Great Satan, Inc.

Congratulations to Kevin at Exurban League for not only surviving the extremely challenging 2010 Superstition Mountain Mystery 3 Gun Match, but finishing 19th in the Tactical Iron division. SinistralRifleman has posted a comprehensive video of the stages that you may find interesting.

3Gun Stuff has also posted video of Sunday’s 3-Gun Nation Shootoff.

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Whew!  There’s a slew of shooting events in Arizona this weekend.  I’d need a few clones to make it to all of them.  The ‘plan’ included a road trip to the Big Sandy Shoot outside of Wikieup, AZ.  The Big Sandy Shoot is the biggest machine-gun event in the United States.  Spanning three days, the shoot includes flying targets, tracer rounds, pyrotechnics, and lots of automatic fire.  You can check out the night shooting on YouTube.  R. Lee Ermey featured the Big Sandy Shoot in his Lock ‘N Load television show on The History Channel last week.  Unfortunately, a babysitter couldn’t be found for the puppies, so I’ll have to catch the shoot another time.

Another big event this weekend is the Arizona Game & Fish Department’s Outdoor Expo at Ben Avery Shooting Facility.  The Outdoor Expo is designed to introduce people, young and old, to the numerous outdoor activities we have available in Arizona.  Mz. VRWC was introduced to the various competitive shooting disciplines at this event last year.  She’s been hooked on shooting ever since.

The Dillon Aero demonstration at the 2009 Expo

Arizona’s Game & Fish Department is operated on a “user pay, user benefit” business model and receives no Arizona tax dollars (no tax dollars are used in conducting the Expo either).  AZ Game & Fish is a Government agency that’s awesome to deal with and views the public as current and future customers.

This huge event includes archery, a catch-and-release fishing tank, ATV and offroad vehicles, birds of prey, hunting field courses and education, as well

Cowboy Action Shooting Bay

as a full range of shooting disciplines that visitors can try for essentially the cost of ammo.  You can try your hand at shooting sports such as, the .22 Schoolastic Steel Challenge, rimfire steel, Blackpowder, Cowboy & Cowgirl Action Shooting,  youth .22 and airgun competition, practical pistol, silhouette, and you can try Glock, Ruger, and Smith & Wesson guns too.  I’m sure I’ll spend way too much time there on Sunday.

The other big shooting event this weekend is the Superstition Mountain Mystery 3-Gun match Rio Solado Sportsman’s Club.  This is a huge match with incredibly challenging stages.  Exurban Kevin is working and shooting the match.  You can check out his posts about it here and here, but the photo he posted here on Twitter really tells the story of how challenging stage nine of eleven is.  Cowboy Blob, another gun slinging blogger, was also spotted among the competitors.

If you can’t make it to the three gun match, you’ll be able to watch part of it on Versus, since they were filming the match for their new series, 3 Gun Nation.

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Here’s a juicy post-Health Insurance Company Jackpot bill law (aka Health Care Reform) quote:

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. – P.J. O’Rourke

Judging by the pants-wetting fear expressed today, these legislators forgot to pay protection money to the Chicago “friends” they were sucking up to.

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Here’s a great quote of the day, after the House passed “Health Care Reform (sic)”:

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.  — Frank Herbert

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I found a list of crazy Arizona laws today.  As I tried to verify the existence of these mythical laws, I came across numerous laws that I had been blissfully ignorant about. As a public service to my visitors, I’ll pass along these pearls of legislation, so you don’t end up in jail like Mongo.

Dueling
Dueling in Arizona is an absolute no-no. You might think it was already illegal to have a duel in the street, but Arizona Revised Statute (ARS) 26-114 makes it a crime to promote a duel, be concerned in, connive to have, or even have knowledge of the pending gunfight without notifying “the proper authority”.  A violation of this law is punished as determined by court martial.

Tripping Horses
If you come to visit Arizona, make sure you don’t trip a horse, pony, mule, donkey or hinny. If you do, you could be facing a class 1 misdemeanor under ARS 13-2910-09.

Slaughtering Horses for Food
Arizona’s gastronomical diversity apparently has a wide range. ARS 3-2122 makes it illegal to slaughter horses for public consumption without first obtaining a license. This law also requires that the contact information and purchase data for each buyer of Trigger meat is retained for at least one year.

Gathering Cattle for Tournament or Contest
ARS 3-1301 makes it a Class 2 misdemeanor to use other people’s cattle for amusement or contest, if it’s done without their written permission. How’s a suburbanite going win a state fair ribbon if he can’t appropriate someone’s limosin?  Organized cow tipping is probably out of the question.

Toy Guns
ARS 13-3109 makes it a class 6 felony to give a child a toy pistol, if that toy pistol might discharge “dangerous and explosive substances”. This could probably be twisted to cover cap guns (explosive), Nerf guns, and spud guns. After all, you could put an eye out with that thing.

I’ll post more of these laws as I come across them.  If you hear about someone being arrested for giving a kid a toy gun and having duel with him or her, while eating a horse burger and riding a stolen prize winning Brahma bull, it wasn’t me.  Mongo did it.

