By The Wood Stove

Fall Cooking

Almost 20 years ago my oldest son joined Boy Scouts. The year he was a Patrol Leader he wanted to learn how to cook outdoors. He and I started cooking one meal a week for the family. Almost all of them were cooked outside. This was before the interwebz took over our lives, so I was getting recipes from cookbooks.

This chili came from that time. It originally called for dry beans, soaked overnight, and half the meat was supposed to be steak, cut in tiny strips and then cooked. I made it that way once. Then I modified it to the following recipe to make it easier for a group of boys to make on a camp out. It became a family favorite and is my default starting recipe to make chili. You can adjust the spices, or add some extras. Make it mild or hot. It's a great baseline.

The picture was taken a few minutes ago. It's October, the leaves are turning, and it's a good day to be cooking.

My BSA Chili
4 cans pinto beans
1/2 stick butter or margarine
3 lbs hamburger
2 large onions
4 tablespoons chili powder
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 10 oz. can mixed tomatoes and green chilies
1 tablespoon brown sugar
pinch of dried thyme
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon of crushed dried red peppers (the kind you shake on pizza)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
1 can of beef broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

In a large dutch oven, brown the meat, about 1 pound at a time until fully cooked, draining as necessary. Use margarine if necessary to grease the pot while cooking. When all the meat is cooked, set it aside. Chop the onions. Wipe out the pot, then melt enough margarine to keep the onions from sticking, and cook the onions until tender and slightly brown.
When the onions are done, add the meat back into the pot. Add the chili powder and mix it in. Add the tomatoes and the mixed tomatoes and chilies. Then add all the remaining ingredients except the beans.
Cover and heat until bubbling. Stir frequently. Cook about one hour, watching the liquid level. If it appears to be too dry, add water to maintain consistency. When it seems ready to eat, add the pinto beans and mix them in. When the beans are hot and the chili is bubbling again, it is ready to serve.

Serve with saltine crackers and shredded cheddar cheese.

Wanting

Brigid has a post on wanting. Specifically wanting a wheelgun in .357 Magnum. I link it for you with a wonderful quote:

My non shooty friends said "you could get a huge, new TV for that cost!" My shooty friends said "damn, I want one". Some of both said "but that's old, don't you want something new and high tech?" No, I didn't. I had a little plastic gun with all the personality of a Pez Dispenser.

That last line is shiny.

But That's Your Economic Model, Isn't It?

Occupy Wall Street cooks are tired of feeding the homeless. But, but, but...Now wait a minute. Isn't it "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need?" Are you saying these people don't need to eat? If you have the ability to feed them, don't you think you should do so? If not, who decides who eats and who doesn't? That decider, how do you pick him?

Because this is a microcosm of your health care model. It's just supposed to be provided to everyone. What happens when the providers get tired of people freeloading? What happens when people who don't take care of themselves, don't work, and don't have any money show up and demand health services, and the doctors and nurses are tired of doing it for free and quit? Are you going to order them to do it? If so, explain how this isn't slavery. If not, explain how this model for health care doesn't have failure built right in like a feature.

So if your cooks are tired of working for nothing for people who don't contribute, maybe they should take a break and read Atlas Shrugged and consider what sort of economic system they want to spend their time supporting.

Shocked By It All

It is just about to the point where I could just put up a headline and my shocked face every day. So I have resized the shocked face to make it more usable.

Here, from the Baltimore Sun, is a short article about the Occupy Baltimore's pamphlet discouraging rape victims from calling the police.

At the Occupy Cleveland encampment, a 19 year old woman did report a rape to the police.

Of course, this sort of behavior was common at all the Tea Party protests...oh, wait...

Hey, OWS

OWS is settling in and building infrastructure in Zuccotti Park. The NYFD is concerned that the protesters are creating a fire hazard by caching gasoline for generators in plastic containers.

I was more interested in the source of the gasoline and generators. Because all the oil companies I am aware of are corporations. And those Honda generators? Hey, OWS, Honda is a corporation, too. Then we can talk about the tarps, tents, laptops, and cell phones.

