Dry Fire

I finally got around to doing some of that dry fire practice I should have been doing for a while now.

One of the best ideas I have gotten (thanks Jay G) was to get a laser and use that to help out.  So I got a laser bore sight and I mount that in my double action Makarov and off I go. . . .

Been doing it for about two weeks now.  I practice a few times a week and I can already see the pay off with the laser not jumping around as much.

This has really worked out well for me.  I can change my grip a bit and see right away how it effects my shot.  I quickly could see how much the laser was jumping because my grip was too loose.  Where it use to jump 2 inches or so to the right when I fired I am now down to a half inch or so. 

My normal practice is to shoot 5, 10  or at the most 20 shots, then take a break so I don't tire my hand and finger too quickly.  After a break I do another set of shots.  This has worked well so far.  Now I need to get to the range and see how this translates to paper. . .  ..

A side effect of this is I am also finding I can watch the front sight and still see the laser better and better as I practice.

I have become a convert!  more dry fire time needed!

Shooting in DC

Further proof that gun laws don't work. Heck, this nut didn't even use a hand gun, he went with a long gun, a shot gun if what I heard was right.

DC, no guns and no safety.

Now they are all talking about how bad it was and all the blood on CNN, anything they can do to make it sound worse than it was.

You know what the truth is? Guns stop this crap. This guy shot one person, a guard, and two ARMED guards shot him and it was over. Had everyone been disarmed then this would have been much worse than it was.

Now we get to watch the media make a circus out of all of this and call for more laws so the gunman will be safe next time and they will get more dead to put on the news.

This is not what I need just two weeks before my daughter goes to DC. I spent part of today discussing this with her. I went over the importance of getting out of the way, going where they tell her, and if folks choke then to head for the closest fire exit and get out. She was also told to watch for the exits and know where they are. I will have to start quizzing her when we go out to make sure she is paying attention.

What a day. DC once again proves that taking away our rights does nothing but make us less safe, yet they will now try to attack our rights again with this as the excuses.

Pay attention folks, and lets see what they do. Make noise so that we don't loose the rights we have left. . . . Let your reps know it was not the lack of gun laws, but the fact we have too many that let this happen. These guards were on there own, no back up, no help from the people around them. Imagine where we would be if the guards were not there. . . no one could have stopped this nut because our own government has disarmed the people of DC. They are serfs, not citizens of this great country and they live and die at the mercy of the government and the nuts.

Gunman kills 10

THIS is why we need more folks to carry guns. . .

This nutcase had no problem getting a gun and shooting his family and random folks on the street. We need more good folks to have carry permits and a gun available to stop this crap. This is why if you have a permit to carry you always should carry! The best, safest option is an armed citizen.

Overall CNN did a fair job on the report until the end with reporting a 30 round burst. . . Ya right. I doubt highly he had any kind of automatic weapon so there was no burst folks, but it sounds better to scare the sheep. They will find some way to spin this into an assault weapon attacke even though civilins can't own real assault weapons. . . .

This guy was just another whack job. He could have been stopped if someone had a gun available to him to shoot back. Cops can NOT be everywhere at once. You can not expect to have one around when needed. Sure they will come quick if called, but what do you do for the minutes it takes them to get there? You (and evey citizen) should be able to save yourself and hold out until they get there. This culture of "guns are bad" is causing this crap and leaving folks defensless. Add to it the fame the media gives these sick pups and how they get egged on by the news folks and there is no wonder this shit goes down. Now they will play this up all week until someone else gets the idea to go out famus and do it again. . . . They should not run any names of shooters in the news. Let them die unknown as they should. Stop giving them what they want news guys, you are only adding to the problem!

I look forward to learning what they think caused him to snap. The down side is I think there will be more of this as Obama destroys our economy and more folks loose their jobs and the bills pile up. The Democrats want to have us dependent on big government - well where were they when all this was going down? Where were the cops? Seems they didn't get there until he was about done with killing all the folks he wanted to anyway. Cops are great, but when you have only seconds they are just minutes away folks. . . You need to be able to protect yourself in this world, you can not expect others to do it for you.

UPDATE

As if to prove gun control does not work there was also a shooting in Germany overnight. They have very strict gun control there - the kind the liberals here dream about and it still did not help. The bad guy got a gun, and with plenty of unarmed victims around started shooting then escaped. He eventually died in a shoot out with cops. . . The Munchkin Wrangler has more on it here. He should know as he came from Germany. . .
This from CNN on the German Shooting

Further proof that as we disarm more people we are asking for more of these shootings and a higher body count. . . . having someone already on the scene with a gun is the only way to stop them quickly, you can't wait for the cops to get there. Get rid of gun control, if it saves just one life it is worth it. Do it for the kids.

