Bleg for a Good Cause II

(A repost this Veteran's Day. Project Valour-IT is well below their target of $240,000. Please chip in whatever you an afford.)

Back on Memorial Day I put up a list of worthy charities and invited you to contribute to whatever charity met your particular criteria. I chose Soldier's Angels, based on what I'd heard and read about them. I'm glad I did.

The guest of honor at this year's Gunblogger's Rendezvous was Maj. Chuck Ziegenfuss. Major (then Capt.) Ziegenfuss was commander of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor in Iraq when he was the victim of an IED in June of 2005. The Major was also a blogger, and still is, running From My Position... On the Way!, so many of us knew about his story, but not much of the details. After our dinner, Maj. Ziegenfuss gave us those details of his experience of being essentially blown to pieces by a buried 80mm mortar round, the reaction of his men, the trip home, and the ongoing recovery from his injuries. I am not going to relate it here, because that's not what this post is about.

This post is about Soldier's Angels and Project Valour-IT.

When Chuck woke up in Walter Reed, a woman was in his room, a woman that was not his wife. A woman that he didn't know. That woman was Kathleen Bair, a Soldier's Angels volunteer who made sure that someone was with him when he woke up, and that someone stayed with him until his wife could arrive. Kathleen did anything she was asked within the realm of possibility - no forms to fill out, no red tape, no idiotic questions. When Chuck said that he'd like to have a laptop so he could continue blogging, Kathleen called him from her home that night. She was on eBay, bidding on a used laptop. Would the unit she was bidding on meet his needs?

As Chuck explained, he was loaded to the eyeballs on painkillers at the time. Anything sounded fine. As it turned out, the laptop was fine. It was Chuck that out of spec. As he explained it, the explosion had mangled his left hand, severing his pinky finger and damaging nerves. His right hand had been shielded from the blast, mostly, by his M4 carbine, but that thumb had been blown off and lodged in his thigh. The reattachment surgery had gone well, but he had only one functioning finger at the time. This brought "hunt and peck" to an entirely new level.

Chuck knew about Dragon Naturally Speaking speech-recognition software, and asked his readers - slowly and painstakingly - for a copy. He got one overnight via his Amazon.com wishlist. A few minutes spent loading and then "training" the software to his voice, and he was high-speed, low-drag blogging again.

As he explained during is talk to us, that's when inspiration struck. How many people actually write anymore? During WWII, Korea, even Vietnam, "candy-stripers" or Red Cross volunteers used to go around VA hospitals to write letters for wounded soldiers by dictation. Not any more. And when was the last time a soldier actually wrote a letter on paper? The media was electronic now. Email, instant-messaging, blogging, chatrooms, bulletin boards were all the ways the modern soldier communicated with friends and family. Something else Chuck noticed: when he was online, either reading or writing, he tended not to notice the pain of his injuries. He even asked to have the level of his medication reduced so that it didn't affect his mental state as much.

There is, he explained, a fine line between "enough" pain meds and "too much." Too much medication does keep the patient comfortable, but it slows the healing process. Too little medication leaves the patient in such pain that again, healing is slowed. But when all you have to do is lay in bed and watch four channels of bad TV or read a six-month old magazine for the fifth time, your pain tends to occupy your thoughts.

But not when your mind is engaged in something interesting.

Chuck's epiphany was that there must be other soldiers - many of them - injured like he was who could use a laptop with speech-recognition software to access the internet. He discussed it with Kathleen Bair and another blogger he corresponded with, and Project Valour-IT was born as a subsidiary of Soldier's Angels. The project recently gave out its 2,000th laptop. Through the donations of just the few of us who came to the Rendezvous, we collected enough money to provide another laptop for an injured soldier.

So here's the deal: Last year a competition was put on to raise money for this very worthy cause. Money was raised in the name of each of the branches of the armed forces, though the money all goes in the same pot, and it makes no difference which branch a wounded soldier belongs to when it comes to receiving a laptop. It's strictly for bragging rights.

The competition for this year is now open. The target for each branch is $60k, and the first one to meet it, wins.

