So yesterday we’re working at the gunshop when a couple of gentlemen come into the shop, wanting to buy some blackpowder.  I tell them that we don’t sell reloading supplies (yet).  I then start telling them where they can get some locally, or the best places to buy it online.

They say that they’re going to need hundreds of pounds of it, and they need it today.  I tell them that most places don’t stock that much on hand, and I then asked what they were doing. 

Well… it turns out that they just built a cannon.  It had a 2″ bore.  They told me that they were going to go shoot it today, and that since they needed 1/2 pound of blackpowder, PER SHOT, that it would add up pretty quick.

You know that sound that a record makes when it skips.  Yeah, I heard that noise in my brain.

“1/2 pound, per shot?”

“Yeah, that’s what somebody told us.” 

“Are you sure you’re not mixing up pounds and ounces?  Or maybe some other unit of measurement?”

“Nope.  This guy we saw at the range told us that’s what he loads his with.”

Okay, let me break this down for the non-physicists in the audience.  That’s enough powder to blow their cannon, and whoever’s setting it off, into smoking fragments of steel and meat.  I suggest that their measurement might be mistaken.  But nope, that’s what some guy at the range told them, so that’s what they were going to do.  Today.  As soon as they found some powder.

By the way, they ask, since they just built this thing, is it legal to have?  See, they weren’t really sure.

Well, I don’t know.  It’s a blackpowder cannon, so I knew they were different than modern Destructive Devices. So I get PvtPyle, because he’s the NFA expert.  They say that they’re not worried about it, because though they have it, they haven’t shot it yet, so just like a homemade machine gun, you can have it, just don’t shoot it.  (which by the way, isn’t how it works, at all, in fact mere possession of an unregistered machine gun or destructive device = a mandatory 10 years in prison). 

So not only had these guys home constructed a weapon that they weren’t even sure was legal, and they were about to load it with enough powder to kill them all, one of my regular customers started asking them about their design.  This regular customer actually knows about cannons. 

Apparently their design was backwards, and dangerous too.  The point that was susceptible to the highest pressures was made of the weakest materials. The Regular then pointed out that they would need to clear the barrel of residue after each shot, and they were like “Really?  We didn’t know that.”  Because you know, not blowing yourself up while you’re trying to load volitile explosives down a hot sparky bore is not really worthy of any forethought.

So PvtPyle gave them a breakdown of how destructive device laws work, and also pointed out what some of the grain weights were for various cannons.  I’m not really sure if any of this sank in at all. Partially because I’m pretty sure they had all been drinking.   Because nothing mixes with homemade, overloaded, ill-designed, questionably legal cannons, better than some Thunderbird.

They left, promising that they would actually do a little bit of research before shooting it. 

Wow.  Just… wow. 

I’ve got a bunch of comments in the last couple of days about patches.  I’ve got MHI patches here, ready to go.  I think I’ve got about 40 of them.

Paypal me at slg2qcorreia AT yahoo.com or mail a check to:

Larry Correia

48 E. 13200 S.

Draper, UT 84020

Patches are $4 each.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/news/stories/2008/04/03/turner_0404.html

Ted turner says the following: 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow,” Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday. “Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals,” said Turner, 69. “Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable.”

Oh yeah.  If we have to turn to cannabalism, I’m down with that.  I’m going to eat Vegans.  Think about it, they’re going to be all grain-fed and soft.  No artificial sweeteners or preservatives, no nicotine, they won’t be all gamey.  Ahh yeah.

Plus, Vegans, 99.98% of them being Liberals, will also be unarmed, and easily captured and eaten after the Global Warming Apocolypse (hereafter reffered to as the GWA).  Think about it. They’re like a herd animal anyway…

The GWA may seem like a laughing matter now, but we’ll see who’s laughing when you find yourself dangling from a bungee cord, having a chainsaw duel against a retarded guy with a bucket on his head, for my amusement, in my THUNDERDOME!  BWA HA HA HA HA! “Two men enter!  One man leaves!”  Sorry, got a little ahead of myself.  Some of us are just itching for the GWA. 

Actually, I’m still waiting to start farming Greenland.  Like the Vikings did.  In recent recorded history.  Oh, wait… yeah, that doesn’t fit the agenda.  Never mind. 

“We’re too many people; that’s why we have global warming,” he said. “Too many people are using too much stuff.” Turner suggested that “on a voluntary basis, everybody in the world’s got to pledge to themselves that one or two children is it.” – Says the man with like 9 kids, who commutes to work in a private jet, and who’s ‘scenic’ property could grow like enough corn to feed 10,000 tasty Vegans.

Turner went on to say that military budgets need to be cut “way back.” “Right now, the U.S. is spending $500 billion a year on the military, which is more than all 190 countries in the world put together,” he said. “The two countries that the military industrial complex and some of our politicians would like to demonize and make enemies are Russia and China,” Turner said. “China just wants to sell us shoes. They’re not building landing craft to attack the United States, and Russia wants to be our friends, too.”

I really wish that I could be a Liberal.  Then I could live in a happy fairytale world of fluffy bunnies and hugs and rainbows.  If old Ted’s so damned worried about overpopulation, then he should be encouraging us to go to war more often.  Nothing trims the herd like good old fashioned war, and nobody does it better than us.  (brought to you by the Military Industrial Complex and Black Helicopter Society).  Sadly, my brain, as it is configured now, won’t allow me to be a Liberal.  I’ve thought about taking up Paint Huffing as a hobby, because then, people like Ted Turner would probably make more sense.