UPDATE 2

We now know what constitutes an "arsenal" these days thanks to the shooter in Il.
"two 12-gauge shotguns, a rifle and a box of 550 .22-caliber bullets"
Most if not every hunter in this country has an arsenal at home I guess. . .
The main stream media really needs to stop crying wolf and trying to scare people. But I guess that is all they have left to do - Lord knows they can't report the truth any more.

Gun Club

Eldest Daughter did it! She passed the safety course and we will get her down to the club meeting on Monday to get her signed up!!

Ya HOOOOO

we will also be keeping the paperwork in a safe place so she can go for her FID in two years when she hits 15.

She is so excited. She is a bit upset that she didn't shoot as well as she could but they supplied the guns, all in .22

She does much better with my .22 and the AR-15. I had to convince her we could not bring it for the test. . . . didn't want her causing problems with the other students

= )

Daughter’s and Shooting

On a brighter note my oldest daughter is interested in joining my gun club as a junior member. They are nice enough to not charge for the course for kids (under 18) so it won’t cost us and it is only $10 a year for her to join the club as a junior member.

I asked her about it last night and she was psyched to do it. I will attend the class with her since she doesn’t know anyone but I will just be observing. Then she gets her own membership.

Now we just have to pick the dates to go take the course. . . I think we may do it this week.

She is excited about it because I get to take two guests to the range with me and if she is a member then when I take my friend and her son she can still come since she won’t be a guest any more!

I am thrilled she wants to do this as she has done very well shooting when we have gone to the range. She is already good with the four rules and has shown me she can safely handle a gun. She does mostly .22 but she loves the AR-15 I have since it looks nice and does not have much (if any) recoil. Every time we go to the ranges she wants some trigger time on the AR. . . . . and what kind of Dad would I be to say no?

Respect for me and you. . .

This post was inspired by a few things that have happened over the last few days. . . Starting with the great report on us gunnies from Lissa you can find here and a few things that happened at Karate last night. It is a longer post based on the one I hammered out quickly a few posts ago.

Now I am a martial artist. By that I mean that I have spent years studying karate (like 16+ years) a couple of years of Tai Chi, and shooting (like 25+ years). I have spent a good number of years of my life learning all the icky things most liberals in MA hate and think are evil. Somehow the modern liberal seems to think martial arts are bad and make us into crazed killers (just look at their reactions to folks that shoot). They will ask “ Why would you want to learn that?” and “What good is it? You want to hurt someone?” As I thought about things it really hit me. What is it about folks that they don’t seem to have any respect for other people? Not only don’t they have respect, but sometimes they are surprised that others will show them respect. So many folks seem lost in their own self centered world these days and I think that causes a lot of the problems we have today. The other thing that hit me is most true martial artist I have met don’t have this problem. . . they want to teach me thing and learn from me so we can both become better people in the end. That is one critical thing, we both grow, not what can I take from you without giving back, it is how do we both gain and learn. . . . why isn’t this the normal way of thinking???

I think knowing a martial art leads one to have more respect for oneself and to have more good old fashion respect for others too. If you have not read Lissa's post on learning to shoot then go do that now and come back, I’ll be here. . . .

OK, done reading it? Good.

Now what does she mention? How all these gun folks were respectful of each other, careful and all around acted like grown ups and gentlemen and gentlewomen. Why do so many folks not into martial arts find this suppressing? This is not the first time I have heard this reaction although she had one of the best explanations I have seen in long time. It is sad that folks get surprised that we watch out for each other and try to share what we know with each other without thinking “OK, what do I get out of this. . .”

I already mentioned a bit about what I have seen and heard myself here but I will go over it again. Our karate school shares our building with a drama club. We both rent space in the building, Us on the top floor and them on the bottom with a common lobby and rest rooms. I have seen the post from their teacher listing all the great folks she has taught and claims to fame in NY and the left coast. . . she comes across in this write up as totally full of herself. I also know that she does nothing to help keep the common areas clean. My teachers get to clean the rest rooms so they don’t reflect badly on her school, she also redid the lobby, as in fixed the walls (full of holes from drama posters) and repainted them and redid the wood floor. Within weeks of finishing this work (which she did over a few weeks) the theater folks have put all the posters back up putting holes in the walls again and someone even put a big dent (knocking out plaster) in one wall. She left NO room for the karate school to post anything – heck, you would not even know we were there. Talk about selfish and self centered. . ..

My daughters use to take dance lessons. The few times I met the teacher she had an air of arrogance that I could feel. She always ran the class over 5 to 10 minutes and just expected the parents to sit and wait. Hey, sure, not like we may have other kids or commitments we need to get to right? What could be more important than her? I was usually the one to pick up the kids and I can tell you that this teacher never said a thing such as sorry we ran over or anything else. . . if she did come out of class it was to get a payment from us for the next month. I guess it was all about her. She finally pushed me too far when she booked an all afternoon dress rehearsal that the kids had to be at or they could not go to the recital. . . . . On Fathers Day. . . . ya, no one makes plans to do family things on Fathers Day – good thinking there. Glad your head can still fit through the door. . ..

