The Soundboard: .32-20 Edition

Posted on March 3, 2006 by Alaska

As you might guess from the title, I have a soft spot for the .32-20. There’s a very nice article on the cartridge and on .32-20 revolvers generally in the 2003 Gun Digest.  

Here’s a nice-looking Smith in .32-20:  .32-20.jpg  A couple of years ago I bought my S&W large-frame 1917 in .45 ACP with the sweet old long double action. About a month later, a medium-frame Smith in .32-20 with the same long action — just like the above pic, but blued — showed up in my gunsmith’s  shop, on consignment, for about $250. Stupidly, I hemmed and hawed about buying it, because nobody makes decent factory loads anymore for the .32-20, and it’s notoriously a pain to reload — and in the meantime, somebody else walked away with the gun. Would have made a nice companion to my .45 Smith. Ah, regrets. So now I just listen to the songs and think about what might have been….

Ah yes, the songs. While the Kid’s away, we’ll step away from the techno for a bit. Since this is a gun blog from time to time, let’s check out a classic American gun song: the 32-20 Blues.

This one’s a war song, and it’s got some great lines, too:

Give me a .32-20, built on a .45 frame….
And a red white and blue flag, a-wavin’ in my hand.
 
When I go down, with that red white and blue flag in my hand….
You can bet your life poor Johnny, well I sure took many men.

(The reference to a “.45 frame” is the good old Colt SAA. 32 20 saa.jpg

Here’s a good article discussing the .32-20 versions of the Colt SAA.)

 

On the other hand, it ends up an anti-war song, with the last lines: 

Uncle Sam ain’t no woman, baby, but he sure can take your man….
And he’s got me in the service, doin’ things I just can’t understand.

That’s John Hammond singing this week’s selection, and a fine job he does of it too.

Now, I had a bit of a choice between two evils this week, because there are at least two songs by this title, and both have their flaws. The legendary Robert Johnson’s .32-20 Blues (according to one source, “inspired” by Skip James’ .25-20 Blues, which in turn was “inspired” by Roosevelt Sykes’ .44 Blues) is an entirely different song, and has some great lines expounding on the superiority of the high-velocity .32-20 over the then-staid .38 Special round (modern +Ps are a different matter). 

Got a .38 Special, boys, it do very well…. But the .32-20, it’s a burnin’ hell. 

And it probably was, too, considering that many folks seem to have loaded up their .32-20 revolvers with .32-20 rifle cartridges at much higher pressures. Big ol’ impressive fireballs, kind of like a .30 Carbine in a handgun. Blew up their guns, on occasion, too. Burnin’ hell, indeed! 

Unfortunately, Johnson’s song is also a misogynistic rant about murdering a woman just because she wouldn’t follow directions:  

I send for my baby, man, and she don’t come…
All the doctors in Hot Springs sure can’t help her none.

If she gets unruly, things she don’t wanna do…
Take my .32-20, boy, cut her half in two.

Ooo-kay! Now, that disquieting subject matter wouldn’t necessarily eliminate Johnson’s song from Soundboard consideration. It’s the blues, after all; it’s supposed to be dark! And even among blues lyrics, these are pretty damn dark.

The real problem with Johnson’s version, and the reason I posted Hammond’s instead, despite its “ironic” patriotism (snort), is that everybody (Johnson included) seems to play Johnson’s .32-20 Blues as if it were a happy jazzy party tune. That’s just musically wrong! The opening lines demand to be snarled over a mean, snapping guitar. Kind of like John Hammond does.

Anybody knows an appropriately growly rendition of Johnson’s original tune, please let me know. In the meantime, enjoy Hammond’s artistry; ignore the song’s politics.

 

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RNS Quote of the Day

Posted on March 3, 2006 by Alaska

More Benjamin Franklin:

…I have proved, I think, that immigration does not diminish but multiplies a nation. Every man who comes among us and takes up a piece of land becomes a citizen, and by our Constitution has a voice in elections and a share in the government of the country. It is a fact that the Irish immigrants and their children are now in possession of the government of Pennsylvania, by their majority in the Assembly, as well as a great part of the territory; and I remember well the first ship that brought them over.

