Thursday, January 31, 2013

Continuing Thoughts on Primitivism

I'll keep posting stuff I'm reading and thinking along these lines for awhile, until either the concept runs dry or I change my point of view.

It appears to me that God has ordained a somewhat more simple existence for men. His chosen people were simple herdsmen in lands where cities and high degrees of specialization were considered places of sin. The Bible uses primarily agrarian concepts to explain deep theological principles.

So why are we now building jet engines and killer flying robots (drones) to kill our enemies? How did we get that far? Sin? Prideful nature of man?

I'm about to watch this long video here and see what thoughts come of it. This fellow, Derrick Jensen, seems to be one of the players in the debate of primitivism and what it should look like. Some of the others have left me turned off based on their leftist principles. I'll explain more of that later as well.

A Debate to Wade Into

I have recently uncovered that there is a debate going on in the anarchist-primitivist movement. It involves such people as John Zerzan, Derrick Jensen, and Bob Black. There are a lot of people weighing in on this.

My general philosophy is that of a Christian Anarchist, but the primitivist movement has always been loaded up with weirdos and leftists. Weirdos I can stand, but leftists I cannot. So it's news (good news) to me that there is a part of this movement that rejects the leftist ideals.

I shall surely research more.

A View of Civilization

Does civilization improve the net happiness of human beings? This would seem like a "duh" question. Of COURSE civilization improves everyone's happiness. You get more stuff! Like iPhones and the internet and cappucino.

As I have begun "decivilizing" my life, I've found that more and more I'm happier with simple things. Going to a movie theatre would be a horror for me. I much prefer sitting on the porch and watching the sunset. Going to a restaurant is no longer enjoyable. Stirring a soup pot over the woodstove in winter has become a family discussion point.

If you cut your life free of the concept that "things make us happy" then you can begin to see where the lie of civilization unfolds.

I reject the Hobbesian viewpoint that life before civilization was "nasty, brutish, and short". We don't even see evidence of that today, where the only hunter/gatherer societies have been pushed into adverse environments that "civilized" man doesn't want.

Jared Diamond, in one of his books, noted that no culture affords its adherents more leisure time than primitive hunter/gatherer ones. The book, "Stone Age Economics" would seem to validate this, as it has documented observations where hunter/gathers spend no more than 4 hours a day providing their needs. A four hour workday! When was the last time you could survive on just that?

Men with industrial minds require others to share that same viewpoint. They cannot share a world with happy and simple agrarian peoples. The other model is simply too appealing. Do you not dream of a much simpler, agrarian life?

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Quoting my wife on Homeschooling

Paraphrasing here, because this was in the middle of a long anti-government rant:

A free person can never develop from an enslaved mind.

She's explaining that if you send your child to public school you are essentially dooming them to a life of slavery to the state and the corporations.

I don't entirely agree with her. Both her and I are public school educated and we have developed the freedom mindset, even if we still struggle with the shackles of the system. But we are both stubborn throwbacks and dead-enders.

EDIT: My wife says I misunderstood her and I should rectify the situation immediately or I don't get any of the delicious beans and ham that have been simmering on the woodstove all day.

She says that free people don't come from enslaved children. She means that you have to free yourself intellectually first and then your life second.

She's right about that. It took us 20 years to get to that position, and we did it in fits and starts. Yet look at my oldest son Jared. He's 16 now and as far as being liberty-minded, he's in the same place now as we are at 40.



Rumors of My Demise

I'm still alive. Barely. Bleh. This flu has taken a lot out of me over the past week. I'm on the downhill side of it now so I'm up and moving around again, but I haven't been this sick in a couple of years.

The big sale on knives was a success and I've sold most everything. I've got a couple in a near-finished state in the shop from before I got sick so you'll be seeing some new items soon. I'm also going to be trying my hand at sheath-making again. That wasn't a success before and I don't know that it will be this time either, but I haven't been able to locate a leathersmith to team up with down here. Knives always sell better with a matching sheath.

