a fun gun fact

[iverglas]

Poll question: a fun gun fact

I just googled a first cousin I haven't seen since we were kids (although I occasionally see his dad and sisters).

Seems that he has taken early retirement and is now




wait for it




a firearms instructor!




The locale he runs advises that visitors bring rainwear and lots of bug repellant products.


info about the firearms safety course:

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/safe_sur/index-eng.htm

Firearms Safety Training

The Firearms Act requires that individuals wishing to acquire non-restricted firearms must take the Canadian Firearms Safety Course (CFSC) and pass the tests, or challenge and pass the CFSC tests without taking the course.

As per Section 7 of the Firearms Act, individuals under 18 must complete the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and pass the test in order to obtain a licence. They are not eligible to challenge and attempt to pass the test without taking the course.

Individuals over 18 years of age who wish to acquire restricted firearms must also take the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course (CRFSC) and pass the tests, or challenge and pass the CRFSC tests without taking the course.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/safe_sur/cour-eng.htm

and oh look

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/safe_sur/acts-tpto-eng.htm

The Vital Four ACTS of Firearm Safety

Assume every firearm is loaded
Control the muzzle direction at all times
Trigger finger must be kept off the trigger and out of the trigger guard
See that the firearm is unloaded

PROVE it safe.

Point the firearm in the safest available direction
Remove all ammunition
Observe the chamber
Verify the feeding path
Examine the bore each time you pick up a firearm

So the question is:

Where should iverglas spend the holidays next summer?

Just planning ahead!

[Ready4Change]

1. If I'd be able to

I would have voted for a mix of 1 and 2. (But not both at once, please!)

[iverglas]

2. heh

I've lost track of where it was, but before I wandered off from here a week or so ago, someone had asked me whether I would wander around downtown Toronto at night drunk ... like this was seriously something that anyone would think twice before doing because it might be dangerous or something.

Not something I've done in the last couple of decades myself. (Well, there was that Simon and Garfunkel / Gordon Lightfoot / Blue Rodeo concert at the Skydome ... but that wasn't exactly "drunk" ... and yeah, somebody did smash my van window overnight and take the spare change.)

But the co-vivant was wandering around Toronto drunk quite a bit, more recently, before we met. ;)

[rrneck]

3. Venice has been on my mind lately... nt

[iverglas]

16. of all the culture joints in all the world

Italy, for some reason, has never been one I have wanted to visit.

Although I adore Canaletto and the amazing light in his pictures of Venice, I've never had the urge to see it in person.

I'd happily settle for the picture!



http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/artmarketwatch2/artmarketwatch7-8-4.asp
Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto
Venice, The Grand Canal, Looking North-East From Palazzo Balbi To The Rialto Bridge
$32,568,600
Sotheby’s London
July 7, 2005

[SteveM]

4. Wish I could vote twice, to include something about homegrown...

:smoke: :silly:

[iverglas]

17. fortunately ...

We wouldn't be needing to defend it against anything but raccoons, and they didn't seem to show a taste for it last time. Up high it's safe from skunks, and you just have to watch out for squirrels uprooting things from pots to replace them with peanuts. I haven't figured out why the little creeps don't just store their winter food in the third floor eaves where they have been living for that season anyhow.

Anyhow, I told ya, I outshot that CCW type from the southwest at the big amusement park a while back, so I don't need no stinking training course!

[spin]

5. I would love to see you take the course ...

and report back on your impressions of shooting and the people you met on the range.

That would indeed be fascinating.

[iverglas]

7. it ain't no range

It's a mosquito- and black-fly infested area somewhere in the back of beyond in the middle of nowhere. I know the place exists because there is a weather station there and I heard the name recited in weather reports on CBC radio for years.

There wouldn't be much in the way of "people", I think. The instruction offered is probably mainly the hunter safety course for people wanting hunting licenses. I doubt that he has much call for his services, actually, because in the area in question most people, sparse as the population is, would already have both firearms and hunting licenses. People coming of age would likely just take the test without a course, as I'm sure they do for driver's licences.

I've mentioned before that if I decide I need a new hobby in a few years' time when I'd be likely to have the time, I might just go play at the large recreational complex not too far from where I live that offers both firearms and archery ranges. The people I would meet there would overwhelmingly be hobbyists, or possibly more serious competitors, with white-collar jobs in the big city.

[spin]

9. Well if you do journey to the mosquito and black fly invested area ...

report back anyway.

I"ll be looking forward to your post if you do.

[DissedByBush]

6. I voted Europe

That's just because I've done it and it's a lot of fun.

You can drive to learn shooting any time.

