Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

.50 - Cal. Shoot

This is your brain...

And this is your brain after the .50-cal. Shoot...

The only time I have had the occasion to use full-auto weapons was during a brief stint as an ROTC Cadet during a wild summer in 1984, when I hoped Uncle Sugar was going to give me a flight slot for Army Aviation after I attended Basic Training at Fort Knox, Ky. I was permitted to fire the M-16 on full-auto, a belt-fed M60 machine gun, the LAWS rocket, and I got to throw numerous practice grenades and one live "egg."

The effect of "full-auto fire" on my love for guns was long lasting, even if the exposure was brief. I got to fire a Vickers .30-cal belt-fed at a re-enactor's shoot in North Georgia in 1995, and found that to be an entertaining experience as well, although the weapon was worn and jammed every four or five rounds. So when my friend Jed from FreedomSight and R.G. Combs ganged up on me and forced me to go to the .50-Cal Shoot at Fort Morgan on Saturday, they didn't have to twist my arm very hard.

Things did not start out well, however. I wanted to shoot at the event, and had amassed an impressive array of shooting accessories and firearms. I was disappointed to discover that there were no firing spots on the line for free-lancers such as myself. Furthermore, I was not welcomed at the gate wearing a handgun, and the use of a camera for anything other than personal consumption was "ztrictly verbotten," so as a citizen-journalist, I would have been enjoined from posting on my blog action shots of Dicky Combs ventilating an ancient Nissan Pulsar, or Jed enjoying the "happy switch" on the legally converted AR.

I left the camera in the car, and was sorely disappointed at the rain, high winds, cool temperatures, and mildly defensive staff at the event. Nevertheless, I managed to have a good time.

When you are firing full-auto, the secret to life is CASH. Bring lots of cold, hard cash to pay for the giant quatities of ammunition you will want to send downrange. I was fortunate in taking out $65 or so, and managed somehow to restrain myself to spending a little more than half that amount in careful, three-round bursts. You see, all that time spent in front of "Castle Wolfenstien" really paid off! It's called "trigger control," and even the most mild-mannered Class Three weapon seems to reward you for not being a lead-spraying maniac.

Perhaps the best experience there was firing the .50-caliber rifles that many exhibitors had brought out. These were mostly single shot bolt guns (AR-50s), although there was at least one fellow who had a Barrett M-82A1 semi-auto, ten-round-magazine-fed rifle. The fifties produce a sound that is so impressive, that they were causing me to end conversations and to stare at them even though I had been exposed to the noise all through the day. The "BANG!" and resultant chest-thump would catch you off guard - and everybody was using tracer and armor-piercing-incendiary-tracer, and you could see the rounds streak downrange and flash as they smashed through the two shot-up trucks that were the main targets, sometimes bouncing off into the sky, reaching perhaps 650 feet in altitude before the phosphorous would burn out. I can guarantee that the hill  that was being used as a backstop is a litterground of copper and steel. I fired off perhaps ten rounds of .50-cal, and found the AR-50 rifles to be exceptionally accurate, and oddly soft-kicking. They were certainly no worse than my Garand, and nowhere near as sharp as my 8mm Mauser, which is simply awful to shoot without some kind of shoulder protection. The general consensus was that the mild recoil was due to the rifle's 30+ pound weight and oversized rubber butt-pad. Simply put, they were a joy to shoot, and I will consider the acquisition of one of these amazing rifles to be a lifetime-goal. My wife will certainly cringe at the expenditure of several thousands of dollars, but I am getting the impression that lawmakers will soon attempt to restrict our access to these fun guns, so I may have to break out the credit card in a couple of years. Well, that's my excuse, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

I was fortunate to see Jed's friend Steve Zeigenhegen at the shoot - he brought a specially modified .50 - cal. Browning Machine Gun to the event that had been converted to semi-auto-only fire, preventing its owner from having to obtain a Class Three permit to own the weapon. Steve generously permitted our trio of gun-lovers to shoot five or six rounds out of the beast; I was never privy to receive training on this weapon during my military service. Truly amazing though it is, John Browning's .50-cal Machine Gun is a work of industrial art, made in an age which appreciated the clever works of clever men. To think that this weapon was engineered prior to our entry into World War One and that it is still being used in active duty combat this very day is an amazement; I know of no other device in the military that has had such a service life as the BMG .50!

There were also myriad other wonders - belt-fed machine guns from every country that ever produced them, submachine guns (I fired a Heckler und Koch MP-5, and BOY, is it controllable!), and even CANNON! Yes, there were several anti-tank guns there, ranging in size from 20mm Finnish Lahtis to 40 mm US guns. My favorites were a pair of Bofors 37mm anti-tank cannons, and their owners fired off several rounds out of these beautiful guns, producing a chest-walloping thump and a nice splash down range. I shudder to think about what it would have been like to be on the other side of the guns - it gives you pause to think about the destructiveness of man's warmaking capabilities. I wish we could get some legislators to think about such things, as I am betting they'd think twice before setting nations on a course to make war with one another.

