new, something that is all mine. While I understand that that is a very unrealistic proposition, and to some extent every writer or artist or composer integrates elements of other works into their own, it just feels like cheating. Maybe some day I'll figure it out.
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That Big-bore Itch
For a while now I've considered myself kind of a recoil wuss, but recently I changed my shooting form, and suddenly the recoil I'd been dealing with was gone. Sure, I can still feel a nice push, but what was once a painful ordeal—for example, sighting in my 870 with slugs—is now just a pleasant, exhilarating exercise. I had to laugh at my relatives over the weekend when they refused to shoot my father's Ithaca Model 37 Featherlight, claiming it kicked 'like a Missouri mule.' I shot it, and while the recoil was a little sharper than my own shotgun produces—my gun is about 1.5 pounds heavier loaded—it was extremely comfortable, not jarring or painful at all. Granted, last season when I was using it during deer season I almost knocked myself out of the stand leaning to get a shot around a tree
(I missed low), but it just goes to show how important form really is.
Anyway, on to the meat of the matter. With this newfound capability to deal with recoil—which I intend to test a bit by getting some 3” magnum slugs—I feel a sense of freedom. No longer shall recoil
(within reason) be a deciding issue in choosing a long gun. Now, I'm not going to go out and buy a six pound guide rifle in 600 Nitro Express, because I like shooting more than one shot a week with no hospitalization in between, but suddenly the realm of belted magnums looks less forbidding and the big bore lever-action rifles look positively inviting. If I had the means I'd forsake my 30-30 and buy a new Marlin 1895 in either 444 Marlin or 45/70 Government. I'd have to say I favor the wide and heavy cartridges over the relatively light-bullet magnums, though out west I'd break down and buy a rifle in 350 Remington Magnum or some comparable caliber. I wouldn't mind acquiring a Weatherby Mark V Dangerous Game Rifle in 460 Weatherby Magnum
(7,500 ft-lb of muzzle energy makes for a happy Dave, if a sore one after the first shot. The cartridges also retail for about 5 bucks a piece.) to shoot about once a year, but the MSRP of $3360 makes that take a seat behind just about every other rifle I'd have a real use for—and that list is twenty rifles long. Some could be considered redundant
(i.e. 44 Remington Magnum and 45 Colt Marlins) but I have a reason for each and every one, be it practical or not.
My big bore itch extends to pistols too. I have a very strong desire to own a 1911 in 45 ACP to replace my semi-automatic, and beyond that, any semi-auto I buy is kind of superfluous. The 1911 / 45 ACP combo reigns supreme in the semi-automatic class; the only concession to technological evolution I might make is to buy a high capacity 1911. I've held a few double stack .45 1911s, and while I never shot them, they felt quite comfortable in my hands. Perhaps more comfortable than a single stack 45, even: while my 9mm grip feels a bit too small front to back, a 1911 feels too skinny side to side. I have no doubt I'll buy many semi-automatic pistols in my life, but the pistol I keep on my hip
(barring a revolver) will be a 45 ACP.
(Okay, so the 45 ACP isn't really a “big bore” like a 44 RemMag or 50 AE, but compared to my europellet 9mm, it sure seems big.)
Enter the revolver. The first revolver I buy will be a 44 Remington Magnum unless it's a 22 LR, and while I may buy smaller caliber revolvers to augment rifles I own
(I'm a great fan of the companion concept, which is matching the ammunition of the rifle and pistol, and in the case of some rifle/pistol combinations, the magazine) or for their historical significance
(44/40 WCF, please), or for utilitarian reasons like killing snakes, they will never have a serious place in my animal or goblin slaying toolbox. The only revolver that escapes that sweeping classification is the S&W 627 in 357 Magnum, and then only because it carries eight shots. On horseback or in the woods, if—for some incomprehensible reason—I'm not carrying a rifle or shotgun, you'll see a 44 Magnum, 45 Colt
(loaded hot), or 500 S&W Magnum
(only if it's a 4 or 6 inch barrel model, customized if necessary) on my hip, and nothing less.
