As I’ve observed the scarcity of .22 ammunition over the last year, and considering the inventory that I’d accumulated over the previous decades, I wondered what to do with it. I was in the enviable position of having more .22 ammo than I would likely shoot over the course of my remaining life. I seem to shoot less and write more these days. I could sell it. Prices are high. But, my church has reminded me that generosity is a virtue. So I decided to give some of it away . . .
The problem is that people don’t really value what they get for free. I wasn’t willing to give it all to someone else who would just stick it in their storage vault, or sell it so that they could pocket the money. Ten rounds of .22 may not be much, but there is an enormous difference between having 10 rounds of ammunition and having no rounds of ammunition. I also want people to read what I write. Writers are funny that way.
So, I went to the Yuma Gun show this past weekend with a couple of thousand rounds of .22 ammo (mostly Remington), tucked into 10-round groups in baggies with a business card. And I gave it away to anyone who said that they would look at the Gun Watch blog.
I have a high opinion of people who come to gun shows. They tend to be a couple of steps up from the general population. Whether it’s because responsible people are attracted to guns, or that guns, of necessity, tend to help create responsible people, is hard to say. It’s probably a complex positive feedback loop. Of course, I had no way to enforce my informal contract, but I wasn’t really worried about it.
Yes, it was a promotional stunt. It was free .22 ammunition and it was fun. I stopped handing out ammunition when I ran out of business cards to give out with it, about 2,500 rounds later.
I had arranged to sit with the Arizona Citizens Defense League to help bring more members to AZCDL. They’re the premier Second Amendment and freedom defenders here in Arizona. They’re everything you hoped that the NRA would be in defending your rights, but without the constant fundraising and self-promotion. They are the people who were the most responsible for Arizona going to constitutional carry and I am a life member. I think I helped bring in a few memberships.
I was mildly surprised at the number of savvy consumers who shied away from anything with “free” on it. Still, there were lots of people who agreed to look at Gun Watch and take the ammo when I explained what I was doing. I warned them that reading my writing was addictive. I told them that they would keep coming back, again and again, even though there were no naked people or advertisements at the blog. I told them that what I was doing was similar to giving away free cocaine, that over time, their world view would change, and there was no blue pill to get it back.
On the next table over was a group of Girl Scouts selling girl scout cookies. Everybody had a great time.
©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch
“putting his officers’ lives in danger”
Then tell them to find another job. Stop using that excuse to push for more feel-good legislation.
I enjoy your writing, but the color palette of your site burns my eyes.
Giving away dime bags….
Sorry. Had a flashback.
Damn it, Dean, you should have come down to Green Valley. We’d engrave your name on stone tablets!
TiborasaurusRex did a good video on this subject: Why the Bible is Not for WUSSIES – Being Well Trained and Armed in the Scriptures?
“Thou shall not murder“, etc. I can’t take seriously the Biblical scholarship of anyone who bases their theological arguments and exegesis upon the King James Version. By modern standards it is a very poor translation of the original languages. It should be clear to anyone at all discerning that the Bible instructs against nonviolence. I’d argue it generally promotes non-aggression, but violence is commanded when appropriate, and fighting against evil is righteous. God and Jesus themselves righteously applied violence. God slays and violently punishes sinners repeatedly throughout scripture, and of course we should all remember Jesus’s violent actions toward the moneylenders in the temple. Other biblical patriarchs, heroes, and role models demonstrate biblically moral applications of violence and self-defense.
My daughter would wear that shirt. Any links to where it can be found?
I still cannot take this group seriously when their name sounds perfect for a porn series.
Dean, that’s totally awesome. Good on ya. Did you buy some Girl Scout cookies?
Very nicely written. I only wish I could find a pastor with your stance in my local, liberal, college-worshiping town.
“I was mildly surprised at the number of savvy consumers who shied away from anything with “free” on it.”
You should have charged them ten bucks then!
“Useless Idiots”
The Bradyista Marcus not feel safe when there’s a gun around?
Why didn’t he go to the antigun Peet’s coffee shop for his stupid little meeting then? He’ll be protected by his little forcefield. Peaceable gun owners stay out, but criminals won’t care. Win win for everyone.
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And if there was a way to blackball the (alleged) CCW carrier who threatened him, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Ah, good old misogyny. That’s what’ll help promote our cause, treating women as property!
4,500 lumens. Holy crap. I got a 600 lumen light from Home Depot, and IT hurts!
My brightest light is 750, and turning it on a light-colored surface will dazzle you.
Screw the surefire. I want what it was hanging off of. Now THAT’S something to walk the dog with!
Hello to my Canuks and Yanks gun-owing mates, my good brothers & sisters.
As an Australian I have been through two devastating gun grabs.
Firstly, ALL self loading rifles and shotgun & P/A shotgun were seized as a result of the Port Arthur shooting in 28-29 April 1996, read the Wiki entry. The investigation of this shooting; by comparison makes the JFK assassination investigation look fair, open and very detailed. Legal and Responsible gun owners were vilified by the Prime Minister and the media as murders.
Secondly, a foreign student had illegally purchased handguns from a corrupt gun shop owner and used to shoot fellow students at Monash Uni on 21 Oct 2002, see Wiki entry. As a result handgun licensing was made even more stringent, with a maximum calibre of 9mm, 10 rnd magazine, 100mm of barrel rifling (4” revolver barrel / 120mm pistol barrel) and a minimum club-controlled 12 competitions every year that are fully documented and reported to state police commissioner. Finger printing for all handgun owners and the no-notice / no warrant ability to search your home (that is how it is in the ‘police state’ of Victoria. (Technically police are required to telephone to make a convenient appointment time; my experience was the LEO rang from his cell phone in his squad car in front of my home. That was certainly ‘convenient to him at least.)
Both shooters had mental illness and purchased guns from corrupt sellers. But it was the law-abiding citizen of good character who were portrayed as criminals and murders by the politicians and media.
The Australian constitution makes the government pay the full and fair commercial price for items they take from citizens.
There are a few stupid shooters who make You Tube videos for their own ego and ruin gun ownership for shooters all over the world. The NSA / DHS / ATF are getting all the detail together, thank Edward Snowdon for the warning, in preparation for your version gun grabbing ‘Night of the Long Knives’, see Wiki entry.
The unspoken, but very well known to the writers of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, was the ‘responsibility’ of gun ownership. If the 60+ million American gun owners joined the NRA and other national gun owner associations, you all would be a very strong force. By responsibility, I mean regular cleaning and weekly training to a very proficient level to be ready, proper firearm security, teaching children to be confident and proficient with firearms – not scared of them. You have a civic duty to stop people who are not fully capable / sane to access firearms. Some will comment that is ‘an invasion of privacy’; you can tell me this again when you have been disarmed because of the actions of a crazy bastard gunman. You will then feel, as I feel now, that sick and defenceless feeling in the pit of your stomach; as you try to defend and care for your family and friends whilst unarmed.
By the way CCP continuation firearms is the most complex form of firearms training (out of SF CQB / LE SWAT / Undercover officer training / IPSC – 3 Gun sports training). If you do not understand the legal, situational awareness, complex scenario training, medical support, fire support and back-up response elements: then don’t ‘carry’.
Finally, Words. ‘Firearms’ are owned by civilians of good repute. ‘Weapons’ are issued to military / LE personnel to kill evil doers. The gun grabbers understand the different use of these words. ‘Tactical’ and ‘cool’ when refereeing to shooters are dickheads! My SF and Special Duties operators were well equipped, highly trained and very proficient as they went out to deal with evil on a daily basis. People who buy tactical gear for their sad civilian life, do so only to help the DHS / ATF / LE snipers in their target identification. This is how security services do their profiling.
Good luck. I hope you never know sickening feeling of being disarmed – it is awful!
And the official MDA press release will read:
MDA members were walked to the door by Staples’ company representatives after successfully delivering their petition containing over 12000 signatures in a noble effort to stop the scurge of gun deaths sweeping the nation.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn penned a missive dealing with this type of tyranny:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Gulag Archepelago is one harrowing book to read. I’m only about a third through it and I had to take a break from it. If anyone’s on the fence as to why fighting is so important, read up on what the Russian government did to it’s people under Lenin and Stalin. “It can’t happen here” is such a weak-ass view.
Where was that quote from? I like it.
He actually filed that in a USSC brief? Outstanding.
I agree; let’s make a law that says only what we believe to be true should be allowed; everyone else’s beliefs counter to ours are obviously lies and should not be allowed.
Darn; if those liars make laws saying our truth are actually lies we would not even have the internet to tell the truth. I guess we’ll just have to be better in backing up our truth with facts better than those lying liars.
An frightening scenario is the State of Connecticut does not go through with widespread confiscations but uses the threat as a sword of Damocles to hang over the heads of all its residents. A kind of “any time we want to we can imprison” you threat.
“The NRA enjoys 150 times more support on Facebook than Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns.”
Burn. I actually like the snark in the whole comment.