[SubSonicSquid]

OK, I admit it. I'm a Reformed Liberal...in the I-campaigned-for-Dukakis-while-I-was-in-high-school mold. I bought the arguments for gun control at face value, (EXTREMELY flawed) reasoning that if gun access was more difficult, than there would necessarily be less gun crime. I was a dope, for certain. I was obsessed with the gangsters of the 20s and 30s, and thouroughly sure that if guns were harder to get, law and order would have prevailed. Of course, I now know that it's that exact reasoning that made all the gangsters their money through Prohibition...and continues to do so thanks to the DEA.

Anyway...I finally wised up. I read the Constitution for myself, without my Official Liberal Beer Goggles on...and lo and behold...I thought for myself...and realized how unconstitutional some things truly are.

Another part of my change was going into the military. I joined the Navy...and shot my first gun in Boot Camp. And to my surprise, I was pretty good at it and it was FUN!!! I got over my irrational fears, and got hungry. I shot my ship's M9s, M-14s, and shotguns for security quals (And trust me...if you can shoot a 5-inch 15-yd group on the fantail of a bucking flat-bottomed pig, you ain't half bad!!) Then, I deployed in peacetime on a ship carrying a SEAL Team...and they didn't use all their ammo...and wanted to shoot it up on the way back. MP-5s, M-1s, M-60s...I've been hooked (and shooting EVERYTHING the Navy would let me) ever since.

So...a couple years ago, I decided I wanted my own personal weapon. But, I was stationed in (and am from) California. And after researching what a pain it was to acquire a gun in Cali, I gave up for a while. Now, I'm in Texas...and I'm going to get something...I just don't know what yet. The choices available are staggering. So I started reading gunzines. But after a while, I realized that some reviews were less glowing than others, but they NEVER met a product they DIDN'T like...and that just can't be possible.

This is a long way of getting to saying "Thank You" to TGZ for helping me out by providing truly objective info. I feel like less of a "Kool-Aid Drinker" (in the generic sense, not just regarding Glocks) than at any other point in my life...and TGZ has been a big part of that in a short time!

Dave

 

[csmkersh]

Dave, if you decide to get a CHL, contact Jim Nicholson through Texas State Rifle Association in Dallas. He's a DPS certified CHL instructor and a friend of Dean and I. Since you're computer literate, you my look in on the newsgroup tx.guns and see if you want to participate.

http://www.tsra.com is the web page. Jim's there web master too.

 

[Nemo]

¡EXCELENTE!

Excellent thank you note, Dave!

I'm with you! Even though I've been a gun owner and sport shooter for about ten years now, TGZ together with "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" that roam and constantly contribute their insights in this forum have taught me a great deal or made me see the "light at the end of the tunnel" on many gun and go-armed issues.

So let me echo your thanx to Mr. Speir, Mr. Petty, Fernando, Gunny Schmidt, et.al.

Take care,

Nemo

 

[SpecialEd]

What Nemo and David said!

I grew up in a non-hunting, non-shooting family and wasn't allowed to have so much as a BB gun. I got my first guns when I was 21, a Ruger 10-22 and MkII pistol. Unfortunately the guys I had to shoot with were good shots but bad influences! (Always alcohol and lots of litter whenever they shot) When my first child was born I sold off the guns (I hadn't been able to get out and shoot for a few years) BIGGEST MISTAKE I EVER MADE!
Anyway I got the itch to shoot again, joined a local club not more than five minutes from my house and have met lots of friendly people.

I love my wife but I don't know that I will ever be able to convice her to look at guns rationaly. So the CCW is on hold.

Oh well, one thing at a time.

Ed

P.S. Thanks everyone and lets see lots more reports from SHOT. You to Schmitt, I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Dean Speir]

Awwwwwwwwwww, youse guys…

[blushing furiously]

So let me echo your thanx to Mr. Speir, Mr. Petty, Fernando, Gunny Schmidt, et.al.

And for the love of Peter G. Kokalis, don't forget Dan'l Watters who corrects me on stuff! (A couple of times even on things he got from me over the years but which I'd forgotten!) Look at the THV resource he just came up with!

As for Fernando? To borrow from that great ol' series of Bo Jackson commercials: "He don't know diddley!" But he does make all this possible by providing the Forum, and for that we thank him.

 

[Charlie Petty]

yeah... what Dean said...

thanks.

 

[Glen Wertle]

Dean, Please answer just one question:
Peter Who?

Speaking of the League Of Extraordinary Gentleman... I haven't seen the movie but I find it strange that EVIL KENEVIL is not a featured character? :shock:

 

[Dean Speir]

Dean, Please answer just one question:
Peter Who?