I've gotten a few custom orders in lately too, which is always good. I'm going to try to arrange on my Etsy site a way to sell custom orders directly, but I think customers do like the discussion back and forth as to what sort of knife they would like. It's not often in this world anymore that you get to have something crafted to your exact specifications.

Well, that's my energy level for the day. I'm guessing my body is putting everything it's got into healing so I'll be back up and running again soon. Stay kicking out there, folks. Winter is almost over. We'll be planting our spring gardens before we know it.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Over the Fence

Chatted with my neighbor over the back pasture fence this evening at sunset. He was out taking his dog for a walk. Or a ride, I guess. He comes out there on his 4 wheeler.

He says the company they work for is going to be laying off some folks, maybe even him.

Frightening. They're a scrap metal yard. I would have thought the scrap yards would be somewhat recession-proof.

ACHHHHHEWWWW!

I've got the flu. Blech. I had thought I had the flu back over the Christmas holidays, but it never manifested into anything real. I guess that was just a warm-up exercise.

I ran into my friend up at the grocery store this morning, where I went to grab some orange juice. My wife and I have a running argument as to whether or not orange juice actually helps you kick a cold. I say it does because of the Vitamin C, and she says there is no real Vitamin C in there, only sugar. I haven't won an argument with her in a decade but I still got my orange juice.
 
So my friend asks me if I'd called this other fellow about a job that needs doing. The other fellow's house burned down and he needs someone to haul off all of the debris (after knocking down the rubble with my backhoe). Might be about 3-4 days work, which would cover me for about 2 months. I hadn't been able to get in touch with the other guy, but I need to try again.
 
Where am I going with this fever-addled story? I was just pondering on the fact that the self-employed don't get any "sick days". There is no pay for the man who stays at home due to illness. I'm not reflecting on the fairness or justice of this. No, I haven't joined the "Occupy" movement. I'm just reflecting on the situation and the need to store up a little food and cash to get you through.
 
 

Friday, January 25, 2013

Menacing the Public

I took 5 knives to the post office this afternoon to ship them out to buyers. I went in with them tucked under my arm, juggling them all the way from the truck.

To set the scene, I live outside of a very small town. There's not much there.

When I pulled up and got out of the truck with the knives, there was a city worker there who was about to go into the post office. He saw me get out of the truck with all my knives and then went back to his truck. I didn't pay any more attention.

While I was discussing the merits of paper versus bubble wrap with the postal clerk inside (who knows me from previous shipping events), a state trooper comes in behind me and asks if everything is ok. We both look at him confused. He's not menacing or threatening me in any way.

911 dispatch received a call from the city worker that a man with a lot of knives had just entered the post office and he was the closest, I suppose.

He could clearly see what was actually happening and wasn't concerned. He looked over the knives and I gave him my website address. Maybe he'll buy something from me in the future. He was certainly amused by the situation.

I suppose it's just the times we live in, but I think you'd have to be a complete idiot to think someone would go on a killing spree with 5 knives. If I had went in with 1 knife clenched in my fist while muttering then I could possibly see calling the police, but a guy trying to juggle 5 knives under his arm with a sheet of notebook paper clenched between his teeth doesn't seem very threatening to me.

I did accidentally cut my finger though, so I suppose there was an element of danger.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Diane Feinstein - A Gallery

If you've recently eaten, I apologize for this post. But I wanted to explore a couple of pictures of Dianne Feinstein with you and broach a theory.


This is the Feinstein most commonly pictured in the patriot media. She does not look like a real person to me. She looks like what an alien civilization would build if they wanted to create an artificial human.


"Commander Zorg! We have deployed the simulacrum. Victory shall be ours!"


"These humans shall make excellent slaves."

She simply does not look human. She looks like something assembled. Her eyes are soulless and her flesh looks waxy.

There is another possible theory ...

Acts 19

This morning I was reading the story of what happened in Ephesus when Paul was there, as told to us in Acts 19.

