Cameras And Shooting

Andrew at the Vuurwapen Blog has just posted a video on using a camera to help improve your shooting. He gives some tips on what sort of video camera you should buy as well as technique. Capturing your shooting on video will let you see where you are making mistakes in technique.

Long before there were digital video cameras, I had been given the same advice by fly casting instructor Macauley Lord about using a video camera to improve my fly casting. Improving technique is improving technique. It doesn’t matter if it is handgun shooting or fly casting. It is interesting – long before I knew what dry fire practice was, I knew how to practice doing a double haul without a fly rod in my hand. It is still all about building muscle memory.

Operation #EFAD

Those who have read Matthew Bracken’s Enemies Foreign and Domestic will understand when I say that when I first heard Operation Fast and Furious I thought of that book. It, too, featured an ATF operation aimed at increasing the call for gun control. Given that it was published in 2003, the author was remarkably prescient in his view of elements within ATF.

If you haven’t read the book, now is your chance as it will be offered FREE on Kindle from March 1st at 1:00am until Monday, March 5, 2012 at 11:30pm. Remember, even if you don’t own a Kindle (which I don’t), you can still read the books using a PC, an iPhone, an iPad, Mac, Blackberry, Android, or a Windows 7 phone.

Matt is explicit about his goal in offering the book for free on Kindle for the maximum five days allowed:

My goal is to make the spike in the number of free Kindle downloads for Enemies Foreign And Domestic so dramatic, that the national media will notice the passionate interest in this “dangerous and seditious” novel among the bitter clingers. But this is just the first step of a jiu-jitsu move. The light thrown on EFAD’s sudden nationwide surge in popularity will then be mirrored back onto the federal government’s most egregious usurpations and abuses, and on the mainstream media itself.

The idea is to force open a long overdue national conversation that the elite MSM very much wants to ignore. In large strokes, it is about our federal government morphing into a socialist tyranny before our eyes, a tyranny that is no longer soft, but getting harder with every passing month. Which is it to be: freedom, or tyranny?

About the book:

BULLETS RAIN DOWN UPON A PACKED FOOTBALL STADIUM, killing dozens, and triggering a panic stampede which leads to a thousand more deaths. A police marksman kills the sniper, a mentally unbalanced Desert Storm veteran holding a smoking assault rifle. It’s an open and shut case, or so America is led to believe…

In the aftermath of the stadium massacre, an outraged public demands an end to the threat posed by assault rifles, and Congress passes emergency legislation banning their private possession. American gun owners have one week to turn in their semi-automatic rifles, or face mandatory five year federal prison terms.

Jimmy Shifflett, the alleged stadium sniper, is linked to a shadowy “gun club” in southeastern Virginia, which the FBI believes is a cover for a secret right wing militia terror group. Those who knew Shifflett the best don’t believe he was a member of any militia, or that he was guilty of the horrific mass murder.

But if he didn’t fire the “assault rifle” into the stadium, who did, and why?

A small band of Virginians, thrown together by fate, is forced to undertake a desperate odyssey through a minefield of government blackmail, official deception and covert death squads, to discover the truth behind the stadium massacre, and save their own lives.

ENEMIES FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC is about one of the several fault lines dividing the world views that co-exist uneasily within the United States today. One side of this ideological divide believes that American gun rights are a dangerous anachronism, and that firearms ownership should be strictly regulated, and as far as possible curtailed by the government. This side of American society desires to see all firearms registered with the government, and many classes of firearms banned.

The other side considers the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be an unbreachable wall, guarding the freedom of all Americans from steadily encroaching government tyranny. This side believes that it has learned a bitter lesson of history, and will never follow the tragic example of other peoples who have been disarmed, and then in many cases slaughtered by their own governments.

The firearms-intolerant side in America fails to appreciate that the God-given right to keep and bear arms is a bedrock core belief for tens of millions of Americans. This anti-firearms group seeks to elect those who would enact laws that may cross the constitutional point of no return for those millions of Americans who will not be disarmed without a violent struggle. The Americans who cherish the Second Amendment will refuse to be disarmed, regardless of what unconstitutional laws are passed, just as blacks would disobey any new laws which attempted to send them back into slavery.

The main thesis of Enemies Foreign and Domestic is that cynical manipulators, who understand both world views, could easily shape events to create a violent crisis in America between the two camps. This could easily be done as depicted in the Prologue, with a large-scale massacre blamed on a suitable villain, or by other means.

I have read all three books in the EFAD triology and like them all. I have also read his latest, Castigo Bay, as well. Bracken’s book are very much in the same vein as John Ross’ Unintended Consequences with ordinary Americans saying enough is enough. Giving that I liked them, I guess that makes me an insurrectionist.

I Just Love Parody

In the last couple of weeks, a supposed gun blog appeared out of nowhere saying it was going to be the new paradigm. I think it was called Choke and Blunder or something like that. Part of the marketing campaign for this blog included insulting well-known bloggers, setting up “profiles” for nonexistent (and unwilling) participants, and posting many over-the-top comments when criticized. Suspicion has grown that this is a false-flag operation run by one of the gun prohibitionist organizations.