I will take my camera to the next event at Cheyenne Wells (next month), and I may be camping out and shooting there. I will issue a full report when I go.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 17, 2006 18:19 | link | comments (3) |

Mort Zuckerman On Illegals, Wages

Zuckerman was just on Fox complaining about the Republicans' inability to "get a deal done for McCain," and claimed that illegals are just taking jobs Americans won't do.

Then Cavuto got onto the economy - "Why isn't this brisk economy being recognized by citizens for what it is?"

Zuckerman's response? "Oh, it's because working people haven't had the wage increase they had under Clinton."



Stupid rich pukes think they can habitually underpay people, import virtual slave labor, but can't then can connect the dots when it comes to why wages are depressed.

Hypocrite! Moron! Typical idiot, flying 50,000 feet above the problem and being unable to actually see it. America is just FILLED with upper management pukes like this!

posted by: underwhelmed at April 13, 2006 12:39 | link | comments |

Is My Blog Getting Spammed?

I have noticed a new trend in the comments being left on my blog: I am getting a couple of "comments" here and there that are simply links to Fox News stories that have vague connections to my post topics. In my "Leaving The Libertarian Party" post, I have 10 comments (this is delightful, virtually nobody reads this blog <GRRRR!>) and one of them is a link to a website that is trying to imply the .goob created 9/11 to have a reason to go to war. It's probably some goofy Leftist or Libertoonian spam-bot run amok here in Motime.

Comments, anyone?

posted by: underwhelmed at April 12, 2006 20:45 | link | comments |

Opposite Vote Project

The "Illegal Immigration Amnesty Concert" being held on Capitol Hill this afternoon has enraged millions of decent, hardworking Americans. They are tired of the "in-your-face," Mexican-flag-waiving demonstrators and of the brainless pols looking to pander to them. Your Sergeant Major of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado, your Libercontrarian, is tired of The Insanity himself. On AR15.com, many posters in numerous white-hot threads are so flabbergasted that they are bitterly calling for the defeat of their beloved Republican CongressCritters.

Your Libercontrarian was feverishly thinking of a solution to this most vexing and grave problem that does not involve free-floating firing pins striking primer caps on big-bore rifle cartridges, and came up with this one:

I call it the Opposite Vote Project.

The theory of this project involves voters voting against the party that's in office, no matter his political affiliation, and voting FOR that opponent's competitor, regardless of his political party. Even if you are a life-long Democrat or Republican, vote for whoever ISN'T in office right now, and maybe we can shake up the Senate enough to destroy the decades-old insulation these lying shitbirds have against the wishes and desires of their constituents.

I'm all for this, especially if it breaks up the coterie of Leftists that call themselves Republicans. Since the Democrats are avowed Leftists, you have a case where one political party has the courage to say they believe in extremist thought, while the other is too dishonest to confirm they have the exact same belief structure.

So, I say it's time to Vote The Bastards Out, no matter who they belong to!

 

posted by: underwhelmed at April 06, 2006 15:09 | link | comments (2) |

Changing Parties

I'm a party-free kind of guy right now. I was a Libertarian, but have officially changed my party affiliation from that tribe of loser-savants to (I) for Independent. The Losertarian Party lost me when they suggested in the most recent issue of the Losertarian Paper that the United States Government engineered 9/11, that the buildings were control-detonated, and that unwieldy, bloated bueracracy somehow managed to gain enough competence to fake out the entire population of the world, who watched every second of it on TV.

Never mind that I saw the airliners crash into those buildings with my own eyes. Nevermind that Osama Bin Laden later accepted credit for this noble and humane deed. Nevermind that the actions of every one of the terrorists were documented by many non-government bodies, it's the Republican's fault!

How the hell can George Bush, with his remarkable incompetence and world-class stupidity, get all this stuff done? How has he found time to blow up some buildings, start a war with a backward-but-peaceful nation, deflect a couple of hurricanes to Kill Black People, and invade Iraq, directly causing the deaths of 300,000 Iraqi children, all while presiding over the "worst economy in 70 years?" Or is it really Dick Cheney making some kind of a pact with The Devil [muaaahh-haaa-haaa-haaa!!] in order to Shaft The Working Class?

Since I gave up being a Republican when I started to realize that the UberKapitalism Crowd (Kapitalizm Uber Alles) would sell your Grammy down the river for $.25, and the Democrats are simply Marxists (haven't met one yet that wouldn't dry-hump a Stalin statue if no one were looking), I was hoping that the Libertarian Party would be the voice of reason.

It's not. They are merely Republicans who want to smoke pot, and Marxists that want anarchy, not Socialism.

So, I'm out. Buh-bye. See-ya!

Maybe I should become a Democrat, and work tirelessly to change the party from the inside... ah, crap, I tried that for 30 years with the Republicans, and it didn't work.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 01, 2006 18:47 | link | comments (12) |

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