Paul and some of his men were there preaching and a riot broke out when the silversmiths and idol makers stoked the crowd against the Christians. The mob was told that the Christians were belittling Diana, the main goddess of Ephesus at that time.

What a ruckus.

Sometimes when we speak of Christ, all other things seem little. This is because all things ARE little in comparison to Christ. We don't have to intentionally belittle those other things which people hold dear, but they will feel belittled when we speak of our mighty savior.

And most importantly we should pay attention to who it was that stoked up the anger of the mob against Paul and the other Christians. It was Demetrius the silversmith, who saw the preaching of the Christians and realized that his source of income (idol making) was being threatened. He brought together his fellows in like business and convinced them that they should stir up the people against the Christians.


How little has changed today! If you as a Christian are speaking out against any of the modern idols, watch how fast those whose livelihoods are threatened will attack you. Speak against the government, or the military, or even something as trivial as high school football and watch them line up to stone you.

Resolve today to speak out against a modern idol and start a riot.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Some Pictures for Miss Carol







What God Wants


This is not the world that God created for us to live in. We do not spend our days doing what He wants us to do, but rather what we feel we must do in order to survive. Yet our views on what is essential to survive have become very badly skewed. People are assaulting each other in stores over iPads and designer clothing.

Obama and the destruction of the United States surely must be ordained by God. We've practiced infanticide on a factory scale with an estimated 55 million children perishing under the knife. I fear that this will be our sin, though we spoke against it and did not participate. We allowed it to happen. We did not cast out abortionists from our churches. We did not spit on them in the street. We did not elect politicians who would make it their single mission to stop the murder of children.

God will now test us in poverty. The pharaoh will command that we make bricks without straw and we will have to obey. We will have to beg for our bread. We will watch our national influence wither and die as other nations are lifted up. Our children will suffer for our sins. We will see bloody civil war again and the killing fields of Shiloh will range across the entire nation. Bloody-handed men without conscience shall rain death upon us with machines.

We will be tested. God is going to sift us like wheat. It is not courage that He seeks, but enduring faithfulness.




Tuesday, January 22, 2013

55,772,015 Dead

The horror of this day is almost unimaginable.

How many babies went into the fires of Moloch? How many were left to die on Spartan hillsides? Surely not this many.

Monday, January 21, 2013

The Myth of the Boating Accident

It's so overused, it's almost a running gag on political and survivalist forums and blogs.

"I had [insert object of discussion here] up until I lost it in a tragic boating accident."



This is often used to deny ownership of guns, gold, silver, or possibly even a pit bull. Pretty much anything that the author of the statement feels that the government might someday come after.

Do they think it helps?

If the government thinks you have something they want, they come and take it. They don't abide by rule of law. That's sort of the rub, isn't it?

If the government would follow the rule of law and take your word that you lost it, then they wouldn't have been there in the first place trying to take it.

So this is a relatively weak pretense to make. I can't imagine it working in the face of a government machine which went to the trouble of organizing a SWAT team to come to your house to look for the item.

"Oh, you lost it? Our bad. We'll update our records. Have a nice day."

This line of thought led me to the other point: gun confiscation.

Down the road in the nearest town is a very small gun dealer. I have bought nitnoid things from him in the past. I fill out a form and he does a background check over the phone, then whatever records are kept on my purchase go into a filing cabinet. That filing cabinet is stuffed full of probably 20 years worth of gun records, from the looks of it.

If anything is going to be worth taking out in a canoe with the intent of losing it, I would think it would be that filing cabinet. From what I hear, the government doesn't have great records on who owns what. Most of that stuff is in the hands of the dealer. In other words, in a bunch of other filing cabinets.

I'm sure you see where I'm going with this by now.

If firearm confiscations begin, the first thing to disappear needs to be those filing cabinets.



Saturday, January 19, 2013

Midnight Funny


When I was in Austin a few months back, I saw this on the back of a truck outside of Rudy's Barbecue.

Mmmmm .... barbecue.