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Dear Senator McCain,

My friend, we are friends aren’t we? You’ve used the phrase “my friends” again and again during your recent Presidential campaign. Since we’re friends, I’ll just call you John. Please let me start again, taking our friendship into consideration.

Dear John,

Thank you for your service to our country. I could never truly fathom the depths of hell you went through during your time as a P.O.W. Your story of perseverance in the face of adversity is compelling.

Following your return to civilian life, I’ve had my differences with your positions on quite a few matters. I’ve had my differences with others too, including the New York Times’ assertion that you are the Maverick ™ Senator from Arizona, as well as the belief held by some, that you are uniquely more qualified to make my decisions than I am.

Dear John, as a candidate for President, you refused to run negative ads about your Democratic opponents. Strangely, your campaign staff had no problem running a negative whisper campaign against your own running mate, Governor Sarah Palin. I know I was slow to get in line behind you until Governor Palin was selected, but I was thoroughly flummoxed by a campaign strategy that had your staff trashing your running mate. Perhaps, someday, you can help me understand the brilliance of this strategy.

Strangely, you’ve had no qualms about running attack ads against fellow Republicans. In fact, you’ve run attack ads against Republicans who aren’t even running for office. Just the other day, one of your commercials claimed that local radio personality and former Arizona Representative J.D. Hayworth wasn’t a “real conservative”, while noting how much government overspending occurred under his watch. Unfortunately, that spending was under your watch too, and even larger amounts have been spent after Mr. Hayworth returned to Arizona, while you’ve remained in D.C.

Dear John, while we’re talking about negative campaigns, I see that you’ve developed a set of … radio ads that declare you are leading the fight against a President on a “far left crusade” out to destroy the United States of America. One could assume that this fight would be against; big spending bailouts, damaging reforms done in the name of health care, illegal immigration to insure the safety and job security of Americans, dependence on foreign oil, and a crippling Cap-and-Trade tax scheme to “solve” Global Warming. Unfortunately, these left-of-center positions are actually your Presidential campaign planks, positions you just happen share with President Obama. It is difficult for a mere citizen to see how you could possibly win this fight against your own positions.

Dear John, your stance on border enforcement issues highlights your representation of Arizona. Your prior amnesty based stance included a distasteful belief that those who want effective immigration enforcement reform and detest living with the devastating consequences of a porous, insecure, open border, aren’t as enlightened you are. Your aristocratic view shows just how Maverick ™ you really are. While you’ve lived in Washington, my hometown of Phoenix has become the second most likely place in the world to be kidnapped. I know you don’t want your constituents to appear xenophobic or receive special earmarks recovering the costs of an ineffective Federal border policy, but people are still suffering due to D.C. inaction.

Dear John, you’ve talked about how you were, “elected to change Washington” and “let Washington change” you. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, my friend. You have had over 25 years to change Washington. The “change” thing hasn’t worked out so well. I believe it’s time for you to take a term off from office, relax and spend some quality time in Arizona while you try to undo the changes Washington has made to you. I think a long vacation in Arizona is a change that would do you well.

Respectfully,
An Average Arizona Voter

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Yep, that’s my purple 10/22. She’s a beaut, ain’t she?

This was my first gun, and I’ve loved my Ruger 10/22 from the minute I took it out of the box.  I had no plans to make any modifications to it when I bought it (I figured it was more important to learn how to shoot it first).

My plans changed when we visited the Tactical Solutions booth at the NRA Annual Meeting in May, and I immediately fell in love with their impressive selection of add-ons for the 10/22.  I suddenly found myself becoming very emotionally attached to the idea of turning my modest 10/22 into a purple race gun.  The guys and gals at Tactical Solutions took great care of me, and I ended up ordering a Predator Raptor stock in purple haze, an anodized purple extended magazine release, and an anodized purple threaded barrel.  Why threaded?  Because I plan to do my part to save the environment from the evils of noise pollution by adding a suppressor in the future.

I found out a few days later that the purple raptor stock wouldn’t be in for a few months, and Tactical Solutions was great about letting me cancel that part of the order so I could try to find one in stock somewhere else.  I think we made it up to them by ordering another barrel and mag release in silver for Capitalist Pig’s mother.

DM Firearms came through for me on the purple raptor stock – they didn’t have the purple in stock, so they called the factory, located one, and had it shipped to them so I could pick it up at their location in Phoenix.  Thanks guys, you rock!

So, how does it shoot?

Fantastic! I meant to hit the 5 and 6. No, really, I did. I was trying out a different brand of ammo, and I needed something else to aim at. Anyway, I think the 10/22 is a great rifle, and with the changes we made, it’s an absolute pleasure to shoot.

Update – Thanks to Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell for his post on my Purple Menace, and how it would be classified as an evil assault rifle under Mayor Bloomberg’s lack of common sense gun laws.  I uploaded two new pictures (see below) that include my high-capacity, 30 round magazine and a close-up of the threaded barrel.

Click on the thumbnails for the full image.

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