I was having this discussion with my lovely wife the other night.  I use certain words that aren’t actually in the English language all of the time.  These words are so good, so useful, that they should be, so I’m officially adding them.

ORIENTATE:  Or – Ee- En – tate  Most regular people would just say that they oriented themselves, but I grew up in a Portagee household, so we like to stick extra letters into our words.  i.e.  I need to orientate where the hell I’m at.    EDIT:  As was just pointed out in the comments below, this is actually a real word, appearing in a real dictionary.  Ha!  I can’t wait to tell my wife that I do know what I’m talking about.

FAGGOTRY:  Fag – Ot – Tree  Use this one when you see something that is particularly gay.  i.e.  Ethanol subsidies!  What manner of faggotry is this?   Edit:  Before I get angry e-mails, I’m not even meaning this as gay bashing or anythiing of that nature.  You use this word for things that are so gay that Carson from Queer Eye would look at it and say, “damn, that is some gay stuff, right there.” 

MANGELATE:  Mane- gull – ate   Similar to mangle, but rather than saying that somebody got mangled, you can say that they got mangelated.  I like to use this one whenever I watch somebody get thier ass handed to them in an especially brutal manner.  i.e. Larry Correia mangelates the English Language. 

ASSMUPPET:  Ass – Mup – Et  Somebody who is particularly annoying, stupid, and obnoxious.  Similar to the root word of ASSCLOWN.  I first heard this from Mad Ogre like 7 years ago, and immediatly adopted it into regular conversation.  i.e. Barack Obama is an assmuppet.

It’s fun to make up your own vocabulary.   Most people of Portuguese ancestory tend to do this.  Basically everything that you need to know about Azorean-American grammar can be learned from the following actual sentence.   Throw the cow over the fence some hay.   Please, keep that in mind when you read this blog and see where I totally screwed up.  You guys are lucky that I’m even literate.   

Also, we like to use nouns as verbs.  You don’t sweep the floor.  You broom the floor.  You don’t dig, you shovel.  (also, the shovel is the Portagee martial arts weapon.  The average 300 pound Terceirian dairy-farmer can take down a 2,000 pound Holstein bull with a shovel, and not even lose any of his Copenhagen in the process) 

The remarkable thing is that, despite the fact that my grammar blows, I’m actually paid to write stuff.  Thank goodness for good editors.  I learned more rules of English by having Pax edit my first novel and yell at me for mangelating every rule of grammar, than I ever learned in school. 

So those are your vocabulary words for the day.  Use them to impress people at the appropriate times, like in job interviews. 

We did a CZ group buy a couple of months ago and it was a huge success. I’ve been getting a ton of e-mails from people that missed out, so I’m going to go ahead and do another one.

This is how it is going to work. Look at www.czusa.com Pick out which models you are interested in, and then send me an e-mail at larry@fbmginc.com and I will respond with a quote. The prices will be excellent. Anybody that ordered CZs from me last time knows what I’m talking about. These will be the best prices on CZ that you will find.

This applies to rifles, shotguns, pistols, and Dan Wesson guns too. There was a 5% increase from CZ last month because of the exchange rate, and that did change the price of some of the imported guns. So if I provided you a quote on the last buy, those prices may have changed.

I will be ordering guns continuously during the month. (basically everytime I’ve got 3 long guns or 3 hand guns I don’t have to pay shipping).

Shipping times from CZ to me will vary on gun to gun. Guns that are in stock at CZ will ship quickly. Anything that isn’t in the country may take longer. I can’t really give ETAs. Of the 34 guns ordered on the February CZ group buy, I delivered 25 within a month, then a few over the next month, and I’m still waiting for the last 2 that are on back order. (452 .22 Mag and CZ85 Combat).

Please spread the word and tell your friends.

Edit:  If you’re getting the model off the CZ webpage, please send me the SKU number.  That makes looking up prices a whole lot faster and more specific.