(BTW, the Navy won last year.)

Project Valour-IT isn't going to get a $1.4m windfall from Rush Limbaugh, and I doubt seriously Harry Reid will try to polish his reputation by being a donor, but I'm asking my readers to pony up whatever they can spare. This is a tax-deductible donation to a cause you know is good, and to a cause where 70% of the money you give isn't used to cover "overhead."

Since I got back from the Rendezvous I put up a Soldier's Angels link on the sidebar. Tonight I'm adding a Project Valour-IT link as well.

If you support the troops, please help support these troops.

UPDATE: Excellent post on the fundraiser competition at Argghhh!

Quote of the Day.

Beating Hitler took six years (39 to 45) and beating the Communists took another 34 (45 to 89). Was it worth it?

I don't draw a direct comparison between the War on Terror and the Cold War, but they are both nasty, heavy, unwanted burdens. If anything, the War on Terror is more intricate. Right here at Bagram — dozens of fighters, lots of transports. Transports– this is a war of economic development, of economic connectivity. What a complicated task. But given the technological compression of the planet, can we quit?

Col. Austin Bay, A conversation in Bagram, Afghanistan.

Read. The. Whole. Thing.

A Meme I Can Grok.

NRAhab asks "what are your five favorite airplanes, and why?"

I'm a fighter enthusiast. As someone once said,"There are only two kinds of aircraft: fighters and targets." Here's my list:

#5: The North American F-86 Sabre. Coming off possibly the best all-around fighter of WWII, the P-51 Mustang, North American reset the bar with the F-86 Sabre. Immediately after the war the first turbojet aircraft were brought into the military's arsenal, but until the F-86 they were, at best, stopgap measures. The F-86 had speed, range, maneuverability, and firepower all in one package. The aircraft might have been slightly outclassed by the MiG-15, but the training of our pilots proved better than theirs, and the performance of the aircraft was up to the task. Besides, the little thing is just beautiful. (This was a tossup between the F-86 and the Me-262. The F-86 got the nod because it saw far more combat. But I am given to understand that the post-war tests of the Me-262 showed that it was superior to everything the Allies or the Soviets built up until the MiG-15 and the F-86. One wonders what a third- or fourth-generation Schwalbe might have been like.)

#4: The McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom II. It started off life as a Navy all-weather fighter-bomber, but proved so good that the Air Force bought it. Remember, Navy aircraft have to be tough enough to survive controlled crash-landings on carriers, over and over and over again, so they tend to be built heavy to survive the abuse. The Phantom used titanium in its structure to give strength with (relative) lightness. Initially built without an on-board gun, this was rectified by the addition of a 20mm six-barreled Gatling, making it a real fighter. The F-4 held a number of speed, rate of climb, and other records for a long time. The F4G Wild Weasel variant was in service as recently as 1996. Not bad for an aircraft that entered service in 1960. Big, tough, fast, deadly, versatile, and beautiful. Check out that triangular tail and the cranked wings!

#3: The Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II aka "Warthog." An aircraft designed around a 30mm armor-shattering six-barreled Gatling gun powerful enough to slow the aircraft down when fired? An aircraft with eight underwing hardpoints and three under the fuselage with enough lift to carry the same bombload as a B-17 bomber? An aircraft designed to take severe damage from ground fire and still get the pilot home? An aircraft home-based right here in Tucson? Not a fighter, per se, (even though two have shot down helicopters) but a ground-attack aircraft par excellence. Gotta go with this one.

#2: The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Not a fighter, but no fighter could touch it. In an era of analog gauges and slide rules, Kelly Johnson - creator of the P-38 - designed and built an aircraft that no one has touched (publicly) since. Constructed almost entirely of titanium (never done before), using fuel almost impossible to ignite, wearing radar-absorbing paint, designed to leak like a sieve until the aircraft reached operating temperature from the air friction of Mach 3 flight, able to fly faster, higher, longer than anything else, this thing is the epitome of aeronautical engineering. And it looks wicked. Nicknamed "Habu" by Okinawan residents near Kadena AFB due to its deadly appearance, how can you NOT love it?

