Wild Quail

Let's just say, after two years of hunting wild birds, wild quail, wild bobwhite, I got one! Yes, I got one.

And did I mention I shot the little hen with the most pedestrian of shotguns (Remington 1100) in the most gentlemanly of gauges: 28.

There was a whole day involved in the hunt, but I'm too tired to write about it now, and I don't have any pictures ready to go.

But I do want to reiterate, I gots one! (And a rabbit too).

The Talk--Rated PG 13

I had to say something.


I mean, I picked up the boy's iPod to check my facebook notifications and was greeted by something that shocked and appalled me, and strangely, at the same time, kinda turned me on. He had been searching the web, on his iPod, for pornography and had hit pay dirt the likes of which I haven't seen since the early heady days of cable modems and high speed Internet.


I've sworn off the stuff. Two computer killing virtual STDS through the world wide web and I'm reduced to looking at websites like OMG! and The Daily Mirror for my titillating tidbits....but I digress. The point is, I had stumbled upon my son's first, I guess, attempts at studying human sexuality, and had also been busted in turn by my wife due to her close proximity on the bed and her observance of my jaw dropping to my chest. There was no easy way out of the fact that I was gonna have to have the talk.


Not the "birds and the bees" talk, no, I think by the videos he'd downloaded that he pretty much figured out the placement of body parts, methodology, and frequented sounds involved in coitus. Naw, I was gonna have to break it to him that what he saw wasn't what he thinks he saw. And it took a good four or five days to think about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.


I chose a moment in the car, the car we call the Pussy Wagon. (I may have to rethink that nomenclature now) We call it that out of homage for the Kill Bill series of movies, and, for the irony--because if a hot chick sees you in the 1990 Volvo 240 wagon with the muffler strapped up with a white coat-hanger, the last thing you'll ever see is just that. But that's not the point.


We were off on our way to see True Grit. It was a real father, son moment.


"Son, I saw what you were looking at on your iPod and..." it began, and I started telling him the usual stuff. I'd preface the following with an explanation to you with something I've written before about dealing with children, and that's the fact that I never talk down to kids, I know they are smarter than we think, and that being embarrassed about talking to my kids about anything went out for me with the changing of diapers.


"Son, what you saw ain't real. Women don't like being treated that way; gagged with a penis, slapped on the ass, and sodomized like--you know--up the butt." I said these things and listened for questions that didn't come.


"I want you to know, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a healthy curiosity about women, sex, sexuality, and two people gettin' it on. I understand that. I get that. I lived that at your age." I stopped myself before I started the story about riding my bike to Rite-Aid to check out the magazines when I was his age. "But the websites you've stumbled on have nothing to do with that. They're not for thirteen year olds."


"The women in these things are often victims in some way, or drug addicts who'll do anything for drug money. They're not what we'd call healthy. And the other thing to remember is that these women are someone's sister, daughter, or even mother."


And then, I offered something that not many dads would do. I said, "Son, if you want some websites or coffee books that do celebrate women's bodies in art and realism, let me know. My favorite happens to be Wicked Weasel!" And it's true. There are so many artists who depict women in a healthy light, albeit naked, and in such a way that a young man can see the female form without her legs being pinned back behind the ears. I think that's important.


The bikini website features "clothed" women modeling swimwear, not bent over and tied up with a ball gag. Included are consumer pictures of women modeling and mugging for the camera whom I like to describe as real women in real places.


Right or wrong, I offered. I remember what it was like to be curious, and I remember what it was like to have that curiosity answered in a meaningful way. I also don't want him perusing anymore of the hardcore stuff that he'd been looking at again.


I tried not to embarrass the boy, for sure. And he might have been, but he didn't let on. I also hope that he didn't just say he'd ask if he had any questions just to shut me up and later remember to clear his Safari browser history to boot...though I 'm sure there's some of that at work. I mean, it's porn after all.


I had even pondered including the girl in on the chat for two reasons. One, I wanted Jaime to think about how some of the women in the video were someone's sister taking the abuse, and two, I wanted her to know where the slathering, insolent young men who are bound to come sniffing around her were actually coming from, and how their perspectives on sexuality and early relationships might have been skewed by their premature exposure to hard core pornography and the absence of parental supervision that is so pervasive in homes around the country. Yes, even yours truly has used a Wii for an hour of "peace and quiet."