Well, I used to say "For the love of Michael Harries…," but after he fell in November 2000, I had to come up with another recognizable "Mike" or "Pete," so for awhile I went with Peter Alan Kasler, author of the first Glock book. Then he bought the farm year before last, and that left PGK almost by default. The way he's looked at the last two SHOTs, however, I think gotta find one fast to keep in reserve… but I'm afraid that Mike Hughes doesn't have a high-enough profile to make the grade just yet. Any suggestions? (Of course, I could always tickle the bejabbers outta m'self and those at the steak house last Friday and go with "For the love of Peeeete!")

Speaking of the League Of Extraordinary Gentleman... I haven't seen the movie but I find it strange that EVIL KENEVIL is not a featured character? :shock:

Neat concept for a flick, even if a bit hokey… but Br'er Knievel wasn't around at the turn of the last Century, #1, and, #2, all those "gentlemen" and one lady were fictional literary characters so he wouldn't have fit in very well, I'm afraid.

 

[Charlie Petty]

Peter K has looked that way forever. Didn't talk to him at the show, but he looked pretty much ok.

How about Pi? Is his profile high enough?

 

[Richard Jefferies]

Welcome, SS Squid. You've come to the right place for sure.

How about Pi? Is his profile high enough?

The profile is probably high enough, but...."For the love of Peter Pi," while it rolls off the tongue nicely, just doesn't seem to have the same bite, y'know? :lol: Besides which his name always prompts me to think of the nursery rhyme, "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater." :twisted:

Come to think of it, every time I think of our "boss" here, the words from an old Bonnie Raitt tune run through my head:

"In my sweet dreams we are
In a bar, and it's my birthday.
And we're having our picture taken
With Fernando." :lol:

 

[Fernando Coelho]

I guess that's better than that damn ABBA song. :ehsmile:

 

[Richard Jefferies]

Fernando, I guess so, but then you also have to consider that it was from Bonnie's first album that was recorded in a garage using a 4 track reel-to-reel......

 

[SpecialEd]

Bonnie

"Let me be your blender baby, I can whip, chop and puree..."

 

[MBaneACP]

Fernando...

Watch yourself when you're dis'sing ABBA, dude!

I got thrown off the "prestigious" VILLAGE VOICE YEAR END ROCK CRITIC REVIEW AND POLL once for insisting that ABBA was the greatest pop group in history.

Time has proven me right!

And..can you hear the drums, Fernando?

LOL!

Michael B

 

[SpecialEd]

Define "Greatest Pop group"

 

[MBaneACP]

Rock critics never define anything! It's one of the truisms of the genre. In the old old days, when I pal'ed around a lot in NYC with Lester Bangs and John Morthland (from CREEM, the uber-rock magazine), it was a source of big funnies to us that people thought our opinions were more valid than anyone else's.

That said...I would opine that ABBA's brain-velcro harmonies coupled with their writing partners' relentless hooks allowed what might have been a lightweight Swedish group to transcend its time and place and achieve some flavor of greatness. ABBA's music is the purest synthesis of 1960s-70s American pop coupled with a 10-degree out-of-phase European sensibility...note "I Have A Dream's" bizarre juxtiposition of Martin Luther King's signature phrasology with lyrics more suited to a Hello Kitty lunchbox; or "Fernando," with its generic revolutionary sentiment set against a bathetic melodic background and tortured Spanish guitars.

Still, at the end of the last day, when asteroids are smacking into the planet, baby elephant-sized aliens with phasers set to barbeque are landing all over the place and Hillary Clinton is annointed as Pope, I'd like to go out with the great "Dancing Queen" on the boom-box and lucious visions of Anni-Frid and Agnetha dancing in my head...

Mama Mia!

Michael B

 

[Nemo]

Wholly Crap!!!

Bane,

Guns and that crap you smokin' don't mix!!!

8) 8)

 

[Dean Speir]

Ixnay on the Opeday…

Bane,

Guns and that crap you smokin' don't mix!!!

Yeah, I see the assortment of emoticons, but Nemo, ol' chum, I'm not sure you're all that familiar with what some of us know as "writing."

Michael, you unconscionable maniac, you're determined to move me into Depends betimes, arncha?!?

 

[SpecialEd]

I've been thinking about it but I can only narrow it down to a few. Maybe Zappa or Hendrix, better yet Mason Williams playing Classical Gas..... NAH, The final movement (Presto - Allegro assai) of Beethoven's 9th, That's the way to go!

 

[Dean Speir]

…better yet Mason Williams playing Classical Gas..... NAH, The final movement (Presto - Allegro assai) of Beethoven's 9th, That's the way to go!

Or, as HST's Road-to-Las Vegas companion, the late Oscar Acosta ("As your attorney, I advise you to…."), wanted Thompson to do, drop the plugged-in radio into his bath water as Grace Slick hits the penultimate moment in "Go Ask Alice."

In that vein, however, I think I'd give Jorma Kaukonen's "Embryonic Journey" a slight edge over 'Classical Gas."

Interesting though… that Mason Williams vs. our Mason Williams, a spiritual forerunner to Bane in that in his later years he eschewed the 1911 for the SIG P220, somewhat akin to Nietzsche embracing God on his deathbed.