Tucson Rifle
Club, Inc.
HC
MONTHLY MATCH SCHEDULES:
1st Saturday - Blackpowder Cartridge Rifle Silhouette
1st Sunday – NRA Hi-Power Rifle Silhouette
2nd Saturday – 1000yd.NBRSA (Light & Heavy) 7AM and Tactical
Multi-gun Night Shoot (1600 hrs).
2nd Sunday - 1000yd Saguaro Benchrest 7AM; Southern Arizona Wildlife
Callers (SAWC) Prairie Dog Silhouette (*) or balloon shoot,
3rd Saturday - TASC
3rd Sunday – CMP John C Garrand Match (
4th Saturday - High Power Rifle-NMC (80 round) & The President's
Practical Tactical Multi-Gun Action Match (afternoon ~1300 winter & 1500
summer)
4th Sunday - IHMSA Small-Bore Pistol Silhouette AND Big-Bore w/Field
Pistol on the same day at
(*) “Even” months only e.g. February, April, June, August,
October, etc.
Anything on a 5th
Weekend are usually special events
so do the smart thing CALL THE RANGE to find out what is going on if you THINK
you are going to have a certain range ALL
to yourself.
·
RANGE
HOURS
Call the Range 822-5189 for information & conformation of match dates and times.
Note: Monthly meetings are held in
different locations.
On the Odd Months the meeting will be held at Diamondback Police Supplies, 170 S Kolb Rd (meeting room) beginning at 6 PM
(1800 hrs) on the Third Wednesday’s.
On the Even Months the meetings will be held at The TIA Executive Terminal 3rd
Wednesday’s also beginning at
§
I urge you to join the NRA & GOA for national representation and
join Brassroots and FACT for State & local government activities and stay
alert to (and help influence) the politics that surround us.
1. Always handle
firearms as if they are loaded and ready to fire.
2. Always point the
muzzle in a safe direction.
(“Safe”
means at something you are willing to destroy OR at something, that can
effectively stop the round)
3. Always keep your
finger straight along the frame until you are on target and ready to fire.
4. Always be sure your
target and what's behind it are safe to shoot.
(know
where your bullets are going to stop)
(Rules for handling guns in the presence of other persons)
1.
Never
accept OR hand a weapon to anyone unless the action is open.
2.
Never
place a weapon anywhere unless the action is open & unloaded.
3.
Never
let the muzzle of any weapon that you control cross anyone's body.
4.
Whenever
you handle a weapon that has been out of your control, verify the condition of
the weapon immediately—action is open & unloaded.
REMINDER – Tucson Rifle Club requires range users to USE an OPEN BOLT INDICATOR (OBI) and they SHALL be installed in every firearm ON the Firing Line of every range during a CEASEFIRE.
Firearm Philosophical Warning –
Once
the bullet leaves the barrel, it has no friends.
Upcoming Events:
§ TRC members – There is an effort afoot to eliminate the need to publish and mail (a significant cost) the newsletter. To this end, our stupendous webmaster has generated a special feature at the TRC website that will allow you to “automagically” have the NL emailed to your email address. Go to:
http://www.tucsonrifleclub.org/TRC_newsletter_subscribe.shtml
and this URL will instruct you on how to perform this miracle of modern communications. This is a good idea because as time goes on more TRC members are becoming internet users and you begin to enjoy the advantages of email and the net.
Junior Program activities: We had eight kids
attending the shooting instruction and practice sessions at the Range. We have a varied selection of rifles some
with modified stocks to fit the diminutive stature of the younger
shooters. The group meets on the Second
Saturday’s and the
We start with a safety and
rifle system class that the kids attend before their introduction to the range
and shooting activities. Learning (the
latest method) the MAT checklist of rifle safety: M – MUZZLE; A
– ACTION; T – TRIGGER
We are always looking for equipment donations and if
anyone has an extra scope, shooting mat or glove the Junior Program would put
them to good use. Just get it to the
Range Office and we’ll add it to our collection.