In the end, though, I decided to just talk to the boy and perhaps save a frank discussion with her if she ever asks or starts downloading crazy stuff from the Internet with her iPod. truthfully though, I'm sure I'll open my mouth the next time we're alone in a car together and offer.


 So, I gave the talk the old college try, and I might have blundered, but letting everyone involved know that we dusty, boring adults are interested in their lives and are willing to discuss anything no matter how delicate (and shockingly hot) it is, I think, a major step in the right direction.


And hopefully, they'll lean on me and mom for future guidance, but I won't hold my breath. They are, after all, teenagers.

Bill M's First Deer

I failed to mention that Bill M. got his first deer somewhere down in SC without me. He gave it the old college try up here in NC with me and JB, but couldn't quite connect. And I wanted to be there when he did connect, but it never came to be.


We had breakfast this morning and he reminded me of the pictures he had emailed me, but I had never checked them out. So upon doing so, I decided to share them.


The story as told to me over runny eggs at Herbie's was that him and his Gypsum Magnate buddy John K. met up at this hunting club in SC to try his luck in late December. And after a long four wheeler ride, "probably a mile," they got to a two-seated, elevated stand at the edge of a feed plot/meadow surrounded by woods.


So Bill took the two seater alone, and John took his "climber" 80 yards down the tree line and chose his own spot still within eyesight of the Bill in the fixed stand. And it wasn't long before two does stepped out into the fringes of the woods and played peekaboo with Bill.


Bill said he threw the rifle up to find them in the scope, and was waiting for the bigger of the two, probably the mama, to step out clear of her fawn and give him a shot. While he's watching, he gets the text: "Shoot big doe!" We hunt in modern times indeed.


Well, finally, the fawn left mom's side, and finally, Bill said, mama turned broadside and stood there ready to take his shot. And at that moment all the hunting before, and the earlier-this-season's flubbed shot, and all the range work, and even all the reloading work in my garage finally paid off and finally he had his first deer.

No exit wound! He said she was about 150 yards out when he shot her.

I love it when a plan comes together. There is one thing more to work on though...Bill's not Hindu, but he's got a red dot in the middle of his forehead from his 3.5x-10x by 50mm Leupold Vari-X III scope! D'oh!


Anyway, after talking through breakfast, it sounds like he'll be around a while longer so I'll get another chance to hunt with him again.

Turn Down the Light.

Where's the cat's pajamas,

When the naps been cut too short?

Where's the happy campers,

Without a paradise to court?

The have nots not the haves,

Can do without your light,

The ones who know what's best

Without a dog left in the fight.

The early bird didn't miss,

And let the worm give him the slip

Because he missed your sermon--

Thought he'd save himself a trip.

There is Some Room for Improvement

I might have a problem. I love guns. And as a law abiding (mostly) citizen I feel like I ought to be able to get what I want because I, and the powers that be, are pretty damn sure I ain't gonna snap...pretty sure.

Is there room for improvement in the current gun buying world? Are you sitting down? I would think so.

1. The 4473 ( http://www.ocshooters.com/Gen/Form-4473/ATF-Form-4473.htm ) is a document one has to complete to purchase a firearm in this country. Everyone. It lets the BATFE know where you are and who you are. And it's all done on the honour system. It asks if you're the actual buyer, and if you use drugs, and if you're a US citizen, and if you have ever been adjudicated mentally ill...etc. Answer wrong, and you don't get your gun. I know regular pot-smoking gun-toting people right now who couldn't have filled it out truthfully!

The problem with it is that nut jobs and criminals or someone with a criminal intent isn't concerned with the law. They aren't honest. It's someone who'll lie on a piece of paper to the federal government (like you do on your 1040's) that might stop by and rob you at gunpoint later...or march through campus halls...or ambush supermarket parking lots.

At the same time however, most criminals aren't concerned with going to the store and buying a gun. Why do that when you can just steal one, or buy one from your buddy who just stole one?

