Today, the 17th day of October, in the year of our Lord 1270, leaders of the village have announced that subjects of the Crown will be restricted from carrying daggers and other weapons, either openly or secreted upon their persons, while attending the monthly Market Day in the village square.

“These people who wish to bring these dangerous instruments with them when going to market must learn that we will not stand for such things.” said Sheriff Brown, head of local law enforcement. 

“Those who wish to own and carry bows, daggers, hammers, and other weapons should join the local band of bowmen and then only be armed when mustered to keep the peace, defend the realm, or practice.  Only the ones who have been trained by His Majesty’s government to keep the peace and handle weapons should have them at the market.  The carriage of weapons in a public place by the general populace of the village endangers not only the people who have the weapons, but also all of the other good people of the community, many of which are children.  Will these knaves not think upon the children?”

Those subjects who feel that the new law is nonsensical point to the fact that many of them live upon their freeholds, some as far as a days walk away from the village and its defenders.  This requires them to travel through the King’s forest to reach the market.  They assert that the forest is populated with many dangerous animals, for whom an unarmed man or woman is an easy supper.  They also point out that highwaymen and other ne’er-do-wells have become a problem not only in the forest, but also in the darker corners of the village.

“I may be the strongest man in the county,” said DaddyBear, a local farmer and craftsman, “but even I cannot carry one of the Sheriff’s bowmen with me all day.  How will I defend my family if it will take two hours for my fastest son to reach the village and raise the alarm?  When seconds count, the Sheriff is only a few hours away.”.

The dispute may come to a head later this fall, when the Lord Mayor has ordered the Sheriff to start enforcing the rules against weapons with random searches of those attending the market.  He plans to place those who carry weapons without permission of His Majesty’s government in the stocks, with repeat offenders being put to hard labor.

Fox News is reporting on the lack of reporting on guns after the landmark Heller and McDonald cases didn’t bring blood to the streets of America.

They remark on how in Chicago and Washington the crime rates, specifically for murder and robbery, have declined at a faster rate than expected since gun control laws were struck down, but little to no mention of that is found in most news reporting at the national level.

If you pay attention to the MSM and you have a gun freedom twist to your rifling, this should come as no surprise to you.

Here are a few other things that aren’t exactly being shouted from the rooftops by our village criers:

• Project Fast and Furious, AKA GunWalker – Yes, Fox puts out information on it regularly.  And CBS has mentioned it, but it’s definitely a page 3, under the fold kind of coverage.  The death of federal agents at the hands of foreign smugglers armed by the government should cause someone to be shrieking in large bold letters on page 1 of every newspaper in the country.  Brian Williams should be sputtering in rage and profanity on the NBC Evening News.  Nancy Grace should forget about the latest blonde cutie to go missing after a night of drinking to demand answers.  Nixon was impeached for obstructing the investigation of a burglary.  Clinton was impeached for lieing about an extramarital affair under oath.  Obama gets glamor shots of his backswing after his Justice Department perpetrated an act of war against a good neighbor that led to the death of American citizens.
• Campus Carry – This is the first article I’ve seen on the subject on a national news platform.
• TJIC and others who have their civil rights arbitrarily violated because some pissant decided they didn’t like the cut of their jib.

And the list goes on and on.

Look, the media has been in the bag for the left leaning part of our society since well before I was born.  We have to take that into account in everything we say or do that might be reported in the worst possible light.  We have to expect that things that are important to us are going to be kept quiet unless we kick and scream for equal time.  Our reporting has to be better and more accurate than theirs every time, all the time.  It’s just the way the game is played.

But I don’t have to like it.

I’m 40, and it’s time my life had a goal. When I was 10, I wanted to be a lawyer.  When I was 20, I wanted to be the youngest Command Sergeant Major in history.  When I was 30, I wanted to take a nap.

I have about 20 to 30 years to knock this one out, so there’s no need to rush out and start knocking it out.  But I will do everything I can to do this one step at a time

I want to shoot every weapon that John Moses Browning ever designed and that went into mass production, preferably in the original caliber.  If it’s legal to own without an additional tax stamp, I want to own it.

According to Wikipedia, this is the list of guns that Browning designed that went into production:

• U.S. M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun
• FN Browning M1899/M1900
• Colt Model 1900
• Colt Model 1902
• Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer (.38 ACP)
• Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (.32 ACP)
• Colt Model 1905
• Remington Model 8 (1906), a long recoil semi-automatic rifle
• Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
• Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless (.380 ACP)
• FN Model 1910
• U.S. M1911 pistol (.45 ACP)
• Colt Woodsman pistol
• Winchester Model 1885 falling-block single shot rifle
• Winchester Model 1886 lever-action repeating rifle
• Winchester Model 1887 lever-action repeating shotgun
• Winchester Model 1890 slide-action repeating rifle (.22)
• Winchester Model 1892 lever-action repeating rifle
• Winchester Model 1894 lever-action repeating rifle
• Winchester Model 1895 lever-action repeating rifle
• Winchester Model 1897 pump-action repeating shotgun
• Browning Auto-5 long recoil semi-automatic shotgun
• U.S. M1917 water-cooled machine gun
• U.S. M1919 air-cooled machine gun
• U.S. M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)
• U.S. M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun of 1921 (the famed “Ma-Deuce” weapon)
• Remington Model 8 semi-auto rifle
• Remington Model 24 semi-auto rifle (.22) Also produced by Browning Firearms (as the SA-22) and several others
• Browning Hi-Power (Grand Puissance or GP), the standard sidearm of many military and police forces
• The Browning Superposed over/under shotgun was designed by John Browning in 1922 and entered production in 1931
• Ithaca Model 37 pump-action repeating shotgun

