Is it time to buy a gun?

For me, it’s time to buy a gun pretty much anytime I can afford another one. In fact, I’m shopping for a couple of them right now. I want a .22LR semiauto and a .22LR DA revolver for demonstration use in the NRA Basic Pistol course. Maybe more than one of each. And eventually, I’d like to get a 9mm SA that has an available .22LR conversion kit so that I can afford to practice more with it.

But lately, I’ve been getting news from some unusual sources about the increased interest of the general public in buying guns. Any time the government makes some obvious move to restrict gun ownership, gun sales soar. Clinton’s gun ‘ban’ did more to boost gun sales than just about anything else he could have done. And one of the side-effects of the last presidential election was a run on guns and ammo — starting about a month before election day. At that time, I also experienced a sizable jump in demand for my CHL classes. During the last week of December 2008, I had over 100 students, which caused a temporary crisis when I ran short of official certificates (that problem has been eliminated now). The demand for CHL classes and the shortage of ammo persisted for several months (and ammo is still more expensive than it was in 2008), although by last April, the CHL class demand had returned to a more manageable level, and I even had some classes that did not sell out.

The demand for CHL classes is once again growing dramatically. All of a sudden, I’m scrambling to make arrangements for larger classes, and having to turn away potential students because of schedule and range limitations. I’ve started bringing in another instructor to handle the renewal students, which means that I don’t have to turn away so many initial applicants. Yet, there hasn’t been any specific governmental action that I can readily identify as being a cause for this.

Tuesday, I got a financial newsletter with the title “It’s Time to Buy a Gun.” Interestingly, the author also could not point to a particular triggering event. Here is what he had to say:

“But good times for gunmakers are almost always temporary. The boost in sales caused by political uncertainty never lasts more than a few months. That’s a big reason why gunmaker stocks – despite achieving high double-digit sales growth – haven’t really participated in the market rally over the past year. Stocks in the sector trade, on average, for only seven times earnings and 0.7 times sales.

“However, there’s something different happening this time. In the 22 years I’ve known my wife, not once, ever, has she even considered owning a gun… until now.”

He went on to advise a covered-call strategy for a gunmaker stock. Since I didn’t pay any money, I don’t know which gunmaker he is recommending.

Since there doesn’t appear to be an overt gun-grab in progress, I’m guessing that this is a general reaction to the economy, and a suspicion that our government is lying to us about the health of the banking system. Idle chat with other CHL instructors has included phrases like “stocking up on water and canned goods — and ammo, so I can keep the water and canned goods.” I don’t really think that rioting in the streets is going to happen in the very near future, but I can certainly see that having an emergency stash of distilled water and canned food is relatively cheap insurance in any case, and it’s better to have and not need than to need and not have. So, yes, I have several weeks’ worth of distilled water and canned/dry foods in the pantry. I use distilled water on a regular basis for my heated humidifier on my CPAP, and I remember clearly back when some idiot government bureaucrat said that everybody needed to stock up on distilled water, plastic sheeting, and duct tape right away — and I was unable to buy distilled water for nearly a month after that.

That’s my guess, anyway.

If you think you have a better explanation, please enlighten me in the comments.

Related post: What Kind of Gun Should I Buy?

It seems strange to have to wear earplugs at a symphony concert…

As a CHL instructor, I have gotten into the habit of always having a set of those memory-foam earplugs in a little case in my pocket. I use them in addition to over-the-ear muffs, since I’m also a musician, and things that hurt my ears are a Big Deal. They also come in handy for several other occasions. In the past year, I have used them several times at work (twice so that the fire drill alarm wouldn’t deafen me).

Three times this year, I’ve had occasion to use them at symphony concerts, twice at the Plano Symphony, and once at the Dallas Symphony. It really strikes me as odd to have to use earplugs at a symphony concert. One concert was the Moody Blues (with the DSO), and I noticed that not only was the band wearing earplugs, but the DSO members were also wearing hearing protection (some of them wearing electronic over-the-ear muffs). The concerts with the Plano Symphony that required earplugs were the Christmas concert, and the concert last Saturday evening featuring the 5th Dimension.