[iverglas]

8. I had lunch in France ;)

On a two-week trip to England, took the ferry over and went for a stroll around Calais and had a lovely meal. The Brits on the boat, off for a day of shopping, were all totally pissed that nobody had told them it was a public holiday in France and all the shops were shut. ;)

[russ1943]

10. Simon & Garfunkel?

Where should iverglas spend the holidays next summer?

She should certainly take the results of her poll in the gungeon on DU to heart and plan accordingly.

Or, you might consider, an Oprah suggestion;
If you're traveling with a longtime love...
Is the group that sings "your song" touring? Check out the list of tour dates and locations, pick your favorite city and make an event out of it!

In an April 28, 2011 Rolling Stone profile, Paul Simon is quoted as saying that
although they cancelled a tour last summer (after Garfunkel began suffering from a vocal cord condition) Simon hopes they will reschedule..........just saying.

No matter, wherever you decide to spend your time, IMO I’ve determined who I was with, was more important than where I was.

[iverglas]

14. mm hmm

Fortunately, I've always preferred to travel alone, because getting the co-vivant off the chesterfield is a monumental undertaking I've pretty much given up on.

I did make him buy me tickets to the folk festival one year to see John Prine. A volunteer took pity on me with my bandaged broken foot (this is why I like the idea of sports like shooting; you don't break bones) and gave us chairs to sit in the closed-off area right up beside the stage. He liked that. As a joke, I had bought him a $5 enamelled ring from a craft booth. When he clapped wildly for John Prine, it flew off in the dark into the grass. Last time I bought him anything. The next year we went to see Emmylou Harris and Arlo Guthrie, but a drunk standing outside the fence right where we were sitting, singing along with the whole thing, kinda spoiled that one. And the year after that I made him take me to the exhibition fair grounds for my birthday. He insisted on going on the Scrambler which made me nauseous, and flatly refused to go on any of the more exciting rides I wanted to go on. I won a rabbit-fur thing at some game of chance though. See? A good eye! So anyhow, this year, I got Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream.

"Our song"? You're a mushhead, aren't you then? Well, when we first met and I visited him at his place the first time, I made him play his guitar for me. He used to be in a rock band and all. All I could think of to request was "House of the Rising Sun", it just came to me from the old days as the thing a boy should sing for a girl with his guitar. That was the first and last time he has played for me.

He thinks all guns should be banned, of course. ;) And non-complying gun owners lined up and shot. But that's just his funny Toronto ways. It's not something we up here actually think or talk about a lot generally, and he's far more interested in how long it's going to take for Piers Morgan to be brought down.

[krispos42]

11. Oh, go to Europe. Someplace in the Med.

Although go in, say, February, like any sensible person north of Interstate 40 does. :-)

[iverglas]

15. Greece should be cheap this winter? ;)

I have actually managed to do most of my travelling at the wrong time. Two weeks in Texas in June, Cuba in July (well, also a few other times, but the first time was July, no wonder my friend-of-a-friend was trying to offload those packages). North of Superior, and Winnipeg, in February ... with a U-drive luxury car whose heater conked out at about Sudbury. Still, the sight of the north shore of Superior in winter at dawn, one I'm glad I didn't miss. Along with full moon rise as I drove east up out of Death Valley.

Spent a weekend on St Joseph's Island at the far end of Superior in the winter once too. My then beau was a bookstore chain management type, and was accompanying Ken Dryden for a book signing in Thunder Bay, so I flew out to meet him for the weekend. Dryden was to be leaving on the plane I arrived in, and I was to meet them in the coffee shop. Well, they were late, and they weren't there, which spoiled my plan ... which was to go up to them, ignore my beau, look all amazed, and say ... You're, you're ... Wayne Gretzky! Or Bobby Hull, or something. Anyhow, best burgers in the world at a little joint on the island there. Everybody who lives there will tell you. ;)

[krispos42]

18. You could probably buy the Acropolis for $20 Canadian

But the baggage fees to take it home would bankrupt you!


My former sister-in-law booked her wedding/honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean for September. She announced it at a family dinner. She was proud because she got such a great deal!

The entire table looked at her, looked at each other, then finally I said "Lisa, you do realize that September is hurricane season, right?"




Many months later, instead of being married on a tropical beach in the Caribbean, she was married in one of the cruise ship's lounges.



Hurricane. ;-)

[Township75]

12. Before you do 4, you should do 1.

Other than that, I voted for 1, just for kicks.

If you want to be adventurous, try taking a firearm safety course in the southeast, then go hitchhiking down there. That could make for some good stories.