#1: The Lockheed P-38 Lightning. It's so different from anything before it that even as a child I found it fascinating. It was incredibly fast for its time. It was designed to carry four .50 caliber machine guns and a 20mm cannon in a time when four .30 caliber machine guns was considered "heavy armament," and they didn't have to be regulated to intersect at some point in the distance - they were all in one group aimed directly ahead. This meant more rounds on target more easily. It had "long legs" - a nine hour combat range once Charles Lindberg got his hands on it. It was the aircraft in which America's top two aerial aces flew. It was the plane used to kill Admiral Yamamoto. Fast, beautiful, deadly. Everything a fighter should be. And unique!

Quote of the Day.

No, ye card-carrying members of the Hollywood left: All your "explanations" are dead wrong. You just don't want to come to grips with the fact that you hate America but your audience doesn't.

And they aren't willing to pay you to insult them.

From The Bidinotto Blog's post, Anti-war movies tank at the box office. RTWT.

I believe I said much the same thing after seeing only the movie trailers a while back.

UPDATE: The commenters to this Breitbart piece on the commercial failure of these films all seem to agree with me. It isn't that "They don't want to be reminded about the mental toll that the Iraq War is having on us," it's that they're sick and tired of Hollywood shitting on the military, "flyover country," and America in general.

Sample comment:

Hallelujah! Thank you, to all the responders so far. It does my heart good to see that so many people (all of you?) feel the same way that I do about these movies, and Hollywood in general.

I have an idea for Hollywood: Let's get some great actors, some great directors, some great producers, and some great screenwriters, and let's make a movie that edifies America, edifies our troops, and captures on the big screen the true bravery and gallantry that are being exhibited every day over in Iraq. Make a movie like that, and THEN let's see how movie-goers respond!

Hollywood makes a sucky product that doesn't sell, and the only reason they can come up with is, "People go to the movies to escape. We just need to make our anti-American military films more entertaining" … *groan* What a bunch of self-righteous dullards.

God bless America.

Read 'em all.

Gun Pr0n

By request, I'm posting some pictures of my Garand, and I thought I'd throw up a couple of pictures of the Remmy while I was at it. Click to see full-size:

It's a little beaten up since I've run about a thousand rounds through it, but it still looks very nice.

Here are a couple of shots of the Remington right out of the box:

I'll post photos after it's refinished.

CHA-CHING!!

Shooting can be a very expensive hobby.

The stainless-steel Remington 700 I just bought was a thousand dollars ($1,000!!), new-in-box (and that doesn't include tax). No sights. And the triggerguard/floorplate assembly looks and feels like plastic. Actually, it is plastic.

Cheap plastic.

That has to go. But you want to buy a replacement in steel? How about Badger Ordnance's Tatical triggerguard/floorplate? Three hundred and thirty-five bucks! Jeebus! That's a third of the price of the damned rifle!

Thanks to the Intartubes, I was able to find and then research Williams Firearms and their Remington 700 Short-Action bottom metal. On order now, one each in-the-white: $154 plus $8 freight. Sorry Brownell's, but if you offered this product I'd have probably bought it through you.

As I noted previously, this rifle is going to be given a matte black Gunkote finish by Mac's Shootin' Irons. I'm going to go with Mac's Tuff-Gun II process (though no initial parkerizing over anything but the new bottom metal, since the rifle is stainless steel). That's another $230, unless we negotiate the price down since I'll be delivering it and picking it up.

Because this is intended to be a long-range precision rifle, and I hate to clean copper fouling out of barrels, I am also going to treat the bore with Ultra Bore Coat - another $51 with shipping.

This gun is going to be mostly shot off a bench or prone, so it needs a bipod. A Harris S-BRM (on sale!) at MidwayUSA: $79.99. ($121.90 at Brownell's - ouch!)