If your kids (ages 10 to 18) are interested in
participating in the Junior Program, contact the Range and leave your name and
how you can be contacted. May
(And we’re dedicated to getting the Junior shooters to
these matches when they are ready.)
CALL THE RANGE OFFICE @ 822-5189 for any immediate updates
or information that you’ll need to get coordinated with the Junior Program.
MATCH RESULTS:
2003
Tucson Rifle Club was the host for State
High Power Silhouette Rifle Championships held on May 17 and 18, 2003. Temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s
were complimented by high wind and the infamous Tucson Dust Devils which danced
across the range obscuring targets and knocking over targets!
Shooters from surrounding
states including:
Eighty rifles were fielded by fifty five
competitors in this two day event. A bar
BBQ dinner was served Saturday night.
Some two dozen door prizes were awarded to lucky competitors including a
new Ruger rifle, Oehler chronographs, Sierra bullets, Shilen barrel and many
others.
Tucson Rifle Club moved to its present
location in the mid-sixties and is known for hosting the first National High
Power Silhouette Rifle Championships in 1968.
Match
highlights follow
STANDARD RIFLE
High AZ Resident - Jim Feren,
High Master Jim Feren 53x80
High SR Jerry Patton,
High Int Jr Justin Patton,
High Woman Joy Cox 47x80
1st AAA Justin Patton 48x80
1st AA Gabriel Reyes,
1st A Tim Faras Tucson,
AZ 26x80
1st B Art Bernal Jr, Douglas, AZ 30x80
HUNTING RIFLE
High AZ Resident - Jim Beckley,
High Sr Jerry Patton,
High Jr Robert
Moreno,
High Int Jr Justin
Patton,
High Woman Joy Cox,
1st Master Jeff Boyer, Globe, AZ 41x80
1st AAA Ed Pfeiffer, 49x80
1st AA Robert
Herrera,
1st A Filiberto
Portillo,
1st B Hugo Ledesma, Los Angles, CA 20x80
|
1000 Yard Prone Match |
|
|
||
|
Name |
Match 1 |
Match 2 |
Agg. |
% |
|
Allan
Elliott |
198.005 |
195.006 |
393.011 |
0.983 |
|
Justin
Skaret |
192.008 |
198.010 |
390.018 |
0.975 |
|
Bob Jones |
194.003 |
186.004 |
380.007 |
0.950 |
|
Rick Smart |
173.001 |
171.002 |
344.003 |
0.860 |
|
Jim D |
169.003 |
167.003 |
336.006 |
0.840 |
|
Greg
Fallon |
189.004 |
195.003 |
384.007 |
0.960 |
High
Power Rifle Silhouette
|
Cls/Pls |
Name |
Score |
|
AAA/MW |
||
|
AA |
11 |
|
|
AA |
Nic Moreno |
18 |
|
AA/1st |
Andres Wirchaga |
|
|
A |
Vince Lazara |
13 |
|
A |
Milt Hood |
10 |
|
A |
Mike Chapdelain |
18 |
|
A/1st |
21 |
|
|
B/1st |
Ruben Reyes |
9 |
It’s hot out there! But 9 brave shooters competed with light wind
conditions. Congrats to
§
Small-bore Rifle Silhouette
§
No match in May due to HPRS
Championships.
Shooter Group Score
*Denotes Small Group Relay Winner
**Denotes High Score winner
Shooter Score Group
Jim Musegades 18” 50
Don Bennett 22 3/8” 54
Gene Hudspeth 24 7/8” 55
Chris Hudspeth 17 ½”* 54
Mike Chapdelain 35 72
§ Small Group Shoot-Off
#Denotes High Score Winner
18 May
Rifles Used: M1 Rifle – 11; M1903 – 1; M1903A3 – 1;
AR-15 – 5; Mosin-Nagant M-44 – 2; Mauser
K-98 – 1; SKS – 1; NRA Match Rifle - 2
Fourteen competitors purchased .30-06 club ammunition. All others furnished their own ammunition. # Competitors: 24
Match
Results:
1.
