Excellent for shooting pictures and firearms, that is.

I took a bunch of pictures today after our excellent session at the firing range. Many more of them turned out excellent (in my humble opinion) than usual. It was difficult to post any one of them, but since my little S&W 442 .38 special revolver is my choice for personal protection (I have no favorite gun), I decided to post this close-up of the right side of this pretty little revolver.

We went to the Botanic Gardens today for a mum show and sale. As usual, we also walked out into the gardens. Not far from the Red and White Dahlia I previously posted, we saw this dahlia variety that reminded me of a fireworks skyburst. Click on the image for a larger view.

Earlier this year we made a decision to get a couple of .45 ACP pistols; we’ve been shopping for a while now, and to “celebrate” the most ridiculous recently passed anti-second amendment laws in California, we decided that now is the time. I have been saving up some spare change in the slush fund, and just this week it passed the threshold for acquisition. So, the countdown is on . . .

Damsel decided on the Para Ordinance “Warthog.” One reviewer had this to offer:

The original super-compact .45 with truly awesome firepower is the Para Warthog. There is no 1911-style, ten-round, semi-auto in the world smaller than the Warthog. The Warthog is remarkably controllable, thanks to its superbly engineered and contoured grip design. Add the feeding and extracting reliability of the exclusive new Para Power Extractor and you have the best super-compact pistol on the ground or in the air.

My choice was to go with the Glock 30. I already own a G-26 9mm and love it. It’s lightweight, has a great feel to it when I shoot and it’s easy to maintain. Based on my satisfaction with the 9mm, I ordered the new pistol which isn’t much bigger than it’s 9mm counterpart.

The Glock 30 is the smaller frame .45 caliber version of the Glock 21. Like the Glock 26, it has a 10 round capacity in a dual stack magazine. When I hold the pistol, it seems to have the same weight and feel of my Glock 26. According to reviews I read about firing the Glock 30, it should be every bit as reliable as my Glock 26.

I’m looking forward to the waiting period to end, as is Damsel. We only get to wait because obtuse California politicians believe that penalizing legitimate firearms owners will make criminals somehow stop committing crimes with guns. Oh! The insanity!

Unbelievable!

Other than the humiliation of Harry Reid’s band of bumbling senators, the best part about this is that the Marine Corps — Law Enforcement Foundation will soon get about 4 million dollars out of this.

One of the first things visitors notice upon arriving in Avalon is the Casino Building, Catalina Island’s most recognizable landmark. The round, white building raises the equivalent of 12 stories, and is surrounded by the sea on three sides. Built in 1929, the Casino - which is actually not a gambling hall but “a place of entertainment” - played host to dozens of big bands through the 1930s and 1940s. Guests danced the night away to the music of Glen Miller, Harry James, and many others over the years.

The Casino Building is a stunning example of original Art Deco architecture. It has been well maintained over the years and has also undergone much restoration, both inside and out.

Read more about it at Catalina Island Journal. Click the image to enlarge.

Certain pediatricians now employ the practice of asking kids if “Daddy has a gun,” and, if the answer is “yes,” they follow-up with questions about weapons in the home - legitimate or not. I infer from this that they must think children with gun-owning parents have some sort of health risk.

Let’s consider some numbers:

In the U.S. in 2003, there were 28 accidental gunshot deaths among 10 year old or younger children. There were an estimated 90 million gun owners and about 277 million guns nationwide at that time. There also were 40 million (or so) kids under the age of 10 in 2003. So actually a small percentage of children were killed or about 0.00007 percent (1 child for every 1.4 million) - still way too many, but a small percentage. This also translates that only one gun out of every 100 million guns was involved in the death of a child that year.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1400 kids are killed yearly by automobile accidents, either as passengers or as pedestrians. Why not ask if Daddy owns a car? 90 kids are drowned in bathtubs annually - should we put locks on tubs? Space heaters, swimming pools, bicycles, toxic cleaning agents, skateboards and a host of other common articles are factors in child fatalities. When you add all these “health” risks together, the health risk of a gun in the household is not only dwarfed, but practically eliminated. Why not ask about other known-to-be-dangerous items?