Bullets and brass and something to put assembled ammo into? Lapua .308 brass, two boxes of 100 at $52.99 each. Sierra 175 grain MatchKing HPBT bullets, box of 500: $117.99. Two 100 round smoke gray plastic ammo boxes: $4.27 each. I already have RCBS full-length size and seat dies, but this is a bolt-gun, and the only gun I have in .308 caliber (I sold my Ruger M77 LONG ago), I wanted a Lee Collet neck sizing die: $16.99. Lee case length gauge and shell holder for their trimmer setup: $3.49. Cutter and lockstud: $4.99. Given the reputation of Lapua brass, I shouldn't need to trim the cases for a bit, but it's best to be prepared. I've already got eight lbs. of Varget powder - well, a bit less than eight because it's the powder I use for my 75 grain .223 loads - but I need large rifle primers. I have some Winchester, but I really like CCI's benchrest primers for this: another $41.99 for a thousand, plus tax.

So far I've poured $1,718 into this project, not including the upcoming refinish.

And we haven't addressed optics yet.

Since this is to be a 700 yard rifle, it will be very helpful if the scope base has some built-in elevation, that way it won't be necessary to crank the scope to the end of its adjustment travel to be able to reach out, out, out there. I've already run across this problem with the Swede. My solution then was Burris Signature Rings that have inserts that allow for extra elevation. I don't want to go that route this time. I do, however, want a one-piece Picatinny/Weaver style base. But again - cost? Badger Ordnance has a great reputation, but $150?? And they're not alone. Nightforce wants $120 ($150 at Brownells). Some Internet searching and... Evolution Gun Works 20 MOA Remington 700 short-action Picatinny scope base: $39.99, with a good reputation to boot. I believe that will be my choice.

Now, the glass.

On a precision rifle the glass means as much as the rifle. No matter the potential accuracy of the rifle, if you can't see the target, or if your scope adjustments are not reliably repeatable, you're not going to hit what you're aiming for. Still, like most shooters I think, I cringe at laying out more for the glass than I did for the gun. When the gun costs a grand, the thought of dropping another grand (or more, much more!) on a scope has a tendency to induce nosebleed.

Because my wife wants to punch me in the face.

I have not yet settled on a scope. One helpful commenter has recommended the Nikon 2.5-10X44 Tactical from SWFA's Sample List. They have several in stock, and I have bought from there before. The Leupold scope on my AR-15 target upper came from there, as did the Simmons scopes on both the Swede and Conan the Borg. The Nikons run $700-800, and that's an excellent deal, but I'm looking very hard at an IOR Valdada scope. Their 2.5-10X42 with a 30mm tube, new, is $725 and is supposed to be excellent. I like their MP8 reticle, too.

Anyway, until I settle on a scope, I can't decide what rings to get. One-inch or 30mm? "Tactical" (which means "expen$ive") or standard? Leupold, Burris, or somebody else?

And then there are the other little doo-dads that accumulate. A spirit-level cant indicator, a retractable ballistics chart, so on, and so forth.

I love this hobby, but I'm damned glad I picked a profession that pays well.

LabRat's on a Roll.

Another Quote of the Day from the first of two posts on faith, religion, and Western society:

What is killing Western civilization is not the death of God, it is the death of meaning.

Go read.

Long-Range Bangstick.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I've been working on a long-range rifle for some time. Specifically, long before I started this blog I had a tapped-out 1896 Swedish Mauser rebarreled with a medium weight Shilen 1:8" twist tube chambered for 6.5x55, and then restocked it, mounted a decent scope, and proceeded to try to find just the right load that would allow me to whack 50 lb. steel rams at 500 meters offhand.

I fought with it for a couple of years until I thought I had it licked. Turned out, not so much.

As a last-ditch effort I sent the barreled action to 300 Below and had them cryo-treat it. (Pictures of the Swede at this link.) Deep-freezing helped, but not enough. Two minutes of angle off the bench is a good hunting rifle, but not up to target specs.

