Recently in In Celebration of the Second Amendment Category

Eric is printing up a batch of Kalashnikitty shirts, and this time he's also doing long sleeves and sweatshirts. I still have the t-shirt I ordered a few years ago and it looks great. These are really good quality shirts. Here is the scoop:

OK, guys and gals, I have gotten a lot of emails in the past few months about people wanting Kalashnikitty shirts and have decided to do up another special run just in time for Christmas.  These make great gifts for the people you love, and the people you love to piss off!  They will be in your hands before Christmas.

New for this year - long-sleeved shirts (add $3) and sweatshirts (add $4)

I will be taking orders until Sunday, November 23 and the order with my shirt maker will go in on November 24.  I should have the shirts in my hands and shipping out by the first week of December and they will ship out immediately by Priority Mail.

Here's the procedure for getting the shirts (this makes it a LOT easier for me to track and ship these things ASAP)

Email me (erickelly1@verizon.net) with the following:

1 - Number and sizes you want - sizes are Child's Medium, Child's Large, Adult Small, Adult Medium, Adult Large, Adult XL, Adult 2XL, and Adult 3XL.

2 - Your name and address

3 - How you would like to pay for them (Check, Money Order, Paypal)

Only one color - a light ash grey (very nice) - shirts are high-quality, do not fade or shrink, long lasting, very soft. Image is screen printed, NOT iron on or transfers.  I've never gotten an email from any of my previous customers saying, "The shirt shrunk, faded, looks horrible after 3 months, etc." - these really are quite nice shirts.

Pricing - I have, in the past 6 years, never raised the price, even though my cost has gone up.  I'm STILL not raising the price yet - even though shipping has gone up, I'm going to eat that since you all have been so great to me over the years and I want to make these available to as many people as I can.

Any size up to XL is $20, 2XL is $21.50 and 3XL is $22.00

Long-sleeve shirt add $3.  Sweatshirt add $4.

Shipping via 2-3 day Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation is $5.00 for 1 shirt, and an extra $2.50 per shirt after that.

Check, MO, or Paypal is good for payments. If using Paypal, add 4% to the total payment, including the shipping.

** When you email me your order, include your full name and mailing address. I will email you back with the total.

Note: Make sure you contact Eric directly. I'm just advertising :-) And in case you've forgotten (or heaven forbid, don't know!) how awesome the Kalashnikitty is, here's a pic....

And now I'll be ordering my sweatshirt. Purrrrrrrrfect :-)

All compiled here.

Aggregation of awesome.

We're official.

Just for the record, because these things matter, the Blackhawk is Hester and the Python is Monty. (Of course.) Usually I name my own guns, but the MO came up with Hester (companion of Chester) and that was that.

Monty makes even me look like a sharpshooter--really--and Hester goes BANG in a BIG fun way. We got a lot of "WTF was that?!" looks :-) It was a very good day at the range.

Hippity hoppity....

Okay, I have no idea why the Easter Bunny song came to mind, but check it out! The MO and I are famous!

Kim and Connie DuToit shot a couple of episodes of The Shooting Trail here in Houston a while ago and here is the first one: Episode 7 (Old Rifles Never Die).

Thank you, Connie, for excellent editing :-)

I don't usually get too opinionated here (what can I say, I am extraordinarily averse to conflict) but this post at The Smallest Minority really got my dander up, especially when I got to this part of the quote:

I am not responsible enough to own a gun. And that is why I do not have one.

Well, holy cow. I can understand not knowing about guns. I can understand being afraid of guns because you don't know about them. I can even understand preferring not to shoot certain guns after you do know about them because they are physically intimidating. After all, I have quite the flinching problem with the MO's H&K, although I surely intend to fix that.

But I do not understand glibly declaring oneself psychologically and morally unfit for the responsibility of dealing with a firearm. That's a total cop-out. Responsibility is the key word here.

(I am assuming that we are talking about a societally-functioning adult here. A ten year old child, say, or someone truly mentally incompetent, might be a different story. Although I've seen plenty of kids perfectly able to handle all manner of guns.)

How does such a person, so lacking in control of his own faculties, lead a daily life? How does he chop his vegetables in the kitchen without going on a knife-wielding rampage? Does he consider himself fit to drive a car? I suspect it's a lot easier, skill-wise, to mow down a pedestrian with a vehicle than to actually hit someone with a pistol shot. Does he walk around with his hands glued in his pockets because he's afraid he might accidentally haul off and slap the next person that walks by?

If so, it's time to put on the big boy pants and figure out why you would abdicate control of your own emotions and reactions to the point that you feel you cannot be trusted to have simple machines in your house without wreaking havoc on yourself or the general populace.

Cripes. This is victimhood run amok. Next thing you know we'll be having lawsuits with the same party on both sides.

Visible improvement at the range :-)

We had quite an eventful weekend, with a visit from The Shooting Trail crew. As always, Kim, Connie and the kids, Jack, David and Wendy, are delightful company. Add in the Layabout Sailor and his lovely lady Iris, and of course lots and lots of guns, and you have a recipe for a great time.

Saturday we met up at the Texas City Municipal Shooting Range for rifle shooting, and today we went to the Marksman Indoor Range down by Hobby airport. The MO and I are absolutely thrilled to discover two new (to us) ranges. Both places are well-run and staffed by friendly folks.

I had fun with the rifles, but what really has me (still) hopping up and down with excitement is the improvement in my pistol shooting I experienced today. Kim offered me some advice that I gather is "really basic" but made a world of difference for me. Thus I proudly post some of today's targets :-)

Granted, these are only at five yards, but you have to start somewhere. I particularly like the middle-right section on the second target. That's ten shots, thankyouverymuch. (Actually, that should be thankkimverymuch. Thank you, Kim!)

