Quote of the day—Robert A. Heinlein

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Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is.

Robert A. Heinlein
Time Enough for Love
[This is for Barb. It’s something she can relate to after recent events.—Joe]

Grandson Bryce’s first hike in the woods

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Since his parents don’t really care for hiking in the woods Barb and I took it upon ourselves to take Bryce on his first hike. It was a short walk, about 1.1 miles round trip. He walked the entire way except for when I carried him about 100 feet at the place the trail was very narrow with a steep drop off to sharp rocks on one side.

He seemed pretty happy with the whole adventure. He did seem to think throwing rocks in the water was more interesting than looking at the waterfall though.

WP_20150808_10_34_18_ProPhoto by Barb

WP_20150808_11_16_27_ProHe switched things up a bit by throwing a stick too.

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WP_20150808_11_11_39_ProPhoto by Barb

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All indications are that he had a good time.

Lentils anyone?

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While I was in Idaho weekend before last I helped my brothers just a little bit with the harvest. They were working on the lentils and I took a few pictures:

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Want some lentils? How many tons would you like? There are probably about 15 tons in this picture.

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This is one of the two nearly identical machines they use to harvest the crops on our land.

Quote of the day—Middle Class Warrior @ZeitgeistGhost

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@thedude7763 @KentAtwater @jjohnson101075 @TammaraMaiden1 @wallsofthecity @BigFatDave helps him feel better about being hung like a mouse

Middle Class Warrior @ZeitgeistGhost
Tweeted on February 3, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from BFD ‏@BigFatDave.—Joe]

Steel match results

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I attended a steel match in Renton today. I was feeling kind of weird. I hadn’t gotten much sleep then I was really rushed trying to clean two guns and then get to the match on time. I left nearly 30 minutes later than I planned and I think there was far more adrenalin in my system that I can tolerate without side effects. I was shaking most of the morning, my stomach was upset, and I was feeling strange in the head.

My shooting felt pretty good anyway and I was pretty sure I was doing well compared to everyone in my squad. I was shooting in both rimfire iron sighted pistol and centerfire iron sighted pistol.

The stages looked like this:

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Smoke and Hope

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Closed Quarters

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Roundabout

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Double Tap

With Double Tap there was another USPSA target to the far left my camera couldn’t capture from the shooting box. The two USPSA targets were to be shot twice then the center target was the stop plate.

For those unfamiliar with scoring steel matches of this type you shoot the stage five times. Your score is the sum of your four best times. Hence you can determine the average time for a shooter to fire the five shoots on a given stage by dividing their stage time by four. If, for example, someone (like me when I shot rimfire) has a score of 10.14 for Closed Quarters it means I got five hits, on the average, in 2.535 seconds. Considering that it probably took about a second to get the first hit going from the orange marker on the ground to the first plate the other four hits took about 0.384 seconds each. I’m constantly amazed this is even possible let along that I can do this.

My standing in the match was somewhat surprising to me:

NW05 Steel Challenge Aug 2015
2015-08-09
 
Final Name SCSA Class Division Time Stage 1 Smoke & Hope Stage 2 Closed Quarters Stage 3 Round About Stage 4 Double Tap
1 White, Alex   U RFRO 38.53 9.95 9.18 10.48 8.92
2 Miner, Bradley Jr   U RFRI 40.14 8.92 8.86 10.20 12.16
3 Paczosa, Connor   U RFRI 41.96 10.59 10.20 12.53 8.64
4 Kanter, Jeffrey   U RFRO 44.35 12.57 8.18 12.68 10.92
5 Boyd, Michael   U OPEN 45.72 12.35 9.18 12.02 12.17
6 Sawicki, Myron   U RFRO 51.30 14.46 10.40 14.63 11.81
7 Huffman, Joseph   U RFPI 52.05 13.12 10.14 16.43 12.36
8 Larson, Addison   U RFPI 52.45 13.78 9.57 17.63 11.47
9 White, Alex   U RFPO 54.14 20.41 8.92 14.37 10.44
10 Boyd, Michael   U RFPO 54.70 14.99 11.39 15.94 12.38
11 Larson, Addison   U RFRO 55.98 12.72 13.46 19.69 10.11
12 Komatsu, Jeff   U RFPO 56.52 13.88 15.52 14.53 12.59
13 Sawicki, Myron   U RFPO 59.40 15.94 13.46 16.38 13.62
14 McCurry, Jason   U RFPO 59.58 14.84 12.97 19.11 12.66
15 Pounders, Thomas   U RFPO 60.44 16.63 12.56 18.65 12.60
16 Meboe, Greg   U RFRO 60.56 14.94 10.55 18.45 16.62
17 Potter, Rob   U LTD 61.07 14.47 13.26 17.26 16.08
18 Sheppard, Bob   U LTD 62.19 14.65 13.72 18.95 14.87
19 Sawicki, Myron   U RFPI 62.36 19.93 11.70 19.10 11.63
20 Mortell, Jeffery   U RFPI 63.27 17.50 12.74 18.89 14.14
21 Dec, Theresa   U RFPI 63.34 15.33 15.26 19.53 13.22
22 Sheppard, Bob   U OPEN 63.75 15.37 13.89 19.29 15.20
23 Huffman, Joseph   U ISP 64.57 15.44 13.81 19.43 15.89
24 Morris, David   U RFPI 65.49 14.41 15.44 20.14 15.50
25 Miner, Bradley Jr   U PROD 65.68 12.65 18.78 19.14 15.11
26 Bakken, Lance   U RFRI 68.93 19.84 14.75 18.76 15.58
27 Kanter, Jeffrey   U CFI 69.29 16.84 16.40 20.75 15.30
28 Paczosa, Dan   U PROD 69.33 15.38 15.84 23.38 14.73
29 Tomczyk, Lukasz   U CFL 70.35 16.58 14.78 22.87 16.12
30 Tomczyk, Lukasz   U OPEN 70.68 15.15 17.41 22.31 15.81
31 McCurry, Jason   U PROD 71.55 16.57 15.53 22.41 17.04
32 White, Eric   U CFL 72.97 16.96 18.20 23.00 14.81
33 Breitkreutz, Gale   U CFO 73.20 20.54 15.46 19.70 17.50
34 Meboe, Joey   U RFPI 76.94 16.08 13.62 32.82 14.42
35 Potter, Rebecca   U LTD 79.48 19.62 19.00 22.77 18.09
36 Komatsu, Jeff   U CFI 79.56 15.52 21.81 23.91 18.32
37 Skedd, Jim   U CFL 80.67 19.20 20.50 22.06 18.91
38 Crow, Don AA5736 U PROD 81.44 18.30 22.60 21.65 18.89
39 Jensen, John   U PROD 81.50 18.65 20.95 24.20 17.70
40 Meisner, Mike   U CFO 83.08 21.00 19.59 25.68 16.81
41 Susan, Kleiner   U RFPO 85.26 20.05 18.47 25.14 21.60
42 Ridenour, Tim   U ISR 85.91 21.58 18.02 23.88 22.43
43 Mortell, Jeffrey   U PROD 89.48 18.80 19.58 33.95 17.15
44 Blackston, Rick   U PROD 91.23 23.44 22.30 27.19 18.30
45 Meboe, Oscar   U RFPO 91.97 21.91 16.17 34.37 19.52
46 Bakken, Lance   U PROD 93.09 29.76 27.83 19.49 16.01
47 Garden, Euan   U LTD 93.59 21.11 23.30 24.91 24.27
48 Miner, Bradley Sr   U LTD 95.62 18.57 29.57 23.38 24.10
49 Meboe, Isabelle   U RFPO 95.70 22.72 18.51 27.88 26.59
50 Dec, Theresa   U PROD 96.60 18.12 28.40 29.98 20.10
51 Paczosa, Connor   U PROD 98.63 23.51 22.50 28.03 24.59
52 Bakken, Emily   U RFPO 99.64 22.87 21.17 32.19 23.41
53 Garcia, Quinlan   U RFRI 99.68 24.47 16.89 34.75 23.57
54 Pounders, Thomas   U PROD 103.14 38.05 19.50 27.32 18.27
55 Waak, Jim   U RFPO 104.13 21.84 27.81 33.03 21.45
56 ALvarez, Ezzy   U RFPI 104.28 33.02 21.11 32.73 17.42
57 Jarus, Roon   U PROD 104.72 21.02 22.66 37.65 23.39
58 Wood, Sabrina   U RFPI 114.91 21.64 20.24 52.87 20.16
59 Pukalo, Chris   U ISP 115.82 27.79 31.98 29.30 26.75
60 Hurley, Tessina   U ISP 126.96 25.60 32.40 31.64 37.32
61 Crow, Gail   U PROD 157.63 32.73 35.05 54.43 35.42
62 Bakken, Emily   U PROD 160.11 38.79 45.57 44.84 30.91
63 Ma, Kenneth   U RFPI – – – 20.72 17.17
64 Smith, Tim   U LTD – 20.01 – – 12.74

I’ve been wanting to get my classification stages completed so I could get a better sense of where I stand compared to shooters nationwide. But I keep getting repeats of stages I have already shot. This match was no exception. We had Smoke and Hope and Roundabout as the only two classification stages. At least I improved my centerfire times from my previous 18.76 seconds to 15.44 seconds on Smoke and Hope. But my time on Roundabout went from 18.67 seconds to 19.43 seconds.