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I'm back
Wow, talk about less than ideal conditions down there. I think this weekend was the latest in the year I've ever been down at the cabin by a good month, and I can certainly see why. The temperature hovered around 40 degrees, but with the wind
(15-20mph most of the time, though it stopped conveniently so we could shoot) and rain/hail, it felt like about 20 degrees to me. We decided to stay the night, mostly because of the poker game that ended around 10
(I came out 10 cents ahead, which was a good show considering everyone else in the game had about 30 years more experience than I). Sleeping in the back of a truck is pretty miserable when it's that cold out. First it's freezing, like put on every stitch of clothing you have and get under two sleeping bags. Then it does warm up some, but the cap is still cold so your breath condenses on the windows and ceiling and you get dripped on all night.
Despite the cold, I did enjoy myself, because my guns made me happy. My Remington 870 is exhibiting a level of accuracy I really didn't expect, and I shot a single hole
(not edges of each hole touching, but about 75% overlap) five slug string at fifty yards. This is an improved cylinder barrel shooting Winchester Super X slugs, not a rifled barrel shooting saboted slugs. Impressive, I thought. I also figured out how to use my sling setup to strap myself into an extremely tight shooting position even standing, something I didn't think I'd be able to get my sling to do. It's not your normal two point sling, but a tactical sling from Blackhawk. Any deer I see this year is going to be dead, dead, dead.
My Marlin performed wonderfully, an excellent show compared to the last time. My uncle shot it first, not bench rested but just resting his elbows on the table, and shot a very nice group dead center on the target, say about 2 to 3 MOA or pretty easily minute of deer for 30-30 ranges--out to 150 yards, in case you're wondering. That was highly encouraging, since it meant my rifle isn't really just a funny shaped club after all. I only shot it a few times, but I seem to be aiming too low; I shot a nice group also, but 6 inches low. I'll have a chance to figure out my sights before we go rifle hunting, I'm sure.
I also spent some time shooting my 9mm, but the bulk of the ammunition I have is ultra-shitty Remington UMC which is very inaccurate out of my P95, shooting pretty damn big groups and to the low/right of my point of aim.
(It also seems very hot for standard pressure ammuntion; when I was showing my aunt how to shoot, standing next to her was like letting someone smack me in the face with a newspaper every shot.) I'm not going to attribute the point of impact to my own error because frankly I'm not a bad shot, and I was shooting extremely carefully. I dry-fire practice every day, and I know I don't jerk the trigger, even on the double action pull. I had smaller amounts of Sellier and Bellot FMJs from long ago, which are actually pretty nice out of the P95, but I didn't have enough to really practice any of the things I wanted to. Frustrating. And no, I didn't shoot all of my defense ammunition, just enough to make sure it still worked the way I wanted it to. All in all I didn't shoot my pistol much because the ammo made practicing drills pointless. I'm not wasting my time with ammo that I have to adjust my POA for; I want the damn bullet to hit where I aim. One FMJ in the head or heart is a lot more effective than a missed hydra-shok.
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Why am I awake?
Seriously, why? I have to get up at 7 AM. Crazy I guess.
One of the things I really like about my family is that we can really talk about politics, and from most sides. Tonight was a prime example; politics was the main discussion at dinner, and then when we did the whole cake / present thing we always do at birthdays
(I didn't blow out all the candles for the first time in like 10 years! What a loser!), after I opened my cards
($$--all going to my training) and present
(a really nice book about the history of US Special Forces I had actually just heard I should read), we talked about politics for a good hour again before the dogs started freaking out because they knew it was bedtime.
It is interesting because while my father and I follow politics pretty much religiously--though I am more of the internet type and he is the TV/newspaper type
(yet we still come out with almost the same views, I guess at least one man can see through all the MSM bullshit)--my mother really only dabbles a bit when it's not related to her work and my sister is pretty liberal: a 22 year old, 1st year graduate student
(microbiology, Ph.D program @ Penn State). My father and I are very hard core conservatives on economic and foreign policy, and I think we agree that the gov't should leave most social issues the fuck alone, but I'm a lot more tolerant when it comes to issues like gay marriage.
