So youre in the kitchen, minding your own business, and a couple of ‘yutes’ sneak into your yard and try to break into your shed. You yell at them and wave your kitchen knife at them. No big deal, right? Ah, but when the cops show up they admonish you and tell you that youve no right to do such things even in your own home. Amazing, innit? Fortunately there are at least some folks who think that, darn it, maybe being able to smack a burglar with a baseball bat isnt a bad thing after all.
At issue is the notion of ‘proportionate’ versus ‘disproportionate’ response to the threat.
:::sigh:::
Self-defense and protection of property isnt a sporting event where you want a level playing field for the sake of a fine, challenging contest. When someone kicks in the door at 3am I want all the disproportionate force available to me that the law allows, which in the case of this household stops just short of crew-served weapons.
Now, Im of the mind that someone running down the street with my computer doesnt deserve to get shot in the back. Thats just not worth a human life to me, no matter how much an utter waste of skin the bad guy in question might be. But, the minute I reasonably believe theres bodily harm headed in my direction, all bets are off. The distinction?
Come home and see guy jump out window and run down street with laptop = don’t shoot.
Enter home and bad guy jumps out, brandishes knife and says “Gimme the goods or else” = bullet party.
The notion, however, that even in your own home you can’t rough up a bad guy is just contrary to everything I believe in. I mean, its your home for crying out loud. If I find someone I don’t know in my house and I have no good reason to think theyre supposed to be there its absolutely time for difficult questions, commanding voice, and the words “…where I can see them!”.
( I recall the time I came home, found a fella standing in my living room who said he was the electrician and my girlfriend was nowhere in sight. I told him I hoped for all our sakes he could tell me the difference between an amp and a volt. And, yeah, he was legit.)
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The local PD is having a Glock armorers course and, oddly, it has been made available to the non-cops. No idea why. If I had to guess, Id say that there was a requirement for ‘x’ amount of paying students and the number of cops going was short that. But that’s just a guess. Regardless, I need to investigate this and see if it’s something I can go to. Quite honestly, if you get The Complete Glock Reference Guide I suspect you will be just about as qualified as if you took any course…the book is that good. However, the guys who do this for a living may have some tricks up their sleeves and I’m always up for learning new tricks. Additionally, it may provide a tangible credential tha can come in handy at a later date.
The Glocks, in my experience, are just about the easiest things in the world to maintain and repair. Really, you don’t even repair them..you just swap parts. I haven’t encountered anything that required fitting and most parts are $5 or less. No barrel links to polish, no lugs to mate, no bushings to hone, no parts to stake…just get your part and swap-n-drop. While the Glocks are stone cold reliable out of the box I have encountered (very, very rarely) broken parts. In those experiences, though, the parts breakage was such that the gun would still function. A very extensive spare parts kit for the Glock can be put together for less than $150.
I like to think I know my way around the guts of a Glock pretty well. (And truth be told, there aint that much guts to wade through…it has a lot less parts than most other pistols.) However, you don’t know how much you don’t know until you take a course. Be nice if they had an AR armorers course as well.
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A longtime local sporting goods store is calling it quits after around 45 years. Theyre having a big sale and everything has gotta go. This place was easily the most expensive place in town so knocking 20% off everything takes the prices to what everyone else normally charges. However, there are a few things that aren’t priced outrageously. I’m picking up some Lodge cast iron cookware (I am developing a new respect for cast iron, although I like the LeCreuset stuff better but, good grief, the prices) and some Platypus accessories to go with the Platypus water carriers I’ve come to like. Also, they carry all the spare parts for Coleman lanterns and stoves so I’ll pick up some extra mantles, generators, etc, etc.
There’s a lesson in here somewhere and I think it is that although the economy is cutting down businesses with a broad swath, there is opportunity in there as well. Im sure I don’t need to tell you that the circle of life involves a lot of death and as long as that death isn’t your own…..
In short, now is a good time to get thingsyouve been wanting at bargain prices if you can find a seller who is closing up. On first blush, it smacks of opportunism or even grave-robbing but it isn’t. Fortunately for me, I didn’t particularly like the business in question or its owner so even if I normally would have felt weird taking advantage of this sale, I’m not.
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I don’t know if I mentioned it, but the missus was kind enough to download season 1 of ‘Jericho’ for me and I have it on the computer at the shop. (Season one just barely fits onto a USB drive.) So, when its quiet and I feel like a little entertainment I wind up watching a few favorite episodes. Kind of a shame they cancelled the show, I think it had promise after the first season. The rushed second season was obviously written the way it was to wrap up everything in a short time span…if they knew they were going to have a full second (and even third) season I think they would have done things quite differently. A lot of folks whined about it being unrealistic but why is that a surprise? It’s a tv show…it has to appeal to an audience or no one is going to watch it and sponsors won’t pony up towards it. So, yeah, youre not gonna see cholera, dysentery, gang rapes, rickets, starving children, people eating dogs, radiation induced diarrhea, gangrenous stumps, rats chewing on corpses, and the other scenarios that one might expect after a solid nuking.
But, still, I enjoyed watching the show and am sorry it got such short shrift.