Friday, January 18, 2013

"Hanging In There" Sale

Good news! I'm back in the knife shop and starting to churn out some more knives. So there will be a lot more items up for sale here in the future. In the meantime, I've got a couple of old ones that appear to be hard to sell. What do you do when something is hard to sell? You lower the price.

It's also property tax time so that's the purpose towards this particular sale.

You can go to my Etsy store or search for "Possum Creek Knifework" and take advantage of this offer. If you see a knife you like, you can enter the coupon code "PayPossumTax" and get 10% off. That'll be the sale for the next week or two.


Hang in there!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Encouraged

Spirits have been low today. Some business setbacks have both delayed some of my plans and may cost me a lot of money.

In the midst of it all, I received some good news that lifted my spirits. Very nice.

Patriot Blogosphere Catches Fire in Flame War

Apparently some guy has decided to create an armed patriot compound in Idaho and he's looking for followers, funding, etc. Some other guys (big names with blogs) have verbally attacked him and his idea.

I don't know the truth of it as I don't really expend a lot of cycles in those sorts of debates, but I'll enter a few thoughts on the nature of such an endeavor.

1. First and foremost, anyone who has the wherewithal to organize and run such a community, would probably have enough money in the world today to foot the bill and initiate it. For that matter, I know a lot of folks who have between 100-1000 acres who would be capable of starting it. Some guy who hatched this idea in his garage and doesn't have the resources to invest his own money in 20 acres in Idaho isn't committed enough to the effort for me.

2. Some people in the patriot movement are not freedom loving individuals. I don't know the individuals concerned, so I can't speak as to their motives, but be wary when getting hooked up with any folks in general. For them, "freedom" is a buzzword used to gain personal power. They would be just as bad of a tyrant as those they wish to overthrow, but for whatever reason they have not been able to get into the traditional halls of power (political or corporate). So they find fringe movements and try to elevate themselves there.

3. Assuming this is all on the up and up, what is the shelf life of such a community? A group of people bound only by the loose mantra of "freedom" doesn't seem very stable. Freedom means different things to different people. I've seen Christian communities come apart at the seams over differences in leadership approaches, clothing, or land use. How does a community with individual freedom as its basis for group identity actually manage to get anything done?

Ok, that's enough. I could go on and on but I think most of the other bloggers have already chewed all the meat off of this bone. Here in the last cold hour before dawn, there's better topics for me to dwell on and it's hard to type with this darned cat climbing all over me.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Down Goes the Economy

There's a lot of earth-moving equipment up for sale lately in my area. Talking to folks, most of the construction companies are hurting for cash. Nobody is spending any money and that's hurting them bad.

If you have a family to feed, bills to pay, and payments on your equipment to make, then a downturn in business is a killer.

I'm looking to pick up some of this equipment to augment the other things I do, but I'm a bit leery. Perhaps there's about to be a turn in regulation or economics or something I'm not experienced enough to gauge.

Ah well. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Legal Woes of a Superhero

The boys are watching a Batman cartoon right now. My oldest son posed an interesting question:

Batman and Spiderman always beat up the bad guys and leave them tied to a lamppost. How do the police even know they did anything?

If you are attacked by a superhero who then leaves you tied up for the police, I suppose in any legitimate legal system then all you would need to do is deny everything. If no one saw you robbing the bank, breaking into the vault, mugging an old woman, etc. then it's simply your word against Batman, who isn't going to show up in court.

I believe this is a major flaw in the whole Batman franchise. Unless you're stopping criminals who already are wanted by the police, or have been witnessed (and clearly identified) committing a crime, then you really haven't done much except beat some guy up.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

America is the Warsaw Ghetto

Here in the second term of his presidency, Obama has decided to make his move. The dead bodies of small children did for him what his gun-running scheme "Fast and Furious" failed to do: it mobilized public attention.

Now the vice president announces that Obama is going to circumvent the entire legal system and will issue an executive order banning guns, either all or some.