I really have no idea where I'm going with this. I just wanted to write something, and while I did start writing a very long Enlisting Part 2 essay, it's not getting finished tonight.
It's been a while since I was able to have a really diverse political discussion, and it was just refreshing. Most of the liberal viewpoints I hear/read are uber-extreme, moonbat loony left arguments: Bush=Hitler! The US slaughtered 15,000 Iraqis! Halliburton sacrifices kittens and baby raccoons on the altar of oil! Sound familiar? I also experience Kim du Toit RCOB moments any time I turn on a news channel, including Fox, because there's no end to the bullshit they spew. I don't know how my dad does it, he limits himself to yelling at the TV instead of throwing shit around. 52 years of self control, I guess, or maybe it's because he's an engineer and used to dealing with fucking idiots all day.
Oh, it really is my birthday now. Go me, the big 19... ha. I can now drink anywhere in Canada, and that's the only perk. I don't even like drinking. Shooting commences in about 9 hours, when we get down to PA. I'd really like to hit up a gun shop before we go for another 500 9mm FMJs, because I'm running low, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards--they don't open before 9. Oh well, I'll just shoot everything I have but 53 rounds
(2x10rd, 2x16rd mags, 1 chambered) of my defense ammo and stock up again when we get back.
Today will determine whether or not we go rifle hunting up north this year, I think. My father has his Remington 788 in 308--as accurate or better than the 700, in my experience; I've seen my father shoot nickels at 100 yards--and while I have both a Marlin 336 in 30-30 and a sporterized
(*shudder* as soon as I can spare the money I'm going to restock it or buy another so I can have the authentic number too) Mosin Nagant M38 Carbine, I can't seem to shoot the Marlin accurately
(barrel might be shot out--it was made in 1948 after all, first year production 336RC--or I just suck with iron sights). I've never even shot the M38, even though I bought it about seven months ago. If the 336 comes through, I'll take it, but I can't even get mil-surp ball ammo for my M38 around here, much less premium hunting ammunition.
Speaking of the 336, I'm not quite sure what to do with it. Someone told me a while back that a good test for testing the erosion of a barrel was seeing how far in a bullet would go before the rifling started resisting it, and that's damn near all the way to the case mouth with this rifle. I don't know how accurate that measurement is--it's not scientific, that's for damn sure--but it seems to bear out my suspicions. When I last shot the 336, I shot several groups off a bench rest at a measly 50 yards and was getting about 6 inch groups... 12 MOA. I'm no expert when it comes to iron sights, but that's horrible accuracy, and not even close to minute of deer offhand. I have no desire to mount a scope to confirm the shitty accuracy
(on a lever gun? Are you crazy?) or rebarrel the rifle, because I don't want to change the rifle that my grandfather used to hunt deer for 45 years. Maybe it will be just an heirloom from now on, an occasional rifle to use to introduce a novice to moderate recoil; I just don't know.
Anyway, I'm done rambling and it's time for a nap. Anyone that reads this, have a great day, the whole two of you.
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Early Birthday
Woo hoo. I turn 19 tomorrow, though since I'll be going down to
(near) Sproul Forest in PA--we have a cabin down there--my family is insisting on celebrating it tonight. I guess they're taking me out to dinner... in 15 minutes it seems, and then the whole cake thing... sigh. I really hate birthdays, because people expect me to be happy and excited when really it's just one more shitty day for me. I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about tonight if my
(ex)girlfriend of 2 and a half years was here with me, and going with me tomorrow
(I never did get a chance to teach her to shoot...), but otherwise, I just don't want to do it.
I'll be excited on my 21st birthday, because on that day (depending on which state I'm in) I'll either go out and buy a pistol / apply for a CCW permit, or take whatever steps necessary to get permission from Big Brother to buy a handgun; of course, by that time I'll probably already 'own' several handguns, just on my father's license. A 1911 is calling my name... Maybe a Ruger Bisley in 44 Magnum... mmm. This urge to own another pistol or ten is getting pretty bad, and sometimes I spend so much time reading about guns during the day that I actually dream about them at night! No doubt most of you find that sad, but somewhere out there, someone understands me.
