Happy Independence Day, America

I figured I’d celebrate in a way very few people aside from Americans can.  You’d best not try this in Great Britain, Mexico, or most other countries on the face of the planet.  It would likely get you arrested.  In places like Jamaica it’s enough to get you sentenced to life in prison.  Yep, you guessed it – I took three guns and some ammo into the wide open desert north of Las Vegas and made some noise

I had my camera on a tripod to take some video, but I needed to make sure I would be in frame.  This was one of those test images and while I cropped it to enhance the composition, I thought it was good enough to include here  If you look closely, you’ll see my C9 in its holster being carried openly on my hip.  While I didn’t see anyone in the area, it’s not a bad idea at all to have a side arm (or even a rifle) ready to go for defensive purposes.  After all, who would you call for help if someone tried to rob you or just plain kill you?  Even if a cop were at the beginning of the dirt road out to where this picture was taken it would still take him a good five to ten minutes to get to where I was which is way too long for me.

Notice that I’m wearing hearing protection and my ballcap is turned backwards.  The hearing protection is because I’m about to shoot some guns and the ballcap being backwards was to keep it from blowing away.

About that video…  It may or may not get posted on YouTube.  The only bad thing I can say about my camera so far is that the microphone is very suceptible to wind noise.  You can see my lips moving and you can hear me part of the time, but it just didn’t turn out very good at all.

One other note – I am currently working on a size reduction plan for myself.  Yes, I know I’m a bit heavier than I should be and I am working to fix it

YES!!!  I finally have a decent picture of myself holding my AK-47  I’ve had pictures of a few other people with it, but it’s sure nice to have this one

FYI – I was done shooting for the day and the wind had died down, so no hearing protection and the ball cap is back on as it should be.

I made sure the magazine was empty as was the chamber before I took this picture, but if you’ll notice I’m still following the basic firearms safety rules:

1. Every gun is always loaded
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not ready to destroy
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target
4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it

Aside from muzzle discipline (keeping pointed in a safe direction and NOT AT ME), trigger discipline (keeping booger hooks off bang switches when not ready to fire) is one of the biggest safety issues I see at ranges.  Yes, it’s usually the new shooters and I know how easy it can be to allow a finger to get inside that trigger guard, but this is easily overcome by training.

Let’s stay safe out there

I actually managed to get something done aside from shooting today – I finally got around to putting my stickers from Life, Liberty, Etc. on my car   The American flag is self explanatory, but for those who don’t know, the “762″ sticker is a reference to the various 7.62mm cartridges out there including the 7.62x39mm cartridge used by my AK-47.  The other sticker you see is a peace sign.  It might be confusing to people given my normally published beliefs, but all you have to do is read it to see that it really does fit me – it says “PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER” around the peace sign

My next stop after shooting was at the Moapa Paiute Travel Plaza for some pyrotechnic goodies   I didn’t spend all that much, but I had fun 8)  I really love the fact that I can go out and set off my own fireworks in this state.  Kalifornia has banned pretty much all fireworks (including sparklers) aside from the professional shows, so I never got to do this before I moved here.

The lighting was getting really tricky and it was getting dark, so I had to crank up the ASA on the camera which is why those couple of pictures turned out grainy.  I took them mainly to show just how many people were out there on the Indian Reservation so that they could employ pyrotechnic devices which are illegal in any other part of Clark County.

The other pictures were looking west around the time the sun was setting.  I don’t think I need to explain just why I took those

Finally, we have a panorama which I stitched together from images which show the view to the north from where I was shooting.  I’ll try to get the rest of the 360° view another time

So yeah, it was a good day   How better to celebrate Independence day than with (safely used) firearms and explosives

Happy Independence Day, everyone