Six Minutes

In the voice over the announcer mentions it took six minutes for the police to arrive. A pretty good response time. This is what happened in the interim, caught on tape by the news crew that was attacked.

Personally, I'm Offended

Click to biggify.

Blogroll Add

Here's an interesting blog. Corn, beans, spent brass, an empty page and a deadline (c) 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 . I can't remember how I got there, but I was chasing links on bullet casting and found him. A mixture of farming, farm equipment, guns, shooting, and the like. Here's an example of what I found, titled "Lumps of Lead".

He lives in a world most of us can hardly imagine. A world that many of our grandparents would have found familiar.

Update: As Bob pointed out in the comments, I stumbled onto the blog of Frank James, well known author and gun writer. The interwebs, there's stuff on it.

New Government Announces Sharia in Libya

Sharia law for Libya. Good job, NATO.


Shocked. Absolutely shocked I am.

Rare, But Not Unique

Looking around the shooting blogs and forums, the incident I witnessed yesterday happens rarely, but it does happen enough that the USPSA rulebook specifically addresses it.

10.4.3.1 Exception – a detonation, which occurs while unloading a handgun, is not considered a shot or discharge subject to a match disqualification, however, Rule 5.1.6 may apply.

As the live round is being extracted, the round comes off the extractor. If it is moving fast enough, and the primer strikes the ejector, it can detonate.

Here's a couple of write ups.

KaBOOM!-Never-cover-the-ejection-port-with-your-hand!

Catching Your Round At "Unload and Show Clear"

And from the Brian Enos forum, a long thread on the topic.

At the "unload and show clear" stage of things, some shooters try to catch or capture the round. I had been told not to do this, as this was a bad idea, now I know why. If you had your hand covering the ejection port when this happened, the injury could be serious.

As it is, I am going to reevaluate how I hold the gun and pull the slide when showing clear.

Anything That Can Happen, Will

On the range for USPSA yesterday. One of the other shooters finished a stage. The R.O. gave the instruction to unload and show clear. The shooter removed the magazine and pulled the slide to the rear. As the round came back it struck something and detonated in the open chamber. No mistakes, just the chance meeting of the primer with enough force to set it off.

The case exploded, sending brass fragments in all directions. One piece embedded itself in the forefinger of his right hand, others cut his left hand. He maintained control of the pistol until the R.O. took it for him.

Immediate first aid was to remove the brass from his finger and control the bleeding. He left the match to get the injury assessed and it took eight stitches to close the wound.

I had only heard of this happening, never been there to see it before.

Assume nothing. Wear your eye protection. Demand that everyone on the range wear theirs. Given enough time, anything that can happen, will.

Nothing More Than Normal

The TSA is searching vehicles now.

If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Failing Harder

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

From My Other Blog

A quote from a senior practioner of Aikido, Shihan Francis Takahashi, in a column he wrote entitled, "Winning Vs. Not-losing". RTWT. This stood out as applying to more than just the martial arts.

I would humbly submit that we must attempt to “not lose,” in no particular order, our personal sense of integrity of purpose, the respect and expectations from those close to us, and to maintain this identity unshakably against the negative words or actions of others. I would think that it is essential, not to lose our self respect, our hard won self esteem, and a healthy self image, and to continue being faithful to our ideals and our standards of personal conduct, of correct thinking, speech and behavior, to respect others, as well as ourselves, in our environment. Isn’t this what being a genuinely consistent leader is all about? Don’t we need to be aware of what we have to lose, vs. what we hope to gain? It is said that “the fear of loss is a greater motivator than the hope of gain”.

Who Is "We"?

I don't make much, don't expect to ever make much, but I am not part of the "We" that is trying to claim to speak for 99% of the population. My post from Monday, with the Ayn Rand quote, says it well. Once it's a global "we", the individual is lost.

A co-worker of mine has a young friend who posted the picture below on Facebook. She showed it to me yesterday. This is an individual, striving for autonomy and freedom. I don't know her, but she is my hero for today.

A History Lesson For Occupy Wall Street

The size of your group or the amount of attention you garner has no connection with the validity of your ideas or how you will be viewed by history.

Watched The Walking Dead Premiere

The Walking Dead on AMC is a big hit. I don't have cable, but AMC put the show up on their website, so I watched it last night.