Many of you are, like myself, peace-loving individuals. We want nothing more than to raise our children in peace. We want to read our books, tend our gardens, live simply, and devote our lives to God. Bloody revolution is the farthest thing from our minds. We care not what kind of government is out there, so long as it leaves us alone.

I can see now that it will not.

If it were simply a matter of their greed for my property, I could willingly give it all up to them and be left in peace. I could stack my belongings out by the road for them to cart away. I might suffer without some of them for awhile, but the peace I could get in return would be worth it.

If it were simply a matter of taxes, I could pay them off and be done. Or, if unable to stand the continuous increase in their tax schemes, I could drop out of the system and neither earn nor spend, thus falling off of their tax rolls.

If it were simply a matter of public safety and they truly believed that guns were dangerous and wanted them out of the hands of the less trained, then I could either go get further training or surrender my guns and go in peace.

Yet I can see that it is not a matter of these things. They do not want your property, they want you entirely enslaved. They want your children enslaved, so that they can be reeducated and so that they will not be bothered with this "freedom foolishness" in future generations.

If a single one of us remains free, even if we be hiding naked in a hollow long in the deepest wilderness and eating locusts and wild honey, their plans cannot succeed. The enslaved will have a basis for comparison and will have a word for what they yearn for in their hearts.

So if they cannot enslave us, they must kill us. This is why it is so important for them to disarm us today, for who would willingly allow themselves to be killed? Before they reveal what it is they intend to do with those stalwarts and malcontents who will not be willingly enslaved, they must disarm us all so that there can be no violent resistance to their plans.

Our backs are against the wall. In the coming years, the economy is going to fall apart. They have destroyed it deliberately. The food sysem will collapse. They have poisoned it deliberately. We will be attacked by foreign enemies, who they will have nurtured and brought in.

The shibboleths of our society have been systematically attacked by the usurper Obama. He put a pedophile in charge of schools. He put a tax fraud in charge of the treasury. He put a racist criminal in charge of the justice system. All of our institutions have been brought low.

I suggest that you start memorizing Psalms 91, so that you may take comfort from in it the years to come. Whether you hunker in the field of war, awaiting the enemy to cross into your ambush, or whether you languish in prison. And with your spiritual needs seen to, you may begin tending to the hard business ahead.

Midnight Aristotle Quote

“Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action…” -Aristotle

Ladies and gentlemen, is this not exactly where we are?


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Hillbilly Traveling Games: Roadkill Bingo

When we go to town, me and the boys like to play "roadkill bingo".

Each player picks three animals. The first one to spot all three of their animals dead on the road wins. A pretty simple game really. Sometimes you can go for the mystery animal. That's any critter that's been splatted so much that it's unidentifiable.

Sometimes we have such an argument about what something is or isn't we have to stop the truck and check.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Why me?

All I want is to live free and to raise my children as I see fit. I would like to keep the majority of the profit from my labors, if God says there should be profit, and I would like to live unhindered by rules and regulations designed by people who do not live like I do.

Apparently this woman's statist sleep is disturbed by the existence of a gun in my hand.

Senator Feinstein

I have never met her nor crossed paths in any business circle with her. She has likely never heard my name, read my blog, or bought one of my short stories on Amazon. I've never sold her a knife. I've never dug a septic tank for her or sold her any firewood.

Why does she fear me so? What plans does she have that she thinks I might violently resist if I am not disarmed? Why does she feel that I need to have my property (as it was my grandfather's before me) taken from me by force?

What exactly is she up to that it's so important that I be made helpless?

Friday, January 4, 2013

Huh?

My oldest son has a Kindle. He goes out and gets his own books. I was worried initially that he would get something inappropriate. At this point though, I have to admit that my public education has left me entirely incapable of understanding his homeschool reading list.

The Amazon emails come to my account which is the only way I know what's going on. Today this one showed up:

How many stars would you give 'The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II'?

Heck, I don't even know what that is. I'm sure it was thrilling. I'm still struggling my way through a Harry Turtledove novel.

 
"Where's that damned waitress gotten to?"