Ever since I shot Joe Huffman's "Spud Gun" at the Second Annual Gunblogger's Rendezvous, I've had a severe itch to build or buy a rifle capable of 700 yard accuracy. Well, I've gotten a bit of a cash windfall, and after doing some research I decided upon a Remington 700 R5 Milspec rifle. I decided against a .300WM because A) I like to shoot at least 100 rounds through any rifle I take to the range, and .308 is at the upper end of my shoulder's comfort zone for that without a muzzle brake, and B) I hate muzzle brakes. Further, the longest range at Joe's Boomershoot is 700 yards, at which the .308 should be adequate, and around here finding a place to shoot 700 yards is fairly tough, so the .300WM wouldn't buy me much more than a little flatter trajectory at the cost of more bruising.

Anyway, the rifle's on layaway right now. I need to acquire a scope base, bipod, Lapua brass, and some Sierra 175 grain MatchKing bullets. For the interim I think I'm going to move the Simmons scope off the Swede, but I plan on getting a better scope in the future. A NightForce would be nice, but outside my price range. I'll probably end up with another Leupold.

Oh, and I intend to take the rifle to Mac's Shootin' Irons to have him finish it in matte black. Mac refinished my M1 Garand a while back, and it looks mahvelous! I'm not too thrilled with a stainless rifle, though, so getting it finished in black is a high priority.

Quote of the Day.

But to a person who has not already taken a number of things on faith, that story does not make God look loving! The story looks, to eyes that have not already been prepared with several heartfelt acceptances, like this:

"For God so loved humanity, he sent His only son to die, and removed all conditions from their acceptance into His company in the afterlife except an acceptance of the Savior after hearing the Word. Except for everybody who did not hear the Word for geographic or linguistic reasons. They were just out of luck, until hundreds of years later when the faithful came to them to spread the Word. And smallpox. More smallpox than Word, really."

By LabRat from the comments to this post.

Somebody Want to Comment on the School Shooting in Finland?

I mean, besides the fact that it's America's fault?

Though I must admit, I appreciated this comment:

I am a former Finn (now US Citizen) and I absolutely hate the fact that this has been turned to be somehow US’ fault or influence. Sick people live everywhere and the oppressive Social-Democracy (which is a thin wafer away from totalitarian fascism) make people go POP.

People in Finland should really look into the depressive culture created by the money-grabbing socialists. Seriously. Otherwise I am not surprised if someone blows up the parliament building there at some point.

I am very, very happy I got out of that place and I am very proud to be an American. Since I know the difference between Welfare State system and American Way, I pick the latter ANY DAY.

Why? ’cause here I am *FREE*!

— Posted by Former Finn

Then, of course, there's this ignorant half-informed idiot:

Switzerland and Israel teachs most of its men how to use guns. But they don't allow assault rifles as we do in the USA as if to say anything goes.

Would Nazi Germany have risen if every one had a gun?

The answer is universal militia training as in Switzerland and Israel.

— Posted by gerson jacobs

Well Mr. or Ms Jacobs, you're right. Israel and Switzerland don't allow "assault rifles" as we do in the USA. They get fully-automatic weapons, where ours are only semi-automatic. I guess that's because we don't get trained by the government. Of course, we have to buy ours, instead of having them issued by that same government.

Yeesh!

(h/t: TFS Magnum)

Different Wars, Important Pictures.

(Via Instapundit.)

Perhaps the most iconic photo of the war in the Pacific:

Compare it to this image that won't see the front page of any newspaper, major or minor, in the U.S. (but should - along with the story behind it):

Both, I think, mark a crucial turning point in their respective wars. The Iwo Jima photo was responsible for a resurgence of support for the war in the Pacific after more than three years of war, rationing, shortages at home, and an endless stream of Western Union telegrams. The battle for Iwo Jima lasted from February 19 to the end of March, 1945. In less than two months U.S. forces lost 6,825 killed and over 20,000 wounded on that tiny island alone.

We've been at war in Iraq for not yet five years. Current U.S. casualties are 3,857 dead and some 28,000 wounded.

Will this photo inspire America to continue its support for the war? Maybe, if it receives circulation. But that doesn't fit the template of today's media, so most probably it won't. Besides, America's military is at war. The American public is at the mall, worrying about gas prices and the falling stock market, and what they'll be buying for Christmas.

UPDATE: As Instapundit notes, it beats the hell out of comparing it to this photo:

Something we thought might be imminent not too long ago:

(Click for full size)

Agenda? What Agenda?.

