The Wandering Minstrel

The Better Half and I were disappointed last year when John Walsh and “America’s Most Wanted” were discontinued as a regular feature on the FOX TV network. However, a few weeks ago, we discovered that the show is back on the air every week on the Lifetime TV Network.

Lifetime is on channel 252 on the DirecTV lineup. AMW airs on Fridays at 9PM Eastern. The show is as good as it ever was, still bringing in perps and pervs at a good clip. The AMW website is still active with lots of information about the current list of our most wanted criminals still at large.

We missed our trip to the range last week. We both just decided not to go - maybe it had something to do with it being Friday the 13th? Naaaah.

Anyhow, we made it out there today and fired The Better Half’s S&W 686 .357 revolver, my S&W 908 9mm pistol and my Glock 26 9mm sub-compact pistol. We fired 100 rounds of 9mm and 50 rounds of .38 special.

We set up a single silhouette target and paced off 7 yards to establish our firing line. By the time all rounds had been fired, most were within the center 30 percent of the target with a few outliers around the edges. I’m pretty sure all rounds actually hit the target somewhere. Keep in mind that we let ourselves get rusty while we were building and furnishing our new home. We’ll get better, I’m sure.

In the (clickable) image above, The Better Half is practicing shooting from her weak side. She likes the little S&W pistols just because they don’t kick a lot and she can practice single-handed shooting with them.

I am currently reading “America Disarmed: Inside the U.N. and Obama’s Scheme to Destroy the Second Amendment” written by Wayne LaPierre. I downloaded a PDF file (~1.6Mb) containing the electronic copy of the book. Click on the following link to download your copy:

The foreword, written by Chris Cox, summarizes the intent of the United Nation’s so-called “Arms Treaty” to subvert our American Constitution, specifically, the Second Amendment.

In 2009, the United States joined 152 other countries in endorsing the United Nations Small Arms Treaty, a resolution designed to disarm America and others across the globe.

Specifically, the resolution establishes an international conference to be held in 2012, where leaders from various countries—many of which have deplorable human rights records—will craft an international scheme to severely restrict our right to own a firearm.

As Professor Larry Bell detailed in a popular column for Forbes magazine in early 2011, this global agreement will surely pave the way for gun bans, mandatory gun registration, and eventually, the confiscation of civilian-owned firearms. President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the U.N. all claim that the only purpose of the treaty is to fight terrorism and international crime syndicates. Americans should not be fooled.

According to Professor Bell, should the U.S. Senate ratify the treaty it will almost certainly force America to:

• enact firearms licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for legal firearms ownership;
• confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms;
• ban the trade, sale, and private ownership of all semiautomatic firearms; and
• create an international gun registry.

Bell also notes that the treaty will override our national sovereignty and, in the process, give license to the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment. You can see why gun control activists in the United States have been lobbying for this treaty for a long time.

Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, the preeminent expert on the inner workings of the global body, recently told me there is no doubt that the U.N.’s real agenda here is domestic firearms control:

“After the treaty is approved and it comes into force, you will find out that it has this implication or that implication and it requires the Congress to adopt some measure that restricts ownership of firearms,” Bolton warns. “The [Obama] administration knows it cannot obtain this kind of legislation purely in a domestic context…They will use an international agreement as an excuse to get domestically what they couldn’t otherwise.”

Emphasis added. There is another page of Cox’s foreword that I did not include. The Smashwords license for the .PDF copy states:

Thank you for downloading this free eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

The Better Half and I went to the dog park with our dog pack. On the way back, we stopped at the post office to check the PO Box. TBH aimed her camera at this shiny ‘79 Lincoln Continental whose license plate reads “1979 TOY.” Clickable image.

The 100th anniversary of Arizona statehood is February 14, 2012. The February issue of Arizona Highways will feature articles that show how much the state has changed in ten decades. Things like the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park and the Creation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Arizona Highways website features an interactive one hundred year old map of the state. The (clickable) image below is a screenshot centered on Wickenburg at maximum zoom.

The Better Half and I have been watching NFL playoffs this weekend, but there is still enough time to enjoy our weekend meals. Yesterday, it was home made chicken pot pies (yum!) and today we had this great southern tradition - chicken fried steaks with mashed potatoes, savory bacon green beans and cut corn. The steaks weren’t the usual bottom round cut, but beef tenderloin (filet mignon). TBH also sauteed some baby portobello mushrooms. Clickable image.

Click on the word below to unscramble the meaning. Click again to re-scramble.

From Wikipedia:

PARASKEVIDEKATRIAPHOBIA is a concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (meaning “Friday”), and dekatreís (meaning “thirteen”) attached to phobía (from phóbos, meaning “fear”).

According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17 to 21 million people in the United States are affected by a fear of this day. Making it the most feared day and date in history. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. It’s been estimated that $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day. Despite this, representatives for both Delta and Continental Airlines say that their airlines do not suffer from any noticeable drop in travel on those Fridays.

From the American Rifleman:

In 1976, Col. Jeff Cooper founded the American Pistol Institute, which became Gunsite. Here, Cooper preached the Modern Technique of the Pistol and purveyed what might be considered his personal motto: D.V.C. D.V.C. is an acronym for three Latin words; Diligentia (accuracy), Vis (force) and Celeritas (speed). Cooper believed that a balance of speed, power and accuracy defined the Modern Technique of the Pistol, and that the .45 Auto cartridge was the best fit in this formula.

Ammo image from Oleg Volk. Poster by The Wandering Minstrel.