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

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54 COMMENTS

      • If it were white text on dark or black background I would understand these complaints. That is not the case and I find the text readable. In windows click view, page style then no style if the page style distracts you. What is with the more ready to complain than read the content attitude? Do you tell people to change their clothes before you’ll talk with them?

    • My esteemed colleague in Australia, John Jay Ray, owns the site and controls the architecture. He is brilliant. One of those guys who went into academia, got his Phd, decided to make some money, started a company, made a pile, and retired fairly young, as I understand. I have run the site for a bit less than two years, but he retains control of the site architecture , and contributes an article now and then.

      He has never done any editing of my articles.

      • No excuse. If you want to be taken seriously your website can’t look like that. You wouldn’t send your congressman a letter you wrote in crayon would you? It doesn’t have to look great, just not offensive.

      • Its 2014; the colors and layout scream 1996. I’d like to read but, alas, I won’t because I get ocular migraines.

        • Ditto

          Today if you can write it you can put it on your own website. Falling of a tricycle easy. Your webhost likely has a tool set. Of for examples of what they should have go somewhere like godaddy.com

      • Most certainly this John Jay Ray:
        http://jonjayray.tripod.com/

        He is awful fond of those colors.
        While John seems like an immensely smart man, with all of his publications, I would like to point out that his very own website has undefined elements on it. People who got their education in the 60s and 70s can be very intelligent, but still terrible at web design.

      • I clicked the link to the blog so you got your hit off me but the colors are revolting and the blog leaves much to be desired so I will not return. When you move to a more current color template and layout I may reconsider.

      • Dean, went to the site. Wish my own was as nice. The content is great. The colors don’t bother me. Ignore the negativity. As my Dad says, “Some people would gripe if you hung them with a brand new rope!”

      • Maybe I need to look at the site through a version of “Windows”.

        What colors are you seeing? I see a fairly bland black lettering on a beige background, red lettering mostly on the right hand side for links…

        What are you seeing?

    • John Jay Ray is taking suggestions for colors for the web site:

      “I have had relayed to me various criticisms of this site’s template.
      In particular, some readers think the colors are too bright
      I am perfectly happy to change the colors but I need some sort of agreement first about what colors would be better
      Please make suggestions via the Comments facility
      If I see a consistent theme there I will adopt it
      Best regards to all readers here”

      John Ray — site owner

      http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2014/03/site-design.html

  2. Careful there, Dean. Carrying ten rounds of .22LR ammo in sandwich bags is enough to put an otherwise law-abiding, peaceful person behind bars for a long time in some parts of this country!

    • Thankfully it is only in SOME parts……………….in retrospect-I shall be thankful when the entire land is free……………..I know…..I know.

    • Ten in a sandwich bag is fine. You roll them up in a magazine and you become public enemy #1.

  4. Damn it, Dean, you should have come down to Green Valley. We’d engrave your name on stone tablets!

  5. I took a first-time shooter to an indoor gun range Saturday. The Girls Scouts (Daisy) had their cookie booth set up right inside the exit doors. I only bought one package, but I’ve eaten them all.

    • That’s why I don’t buy GSC. If I bought a box today, they wouldn’t see the light of day tomorrow. However, they WOULD see the bottom of my toilet bowl…

      • Same here William, plus the extra 30 lbs after a year of GSC’s would cost me some serious bucks to buy new clothes to fit my now rounder form.

  6. Dean, that’s totally awesome. Good on ya. Did you buy some Girl Scout cookies?

    • He should have done 11 round bags just to make the liberals cringe.

      However 10 is normally standard capacity for a .22. Ruger 10-22, sr-22, 22-45, Walther p22, etc.

      • That’s because Ruger was an advocate of limiting magazine capacity through legislation. “No honest man need more than 10 rounds”

  8. The Appleseed Project has been forced to create a “Reduced Round Count course of fire” to help those who don’t have the 250 rounds to make for a nice weekend. If Appleseed had more .22lr, they could fill the gap. Everyone please consider a donation. It will be used on site and not put in a coffee can.

  9. “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!

  10. Dean, not a bad idea for an attention getter. However, if you find yourself drowning in .22lr, please consider donating it to a youth marksmanship program. When things were at their tightest my local club asked members for donations to keep the youth program effective; the membership stepped up to ensure the program’s success. Youth are the future of the shooting sports and the Second Amendment.

    Regards,
    Dave

    • ^ This !!!!!

      Bye the way Mr. Weingarten your blog color scheme looks fine to me. It might be a little easier to read the red font if you slightly darken your background. Otherwise, it is fine.

  12. “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.”
    Guess you haven’t been to the shows in my neck of the woods.
    Some seem to be a few rungs down the evolutionary ladder.

  13. So, you’re one of the horders that is making it difficult for the rest of us to by ammunition?

    • Well, some of us were smart enough to stock up while the going is good, so go pout somewhere else

    • You might as well have some fun with that useless ammunition. Turn it into a “white elephant” gift and give it to someone. Heck, maybe even put a nice long ownership log inside so people can see just how far and wide that package of useless ammunition has traveled.

  17. I swear that the uncropped version of this article’s title image must show a Looney
    Tunes style cardboard box propped up by a forked stick with string attached. That’s how absurd the notion of “free .22 ammo” is in my mind.

  18. You sound like me. I just handed my neighbor 100 rounds of .22LR Vipers. Why? Because he was out and I consider it an investment for when the SHTF. Told him that too. The other neighbor is low on 22LR, .38 Special and 12 gauge buckshot. I’ve got his “care package” waiting in the safe.

    • Tom,

      Your neighbor should be able to purchase 12 gauge buckshot at very good prices at just about any local store that sells ammunition. (I am seeing packages of 5 rounds for $4.50 and packages of 15 rounds for something like $12.50.)

      As for .38 Special, that might be harder to find at local stores but it is definitely available from online distributors at fairly reasonable prices.

      Of course .22 LR is non-existent. I would set aside 100 rounds or so for your neighbor as a goodwill gesture.

  20. As people have already posted repeatedly, the color palette on that website is terrible. But there’s more to it than the choice of color, the web designer failed to consider the color temp of the viewers monitor.

    I have 2 monitors at this computer that happen to be totally different. My secondary monitor has a much warmer color temp than the one I normally use to browse websites, and having the page open across both makes the problem very apparent.

    On a warmer color temp display(which oddly enough means a lower color temp, but that’s beside the point), the page is perfectly readable with some mild green and orange at the top, a beige background with black text over it with the article title in black with a white background, some brownish text toward the top, blue links. Basically, it looks just fine.

    Unfortunately on my much larger monitor that happens to have a slightly higher color temp(looks a little more blue to the eye), the black title text on the white background has better contrast, but… the article text still appears black but compared my secondary monitor against a background that almost appears as a bright but pastel yellow, and the links appear even bright blue against that background that seems to be more yellow, making it a mess(and a headache) to read. A bright yellow 27″ display is not pleasant to look at.

    Also consider that a lot of users do absolutely nothing for color correction, or even contrast and brightness on their monitor(leaving it maxed out) and you have a background that can become the equivalent of trying to stare into the sun.

    By comparison the black text over light gray on ttag is perfectly fine to read on just about every monitor I’ve seen.

    Hopefully this can be taken as some constructive criticism, because I don’t plan on switching up my monitor usage just to read one particular website, and the current color scheme WILL drive people away.

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