Back From Charlotte

I spent the last two days in Charlotte attending a regional meeting of my company which explains the light blogging. Anytime I take a trip out of town I try to scope out the local gun shops. This is especially true now in light of the run on guns since Obama was reelected and the Newtown shootings.

On the way down I stopped at the Shooter's Express in Belmont. I had bought my first AR lower there many years ago. I did see a few ARs and AKs in stock plus a decent assortment of handguns. The used rack was a bit sparse. One of the clerks told me that before the rush they had six used racks and now they have one.

I was looking for some reloading supplies and the folks at Shooter's Express suggested Little Hardware which I checked out this afternoon once the meeting ended. What a cool place! It was like the old fashioned hardware store on steroids with a little bit of everything yet better organized. The clerk that helped me told me that they had sold out of most of their reloading supplies. I was looking for powder to reload 5.56x45. Specifically, I was looking for Hodgdon CFE223. I didn't have any luck there. The clerk pulled out a reloading manual and we looked to see if anything would be appropriate. As luck would have it, I found a 1 lb. canister of IMR 8028 XBR which has a great reputation for accurate loads. I also came home with a 500 round box of  148 grain HBWC for my .38 Special.

On my way out of town I dropped in at Lawman's Supply off Clanton Road. Having been there a couple of years ago, I knew they often had a number of police department trade-in pistols. They didn't have anything I really wanted. However, if you are in the market for either a Glock 21 (.45 ACP) or a Springfield XD-9, they had a number available in the $350-360 price range. I'd guess they had about 10 of each.

Finally, I went all yuppie and visited Ikea for the first time ever. It was actually a rather cool place even if I felt like the only conservative in the store. I was looking for the Ordning cutlery canister to use as a bushcraft/hobo stove. I figured for $2.99 how could I lose. The only problem is that I kept finding other stuff that caught my eye like a LED lamp for my desk, some new towels, and some small glasses that I thought would be great for a bourbon tasting.

I'll be back to regular blogging tomorrow. I'm just glad to be back home in the mountains.

Keeping Democrats Drunk In Charlotte

The Democratic National Convention is going to be in Charlotte, North Carolina just after Labor Day.

North Carolina has state-run ABC Stores. For those living in more enlightened climes, ABC Stores are our liquor stores and not something with teacher supplies. Though, on second thought, a case could be made for that near the end of a long school year.

The ABC Stores are closed on Sundays and five holidays including Labor Day. Bars and restaurants in Charlotte are afraid they might run out of booze with all the Democrats in town so a bi-partisan group of Mecklenburg County legislators are seeking an exception.

A bipartisan coalition of Mecklenburg County legislators introduced a bill to the N.C. House making sure visitors to the Democratic National Convention can guzzle with gusto after getting off the plane.

The bill would keep the Alcoholic Beverage Control stores in Mecklenburg County open on Labor Day Monday for this year only.

The holiday exception means local stores wouldn’t be closed for two days in a row – so restaurants, hotels and caterers could stock up on spirits ahead of thousands of convention arrivals. The DNC runs Sept. 4-6.

“Whatever we can do to make the process smooth for members of the national media and members of the national political community visiting Charlotte,” said Rep. Bill Brawley, a Republican from Matthews and one of the sponsors of the bill. “I think good manners require us to do that.”

 Keeping Democrats drunk is something I think we can all agree on.

Keyword: NRA

Lexicalist.com is a website that analyzes word usage on the Internet and then breaks it down by demographics. The three demographics analyzed are age, gender, and geography.

Even two weeks after the NRA Annual Meeting, North Carolina is still buzzing about the NRA coming to Charlotte as seen by this map from Lexicalist.com.


Demographics of "nra" on May 26, 2010 (from Lexicalist.com).

I used the keyword "NRA" to generate this map. As you can see, people are still buzzing more about the NRA today than they were a month ago. Lexicalist.com estimates that it is up 128%.

Go here for the full breakdown.

NRA convention underscores anti-gun camp's irrelevancy

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and Dave Workman, senior editor of Gun Week had this op-ed last week in the Charlotte Observer.

Adhering to a pattern of behavior that has developed over the years, a tiny contingent of gun prohibitionists paraded outside of the Charlotte Convention Center while the National Rifle Association was hosting its record-breaking members' meeting, but they remained only long enough to get some camera time with local news crews.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, came to Charlotte to grab some face time and get his name in the local media. Where the NRA can pull more than 70,000 members, the Brady bunch could barely muster two dozen protesters to parade around for perhaps an hour, then leave satisfied that the 5 o'clock news would carry their images.

The Complementary Spouse, her brother, two of her nephews, and I all attended the NRA Annual Meeting in Charlotte. I didn't even know there had been a protest until I saw pictures of it posted on The Breda Fallacy.

First Impressions of the NRA Annual Meeting

We attended the NRA Annual Meeting this past weekend in Charlotte. When the Complementary Spouse asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said I wanted her to go with me to Charlotte. Being the good woman that she is, she agreed.

Even though this was my first NRA show, I had an idea of what to expect in the Charlotte Convention Center since I had attended the 1996 SHOT Show in Dallas. I was working for a knife company then and helped to work their booth.

My first impression is that the NRA show was smaller but friendlier. There were less “booth babes” than at a SHOT Show which given the family-oriented composition of the crowd was probably a smart thing. The vendors seemed more willing to take the time to explain their products than I expected. That was nice feature of the show.

We were met in Charlotte by the Complementary Spouse’s brother Larry and two of his sons. The boys were more interested in the Bushmaster ACR, the FN SCAR, and the Barrett Model 82A1 than anything else. Larry and I were more interested in the higher end 1911’s, the exquisite wood of the Dakota Arms rifles, and other stuff of that ilk. Blame Call of Duty Modern Warfare and other video games!

The Complementary Spouse is not of the Gun Culture. Her father did collect guns and she has shot skeet with her late dad many years ago. The one thing that really stood out for her is how polite everyone was. You saw Mom and Pop Kettle, bikers, servicemen, cops, hippies, old people, young kids, etc. People didn’t jostle in line, they held doors for one another, they said “excuse me” and “please”, and they were just nice to one another. When you have more than 70,000 people in one place this is a rare thing. Robert Heinlein was right – an armed society is a polite society – even when you aren’t allowed to carry your arms like in Charlotte.