Ted on Irag: “We’re being beaten by insurgents who don’t even have any tanks, they don’t have a headquarters, they don’t have a Pentagon, we don’t even know if they have any generals,” Turner told Rose. Turner called the Iraqi insurgents “patriots” who “don’t like us because we invaded their country and occupied it. Nobody likes to be invaded.”

When the GWA occurs, we’re eating Ted first.  Despite him being all stringy, bony, and flavored with Liberal angst, that man just deserves to be a cannibal feast.  Well, maybe not feast, but I bet if we used him as the base for a stew, he wouldn’t be too bad. 

Considering that most of the insurgents we’re currently killing en masse aren’t even from Iraq, but are from bordering countries, and most of the Iraqi people want us there (and Ted Turner’s polls can bite me, because I’m going to take the word of the couple hundred people I know who have actually been there, as opposed to Nancy “don’t you dare give us good news” Pelosi), I’m gonna say that he’s way off base here.

Yep, those patriots sure are doing good without their evil military-industrial complex (gonna look the other way on Iran I suppose), that we don’t need tanks and planes to defend ourselves.  That’s why we’ve got a kill ratio against the insurgents of like 100 to 1, because you know, that’s the ratio we want to be on the losing side of should our good friends, the innocent shoe-makers of China, ever decide to get uppity. 

I think I’ve got Ted figured out though.  Since the world’s overpopulated, then he’s got to root for the psychotic fanatics who’s hobbies are sawing the excess population’s heads off.  Since Americans are too lazy to randomly saw people’s heads off, that leaves him with rooting for the terrorists, but his ace in the hole is to root for the communists, because nobody, and I mean nobody, kills people in bulk like those guys. 

So Ted Turner, Sir, I have to say, in all honesty, that you are the biggest moron I’m aware of.  Thank you for being you, for you have certainly brightened my day.  Now if you will excuse me, I have to check on my food storage and ammo supply. 

Back in stock at Amazon today, and with a discount (for some reason) though I’ll still steer you toward Uncle Hugos just because he’s independant.  I believe he’s got some in stock. That’s like somebody referring someone to Sportsman’s Wharehouse instead of FBMG, if you know what I mean.  Sometimes the big stores have more stuff, but us little guys are way the hell cooler.

Copies of the 1st edition are still being printed, as I haven’t actually signed the contract yet. 

MHI:2 is coming along nicely.  I think you guys will like it. 

Found this on Gun Free Zone:  http://gunfreezone.net/wordpress/?p=30 (which I found because the author read MHI, and posted a positive review, man, I need to update my blog roll!)

Basically, Oklahoma legislators decided that their college students, even the ones that are veterans, are too stupid to carry guns on campus. 

Allow me to pick on one line of the article:

University of Oklahoma President David Boren had argued the bill would hurt recruitment of students and faculty. It also would pose a dilemma for police trying to determine whether a person wielding a weapon was a “deranged gunman or someone who thinks he is doing good vigilante work.”

This is priceless stuff here.  Because not only are Oklahoma’s students too dumb to carry guns, their cops are too dumb to assess a dynamic situation.  See, apparently it is better for a gunman to come in, and shoot everybody, than to have somebody shoot the gunman, and then have the good guy get accidently plugged by the responding officers.  Well, Mr. Boren, you dumb son of a bitch, if I’m about to get murdered by a crazed gunman, getting shot by the responding officers is a concern that I’ll address later. 

Let me break it down for the really dumb readers (like state legislators), if I’m about to get murdered, I would much rather take the asshole doing the murdering with me and get shot by the cops afterward.  Either way, I’m dead, but at least I get to accomplish something useful in the process.  (accomplishing something useful, yet another concept alien to politicians)

Idiot politicians like this are the reason that I started teaching CCW for free to college students and anyone that works at a Utah school.  See, here in Utah, we can carry guns in school.  It was a huge battle to get, but we won, the anti-gun forces lost.  In the process I testified before the state legislature on this issue, and that experience, and listening to worst-case scenario logic like the above, pissed me off so badly that I basically said “screw it” and started spending my own time and money to get more guns in school.

So far, I figure that I’ve personally waived over $10,000 worth of instructional fees in the last year.  And I plan on continuing to do this indefinately.  Because it’s worth ten K of lost income to tick off politicians.

I keep trying to get the word out about that, but in the last year I’ve got taught about 250 college students for their CCWs for free.  This doesn’t count educators or employees of schools.  Hell, I don’t care if you’re the janitor, I’ll teach you for free.  I also teach military (active, reserve, or guard) for free too, but that’s just personal. 

So if you’re in Utah, spread the word.  Your class is on FBMG. I want as many guns in school as possible.  I want the next psycho that attempts to shoot up a school in Utah to get Swiss-cheesed. 

And if you work at one of my kid’s schools, I’ll get you friggin’ SWAT training…

If your local politicians tell you that your students and faculty are too stupid to prevent another Virginia Tech or Columbine, ask them sincerely why Utah loves it’s children more than your state does.