Bad guns

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In the spirit of this season, Yes, Virginia, there are bad guns. There are good guns.

Here's a pretty good start on the bad ones. I don't agree with all his choices. My list would not include 6, 7 and 9. Here's a good starting point for the best ones.

I have owned a lot of the guns on the best list. Depending on your source for bad ones, I've owned a few there as well.

Dave Petzal is considered by many to be a world authority on firearms. For my money, he's got a LONG way to go to reach the status of Col. Jeff Cooper. But, Petzal lists as Remington 16 gauge as one of his worst guns of all time. This particular Remmy was a converted 12 gauge receiver. Petzal hates it. I had one for a while, traded it for a 16g double barrel and I was (am) happy with both.

Petzal also included a 36-inch barrel bolt-action 12g shotgun as one of the worst of all time. I've seen one, watched someone hunt dove with one and I absolutely agree. Fortunately I have never owned one of those.

As Joe Saxon says, "You pull the trigger and it goes bang. What more do you want?"

Joe will agree with me when I add: "A gun that won't blow up in your hands, works properly and doesn't take a 2x4 and a vise to reload." The last could be negotiable depending on the circumstances.

So with that in mind, lemme tell you my worst and best gun of all time.

WORST

RG10s. I've had 2, both given to me and I overpaid for both. This wheelgun shoots .22 shorts ONLY and the cylinder will line up properly with the barrel sometimes. The back blast is truly impressive when someone else is shooting one. If you are shooting it, the back blast is beyond impressive. Wear safety glasses, ear plugs, gloves, an asbestos shirt and still try to talk to someone else into shooting it while you watch from a safe distance a few counties away.

It shoots shorts but the noise is incredible. What it lacks in accuracy it makes up for in trigger pull. When your trigger finger needs a workout, get an RG10s and dry fire it. That 35-pound trigger pull will even work your abdomen.

Some people say the "Saturday Night Special" is the Raven .25 acp. Not so. The Raven is a dependable little autoloader. Do not blame the gun for the puniness of the round.

If any gun ever deserved the moniker "Saturday Night Special" it is the RG10s.

Bizarrely enough, this gun was made in Germany, a country known for the quality of it's engineering. I think it's Germany's revenge for what we did to 'em in WWI and WWII.

BEST

Mossberg 500. Someone will argue this place should be occupied by the Remington 870. Go write your own column after you read this.

I've also had 2 Mossbergs, one of which I traded. I traded because the recipient in this trade needed a 500 in his gun safe.

The 500 straight from the factory can sport a barrel of 18 to 36 inches with removable chokes. The receiver can be mounted for a scope or you can get a cantilevered barrel for the scope (get this the cantilever). You can get wood or synthetic furniture. Customizing is only limited by your imagination.

You can load everything from mouse-hunting to ammo that I'd hunt Dangerous Game with.

It's a pump, the most reliable repeating shotgun you can buy. For my money Ithaca perfected the pump with the older model 37s. But the Ithaca is not as customizable.

The 500 and the 870 are the most customizable guns on the planet. The reason I put the 500 above the 870 is black powder. Yes, the 500 now has a .50 black powder barrel which means the 500 is now a truly all-season, all use firearm.

You may have a gun which you say is the best. But unless you've actually hefted and tried to a shoot the RG10s, I suggest you don't have a worse one.

Free speech and forcing the government

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The First Amendment, free speech, includes the right to keep your damfool mouf shut. It also prevents government (not private business) from making you keep your damfool mouf shut.

Clear enough.

But. Can a private citizen force the government to say something?

You may now state, "Say what, Baker?"

At issue are vanity license plates. These are vehicle tags that sometimes have witting statements. My taxidermist has one "Strap1On." I'll let you wonder what he means by that.

Governments have long denied and approved various vanity license plates. Profanity is routinely shot down. Vulgarity, well, standards vary. How about offensive?

Offensive to whom? Why? How?

SCOTUS is taking this one up. At issue is a Confederate License Plate too offensive? In Georgia, it;s not. You can buy a license plate with a Sons of Confederate Veterans emblem. The Sons are a non-racial group, even yankees welcome, which supports Southern Heritage.