–Benjamin Franklin, The Compleated Autobiography, (Mark Skousen, ed.) p. 289.

To which I’ll add this, from A Question of Character, the muckraking biography of JFK. The author was no great friend of the Kennedy clan, but he noted:

It was difficult for the Irish to climb up the socioeconomic ladder in nineteenth-century Boston. For the most part the immigrants were uprooted peasants, kept illiterate by the cruel Penal Laws of the British. Despised by the Anglo-Saxons who ruled the city for their ignorance, their rural customs, their poverty, and their Roman Catholicism, they were thought fit only for manual labor. “Even the Negro,” wrote Richard J. Whalen, ” with an accepted place as a skilled laborer, faced less discrimination than the Irishman.” They avoided the public schools — and assimilation — because of the curriculum’s Protestant bias.

–Thomas C. Reeves, A Question of Character, p. 19.

So, now my question is: to what extent are modern Mexican immigrants like or unlike the Irish of the past? Discuss.

Posted in Quote of the Day | 1 Comment

She Outshot Jack Bauer!

Posted on March 2, 2006 by Alaska

 eva_1.jpg

 From my wife’s copy of this month’s NRA’s Woman’s Outlook:

Eva Longoria told Cosmopolitan magazine that being from Texas, she and her family “kill wild pigs for tamales,” according to published reports.  The “Desperate Housewives” star said “hunting is a family thing” and they kill only what they can eat. Longoria is reportedly such a good shot she beat Keifer Sutherland and Michael Douglas at a shooting range while filming the movie “The Sentinel,” according to NBC4.com.

Oh, yeah! I’m partial to Latinas anyway, but she outshot Jack Bauer! That’s my kind of woman!

eva2.jpg

Moreover, I’d definitely kill a pig to make tamales out of it! going to California’s Central Valley to assist with my wife’s family’s annual Thanksgiving tamale cookout is always enjoyable, not the least because homemade tamales are pretty much the food of the Gods. As the gringo in the family, I get to tend the firepit. I’m a bit of a firebug, so I don’t mind.

Now what I want to know is, why didn’t they have this article in American Rifleman this month? Did they not realize that many male NRA members would find this an interesting and enlightening subject? Inquiring minds want to know!

Posted in Kewel! | 4 Comments

Blogging the Black Death

Posted on March 2, 2006 by Alaska

…or airborne avian flu, or the second cousin of that pesky airborne Reston ebolavirus, or even whatever it was that killed five billion people in Twelve Monkeys — what would blogging the experience be like?

Well, while unpacking the contents of the garage* this past weekend, I ran across this little book:

Black Death.jpg

It’s quite dated (1971, reprinted 1978), but although I know there have been many interesting developments in medieval history and sociology since 1978, the fascinating first-hand accounts reprinted in the book are, at some level, much like contemporary blogs. Here’s one, by a French cleric at the University of Paris writing about the plague of 1348:

…All this year and the next, the mortality of men and women… in Paris and in the kingdom of France, and also, it is said, in other parts of the world, was so great that it was almost impossible to bury the dead….

And this fact was very remarkable. Although there was an abundance of all goods, yet everything was twice as dear, whether it were utensils, victuals, or merchandise, hired helpers or peasants and serfs, except for some hereditary domains which remained abundantly stocked with everything.

–Taken from The Chronicle of Jean de Venette, Jean Birdsall, trans.

This is borne out in other primary sources from England and Italy: despite the surplus of material goods, the main economic aftereffect of the plague was tremendous inflation. The sudden scarcity of food caused prices to rise.  Employees demanded wage increases because of the inflation in food prices. The sudden scarcity of laborers forced employers to give in to these demands.