[iverglas]

13. yasss, heh heh

I think I mentioned recently that on a trip south in 1987, on business to Atlanta and then on south for holiday, I was going to do exactly that: the gun brouhaha had got noticeable and I thought I'd sign up for one o' them courses and check out the scene, seriously.

However, I picked up a hitchhiker in Atlanta and spent the next two weeks doing less disciplined things, then I got the flu like a mule had kicked me in the belly, and then he drove me and my Suzuki back home and stayed here for the next three years.

My favourite hitchhiker in the deep south, maybe of all times (well, barring that one, and that didn't work out so well after all), was the one I'd picked up about a year before in Florida and taken to ... I guess all the way to New Orleans, with a stop in Birmingham overnight (no, separate rooms).

He was a young fellow, 18 I guess, and he announced that he'd been in Florida on holiday before going to join the army. Hm, I thought, what would make someone do that? (I did know the reasons, having been closely connected with a Vietnam deserter of the non-liberal élite kind, a guy who needed a job.) So I asked. And the answer was not one I would have guessed.

Have you heard of Nostradamus? he asked. Uh, well, yes ... wondering what was coming next. Again, I couldnt have made it up. Well, Nostradamus had predicted a worldwide conflagration, I forget what the date was supposed to be, a few years thence. So the young fellow figured that when this happened, there would be a draft. So if he got his military service over with now, he'd be exempt from that draft.

I did move away from him slightly on the bench, but he turned out to be quite harmless, if pretty boring. But he deserved a lift.

My other two favourite hitchhikers were in the US too, also before that Atlanta-Florida escapade. The older woman (well, probably younger than I am now, now) in rural Maine who had been to town to buy a turkey for her grandchildren who were coming to dinner, and who was the target of games of pickup truck chicken until I stopped. I said no problem, I'd take her a few miles off the highway, I was just out for a drive anyhow. She tried to press a couple of dollars on me for the trouble, but I just laughed and said if I could use her bathroom we'd be even. Well, I didn't press the point when we got there and I realized she didn't have a bathroom.

And then the guy maybe in his 30s whom I picked up in Tennessee who was going to Ohio to see his sick mother. He was an unemployed painter, very unassuming. He admired the pretty Canadian currency in my change pot, and then got a little thoughtful and said: what's it like up there in Canada? are you free to go anywhere you want? I resisted the urge to say "no, look at me, I just escaped!" because he really was a nice guy. So I said well, it's pretty much like it is down here, except we have free health care. He was pensive a moment, and then he said Ahhhh.

So listen, I'll say it again -- I really like the idea of sports shooting. It's the kind of "sport" I'm good at. No running around, no heavy lifting, none of that teamplay nonsense. Kind of like euchre. Well, except for the eye-rolling partner part. But seriously, spacial perception is a forte of mine, much as we girls aren't supposed to have that little attribute. My little brother, who is very like me in almost every way, missed that bit when our odd genes got handed out (we are all brown-eyed children of green- and blue-eyed parents, once thought to be genetic impossibilities). Some years back, he and I played with one of those "here's a three-dimensional object opened up in two dimensions; which of these four objects is it?" brain tests in a magazine. I whipped through it, and after 10 minutes of turning it over and around and backwards, he threw it at me and said "what the hell am I supposed to do with this?" My fine motor skills are fine too.

So unless the recent eye probs proved insurmountable, I do think I'd be good at it. Keep nagging and I may even do it some day (I'm not actually positive whether I would need a possession licence to shoot at the local recreational facility with theirs). Target shooting, and skeet shooting and all that, they're sports. Nothing to do with toting pistols around in public, or amassing arsenals in one's home, or having access to any variety of firearm and accoutrement one wants.

[Township75]

19. I was loving the post...

until I got to this:

"Nothing to do with toting pistols around in public, or amassing arsenals in one's home, or having access to any variety of firearm and accoutrement one wants. "

x(

[gravity556]

20. I think you should

spend a couple of nights wandering around Toronto late at night in a drunken state and THEN go take the firearms safety course.

[iverglas]

27. yes, I should have offered combination plates ;)

[Hoyt]

21. Sounds like a real Safety Course. In USA, course are apparently aimed at reviewing local laws so

that one who carries a gun will know when they can legally blast away, even at unarmed people. "Students" review Castle Doctrine, Stand Your Ground, what to tell police, and other such BS so you can take advantage of every opportunity to shoot someone. Then, they review best ways to shoot someone, or as one poster put it -- training in "dodge and shoot tactics in a crowd" (or something to that effect). Then, they learn how they can strap guns to their bodies and the like.

Really not a lot of safety/responsibility stuff, more like more NRA propaganda -- which, by the way, is where many gunners get their NRA "instrutor" certification.