Why is it that I seem to be the only person who considers it really weird that the majority of the people present at a concert, including all of the performers, have to wear hearing protection just to keep the experience from being painful? Why couldn’t the folks putting on the show just turn the volume down a bit?

But then, I didn’t like loud music when I was a teenager either.

It’s a small world after all…

The name Bob Taylor isn’t particularly rare, so I didn’t really think much about my cruise dining companion for the first couple of days. I was on a Western Caribbean cruise with a group of Texas Lions as a fund-raiser for the Lions Sight and Tissue Foundation.

On the third night, however, we got to talking about home towns. My wife and I discovered that the Taylors had grown up near Longview (where my wife is from), and then they had moved to El Paso where Bob was a high school coach for a few years. Well, I’m from El Paso, and we started comparing notes on the old home town. About 2 minutes into that line of conversation, we discovered that he was the assistant principal of Irvin High School, for most of the time I was a student there, including my senior year. Yup, that Bob Taylor.

We spent that dinner trading war stories and trying to remember names of students and teachers from the late 60’s. Fortunately, I was a pretty good student in high school, and never encountered the business end of Mr. Taylor’s paddle.

Bob Taylor is currently retired, and volunteering as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Ennis Noon Lions Club, in district 2x-1. I will probably be the Secretary of the Plano Early Lions Club (also in 2x-1) next year.

And now I can’t get that funky song from Disney World out of my head.

Icy streets in Dallas, Snow in London

It’s cold this morning in Dallas, but the streets appear to be passible, and I don’t anticipate any problems getting to work. Unlike some folks in other parts of the world, who (apparently due to something Liberals call “global warming”) are have some genuine difficulty with unusually cold weather.

I got an email from a fellow in the UK (interesting guy named Martin Avis who writes an internet marketing newsletter) who was complaining about the weather in London today, and it’s effect on the trains. When the locals complain about the train service in London, it must be REALLY bad.

Having been in London three time in the last three decades, I was consistently underwhelmed by the dependability, reliability, and timeliness of their trains. In stark contrast to the trains in Germany and Belgium, which *always* arrived and departed within one minute of the scheduled times.

Which reminds me of my 1st trip to London, about 30 years ago. We arrived at the train station early (about 5am for a 6am scheduled train to the airport), and we were looking for a place to eat some breakfast. I came across a middle-aged man pushing a broom, and asked him if there was an open restaurant nearby.

His answer consisted of at least 50 syllables, not one of which I understood, although I’m certain it was all in English. Probably laid on the accent extra thick after noting that I was a Yank.

At 7am, we went to a ticket window to inquire about the 6am train and we were told that the train was never going to arrive, since it had derailed about 10km outside of London. The lady who told us that did not seem to think that sort of problem was at all unusual, or even remarkable enough to bother notifying anyone waiting for the 6am train. We had to take a taxicab to the airport, but we did manage to arrive (barely) in time to catch our flight. Interestingly, the taxicab fare was about the same as the train fare would have been. Since we were leaving the country, we tipped the driver with all of our remaining English currency, about 30 pounds. He did a heroic job of getting us there in time.

The 2nd and 3rd trips (2nd for business, 3rd as a stopover for a North Sea cruise) were not an improvement. The trains were consistently so late that I had to plan to be at my destination at least one hour early in order to make it no more than an hour late. At least I was able to take a chartered bus to the cruise departure. But by the 3rd trip to London, I knew better than to rely on train transport.

The trains were not the only problem, of course. The prices for everything were so far out of reason that I don’t understand why anybody would want to live in, work in, or even visit London. The only bright spot was that taxicab travel was inexpensive and an order of magnitude more dependable and comfortable than the trains.

I have no particular desire to visit London again.