Yeah, this post has nothing to do with anything, I just felt like writing something before we go out. I'll write something else later... Who knows, maybe it'll be my first post worth reading! That day will come, I swear.
Update: Okay, so I'll admit that I enjoyed myself. Good food, good discussion, and all that stuff. I'm actually glad Applebee's was so busy because I think the food we got at Ruby Tuesday's was quite a bit better... best damn bacon cheeseburger I ever ate. I still wish Erin had been there though.
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Enlisting, Part I
It seems I have a long road ahead of me on my quest to enlist. I don't know if anyone really understands why I'm trying to do this, and recently I've begun to doubt myself a great deal. I guess a big hit came when I realized that my parents don't really support me in this at all. They say they do, but I've long since stopped judging words and looked only at actions. Effectively, where I thought I would have some modicum of support—from the only people I can really count on to never walk away from me, because I'm family—I've found nothing but second guessing and the unwillingness to understand.
I guess I could just walk into any old recruiting station and sign right up, if I wanted to simply serve my country in the military, but it goes deeper than that. I'd have plenty of obstacles just doing that, between my less-than-stellar academic career, my disorderly conduct(s?), my eyesight, and my weight. Now, to explain:
I didn't really perform well in high school, and in college, I have a curious balance between A's and W's/F's, because last year I stopped going and didn't quite withdraw from all of my classes. When I did go, I got A's and when I fucked up and didn't withdraw I tanked my GPA. I believe my high school GPA was somewhere in the neighborhood of an 86-87%, and while some people might think that's fine, I've never considered myself a B student, so it's still an embarrassment to me. I've always pissed people off because I wasn't performing to my 'potential' in school; it was very obvious when I'd rake in 80s all year and get a 98 on the midterm/final that most of my grade depletion was due to not doing homework and assignments, not simple lack of capability. I also should add that I never studied for any final in high school, including the AP American History test that I scraped a 3 in
(I read, um, three chapters out of about forty in the book, how the hell did I pass that? A 3 [out of 5] is the minimum for any college to accept the credit, and it's frequently higher at better schools, in case you didn't know how the APs worked), and my parents knew it, so that made it even worse. If I would just TRY...!
When the PSAT came along, I did quite well, though I missed the National Merit Scholar award because I F-ed up the math section; I still got honorable mention, but if I'd had my SAT score on the PSAT... well, things might be different today.
(I really don't want to brag, so please don't think I am, but without knowing the real facts it's hard for someone to understand what I mean. I got a 1400 on my PSAT, 750 verbal and 650 math. I predicted to my father that I would get a 1550 or higher on the SAT, and he just kind of chuckled at me, but boy did I show him: I got a 750 verbal again and an 800 math, which was actually disappointing because I had hoped for a perfect score. I should have made a bet with him! Maybe if I'd gotten NMS, I'd be going to SUNY Geneseo right now, instead of taking the occasional classes at the local, albeit very good, community college.) I took the ACT for the hell of it, and while I didn't do quite as well on that as I did on the SAT
(I got a 33 out of 36, when I had hoped for at least a 35--the ACT doesn't seem to be quite so consistent in scoring as the SAT, though) I still got my typical 99th percentile. Now maybe you can understand why my parents are so exasperated that I have no real desire to attend college, and how frustrated they were with me for getting poor grades all through High School. Sorry guys, I love to learn but the bullshit they teach in HS/college just doesn't do it for me.
I guess this whole paragraph pertains more to my family situation than it does to actually enlisting, but I believe it is important nonetheless.
I earned myself two run-ins with the law over a three month or so period in the first quarter of 2003, and both resulted in disorderly conducts, and two fun trips in a sheriff's car. I didn't get booked or anything the first time, but I did the second. I'm not going to go too in-depth, but I'm positive I have a disorderly conduct on my record from the first incident, and I'm not at all positive what happened with the second; I met the judge and all but I didn't get any sort of penalty and there was no official court business involved. I'm hoping that that one stayed off my record, so I can slip by with a single class two civil violation and not need a waiver. I'm somewhat glad for those incidents, though, especially since they were so minor, because I was on a shitty path and I got scared straight real quick.
