Private Mars Rocket II

Guns, Fictional

One of the writers I follow, Tanya Huff, recently released a new book A Peace Divided. It's pseudo Mil-SF, in that the lead characters are ex-military who serve as a SWAT team for the interstellar police. It's an entertaining read.

However, in Huff's fictional world, civilians are completely disarmed. I've had issues with that before, in that a society that can repair toasters can make guns. Here, she's gone to even more extremes - her ex-military types literally do not have the word "pistol" in their vocabulary! All guns are long guns. I like the story, but this I don't buy.

Guns, Real

Readers of this blog know that I recently purchased a Ruger LCR. This "light carry revolver" is, as advertised, light. With full-power .38 ammunition, it's frankly painful to shoot. At my dad's recommendation, I purchased some Hornady Critical Defense bullets. These have lighter recoil and are designed for light carry guns. I shot some last night. My LCR still bounces, but it's gone from painful to unpleasant.

I discussed this on Facebook but not here, so I'll do a bit of recycling. Over Thanksgiving, I bought a Ruger LCR pistol. The "LCR" stands for "Light Carry Revolver" and it is exactly what the label promises, a light revolver. It's aluminum frame and I got the hammerless version, so it will fit neatly in and come out of a pocket.

Over the Christmas Holiday That Was I took it out to the local range and fired it. The gun does in fact go bang and it's as accurate as any weapon with a 2 inch barrel has a right to be. 90% of self-defense shooting is inside 25 feet, and at that range any misses will be due to operator error, not the gun.

I will say it's not a pleasant gun to shoot. Recoil, even with standard target loads, is unpleasant, and I shot a few +P hollow-point rounds through the weapon (Article on what +P means). That really caused the gun to bite back! Having said that, I bought this gun as a "use in case of emergency" weapon, and for the limited amount of practice-firing I do I can handle the recoil.

In short, a useful addition to my collection.

In order not to be "all Trump, all the time" herewith are three links of interest.

A) Via the fascinating show Air Disasters I got the full story on Helios Airways Flight 522. This is the flight where, due to a cabin pressurization failure, all passengers and crew were killed. Of especial note is that one of the flight attendants attempted to save the plane but waited an extremely long amount of time before doing so.

B) Actor Mike Rowe, who's made a name for himself as the star of TV's Dirty Jobs reality show, has interesting thoughts on who should or should not vote.

C) I have to admit a personal preference for revolvers. Having said that, I found this article recommending that the USAF use revolvers as their service pistol interesting.

Long-time readers know I own guns, and am in general interested in their use for defensive purposes. I am also interested in keeping guns out of the hands of crooks and crazy people, but that's another post. In any event, here's three thoughts on gun ownership.

Thought #1

Just because some stranger is in your house doesn't mean you can shoot them. The author, a long-serving police officer, recounts a number of cases of finding drunks, Alzheimer's patients or "several unknown young men drinking the beer in his fridge. His college-aged son thought dad would be away on vacation another day and had given his buddies keys to the house so they could use it for a party spot."

Thought #2

Sometimes life is out of your control. The author walked out of the shower with nothing but a towel to find two strange women in her house. They were teachers, let in (against specific instructions) by the homeowner's then 4-year-old son. Another moral: "This goes to illustrate that if you are weighing the safety of yourself or your family on the understanding and application of instruction on a young child you are making a gamble with your life and the lives of your family members."


Thought #3

Clear communication in high-stress situations is important. Think about what you're going to say and do before you have to say and do it.

I'm on vacation, not in a coma, so I do have thoughts. Herewith are a few:

1) Comes news that a woman in Texas who made at least a side job of being armed and talking about it got shot in the back by her 4-year-old with her own gun. (Google it if you need to.) Here is Land Gerrib, 4-year-olds and guns do not mix, full stop.

2) Hilton Head Island is pretty. It's also nuts to drive in. Whomever laid out the roads has a near-vampiric allergy to right angles, and they don't believe in streetlights, even at major intersections. Add to that the local signage laws are "small and discreet" and that 90% of what you're looking for is in a shopping mall, finding stuff is Right Hard. (as opposed to Left hard, or whatever.)

3) I am not good at just "hanging out." I had a 30-minute argument with myself before I gave myself permission to do what most people do on vacation, namely hang out at the pool and read a book. I've also rode a bike up and down the beach, done some editing, caught a movie and relaxed.