First, I liked it. I can see why people are tuning in. Complex characters and relationships always drive a good story.

Here's my quibble for the writers and directors. Find someone who knows something about guns and motor vehicles. The world is ended. There are brand new 4WD trucks with winches, military vehicles, tow trucks, etc. just sitting around. Get these people thinking and into something suitable for the situation.

And the guns. Shotguns, revolvers and a couple of bolt action rifles? Really? And the leaders of the little band are still playing "I'm the only one..."? Every single person, right down to the children should be carrying a magazine fed rifle and a handgun. In that situation, if the group leader decided I didn't rate a weapon, I would turn and start walking, checking cars for weapons as I went. They should have belt fed 30 cal. weapons in the pickups, or military Humvees with turrets.

The idea of not firing because the noise attracts more zombies is cool. Starting to build silencers and doing some testing needs to be in an upcoming show. I like it because it does complicate things.

I'd be okay with gun malfunctions. But they are supposed to be in Georgia after the collapse. Do you not think every other vehicle in that traffic jam would have weapons? Every little town have a couple of gun shops? Every bigger town have a National Guard armory? What country are you from? Do they speak English there?

In Reflection

The word “We” is a lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is a word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.
From Anthem - Ayn Rand

Today's Adventure

I went out to a friend's property in a rural part of the county. They had a lot of trees down and brush to clear. Ran a chain saw until my arms were reduced to noodles. I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

Additionally, one of the rear tires on their tractor was flat and had come unseated from the rim. I jacked it up, put a ratchet strap on it to puff it out, then sprayed ether in and lit it. Very satisfying, it popped right back on the bead and inflated. Then it went flat again. Not so satisfying, there was a puncture in the tire and it had been mounted without a tube.

Late in the afternoon, the tractor mechanic showed up to take the wheel and install a tube. He drove up in a 1936 International pickup truck. I didn't have my camera, but one of the other people took a picture, modified it to make it look old, and sent it to me.



This truck isn't restored, it's running. The effect in the picture makes it look far better than it did looking at it. We unbolted the tractor wheel, then dropped the tailgate and flipped the wheel up into the bed so he could take it with him. Just a guy making a living going out to farms to fix things, in a antique pickup truck.

How Long Before The Riot Starts?

Think back a few months to the summer in London.

How long before occupying a park gets old and it's time to take up a brick and throw it through a window? How long before they swarm out of the park with an angry righteousness and start burning the city?

I think it's days, not weeks.

The Goracle Weighs In

Former Vice President Al Gore threw his support behind the Occupy Wall Street protests Wednesday night, arguing that the country’s elected officials have failed the public on everything "from the economy to the climate crisis."

I might say the country’s elected officials have failed us on their Constitutional oaths, failed us on fiscal responsibility, and failed us on defending our individual freedoms. But even if I did, I'll bet that Al Gore's plan and mine would be very different, because I'd want to do something other than fail more and fail harder.

Al Gore is a Harvard educated politician with a personal net worth of over $100 million. If the kids wanted to protest something, it should be Al Gore.

Mazda RX-2

Here's my answer to the meme.

We lived in suburban Baltimore. Roads and traffic and new expressways. It was 1975. I had a job, made pretty good money, and wanted my own car. I was 17, coming into my senior year. I had several hundred dollars and I had been looking around.

I found a 1968 Mustang. Red, never wrecked, paint looked good. V-8, 4 speed. My memory is they wanted enough money that my dad would have had to co-sign the note. He refused. He said the car was too old, would need too much work, he probably said more, but by then I wasn't listening.

So he went looking. He knew someone at the Ford dealership, and they had taken a 2 year old Mazda in trade, and wanted to move it off the lot. It was a metallic blue four door sedan. A small imported box. Wanting a car of my own bad enough to accept almost anything, I went down to take it for a test drive.

Mazdas had a rotary engine, and this one was coupled to a 4 speed manual gearbox. It started up easily enough and since I was a known quantity because of my dad I took it out alone. I could handle a clutch okay, and went tooling along thinking what a dull little car it was and how was I going to tell my dad no when I decided to take it out on the Baltimore beltway.