(This is pretty much wishful thinking, and I'm almost positive I'll need a waiver. Even if my second DC violation isn't on my record, I still have the arrest record for it. I'm kind of trying to stretch out the time before I enlist so my violations aren't so fresh, but so far my plans for doing so have failed. Looks like it should be about an even 2 years, plus perhaps two or three months, since those violations when I do sign a contract for my enlistment.)
So I'm 70 inches tall (5'10), and I've seen a couple different numbers cited for the maximum allowable weight for that height: for the Marine Corps, I've seen both 215 and 182 pounds (quite a change there), and for the Army 180 pounds. Just one slight problem. I haven't weighed less than 180 pounds in probably 3 years! And we're not talking about me being a lardass, we're talking about me being muscular. I'll readily admit I'm fatter now than I ever was when I was running cross country
(Hey, running 70 miles a week will really strip the fat away), but I'm definitely not carrying more than about 17-18% body fat, which is in the good and healthy range. For a long time I held consistently at about 185 pounds, but about 7 months ago I started growing again, I believe due to working a very demanding physical labor job 30 hours a week for several months.
(Ever try covering a 6 acre parking lot by yourself, 6 hours a day, during the busy hours at a relatively busy supermarket? I'm talking about pushing carts here, by the way. 30 hours doesn't sound like much, but God damn was I tired every day when I got home. I would be walking fast, constantly, pushing up to twenty of the big carts at once, almost every single minute for 6 hours straight. Did I mention the parking lot was uphill both ways? I'm serious! It was a bloody valley, so I had to practically run to control the carts going down and then strain to push them back up to get to the store. Brilliant design.) So anyway, I managed to put on another 15 pounds, mostly in my legs and back, though my bones in general seem to have grown a bit and my hands got a bit bigger too. For those of you that have been paying attention, that puts me at just about 200 pounds. 200 > 180, 182. 200 < 215. So... let's hope the minority is right! Frankly, it's wildly unlikely that I'll ever weigh less than 190 pounds again barring some serious maiming, like losing a leg, or major malnutrition, because I'm simply not built that lightly. My educated guess is that I'll weigh 210, and possibly as much as 215 pounds when I do enlist. Waiver city, baby.
The eyesight thing is a much smaller issue. I have about 20/50 vision in both eyes, myopic, which is easily correctable to better than 20/20 vision with glasses. I can't wear contacts because I can't get them in or out of my right eye... I'm cursed with somewhat smaller eyes than usual I guess. When I did try to get contacts I spent about an hour trying to get the fucking thing back out of my right eye after the doc put it in; the left was cake but the right was about as fun as trying to pull a crocodile's tooth. With bare hands, while he's still awake and ready to bite your arm off. I guess I'm just worrying too much about this, but I would hate to not achieve my goals because my eyes aren't perfect.
Okay, this has turned extremely long winded, and I've only just covered the basic issues I have to overcome before I can enlist for any position. I'll try to explain the rest later, because I'm getting pretty tired (3:30 AM) and my writing is starting to suffer. Hell, I don't know that anyone is even ever going to read this, but I thought it might be interesting for some people to read about what it's really like trying to enlist in our beloved military.
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A few random thoughts on...
Voting: Guess what? It's a responsibility, and frankly, if you're an idiot, you shouldn't vote. Yeah, I know that would suck for the Dems, because that's about half of their voting base; I could believe that a few percent of the democrat voters actually believe in the their party's values, but the rest are ignorant, selfish, or insane. History doesn't lie, folks.
Debate 3: Who cares? Seriously, if you allow yourself to be swayed by the debates, don't fucking vote. If you're that big of an idiot that you will base your greatest responsibility on six hours of skewed television, and probably actually believe the ultra liberal media reports afterward (because you're too stupid to think for yourself and need to be told what's what), you should seriously consider becoming friends with your car's exhaust in the garage. Kidding. It's never too late to learn, but if you don't understand basic economics or the logic of not allowing our enemies (*cough* UN) to make our decisions, wait until 2008. In the meantime, get cracking.