So how do you make it tougher? I don't know. Perhaps if one's caught lying on it, or filling one out to purchase a firearm for someone who isn't supposed to have one, could be grounds for making that person ineligible to purchase a firearm for a year or something. Maybe drug testing at the buyer's expense is a good idea? Affidavits from all county wide mental health institutes stating you haven't ever been admitted?

At any rate, this document is supposed to be validated and "backed up" by the "new"....

2. Instant Background check. (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics)

Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI on November 30, 1998, NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms or explosives. Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn't otherwise ineligible to make a purchase.

Now it sounds great, and it is. I've seen it stop an illegal purchase in its tracks. Of course, the problem is the time space between someone breaking the law (and being convicted) and the time it takes to show up on the NICS service. Same thing with mental problems. So it's a great system, but that time passage has to be the biggest problem.

So how do you "fix" it? I don't know. I'd like to see a way for FFL holders to input into the system every time a person who comes in to purchase a gun and blows it by acting insane, or filling out the 4473 with the wrong answers, or is clearly doing a "straw" purchase (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_purchase). That way, when this person fails at one store, he doesn't take his newly acquired method of skating through the system to the next store down the road. And I shudder to say this, but maybe there should be a quick call to the NICS for ammunition purchases...but talk about a volume increase of calls....and hunters the country over at the mercy of WalMart employees. (The AZ murderer was denied a purchase by a thoughtful and wary Walmart employee.)

Also, I think anyone who wishes a private sale of a firearm should have access to the service, whether online or by phone! What an asset it be for law abiding citizens to have before we make private sales. You know, also, allowing public access to this service would close the bullshit, anti-gun medias' "gun show loophole." As it is now, all a private citizen can do is ask politely if the guy handing over the money is insane or a felon or is about to commit a felony...or ask for a Permit to Purchase a Handgun...

Which brings me to...

3. Pistol Permits. Here in NC, we have to go to the Sheriff's office in our county and apply for a permit to purchase a handgun. When we do this, the deputies take our info, and while we fulfill our five day waiting period, they're supposed to check the county records to make sure we haven't been locked up for breaking the law, or, been locked up for slipping out of sanity.

You go to the same bunch when you apply for a Conceal Carry Permit, but the feds are involved as per your fingerprinting, and local deputies are supposed to go out into the bordering counties as well looking for felonies and mental hospital stays. I have no idea if they ever actually do.

The point being that they issue this permit that everyone needs to purchase a pistol. It's good for long gun purchases as well and it would seem to be an easy way for private sellers to ensure the person they are selling to can, in fact, legally buy a firearm as the local LEO's wouldn't issue a permit to someone who cannot. As a matter of fact, this permit is required for the private sales of handguns in NC.

The problem is, they're good for six years! A lot of things can happen in six years...so even I wouldn't mind seeing the shelf life of these things shorten to a few months rather than years, if, for nothing else, to stop that window of time where someone could have been convicted of a felony, released, and then set out to buy a new gun.

Also, if you have one of these permits on hand and you present them to the FFL during the purchase, it supersedes the need for the phone call to NICS, and I think that's a bad idea because of how long they last. The permits are a great tool for private sellers, but that huge time gap between the time of issue and the time of use is just too long to do anything other than "cover the ass" of the seller.

Naturally, all these proposed changes will never stop someone hellbent on committing crimes...or a criminal or a deranged person. And someone, as we all know, might be perfectly sane today, then slip away with age, or disease...

There are good laws on the books now with crummy enforcement. Just like immigration, there's no money and no time to get into what's going on in the gun world. Anecdotally speaking, I've seen felons walk out of my buddy's shop after trying to purchase when they should have been locked up for even trying to.

I've seen people bring guns in to sell on consignment who, when the guns wouldn't sell, could not retrieve them because they were ex-felons. And rather than drive home, they too should have been arrested. And the time a guy brought a stolen pistol in for repair, and following a call to the BATFE was allowed to go home, unpunished, uninterviewed...with his stolen gun.

When a lady bought a shotgun with a bad check, virtually stealing the gun, no one would arrest her for a year and half until she was stopped speeding, despite the fact that her street address and NCDL number were on the 4473! Thanks, BATFE!

So we're back to square one...where gun laws are only for people who follow laws. And freedom has a cost that occasionally is paid by our citizens in random acts of murder and cowardice. The only easy answer is to keep on keeping on, but with more education! People I meet are so woefully ignorant about guns and safety and the local laws that it's actually scary to me.

And what's worse, is to see them pontificate on their "facts" about extra lethal bullets and magazines (clips they like to call them) and all that. And yes, in the face of recent mass murders, it's been tough for me to hold my head up high as a gun loving rifleman, but I do. And without delving into hypothetical arguments about murder happening to me or mine, I would just say I've been blessed so far in me and mines' safety, and hope for more of the same.

"I don't know. Maybe you should always be on the lookout. If trouble always comes when you least expect it, then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it." wrote Cormac McCarthy in The Road, but it's not as paranoid as I'm sure you think it is at first blush. I mean, you have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen right? A first aid kit in your truck right?

I Hate to Admit I Give a Shit

Hopefully I'm not breaking copyright law here.

The feeling I get is that the many who feel this way or that way about the mass murder also think that their opinions and feelings are the way things are, and wouldn't entertain any other notion. At first glance, it looks like I'm guilty of this as well, but I read what they write, I listen to what they say, and I try to formulate intelligent response, but the theories and the posts and the sound bites and video clips keep coming so fast and so fervently and so spread out as to blame a laundry list of reasons...hardly any of them having to do with the man who actually murdered so many.




The responses that I have seen to the massacre all seem to have a central theme. There's always a need, people have, to find a reason. To place blame. I understand that. I curse a deity I don't even believe in when I hit my thumb with a hammer, or drop a giant bolt on my toe. It just makes sense that there's someone, or something someone did that makes a person go completely insane. That's what I'm seeing.


But, I just wanted to say quickly...


It's not Palin's fault.
It's not Gaston Glock's fault.
It's not talk radio's or talk TV's fault.
It's not the NRA's fault.
It's not hi-capacity magazines' fault.
It's not the lack of health care's fault.
It's not Gifford's fault.
It's not the Republican Party's fault.


If I believed in god, I'd blame him, but I do not, and that only leaves what's-his-name. Jared something. I don't want to remember his name, and I don't want you to either--that's why he smiled in the mug shot, so you would remember him.


I'm still sickened, more than ever, by the toll this has taken on so many. It gets harder and harder to smile to gun foes and say "I should have the freedom to purchase any firearm I want and stuff it with any magazine I want." And while true, I should, I wouldn't tell that to a dead nine year old's parents.


And I already turned my back on "politics" a while ago, about the time the economy collapsed and again, the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. Same ol' same ol' and all that. 

Better Off of Me

I might not have told you that you'd be better off done. That without the constant wash of selfish prattle and happy reckons that you'd be alone, but better off somehow for it. That I wouldn't need to prove myself to me or you but always putting that best foot forward until you thought I was being condescending and worthless and haughty and mindful of all the things that made you to loathe, made you to close, and made you to leave. We could have rolled over together and washed in the warmth of the whiteness of lust and felt what it's like to forget the first and remember the last, the latest and greatest and feel it come upon you like an ice cube down your back, or a tooth at your neck. Lasting like that words will fall and fail and be forgotten when looks back are clouded to obscurity by the white and now threadbare, barely recognizable as something sought for and likened to romance. Being done and doing none harm was relatively fast and working for one when it was easier to lick wounds and play in those pitfall places to practice frolics and dance moves created with one thing in mind. The only thing that stopped the curve, that balanced the bar was the sensation of fleeting forgetfulness and searching for one handhold while dousing the other, losing the first to the lousy latter. So forced to move further and farther behind back to the comforts and veritable signs that once filled me laughter and all kinds of time and the meaning I made when the rest wouldn't fit but it worked for me because I'd had only one regret that made the hand wringing a habit and the waiting a problem. So I slip too and make no mistake, it can be for good, and well it would have done to keep myself true deciding that not where I want to be is as good as getting to where I need to be or at least fooling ourselves that this is how it must be.