KAZAAM!! I put my foot in it in second gear, hit the shift to third and at the top of the ramp had to slow down because I had been going 90 miles an hour in third gear and accelerating. I eased off, rode around a little bit and took it back. I thanked my dad for finding me a car, we went down and bought it. He didn't drive it for several weeks until he borrowed it one day when his was being serviced. He came back in smiling and said, "Well, I see why you like it, it gets right up and walks the dog, doesn't it?" I tried to shrug it off, but I figure he saw right through me.

So here's my answer to question 1. My first car was a 1973 Mazda Rx-2, metallic blue, with about 40,000 miles on it and it looked new. Rotary engine. Man, it's a wonder I'm here to tell the tale. They were raced, both 1/4 mile and oval track, and they are still popular in New Zealand and Australia.



Question 2. The rotor seals failed the following spring, there was a recall on them, so it might have been me, but it really might have been a design flaw. I swapped the engine myself, with one out of a junkyard wreck. It was my first major car repair and it deserves a post in itself. It took me most of a week, and at the end of it I owned some tools, and had an idea how to install distributors, align a clutch, and all the other various things that have to be done to get a car back on the road. That was the worst of the things that broke, and after that I was ready for just about anything.

I drove it to Ocean City, Md. with friends a few times. My best friend and I cruised in it on the weekends, and he still talks about it when we get together. It was the car I owned it when I met my wife, it is the car we dated in. Good times. The windows down, cruising some country roads with the radio turned up, sure of my immortality.

Question 3. I left it behind when I joined the Marines. It still ran, but I had taken most of the life out of it. It would have needed a major overhaul. It sat at my parents for months. I drove it when I went home on leave, but didn't take it with me. They sold it for about what the motor was worth and it passed out of my life. My pictures were not to be found, but here's the Wiki link and pic.

What Was Your First Car?

There was a book titled "My First Car", authored by Matt Stone, on the new bookshelf in the library. It got me thinking about my first car and I'll bet it would get you thinking about yours.

So here's the meme. Long answers or short.

1. What was your first car? Model, year, color, condition?
2. What adventures did you have in it, good or bad?
3. What happened to it, what's the end of the story?

I'll post my own story here when I get it written. If I can find my high school yearbook, there's a picture of it tucked in the pages.

Borepatch? MArooned? OldNFO? You're all tagged. Write yours and tag three more. Anyone else? Jump right in. Leave a link in the comments. I'll read them all. If you don't have a blog of your own, email your tale to asm826(at)gmail(dot)com.

And The Shiny Stabbies, Too!

Chinese President Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam met in Beijing.


This meeting leaves me with one thing to say, 'Holy cats! Look at the condition of those SKS rifles!"

The New Browning Auto-5

I haven't held one, let alone fired it. I like the old A-5s enough that I'm still shooting one in 3-gun competitions. Might really like this new variation, might not. But getting an opportunity to give it a try is now on the list.

1000 Afghanis

I also have 50 and 100, handed to me by a certain Lance Corporal.

Brigid Made Me Laugh Out Loud

RTWT at her place.

Love can make us do things we normally wouldn't consider. It can lead to a buddy asking a vegan to go turkey hunting, only to have the girl jump up at the first sight of a trio of young jakes yelling "Run Mr. Turkey, Run for your Life!"

March, 24, 2009

Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, March 24th, 2009.


So, what did they know and when did they know it?

Remember the GM Bailout?

Tens of billions of dollars (still owed, by the way) that went to recreate the functional parts of GM into a new company? And the way that the UAW benefited? Kind of like welfare for a big corporation and it's worker's union?

So my question is what is the UAW doing at the Wall Street Protest? Did the President of the UAW send them? Who orchestrating this dog and pony show, and to what end? Because there's nothing spontaneous about this.

Calm Down?

Here's the opening line of the Washington Post article about the personnel shuffling at BATFE.

The new acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced a major shake-up of his agency Wednesday and urged Washington insiders to “calm down” about the latest revelations surrounding a controversial ATF gun operation.