Internationalism: Let's see, what's a good analogy for the US submitting to international law and international opinion, hmm... Okay, I've got one. Imagine Uncle Sam volunteering to bend over a barrel and take it up the ass from every single inmate in Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Brilliant idea. We are at the top of the heap, and by considering the wishes of the rest of the world, many of whom wish only to destroy us, we're only stepping closer to the edge of the cliff. I don't just mean militarily; our economy would go to hell faster than Michael Moore can swallow a triple whopper, because the first laws drafted would mandate international progressive taxes or some such bullshit that would instantly cripple our economy. Oh, did I mention that it's unconstitutional for the sovereignty of the United States of America to be compromised?
United Nations: Kick 'em out of the US and leave the UN immediately. They're bloodsucking hypocritical bastards who, when not suckling the teat of corruption by collaborating with Middle Eastern dictators, wish only to tear us down. I'm not saying that every nation in the UN is corrupt, but simply that many of them are NOT our allies, and we should concentrate on our real allies... you know, the ones we unilaterally went to war on Iraq with. Without US support the UN would collapse relatively instantly; who's going to hand out large interest free loans then, and who's going to take up 95% of the burden in every single 'collaborative' effort?
John Kerry: It's almost unreal how unfit that man is for office. Besides the fact that he's a serial liar (Boston Marathon, deer hunting, ex-law enforcement person, Vietnam, Cambodia, I could go on but you get the idea), nobody has a fucking clue what he really stands for. Well, I guess we all really do, but he's so full of shit that he'll take whichever position is most popular for the moment. Worst presidential candidate that I've ever heard of, by quite a stretch. Back during the primaries I watched in disbelief as he won the candidacy, thinking the whole time that there was NO WAY this man would ever hold the office of President; I thought then, as did many others, that he must be a stalking horse, and he'd pull out two or three months before the election and Hillary would slip in. I'm appalled that so much of the nation seems to support him after all that he's said and done.
Hague Peace Conferences (1899 & 1907): As pertaining to military ammunition. First off, we didn't sign the stupid fucking 1899 accord, which was the one banning expanding ammunition. We DID sign the 1907 accord which forbids employing 'arms, projectiles, and materiel calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.' Well now. It seems to me that employing FMJ rounds and nothing else is a great way to cause unnecessary suffering. Think about it: would you ever shoot a deer with a full metal jacketed rifle bullet? Of course not. I'm not suggesting that using FMJ rounds is 'calculated' to cause unnecessary suffering, but it certainly does, for both our soldiers and the enemy. Look, people, deer die the same way people die, and hunters use expanding bullets because they kill much faster and more cleanly. It seems to me not a far leap of logic that humans would die faster and more humanly if we started shooting them with hollow and soft point bullets. I would never shoot a coyote, an animal 1/3 the size of the average human (if even that big) with a 5.56x45mm FMJ. If it's not even going to kill a coyote, come on now, how's it supposed to kill a human?
The suffering on the part of our soldiers comes in when you figure that they have to carry around a lot more ammo and possibly get wounded or killed simply because FMJ bullets aren't enough to incapacitate the target. 5.56x45mm + FMJ = bad, bad, bad. 7.62x51mm or 30-06 + FMJ = Not such a big deal. 5.56x45mm + JHP/JSP is probably not even equal to the 30 caliber cartridges loaded with FMJs, but it's an order of magnitude better than the varmint round and FMJ bullets. The 30 caliber cartridges with JSP ammo for normal use or JHP boat tails for longer range sniping is about as good as it gets short of an M45 Quadmount or a MOAB right on target, but I think our soldiers could make do just fine with JSP or JHP bullets in the 6.5-7mm range. I have something of a personal interest in this because I am planning on enlisting and it's going to suck big time to go into combat with an underpowered rifle; I'll talk about the specific problems with our military small arms later.
