Cordite - Noun: A smokeless explosive powder
Welcome to my first hosting of "The Carnival of Cordite", let's hope that it isn't the last.
First, thanks to the Gullyborg from Resistance is Futile for starting up this carnival. He's a bit busy this week, off somewhere assimilating law knowledge so as to become that most dangerous beast, the lawyer. He is Locutus of The Bar.
Yeah... I know... A lawyer... but at least he likes guns. Maybe he'll be a 2nd amendment lawyer or something. Hell even better, join the DA's office in "Liberal Eugene Oregon" and refuse to prosecute people for self defense shootings. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Aaaanywy....
I have been blatantly flogging the carnival all week, and we've had some great response, in fact more than I can comment on without this turning into a full magazine. Because of the volume, I may not be able to highlight your post specifically, but I am going to list all of the links at the bottom of the post.
And into the thick of it we go...
First we have a story about the Tyler Texas shootings, recounting how Mark Wilson lost his life protecting the unarmed, including the shooters own son, from David Arroyo Sr.
Wilson gave his life to protect those around him. I can think of no finer thing to say of a man.
The article is from Marks friend Robert Langham, and isn't up online yet, but will be appearing in the next Texas State Rifle Association monthly magazine. We'll be posting the whole thing here at Roberts request.
David Arroyo Sr. killed his wife, shot his son, critically wounded a
deputy and blown the glass doors out of the East end of the Smith County
Courthouse before Mark Wilson lined up the sights of his 1911.
Mark had heard the boom of gunfire from his loft apartment overlooking
the Spring Street side of downtown Tyler. When Mark moved into the
apartment, he told friends that he expected a shootout sooner or later on
the street below. A glance out his windows would have shown the scene
completely: the gunman advancing, the victims sprawled on concrete. Mark
grabbed his Colt, bounded down the staircase to the sidewalk, crossed the
corner intersection and sprinted to cover behind the first vehicle on the
end of the block.
Though Wilson couldn't have know it, the extended cab truck parked head
into the loading zone belonged to David Arroyo who was at that moment
stepping forward to finish killing his own son on the courthouse steps. Arroyo had followed his wife and child to the courthouse, or waited there
until it was time for their child support hearing, then intercepted them
on the courthouse steps. Mark lined up the sights on the gunman's bulky
back. He shot once, perhaps twice. The range is inside 20 yards. Less
than 60 seconds had passed since he heard the first shot.
In the streetside restaurants and shops people were running for back
exit s. Waiters and cashiers were locking doors and dialing 911. Arroyo
was burning through 65 rounds of 7.62X39 ammunition. Over 100 witnesses
were listening or watching. Bullets began to tick in the window glass of
lawyers offices, splinter through woodwork of shops, and whine off
plaster walls. In the courthouse judges locked themselves in their
chambers. Witnesses and juries huddled while deputies and bailiffs
scrambled to secure the building and return fire.
Mark Wilson was in street, firing.
The courthouse security camera shows Arroyo turning away from his son
bleeding on the steps and running back to his truck. In the truck was
more ammunition, a loaded Remington 243, and escape. On camera, three
sheriff deputies in the courthouse door began to fire steadily. Mark
shoots again to no effect. The gunman is wearing an army flak jacket
over body armor. Pistol shots will not penetrate. Mark is wearing a red
pullover sweatshirt and jeans.
Wilson and Arroyo exchange shots across the truck bed popping up and
down, perhaps three shots each before Mark falls to the red bricks, face
down. Arroyo walks around the end of the truck, steps over him and
shoots repeatedly. He starts his truck and backs out, stopping at the
corner stop sign and looking both ways before driving north on Spring
Street. A Tyler police car sits at the intersection. Michael Mosley, a
uniformed security officer assigned to the US Attorneys Office chases the
truck on foot, unfired pistol in hand.
Tyler Police will intercept and kill Arroyo with his Mak-90 in his hands
two miles up highway 271 North.
Mark Wilson was a shooter and an athlete in many sports. He
enthusiastically held a Texas CHL. He was the former operator of a
state-of-the-art indoor gun range in Tyler. He believed in the Bill of
Rights. His family and many friends in Tyler will miss him.