Carnaby Fudge does a little comparo between the anti-gun media template, and a "news" article by CNN. The results are surprising. (NOT!)

One point I think needs to be emphasized, though: the template was originally authored by Dr. Michael S. Brown, and it's been around since 1999.

Blogging Update, Still No Urge to Write.

That is all.

OK, Here's a Link on Anti-theists.

Since that's been a topic here before. But this one is written by Theodore Dalrymple, so it's better written than mine: What the New Atheists Don't See. I find the piece especially interesting, since the part of God and Guns that I'm reading now addresses how English culture dealt with religion from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries.

No Urge to Post,.

...even though I'm a finalist in the 2007 Weblog awards. I've got a piece in the back of my head on Fred Thompson that just won't come out (been there since about the middle of last week), but I'm currently reading a fascinating book, Walter Russell Mead's God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, and I'm about halfway through it.

Sorry for the lack of content. Blame ennui.

Quote of the Day.

Much as it boosts the resonance of the bathroom baritone, a shower and tiled room will elevate a pedestrian girlie-scream into an operatic shriek. I’d like to say it was a bellow of surprise and outrage, but bellows do not hit the kind of high notes required to make all the metal in the room ring in sympathy.

LabRat, from this hilarious post.

I feel for you, sister. I fucking hate spiders.

Kill 'em with fire!!!

ROFLMAO!!!.

Thank you, LawDog! That was the best belly-laugh I've had in weeks!

Some Brits still have stainless-steel testicles!

And whatever sins George Lucas may have committed in his life, that one piece of music he commissioned will live on forever!

The Other Side of the Global Warming Debate.
(Yes, there is one.)

Al Fin has three videos up you really ought to watch if you're interested in the question, and not convinced that the "Anthropomorphic Global Warming" skeptics are all paid off by by Big Oil.

The videos run not quite three hours in total. The first is a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary entitled Doomsday Called Off. The second is the UK's Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, and the third is a CNN production by Glenn Beck, Exposed: The Climate of Fear.

Well worth your time.

Oh, and no commercials!

I'm Honored!.

It looks like I'm a finalist in the 2007 Weblog Awards for "Best of the Top 1751-2500 Blogs." TSM is one of ten blogs vying for the title. The current leader has 258 votes to TSM's 21, but it's an honor just to have been nominated.

Y'all like me!

But I notice there's still not a "Gunblogger" category.

"Having a gun changes everything".

Last Friday I noted that NPR's Weekend America program would be featuring a segment on a guy with a gun. I didn't get a chance to listen to it on the air, but sure enough it's available as a podcast at their website now. I took some time to listen to it today. Interestingly enough, it's accompanied by the original letter to NPR that spawned the piece, and some pictures of the subject. If you don't want to take the time to listen (it runs right at five minutes) or if you don't have RealPlayer, I've transcribed the audio below. I'll reproduce the letter and a couple of the pictures here, too, for posterity. Here's the letter from Eric:

My first firearm. It was a Ruger Mark 2 semiautomatic target pistol and with it I learned to shoot at the oldest continuously-operating handgun club in the United States. I was interested in self defense but my experiences at the revolver club led me into the world of competitive shooting and joining the NRA. I had always had suspicions about the motives and practices of the NRA but I wanted to join so that I could compete in NRA sanctioned matches (where the best shooters compete). I came from an upper middle class family from White Plains, NY. Guns were strictly forbidden by mom and dad. My two sisters had no interest in guns, and even I didn't like riflery at Boy Scout camp.

Learning to shoot a deadly weapon with skill (I became the #5 shot in Ohio in Olympic 10 meter air pistol, and was co-winner of the revolver club's handicap pistol league in my first year) put me in a strange position: how could I explain my activities to my family who was hostile with my new found interest. My personal politics had never been "conservative" and many of the people I socialize with are anti-gun to say the least.

Well, I've learned to separate the wheat from the chaff as far as what the NRA claims to be true and correct. I've become more confident in defending myself and in defending my gun rights to those who are hostile toward them. This is tough since I associate with a lot of Unitarians and academics (my wife teaches at a university).

