I just heard gunshots. Somewhere East of Bigelow Park.

This is a powerful article, written by Jeff Sharlet. It's about the use of religious ideology in war. Here's an excerpt from the article describing events that occurred in Iraq.

Jesus Killed Mohammed
by Jeff Sharlet

...

Humphrey had been in Samarra for a month, and until that day his stay had been a quiet respite in one of the world’s oldest cities. Not long before, though, there had been a hint of trouble: a briefing in which his squad was warned that any soldier caught desecrating Islamic sites—Samarra is considered a holy city—would fall under “extreme penalty,” a category that can include a general court-martial and prison time. “I heard some guys were vandalizing mosques,” Humphrey says. “Spray-painting ’em with crosses.”

The rest of that Easter was spent under siege. Insurgents held off Bravo Company, which was called in to rescue the men in the compound. Ammunition ran low. A helicopter tried to drop more but missed. As dusk fell, the men prepared four Bradley Fighting Vehicles for a “run and gun” to draw fire away from the compound. Humphrey headed down from the roof to get a briefing. He found his lieutenant, John D. DeGiulio, with a couple of sergeants. They were snickering like schoolboys. They had commissioned the Special Forces interpreter, an Iraqi from Texas, to paint a legend across their Bradley’s armor, in giant red Arabic script.

“What’s it mean?” asked Humphrey.

“Jesus killed Mohammed,” one of the men told him. The soldiers guffawed. JESUS KILLED MOHAMMED was about to cruise into the Iraqi night.

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Longarms, top to bottom;

Russian SKS

Russian Mosin Nagant 91/30 built in 1943

Ruger 10/22 with folding stock, 25 round magazine and Tasco scope

Handguns, left to right

Springfield Armory 1911a1 style .45

Ruger Security Six, .357 magnum Bicentenial Edition "Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty"

 

Just heard over the scanner of shots fired from a red small sedan-- possible drive by shooting near Martin Way in Lacey. At least seven 9mm casings found on the ground.

Whose near?

UPDATE: Ashley129 in the comments:

 

I live about 5 houses down from where the shooting was. I didn't even hear the gun shots. I was watching a movie fairly loud though. We don't really know much. My fiance came home from work at about 11:00 last night and they had our whole street blocked off. When he asked what happened the cops just said there was a drive by shooting and no one was hurt. We have a one year old and his bedroom is facing the street. This has me terrified! Our whole neighboorhood is full of families with small children. The house that was shot at is right next door to a daycare! Of course there is nothing in the Olympian about it today. I plan on calling the LPD to find out more.

 

A sporting clays event on April 27th. This is a non-registered shoot, so anyone can come out and give this exciting sport a try, or just watch.

You can get the club info and directions from their site below.

Evergreen Gun Club site

 

go to original

So, I went and ordered a new rear sight for my Flattop AR and had to do a little bit of sighting in and put the rifle though it's paces. The following are pictures of myself and a friend doing this.

 

Given all of the argumentative topics, and topics about guns that seem....removed, I decided a thread talking about what I've been up to seemed appropriate. Hopefully some will enjoy this.

 

These are pictures of firearms. Don't look if you are offended by such.......you have been warned.

 

Paper-target Work

Different angle

My Friend, showing me how it's done

And then presenting some of the finer points of pistol marksmanship

Good times were had by all! Plus the new rear sight worked great.

I ran this by Rick real quick to see if he thought it was Olyblog appropriate... The link takes you to another website where you can download a PDF of a comprehensive Washington State Gun Rights pamphlet. I'm happy to discuss any issues or questions that arise from this. It is a PITA to load PDF docs on my computer right now (slow 'puter) so I would appreciate a quote of the issue in question. Thanks!

I've been thinking about this whole debate around gun culture on OlyBlog, and I've got a couple of questions. The first is, what exactly is the point of posting so much gun-related material on OlyBlog? Does anyone really think that there are going to be converts to the cause? I was looking on the NRA website and I noticed something interesting: there isn't a shooting range in Olympia, Lacey or Tumwater. Hmm. Why is that? I'm guessing that the population here wouldn't generate enough business to support it. So, first question: What's the goal?

Then, I think about the response to my offer to set up another blog for the gun folks to have their own chat-space. Why isn't this of interest to the local gun lobby? The only thing I can come up with is that they don't actually want to talk to each other, they want to argue with the rest of us. Is this possibly the case? Why would it be more attractive to continue to battle about these issues with a group of hardened pacifists (or folks otherwise resistant to gun culture)? I'd really like to know.

I want to emphasize (again) that I'm not against the occasional post about gun-related events or occurrences that are local in nature. That's what OlyBlog is for. I am against the evangelizing about the benefits of gun ownership.

If there is no resolution around this issue (like the creation of another blog for that stuff) then here's what's going to happen: I'll begin making posts that catalog the senseless and entirely avoidable deaths that occur as a result of easy access to handguns. I'm absolutely certain that I can exceed by a factor of 10 the number of lawful uses of handguns for self-defense. In short, we can use statistics, or we can do it the hard way.

Had a dinner at Old School today starting at 5pm, I reserved the back room, figured about 6-8 people.

We had dang near 20 people openly wearing sidearms crowding Old School and eating pizza. I somehow forgot to mention the size of a "small" pizza to my friends :-)

We spent about 3 hours chatting, and having a good time. Nobody had any problems or issues with us, and I'm pretty sure that 20 people openly carrying were noticed. When we were all getting ready to leave, we chatted with with a couple of guys playing video games about OC.

Drew Hendricks showed up as well, and had a good time talking and exchanging information.

It was quite a rush to have 20 people show up as a show of solidarity against the OPD's harassing actions.