I had a nice Thanksgiving downstate, and hope your holiday (if you celebrate) was equally nice. The chief crisis of Thursday was that my key lime pie had not quite set, so got a bit runny after a lack of refrigeration. Next time, I'll need to test it before calling it done.

Friday was rainy, windy and cold, and so we spent the day inside, helping Mom with Christmas decorations and in my case doing some writing. On Saturday, which was sprinkling, windy and cold, we decided to leave the house. First, Dad and I went to Cayuga, IN to shoot skeet. There were eight people in the clubhouse, but only three of them were motivated to shoot.

Then, in the afternoon, Dad and I visited the Fluid Event Center, which is a grandly-named ex-warehouse, to visit a gun show. Dad was looking for a holster, and I was just looking. He found what he wanted, and I got to hold a KSG - Keltec shotgun. This is a futuristic weapon (enough so that I used it as the standard police shotgun in a novel). It's a downward-ejecting bullpup shotgun with two six-round magazines. The weapon, even unloaded, is quite heavy, but very short. Should one want or need a real "crowd-pleasing" shotgun, consider the KSG.

On Sunday, I came back up north, and caught a 4 PM showing of the latest movie in the Hunger Games series. The theater was reasonably full, suggesting that the movie is doing financially well. I concur with Anne Geyer - the movie did the ending better. Overall, I had a nice weekend, and now I'm back to the salt mines.

One of the things about writing science fiction is that it's really very difficult to not write about politics. Politics, simply put, defines what much of we do and how we do it. In nations with authoritarian regimes, avoiding interaction with the police is highly desirable, difficult and something everybody does. In nations with weak court systems, avoiding being cheated in business dealings is difficult. So for my books set on Mars I needed to think about what political system I would apply and how it would work. Since I write action novels with pirates and crooks, I had to decide on gun policy for civilians.

A total ban on guns won't work in an industrial society, even one without 3-D printers. The same tools used to make toasters can be used to make a gun. So how does one decide who gets a gun? At the same time, I decided that Mars' early history consisted of a pair of invasions bookending a series of off-planet wars. I also looked at what I thought the American Founding Fathers had meant when they talked about a "well-regulated militia."

I decided the default policy on Mars is that to own a gun one needs to be a member of the state militia. Said member doesn't have to be a "drilling" member, so they don't have a uniform or a unit, but the do have some affiliation with the local militia. I also decided that the militia is not the US National Guard, which is defacto a Federal reserve army with some State gloss, but that the Martian Militia is fully under the control (and budget) of the states.

Since I'm not a fan of open carry, that's generally prohibited, unless going to or from a militia event, and I'm leaning towards concealed carry being a separate level within the militia. In short, the Martian Militia has teeth.

I grow weary of the Sad Puppies, especially when one of them shouts from the rooftops that he's so scared he can barely whisper. The butt-hurt is strong in that one.

Harrumph. Moving on, have some links about guns. All links generated by two old guys having too much fun in retirement.

A) Cowboy pistols do penetrate targets quite nicely.

B) Another nail in the coffin of "30 caliber carbine bullets don't penetrate" rags of truth.

C) Another review of the World's Most Useless Gun, the Taurus Judge.

D) Metal doors and bullets which would be a nice name for a rock band.

E) Busting an engine block with a bullet ain't as easy as it is in the movies.

So I've expressed before my dislike of the "sheep, wolves and sheepdog" meme. Late yesterday comes news of a white dude who tackles a black dude because the black dude is carrying a gun. Black dude, it turns out, has a legal concealed carry permit.

Needless to say I Am Not Amused. I don't want to focus on the racial aspect (although clearly it was a factor) but rather the sheepdog aspect. Sheepdogs herd, whether or not whatever they're herding needs to be herded. That can be problematic, as in this case, where the appropriate response would have been to just call the cops.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Like the label on the tin says:

Guns

This is why I am a fan of revolvers for self-defense. For those not clicking through, an experienced shooter with a well-used semi-auto experienced a malfunction, rendering her gun into a paperweight.

Jack The Ripper

So, a guy selling a book claims to have solved the Jack The Ripper mystery via DNA. Interesting, but given the age of his DNA evidence and other issues, not conclusive. At this point, I don't think we'll ever get conclusive evidence.

God's War

I recently finished Gods War: Bel Dame Apocrypha Vol 1. The book was billed as "fantasy." It's not, rather science fiction in which the characters use biological science vs. machines. Whatever you call it, I highly recommend it.