Snow Day

Woke up this morning and there's about 2" of snow on the ground out there. I heard it start coming down last night, whispering against the steel roof of the cabin but up under the blankets I was too comfortable to go to the window. When I went down this morning, a herd of 8 deer crossed the fence right in front of the house so I grabbed the camera. I took a bunch of blurry shots until my wife grabbed the camera away from me in disgust and took a good one.

When I imported the photos in I could see that there's a lot more I hadn't seen. My wife, a photographer by avocation and vocation, grabs the camera every so often when there's an event going on she feels is worth keeping. So here's a couple of those events over the past year.

 
River Lily has a new jacket. Her city cousin outgrew it.

 
My wife always seems to snap a photo of me loafing on the couch reading. Law of averages, I suppose.

 
The boys playing with some goo. Don't ask.
 
 
We started work at the end of summer on the addition to the cabin. Every child helped. Someday when they are grown, they will look at this structure (or its ruins) and say to their children, "I built that with your grandpa."

 
Storm coming in. There is no sky anywhere like a Texas sky when a storm is in the works.

 
The curmudgeon outside of the workshop. Notice the broken down, sagging, about-to-collapse look. Oh, and the workshop isn't in good shape either.

 
The addition with the plywood up.

 
Another view of the addition. And yes, I am sitting there again.

 
Half of a roof on the addition.
 
 
Looking for a hole to dig. Nobody digs themself into a hole like I do.

 
The particular photo I wanted to show you this morning. Shot out of my living room.

 
This is Momotaro, or as I call him, "Momo the Preposterous Cat". Someone dumped about 6 kittens out by the road and Momo decided he wasn't having any of it, so I woke up one morning and he was under our porch. I thought at first he was a Japanese bobtail, but now I suspect either some other critter or a slamming door may have removed Momo's tail before he joined us. He weighed about 6 fluid ounces when he showed up, but now he's a fat little scamp.

 
My friend Kelly and I were apparently deep in thought about something or other. I miss Kelly. He used to live nearby but now he's moved back to east Texas.

 
The menfolk discuss something that was, in all likelihood, amusing, political, or profane. Possibly all three. The man on the right is my good friend Corky who I work with on occasion.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Skin of Boehner's Teeth

Looks like Boehner gets to keep his job a little while longer.

He's been wheeling and dealing with Obama for so long and failing to act as any real opposition, that too many of the other Republicans got fed up and they called for his ouster.

I don't fully understand how the voting goes, but on a straight up numbers count, the House almost got Nancy Pelosi in charge. I guess the Republicans were fed up enough with Boehner to call the vote to scare him into acting like an opposition party ought to. Kind of a risky approach though if they almost got Pelosi. I don't know if they thought she might cooperate with Obama LESS.

Funny stuff.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Illinois Gun Ban Legislation HB 1263 Summary

Glad I'm not still in Illinois. Though from this it looks I would only have two guns that fell under the tender administrations of the Illinois State Police.

Ok, here's a brief summary of the weapons banned under this legislation:

-Any semi-automatic or pump action rifle which can accept a detachable magazine or has a folding stock, a pistol grip, or a barrel shroud.

-Any semi-automatic pistol which can accept a detachable magazine or has an external magazine or a shroud or weighs over 50 ounces unloaded.

-Any weapon that is a semi-automatic version of an automatic one.

-Anything semi-automatic which holds more than 10 rounds.

Under this, you have to register with the state police any of these weapons no later than 90 days after January 1, 2014. After that date, you can only transfer the weapon to a heir, to someone out of state, or to a licensed firearms dealer (who can't sell it to anyone in the state). And within 10 days you've got to notify the state police as to who you sold/transferred it to.

Then the law exempts law enforcement, prison wardens, soldiers (only while performing their official duties or traveling in Illinois), and registered olympic atheletes.

There's a lot of stuff in there about control, licensing, and monitoring of shooting ranges which I won't go into.

