Weapons Man

Banned in Boston — and everywhere else.

Do you want to understand the war in Afghanistan?

David Slater’s monkey photo, as ripped off by PETA lawyers.

When the satanic forces of Bloomberg want to wave the bloody shirt, they talk about “gun violence,” and wave their hands, and use examples that make you think they’re talking about murders of innocents, but numbers that encompass a much wider range. They’re not, of course, willing to use homicide numbers, particularly not the numbers of homicides of non-criminals, a number which is small and declining. They throw everything in: intramural drug homicides, justifiable homicides by citizens and police (they have called the Boston Marathon Bombers, both shot by cops, one fatally, “victims of gun violence,” and read the name of the dead one at a prayer vigil, the heathens), and especially suicides, because there are so very many of them.

You’re supposed to be getting the next post in our Forts series, Castillo de San Marcos, at this moment. So why isn’t it here? Because we’re jamming to get some airplane parts finish-drilled, deburred, and washed/etched/primed in the two days of weather we have left in coastal New Hampster. And there are a lot of photos of San Marcos (thanks to OTR). So the RV-12 project’s gain is your loss. In the interim, we’ll fob you off with posts that are quick to write. Like this one unfairly concatenating two Ranger / Rangerette stories. -Eds.

When we started this blog, we were soon contacted by Ian McCollum of ForgottenWeapons.com. Ian shares our love for some of the oddball firearms and enjoys exploring the thinner branches of the firearms genealogical tree. But he contacted us to offer his help and throw out some ideas for monetizing the blog. We were disinclined to do that at the time, but his kind offer was noted.

This guy also meant this piece, perhaps, to be taken a little tongue-in-cheek, as a wry commentary on his initial lack of killer instinct, and how his long combat with a bat in his upstairs revealed a side of him he wasn’t expecting — an atavistic wild rodent-slayer. But really, we read this and thought we’d ridden our Time Machine too far forward, and were among the Eloi.

Courageous action by bystanders and first aid from a passing priest saved the live of Francesco Bove, 62, after he was mauled by two vicious pit bulls. The dogs, named T.I. and Runt-Runt, have been raised by owner Cynthia Oliver on raw meat, and have a reputation as vicious and aggressive. Before attacking Bove. T.I. and Runt-Runt had killed three other neighborhood dogs — one by pulling him apart from opposite ends. Now they’re on Death Row at the Animal Care Centers of NY and will be evaluated for rabies (which requires a ten-day wait). At the end of that period, they’ll probably be put down.

And by “excel” we mean, “do the same crap it’s been doing since it crawled out of the primordial slime.” Which for government workers employees seems to count as “excel” and gets them a fat bonus.

We acquired this book with a view to adding it to our design library (see the Page linked above)

Meet Margo Louree-Grant, who stole a $7,000-$7,500 watch from a passenger as he passed through security at JFK Airport in New York City. If she’d been caught by the TSA, she would just have been quietly dismissed, but unfortunately for her, she was caught by the Port Authority Police, who don’t share the TSA senior management’s carefree attitude to grand larceny.

On the right: Kasia Rivera, 38, an illegal alien, purportedly from Jamaica. What’d she do? You gotta read it to believe it.

Joe Felice was the lucky (?) recipient of the six hits. If Patrolman Cronin’s reason for firing him up has surfaced, NYPD and Westchester County prosecutors are not talking about it.

Today has been some kind of Sunday, as glorious as last Sunday was rainy, with Indian Summer warm sunshine and cool shade. Small Dog and Your Humble Blogger went out on the front portico and sat as if we were in Dixie, not the heart of Darkest Yankeestan, and as if he was a doughty hunting dog and not a snack-sized attention-seeking missile.

We feel like this week was not an unalloyed success. We did a lot of work, but many of the stories we worked on did not see the light of day, yet (there’s a lot of writing to be done there yet). We do have a series on fortifications kicking off, and also, some submarine history that we think is neat because we didn’t know it at all.

This one was recommended to us by none other than our banned commenter, Haxo Angmark. (Thanks, Haxo. But you’re still banned. How’s that for gratitude?)

Defenders of Deadbeats, and occasional murderers.

Who’s running US foreign and defense policy?

In the days ahead, we’re going to be looking at some historic fortifications around the East Coast of the United States, and their place in history. Before we get deep into fort design and history, we thought it would help to review the history of fortifications.

We’ll cover the usual subjects: Guns, Usage and Employment, Cops ‘n’ Crims, Unconventional (and current) Warfare, and Lord Love a Duck!