Setup for this: Someone Who Isn’t Me (SWIM) may have received one or more of the Brownells Gunsmith Kinks books for Christmas. SWIM may have texted me a message about “books about kinky gunsmiths”.
Which got me thinking…we have romance novels in just about every other area, including cop romances and SWAT romances (that’s “Special Werewolf Alpha Team“).
Why not…gunsmith romances?
John Brown is one of the best gunsmiths in the country. He can make a 1911 shoot cloverleafs at 50 yards. But he knows nothing about women.
Carrie Green is a Beverly Hills liberal who knows nothing about guns. But increasing crime has her worried. So she decides to buy a gun.
When Carrie walks into John’s shop, bullets won’t be the only thing in the air…
Nicole Cross is looking for someone to complete her father’s last firearms design. But when she meets hunky gunsmith Alex Middlemarch, her gas piston won’t be the only thing moving.
Police armorer Michelle Block lost her cop husband in a line of duty accident. She’s been immersed in her work for the past five years. But can she find love, and a father for her daughter, with macho SWAT cop Patrick Westlake?
A cinematographer is killed on the set of a Western, and movie armorer Lauren Hughes is blamed for her death. Can former SEAL and special investigator Donald Thomas prove she was framed…and find the real killer before he takes Lauren out of the picture?
Okay, that last one may cut a little too close to current events…
But: most of these charges are gun charges, and the sort of gun charges that I’m not sure should be a crime in a free country, much less New York state.
There’s a semi-meme in the gun community about people ordering “fuel filters” from Chinese vendors…and getting a knock on the door from the Feds. I wonder if that’s what happened in this case. (The only online reference I could find to this was on a site that I have a policy of not linking to or acknowledging in any way.)
So I can’t gloat too much over the gun charges: after all, if I believe that silencers, modern sporting rifles, and normal capacity magazines should be legal, I can’t throw stones at this guy.
But fake law enforcement credentials? He deserves whatever he gets for that.
But, as I understand it, the “civil grand jury” indictments are not criminal. The “civil grand jury” in California is chartered to investigate “actions or performance of city, county agencies or public officials.”
Consideration of evidence of misconduct against public officials to determine whether to present formal accusations requesting their removal from office
Inquiry into the condition and management of public prisons within the county
Investigation and report on the operations, accounts, and records of the officers, departments, or functions of the county including those operations, accounts, and records of any special legislative district or other district in the county pursuant to state law for which the officers of the county are serving in their ex officio capacity as officers of the districts
May investigate the books and records of any incorporated city or joint powers agency located in the county
So this isn’t the equivalent of criminal charges, but it is a grand jury saying “We think you’re corrupt as fark”.
Count 1: Illegally issuing concealed carry weapon permits (CCW) to VIP’s
Count 2: Failing to properly investigate whether non-VIP’s should receive CCW permits
Count 3: Keeping non-VIP CCW applications pending indefinitely
Count 4: Illegally accepting suite tickets, food, and drinks at Sharks game
Count 5: Failing to report Sharks game gifts on financial documents
Count 6: Committing perjury by failing to disclose Sharks game gifts
Count 7: Failing to cooperate with internal affairs investigation surrounding treatment of Andrew Hogan
Again this year, Daddy didn’t drink all the Xmas money, or have to spend it on car repairs. Daddy got his car inspected (they didn’t even want to replace the windshield washers) and has renewed his registration online.
I don’t want it to sound like everything is coming up Millhouse. A close family member has been in the hospital since before Thanksgiving. I’m hoping that, if the doctors can get them up and walking, we might be able to get them out on bond the later part of this week. Which will be welcomed by me. And their little dog, which we will call “Toto” to protect the innocent.
(On the slightly positive side, this gives me a chance to make onion dip. Or hot buttered rum. Or real eggnog.)
And work is still giving me tsuris. The good news is, after December 17th, I will be officially out of the office and on leave until January 10th. I probably will check my emails from time to time, mostly for the “fiddling while Rome burns” feeling of it all.
But I got to go to a Christmas party/appreciation dinner last week. And today I got to meet up with the members of what Lawrence likes to call my “shadowy criminal conspiracy” for the first time in a while. I missed the last meeting because of Tulsa, then we took two weeks off for Thanksgiving…
…and then after I finished running errands, I went by Sportsman’s Finest. They’ve decided to open on Sundays for the month of December. Which makes sense, right?