I think it should be mandatory to also subject eager students to people who think guns in public are wrong. Of course, someone would probably shoot them.

[gravity556]

22. And you know this because you regularly take CCW courses?

Or are you just talking out your ass.

The legalities of self defense are something that someone who carries a firearm needs to know and keep current on. How to interact with the police is critical because even in something as simple as being pulled over, a nervous cop and careless CCW holder can end up with the carrier seriously injured (and in Ohio, apparently some cops will threaten your life for daring to carry concealed). Firearms safety is also a critical item to cover, though I've no doubt that some instructors don't go into it as in depth as they should. Also covered are legal ramifications to a DGU. Even if you are completely in the right, an over zealous prosecutor may still charge you-keeping that in mind and not making a statement until you have a legal representative is important. I have a friend who shot a dickhead that tried to rob him with a knife. The crook lived and went to jail, but it cost my friend a fairly substantial chunk of change in legal fees, even though he was completely justified.

"the best ways to shoot someone"? You mean shoot for center of mass and be mindfull of what's behind your target? Oh, shock! Oh, horror! Teaching those dang rude toters to make sure their rounds end up in the threat and not in a bystander, what irresponsible people! Shooting while moving to cover? Also an important thing to know-it allows you to move away from the threat while still engaging it. And knowing the difference between cover and concealment is important as well (cover is something that both conceals your exact position while stopping incoming rounds, concealment is something that hides where you are exactly, making you harder to shoot, but not capable of stopping bullets. The door of your car is concealment-rounds will go through, but the engine compartment and front wheels of your vehicle are cover.)

So, Hoyt, in addition to the 4 rules of gun safety as well as basic marksmanship (all the guns in the world won't do you a bit of good if you can't hit what you're shooting at) and the legal and ethical points of carrying a firearm, what should be taught? Tell us, o mighty font of psychic knowledge, that we may be enlightened.

Or are you again making baseless assumptions and stating speculation to be fact?

[Hoyt]

23. I've listened to enough of you guys And known more than a few gunners -They laugh at what is called

training.

Kind of funny reading about you training to use your car door as cover -- exactly what kind of self-defense situation, that anyone is likely to encounter, would necessitate something like that? You guys sound like you are training to bust drug cartels or something. Get real.

[gravity556]

25. A car door isn't cover. It's concealment.

[tortoise1956]

29. I don't know who you hang out with,

But they evidently are talking out their ass. I do know a whole bunch of people who own guns, and I have yet to hear any of them laugh at training.

Of course, my gun-owning friends are real, not imaginary...

[Abq_Sarah]

37. Funny.......

None of my students laugh about their training.

They learn about safety, how firearms operate, state and federal laws. They learn how to properly conceal a firearm, the different types of holsters, how to safely draw from a holster. They are taught about safe firearm storage. They are taught how to defuse an escalating conflict. And yes, they learn tactics. When to fire, when not to fire. What items can be used for cover. And lastly, the fact that carrying a firearm does not obligate you to shoot it. Yes my students are taught that in some circumstances, retreat is a viable option. My students are taught to observe their surroundings and think about what they might do in any type of emergency. Even experienced shooters come out of my class with more knowledge than they had when they entered. Not only are they not laughing they're referring their friends.

[iverglas]

28. I think it is

For laws, it would cover licensing, registration and storage, I guess. But I would imagine the focus is on actual safety, per its name. ;)

[gravity556]

31. There are very few states that require registration.

Primarily the draconian gun law states. IL and MA spring to mind. No requirement to register a firearm in the gun friendly states (except Clark County in Nevada-they register handguns). And Canada, obviously. Though I thought they decided that the registry was a giant waste of money and manpower. Registration wouldn't do any good in the US against criminals anyhow. Supreme court ruled that criminals and prohibited posessors are not required to register firearms because it would violate their right against self incrimination. A fact curiously absent from registration arguments.

[iverglas]

33. uh, yes

There are very few states that require registration.

And the subject here is the course that must be taken in order to get a firearms licence IN CANADA.

Though I thought they decided that the registry was a giant waste of money and manpower.

You think funny things, don't you?

"They" -- the present extreme right-wing Conservative Party government, governing with a majority of seats in the House of Commons and less than 40% of the popular vote -- plans to go ahead with its project of eliminating the long gun registration requirement. It has the power to do that, regardless of the fact that 3 out of 5 Canadians voted against it in the recent election.

Isn't it fun, always being on the side of the right wing?

Supreme court ruled that criminals and prohibited posessors are not required to register firearms because it would violate their right against self incrimination. A fact curiously absent from registration arguments.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A nonsense decision at best, and of no actual relevance, just a smelly herring.

