Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Self-Defense Rights; Commonsense “Carry”

When people talk of “open carry,” “concealed carry” and “Constitutional carry,” they almost universally refer to the bearing of FIREarms for self-defense, and yes, firearms can be an important aspect of affirmative self-defense. But this post is limited to a very short take on another self-defense tool that is often neglected: knives.

Within 10 feet (or more; many LEO trainers cite a “21-foot rule” for knives as being the range at which a knife user could close to cause significant damage to someone who has still yet to bring his firearm to bear), a knife can potentially be more effective than a firearm.

Knives are really scary to many people, for one thing. And even folks who have no fear of knives and are skilled in their many, many uses know how devastating a knife wound can be. Seriously.

So, carrying at least one knife may actually be a fairly decent self-defense preparation, provided one learns how to use it for that purpose.1

But knives are so much more useful than that. Anyone who does not regularly carry at least one knife on their person is walking around unprepared for life in general, IMO.

But a knife? One simply Will Not Do. *heh*

Seriously, different knives have different “best uses,” and I find that I use three or four of the knives I regularly carry at least once daily. And then there are my “car and EDC bag knives. . . ”

I do appreciate that State laws in my locale are moderately unobtrusive. For example, open carry of knives (belt knives) is not forbidden, and no length limit on open carry knives exists in statute. Unfortunately, State laws here are not preemptive in the case of knives and firearms, allowing local ordinances to (illegitimately) modify one’s natural rights, AND are actually MORE restrictive concerning “concealed knives” than re: concealed forearms (*shrugs* Makes no sense to me), but fortunately, America’s Third World County™ is very “knife (and firearm) friendly.” The only problems that seem to arise are with in-movers, some of whom are surprised (and even fewer disturbed) by the open carry of knives and firearms.

Of course, some of the more recent in-movers are local “new hire” LEOs, and their learning curve is a bit steep. *sigh* Ah, well, live and learn or don’t live long, as Lazarus Long was wont to say. *heh*

1Here’s a decent start for those who would appreciate an “old school book larnin'” take on self-defense with knives. Instructional videos of widely varying quality abound on the Internet, and classes are available in various locales around the country, too.

Hank Reinhart’s Book of Knives

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Don’t quit your day job

Note to aspiring writers: at least learn to write halfway sensible sentences before considering a career change, mmmK? For example, the writer of this lil gem among others in just the first few paragraphs of his “magnum opus,” needs to go back to Remedial English for a refresher:

“His secrets come under threat when he starts receiving anonymous messages.” Please complete that thought. Or. . . perhaps it’s better left incomplete and the rest of the book unread. Yeh, that’s the ticket.

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English. Learn Some.

Building an AR-15 Under 5 Pounds

Nice article, and reads like a nice build. I do lack a bit of confidence in their math, though, given that the build they were comparing to was 5lb5oz and ~$3,500 while the 4lb13oz build was “slightly more than $1,800, nearly half the price of the carbine in the article that spawned this exercise.”

“[N]early half the price”? No, slightly MORE than half the price. “Nearly” implies “almost” or “not quite,” and $1,800 is more than half of $3,500.

Numbers. Language. Not strong suits for this writer.

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Understanding “Gender”

To properly understand the many different fantasy “genders” that have come about in recent years, a trip down etymology lane might be helpful:

“gender (n.)
c. 1300, “kind, sort, class, a class or kind of persons or things sharing certain traits,” from Old French gendre, genre “kind, species; character; gender” (12c., Modern French genre), from stem of Latin genus (genitive generis) “race, stock, family; kind, rank, order; species,” also “(male or female) sex,” from PIE root *gene- “give birth, beget,” with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups. ”

When speaking of _mankind_**, then, one can speak now of three specific “genders”:

male
female
batsh*t crazy.

The last class is the catch-all for all the delusional folks who are in denial of reality and claim to be some weird fantasy “gender.”
___________________________

**”mankind” here is a poke in the eye to snowflake “batsh*t crazies”

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The Reasons I Do Not Carry a Handgun

Sure, I have the right to carry openly or concealed (and I have), but there are several reasons why I do not normally, habitually, carry a handgun on my person.

I’m gettin’ old, folks. Arthritis and difficulty quickly transitioning between near and far make sighting/aiming and firing a handgun an exercise in “maybe accuracy,” and that’s just not good enough to assure NOT hitting what I do not want to.

I also live in one of the safest places in the world, safer from physical attacks on my person than almost anywhere else in America that has people in it. *heh* That means that others around me are also pretty darned unlikely to experience physical aggression initiated against them (by anyone other than law enFARCEment ossifers, that is).

Sidebar: perhaps one of the reasons it’s so safe here in America’s Third World County™ is that firearms of all kinds outnumber inhabitants by quite a healthy margin, and many folks do carry a handgun both openly and concealed. Gives me warm fuzzies. 🙂

The only reason I might carry a handgun, given my circumstances, would be if I were to go out walking in “snake country” or “feral pig country,” and in that case, I’d probably need to carry a S&W Governor loaded in alternate chambers with .410 gauge shotshells and .45 long colt (each for a different contingency). The .410 (loaded with birdshot, for snake use) would pretty much obviate concerns about really fine aiming, though I’d just have to hope for decent enough luck if a feral pig got his mad on.

Still, even in such cases, I’d probably prefer to keep my head on a swivel and note issues well enough in advance to back away from a venomous snake or take to a tree in case of a feral pig.

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Racing Pell–Mell Toward Harrison Bergeron’s World. . .

Bedtime Stories Help Kids—So Ban Them?

Yeh, this sort of thing pops up in the Every Child Left Behind bunch every now and then. Key bots from the article:

“Evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t—the difference in their life chances—is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t. . .

“This devilish twist of evidence surely leads to a further conclusion that perhaps—in the interests of leveling the playing field—bedtime stories should also be restricted. . . ”

And,

“I don’t think that parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children. . . ” but he does think that, from what is presented.

[N.B. The quoted material isn’t from the writer of the article at Intellectual Takeout but quoted from the article she references, Is having a loving family an unfair advantage?, a 2015 ABC, Australia, article..]

Yes, there really are people who seem to think that parents should be less loving and offer fewer opportunities for bonding and for intellectual stimulation to their children, because. . . reasons (that are inhuman and unimaginable by anyone who does very rightly care for their children).

Screw ’em with a rusty chainsaw. Do the right thing instead of listening to such monsters.

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Gibberish, Gobbledegook, and Glop

Economics. *sigh* Just another field that HAS to use words in idiosyncratic ways in order to attempt to make its jargon less acceptable to the hoi polloi. Example: in common speech “rival” and “competitor” are synonyms. In Economics, however, a good (yeh, another one, but with strong etymological roots) is rival if its use or consumption by one party denies another party its use or consumption.

Fugetaboutit.

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Tell Me About It. . .

. . . No, don’t. Really.

In another forum, after I had used “sic” correctly in quoting a text with an error, some lame brain just HAD to chime and tell me what it meant. . . while demonstrating they had not read the linked article from which the text was quoted AND saying incorrectly that the error I noted was a misspelling, when it was a correctly spelled word that was misused.

Well, the commenter learned a lesson, yeah, and hopefully two.

#gagamaggot

1. Never try to instruct someone on words when you don’t know what you are talking about. Instead, ask and learn. Or at least get a dictionary and learn how to use it. *duh*
2. If the quoted material that is from a larger text that’s available to you, READ THE LARGER TEXT before making a fool of yourself. If you then want to go ahead and make a fool of yourself anyway, be prepared to be “schooled.”