Guess who came in to receive his Concealed Handgun Permit today? 🎅
Did you know the El Paso County Sheriff's Office has issued 49,750 Concealed Handgun Permits with another 2,560 awaiting to be issued?
Turns out, the gun I had bought in Tulsa and had to have shipped to a transfer dealer had come in. (There were some issues that delayed the process. Nothing criminal or anything, just a shipping foulup and a couple of other little things.)
I don’t know if my readers who are not People Of the Gun understand this, but: when you get a gun transferred to a dealer for you to pick up, the dealer has to open the package and log the gun onto their own record books. So they know what you’re getting when it arrives. Which is significant in this case because…
…the owners of Sportsman’s Finest happened to have a bunch of stuff lying around the shop for this particular gun, and gave me over $100 worth of stuff to go along with it. Free. Gratis. No charge. Seriously. (I’m being kind of coy about the gun here because I’ve actually been working on a post about this specific gun: I just had to wait until it arrived so I could take photos. If I’m lucky and the weevils don’t get into the eggnog, I might be able to post that this week. I will say, it is a really old gun that isn’t made any longer, but is still held in high regard.)
(Not a Garand, Borepatch. Sorry. But you got me thinking about that as a possible next purchase. I believe I meet all of the CMP qualifications, and they aren’t getting any cheaper.)
And they also didn’t charge me for the transfer.
None of this was stuff that I was expecting. I was fully prepared to pay the transfer fee, and thought about arm wresting one of the owners over it. But I decided to do something else instead. The spare parts were just an unexpected, surprising, and honestly quite moving bonus. I wouldn’t expect them to do this for just any random murder hobo. I guess it just happens that I’m one of the murder hobos that they like for some reason.
Made my heart grow five sizes, it did. Not three, because fark the Grinch, stealing the roast beast like that and tormenting that poor dog, but five sizes.
(Mike the Musicologist: “You should see a doctor about that.”)
Anyway, if you need guns or ammo or fishing gear or other outdoorsy type stuff during the holiday season, please consider shopping at:
Sportman’s Finest
12434 Bee Cave Road
Austin, TX 78738
(512) 263-1888
9:00 AM – 7:00 PN Monday-Friday
9:00 AM – 6:00 PM Saturday
11:00 AM – 5:00 PM Sunday during December
Don’t expect free stuff until you get to know them, but they’re really nice people, even if you’ve never been in before.
As you might have picked up from previous posts, Mike the Musicologist, myself, and some other friends who shall remain anonymous went up to Tulsa this past weekend for Wanenmacher’s Tulsa Arms Show. We generally try to go to every third one, but what with the Wuhan Flu et al, this is the first one we’ve been to since November of 2018.
I’m working on a longer post about some of the things I picked up during the show and around Tulsa, but I have to wait until one item arrives at my FFL. (On a related note, I am thinking more seriously about getting a C&R license. The problem is: I am already supposed to get one colonoscopy a year. I don’t need BATFE giving me a second one.)
A few things I noticed:
It didn’t take us as long to go through the show as it usually did. I felt like I had seen all the tables by about 2 PM on Sunday.
The reason is that it seemed there were fewer vendors. I think Wannemacher’s still sells all their tables, but it seemed like a lot of vendors may have purchased tables and then backed out for this round. Additionally, it seemed like a lot of vendors who were there decided to pack up their tables and close early: either they sold everything they’d brought, or just wanted to get on the road.
There were a lot of people selling AR pattern rifles and parts at the show. But as usual, almost all the ones I saw were not mass-production platforms (Bushmaster, S&W, etc.) but were from small builders. I really didn’t pay much attention to prices, because I wasn’t looking for a new AR pattern rifle. (I am kind of looking for a cheapish AR upper for my own personal Behind Every Blade of Grass gun (hattip: McThag), but it wasn’t a priority for me at this show.) Someone Who Isn’t Me did purchase an upper in .224 Valkyrie, but I didn’t note the price.
