Still at it

I’ve been working on things around the house lately, a part of the “new normal” for my no-so-old retired self.  Some of it has been taking advantage of the rain that came along with Hurricane Matthew.  What has brought so much misery for those down east in my state and in my favorite coastal areas in South Carolina did us considerable good.  It had been rather dry here, and the rain was welcome.  Flooding was pretty much minimal and few trees came down in the winds where the gusts were in the 30-35 MPH neighborhood.  Heck, the power didn’t even flicker.  So I’ve been burning brush while everything is wet.  Today, after this is done, I’m going to be rebuilding the brush piles for another round.

Tonight I hope to finish rebuilding the links on the left side of the blog.  The rest of the week will be devoted to non-Internet pursuits as we prepare for a trip to the mountains.  Rest and recreation is still important, even to the retired.  🙂

In the meantime, I’d like to leave you with something from Ed Head of Gunsite.  In the new normal for those of use who carry a gun, there is something you need to consider, or perhaps I should say reconsider.  I’m not going to be quite as adamant as some are in saying that you must return to a larger pistol.  My position is that it depends on where you live and where you go.  But it is something that you need to seriously consider now, and that you will need to keep revisiting in the future.  The threat isn’t just your local meth head or community-based wealth redistribution worker these days.  In many locations–including places that we wouldn’t have considered targets a year ago–terrorists have struck.  There is some evidence that they are going to be expanding their activities into areas that have not been their traditional target zones.

When you think about it, this is merely terrorists being more effective, modern terrorists.  I’ve long postulated that terrorists were being less effective than they could be in limiting their attacks to large, usually metropolitan venues where they would be guaranteed good media coverage.  That thinking is drastically out of date.  Media is everywhere today.  Nearly everyone has a smart phone and a Facebook account, and how many times have you seen idiots posting videos of events where they should have been busy running instead?

In my opinion, and I think this is the opinion of others far better informed than I, we are going to see an increasing trend of terrorist attacks in smaller, less populated areas.  While I doubt that a town of 1000 people is in danger just yet, one of 10,000 probably will be soon.  One of 500,000 is now, and one of 100,000 will be tomorrow.  Eventually, it will be the truck stop out on the interstate.

We, as people who take responsibility for our own defense and the defense of our families seriously, need to keep our thinking and our training up to date as well.  No, you will still have a hard time in court if you shoot a local community-based wealth redistribution worker at 50 yards.  That won’t change.  But if you find yourself at the local strip mall and the latest terrorist cell of one has decided to go on a stabbing spree on his way to the Aloha Snackbar down at your end of the strip, I doubt even the worst anti-gun prosecutor is going to try and indict you for making a 50 yard shot to the chest to stop him in mid-mini-jihad.

Make sure you’re up to the task.  Friends and I have worked on pistol shots using 12″ x 12″ steel as our targets at 100 yards.  It’s been a while, but at one time we got fairly proficient at it, and we used iron sights and whatever we could find as a brace.  What has been done can be done again, and I suspect most if not all of my readers could learn to do the same.

Besides, when you do it with friends at the range, it’s fun.  So have a little fun and prepare for the worst.  Hopefully you’ll never need the latter.

Edit:  Migraine this afternoon.  Dammit.  I got the Guns and Training sections done, but I’m done in.  More tomorrow.