I’ve seen lots of doom-n-gloom scenarios where inflation is part of the problem causing TEOTWAWKI, but I haven’t run across much discussion of the role inflation might play after TSHTF. Many seem to think we’ll just collapse into a world of barter, but that seems short-sighted to me; in all but the bleakest scenarios, an economy will continue, albeit at a depressed level. I’m no economist, but if history’s our guide, that might very well be an inflationary depression. The Great Depression was deflationary, so this would be an economy outside the modern American experience. Sort of like the late 1970s on steroids, perhaps? Or Germany between the World Wars? Something to think about….

Fun reading, eh? I’m about halfway through this text, and just starting to get into the academic articles. It’s pretty good, so I would recommend it to y’all, but then it’s not worth sixty bucks! I paid ten cents for mine at a thrift store.

Heh. I guess that’s an example of inflation right there. I probably have one of the few copies of this thing left on the planet. Anybody wants it, they’re gonna have to pay.

* Note to non-Californians: in California, garages are used in much the same way that basements are elsewhere in the country — as a very large closet. In my case, it’s a small library that’s in the process of being unpacked.

BTW, no self-respecting Californian parks a car in his or her garage. Cars belong in the driveway, where they can get a tan.

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Armageddon, By Ourselves, For Ourselves | Leave a comment

The Wisdom of Daniel Weintraub

Posted on March 2, 2006 by Alaska

Weintraub is one of two Sacramento Bee columnists who gained some prominence among Washington, D.C. journalists back during Schwarzenegger’s run for the governorship. What I found amusing was that he was almost universally cited by the East-Coast meida as “an expert in California politics,” without any mention of the liberal/conservative slant of his views. Read the following column excerpt and see where you think he sits on the political spectrum:

“Imagine for a moment that your employer was required by law to buy a plan to manage your nutrition needs — rather than simply paying you a wage, out of which you buy the food you want to eat. Or suppose the government required your employer to pay for a housing plan, rather than paying you and letting you decide where and how to live. Finally, consider what it would be like if the company you work for was mandated to design and finance a transportation plan for you, with a list of options for how you could get to work and back home each day.”

From Breaking free from employer-managed health care, Daniel Weintraub, Sacramento Bee, February 22, 2006

The whole column is simply the most concise and well-reasoned argument I’ve seen against the current insurance system. RTWT! And nicely done, Dan!

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense | 1 Comment

RNS Quote of the Day

Posted on March 2, 2006 by Alaska

“You can buy a grenade for $15 or brass knuckles for $5,” he said. “We had a guy showing off a gun in school yesterday. He said if we told on him, we’d be killed. It’s gotten worse over the last couple of days. Before the war you could kid around with people. Now you know not to be rude or get angry with anyone.”

— Amel Efendic, age 15, quoted in “Sarajevo Streets are Humming Happily Again,” by Kit R. Roane, The New York Times, October 2, 1995, page A3 (emphasis added).

I’m finding all sorts of goodies as I unpack my library in the garage. This was an article I stuffed away with the note that it’s rare to find real-world examples of Heinlein’s famous dictum, “an armed society is a polite society.” But there it is, in black & white.

Well, actually it’s black print, but aged yellow paper. I should have used a Mylar bag.

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Oh, What a Gorgeous Piece of…

Posted on March 1, 2006 by Alaska

Wood! And no, not the kind you’re thinking of, either, Missy!

This kind:

czCompactBirdseyeAmboin_4.jpg

Maybe it’s the influence of the Weatherby stock, but I’ve been wasting time over the weekend diligently researching handgun grips. Sometimes Google’s availability really can be a curse. It’s way too easy to find something interesting, then research the hell out of it. This has nothing to do with me, of course; it’s all Google’s fault.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I basically spent the whole weekend looking at what amounts to a gun porn site with some really gorgeous grips that you can buy yourself.

 cz flame.jpg

In this case, the object of my obsession is Hakan Pek’s hand-made grips from Norway.

It’s not just CZs; the site’s customer gallery (“Grips in Action”) has some stunning examples of Mr. Pek’s work sitting on 1911s, too. (slobber)

I came perilously close to deciding to put some money down on a CZ 75 Compact (also way too easy on the Internets: damn you, Gunbroker!) just so I can buy a pair of Flame Amboyne grips for it from Mr. Pek. This is a very silly reason to buy a gun.