There were, as always, a lot of ammo vendors at the show. Which means ammo prices were competitive. I didn’t buy any ammo at the show. (I did pick up a box of .221 Fireball from Sports World and a box of 10mm Hornady Critical Duty from Dong’s Guns while we were roaming the city.) My Friends Who Are Not Me keep close track of ammo prices and did pick up some at the show for what they thought were good prices: 280 rounds of M-1 Garand specific .30-06 ammo for $1.25 a round (with ammo can and enbloc clips), 1000 rounds of .45 Auto for $.44 a round, 1000 rounds of 9mm for $.34 a round, and 1000 rounds of .380 for $.37 a round.
I saw a lot (relatively speaking) of older Smith and Wesson Model 48 revolvers for sale. It wasn’t like every other table had one, but I saw far more than I expected to see, even given the size of the show. The Model 48 is a K-frame revolver chambered in .22 Magnum. They are nice guns, especially the older ones. I was just surprised at how many I saw for sale. (No, I didn’t buy one: I already have one in 6″. It’s very nice.)
Perhaps the idea of what a suitable military handgun should be may change, and who knows, perhaps we may have a new .40-caliber cartridge to get the ‘sectional density’ considered necessary for stopping power and a powder charge that will permit the average man to learn quickly to do good shooting at practical pistol range. Such a cartridge with a recoil and muzzle blast not much greater than that of the .38 Special and less than that of the .38 Colt automatic cartridge would make the handgun far more effective, for after all a bullet that misses the intended mark is without value regardless of the energy it may have. The idea that a handgun is essentially a short-range arm is not at all new, even in military circles, but we seem to have attempted to increase the range beyond the practical limit with such cartridges as the .45 Automatic, with the result that the gun is decidedly difficult for the average man to shoot well.
—Pistol and Revolver Shooting, Walter F. Roper (1945).
(Well, we never got a “new .40-caliber cartridge” in a military arm – we went straight from .45 ACP to 9mm – but we did get the .40 S&W as a popular police caliber. I wonder what Roper would have thought of the cartridge: biographical information is hard to find, but I’m pretty sure he had passed on when the .40 S&W was introduced in 1990.)
(As a side note: I’m not as enthusiastic about this gun as other folks seem to be, but that’s because I already have a Hi-Power. If I was in the market, I’d think about it. Or if Springfield comes out with a .40 S&W or even a .357 SIG version of the SA-35, that might quicken my pulse a bit.)
Information about this is still coming in, but the reports so far are that Ms. Hutchins was killed when Alec Baldwin discharged what is being described as a “prop firearm” on the set of a movie he was working on in New Mexico (“Rust”). The movie’s director, Joel Souza, was also injured: the last reports I saw were that he was in critical condition.
I don’t have a lot to say about this right now because I don’t think there’s enough information. I have no special fondness for Alec Baldwin (though I think he was good in “Hunt For Red October”) but I want to give him and everyone else involved the same benefit of the doubt I’d give anyone else in this situation.
Edited to add 2: “How can a prop gun used on a movie set be deadly?” I feel like most of my readers know all this already, but this is a decent explainer for anybody who does not. Also, somebody tweaked me for not referencing Jon-Erik Hexum (which I didn’t do because it isn’t clear if the Baldwin situation is anything like the Hexum one, or the Brandon Lee one), so here’s your reference.
Also taking pleas: “campaign treasurer Albert Jones Jr. and Rosiland Brooks-Harris, treasurer of political action committee Warren for a Strong Rochester”.
The campaign finance charges go back to an earlier indictment. But as part of the deal:
So the way I’m reading this, she pled guilty to a single misdemeanor, if she keeps her nose clean for a year that goes away, and she gets to keep her law license.
But as part of the deal, she has to resign by December 1st. She’d already lost the Democratic primary, so she would have been out as of January 1st next year anyway: this just speeds things up a bit.
As best as I can tell, the charges against her “estranged husband”, the alleged dope dealer, are still pending.
The Smith and Wesson Collector’s Association Symposium has wrapped up.
I thought I’d stay over a day, relax, and kick around a bit. Unfortunately, a lot of the places I’d like to kick around are closed on Sundays. But my loss is your gain. At least if you like gun books.
