HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY AMERICA!

This post is a day late because it's a "do-over".

El Fisho Jr. and I started the holiday by heading to San Marcos to hook up with Billy Ray, who was in that area this weekend. We then went and had a big breakfast, and then went gun and ammo shopping. Deciding against an outdoor range in Lockhart, we headed to our favorite nearby indoor range only to find it closing early for the holiday.

We decided no biggie and announced it as an excuse to visit the Hill Country another day and go shooting today. That's what I like about Billy Ray...after 29 years of close friendship, he always puts the best spin on everything possible. I'd never tell him, but perhaps I should, that I've long admired his even temper as much as he's found my mercurial nature amusing.

So yesterday we talked about history in the car as we were driving to meet Billy Ray. Fortunately, not only does El Fisho Jr. know who America won their independence from (24% of Americans do not), he also knows ALL of his presidents in order (only 7% could name the first four in order). He's quite a student of the great wars of this country and of the roll his ancestors played in those wars. Not pivotal by any means, in terms of history, but service to country nonetheless.

His grandfather, great grandfather, great great grandfather and numerous uncles, cousins (of various degrees) and other direct or very close descendants fought collectively in the Revolutionary War, of nearly two centuries of various battles in Texas against indians, the Spanish, the Mexicans, the Union and others, or in the United States Armed Forces.

His father, his grandfather, his great grandfather, his great great grandfather and his great great great Uncle and a Great Uncle have served as peace officers in Texas as well.

We talked about the importance of the Second Amendment. How it says "Right to Bear Arms" and not "the right to maybe own certain kinds of firearms that the government may allow you to own, but that we don't want you carrying around for self defense".

The reason our right is To Bear Arms is because we have the right to defend ourselves. In yet another prescient example, the drafters of the Constitution could never have foreseen the issues with Terrorism, rampant violent crime, drug cartels and the ordinary garden variety crook or mental patient (of various dangerous flavors), and yet the ability via law or concealed carry permits allows citizens to REFUSE to become victims.

I've been a victim of crime, serious crime. It's not for talking about here. But I've been in law enforcement for near 30 years and have had multiple experiences that constantly remind me of the randomness of crime and how you never get a warning when a home invasion or car jacking or aggravated robbery is occurring.

In any event, we in my family and in the Billy Ray family tree cherish our right to bear arms. We both have family weapons that we like to shoot. I don't carry any of mine for self-defense, but it's fun to shoot pieces of history. We did, however, turn the
S & W Model 1917 into a steady home defense gun. Shooting .45 ACP in a heavy gun means so very little recoil. The slow moving bullet is not likely to penetrate into a neighbors home or a passing car, but is likely to stop a threat coming into your home.

We did some great shooting with the Model 1917 today. El Fisho Jr., Billy Ray and I each enjoyed excellent torso accuracy with point and shoot techniques at between 5 and 20 feet. El Fisho Jr. just rocks out on this gun, as he does on the Glock 36. He's about to get to shoot a 1911 and I suspect he'll be hooked on 1911's like his dear old dad is. It was great to watch El Fisho Jr. just destroy the black center of the standard FBI target with Glock .45 in double taps at about 7 feet, and Billy Ray and the range guy and I were all just basically speechless by watching El Fisho Jr. just obliterate the middle of the target with the powerful Glock.

Of course, he's already been identified as a child prodigy and he attracts a crowd of watchers at every range we're at. Last week, he and I were testing different kinds of ammo in Billy Ray's Sig P250, and he was shooting nice small groups with the gun. We ran a bunch of ammo through that gun last weekend, and I'm happy to report that we seem to have found ammo that the P250 functions flawlessly with.

Winchester 9mm ammo in the white box with the black writing has resulted in about 200 perfect rounds through this gun last week and today. We tried some other ammo today that worked well but with the problems mentioned in recent posts about Billy Ray's gun misfiring with some ammo.

So we were all pleased when Billy Ray's P250 took nearly 200 rounds today with no fails. Meanwhile, we each did a lot of shooting with the Model 1917, the Glock Model 36 and El Fisho Jr.'s Ruger 10/22 and Ruger Bearcat. We also took a couple of long distance shots with my scoped Marlin 30-30 lever action, and El Fisho Jr's first shot ever with this gun resulted in a head shot (he was aiming for the torso center FBI target) but my shot only landed about 2" northeast of the black circle. Not bad for a gun I've shot less than a box full of shells through in the past 20 years.

We also shot Billy Ray's S&W Centennial lightweight stainless snubnose, a mandatory part of any good Texan's gun collection. It was a kicker, with significant felt recoil, as it was running the "boot grips" that S&W puts on most snubbies. These grips conceal well, but don't allow a good grip for shooting. I much prefer the COMPAC grips by Pachmayr, and they absorb SO MUCH MORE RECOIL from any J frame or Colt D frame than any other grip out there, except for the larger PRESENTATION Pachmayr grip for the J frame and the Colt D frame snubbies.

We got to shoot Billy Ray's grandfather's house gun, a Colt 1903 Pocket Pistol in .32 caliber. Highly accurate with little felt recoil. A pleasure to shoot and it's so cool to shoot guns WAAAAAYYYYYYYY older than Billy Ray and I. Older than our parents even. Very very cool.

So we got to shoot a bunch today and had a great late lunch after that. Combine that with gun and ammo shopping on the Fourth of July and we had a great holiday.

We got to look at a bunch of great guns we'd like to have. And got to see lots of women and their children practicing revolver shooting (at least 4 moms and multiple kids) and one dad and granddad and their kids. Lots of women are shooting these days, and that's good. They will be able to fight back against crooks attacking them and walk away the winner...alive.

By the way, miscreants should take note: both the kids and their mommas were shooting DEAD ON with .38 Special revolvers.