Pete Wolf 483-17X
(NRA Match Rifle)
2. Rick Smart 482-19X (AR-15)
3. Dan Rodriguez 478-16X
(AR-15)
4. Bob Pirisky 471-13X
(AR-15)
5. Robert Suomala 461-4X (M1903A3) Match Winner
6. Shawn Hermann 449-3X
(AR-15)
7. Brian Lukow 436-6X (AR-15)
8. Randy Dwornik 423-3X Garand High Score
9. Neal Hogan 409-2X (Garand)
10. Robert Hedin
403-0X (Garand)
11. Joey Laidson 383-1X (NRA Match Rifle)
12. Charles Edington 382-3X (Garand)
13. Ron Mendex 367-0X (Garand)
14. Emil Yerhart 346-1X (Garand)
15. Maury Krupp 340-2X (M1903)
16. Jonathan Deatmond 335-1X (Garand)
17. Mark Trombley 315-0X (Garand)
18. Tom Monahan 307-0X
(Garand)
19. Rusty Hammer 292-0X
(Mosin-Nagant M-44)
20. Greg
Fallon 282-4X (Garand)
(prone only)
21. Ben
White 243-2X (Mosin-Nagant M-44)
22. Dennis
Ragsdale 230-1X (SKS)
23. Christopher
Stillson 176-0X (Garand)
24. Rolly Cooper 121-0X (K-98 Mauser)
Match Course: 80-shot Regional Course. 24 May 2003
Match
Course: 80-shot Regional Course, Service Rifle and NRA Match
Rifle. SR target at
200yd, SR-3 at 300yd, MR-1 at 600yd.
Number of Competitors: 14 (5 NRA, 9 Non-NRA)
Phil Hayes 770-14X Non-NRA Service
Rifle Winner
Tom Albanito 764-18X
Bill Poole 755-12X
Brian Hubbard 735-15X* NRA Service Rifle
Expert Winner
Jim Denovchek 733-10X
John Kuhns 727-12X
Pete Wolf 701-7X*
Bob Pirisky 685-3X*
Dan Rodriguez 673-11X*
Bill Hardy 655-2X
Emil Yerhart 651-4X
John Schmitz 646-8X*
Maury Krupp 625-2X
Randy Dwornik 581-2X
§
You thought only pickups had gun-racks:
Commuters heading for the International Space Station aboard Soyuz
spacecraft will find a work tool they might not expect: a sawed-off shotgun.
The Associated Press reports that nobody leaves home in a Russian
space capsule without a shotgun on board.
Unlike American spacecraft, which plopped in the ocean before
shuttles began landing on runways, Russian craft returned to Earth on
land. In 1965, according to AP, two
cosmonauts overshot their touchdown site by 2,000 miles and found themselves
deep in a forest with hungry wolves.
Nobody was eaten, but since then the Russian space officials have made
sure that every crew was packing heat.
When two Americans and a Russian returned from the ISS aboard a Soyuz
craft in May they landed 300 miles off course in the steppes of
= = = = = = =
·
The Framers of the Constitution didn't establish our freedoms simply by
decreeing them into existence. They didn't issue edicts within the four corners
of that document guaranteeing that Americans would be entitled to a certain
list of freedoms. That prose wouldn't have been worth the parchment it was
written on.
They
invested the federal government with sufficient powers to enable it to perform
its essential functions and reserved the remainder to the states and the
people. But they knew you couldn't achieve liberty through these affirmative
grants (or reservations) of power alone. They also imposed limitations on
governmental power because unchecked governmental power destroys liberty, which
brings us to the doctrines of federalism, separation of power and judicial
activism.
With federalism they divided power between
the federal and state governments. With the separation of powers, they diffused
the power of the federal government among three distinct, but interactive
branches — each checking the others against becoming too powerful. (The Bill of
Rights and other constitutional amendments contain other limitations.)
To preserve our constitutional scheme of
liberties, it is imperative that federalism and the separation of powers be
taken seriously. That means the federal government shouldn't act outside its
express and implied powers. And it means each branch of government must operate
within its own sphere. The legislative makes laws; the executive enforces them;
and the judiciary interprets them.