The forums are up and running, and there is a ton of good content over there.  Please feel free to jump in and join the discussion.  www.fbmg.yuku.com

In my last CCW class, I had somebody talk about the famous “Marshall & Sanow One Shot Stop Statistics” and about how this student was going to use a 97% round instead of a 92% round. 

 

Okay, if you aren’t familiar with these, basically these two guys, Marshall & Sanow, supposedly looked at a ton of actual shootings, where people had been shot once in the torso with a bullet, and then they measured what percentage of those resulted in an immediate stop, i.e. immediate cessation of hostile action.

 

Then they published their work, and all bullets were rated.  Immediately, people who were not given to critical thinking, accepted these percentages as gospel, and you could hear people arguing at gunshows and on the interweb about how they’re more tactically saavy because their handgun load was a 94% stopper, while yours was a meager 82% stopper.

 

Over time the flaws in this stuff became apparent, and luckily we don’t have to hear about it as often as we used to.  But it still pops up once in awhile. 

 

Let’s break this down as to why this idea is massively flawed.  First, assuming that their data was not fabricated (because of lot of the shootings weren’t documented by anybody other than them), this wasn’t exactly scientific data.  It wasn’t like they lined up 300 death row prisoners, shot each one in the chest with a different brand of .45 and then watched the clock until they quit kicking.  Supposedly these were incidents from actual gun fights. 

 

And since gun fights by their nature are fluid, dynamic, and always suck, we can also assume that they’re going to be different.  To illustrate:

 

Shooting 1:  Subject is 105 pounds, soaking wet.  Pacifist.  Faints at the sight of his own blood.  His book club calls him “Todd.” Has never been in a violent encounter in his entire life.  Plays Barbara Streisand records to get “charged up”.  Gets shot in the abdomen with a Brand X .32.  Bullet lodges in the belly button.  Barely breaks skin.  Subject faints because of loud noise.  .32 Brand  X = 100% stopper.

 

Shooting 2:  Subject is 310 pounds of prison hardened muscle.  Has a spider web tattooed over his whole face, and his friends call him “Death Train”.  Subject 2 is high on coke, crack, meth, elephant tranquilizers, No-Doze, and Cherry Pepsi.  While robbing a bank during a tri-state killing spree, Subject 2 engages in a running gun fight with police and is shot through the lung with a Brand Y .45.  Subject 2 then carjacks a busload of handicapped nuns to escape.  Later has friend who flunked out of Vet School remove the bullet with a pair of barbeque tongs.  Subject 2 then goes to 50 Cent concert.   Brand Y .45 = 0% stopper.

 

So from this illustration, you are far better off carrying the Brand X .32 than the Brand Y .45. 

 

Now obviously, that is flawed, because of the nature of the subjects.  Death Train and Todd are not equivalent in any way.  Death Train would EAT Todd.  However, they’re both people that got shot in the torso with a single round, therefore they are valid M&S stats. 

 

Then you’ve got people shot in the heart vs. those shot in the gut.  Both bad, but one is usually fatal in a matter of seconds by the basic facts of biology.  However, both are one shot stops.  So if the guy carrying an inferior round, is a better shot, that round gets a better percentage. 

 

And then my personal favorite, they disregard multiple shots.  Because if you shoot the guy twice, then that doesn’t count.  I don’t know about you guys, but anybody worth shooting is worth shooting five to seven times.  I’m not going to shoot the guy once, and then wait around to see what percentile he falls into.  My gun is going to sound like a friggin’ jackhammer until he decides to leave me the hell alone.

 

Once again, before you jump onto any Gun World bandwagon, exercise a little critical thinking.

I’m co-teaching a basic pistol class on May 17th out at Global 1 in Cedar Fort.  I’m doing the lecture portion, that will be spaced throughout the day, and that will cover everything needed for the Utah CCW permit.  (and a good refresher for everybody else).

The rest of the day will be a pistol class.  It will be a long day and we’re catering lunch.  The other instructors are extremely experienced, one longtime military SF instructor and one former Blackwater contractor and me (by FAR the least experienced, but I give a fun lecture). 

$150.  Contact me for details if you’re interested.