I'm calm enough. I just want to know how high the criminal behavior goes and who's going to be held responsible. Watergate percolated for months. Next summer during the run up to November would be a great time for Senate hearings on the subject. It would be something to do when the President is accusing them of doing nothing.

Out of The 'Stan

Without saying where he is, I think I can still report that my youngest son is no longer in any country ending in 'stan and I expect to get to see him sometime in the next few days.

Giving In To Their Demands

I want to see the Wall Street Protesters make this work. So I have a proposal. Let's give them the opportunity to show us how it works.

Let's fence off a piece of the country and give it to them. Good land with water, decent rainfall, rivers, and a growing season. We could pick out part of Nebraska. Inside that area, say the size of Connecticut, they would be free to create their utopia.

For our part we would give in to their demands as much as possible. All their debts would be forgiven(11). Everyone would be equal(8). Everyone would be free to join the worker's union(13). There would be no credit reporting allowed(12). They could hold whatever elections they like, by what ever system they devise(10). They could provide free education to whatever level they want(4). They could make products or grow crops and sell them to one another, but everyone would be guaranteed an equal share of the money and food, even if they contribute nothing to the economy(1,3). No fossil fuels will be allowed, they are free to use any alternative power sources they can devise(5). The area given to them will include a large hospital, fully stocked. Staffing it will be their problem, as no one can be forced to work for anyone else(3). Anyone that wants to join them can do so at any time(9). No electricity from nuclear power will be allowed(7).

In addition, although they have not thought of it, I would be willing to provide the following items to help get them on their feet.

1. Draft animals, such as cattle to breed oxen, horses, and mules. They will need them since fossil fuel things like tractors, trucks, and trains are banned.

2. Chickens, pigs, and goats in large enough numbers to serve as breeding stock.

3. Seeds for food crops in sufficient quantity to begin farming.

4. Hand tools of every sort. Hoes, rakes, plows, shellers, hammers, whatever we can think of or they ask for, as long as they don't use power from forbidden sources.

5. Shelter, food, and clothing to get them started for the first year. I realize that the first pioneers built sod houses and made do, but I'm willing to do better than that, if they want it.

6. Other items requested as long as they don't interfere with the Demands.

My reason for offering to do this is for them to have the chance to show me how it is done. Some of them would try. I know they would. They would work hard, distribute what they made equitably, not consume more than they needed, provide for good of others. But many would not. They would take. They would refuse to work, or work so poorly that it was a detriment. This has been tried on a large scale. It was called the Soviet Union. Even with gulags and the deaths of tens of millions, it could not be made to work.

What they are asking for is unsustainable. If they really believed it would work, they would not be protesting on Wall Street. They would go out on their own and form communities, they could call them communes, and put this all into practice. Once we saw the success of their efforts, we could quit our dreary corporate lives and join them. They would, of course, welcome each one of us as we arrived with open arms. They could do much of what they are demanding with no help at all. Quit paying the insurance companies and pool their money to pay the hospitals and doctors directly. Quit using fossil fuels. Quit using electricity from nuclear sources. Establish full equality. Give everyone a share just for being there, whether they work or not. Rebuild wetlands and forests.

Don't tell me, show me. Quit protesting and go get started.

The Demands of Children

The Canada Free Press says most of what I have to say about the demands of the people that are calling themselves the Wall Street Protesters. I am reminded of a child in a shopping cart, kicking his feet, rocking his head back and forth and screaming, "I want candy! I want candy!", over and over as his mother tries to use the latest parenting techniques to placate him.

They have no idea how or why people create businesses, where profits come from, why anyone invests, or the failed history of the socialist communist ideas they are espousing. If we tried to do the things in this list, there would be no United States, no world economy, no grocery stores. The survivors of the collapse would spend their lives trying to grow enough food to get through each winter and fighting over the debris of the greatest civilization in history.

Here's what they think they want. You couldn't make this up.

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

What Did They Know And When Did They Know It?

Now that we know that the Attorney General of the United States "misled" the House Judiciary Committee about the date of his knowledge of the Fast and Furious gunrunning program, I think it is time to assign a Special Prosecutor. The hearing can drag on, Obama Administration officials can be subpoenaed, it can run live on TV and the internet.