Thanks to some enterprising souls who shall remain nameless, a parody of this suspect blog has now appeared.

The parody blog, Smoking Blunder, can be found here. Share this link with your friends.

The German – A Short Film

The Complementary Spouse’s uncle sent me this yesterday. Given that the Oscars are tonight, I thought the timing was appropriate.

It is a short film featuring aerial combat between an RAF Spitfire and a German ME-109 during WWII. What makes this film so unique is the surprise ending. That and the attention to detail including the Webley revolver and the SMLE rifles.

The short film is approximately 10 minutes long. If you want to know more about the movie and how it was made go here.

The German from Nick Ryan on Vimeo.

Like I Said – An Attractive And Effective Spokesperson For Gun Rights

Emily Miller of the Washington Times was on Fox and Friends Weekend this morning to speak about the rise in gun ownership and gun use by women. I think she is correct when she attributes it to the desire for increased self-protection.

I think she did an excellent job in her interview. As I wrote earlier in the week, the unintended consequence of D.C.’s draconian gun laws was the creation of a new spokesperson for gun rights.

Watch the latest video at <a href=”http://video.foxnews.com”>video.foxnews.com</a>

I Volunteer!

A legislator in the state of Utah, Rep. Brian Doughty (D-Salt Lake City), is proposing a law that would require that at least a minority of their Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control be drinkers. This currently would mean two of the five members would be imbibers. His concern is that the DABC doesn’t have a clue about their customers which I think is quite valid. Reportedly, his bill has been passed out of committee.

In any other state than Utah, this would not be an issue. However, Utah is not your normal state in this regard given the aversion to alcohol by the majority of residents due to their religious faith.

If they are having trouble finding qualified candidates, I will gladly volunteer if the price is right and if it includes moving expenses. I might have some trouble adjusting to their arid climate but given their gun friendliness, I’m sure I could manage it.

 

Quote Of The Day

The quote of the day comes from Bitter at Shall Not Be Questioned. By now, I’m sure most people have heard about the Canadian father who was arrested because his four year old daughter drew a picture of a gun at pre-school in Kitchner, Ontario.

As Bitter notes there is a lot of people to blame over this travesty including the cops, the school principal, the teacher, and the social workers. She asks the logical question as to why no one stopped to ask the right questions and then put a stop to it before it spiraled out of control (which it obviously did.)

Ultimately, I do think that someone should have stopped the process and really inquired just what the hell actually happened in regards to the drawing and how the teacher asked questions about it. However, depending on how stories are passed along, concerns about a potential crime could continue to be blown way out of proportion. Ever played a game of telephone? Yeah, same thing, only with real lives on the line.

But, when we have a bunch of bureaucrats who believe they are there to do good no matter what impact it might have on innocent people and who fear not following an exact protocol that makes no accommodation for stopping to ask questions, then things like this will happen more often regardless of the country. At some point, we have to demand accountability from those who allow these things to get out of hand. Unfortunately, that’s not something that’s easy to do, especially with many protections in place for staff in these various jobs.

Interesting Statistic

John at the Boats and Bullets blog had the fortitude both to read through a Media Matters article and then to find something useful in it. He’s a better man than I!

The MMFA article was quoting “research” by well-known anti-gun Harvard researchers David Hemenway and Matthew Miller regarding firearms used in suicide attempts. What John found was interesting.

Let’s read that last sentence again… “Attempts involving drugs or cutting, which account for more than 90% of all suicidal acts, prove fatal far less often.” So guns are used less than 10% of the time… and they’re the biggest problem? Interesting…

As the “Coffee Talk” lady used to say on SNL… “Talk amongst yourselves.”

Go and read John’s blog post for the full story.

Now This Is An Interesting Question

Local reporters in Arizona are asking whether guns, ammo, and cash found in a raid on a “stash house” are tied to Operation Fast and Furious. The story is from CBS 5, KPHO, out of Phoenix.

The items were found in a raid by the AZ DPS Gang Task Force. The house was reportedly by used by a “rip crew.” If you’ll remember, it was a rip crew that got into the shootout that left Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry dead.

The Unintended Consequences Of Putting Up Roadblocks To Emily Getting Her Gun

I doubt the District of Columbia City Council knew what was in store for them when Emily Miller started her path towards gun ownership. She just wanted a handgun for protection and they made it incredibly hard. Little did they realize that the roadblocks that they had erected to prevent gun ownership in the District would create such an attractive and effective spokesperson for gun rights.

If getting a handgun in the District had been as easy as it was in Virgina, Emily may have written one story and that would be that. The unintended consequence of their recalcitrance has been a 30-part series in the Washington Times, television interviews with Fox News and News Channel 8, testimony at a Council hearing on gun policy, and multiple interviews in the gun media ranging from NRA News to Tom Gresham’s GunTalk Radio.

Emily’s latest interview aired today on Bret Baier’s Special Report and is now the featured story on the Fox News site as I write this. The DC Council is reaping what they sowed.

Watch the latest video at <a href=”http://video.foxnews.com”>video.foxnews.com</a>