All this has led to much soul searching and a better understanding of what I believe in regarding self-defense and the right of the people to have the power that is represented by guns.

I'd be happy to expand on any of this at your request.

Now, Eric didn't want to be identified (as the following transcript notes) but he gave everybody enough information to identify him in about thirty seconds of Google searching, I think - but no matter. Here's the transcript:

Desiree Cooper: Last year more than nineteen billion catalogs were mailed out, so as you all pour over those slick pages this weekend, I want you to ask yourself this question: "Is this purchase really going to change your life?" Over the past weeks we've been asking about purchases that have changed your lives, and no matter where you made the purchase or how, we want to know what happened when you finally brought it home.

For one story we're going to the Midwest where we'll meet Eric - now he doesn't want us to give his last name or the city where he lives, but this weekend Eric will be spending some time with a purchase that changed his life: a gun. And like a lot of guys, he got into them at an early age.

Eric: When I was a kid I was in Cub Scouts, and I had this idea, as I'm sure that a lot of little boys do, that it was gonna be - and I remember the fantasy totally clearly - um, there were gonna be hula dancers; really, really good lookin' hula dancers. And machine-guns. (Laughs) I don't know. I was a little boy! I guess too much action TV. Of course Cub Scouts had absolutely nothing to do with that. There were no guns or anything with Cub Scouts. (Ukelele music in the background.)

Eventually, um, what I wanted to do was get a pellet gun, and actually I went out and I just bought one. Um, and I brought it home, and you know, and I still remember my mom screaming "IT'S AN INSTRUMENT OF DEATH!" (Laughs) Which, of course, you could kill somebody, but boy, it'd be really hard to kill somebody with it - so guns were just like this foreign, you know, virus.

The first firearm that I bought was a Ruger Mark II bull-barrel pistol. And the club where I was taught how to shoot shot a specific type of target shooting called Bullseye, and, um, I became the fifth best shooter in the state. And, um, I was really proud of that. And, um, it was really, really a lot of fun.

I mean there really is a perception that people who are gun enthusiasts are by nature socially conservative, and, um, that's it. I come from a completely different background. Um, I'm very independent. And the thing about guns and, you know, in terms of my friends, some friends were interested. Uh, other friends I could really clear out a room, you know, if I brought up the subject.

I learned really fast that it just wasn't something you talked about.

I don't think there's any question, it has made me much more cognizant of the ethics and the morality of self defense. The only time you would ever produce a firearm in an act of self defense is when you fear for your life. That's it. And I never really had to come to grips with the idea that I might actually have to do that until I bought a gun. And then it became a very, very important quest for me to get as much knowledge about "what am I gonna do with this thing?"

Having a gun changes everything.

I can't meditate. I have a "monkey mind" as the Buddhists would say. I just think about too many things. Um, the only time I've ever been able to really focus on my breathing and on relaxation for any period of time has been during shooting. When I have that task, I relax, and I focus, and I visualize shooting a lot when I can't shoot. Gentle breaths. The arms raised. And then my finger moves to the trigger. And the squeeze is timed with the breathing. I bring in a breath, and then I begin my squeeze. And I have to complete the firing of the gun before I run out of air. And the fun thing about shooting sometimes is that's when I listen to NPR. (Laughs. NPR theme plays in the background.)

You know, we're all running around like crazy, you know, for a lot of us on the weekend, but when you get to the shooting range - everything stops. And for a lot of us who do things fast, fast, fast, fast, it's a time to slow down. (Segment ends.)

I'm not going to comment on the fear, the disease parallel, the social pariah identification, I'm not even going to comment on the self-realization that came about from his purchase of a firearm. I'll leave that to you, my gentle readers. I'm just going to post the two pictures of the subject with one quick comment afterward:

OH MY GOD! HE'S GOT AN ASSAULT RIFLE!!! (Looks like a match-legal pre- post-ban, too.)

Interesting that no one at NPR said anything about that. I wonder what else didn't make the cut?