Nobody expects criminals to criminals to register their firearms, for the love of fucking fuck. How many times do you have to be told this? Why would you need to be told at all? Do you genuinely believe that people who advocate and create firearms registries are total and complete morons? Do you actually think they believe that criminals will register their illegally obtained firearms? How many absurd things do you make a habit of believing before breakfast?

Registration wouldn't do any good in the US against criminals anyhow.

Ah, I see. Because all the law-abiding gun owners would just keep selling guns to criminals, even knowing the guns could be traced back to them. Cool. So much for the intelligence and morality of law-abiding gun owners I guess then, eh?

[Glassunion]

24. Do what I did. Leave the guns at home...

Spend a few days in Vermont hiking and climbing the tallest moutain in the state(take the hard route, it's more rewarding) and buy stuff to support the local economy.

Then spend the second half of your vacation in Montreal eating awesome food and brushing up on your French.

PS, is there an official time of day, or position of the sun when you move from "Bonjour" to "Bonsoir"?

[iverglas]

26. my time in Vermont

has tended to involve more horizontal than vertical activities. ;) No, wait, that was New Hampshire; Vermont is what you drive through to get to New Hampshire, where I would usually stop on the way to Maine, but spent the weekend that time.

For exercise, try driving a 1983 Suzuki up those tall hills!

For cuisine, I recall grinders.

Spent a few interesting minutes outside a convenience store there late one evening. My date for the weekend had gone in to get smokes while I waited in my van. I observed a group of 3 or 4 youths hanging around the entrance and appearing to be cooking something up. I gauged the distance to the phone booth in the parking lot and considered making my way to it as a prophylactic measure. Two of them went in, and I observed my date spending a lot more time than was needed for his purchase at the counter, engaging with the clerk and the youths. Eventually he came out and explained that they were underage and trying to make her sell them booze, and he had warned them off. Crisis averted.

Don't need to brush up on my French, since I work in that language, but do occasionally over-ingest in Montreal. Last visit, even imbibed a little absinthe. Damned expensive stuff, that. And that was where I outshot the CCW type at the amusement park. ;)

[tortoise1956]

30. horizontal? You shoot from a prone position?

:evilgrin:

I voted for downtown Toronto - I figured even if it's not the best choice, it probably still beats downloading BBC miniseries. Besides you can always tend the homegrown as a precursor to the drunken binge!

[iverglas]

34. nobody loves me

My vote goes for the chesterfield and the BBC miniserieses, and everybody's trying to make me climb mountains and get drunk and disoriented and shoot things. Fine friends.

You can tend the homegrown in between miniseries instalments, too. ;)

[Glassunion]

36. This must be a joke...

A couple from a Philly burb, a male model from Boston, a female police officer from Camden and 2 Scotsmen all bump into each other in a pub. This combination will always work out to be a memorable evening.

You want to talk expensive drinks, try ordering 1 glass of Johnny Walker Blue Label at Ziggy's Pub on Rue Crescent... $40 per oz! It would have been cheaper to order an ounce of pure silver.

I was glad my wife was there to carry me back to the hotel.

[rl6214]

32. Aren't you a little old to be wandering around in a drunken state?

[iverglas]

35. I just can't find the danged post or remember who said it

but sometime last month, somebody here asked me something about whether I would wander the streets of downtown Toronto drunk late at night or some such thing, as if anybody would actually think twice before doing it.

I might avoid the vicinity of the odd "nightclub" in the odd area, since every once in a while (like a couple of times a year - actually google is showing me about one a year for the past several years) somebody decides to shoot at somebody else at one of them. Other than that, you're pretty much safe as houses wandering around anywhere in downtown Toronto any time of day or night in any condition. Montreal ditto; Winnipeg and Vancouver, there are a few blocks you might want to stay clear of, but you would still be unlikely to come to harm.

I remember doing it one night when I'd been partying with a bunch of other lefty lawyers on a visit to T.O. when I wasn't living there and I found at about 2 a.m. that I'd locked myself out of my brother's house in a downtown neighbourhood. I didn't fancy sleeping on the porch, for comfort rather than safety reasons; it was a little cool or I would just have settled down there until somebody came home. I cabbed it to a hotel right downtown that I'd stayed at in the past and persuaded them to take my credit card number off a slip I happened to have, for some reason not having the actual card with me, and set about watching movies and ordering room service.

But yes, it's not something I do these days, and I persuaded the co-vivant that he was too old for it too -- he was spending considerable time doing just that when I met him, him being a regular at the famous Horseshoe Tavern (he was there the night the Stones paid their surprise visit) -- about 12 years ago. ;)