 
My first ex-mother-in-law always poured the milk into her cup before her tea. One day, I asked her why. She didn’t have a clue. Further research revealed that milk wasn’t pasteurized back in the day. Pouring hot tea on lukewarm milk offered some protection against bacteria. How that milk-first practice morphed into a Swiftian demarcation of the English class system I’ll never know. But this much is clear: the average gun control supporter has no more understanding of their anti-gun beliefs than ex-MIL I had about the origins of her tea etiquette. In both cases, it’s more a matter of cultural indoctrination than coherent thought. That said . . .
American anti-gunners can, on occasion, if pushed, offer some semi-logical basis for their willingness to infringe on their fellow citizen’s natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Something about protecting people from their own stupidity and/or inherently unstable psychology. Oh yeah, and something about making it harder for criminals to get guns, so they’ll not be able to get ahold of one when they decide to engage in a criminal act. Sorry, if.
The average anti-gunner’s rationale is easily defeated by the facts. The average anti-gunner’s belief system is not. That’s because the facts have nothing to do with it. They’re not anti-gun because they’ve thought it through. They’re anti-gun because they didn’t think it through. Why would they? They grew up amongst people who are reflexively anti-gun. The chances of encountering a pro-gun conservative on the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island, for example, are about the same as finding a meth lab on Freeman Parkway. You know; now that I’ve left.
So why did I eschew the lucrative meth trade to deconstruct anti-gun agitprop for a living? Because A) meth is hell on your teeth, B) eviscerating anti-gunners’ dietribes [sic] keeps The People of the Gun focused and strong and C) fence-straddlers come for the guns and leave the cannoli. I mean, they leave the site gun rights supporters. Eventually. In fact, this trend has led me to believe that the future of American gun rights lies in the popularity of . . . wait for it . . . guns! Â
Centennial Gun Club recently finished a $10 million expansion to a new facility that’s relieving the backlog of reservations at the previous location.
The new facility at 11800 E. Peakview Ave., Centennial, is 35,000 square feet compared to about 8,500 square feet they had in the old facility a parking lot away. Construction started in May and finished up before Dec. 25.
The new facility also features 28 new shooting lanes, eight of which are reserved for their VIP section, called the Statesman’s Lounge, designed for people like professional athletes who don’t want to be bothered for autographs, said Richard Abramson, general manger and CEO of the Centennial Gun Club, which opened in the old location two years ago. The old facility had six lanes for shooting.
“We were busting at the seams,” Abramson said.
Centennial as in The Centennial State. You know: Colorado. Ground zero (before Connecticut) for a major post-Newtown erosion of gun rights, in the form of expanded background checks and limits on ammunition magazine capacity. The Centennial Gun Club‘s expansion [reported by denverpost.com] happened after Colorado enacted their draconian disarmament laws. Which tells me that gun control advocates’ legislative success did nothing to diminish the ongoing strength indeed astounding growth of the state’s gun culture.
“We wanted this to be our flagship operation and we’re working on a number of other ranges not only in Denver but the rest of the country as well,” Abramson told the Post. He better hurry. New gun ranges are springing-up all over. And here’s the thing: while anti-gunners struggle to assemble a dozen protesters for a po-faced rally, hundreds if thousands of pro-gun folk are having fun shooting at these increasingly family-friendly facilities. Facilities that engender a vibrant, coherent and empowering pro-gun culture.
“We want to create the club environment where we have leagues and member competitions and things like that to help bring people together of like-minded ideas and they all get to know each other, so it’s really developing a community,” Abramson said.
Mike Kirk of Parker, who was a founding member of the club, said he values that sense of community.
“There’s just a lot of camaraderie and it’s nice to have that, particularly as you get older,” Kirk said.
The new facility has also drawn an increasingly larger female population, Abramson said, He also said women account for the fastest-growing sector of gun owners. Range officer Cindi Morton is heading up the Girl and a Gun class to be held three times a month.
“We as women, we aren’t feeling the taboos, we’re feeling that we need to be knowledgeable on what is going on in the world,” said Morton, who originally was a member at the club before being hired. “We don’t need to have our husbands protecting us. We want to be able to protect ourselves.”
Winning? Well, while a handful of Moms Demand Acton for Gun Sense in America talk about guns as if owning one’s a crime, millions of Americans are enjoying their guns, gun gear and shooting. Which bring to mind Cat Steven’s Tea for the Tillerman: “While sinners sin, the children play. Oh Lord how they play and play. For that happy day, for that happy day.”
The vast majority of the people who think they are enlightened are actually indoctrinated.
Tea For The Tillerman – GREAT album.
+1
Yes. The peak for “gun control” was 1993-1994. It does not mean we can’t lose. It just means that we are winning.
Some arguments anti gunners make sound reasonable and “common sense” if you are only hitting the wave tops of a subject. The problem is, reality is not following their line of “logic”. Analysis of the data presented must be conducted to come up with an informed decision. People on average don’t do very well in this respect.
For instance, lets take magazine capacity restrictions. This sounds like a great way to save lives. If criminals have fewer bullets to shoot then fewer people can be shot, or someone can tackle the shooter and end the shooting. If you do the analysis, magazine capacity has no statistically significant effect on how many people die in a shootings. They only have an effect on a few outlier shootings. The most important factor in any shooting is time. How fast is the first person with a gun on scene?
I also do not think most people are going to understand the difference in a pause for reloading, or a pause for acquiring new targets while running for their life. This is not Hollywood, and real life doesn’t follow a script. It also does not follow what people may think sounds reasonable. This also is ignoring the whole RKBA thing which some people shut off the minute you mention it. Mostly because they have not done the analysis on why it is important.
This. A lot of people who believe in further restrictions are only using thought experiments, and not investigating real-world data. On the surface, a lot of restrictions sound like they’d help reduce crime and prevent tragedy; it just turns out that it’s untrue.
Much like a thought experiment might show that the passage of time is unrelated to velocity, or that light would act like either a particle or a wave but not both. In reality physics shows both to be incorrect, just as real world data shows restrictions on guns to have virtually no bearing on crime (aside from encouraging it).
All right-thinking people open their eggs from the small end…with a .45. Those who open their eggs from the big end with a 9mm are barbarous savages.
You can have your small ends and your .45. I like big ends, and I cannot lie.
I would say that anyone who lives in a state that was or is blue, or has been split purple in the past, is just one Newtown away from their very own SAFE act.
As I sit here in Loveland Colorado for one more night barring flight cancellations tomorrow, I can tell you that probably everybody in my son’s neighborhood has guns in the house regardless of their politics. He lives right behind a high school and it has remained open even though I can be seen open carrying my XD/m as I go on my daily walks with the dogs through the neighborhood.
So why did Colorado infringe on the resident’s gun rights. Best as I can determine is that Second Amendment rights are not #1 on the majority’s agenda. The faux Libertarians sees sex and drug rights as more important than what’s explicitly in the Constitution and the blue collar center-left places big government programs at a higher priority. So the core Republican constituency, derided ad RINOs and SOCONs by the faux Libertarians, cannot win state wide elections. We will see what happens in November. Will the faux Libertarians, having secured sex and drug rights, swallow hard and vote for Republicans who will secure Second Amendment rights or will continue in their fantasy that they can replace the Republicans? Will the traditional blue collar Democrat vote his Second Amendment preferences in a non Presidential year or will they pull the Democratic lever out of habit? On these groups rests the future of gun rights in Colorado.
And the poor Republicans are helpless victims, unable to avoid the electoral doom foisted upon them by all these scoundrels.
Knowing that you are a faux Libertarian I am going to treat this seriously. Elections are won by the guy with the most votes. Some people vote for the party regardless of the candidate. Some people vote for the man. Some voters vote for a party line and anybody who deviates from the party line on a single issue is declared persona nongrata. Unfortunately, the Republicans have people on both ends of the spectrum who fit the last catsgory. Both groups account for few votes but enough to give the election to the Democrats. You can live in your faux Libertarian fantasy world and watch the Democrats destroy the country. As far as I am concerned you are just a Progressive fellow traveler.
So, again, there’s no solution and the Republicans are helpless, passive observers, completely powerless to prevent their downfall and therefore the corruption of the country.
And you wonder why you guys lose elections? In terms of messages, this combination of pity party and finger wagging is pretty damn far from “morning in America”.
Bitter much?
If you want to get libertarian votes back, offer them some reason to come back. Right now, GOP, sidetracked by SoCons, is chasing precisely the wrong ends for this, and that will be its downfall.
Good riddance, too.
While I would place the middle in a slightly different position, you have provided a reasonale analysis.
I would point out, however, that, in my experience, a higher percentage of “social conservatives” are open to discussion and debate with the “faux libertarians” than is the reverse. The “faux-libertarian” types tend to be outright dismissive of the “social conservatives”, treating them as stupid, fanatical, or evil.
In some ways it is similar to how many “anti-gun” people are not open to listening to “pro-gun” types and seek to dismiss them as kooks.
Obviously libertarianism threatens the Republican establishment because it undermines their ability to tell people what to believe and how to live their lives. Individuals thinking for themselves does not benefit the Democrat-Republican establishment.
If the Republicans don’t “need” your vote, they’ll sell your 2A rights down the river nearly as quickly as the Democrats.
Example1: FOPA passed a Republican controlled Senate and was signed by a Republican President (under no threat of veto).
Example2: You had FAR more Republicans voting for GCA’68 than you had voting against it (House Republicans: 147 aye to 39 nay and Senate Republicans: 30 aye to 4 naye).
I’ve been here since before ’68 and I can tell you:
It’s the same lies, told and re~told since the late 1940’s. The packaging has changed along with skirt length an lapel width but nothing of note has changed.
it will never go away, and that is the victory of the ‘Left”, they captured the reigns of our culture and convinced America that communisim is dead
Tea for the Tillerman.. beautiful album by an amazing artist.
Yusuf Islam is da man. đ
I was at the range today. I can tell you there were definitely more women than men there.
Haven’t got a chance to shoot at centennial gun club yet but hope soon! Apparently they have also included some lanes for long range shooting, which is nice, especially if you don’t want to go into the mountains or out by front range airport
Actually, pouring the milk last exposes it to higher temperatures better, as only a little at a time goes into liquid that is already hot, but pouring tea last means the first of it only warms the milk a little. Also, pouring the tea after the milk and sugar mixes it better even before stirring, because of the greater volume, and it also allows you to judge better how much milk is in the cup by how high it gets in the cup (you can’t go by colour when pouring the milk last, as it won’t mix properly until you stir it, by which time you might already have overshot – whereas pouring the tea last lets you see before you overshoot).
However, I have found that it is better to measure in powdered milk last, as if it is there before the tea it tends to form lumps that are hard to stir in.
Is this a Rib? Is there something I’m not seeing here?
I was only going into this piece’s opening remarks. You might have skipped over them to get to the substance.
âWe as women, we arenât feeling the taboos, weâre feeling that we need to be knowledgeable on what is going on in the world,â said Morton, who originally was a member at the club before being hired. âWe donât need to have our husbands protecting us. We want to be able to protect ourselves.â
Yep.
Huh, and here I was always told that the milk in the tea was to bind the tannins. Something about older, more superstitious folk thinking they’d tan their insides like leather.
So is there a recap of “the view?”
You pour the milk in first so you don’t have to stir; pouring the COFFEE in second mixes the drink and cools it enough to drink right now. Who the hell wastes tea by mixing it with milk?!?!?
Take tea and see!
You mean I can throw away my glasses?
I picked up my hammer and saw!
Don’t knock it til you try it. I’ve been a tea drinker for forty-five years and IMAO the best way to enjoy (most) tea is with a bit of cream and honey. YMMV
I have, and I therefore knock it. I do like honey in my tea, but the milk / cream is a no-go for me.
In “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Dennis Adams’ character Ford Prefect says the milk-first routine is to avoid scalding the milk.
Don’t forget your towel!
Robert, the order of “milk in first” has its roots way back in formal English (not British) teatime. Some say that it came about because in ye olde days, fine china cups might crack due to the heat shock, so adding some cool/cold milk helps buffer the heat shock.
Whatever the real reason, the order of “milk in first” became hard-core “proper” tea etiquette long ago.
It would be interesting to see an article about opening a gun range. I know that RF looked into before. What is the cost, what equipment does one need, what sort of insurance, etc? It might help those who are toying with the idea.
Hi Jim, The owner of Manchester Firing Line might be a good person to talk to. Jim McCloud, if I recall his name correctly, runs a pretty fantastic operation and he’s been around the block more than a few times. He also have a very impressive collection of NFA items; the showroom is like a museum.
Before we declare victory remember that the Progressives [Communists!] have control over your children’s education if you are forced to use public schools. They’ve made major inroads in what used to be pure Americana such as the Boy and Girl Scouts. I quit giving to the United Way this year after being a donor for many years. The gun grabbers NEVER quit or give up and the real battlefield concerning our rights is in our children’s minds! Your tax money is funding our own demise!
Take a kid shooting! Frequent the local range! Become involved! Join the NRA!
“American anti-gunners can, on occasion, if pushed, offer some semi-logical basis for their willingness to infringe on their fellow citizenâs natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.”
When they are really pushed, they generally end up with following statement: “Well, I just don’t like guns.”
My reply: “I don’t like Brussels sprouts, but I’m not trying to make it illegal for someone else to eat them.” That generally ends the conversation.
Good article. I’d encourage people to form mini-Pro 2nd amendment groups for local PR and such (just like the MDA and Ceasefire does). If we can carry this momentum for a few years, maybe the politicians will finally start seriously looking at the root causes (mental-health/suicide, and gang violence being the big two) we can counter and bury this anti-gun, anti-common sense gun-control movement.
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