Each time the federal government usurps
power intended for the states our freedoms erode. Each time one branch assumes
a function of another, our freedoms erode.
One of the primary functions of the federal
judiciary has been to prevent the other two branches from acting beyond their
constitutional authority. It was also intended to prevent federal encroachments
on states' rights, in other words, to honor the federalism doctrine. Only in
recent years has the court begun to resume that important duty.
The judiciary, however, was designed to be a
passive branch, deciding legal disputes (cases and controversies) among people
and interpreting the laws, including the Constitution, not making the laws or
creating new constitutional rights, such as privacy. Judicial activism occurs
when the judiciary makes rather than interprets laws.
So it was wholly proper (and not judicial
activism) for the Supreme Court to bar federal suits by state employees against
their employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act when the 11th
Amendment to the Constitution forbids such suits. It would have been improper
judicial activism for the court to permit such suits just because a majority of
the judges happened to believe it was a desirable policy.
To the liberals, conservative judicial
activism is when the courts refuse to implement liberal policy, even when doing
so would be outside their constitutional authority. It's kind of like the
Soviet communists defining imperialism as the actions of any foreign power
standing in the way of Soviet territorial expansion.
= = = = = = =
In Democracy by
Decree, recently published by Yale University Press,
In The Rule of
Lawyers (
Olson notes that the
twisted argument of the suits would hold match companies responsible for the
actions of arsonists.
The suits, of course,
were not designed to win a legal point, but to bankrupt gun manufacturers, many
of which are small and family owned, with legal fees defending against many
separate lawsuits filed in behalf of many cities. The goal of the lawsuits was
a settlement that would create a five-member politically unaccountable
"commission" to take over the gun industry.
Olson notes the irony
of cities, which routinely sell thousands of used police weapons on the gun
market, fronting for lawsuits against gun manufacturers for selling their wares
to federally licensed dealers. Olson exposes the dishonesty of representing
anti-gun billionaires, such as George Soros, and
billionaire class action lawyers, whose trophy investments include sports
teams, as "underdogs" in their onslaught against small, thinly
financed family-owned gun manufacturers.
Gullible Americans are
not rare. All that is required for a small wealthy
elite to destroy the Second Amendment is a gullible jury and a judge who
permits a class action suit to expropriate the powers of legislators.
Wealthy gun control
fanatics are in the forefront of the powerful lobbies determined to block any
tort reform that would prevent private groups from assuming the powers of
lawmakers. In Guns, Freedom and Terrorism, Wayne LaPierre
describes the attempt underway to destroy the concept of personal
responsibility and to hold innocent third parties liable for criminal acts.
We might think this can
never happen in America, but LaPierre's report in the
May 2003 American Rifleman shows that victims of criminals are now held
responsible for the actions of the criminals who victimized them.
In 1992, two teen-age
males stole three handguns from a gun show. Next, the teen-agers went on a
rampage breaking into cars. Stealing one, they amused themselves by sliding it
into garbage cans. When they lost control and crashed, the person who
approached the car to see if they were injured was shot twice for his
compassion.
A normal person might
think it is clear enough that the teen-agers themselves are responsible for
their crime spree. However, in 1996 an
In 2002, Kristen Rand
of the
It is equally clear
today that criminals are the only beneficiary of gun control laws. In his book LaPierre documents the results of
The British experience
proves beyond any shadow of doubt the truth of the NRA's point: "When guns
are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
= = = = = = =
·
Another
lesson learned the hard way OR Always be careful what
you ask for, you just may get it.
One of
the many headaches that George W. Bush inherited from his predecessor was the
Puerto Rican Island of Vieques. In the waning years
of the
Hillary
Clinton, then running for the U.S. Senate in New York, chastised the U.S. Navy
for not bowing to the "will of the citizens of Puerto Rico," until
her husband, a week before the election, issued an executive order to phase out
the facility by 2003, despite
recommendations to the contrary by his own Secretary of Defense
and the Chief of Naval Operations.