And we have all see the way folks drive. . . cutting folks off in traffic, won’t let folks change lanes, won’t let that truck move over.. . . . it goes on and on. . .

Folks you all need to learn some good old fashion RESPECT. Now I know this will kill the liberal movement because that is all about telling me what I should and should not do and not having any respect for me or my ability to make my own choices. You know what, too bad. This liberal attitude of no respect and I should get it because it is OWED to me has got to go. . . .

I am getting to the point that I think we need to get back to teaching every kid some kind of martial art in school, from Karate to shooting, they should have some experience with it. They will learn respect that way. . . .When you reach the point that you know you have the power to hurt or kill someone or something you change. I think if you have learned things properly from a good teacher the knowledge that you have this power is more than a bit humbling and gives you a new view on the world. It is only then that you truly can respect how easy it is to hurt someone or worse. It is also a this time that you realize that so much crap we get all pissed at every day is just that, crap and not worth getting worked up over. You sure as hell learn that all that crap is not worth hurting or killing someone or getting hurt or killed over. I think it also takes your ego down a few notches to see how easy you can get hurt, and to lose a few times when sparing, or in a competition. You learn that you are not the best at everything and to get better you actually have to work for it. No one will hand you anything, you EARN it. You liberals should try it some time, there is nothing like the feeling of getting a thing or award that you actually earned, and I am not talking about today’s sports where all the kids get a trophy at the end just for showing up – that is worthless. Winning and loosing is required to learn about yourself it adds value to what you gain when you win, and teaches you how to do it better next time when you loose – not to mention not to give up when things don’t go your way.

Maybe I am just getting old or becoming more of a mush because I have kids but I find that by learning a martial art, and helping other to learn that art I have become more empathetic towards others. I can feel it when they get frustrated trying to learn something and I want to help them learn it. It is no longer about me being better than them it is about what I can teach them and what I can learn from them. You can learn something from everyone even if it is just to keep trying till you get it right. I get a bit more emotional about things such as someone getting hurt. I think it is because of my training – no, I know it is. I have gained a respect for how easy it is to get hurt and how big an impact that can have on your life. That makes you stop and think about things and it makes you a better person

To learn to respect and empathies with others by itself is worth the time taken to learn to shoot, or do some other martial art. It should be required to be a good citizen to know these things. If we all did, it would be a much different place. . . .

Northern Illinois University shooting

Here we go again, armed bad guy, victims in gun free zone, folks running instead of defending themselves and dead people. . . . when will we learn this gun free zone stuff don't work. . . . More later

Update, quote from CNN

Grady said it was unlikely authorities could have prevented Thursday's tragedy.

"As much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning," he said.

Yes, there is a way, if not to stop it then to minimize it. . . . Let licensed students carry. . .. . .But you won't admit that gun free zones help the bad guy. . . . . They don't work folks, time to wake up.

Go read this post, it says it all

Shooting info from CNN

From CNN

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- A Colorado Springs megachurch instituted security precautions after a shooting at a Denver area mission center earlier Sunday, saving "hundreds of lives" at the New Life Church, senior Pastor Brady Boyd said Monday.

A New Life parishioner acting as a security guard shot and killed a gunman who entered the church Sunday afternoon after he had gotten no more than 50 feet inside the building, Boyd said.....

Boyd said the female security guard was a hero in preventing further bloodshed, rushing to confront the gunman just inside the church.

"She probably saved over a hundred lives," Boyd said of the guard, whom he said is not a law enforcement officer and used her personal weapon. Watch pastor tell how guard saved lives »

Boyd said the gunman, whom police have yet to identify, had no connection to the church.

Something I thought I would never see in print. . . CNN telling a story where a normal person is a hero for having their gun on them. . .

Mall Shooting

Update -

1 - Mall security says that they saw him come in with something wrapped up in a hooded sweatshirt, so the gun was concealed at least a bit when he got there. . .

2- Now the news folks are going back and forth between calling it an SKS and an AK47. . . I want to see a picture of the gun before I believe them. They will push the AK because it sounds better to them. It would be harder to hid an SKS over an AK since the AK is a much smaller gun length wise.

3- They are claiming he had 30 round mags for the gun, don't know if these are available in an SKS but are standard for an AK

4- Since he was a felon so can't legally own a gun it is looking like he stole it from someone in the family. . . So he is a thief along with having the felony drug conviction and he was due in court on something else in the near future. He was a winner all around.

5- And lastly we are hearing of how troubled a life he led like that is an excuse for his actions. . . Sorry folks, lots of people have sh%^ happen to them and don't go shoot up the local mall. I can't give him a free pass on this. . . . You pull the trigger by choice, you are responsible for your actions, no one else.

