I’ve consistently noticed that my “home” in my dreams, though it seems normal during the dream, almost never resembles any place where I’ve resided (nor indeed any place that I recognize).
Now I find that the principle applies not only to dwellings! I had a dream involving “my” pistol, which resembled a Walther PP — a type that I don’t think I’ve ever handled.
I took Dad to the target range today. I hadn’t shot in three years, nor he in seven. He, using my .22, was pleased enough with his shooting to take his target home.
With my .40, I did better than I expected after so long: my shots at ten yards were in groups smaller than my fist, which is plenty good enough for most practical purposes (not that I ever hope to use a pistol for practical purposes). As usual my left hand was steadier than my right; I said to Dad, “Are you sure I’m not left-handed?”
A dreadful blunder in Granada Television’s version (1985) of “The Greek Interpreter”: in a non-canonical scene, Mycroft Holmes refers to a derringer as a “revolver”. Tsk!
A surprising passage in The Adventure of the Dancing Men:
[Sherlock] Holmes hunted about among the grass and leaves like a retriever after a wounded bird. Then, with a cry of satisfaction, he bent forward and picked up a little brazen cylinder.
“I thought so,” said he; “the revolver had an ejector, and here is the third cartridge. . . .”
Were ejecting revolvers ever common?
An interesting item from Larry Elder:
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s website displays this oft-quoted “fact”: “The risk of homicide in the home is three times greater in households with guns.” Their website fails to mention that Dr. Arthur Kellermann, the “expert” who came up with that figure, later backpedaled after others discredited his studies for failing to follow standard scientific procedures. According to the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Kellermann now concedes, “A gun can be used to scare away an intruder without a shot being fired,” admitting that he failed to include such events in his original study. “Simply keeping a gun in the home,” Kellermann says, “may deter some criminals who fear confronting an armed homeowner.” He adds, “It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide – i.e., in a limited number of cases, people may have acquired a gun in response to a specific threat.”
I wasn’t aware that Kellermann had retracted.
In the first episode of Have Gun Will Travel (1957), Paladin points out that his custom-made revolver has a rifled barrel, “a rarity in a hand weapon.” Say what?!
Mark A R Kleiman says a number of sane things, but also this:
Requiring everyone who wants to have a gun to apply for a discretionary permit . . . serves no good purpose that I can see. The same is true of making a national registry of firearms and their owners. . . .
If and when it becomes technically feasible, we also need a database of ballistic signatures so that a bullet or shell casing found at a crime scene can be linked to the gun that fired it, and that gun in turn to its last lawful purchaser.
I deleted three paragraphs between, during which perhaps he changed his mind.
Kleiman also mentions Social Darwinism and Herbert Spencer together, vaguely enough that I can’t tell whether or not he means to repeat the slander refuted by Roderick Long.