Getting caught with an unregistered weapon after January 1, 2014 is a CLASS 3 FELONY. Getting caught the second time is a CLASS 2 FELONY. The felony charges stack with each other. If you get caught with 3 unregistered guns then it is THREE DIFFERENT CHARGES.

If you lose your guns in a "tragic canoe accident" then you have 72 hours to notify the state police.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Grey Water Re-Use

In our household, approximately a 100 gallons of water per week become what the industrial system calls "grey water". In reading about this substance, it is the second most deadly substance known to man, the first being human feces.

Our kitchen sink has a bucket underneath it. You wash your hands and the water runs straight through the sink and is captured in the bucket. When the bucket is full, a kid takes the bucket out and pours it on a fruit tree.

I find it kind of offensive that the industrial system would think I'm stupid enough to think that water, having come into contact with my child's dirty hands, is now a toxic substance that must be dealt with on the level of industrial waste.

Their feet? Maybe.

I'm currently designing a greywater system where my wife can drain laundry water and dishwater out a pipe and into a large pit designed to hold it while a water-hungry tree sucks it up. The location I've picked means this water-hungry tree will eventually shade my cabin.

I've got a book which talks about how to do this, and over the next week or two you can expect lots of posts (hopefully with pictures) on the topic.

At worst, it doesn't work and I pull up the pipe and try something else.

Concealed Carry vs Open Carry

Lately I have started carrying my pistol again and I've got a few comments to make.

WHY do I have to conceal it? As John Wayne said in the movie "Big Jake" about their ostentatious show of force and guns, "We might just be saving some poor bastards life by letting him know he can't have it."

The inside the waistband pistol holsters are not comfortable. I don't have much of a belly, but what I do have they rub up against and irritate me. If I move the gun around to the back then it's uncomfortable when I get back in the truck and sit down so I have to take it off.

In the Texas heat of summer, a shoulder holster is not feasible if I want to wear a t-shirt. And a boot holster is just silly. "Excuse me, Mr. Thug, while I bend down hear and lift up my pants leg and fish around inside these Redwings for a moment."

 I would like to be able to just take a pistol in a holster on a belt and strap it around my waist when I go into town, worn outside my clothes and my pants and on full display. I'm no more likely to use it illegally that way than I am if it's hidden but it would be a lot more comfortable.

But it might alarm people. Scary hillbilly wearing a gun on his hip has connotations of the Wild West to some folks. Well, I'm here to tell you that the Wild West was safer. We have just as many bandits and "Wild Indians" today as they did back then. Only now our bandits aren't waiting out in the desert to rob Wells Fargo stagecoaches, they're at the 7-11 waiting to rob YOU. And the Wild Indians aren't really Indians. They're just feral humans who don't recognize the rule of law but instead only recognize opportunity, threat, and the prospect of violence. Not violence against you ... they relish that ... but violence that might be put against them. The only thing keeping them from dragging women out of their cars and raping them, or brutally attacking men on the street is the thought of a cop showing up and stopping them, or one of their victims drawing a gun.

So let's save those feral humans the trouble of figuring out who might or might not have a gun. Put it out for display right on the hip. Let them know that the entire area within range of you is a "criminal free zone".

And I wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of a concealed pistol pinching my belly fat.

Back in the Workshop

Well we're back in the workshop today as part of the New Year push. The cold weather has driven me out a bit of late, as well as a touch of illness. I'm feeling better and the weather is warm enough that the small woodstove should keep the chill at bay, so let's make some knives!

I'm still having trouble with Paypal. I failed some "fraud detection" test of theirs and they suspended my accounts for the Etsy store. I now have to jump through hoops to get them to believe who I am. While it is designed to protect me and them, I can't help but get the feeling it helps them MORE so I'm dropping out of Paypal altogether.

I have set up my shop now to accept regular credit card payments, check or money order. Only problem is that I have a severe shortage of knives for sale! Only three legacy holdouts from last year (that didn't sell).

So it's back to the shop for me to crank out some nice knives.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PossumCreekKnifework