The Guns of January

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28 thoughts on “The Guns of January”

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  1. I favor concealed carry over open carry. Most of the individuals I see doing open carry are lawmen, or partisans pushing public agendas. My preference is for lawmen doing open carry to wear at least a badge displayed, so I can distinguish them from armed vigilantes or Other threats.

    It is not possible to reason with vigilantes. Vigilantes are not good people, and are frequently delusional or outright psychotic. They can be worse than violent jailbirds on the loose. Let the lawmen handle them.

    Guns are neutral; intent and skill level define the threat level. I personally concentrate on Escape & Evasion (E&E) rather than raw firepower. Deregulation of sharps in Texas, and to a lesser extent, clubs, aids in that. Sometimes E&E requires nothing more than a polite conversation; sometimes it requires enough violence to allow for a getaway. You are most vulnerable when returning home from town. Don’t let a weasel follow you home, or mark your driveway for follow-up inspection.

    I generally can defuse situations involving lawmen, and can recognize developing situations. I have credentials, and I know how to avoid escalation. This is more important in E&E than weapons. Firearms are more important against home invasions, or outright kidnapping (and worse) attempts. But if you avoid the psycho’s or the people they deceive into doing their dirty work for them altogether, then you don’t have to squander your savings on a defense attorney, or be exposed to serious jailtime.

  2. What are the consequences of a Presidential Order., that sends air strikes against a foreign country., that sends in armed military personnel into a foreign country., that kidnaps a foreign leader and shuffles him & his wife off to the U.S. – ??
    You can toss a lot of wordage into this – for the ‘why’ and the ‘reasons’.., and does the President have the legal/Constitutional power/right to order such an action? Yep., lots of talk coming our way.., legal, political, emotional.., even some yelling an screaming. Prepare yourself.
    Myself? A knot formed in my stomach when I read this news story. It gave me a very bad feeling. This goes beyond gun-point diplomacy., or the ‘Great White Fleet’. We kidnapped the President of a foreign country. Blow-back.., repercussions.., consequences – ?? Especially to the already fragile geopolitical world tensions.
    This doesn’t ‘end’ anything. I believe it is that start of a whole new, possibly dark, chapter.
    – I don’t like it.

    • And to amplify your point: Normally when a leader “goes heavy with the Power thing” they attack those least able to defend – like Jews of Poland or the the Spanish in the New World. But this? Taking from “the top”? Yeah – that’s a new angle on history not seem since hemlock days of Rome, has it? OPr is it all a PR set6unt to make a new State reality so we can seize an overland route to…oh, let’s not go there.

      • not sure what to think of this, doubt less Ops were in country prepping the field, our aggression appears well planned, minimal kinetic while accomplishing an end – big winners? oil conglomerates who got the boot. spin up production _and_ refining capacity. win. E

        ps – up to my eyeballs with a grandson, good duty

      • The funny thing is the Venezuela military didn’t make a single attempt to stop the helicopters going in for the extraction or the bombing.. Another spectacular psyop to make Donnie look tough ……. It would appear this was a preplanned negotiated extraction. The indictment is nonsense – it’s the old ham sandwich indictment. Maduro rolls on the alleged election rigging? China protests but nothing more. Tit for Tat China goes ahead and takes Taiwan and we protest? Doesn’t pass the smell test.

    • “What are the consequences of a Presidential Order., that sends air strikes against a foreign country., that sends in armed military personnel into a foreign country., that kidnaps a foreign leader and shuffles him & his wife off to the U.S. – ??”

      I suggest you ask Manuel Noriega, since this is exactly what GHWB did to him in 1989.

      The interesting thing WRT Venezuela is their VP and a bunch of governmental leaders also have drug warrants out for them. Speaking of, Venezuela has over two dozen billionaire oligarch General Officers in its military. I haven’t read the State Department blurb to see how many of them are also on a DoJ list, but I’ll bet a bunch of them are.

      BTW, we did not “kidnap” the President of a foreign country. We extracted him (and his wife) in the only way possible, to keep SinaLoa from assassinating them. That’s all I can say, but you’ve been around long enough to fill in the blanks…

    • Very well said. You expanded on what I told my wife this morning shortly after I got up and logged on, and also the bad feeling in my stomach.

    • Back in the early 70s worked with an old engineer. While the WW2 vets, Korean and Vietnam vets were talking shop, one asked silent Harry if he served. He answered; Yes, I was a marine in the ‘30s, every time the locals overthrew a government in Central America we would go down there shoot the leaders and stick around for a while while the Doles and Wall Street got the their plantations back under control. He introduced me to “War is a Racket.”
      Absolutely nothing has changed.

  3. wow that was brilliant G !! i never ever saw this connect you discovered . it is a great day when you discover something new . mate you have done it so many times .. i tip my hat . i connect economic dots . you G you connect the world !!!!

  4. re: Campus Footnotes
    feat: facing the music

    The Lee family seat of Langley Hall formerly in Shropshire, UK has disappeared into the mists of time. Family fortunes apparently shifted to America by the time of naval officer and plantation owner Colonel Thomas Lee of Virginia in the early 18th century. One of his great-great grandsons is perhaps more readily recalled in the person of Robert E. Lee. It seems while Colonel R. Lee did not trigger the Civil War, he did decline President Lincoln’s offer of command of the Union Army in 1861.

    The President of Ukraine returned to Kyiv after Wednesday’s New Year’s Gala at Mar-a-Lago with President Trump. Dessert centred around Trump chocolate cake. The Presidents were pictured in the private dining room whose decor follows that of Palazzo Chigi in Rome named after a banking family. The palace serves as official humble abode for Italy’s PM, Ms. Meloni. Interestingly a child music prodigé named Mozart had a concert engagement there in 1770 for ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. The latter had previously failed to return the Stuarts to the English throne.

    Yesterday the President of Ukraine announced a new leader to head his presidential office. It is Lt. Gen. K. Budanov from the Main Directorate of Intelligence. “Wikipedia” from the mists of time had a few words to say about the Odesa graduate at the following link:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyrylo_Budanov&diff=prev&oldid=1210379650

    Alright everyone, cast off your ukuleles as there’s no need to tiptoe through the tulips. DJ George is on deck ready to make some noise in the shop.

    • Got TAD’d to Philly shipyard in 80’s – “USS Forestfire” was undergoing SLEP program and was high and dry up on huge blocks. Huge dent in the massive Bow of the boat..where an F-14 Tomcat smacked into during previous deployment.

      Between the union guys working on the boat and the PX- it was the most lucrative 3.5 months of “Sea Duty” I ever had, in fact only Sea Duty I ever did. About a month before the Forrestal came into Philly port/dry dock, the capt. and xo took out Tomcats for a lil UA joyriding. Something went wrong and a plane was damaged/lost.
      During my 3-4 months onboard – I would take the hardest,most difficult Jobs off the Job board in my Shop (IC shop)..something to do.
      One Saturday morning, after long night&morning clubbing downtown, I show up for muster on deck at 7:00AM – no sleep, still wired from night before. Without a second thought I grab a long unresolved job for the Bridge off the job board, grab tool bag and butt set , and off I went to find the bridge. Eventually I found it, walk in and who is sitting in the captains chair but Captain B.C. Lee his own dam self. Dude has on the leather bomber jacket,unzipped, boots are undone and open at top, and he is kinda slouching/resting in the big chair. Our gazes locked and there was immediate recognition that we were both still “buzzed” from long night before hand. A ever so slight knowing nod tween us was all.
      BC Lee was sent to DC, as punishment, to man desk in the Service Life Extension Program. I on the other hand was sent right back out for more R&R . No more “6 o’clock Mario (Andretti) racing down Surekill Expressway from Moms house to south philly naval ship yard.

      DixieChicken/LF-https://youtu.be/3z-GwdaKrn8?

        • re: hark – a Trumpet song
          feat: liminal decking

          Did Captain Lee retire as a Rear Admiral? “Deck the Halls” has entered polite Christmas festive ears since the 1862 interpretation by Scottish court poet to Queen Victoria, Thomas Oliphant. Previously the tune had enjoyed sustained stamina below decks as a fine Welsh New Year’s standard, “Nos Galan”, celebrating good grog with song and first published in “Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards” by Edward Jones in 1749.

          Early in his career, Mr. Oliphant authored works under a pseudonym of Saloman Sackbut. Such a surname supposedly points to early church trombones in contrast to war Trumpets. Saloman is allegedly in reference to that wise King Solomon whose name is said to derive from the Hebrew word for “peace”. He was apparently also a patron of musical instruments.

          Festive notes of joyous celebration emanated this holiday season from China’s “Peoples Daily” and “CGTN” heralding a new yellow brick road of sorts to the Kinmen or Jinmen (ch: “Golden Gate”) Islands. Located in close proximity to the Mainland, the Taiwanese islands also featured as a hot button item during the 1960 debates between future US Presidents Kennedy and Nixon as to their defensibility.

          Here is a YouTube link to a construction team mandarin explaining about the bridge making its way to the islands one deck span at a time. Its accompanying melody of uplifting metre heralds joy to the world:

          https://youtu.be/xDY0uKAuvGA

  5. maybe G you have found a great topic for the history of the great republic America . that is its formation on right to bear arms and its enduring and rich history on that in the constitution . yeah i always said the greatest document ever written the declaration of independence, and those wise men the founding fathers . but the constant only in the great republic the right to bear arms . could get yah an award with the way you can write it

  7. Bold moves by team Trump ?? I believe the ultimate trap has been set for the Democrats dumb enough to take the bait.

    Will China feel emboldened to try something similar with Taiwan ???

    • No. Xi knows better. He has no desire to be on the receiving end of Trump’s “dessert course.” We elect a lot more weak-kneed Presidents than we do strong ones, and the Chinese are a very patient people.

      Our “raid” on Venezuela is a multipurpose OP. It sends two very strong messages to those who might be our adversaries:

      1) Trump doesn’t bluff. DJT plays chess, not poker.
      2) No one who conspires against the United States is safe.

      There are a bunch of other messages. The Columbian and Iranian dictators bluster and bitch, but they now know they can be given three hots & a cot at Guantanamo without warning, and at any time. (Columbia is next on Trump’s list, unless circumstances force his attention elsewhere. The crooks in-power should take the next few weeks to plan their retirement, then exit quietly while our military is mopping up in Venezuela.) We are going to throw the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, NKoreans, and other hemispheric “invaders” out of the Americas, and possibly end communism in Cuba (although I believe that’s not very high on the priorities list.)

      My friend Reza has finally gotten Trump’s ear. I expect regime change in Iran to happen. I expect the Administration to have little to do with it, other than to provide intel and close air support. As I’ve said for decades, the Iranian people have a million-man army in Dearborn, Michigan, the vast majority of whom want nothing more than to reacquire their homeland. The Soviet Union installed the Islamic dictatorship there. I believe, with the help of repatriated Iranians, we will make it go away…

  10. I have extracted this from your Hidden Guild Column yesterday. I hope that everyone reads it. I wonder how many comments about AI are based on interaction with the free versions. I suggest it is most.

    “The first mistake most people make with AI is trying to judge it from the free tier. That’s like test-driving a car in first gear and deciding engines are overrated. Free AI models exist for exposure and experimentation, not for serious thinking. They are intentionally constrained: shorter context windows, throttled reasoning depth, weaker memory, higher hallucination rates, and limited tool access. They are designed to be safe, fast, and broadly useful — not precise, durable, or intellectually demanding.I”

  11. “Greeted as liberators…..”

    “Venezuela’s oil primarily goes to China, which has been its largest buyer, often in repayment for loans, alongside other Asian countries like India, with some going to Spain, Turkey, and historically, the U.S. before sanctions. US companies, especially Chevron, still operate there, producing about a quarter of the oil, but exports to the U.S. were heavily restricted by sanctions until recent shifts.”

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