Donations to: Children's Village
P.O. Box 6564
Tyler, Texas
The author of the next post, comedienne and ComBloc immigrant Julia Gorin , doesn't have her own blog or web site (the site linked is her page at the Jewish World Review), so she's asked me to post the whole thing here. This essay has been up on cruffler for a while in a slightly different form, so you may have seen it there.
The Anti Gun Male - Julia GorinIt's all about immaturity really. The unwillingness to accept
Let's be honest. He's scared of the thing. That's understandable--so am I.
But as a girl I have the luxury of being able to admit it. I don't have to
masquerade squeamishness as grand principle--in the interest of mankind, no
less.
A man does. He has to say things like "One Taniqua Hall is one too many," as
a New York radio talk show host did in referring to the 9-year old New York
girl who was accidentally shot last year by her 12-year old cousin playing
with his uncle's gun.
But the truth is he desperately needs Taniqua Hall, just like he needs as
many Columbines and Santees as can be mustered, until they spell an end to
the Second Amendment. And not for the benefit of the masses, but for the
benefit of his self-esteem.
He often accuses men with guns of "compensating for something." The truth is
quite the reverse. After all, how is he supposed to feel knowing there are
men out there who aren't intimidated by the big bad inanimate villain? How
is he to feel in the face of adolescent boys who have used the family gun
effectively to defend the family from an armed intruder? So if he can't
touch a gun, he doesn't want other men to be able to either. And to achieve
his ends, he'll use the only weapon he knows how to manipulate: the law.
Of course, sexual and psychological insecurities don't account for all men
who are against guns. Certainly there must be some whose motives are
genuine, who perhaps do care so much as to tirelessly look for policy
solutions to teenage vacuousness and aggression, and to parent and teacher
negligence. But for a potentially large underlying contributor,
psycho-sexual inadequacy has gone unexplored and unacknowledged. It's one
thing to not be comfortable with a firearm and therefore opt to not keep or
bear one. But it's another to impose the same handicap onto others.
People are suspicious of what they do not know--and not only does this man
not know how to use a gun, he doesn't know the men who do or the people who
have defended themselves from injury or death just by brandishing a gun. But
he is better left in the dark; his life is hard enough knowing there are men
out there who don't sit cross-legged. That they're also able to handle a
firearm instead of being handled by it would be too much to bear for the
anti-gun male.
Such a man is also best kept huddled in urban centers, where he feels safer
than he might on his own in a rural setting, in an isolated house on a quiet
street where he would feel naked and helpless. Lacking the confidence that
would permit him to be sequestered in sparseness, and lacking a gun, he
finds comfort in the cloister of crowds.
The very ownership of a gun for defense of home and family implies some
assertiveness and a certain self-reliance. But if our man kept a gun in the
house, and an intruder broke in and started attacking his wife in front of
him, he wouldn't be able to later say, "He had a knife--there was nothing I
could do!" Passively watching in horror while already trying to make peace
with the violent act, scheduling a therapy session and forgiving the
perpetrator before the attack is even finished wouldn't be the option it
otherwise is.
No. Better to emasculate all men. Because let's face it: He's a lover, not a
fighter. And he doesn't want to get shot in case he sleeps with your wife.
Of course, it wouldn't be completely honest to not admit that owning a
firearm carries with it some risk to unintended targets. That's the tradeoff
with a gun: The right to defend one's life and way of life isn't without
peril to oneself. And the last thing this man wants to do is risk his
life--even if to save it. For he is guided by a dread fear for his life, and
has more confidence in almost anyone else's ability to protect him than his
own, preferring to place himself at the mercy of the villain or in the
sporadically competent hands of authorities (his line of defense consisting
of locks, alarm systems, reasoning with the attacker, calling the police or,
should fighting back occur to him, thrashing a heavy vase).
In short, he is a man begging for subjugation. He longs for its promise of
equality in helplessness. Because only when that strange, independent alpha
breed of male is helpless along with him will he feel adequate. Indeed, his
freedom lies in this other man's containment.
responsiblity for ones self, ones actions, and ones protection.
Of course this ties in nicely with collectivist mindsets in general,
which assume that all people ARE irresponsible as individuals, and
therefore require the coercive power of the state to act responsibly,
thus abdicating the role of parent or adult to the collective.
Amazing how these things fit together so nicely isn't it.
Next up, Eric Cowperthwaite draws a line in the sand on gun ownership.
The Money quote:
"Why, really, do governments want to control what sort of weapons citizenry can, or cannot, own? If you think the answer is some altruistic version of protecting the citizenry from crime then you have mistaken your individual beliefs with the institutional drives of a government. Governments want to control your rights, including the right to keep and bear arms, because armed citizens are a threat to the control and power of the government, whether that is their ability to control whether you commit a crime or their ability to control whether you overthrow the government."
Keeping in the rights and laws vein, we have this entry from Matt at Trigger Finger who asks "Why does gun control remain popular..."?
"gun control advocates are often fearful of what other people might do if they had guns. If I had a gun, they think, I would find the person who caused me to feel this way and shoot him. It is thus not at all difficult for them to imagine that otherwise normal people are also on the verge of committing murder."
And focusing more directly on the law, the Alpha Patriot posts on Federal vs Local regulation.
The important point:
"Local laws can rip away your rights faster than an early bird jumping on a worm. Faster than an ACLU lawyer ripping a cross off the courthouse wall. Even faster than a Democrat reaching for your wallet."
Josh Poulson talks about how the recent assault on the FN-Five-Seven is in fact just a backdoor way to ban ALL guns, in his post "A Useful Handgun Ban"
Pertinent info:
"Any handgun capable of defeating IIA armor is now under attack… Now, what do we know also penetrates IIA? 9mm FMJ at speeds greater than 1100fps, .357 Magnum at speeds greater than 1250fps, .44 Magnum, .50AE, .500 S&W Magnum, etc. etc.
IIA is the minimum recommended level of body armor if you are going to bother wearing it. It'll stop 00 buckshot, and a lot of other little things, but not 9mm Silvertips, for example. It is definitely not what you wear if you're facing rifle or submachine gun rounds."
And in our final post on the serious side, the Heartless Libertarian performs a merciless fisking on the notion that Gun Rights Need to be Limited to Prevent Terrorism
Pithy comment:
" Liberty, and the means to defend it, are not "special interests." They are human rights."
I tend to agree
Now it's time to lighten things up a just bit, and get into some gun geekery.
First up, the aforementioned heartless libertarian submits his entry for "Buy A Gun Day", just a bit early
And no, I'm not talking about his wife.
Actually I the WASR hes got here, but I think I like this picture from a few months ago better:
Before you ask: Yes, I am a filthy bastard, and proud of it.
Kevin from "The Smallest Minority" is offering us a final chance to get Kalashnikitty Shirts
Wadcutter posts on "Energy and Momentum" thus adding fuel to the eternal debate about usefulness of numbers in ballistics.
Meplat of Wisdom:
"The biggest confusion folks generally encounter in ballistics discussions concerns the difference between kinetic energy and momentum. This is understandable, since they both describe similar properties of projectiles. However, momentum and kinetic energy are very different things"
Head from Says Uncle has been building his own AK 74 from the ground up. Here are the links (and a couple of pics) from the process:
Building an AK-74M, Part 1
This is what he started out with
Building an AK-74M, Part 2
Starting to look like a gun
Building an AK-74M, Part 3
Just about ready
For some sort-of-gun porn we turn back to "The Smallest Minority" who says "If you're gonna go FULL AUTO, why not go for a Mini-Gun"
Making all all your Jesse Ventura fantasies come true.
Oh and for the real thing, the inimitable photoblogger SondraK has some SERIOUS boomage goin’ on. God I do so love a good panoply of destruction set to bombastic nazi opera, and agressive heavy metal.
The Mad Ogre breaks down his top CCW choices ;and there’s some surprises in there for people who think you need a baby glock or a mouse gun to carry concealed.
Further proof (as if it was necessary) that the Ogre gives it straight:
"No matter what gun you choose, it does you no good if you don’t have it on your person. This is why I made these two lists. (that and a lot of people asking me to) Find a gun that you can have on you ALL THE TIME. Don’t give me that “I carry a 1911 Government Model all the time” bravado if you don’t really carry it all the time. If you do – fine. But really, smaller guns are a lot easier to carry all the time than bigger ones"Oh and another point relevant to the next post:
Also worth mentioning is the value of a good defensive folding knife. Knives for close in work have been extremely effective since Man Kind figured out how to use the Thumb. If a gun is not an option, maybe a knife is.
Which as I said, brings us into the next post, which happens to be mine, about Knife Selection .
"Some people say that the gift of a knife severs a friendship. Others, myself included, see the gift of a knife as a symbol of trust, of guardianship, and of strength (it's a visceral paganish thing really).This post has been described as "Astoundingly detailed", but it's actually not even close to everything there could be. It's about 3000 words long, and it could be twice that without any difficulty.
Of course that's only if it's a good knife, and most knives aren't. Perhaps there SHOULD be some credence to that whole severing a friendship thing, because I know I'd be pretty irked with a friend who gave me a $20 chinese knife, or worse, bought me one of those $100 "collector" knives off of QVC."
Oh and to get us back to the gun thing, I dashed off another post this morning about the materials used in Firearms Frames, that y'all might be interested in.
One more post of mine, blatantly abusing my position as host, but this is more than a little relevant to us gunnies.
A few weeks ago I was denied warranty service on my HK USP Compact because it had aftermarket sights installed by the original authrized HK retailler. I sent them this letter , and have recieved no response as of yet. If anyone reading this knows someone at HK, or thinks they can help, please get in touch.
Kevin Menard write about taking kids hunting.
Kid looks pretty damned happy to me there, whaddya think?
The love of hunting was set deep that trip and it may be why so many families that hunt seem to pass thro the teens with less anguish than others. The experience of hunting with a young son, especially the blind type hunting in West Texas, the being out in the wilderness, the working together as a team, of a son learning to be a partner with his father in a shared task, all this leads to an opening up about things in a child's life he normally doesn't tell. Especially as he learns what is said in the deer camp, stays there.Truer words wot?
Lets slide over to Kim Du Toits place, where there are two posts I want to talk about.
First, on the serious side, Kim talks about what it means to be in the Nation of Riflemen
The first point:
1. Any citizen who has taken the trouble to arm themself, has learned how to use their firearm appropriately, and is prepared to use that firearm in defense of themself, their family, their community and their nation, is a member of the Nation of Riflemen.Last year, kim went out and bought a Truck Gun for buy-a-gun-day. Well, he threw it in the truck and forgot about it until a few weeks ago, when he Made a Range Trip with his Truck Gun.
Not bad for $95 eh
Okay the rest of these are going to be quickies, we're already about running WAY long here, lus I've run out of clever ways for not saying the word "quote".
- Here we have firehand talking about Serious Accuracy from a .22
- And more about how Jeff Cooper is getting increasingly irritating about the Steyr Scout
- For some more gun pR0n, Analog Kid is testing out his Boomershoot Rifle
- Gunner at No Quarter has been collecting contest were you can Win Guns and Gun Gear
- Denise from The Tenring has a great Assault Weapon Parody
- James Rummel has a post on Protecting Yourself from Animals (wild or otherwise)
- Jay G has a quickie about The One that Got Away
- The Middle Class Mom write up a Recent Range Trip
- T.F. Stern writes on the Wild Side of Gun Ownership
Next weeks Carnival of Cordite will be hosted byKevin Menard.
To submit your firearms, firearms rights, firearms politics, firearms porn, and firearms stuff related posts; write them up on your blog or web page and link to them in the comments on his post, trackback them, or email them to carnival of cordite ( at ) hot mail ( dot ) com.
Oh and guys, jsut as an aside, it's a little easier on us hosters if you don't do all three.
Whether or not you have a post, please remember to post a link to the Carnival, so your readers know we exist; to quote the Gullyborg "More links = more readers = more support here and abroad for guns and gun-owner rights. And that's what the Carnival is all about".
Oh and if you haven't already, check out
Carnival of Cordite week 1
Carnival of Cordite week 2
Carnival of Cordite week 3