Happily (sadly?) reason won out and I sent in a check today for our Boomershoot entry instead.

If you’re reading this, Joe, I hope you appreciate what this means. I gave up buying a gun to go to Boomershoot. That’s pretty special, in my book!

 

 

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 1 Comment

Fragmenting Media

Posted on March 1, 2006 by Alaska

If the Internets hadn’t been invented, I think the “Old Media” would have fragmented anyway into a bunch of little interest-group publications.

Here’s one now: The Journal of Hispanic UFOlogy.

Dude? WTF? I mean, more power to the publishers for getting out there and, you know, publishing something, but I’m sorry, I just don’t see a reason for this journal to exist. Is there something special about the Hispanic/Latino experience with UFOs that merits a specialized publication?

Now, if this were a publication focusing on UFO sightings in Central and/or South America, I should think it would more properly be called the Journal of Latin American UFOlogy. But apparently, it actually focuses on South America, the Caribbean, and Spain. Adding Spain in there just doesn’t make sense to me.

Oh well. They have a blog, too.  As Glenn Reynolds said this weekend on C-SPAN, blogging is fun! Guess they don’t need any more reason than that.

Found via Michael Bane (who evidently found it while feverish and sick as a dog, so he can’t be blamed).

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

RNS Quote of the Day

Posted on March 1, 2006 by Alaska

In the Analog Kid’s absence, we’ll hold off on the Greenspan and Rand quotes, and instead go back to Ben Franklin! I missed commenting on his recent 300th birthday, so some recognition of the good man’s enduring wisdom is overdue!

“Our country is open, and strangers may establish themselves in America, where they soon become citizens and are respected according to their conduct. The only encouragements we hold out to strangers are a good climate, fertile soil, good pay for labor, kind neighbors, good laws, liberty, and a hearty welcome. The rest depends on a man’s own industry and virtue. Lands are cheap, but they must be bought. All settlements are undertaken at private expense: the publilc contributes nothing but defense and justice.”

–Benjamin Franklin, The Compleated Autobiography, (Mark Skousen, ed.) p. 289.

 

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A Good Plan from a Good Man

Posted on February 28, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Scalia says don’t link guns only to crime

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia fondly remembers carrying a rifle around New York as a boy and says outdoorsmen should attack the idea that guns are used only for crimes.

An avid outdoorsmen who has hunted with Vice President Dick Cheney, Scalia spoke Saturday at the National Wild Turkey Federation’s annual convention.

“The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed,” Scalia told the audience of about 2,000.

“I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms,” said Scalia, noting that as a youth in New York he was part of a rifle team at the military school he attended.

“I used to travel on the subway from Queens to Manhattan with a rifle,” he said. “Could you imagine doing that today in New York City?”

No sir, I cannot imagine that ever happening today. At least not without NYPD SWAT going into ‘full battle rattle’.

On a somewhat related note, a new museum opened in Seattle this week.

Why do I mention this? Because the proprietors of this new museum are using exactly the opposite strategy towards firearms that Scalia mentioned.

They are part of a small collection of African-American memorabilia that Delbert Richardson has kept in safe-deposit boxes or on display in his Central Area home in Seattle. Recently, the 51–year-old began putting his collection on exhibit as a way, he said, to help people — particularly children and young adults — understand a sometimes overlooked part of American history.

They are crude reminders of a painful past: A runaway slave collar — circa 1800. Branding irons. Shackles. A shotgun.

Hmm. So a shotgun is now considered “Memorabilia of Slavery”?

How much do you want to bet that the ‘shotgun’ is a Winchester Model 1897 or some such?

The guy plans on taking this collection of stuff on the road as a sort of travelling museum. One of the places he would like to take it is to schools. I’ll bet money that the namby-pamby school offficials have no problem letting the shotgun onto school grounds so that they can present them in a bad light.

Never mind that it was the militant wing of the Democratic Party, the KKK, who were the originators of modern gun control tactics that did its best to keep weapons of self defense out of the hands of former slaves.

They never will get until they get over it.

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment