The first firearm I’ve ever owned, a Ruger 10/22 rifle, shown with a 25-round magazine, the regular 10-round magazine, and the all-important Fine Manual. It’s simple to operate, fun to use, and ammunition for it is cheap. I probably won’t actually be able to use it until Sunday, when a lot of us are going out to the range again, but no worries. I’ll have some time to get familiar with field-stripping and cleaning the thing.
That reminds me of something Juan was talking about on Saturday: He walked into a gun store and said, “Hi, I’m looking for a .22, bolt-action, youth model.” The clerk said, “We don’t have any! There aren’t any here! There’s no market for anything like that!” Juan replied, “I think I see one on the rack over there. Could I take a look?” “You’re wasting your time! We don’t have anything like that,” said the clerk. Some places just don’t understand customer service at all, I guess. Juan ended up buying a rifle that was what he wanted from a different store. Companies take note: If your salespeople are idiots, your smarter customers will buy things from other companies.
Fuzzball was a lot quieter yesterday since I was home all day catching up on stuff like laundry and cleaning. She’ll have a rude awakening tomorrow when I get up early to catch the bus in to work. I don’t know for sure how long it’ll take the bus to get there; they claim 15 minutes. The bus going back from Phoenix to Tempe takes much longer, over 30 minutes.
Been reading The Impossible Bird, a sci-fi novel about parallel universes, government conspiracies, and two protagonist brothers who have a seriously messed-up relationship. It’s not profound great literature, but so far it’s been interestingly weird. I hope that when all the actual motivations behind the shadowy conspiracies are revealed, they don’t turn out to be lame, stupid, or totally implausible.
7 users commented in " Now with additional BLAM "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThat is a doozy of a first gun.
I myself am a bit of a Quaker-Hippy. All that peace stuff. Plus I have children. I don’t believe guns and children should live in the same household.
“Doozy”? It’s chambered for .22LR, which is almost the *smallest* caliber you can reliably get. It is difficult to kill something larger than a house cat with one shot with a .22 . The main difference between the rifle pictured above and the bolt-action .22 you fired at Camp Nesbitt many years ago is that mine’s semiautomatic. This rifle is for plinking and target shooting, not for serious use.
Young children can do stupid things with firearms. They can also do stupid things with drain cleaner and motor oil. This is why you keep your firearms, drain cleaner, and motor oil locked, or secured in areas where the young children can’t get to them. Then at appropriate times, you teach those kids how to use firearms, drain cleaner, and motor oil in a safe manner.
The best peace is the peace achieved by reasonable individuals agreeing to behave well. Unfortunately, it only takes a few idiots to disrupt that. Then you have to fall back on the less good, but more easily achieved Peace Through Superior Firepower. (-:
I would contend that caring for guns safely and teaching small children about them will keep them safe than not having them around at all. What is denied becomes the thing most sought after.
I second Matt’s last paragraph
I am jealous. I did not get a book with my 10-22.
iscreamkid, Ruger provides downloadable PDF manuals for their 10/22 models on their website. You have Net access; therefore you can obtain a PDF. If you have a printer, you can rather easily get a hardcopy manual in this manner.
I believe that children should know the basics of firearm safety. The rules are really not that hard to grok. Action open, safety on, firearm pointed in a safe direction. When you are ready to fire, you aim at the target, close the action, and set the safety off. If there is a range officer, you obey the range officer’s orders; if not, you rely on your common sense. I hope that I will never have to use a firearm against anything other than a target, a game animal, or a varmint.
I am still not having guns in the house with kids. A fourth grade friend was killed that way.
Therefore, logic will not work on me.
I also don’t have drain cleaner or motor oil in the house, but that is because I don’t do any of my own repairs.
No drain cleaner? Every couple of months, something gets clogged up. That’s why I bought the economy-sized bottle of Drano. And I just have me in the house, not 5 people.
nope, no draino for us. We just don’t lose much hair, I guess