I highlighted the ones I’ve already pulled a trigger on.  I’ve got a good start, but still have a long way to go.  Some of these won’t be too difficult, some will be hard as heck, and this isn’t going to be an inexpensive endeavor, but I’ve got a little less than half a lifetime to do it.

Last year, when Girlie Bear started getting better at using the Rossi .22 single shot I bought for teaching her to shoot, I decided I needed a repeating .22 rifle with iron sights.  I have a Savage Mark II, but that’s scoped with no iron sights on it.  Since I already had a bolt gun to teach her with when the time comes to introduce her to optics, I decided to get a semi-auto.  Yes, she can burn up the ammunition going through a magazine, but all it takes is a touch on her shoulder to slow her down.

Butt stock fully extended

Butt stock fully compressed

Got a question for you preppers and ammo hoarders out there:

Most ammunition that you can buy in bulk is Full Metal Jacket (FMJ).  It’s cheaper than soft point or hollow point, and you can buy it in bulk more often.  One of the reasons FMJ ammunition is so prevalent is because that’s what militaries use.  The Hague Conventions prohibit the use of any ammunition that easily expands or flattens, so FMJ is the ammunition that most militaries, including ours, issue to their troops.  Since it’s mass produced for the military, it’s cheaper on the civilian market than SP or HP, and is what most shooters, including me, do most of their practice shooting with.

In the event of having to deal with a goblin breaking into your home, or a horde of goblins breaking into your neighborhood, a lot of people are going to grab their AR-15’s or other rifle caliber carbines to deal with the problem.

My question is:  Since you’re not bound by the Hague Conventions in what ammunition can be used to shoot a human being, do you or would you have soft point or hollow point ammunition on hand in enough quantity in your carbine’s caliber for these situations?  Most people have SP or HP on hand for use in their pistols, but what about those who will use a rifle or carbine for defense?  It seems to me that HP or SP would make sense for doing more damage with the first shot than FMJ, and less chance of pass-through of the goblin and into whatever is behind him.

Please leave thoughts in the comments.  I’m actually curious about this.

Well, the new gong went to the range today, and it did OK.  One thing – high powered rifle fire in 7.62x54r and M-2 ball .30-06 went through it like a knife through butter.  My friend tried to hit it with his AR-15, but wasn’t able to get it dialed in closer than to part the chain on one side.

 As you can see, it didn’t stop any of the surplus ammunition we threw at it.  The missing washer on the right side came off when the plate stopped a round right behind it.  The washer sheared off the corners on the head of the bolt on its way downrange.

 Bullet casing stripped off as the bullet penetrated the steel.

 The one place that a round bounced off.  It created a 1/8 to 1/4 inch dimple on the plate, and blew the washer on the opposite side clean off.

The bolt holding the chain to the frame took a glancing blow at its tip, so I’ll have to saw it off to get the chain off.   Also notice that one arm of the wing-nut was taken off by a penetrating round.

The good:

• The gong made a good reactive target out at 100 yards.  It didn’t ring like I expected it to, but it did move quite a bit, even when having a hole cut through it.  
• The extra chain I’d put on the frame let me re-seat the gong after an errant round parted the chain.
• The chain was strong enough to support the gong by one length of chain.

The bad:

• The hardware was exposed to incoming fire.  If I re-do the frame, I may cut a new hole and have the hardware sitting in the back of the frame as much as possible.  I’ll also scrounge up some shorter bolts. That won’t eliminate the risk of damage, but it will reduce it from what it is now.
• Like I said, surplus ammunition went through this steel plate as easily as it would have through paper.  While the plate will last a lot longer than the wooden target holders I use for paper targets, it won’t last forever.  I’ll have to ask my source for plate steel to keep an eye out for more.

Overall, I’m happy with the gong, but I recognize that a lot of improvement can happen.  When this one wears out, I’ll refine the design a bit to try and keep the hardware intact, and I need to do some more research on how to make the gong ring when hit.  Next time I go out, I’ll take some time and dial in a .22 to reach it accurately and see what the results are.  I’m also curious to see if a PowerBelt fired from my muzzleloader penetrates or just flattens against the steel.  For that matter, I want to see if any soft point ammunition penetrates.

So the gong needs some improvement.  But remember what they say, any time at the range is a good time at the range.  I had a lot of fun making this thing wiggle at 100 yards.