Speaking of our soldiers suffering and the military making shitty choices in caliber/bullet combinations, what the fuck were they thinking when they switched to the 9mm? Yeah, that's smart. I'm not going to go on a big rant about the 9mm vs Everything Else in a pistol, but let's just say I use a 9mm for defense only because my father bought it (and I also have a 12ga goblin whacker and a Marlin 336 30-30). I load my 9mm with +P 115gr hollowpoints, but I'm considering moving up to +P+ 124gr Hydra-Shoks or maybe Remington 147gr Golden Sabers. I haven't decided whether or not I prefer to maximize the speed of the 9mm or the mass, but I'm leaning toward mass. But that's yet another discussion for another time.
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CA's Next Innovation
Every time I sit down here to write I manage to come up with two or three essays that I believe would be great, and when I try to put them together, I just can't do it. Rusty I suppose. So instead I'm going to deal with something simple: gun control. Or in this case, ammunition control.
It's probably common knowledge by now in the gun-geek world that there's a brilliant new crime solving technique being suggested in California. Basically, AG Lockyer is pushing for new legislation requiring all handgun bullets (and I believe casings) to be serialized to allow for 'instant bullet traces,' allowing crimes to be solved in minutes. Or so they say.
They're suggesting laser micro-etching serial numbers into every bullet, described as microscopic. Now, I can think of many problems with this whole idea:
A. Criminals aren't going to follow the law. (Yeah, I know, there's a real DUH factor here but I guess some people need to be bludgeoned over the head constantly with that simple fact.)
B. What kind of extra burden is this going to place on shooters and ammunition manufacturers? Lockyer claims it would add only 1 cent to the cost of each cartridge, which prompts me to turn on my brain and call bullshit. One way or another, it's going to cost significantly more than one cent per cartridge. There are a few ways I can see the manufacturers dealing with this new legislation:
1. No more ammunition shipped to CA. Sucks for the shooters! I would only hope the police wouldn't get any ammunition either, to force the law out.
2. Contract out the engraving to a separate company; all manufacturers run their ammo through just one more shipping step and pay the other company to do it for them, passing the costs on to the consumers in CA alone and suffering a loss in volume sales.
3. Doing the engraving themselves with current equipment. The proponents of this whole idiotic idea claim that ammunition manufacturers already have the equipment to serialize the bullets, but while they do have some engraving machines, they sure as shit don't engrave microscopic marks. More precision = a lot more cost, and there's no need for microscopic precision when you're engraving your cartridges.
4. Doing the engraving themselves by making substantial new equipment investments. Depending on the specifics of the situation, and if they're forced to change their manufacturing process entirely, they might just engrave every damn bullet in every damn cartridge and then everyone in the country would get to pay for it. Bonus to the government for free easy tracking.
Now, those options all suck. Number 4 sucks for everyone, 3 I don't think is realistic but some people think that's how it'll work, I can see 2 happening, and 1 is the solution I'd pick but I doubt it would happen. Maybe if it did some CA only ammunition companies would pop up. Given the past behavior of the gun industry though, I'd probably put my money on number 4. The gun manufacturers have already produced many new models of CA only weapons, if they manufacturer 'eeevil assault weapons,' and while some companies stepped up said Fuck California (Serbu, Barrett), many others gave in. So who knows. I doubt it would be a cohesive movement, that's for sure.
C. What about reloaders? This speaks for itself; they say exceptions would be made for reloaders, but no doubt the next piece of legislation that came along would ban reloading. It's for the children, after all.
D. Microscopic markings mean that they're very easy to remove, because microscopic markings can't be deep or the grooves will show up very obviously. This idea seems like it would only have a snowball's chance in hell even of working on jacketed bullets, and what's to stop people from getting an emery cloth and polishing up the bullets to get rid of the markings? Most bullets anyone would use in a shooting are designed for rapid expansion and fragmentation to reduce penetration and maximize wound potential, which means the bullets are going to get ripped into pieces; only an idiot would use full metal jacket rounds in a self defense situation. Since only citizens that obey they law are going to be affected by this idea, the chance of any markings still being legible is pretty astronomical.