In 2002, the bombing exercises were
transferred to an Air Force bombing range in central
The next day a stunned Governor Sila Calderon, held a news
conference in
When asked, Admiral Robert J. Natter, Commander-in Chief, Western Atlantic Command, said,
"Without Vieques, I see no further need for the
facility at Roosevelt Roads. None."
So, Yanqui go
home? Fine.. But we'll take our dollars with us. Hasta la vista, baby!
... and then, this:
On February
21, the Secretary of Defense announced that starting this year, the U.S.
European Command would begin moving most if not all of its active combat and
support units from bases in Germany to others being established in Poland, the
Czech Republic, Hungary and Turkey to "better position them for rapid
deployment to likely hot spots in those parts of the world".
Immediately the business and government
leaders in the German states of
= = = = = = =
Anatomy of the
Three-Week War
(It was more that we were good rather than they were bad.)
In the aftermath of the incredible three-and-a-half week victory we should not post facto make the mistake of assuming that Operation Iraqi Freedom was necessarily an easy task.
The Soviets
learned that trying to take an Islamic city is not an easy thing and can lead
to thousands of dead and hundreds of lost tanks, planes, and armored vehicles.
More Americans were killed in
A fair historical assessment will soon emerge that attributes our victory not to Iraqi weaknesses per se. Rather it was the American ability on the ground and air in a matter of hours to decapitate the command-and-control apparatus of the Baathist regime that alone allowed bridges, oil wells, power plants, and harbors to be saved, and chemical weapons not to be used.
There were a
number of inherent — indeed deadly — risks in the operation. Much is made of
having few troops on the ground. But a greater worry was the need to deploy
from the rather narrow staging area in
Another problem
was the geography of
The nature of the
population — not quite hostile like the Japanese of 1945, not quite friendly as
the Western Europeans of 1944 — posed even greater challenges. Like
It was almost as if we were trying to exorcise a demon from an innocent zombie host, and thus had to use enough shock to chase out the spirit without damaging the body. That paradox in and of itself meant that a long preliminary bombing campaign was politically impossible — especially with the world's news agencies ensconced in the Palestine Hotel paying bribe money to Baathists for the privilege of sending out slanted and censored news about collateral damage.
How then did we
do it, and do it without the typical
But it would be a
mistake to suggest that the army is somehow passé. Indeed, Iraqi Freedom has done more than anything in recent memory to
enhance the reputation of land forces — 101st and 82nd Airborne, special forces, 3rd Mechanized Infantry — as they organized
an entire front, parachuted in the darkness, fought house-to-house, and rolled
like Patton to
More importantly still, the old idea of separate branches of the military is itself becoming obsolete. It is not just that there are Army, Marine, and Navy pilots or that Seals and Air Force controllers fight on land. Rather there is such instantaneous integration between land, air, and sea forces that it is hard to sort out who is doing what when enemy tanks explode out of nowhere, GPS-guided bombs go into the windows of Baathists, and special — forces hit teams take out generals before they can order counterassaults.
This joint operational approach is similar to the evolution of the heavy classical Greek phalanx into the multifaceted army of Philip II, when hoplites transmogrified into lighter-but-deadlier phalangites, who in turn were enhanced by a symphony of forces — light and heavy cavalry, hypaspists, light infantry, slingers, archers, and missile troops. By allowing a variety of forces (the hammers) to drive enemies into his phalanx (the anvil), Alexander made his spearmen far deadlier than their classical infantry predecessors who had once exercised exclusive control of the battlefield.
But the lethality of the military is not just organizational or a dividend of high-technology. Moral and group cohesion explain more still. The general critique of the 1990s was that we had raised a generation with peroxide hair and tongue rings, general illiterates who lounged at malls, occasionally muttering "like" and "you know" in Sean Penn or Valley Girl cadences. But somehow the military has married the familiarity and dynamism of crass popular culture to 19th-century notions of heroism, self-sacrifice, patriotism, and audacity.