I know I didn't get to meet everyone at the RWVA/NoR shoot, and I certainly didn't get names and faces and blogs linked up with everyone that I did meet (we must include urls on our nametags next time ;-) but here is a link list of the folks I know about:

First, our sponsors:
Revolutionary War Veterans Association Weblog
The Gun Guy

And in no particular order, some participants:
Head's Bunker Blog
Doc Russia
Emperor Misha
Woody
CombatController (on the NoR Forum)
Smoke on the Water
Mad Oilman

and many others.... We had 35 on our line the first day and there was at least one other full range. Who else was there? I'll keep updating the list....

Halfway between Mingus and Stephenville is, well, pretty much nowhere. But situated nicely in the middle of nowhere is the Tac Pro Shooting Center, where the Mad Oilman and I spent the weekend (mostly on our bellies in the dust) learning a lot about firing rifles.

The trip was not without its scenic rewards. I haven't the faintest when the last time I saw a sunrise was, but Saturday morning's was magnificent.

We had about 35 people on our range, although we split into smaller groups later on.

We started at 25 meters, firing sets of three "zeroing" or "sighting" shots. The point here was to adjust your sights based on the centers of your groups, but calling my results groups would have been overly polite, so I just left things as they were.

Then we went through a series called an AQT which involved shooting standing, sitting, and then prone, at various targets, with rules about how many in which target and timing and all sorts of stuff. Having never shot my rifle except from a bench, the whole process was so bizarre that I was happy to hit the paper at all.

We scored these results and called that a baseline. There's a minimum score under which you are rated a "cook" (as opposed to a rifleman) and I figure I came in somewhere on the order of waitress or busboy.

Throughout the day, we learned about the different shooting positions, how to use a sling, shooting by the numbers, and we shot and scored and shot and scored. Periodically we'd move further back down the range, re-sight, and shoot some more.

By the end of the day, we were back at 200 meters, and those targets look pretty darned small by then. Somewhere along the line we shot another AQT to compare to the baseline, and I think most people went up but my score went down.

The last exercise of the day involved squads of three shooters moving and shooting. They started at 200 meters and shot five rounds. Then they all get up and move down range a bit. Stop, get into position and shoot five more rounds. Move closer, repeat, etc. til you've shot 20 rounds. From the back of the range, it looks like they're just strolling along, but when you actually do it, it's surprising how much your heart rate goes up, and how long it takes to settle into position and calm down enough to shoot.

By the end of the first day, I was pretty sure I never wanted to hear the word "prone" again, but of course we came back for more on Sunday. We had a much smaller group, and it became obvious pretty quickly that, while I was enjoying shooting the exercises, I wasn't really progressing and needed some help with basics. (I think it was my response of, "I don't know, it's all pretty random," to the question of "Why didn't you even hit the target at all this time?" that clued them in ;-)

I went back to the 25 meter range with one of the instructors and we went through several sighting rounds and a lot of questions and another AQT. I still didn't make it out of the cook's category, I don't think (we didn't score it), but I hit at least one of the targets in each of the prone series, which was a first, so I called it progress.

I did get to the point where sometimes I felt like everything lined up in the same place as before (I have a real problem with this in all my shooting--it is very hard to reproduce a given stance, so it's hard to know how to "do it just like that next time!" when it does work--which is where that "it's all kind of random" comment from above comes from) and I even called a shot (I knew it was high and right) although I don't exactly know why I could call it, and it was only once.

Anyhow, the entire weekend was exhilarating and exhausting. I hurt in strange places and I may or may not be able to move tomorrow, but I learned a lot (really) and if I practice for a few years I might get out of the kitchen....

Hog On Ice: Drop That Watermelon, Bitch

*One for the car, one for the nightstand, a formal piece for black-tie events, one for the office, and a .22 for cats and overly bright porch lights.

makes a dull, dull blog. Last week's business trip was Rather Stressful. And that's enough about that.

Happily, the MO and I spent a long Sunday morning at the range, he to break in his latest acquisition and I to, well, just to shoot. A lot. Chester and I had a wonderful time, and then I visited with Flora and Ivan as well.

I shot the .38 wadcutter ammo for the first time (can't shoot it at the indoor place) and doggone, that stuff makes a big ol' hole in the paper.... It's fun having two magazines for Flora, and I'm getting fairly accurate with her. (I guess--I can usually get all 20 shots in a 3" circle at whatever distance the closest pistol targets are at ASC, 5 yards maybe?) Ivan is more of a hit-or-miss proposition. Sometimes I can get all 6 in the circle, sometimes only half of them. My first shots tend to be high, and later low. Left and right doesn't seem to be so much of a problem, which is an improvement. Plus I can shoot all double-action now, so I'm getting stronger, too :-)

As we were packing up to go, the daily thunderstorm hit, and it was invigorating to be (sort of) out in the middle of it. The pistol and rifle ranges at ASC are outdoors--basically long tin-roofed pole barns. The wind was so strong that the rain blew clear through the structure. We stood at the front edge of the benches and still got quite damp. But it was a nice cool-down (it is August, ya know, and that means hot hot hot, almost as hot as Mike Prior (I miss the Mad Pony, but then I found Kalisah, how's that for a non sequitur?)) and exciting in that isn't-Mother-Nature-awesome-I'm-so-glad-I'm-under-a-roof" kind of way.