Again I say we should not use his name in any of the news, don't give this piece of dirt the fame he wanted.

Mall Shooting

Well I guess it was just a matter of time before some kid decided that school shootings are no fun, lets try the mall. . . . and yesterday a 19 year old who wanted to be famous (so I won’t help by naming him) went on a shooting spree in a mall in Nebraska.

This is a tragedy made even worse by it’s timing close to the holidays but just wait, the commies at the Clueless News Network have already started their spin of the story so here we go -

Now CNN has jumped on the story to spin it the way they want so lets look at the facts.

1 – CNN says he had an assault rifle then calls it an SKS. . . sorry, an SKS is not an assault rifle but a normal size rifle. Now would someone care to tell me how you walk into a mall with a full size rifle and no one notices?

2 – Instead of going with CNN and saying that this is a call for gun control lets think about this. . . here is a pesky fact from CNN:

The first 911 call came in at 1:42 p.m., and the shooting was already over when police arrived six minutes later, authorities said.

"We sent every available officer in the city of Omaha," Sgt. Teresa Negron said. "They came to the mall in lights and sirens."

It only took the cops SIX MINUTES to get there yet 7 people were already dead and two dying – this is the best example of a reason for more people to carry that I can think of. I would hate to be in this situation and think “Damn I wish I had my gun from home. . .” If more people carried a gun, this guy would not have had the six minutes to do this. . .

3- From the AP - Records in Sarpy and Washington counties showed (the Shooter) had a felony drug conviction and several misdemeanor cases filed against him, including an arrest 11 days before the shooting for having alcohol as a minor. He was due in court in two weeks

He has a felony conviction. . . that means that he can not legally get a gun. . . I want to know who he got it from. . . . Guess all these great gun laws don't work. . . .

And lastly this looser left a note saying “now I will be famous” . . . isn’t that great, he wants to be famous and the whores in the news business will grant his last wish. . . How nice of them. If I had my way you would tell the facts of the story, and leave out his name and photos, make sure we know what happened, that is the new mans job, but let his name be lost to history, don’t give him the fame he wanted.

If you folks in the news business didn’t glorify these folks we would have a lot less problems like this. Of course if you news folks didn’t keep vilifying guns and distorting the facts we may have more sane people able to own and carry guns to protect us from nuts like this madman. That is what the Second Amendment is for - so the people have arms to protect themselves from threats foreign and domestic. . . .

And lastly, a pet peeve, lets not call this 19 year old adult a kid, I know the news will. His is not a kid, he is an adult and he is the only one responsible for what he did, not his parents, not society, not anyone else. . . He pulled the trigger, he made the choice, he is responsible.

Up until now I have thought about carrying and been learning all I can about it. This has pushed me to the point where I think it is time to carry whenever I go anywhere. You can’t depend on the cops, they can’t be everywhere you have to protect yourself and your family. These cops responded great, it was only six minutes till they were on the scene, but by then the damage was done. . . . I don’t want to go huddled with my family behind a coat rack, I’m the Dad, it is my job to keep them safe!

UPDATE - Just learned that this mall was a GUN FREE ZONE, so no one is allowed guns there. . . Guss it is a good thing that all those folks were disarmed so no one would hurt the shooter. . . OOPS, you can't be a shooter there cause it is a posted gun free zone! Guess our shooter forgot to read the sign on the way in saying he can't shoot there. . . . and if it is posted gun free, why didn't anyone call him in to the cops while he was walking up to the third floor with a rifle in his hands. . . . further proof that folks don't get it and gun free zones don't work. . .

You may be a gun nut. . .

if you see a box at work that says "Diamond Grip" and the first thing that pops in your head is the grips for a 1911 pistol. . . .

I’m So Proud!!

I took the oldest monster daughter to the range tonight and she loved it as usual. Now she usually shoots .22 as she is just 12 but she did try my AK tonight for a few shots and got on the paper at about 25 yards. OK, so it has a red dot scope on it but still. . . . To finish thing off for the night she told me how much fun she had and that she wants to teach her kids to shoot when she has them some day. . . . . I think the torch has been successfully passed to the next generation of gun nut!! I’m so proud of her!!

Corrupting the Young

Well, my older daughter has been bugging me to go shooting again before school starts up. If the weather holds I will taker her tomorrow after work along with a friend of mine and her son. Heres to getting the next generation into the shooting sports!

So far both kids love it. we do some paper targets and a plinking plate. She has only done a 22 rifle so far but I think I will have her give the AK a try tomorrow as I got a red dot on it so she should be able to aim it well enough. Nice thing about the AK variants is they have a good kick on the receiving end but not to bad a recoil for the shooter. . . Should be a fun night.

And yes, we go over safe handling of the weapons every trip to the range before they get to touch one. . . .