The result is
that the energy of our soldiers arises from the ranks rather than is imposed
from above. What, after all, is the world to make of Marines shooting their way
into Baathist houses with Ray-Bans sunglasses, or
shaggy special forces who look like they are strolling
in
The Arab street may put on shows of goose-stepping suicide bombers, noisy pajama-clad killers, and shrill, masked assassins, but in real battle against gum-chewing American adolescents with sunglasses these street toughs prove to be little more than toy soldiers.
By the same
token, officers talk and act like a mixture of college
professors and professional boxers. Ram-rod straight they
brave fire alongside their troops — seconds later to give brief interviews
about the intricacies of tactics and the psychology of civilian onlookers.
Somehow the military inculcated among its officer corps the truth that
education and learning were not antithetical to risking one's life at the
front; a strange sight was an interview with a young officer offering greetings
to his fellow alumni — of
So besides a new organization and new technologies, there is a new soldier of sorts as well.
Are there any preliminary lessons from the three-week warring from which we can learn?
Helicopters are,
of course, vital for fast-moving airborne operations, but when they go down
with critical special-forces operatives or a half-dozen
soldiers the losses are more than material, but are grievous in a psychological
sense as well. The public can accept soldiers who fall in battle, but are
traumatized when they die in groups of three, four, six, or seven from
mechanical failure rather than enemy fire. We need clearly to invest in a new
generation of transport, stressing good old-fashioned backup systems and
reliability over enhanced speed and high technology. Tankers, transport, and
other logistical craft — what
It is becoming a truism that friendly fire is an inescapable part of modern warfare that can account for almost 20 percent and more of all battlefield fatalities. There is a strange new law emerging: that the degree of high technology needed to ensure almost no losses from enemy action is almost commensurate with increased accidental injury. But like helicopter crashes, friendly fire sends ripples of trauma beyond the actual number of dead and tends to erode morale and support.
War is becoming so fast and so lethal that each hour hundreds of 22-year-olds now hold the lives and deaths of dozens in their thumbs' millisecond decisions to squeeze buttons. Indeed, the quicker and more effective our troops become, the more likely they are to overrun enemy positions, leapfrog over projected objectives, and achieve almost immediate air superiority — thus confusing battle lines and putting them on collision courses with each other.
The
Such unprecedented military power brings with it enormous moral responsibility as the world — its utopians especially — in the decades ahead will vie for a hand in the decisions on how to use it and for what purposes. There quite literally has never been a single nation that has exercised such colossal military force to change almost instantly the status quo, and used it under the auspices of a consensual government to free — Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq — rather than to enslave peoples.
How long it will last, we do not know, but we should at least realize that we are living in one of the most anomalous periods in recorded history.
Sophocles would
warn us that hubris — not enemies in the here and now — is the only real danger
to us on the horizon. But so far we have avoided the gods' nemeses precisely
because our soldiers have put their power in the service of good by toppling
odious despots — Noriega, Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam Hussein — and leaving
the seeds of freedom in their wake. We of an often cynical and ironic society
at the least owe them a commensurate idealism.
At one time in my life, I thought I had a handle
on the meaning of the word "service". The act of doing things
for other people. Then I heard
the terms:
Internal
Revenue Service; Postal Service; Civil Service; Service Stations; Customer
Service; City/County Public Service. And
I became confused about the word "service." This is not what I thought
"service" meant.
Then one day, I overheard two farmers
talking, and one of
them mentioned that he was having a bull service a few of his
cows. It all came into perspective. Now I understand what all those
"service" agencies are doing to us.
§
Speaking of small weapons
…
New York Sen. Chuck
Schumer, when he's not busy issuing gun-control decrees, travels with an armed
bodyguard. What's more, in the wake of the Bush administration's apparent
disconnect with its conservative base over the Feinstein-Schumer Gun-Control Act,
Sen. Frank Lautenberg has vowed to block a Senate bill shielding gun makers and
dealers from lawsuits (another method Leftist gun-confiscators are using to
litigate the Second Amendment into oblivion), planning a filibuster to prevent
the bill from reaching the President's desk. "I will do all I can to
block it," he said. "It is an unconscionable piece of
legislation."