The right to be offended clobbers the right to not be offended, as it should be.

However, this case does not turn on offense. It is a very real question of how much can we force government to say. A license plate, issued by the government, is a statement by government. Can private citizens force government to say anything?

Look at this another way. Government is supposed to be by, for and of ALL of us. Government is supposed to be us. You. Me. The guy behind you who just ducked around the corner so you can't see him when you look back. Racists. Right to Life and Right to Choose. Atheists. Deists. Anarchists. Socialists. Even your weird cousin.

In a sense, when government says something, we all say it.

So, can one person force government to say something? Can one person force the rest of us to say something? Can the rest of us tell that one person to shut up and make that stick? Do we have to listen to him? Does he have to listen to us?

I say let 'er rip. When one voice is silenced, we are all diminished.

Getting my attention

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As a newspaper editor, I am wanted. Admittedly a lot of people want to get ahold of me to strangle me, but some people want me because they believe I can get them free publicity.

My spam folders fill every day with requests for free PR. Increasingly less common is snail mail requests. Most of these go to File 13 unopened and unread. Every now and then, one merits opening.

It is always MORE than just a standard envelope with a few pages shoved inside. It's ALWAYS thick, many times a box and often oddly shaped.

The best one EVER was more than 20 years ago when a fish finder company introduced an truly new underwater fish sonar. It was called SideFinder and this one look to the SIDE of the boat instead of straight down. The PR campaign was a week long. Each day I got a box. Inside was a fortune cookie. I opened the cookie for a cryptic message. The final delivery was the PR package explaining the previous fortune cookies.

A very expensive PR campaign, but if I remember it 20+ years later, it shows how effective it was.

Crost my desk today is a stuffed envelope from a company called DipDip.com . I was expecting something comestible when I opened it.

Nope. I got Egg-Shaped Mini Christma stickers, DipDip Christmas Stickers and DipDip Magic Poker.

I call BS on No. 3. If you want to see REAL magic poker, attend one of the Isabella Poker Club meetings and watch how fast your wallet mysteriously empties. Happens to me every. single. time.

Anyway, goal achieved. They got free PR for their creative attempt to get my attention. You have the website. Go ye forth to learn more if you want to. It's something to do with education. Me? I've learned enough about the company. I'm gonna give the stickers to a child and slide the cards into my next hand at the Isabella Poker Club meeting.

Ain't not never done gonna agree on where this be at

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Ok, so this title is a bit over the top, even for me.

My point is about grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax (as opposed to sin tax HAR!) and all the other rules which make up verbal communication.


I'm pretty flexible, in case you've not noticed, about the rules of English.

I have long said and believed the point of communication is to get an idea across. If the intended audience fully understands the idea on the first attempt, communication wins! If the audience doesn't get it, then communication is a failure. More specifically, the person trying to express an idea has failed.

If you are not the intended audience for the idea, it doesn't matter if you get it or not. In some cases, you being unable to understand is actually intended. Think cypher and secret codes.

My writing cohorts out there regularly throw fits over what they see as incorrect use of the language.

Why? More importantly, why is it wrong? See above regarding a successful attempt at communication.

Who put YOU in charge of the language?


At the same time, I admit to seeing the use of "your" when the word should be "you're" as jolting. If you are attempting communication with me and you use the pronoun wrong, then you have failed. I have to back up and re-read. This annoys me because you have wasted my time, not because you have twisted the language to suit your own purposes. Do it often enough and I will tune you out completely.

I dangle prepositions. I mix metaphors. I split infinitives. I use "ain't." I will even use a triple negative from time to time: "ain't not never." I deliberately twist the English language for effects. I have my own ways of spelling some words. Yassee, yer ways ain't mine. I refuse to be constrained by a set of arbitrary rules created by people who are not a part of my world.

I'm gonna write and talk the way I want to. If this' here be bothering you, then lemme introduce you to this thing we in the South call a door. Open. Step through. Close.

If you understand, on the first attempt, what I am saying/writing/communicating, SUCCESS! If you don't then:
1) I failed.

2) I didn't intend it for you.

Most of the time, pick option 2.

Always pick option 2 if you object to where I'm at.

Typos, OTOH, drive me beyond around the bend. GAH!