Pistol and Revolver Shooting by Walter F. Roper. The colophon lists it as Macmillan, 1945, and “First Printing”, but the “Olympic Edition” on the cover makes me wonder. Maybe first printing in this edition?
I would have sworn great and good FotB (and official firearms trainer of WCD) Karl Rehn of KR Training had reviewed this book on his blog. But if he did, I can’t find the review now.
I do have a copy of what I believe is Mr. Roper’s only other book, Smith and Wesson Hand Guns (with Roy McHenry) but I didn’t bring it on the road with me, and my copy is a reprint anyway.
Not exactly a gun book, but worth noting, in my humble opinion:
Smith and Wesson ties, tie bar, and tie pin. The tie bar and pin were purchased from one collector, the ties were purchased from another. I think they add that subtle touch of class when I’m wearing a suit. And I paid $25 for both ties (and another $10 for the bar and pin).
There was another very classy S&W tie in the auction on Saturday: sadly, it got bid beyond what I was willing to pay early, and I did not get a photo of it. You’ll have to trust me when I say this tie was about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
I have “The Battle of Algiers” but haven’t watched it yet. It is a tough sell for the Saturday Night Movie Group, especially since I sort of forced them to watch another movie about the Algerian revolt (“Lost Command“, based on The Centurions by Jean Lartéguy).
Two things that I have absolutely no use for but find oddly appealing. Both of these are kind of old, but I just discovered them in the past couple of days:
I actually learned about this by way of Lucky Gunner’s ammo tests, which I am familiar with, but was reviewing to find data about a specific caliber. I don’t know what advantage this would give me over .380 (ballistically, I think very little), and if I wanted something in 9×18, why wouldn’t I just go out and get a surplus gun? But the idea is just weird enough to turn my crank a little bit. And it is threaded for a suppressor…
2. Speaking of guns in .380 Auto…the Cimarron 1862 Pocket Navy. This is a newly manufactured gun, designed to emulate the look and feel of a 1862 Colt Pocket Navy, but set up as a cartridge-fired gun (instead of a black powder one), and chambered in .380 Auto.
Again, I have no use for this, and why would I carry one over my Glock 42? But it is another one of those things that’s so freaking weird, it turns the crank again. If I saw one turn up used at a good price, it would be tempting.
In other news, I am back from my vacation, as of Tuesday. The original plan was to attend the NRA Annual Meeting in Houston…but that was not to be. So instead, Mike the Musicologist and I spent a few days bumming around looking at gun shops, some in the area around Abilene.
I’ll probably write more about our adventures later, but since this is “random gun crankery”, I’ll mention Caroline Colt Company, which is a nice shop with a lot of quality guns, and a surprisingly good (for the times we are in) selection of ammo.
My snubbies. Let me show them to you. Top: S&W 19-3 in .357 Magnum with Tyler T-grip. Bottom: S&W Model 36 (no dash?) fitted with an Apex Tactical spring kit
(And yes, I consider the 2 1/2″ Model 19 to be a snub gun. As I recall, so did Ed Lovette in his book, The Snubby Revolver. No Amazon link because this was an old Paladin Press volume and prices are through the roof.)
Lawrence sent over a note earlier this morning: David Chipman’s nomination to head BATFE is being withdrawn. I’d like to believe this is a good thing: maybe it is, but I’m worried the Biden administration is going to nominate someone who is even worse.
Note the phrasing: “…parts and accessories that can be quickly assembled into a functional firearm”, not firearms themselves. I am not familiar with California law, so I don’t know what the status of 80% parts kits is there, nor do I know if any regulations against same would pass constitutional muster.
But it feels like this is one of those things that doesn’t matter, much like Remington and Sandy Hook: they might be able to beat the case legally, but the criminal DA of San Francisco can make it expensive enough to cripple or even bankrupt the vendors.
Great and good FotB (and official firearms trainer of WCD) Karl put up a long – and, I think, fascinating – review on his blog of a vintage (1981) firearms/self defense guide from South Africa. I don’t recommend you follow the advice (and Karl does an excellent job of pointing out where it deviates from evolved practice today) but it is an interesting slice of history from a place only a few of us are familiar with.
Noted: the Smith and Wesson M&P 12. I’m kind of happy to see S&W back in the shotgun market, but I’m not wild about this particular gun.