Lautenberg is also proposing a
"Homeland Security Gun Safety Act," creating a national gun registry,
in violation of the Constitution's Second Amendment, arguing, "As our
government confiscates toenail scissors at airports, secures power plants, and
increases domestic surveillance, we're ignoring the most obvious threat that's
out there, and that is the ease in which terrorists can access weapons in
virtually any town across the country." (Lautenberg conveniently
forgets that the most heinous terrorist attack on
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a
day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
Some
people are like Slinkies...not really good for
anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the
stairs.
I read
recipes the same way I read science fiction.
I get to the end and I think, "Well, that's not going to
happen."
·
Health nuts are going to
feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
The
other night I ate at a real family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.
Have you
noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing
UFOs like they used to?
According
to a recent survey, men say the first thing they notice about a woman is their
eyes, and women say the first thing they notice about men is they're a bunch of
liars.
·
Whenever I feel blue, I
start breathing again.
All of
us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
Have
you noticed that a slight tax increase costs you two hundred dollars and a
substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?
In the
60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and
people take Prozac to make it normal.
Politics
is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it
bears a very close resemblance to the first.
There
is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the
Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced
by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which
states that this has already happened.
How is
it, one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to
start a campfire? (And I can't get anything happening in my hibachi without aviation
fuel and a flame thrower)
You
read about all these terrorists--most of them came here legally, but they hung
around on expired visas, some for as long as 10-15 years. Now, compare that to Blockbuster: you're one
day late with a video and those people are all over you. Let's put Blockbuster
in charge of immigration.
·
Drug Problem
I had a drug problem when
I was young.
I was drug to church on
Sunday morning,
I was drug to church for
weddings and funerals.
I was drug to family
reunions no matter the weather.
I was drug to the bus stop
to go to school every weekday.
I was drug by my ears when
disrespectful to adults and teachers.
I was also drug to the
woodshed when I disobeyed my parents.
Those drugs are still in
my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They
are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin, and if today's children had this
kind of drug problem,
Though House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay says "The votes in the House are not there" to renew
the measure, Feinstein and Schumer just introduced a bill in the Senate to
renew the law, and they will press the House for a roll call vote in the
upcoming election year.
Unfortunately, President
Bush has reiterated that he SUPPORTS the gun-ban -- an affront to the
Constitutional right of all law abiding citizens to own semi-automatic sporting
rifles for lawful purposes. Feinstein
and Schumer even applauded President Bush, saying: "We welcome your
support and look forward to working with you to gain swift passage of this
legislation. With your assistance, we
will be able to pass legislation to continue the
ban and help make
"Safer"? For
whom? Such laws claim, ostensibly, to
protect law-abiding citizens. Of course,
only law-abiding citizens comply with these restrictions -- and at their own
peril. Criminals don't care if the
weapon they are using comport with the 23,000 federal, state and local gun
restrictions already on the books.
The Democrat's
"incremental encroachment" on the Second Amendment is a thinly-veiled
strategy to achieve their ultimate goal of gun confiscation, as Ms. Feinstein
made clear after passage of her 1994 legislation: "If I could have gotten
51 votes in the Senate...for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr.
and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it!"
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly
been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it
offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of
rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance,
enable the people to resist and triumph over them." --Justice Joseph Story
appointed to the Supreme Court by James Madison, author of our Constitution.
I’m done for now, thank you for your indulgence and I’ll see you at the Range. Jamesbertrand@msn.com
It with sadness that we at TRC receive news that pistol silhouette competitor and friend of the Club, Tim Cooper has passed away. He succumbed to the aggression of a cranial tumor from which (post surgery) he could not recover. Tim was instrumental in helping collect and maintain our ‘fleet’ of golf carts that are used by the range personnel in their duties of moving around for day-to-day operations. We offer our prayers to those close to Tim and his family. Another very nice man is gone. May he rest in peace.