Eventually we'll find out how high up it goes. I suspect it goes to the top, and the Mexican government seems to think so too.

Just remember, it wasn't the break-in at the hotel that brought down President Nixon, it was the cover-up.

Commentary on California

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
--Ayn Rand

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Randall Jay Rusciolelli

Facing charges related to his gun collection, seeing nothing but jail and financial ruin, Randall Jay Rusciolelli shot himself September 19th, 2011. Here is the letter he left behind explaining his actions.

Randy Rusciolelli
Journey Man Plumbing

An open letter to the Mountain Communities

I was a collector of fine firearms both military and commercial. The actual value of the firearms and ammo taken from me was $283,000.00. The terrorist threat charge was made against me by a girl I broke up with over 4 months ago. She had called at all hours of the day and night and the Sheriff’s have the evidence in both our phone records. I called for help over 3 different months to no avail. Recently she broke into my house through a dog door and changed my email password and stole several items of mine. I never threatened her life and had only called her 2 times in the last 3-4 months. To her ever increasing attacks on me, all I can say to the Sheriff’s is “Total shame on you”.

When I was arrested, they had already possessed both our phone records and recordings of my alleged threats and no corroborating witnesses. The explosive charges against me are for possessing more than 1 pound of sporting (Goex) black powder, possessing military tracer rounds illegal in California, but legal in Arizona, Nevada and other states, and for a destructive device that is a $250.00 black powder golf ball commercially manufactured and clearly stamped for “Black Powder Only” with a fuse hole in the base.

I possess only 1 California Assault weapons license that was issued to me in 1990. Notice that the enclosed license is marked temporary as no permanent one was ever issued. I can only fire one rifle at a time but regardless, they discovered an additional 5 banned rifles without permits.

In 47 years, I have absolutely no criminal or civil record. My bail was set at half a million dollars and most likely will be raised to 1.5 million in my next court appearance. I am not a survivalist, paramilitarist, nor a right or left-winger. I am an American citizen who loves to go into the desert to shoot rifles, pistols and shot guns. I wished I could have had a 155mm Howister canon too, but I did not. My guns have never killed any living thing, and in my 31 years of target shooting, no harm has ever been inflicted upon any beings.

I read the articles about my arrest, and I am astounded by the fact that these officers lied about how they even came to arrest me. Please re-read the articles again.

I found out this 47 year old girlfriend has a history of attacking and suing her last 3 boyfriends. This is a fact that I have found out too late. The police have recording of her on tape admitting to have broken into my house. During the breach, she managed to open my computer and proceeded to change my email, passwords and other devious things.

I have owned my house on Firwood drive in Running Springs for 20 years, and in one day I lost my house, closed my business and had every item taken from me of significant value that I had collected over the span of my lifetime. I spent 6 days in jail and after posting bail of $500,000.00, I got out and spent time with my parents, family, and my dog. Within days of this, I had to go back to court and the judge immediately issued a criminal restraining order against me. “Amazing”!

I cannot let my freedom be placed in control by our present justice system. I have consulted with many top lawyers, and all advised me that 10 years ago, this search warrant would have been illegal; not anymore.
We Americans are losing too many of our rights under the guides of terrorism laws. The bottom line is that the above stated violations will result in a 6 year stay in state prison with the lowest end being a 1 year term with felony conviction. I apologize to all that know me, but I cannot handle that I am now penniless, homeless and about to lose my freedom over my zealous collecting. Thank you for all the times we had. It is better to die a free and armed man than a broke, imprisoned and un-armed one.

October E-Postal Match

Traction Control has the rules and the target. It's rimfire or centerfire, at 25 feet. Check it out and join in the fun.

Loading Your Ashes Into Ammo

A company has formed that will loaded cremation ashes into shotgun shells. A pound of remains into a case of shells, or into rifle or pistol ammo if you prefer.

I think I speak for shooters everywhere when I say, "Eight hundred and fifty dollars a case! Are you nuts? Around here a case of shells goes for about seventy bucks!"

I'll have my friends shoot up four or five cases, then scatter my ashes on the range and spend the rest of the money on good whiskey.