So curious - no beginning, no end - cause and consequence self-sustaining.
So if ever I were to give a name to a tool.. that's probably what I'd name this one.
Mobius.
I bought something I didn't really want, just to make sure it couldn't be taken from me.
Contradictory, it seems. Self-looping. Choice and consequence, feeding back upon each other.
See, there's so many other things I'd rather do with the money I just spent today on the bits and pieces that will be showing up over the next few weeks, all waiting for me to tinker them together. Maybe a tiny travel fiddle for the trip back to Tennessee this winter, or even an electric version to play around with. A nice set of mukluks. Some flight time. Even a little .22 for the crash bag for our flying jaunts into the bush next summer would have suited me better than this pile of plastic and metal parts.
But I hit "yes" anyway.
Thirty-round magazines from here, a match-accurate barrel from there.. bits and bobs that will eventually go together to make a right smart little carbine. Because years ago, a man that would in time become a good friend convinced me of the importance of an armed citizenry.
No, I don't think our President-Elect will be some terrifying evil force, any more than our current President is. To the political questions of the day, I agree with one on little, with the other on almost nothing. But neither is a dunce, neither is a Hitler. Both are simply fallible men doing the best they can by their own lights. They are what they are. But neither of then has to be a Hitler today for the question to be important tomorrow.
A people effectively disarmed now won't be able to leave the bargaining power of the Ultima Ratio Populi to their posterity. And so in addition
to the requisite political donations, I went ahead and bought the parts to add one more set of Liberty Teeth to the available inventory in the country. Voting with dollars, you might say. I can always buy a pochette or pretty boots later. It's only money, I'll earn more. Proper magazines and a threaded muzzle? Maybe not. So there you go. Choice made.
I know when finished, this rifle will long outlive me, one way or the other. Here's to it having a long, boring future plinking pebbles in the backcountry and gathering dust in the dark. Someday, I hope some unknown civilian member of posterity buys this antique-to-be, and gets a giggle over the times it was made in as she loads the first rickety old magazine.
And oh yeah...
*sigh*
Molon frickin' Labe.
5 comments:
Pretty boots can always wait.
Good choice!!!
Tell you what.... if you don't need/want it in 4 years, I'll trade you one of my 22's for it :)
Anyway.. did you go for a new cartridge, or isn't it a 22 brush pilot gun?
My dad's cousin told me that he preferred the old CAR-15 while flying in 'Nam because it was light and had a high rate of fire - he'd fly with his left hand and spray out the door with his right.
Yeah, I reckon they can. There's plenty of Beasties up here ready to donate their hides to the cause.
21h40 - I'll keep that in mind. :)
I ordered a 5.56 barrel with the Wylde(?) chamber.. figured might as well stick with tradition. Not likely anyone will stop making the stuff anytime soon. It'll prolly be a little heavy for sticking out the side of the plane... though hypothetically that might make for some interesting plinking riding back seat out in the bush come to think of it. Sorta like modern day horse archery.
Bet the FAA would go into conniptions over that one - they'd be fighting with the ATF over who got to prosecute first. eeprs. :)
I hope to live out a long and tranquil life, too...
But Molon Labe, (insert requisite vularity here)s!
...actually the FAA doesn't have any rules against aerial shooting. It's Fish & Game that will get upset with you.
They have land & shoot rules, and mostly land, camp, & shoot, meaning you have to wait at least overnight after spotting the game from the air. It makes taking trophies a proper challenge, y'know?
If you're reckless, the FAA will get you under the catchall "careless and reckless" clause, but otherwise, nope. Back when shoot from air was acceptable, it was not that uncommon a way to get bounty pelts - and we still use it for wolf control when the wolf population goes through one of their cyclical population booms - it's far easier to track, find, and shoot multiple wolves from the air instead of chasing animals that can run over every terrain at 35mph for hours.
Down in the Far West, it's a known and used way for ranchers to take care of coyotes.
A note for any random comments readers later: The moose, caribou, and wolf populations all go through cyclical booms and busts. At the high end, after a good year, the prey populations produce far more living offspring than the environment can support - they will overgraze the land and crash the population because everything starves to death.
To balance this naturally, the predator population booms right after the prey, and tends to wipe out the prey overpopulation. But then there are too many predators, and the prey and predator populations crash as the predators starve to death from too little food remaining. Given in the bush humans depends on the same moose and caribou as the wolves for food, we manage the populations by increasing bag limits as the prey population booms, and then taking a carefully scientist-determined amount of predators out when the predator population booms, to ensure both populations remain viable - and that the rural residents don't starve to death along with the wolves. The local human hunters and their families starving to death during the cyclical population crash is natural, but this is one of those cases where every human involved seriously prefers managing nature instead of being at its mercy.
East-coast howl-ins are not going to sway the opinion of people who are raised by grandparents who remember their parents and grandparents were raised to leave female children out in the snow to die when food got scarce, and the elderly were expected to go out on the ice themselves to die, so the tribe could survive.
Post a Comment