With my rimfire pistol I came in 7th overall which is ahead of all the other pistol shooters, including open class pistol shooters. With my centerfire pistol I came in 23rd overall and 3rd among centerfire shooters.

I’m okay with that.

Quote of the day—Richard Heckler

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If the pink guns are now or ever were military issue assault weapons ……. take them off the market. Smash them up and recycle the metal.

Richard Heckler
August 8, 2015
Comment to Letter: Gun control
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—G-Man

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Creating any type of legislation that even vaguely advocates increasing more government control over guns is extremely misguided and does nothing more than to serve the anti-gun movement.

G-Man
August 7, 2015
Comment to NRA A+ Rated Republican Announces New Gun Control Measure
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

New shooter report

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Several months ago Joycie expressed an interest in learning to shoot a gun. She had a couple scary incidents. One where she thought someone was in her house and another incident where a suspicious person was in her backyard.

Of course I immediately offered to take her to the range but for various reasons it didn’t happen right away. Finally Barb made the reservation for the training bay at the local indoor range and Joycie and her husband Michael put that time slot on their schedule. Here is the story from our time on the range last night:

They did the paperwork with the range, got the range safety briefing. We then walked through the normal range with stalls about half full of people shooting. Joycie jumped every shot fired but made it through to the training bay without chickening out. There we took off our hearing protection set up a table about 15 feet from the target line.

I’ve only one other student who was more nervous.

I started them out with the Ruger 10/22 with a suppressor so we could talk without hearing protection:

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It was really too close for the scoped rifle, the target was just a little bit blurry, and the hits were an inch or so low from the point of aim. But these were new shooters and I wanted to make sure they could hit the paper without difficulty. They both did great with it.

Next I put the suppressor on the Ruger 22/45 and showed them how to shoot it:

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Michael had no problems with it but it took Joycie a while to get the hang of getting both sights lined up on the target.

Next they tried the .22 LR revolver:

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With no suppressor and such a light gun even the recoil from the .22 was intimidating to Joycie. She was able to settle down enough to get good hits by sitting at the table.

We were running out of time and I gave her the option of a 9mm or .40 S&W pistol or an AR-15. Joycie asked if the AR-15 was an Uzi and if it would shoot out all the bullets one after the other. I smiled and told her no. It was an AR-15 and it shot one bullet for each pull of the trigger just like the other guns she had been shooting. She chose the AR-15.

Michael emptied a 30 round magazine with excellent hits in probably two or three minutes. We were very short on time and Joycie fired maybe five rounds with decent hits before we had to pack up and leave before they locked the doors on us.

As is usual, there was the new shooter smile and Joycie wants to try that again:

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Joycie also wants to see what competition is like and may show up to watch a pistol match sometime soon.

Quote of the day—Rand Paul

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I don’t want my marriage or my guns registered in Washington.

Rand Paul
August 7, 2015
First GOP Debate Ignores Gun Rights, With The Exception Of Rand Paul’s Quick Quip
[Or my address, bank accounts, cars, computers, degrees, employer, fingerprints, god(s), height, income, jobs, or kids. And that is just the first few letters of the alphabet. Never mind things like sexual preference and skin color.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Lott

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Every place in the world that’s tried to ban guns… has seen big increases in murder rates. You’d think at least one time, some place, when they banned guns, murder rates would go down. But that hasn’t been the case.

John Lott
August 5, 2015
Gun Control Lies
[See also Just one question.

You have to ask: If gun control doesn’t make society safer then just what is the real reason they want to ban guns? Other than stupidity and ignorance the only answer that makes sense to me is that they want to do something to people which the people wouldn’t want done to them.—Joe]

Boomershoot infrastructure improvements

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When the weather conditions are just right Boomershoot Mecca literally rains inside because of the condensation. Last weekend I hired someone who fixed that. But first I had to get almost everything out of the shipping container. There was over 4000 pounds of chemicals, plus tables, shelves, boxes, crates, mixers, tools, and lots of other “stuff”:

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On Saturday, over the course of five hours, I converted what you see above into this:

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Outside it looked like this:

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It was a hot day. It was especially hot inside the shipping container. I had the thermometer within a few feet of the open door and out of the sun but still:

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At least it was a dry heat.

The spray foam insulation guys arrived Monday morning and went to work:

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Their equipment required 50 amps of 240V. That is 12 KW of power. My generator couldn’t supply that so I borrowed my brothers tractor and 30 KW generator:

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While I masked off the electrical stuff they masked off the shelves and lights and put about 1.5 inches of insulation on the ceiling and walls:

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We also insulated the magazine at the Taj Mahal:

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If we put dry ice in with the targets next year they will stay cold much longer this way.

Yes. The door was glued shut. The spray foam guy and I spent about 20 or 30 minutes cutting foam from the critical places so the door would actually be a door again.

Then they helped me move the chemicals and few other things back into Mecca. It took me about another four hours to get everything else back inside. It’s not pretty. It’s not neat. It’s not even functional. But everything that needs to stay dry is back inside:WP_20150803_19_42_32_ProWeb

I took a shower and was driving away from Mecca at 8:04 PM. Home is six hours away and after two stops for naps I put my head on the pillow in my own bed at exactly 3:30 AM Tuesday morning. I was at work the next morning by 9:00 AM.

When I weighed myself after getting out of the shower Tuesday morning I discovered I had lost six pounds over the weekend. For some reason I don’t eat as much as when I’m at home.

I’m sure glad this Boomershoot stuff is fun.

Morning harvest

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On today’s menu;

image

Continue reading →

YA beta-readers needed

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I’m looking for a few guys in the 12-18 age range to be beta-readers for my new book. It’s basically done, but I can always use more input. If you are (or know) a YA male who is looking for a story about a young man doing adventurous things without a lot of angsty naval-gazing or silly romance garbage, but with more independent / libertarian themes than most current offerings, head on over to The Stars Came Back for details.

 

Three-gun match results

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As I said on Sunday I shot in three-gun match as well as the pistol match. I then said:

I haven’t seen the results from that yet but I expect I came in the top three or so. Maybe 2nd.

I was partially wrong:

Place Shooter Division Points Time Hit Factor
1 Joe H. Open (but iron sights) 261 106.93 2.4408
2 Adam M. Limited 214 94.18 2.2722
3 Steve P. Tactical 156 81.21 1.9210
4 Velle K. Limited 251 133.12 1.8855
5 Don W. Tactical 198 116.56 1.6987
6 Roger W. Limited Major 238 147.19 1.6170
7 Jesse W. Tactical 152 123.47 1.2311
8 Terri B. Open 242 281.8 0.7878

I had based my estimate on my time. I knew my hits (points) were good but I didn’t know they were that much better than everyone else.

I was a little annoyed that even though I had iron sights on everything I was put in open division simply because my shotgun had detachable magazines. Other people with scopes on their rifles were not in “Open”. I got the last laugh on that though. Adam had his rifle scope fail. It literally broke with internal components displaced and visible through the ocular lens. He was left with attempting to look under the scope along the barrel as best he could, seeing where his hits were, adjusting, and shooting again. He shot fast but had poor hits.

 

Quote of the day—Amy Schumer

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Unless something is done and done soon, dangerous people will continue to get their hands on guns.

Amy Schumer
August 4, 2015
After ‘Trainwreck’ shooting, Amy and Charles Schumer join for gun control
[She (and long time anti-gun politician Charles Schumer) plan to:

… introduce legislation that would offer incentives to states to share histories of domestic violence and mental problems with the Justice Department, which administers background checks for gun purchasers. It would also fund mental health care.

An first thought one might think this shouldn’t be a problem. But “domestic violence” includes “allegations of unwanted physical contact”. Presumably this includes attempting to physically taking a knife or car keys from the hands of someone threating to commit suicide.

Similarly with “mental problems” can include depression after the loss of family members and well as being the victim of years of domestic abuse. People with no indication of being a threat to others are denied their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

And these bans are for the life of the accused. Some minor incident that happened 50 years ago with no further indication of any problems and these people are unable to legally purchase or own a firearm.

These infringements must not be tolerated.

And that doesn’t even address the fact background checks cannot ever be any more effective than bans on recreational drugs keep high school dropouts from getting high.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gary Patton

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Just too many violent guns.

What makes a gun want to be violent?

Gary Patton
August 4, 2015
Comment to New York Times: Gun control and the GOP candidates
[Nice!–Joe]

Who pays?