Kids are not so much at risk from guns as they are from parents with habitual substance abuse, violent criminal records, domestic violence and such. Pediatricians should zero in on whether children have parents who are people who would use guns violently, not if “Daddy has a gun.”

Of course anti-gun fanatics and leftists are arithmetically challenged, preferring hyperbole to statistics. Crusading for children, it seems, is a favorite ploy by the left, except when it comes to crusading for abortion wherein children are intentionally killed for the sake of “health” or “convenience.”

Interview your health professionals (after all, they work for you) and see if they have an anti-gun agenda - if they do, FIRE THEM!

And OBTW (oh, by the way) if the country goes to a national health care system, certain anti-gun politicians (Hillary!) will assign a health professional(?) to you - you will have NO choice in the matter, since free trade and competition are the enemies of socialism.

I can just visualize the steam coming out of Harry Reid’s ears . . .

Continue reading » What a Rush!

After this week’s Monday blues, we both needed to think some happy thoughts. We were upset with Arnold, political shenanigans in congress, media lies and news suppression and mass hysteria over the climate non-problem. You know - the usual.

Take a deep breath and enjoy these prize-winning phalaenopsis orchids. Woooo-saaaa . . .

Click the pic for big.

In a giant leap to the left, Arnold TERMINATES legal gun owners’ rights:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an unprecedented law Saturday requiring that certain pistols sold in the state be equipped to mark each cartridge when fired so police can more easily trace the weapons. Another signed measure also opposed by the interest group will ban the use of lead ammunition in the habitat of the endangered California condor.

Arguably his most controversial decision, Schwarzenegger signed a bill requiring semiautomatic handguns made and sold in the state to have technology to microstamp each bullet fired from the gun.

Supporters say the micro-stamping requirement, the first in the nation, will help police track down criminals.

Opponents, including the National Rifle Association, argued the technology is unreliable and could be used to implicate innocent people if criminals leave behind stamped cartridges from other guns at crime scenes.

In his signing message, Schwarzenegger said he understands the technology is not perfect, but hopes it would give police a new tool in solving violent crimes.

Under the gun bill, every semiautomatic handgun sold in California will have to “microstamp” each bullet cartridge in two locations whenever it is fired. The stamp would identify the gun’s make, model and serial number. The law will take effect in 2010.

The Governator admitting that “the technology is not perfect,” sets the stage for a court challenge to this insane legislation.

Just in case, we’re putting a couple of .45 ACP pistols on the short term wish list. Damsel wants a Para Ordinance Warthog and I want a Glock 30.

Mark Steyn offers an excellent summary of the Goreacle in his current syndicated article “Doom if Saint Al Loses Carbs.” Some of the excerpted highlights:

• Michael Burton, an English High Court judge and apparently a fine film critic, ruled that Al’s Oscar-winner An Inconvenient Truth was prone to “alarmism and exaggeration” and identified nine major factual errors.
• The so-called scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests rising sea levels across the next century of somewhere between 15cm and 60cm, with about 30cm being most likely. An Inconvenient Truth insouciantly adds a zero to the worst-case scenario.
• [Gore’s movie] fulfills the same role in the schoolhouses of the guilt-ridden developed world that the Koran does in Pakistani madrassas. Gore’s rise is as remorseless as those sea levels. I assumed Gore’s clammy embrace would do for the environmental movement what his belated endorsement had done for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential candidacy: kill it stone dead.
• No matter how you raise the stakes [. . .], Saint Al of the Ecopalypse can raise them higher. Climate change, he says, is the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced. Ever. And not just humankind, but alienkind, too. “We are,” warns Gore, “altering the balance of energy between our planet and the rest of the universe“.
• [T]he average US household consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In 2006, the Gores wolfed down nearly 221,000kWh. 221,000kWh? What’s he doing in there? As his spokesperson explained it, his high energy usage derives from his brave calls for low energy usage. He’s burning up all that electricity by sending out faxes every couple of minutes urging you wastrels to use less electricity. Insofar as he’s made any contribution to global peace, it’s in persuading large swaths of a narcissistic Western world to busy itself with non-solutions to pseudo-crises to such a distracting degree that al-Qa’ida may wind up imposing the global caliphate without having to fire a shot.

Read the entire article.