Today was a good day!

I have vacation time to burn, so I took the day off.  The SCSon went to school and I slept in ;-)   Then SCSon and I first did lunch at The Monastery, then visited the Copperstate Fly In. 

The Monastery was always a fun place to visit in my younger days because you could buy a raw burger and cook it yourself and save a few $$$.  Remember your college days.  Here we are.

Apparently this is not so much a thing these days.  They had to fire up the grill for us but it worked out. 

Copperstate is but a shell of it's former self..  Past years featured an airshow, now it's ground only.

Stay tuned for pictures!

The Warrior

The Las Vegas attack evoked a bit of deja vu in me. 

Way back in the 70's there was a movie "RollerBall" starring James Caan.  The intro "Toccata and Fugue in D-minor" theme music really inspired me, not to mention James Caan and John Houseman's performance...  And the F1 style themes (Gladiators to battle)

Rollerball (the movie) was inspired by a short story by William Harrison  titled "Rollerball Murder (1973)".

Not sure of the behind the scenes moves but after Rollerball came out, a set of William Harrison's short stories were published under the Rollerball title.  The  first of which is a short story titled "The Warrior (1971)".   Harrison tells the story in an odd way - the reader is included in the story, as if you/me the reader is present with our host.  That makes it 2nd person?  Anyway.  tl;dr version our host is a hardened mercenary of many battles and feels the need to school the free spirits at the film festival on the beach that the world is a terrible place.  By shooting up the festival in a fairly graphic manor.

And he even observes at first I won't even have to worry about them running because they won't believe their eyes! IIRC some at first thought the bullet reports were just fireworks.

And includes a detailed plan to escaping the scene to live fight another day by setting off diversionary explosions.  Hmmm could that be what the 50lbs of Tannerite was slated for?

I have read stuff that falls into a category of "Dang, I wish I'd written that".  Not often but it happens. This falls into the penultimate "I never could have conceived of this in a million years".  Same same for the LV killer.

I have no idea whatsoever if any of this applies to the LV killer.  There has been no information of any military service for the LV Killer, but there are parallels.  Just relatin' stuff I've read.

$.02

Sorry for the delay, it's taken some time to find my copy and reread the story... It's been at least 30 years.  BTW, my copy was almost certainly obtained at the local SVDP for a dime.

I didn't want one...

... until they said I shouldn't have one!

I've never shopped for a bump fire stock, but now that the public is enraged, and congress thus empowered, I feel the need to buy one.

OTOH, SaysUncle posts a couple videos showing how easy it is to do with common household items.  Particularly this one using a rubber band.  Heck the early videos demonstrated bump fire with a finger and a belt loop and I understand someone filed a shoelace with the ATF just to mock the system!

So why bother with a $40-200 slide stock when a 5 cent rubber band does the same thing?  Ban away!  But I predict any such language by congress will either a)  ban entirely innocent but otherwise useful items (like rubber bands), or b) takes a blanket approach banning innocuous legal items.  But I'm also confident they see this a feature rather than a bug :-(.

Don't get me wrong!  Full Auto Rock & Roll is hella fun.  Through the good graces of others (for whom I am eternally grateful and offer only kind words!)  have allowed a few shots via legal a) 9mm M-16, b) .45 Chicago Typewriter, and  c),for the SCSon a belt through an MG-42!.

I don't full auto for the most part because I see automatic fire as a waste.  I prefer accurate, aimed shots.  Outside a few specific situations that don't apply to me, random automatic fire seems to me is a rule 4 violation "Be sure of your target and what is beyond".  Automatic fire causes muzzle wander spoiling any accurate shots.  I understand from others with military training there are a few very specific scenarios where full auto "volume of fire" is useful.  Again, not my bailiwick.

I'm also not a "bump fire" fan because normal AR-15's are not engineered to deal with the heat dissipation requirements of full auto fire.  If you recall the old series "Tool Time" this is the same problem "Tim-the-tool-man-Taylor" didn't understand.  You can't just slap on a turbo charger for MORE POWER without dealing with the extra waste heat.  It works a little while then just goes jam-o-matic!   I trust M-4's are properly engineered for sustained full-auto fire.

So I'm tempted to acquire a bump stock, solely because they want to ban them!

OTOH, if they'd take bump stocks in return for something useful like concealed carry reciprocity (like my drivers and marriage license) and easier access to suppressors (which should be considered "good manners"), lets make a deal!