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Somebody always pays. ALWAYS. Maybe not now, maybe not in obvious ways with a bill in the mail, but there is always a cost when the government does something. Some spending is reasonable, the cost known, understood, and generally agreed to and agreed upon. We can quibble over particular programs or numbers or actions, but nearly all serious people agree that some government spending is a cost we should bear, and paying taxes for it is the way to get it done.

But virtually nobody in politics at the national level is addressing the big-picture elephant in the room. We have a huge official debt (national, state, municipal), staggering future obligations (SS, other retirement plans, etc), and are running an absurdly large annual federal deficit. Simple mathematics says it cannot continue. That which cannot continue, won’t. Continue reading →

Quote of the day—Graeme Rodgers @graemenrodgers

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@JoeHuffman @gunpolicy Nice try gun nut, luckily it is not up to the small dick association.

Graeme Rodgers @graemenrodgers
Tweeted on July 31, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

USPSA match results

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I shot a match at the Lewiston Pistol Club today for the first time in years. In my squad I shot far better than anyone else but that didn’t hold true when extended to the other two squads. I did place first in the Senior category and I came in 4th out of 22 overall:

LPC Aug 2015 USPSA
8/2/2015
Match Results – Combined
Place Name Member # Class Division PF Lady Mil Law For Match Pts Match %
1 Mcintosh, Adam A42720 M LTD MAJOR N N N N 434.6087 100.000 %
2 Ervin, Dylan A87751 A LTD MAJOR N N N N 410.6277 94.482 %
3 Meredith, Scott A87873 B LTD MAJOR N N N N 398.5651 91.707 %
4 Huffman, Joe TY29386 B LTD MAJOR N N N N 360.0485 82.844 %
5 Stone, Will A89845 D LTD MAJOR N N N N 358.8812 82.576 %
6 Piper, Steve A88114 B LTD MAJOR N N N N 345.5529 79.509 %
7 Stratton, Sean A83500 B LTD MAJOR N N N N 342.5806 78.825 %
8 Wood, Don TY25263 B SS MAJOR N N N N 307.4082 70.732 %
9 Wisniewsk, John   U LTD MINOR N N N N 287.5903 66.172 %
10 Watson, Roger 1(L10) A75534 C L10 MAJOR N N N N 286.1616 65.844 %
11 Moore, Bill TY67422 C LTD MAJOR N N N N 267.5720 61.566 %
12 Humann, Jodi L3876 D PROD MINOR Y N N N 255.6300 58.818 %
13 Watson, Jesse   U LTD MINOR N N N N 248.9564 57.283 %
14 Kolde, Velle 2(LTD) A29239 U LTD MAJOR N N N N 241.0669 55.468 %
15 Wisniewsk Jr, John   U LTD MINOR N N N N 225.5390 51.895 %
16 Watson, Roger 2(REV) A75534 B REV MAJOR N N N N 212.4302 48.878 %
17 Simmons, John FY75133 C LTD MINOR N N N N 198.5667 45.689 %
18 Cogburn, Gene   U OPEN MINOR N N N N 189.1096 43.513 %
19 Mangels, Kim A91015 U LTD MINOR Y N N N 157.5848 36.259 %
20 Binkley, Teri     OPEN MAJOR N N N N 114.5484 26.357 %
21 Stratton, Savanha   U LTD MINOR Y N N N 36.1257 8.312 %
22 Piper, Renee   U LTD MINOR N N N N 27.1287 6.242 %

I probably didn’t get high enough Hit Factor on the Classifier stage to push me back up into the solid B class but since I started shooting with this club back in the mid ‘90s I considered it a win for me if I came in ahead of Don Wood. I accomplished that goal today so I’m pleased.

There was also a three-gun match after the USPSA pistol match. I shot it in as well. I haven’t seen the results from that yet but I expect I came in the top three or so. Maybe 2nd. Some of the other really good shooters had equipment problems. I had one failure to feed with my shotgun but other than that everything ran really well.

It was really nice to visit with people I hadn’t seen in years and catch up on things with everyone.

I should have taken pictures. I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe because it was hot. I know that part of the time I was not feeling well. Drinking another half liter of water seemed to fix that problem so after that I drank a liter or so at each stage of the match. Did I say it was really hot?

Quote of the day—Larry Pratt

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Hillary is so ideological that she seems oblivious to the reality of gun-control politics. She seems doomed to repeat her husband’s political error.

Larry Pratt
Executive director of Gun Owners of America
July 29, 2015
The dark reason why guns are virtually guaranteed to be a major issue of the 2016 campaign
[Every indication I have about Hillary is that she is a hardcore Marxist. And that is almost for certain going to mean individual gun ownership is a blocking issue to her goals.—Joe]