E. What about semi-wadcutters and wadcutters? They are commonly used in revolvers, and albeit for target shooting, but they are also effective choices in self defense because the softer lead and lead alloy bullets expand well. They just don't penetrate for shit. For those of you that don't know, wadcutters are designed to punch clean holes through paper, and typically look like cylinders of lead with ribs around the sides and a concave point that looks kind of like a bowl. Besides the fact that these lead bullets will deform magnificently, it is unrealistic to believe that any markings would survive, even if they were etched somewhere on the bullet that doesn't contact the barrel.
F. Rimfire rounds. In this situation we can pretty much limit the topic to 22 LR. These rounds are relatively high velocity and have very high penetration characteristics, if low kinetic energy. Ever shot one of those spinning steel targets with a 22? Ever notice those little gobs of lead all around the target? Guess what those are? They're the bullets you were just shooting, and it's obvious by looking at them that there's no way in hell a serial number would have survived that impact. Another special problem arises with 22 Long Rifle rounds as well: the volume in which they're sold. I don't have any statistical data on this, but I'd take it as a common fact that 22 LR is by far the most prolific cartridge in existence. This means that the serials would have to be much more complex, and even if there was room on the bullet to engrave such a number, the larger the number the more likely it is to be ruined. Also, consider the price jump of 22 LR ammunition if this is implemented. Maybe when we're talking about 45 ACP or 44 Remington Magnum per-cartridge costs a single cent per cartridge isn't a big deal, but even if it remained the single cent increase per cartridge that they promise, that could be as much as a 100% increase in cost for 22 LR ammo—I've bought 'value packs' of 325 rounds for less than 1 cent a round, but it sucked worse than anything I've ever shot, so don't buy it. I do regularly buy 100 packs of CCI Mini-mags for $3.69 a piece. 1 over 3.69 = a 27% increase in the per cartridge cost of my favorite plinking ammo. From where I sit I can see at least five thousand rounds of 22 LR laying around, and at one cent per cartridge that would hit me up an extra fifty bucks. No thanks. With that money I could be buying some more Estate Cartridge 12ga SWAT 00 Buck loads for my 870 Express, just in case any goblins come creeping around.
G. Who's going to keep track of all this bullshit? A new government agency? They'd probably fuck up a serial number search, go no-knock warranting, and kill the poor sod that just happened to follow the law. Brilliant plan, geniuses.
Okay, so I didn't touch on all the problems with the casings, because I read no mention in the news coverage of the whole idiotic idea that they would be engraving cartridges too. I'm also sure I left some stuff out, because this took a lot longer than I thought it would to write and I didn't write out an outline like I normally would to prevent omission. Oh well, it's just a rant.
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Round 3
I guess I'm ready to give this blogging thing one more shot. Sundry reasons are leading me to write here again, not the least of which was the dissolution of pretty much my entire life in the course of two weeks. As a result of that tragic series of events, I have loads of free time on my hands, and since I haven't written anything at all in a very long time... you get the idea.
There are also plenty of reasons I couldn't keep it going before, but mostly I suppose it was the feeling of redundancy. There are so many great blogs out there, many of them written by smarter authors than me, and better writers to boot. I don't know if I can add anything unique to the blogosphere, but maybe what I write will be interesting enough for someone to read it.
Some quick background on me: I'm 18 (19 in... 5 days), male, white, and upper middle class. Beyond that basic demographic information, I'm politically moderate but hard line conservative on the issues that matter most to me; a gun nut limited in his nuttiness by a lack of money and a lack of age (I'm mostly interested in pistols at this point, and living in the liberal bastion of NY, that isn't happening).
I plan on enlisting, though when is up in the air at the moment, and of late even which branch is undecided. I aspire to join the Army, and until lately I was planning on either shooting for an Option 40 11X contract (that would be the opportunity to go to Ranger School, if I ever made it that far, in case you didn't know) or an 18X Special Forces enlistment option. But now, it seems maybe I'd be better off enlisting in the Marines for 4 years and reenlisting in the Army to pursue my SF/Ranger goal. Only time will tell. Basically, it comes down to how much time and how many resources I have to put into my training; I'm not going to fuck up my only shot at ever trying to get into the Rangers just because I can't train myself effectively beforehand. Instead, I'll play my cards another way and preserve that precious chance for a more likely time.
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