Experimenting with color fill

So I stumbled across some YouTube videos of people adding color to the engravings on their guns and I thought that was a pretty cool way to add a little personalization to a handgun.

My first attempt was using the nail polish method which turned out ok on my XD40

I had to apply several coats and I'm still not 100% satisfied with the results but close. I think some of the engraving on the Springfield is so fine that the color isn't really getting into it. 

Next up is my Ruger LCP where I'm using model paint like demonstrated in most of the videos I watched. I used a flat tan color and have only applied one coat so far. I'm not sure if I want to apply more yet or not because I do like the subtleness of it. 

The ".380 auto" was not filled. It looks like it but that is the factory look. 

I'm currently working on my XDs .45 and having the same issue with some spots of the engraving not taking color. 

The first photo is before (I forgot to take before pics of the other pistols) so you can see the difference. 

Here is the after shots. 

The videos make it look much easier than it actually is. It's not a difficult job by any means but the videos make it look effortless and only 1 shot at doing a perfect job. So far I've had to do multiple coats and still having some spots not taking the color. 

I am excited about the aesthetics that the color fill provides and it adds a bit of customization and personalization to a firearm that you can do yourself. 

The war on our Second Amendment

I am a very strong supporter of our second amendment and gun rights. I believe that if open carry was allowed by law abiding citizens in every state that there would be a dramatic drop in crime. I also believe that the age limit for owning and purchasing a firearm and ammunition should be 18 as long as the individual has recieved approved training like military, NRA safety course, or hunter safety. At age 18, these young adults are entrusted with voting to choose our elected officials and serve our country and possibly fight and die for our country. So why are they not entrusted to lawfully carry a firearm or purchase ammunition if they've recieved proper training?

Our right to keep and bear arms has always been under attack but until December 14, 2012, it was on the back burner. After the attack at Sandy Hook, our 2nd amendment became the biggest news headline pushing more important things to the back burner like the Bengahzi investigation/cover up. The attack on our 2nd amendment has all but made Sandy Hook and Adam Lanza disappear, the only time you hear about them is when Obama and other liberals refer to them as a reason for more gun control.

Most responsible gun owners have engaged in a vocal campaign to their elected officials demanding that our right to keep and bear arms not be infringed, myself included. I have sent numerous emails to Sen. Rubio, Grayson, and Nelson. Sen. Rubio has stepped up and defended the 2nd amendment, Sen. Grayson and Nelson not so much. Another weapon against gun control that I have employed is the NRA. I joined as an easy pay life member. I should have done this years ago but for various reasons I didn't. The important thing now is that I am a member and my voice will be heard. I encourage anyone who is not a member to join NRA here.

More recent news is a planned armed march in Washington DC. While I understand why Adam Kokesh is doing this, I feel that it is not in our best interest. I don't think it will have the desired outcome and may actually be a setback for gun rights. On the other hand though, it will be a lose situation for our government as well because they will be denying citizens not just one but two rights, the 1st amendment and the 2nd amendment. If Kokesh and his limited supporters went unarmed, they would likely meet little resistance. The fact that he intends to go fully armed to a location where it is illegal to carry firearms to do a "peacefull" protest though is counter productive and will not end peacefully.

I support now and always will, the right to lawfully own and carry firearms. I do not and will not support any politician that does not support the second amendment 100%. I will not relinquish my guns. I do not fear our government, it is our responsibility, our duty, to make the government fear us.

I will end this blog with a few quotes:

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." 
   -- Benjamin Franklin

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
   -- Edmund Burke

"Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny."
   -- Edmund Burke

And finally, one of my favorites:

"When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
   -- Thomas Jefferson.

Boston Marathon

The terrorist attack in Boston on Monday is a tragedy no matter which angle you view it from. It could have been a foreign terrorist, a domestic terrorist, a former city employee, an individual trying to make a point, or from way out in left field, it could be a government "false flag" to distract us from something else. Whatever it was, it is a tragedy. People died and many people were injured.

The media is all over this. Constantly showing pictures and videos of the carnage. This is what I find very disturbing. Why do all the news outlets have to show this over and over and over again? This is desensitizing us to events like this. The attack on 9/11 was the same way, the same pictures and videos playing on a loop. All the big news channels are trying to be the first to show "breaking news" and they all claim to be the first to show it but it's the same footage no matter which channel you're watching.

Some of the reporters are interviewing victims and/or families and the questions are absurd, things like "Were you scared?" and "Did it hurt when the shrapnel tore through your leg?" What the hell kind of questions are these? Of course they were scared and you're damned right it hurt.

One of the 3 people who died was a Chinese national who's family doesn't want her name released and they don't want to be hounded by American media. I give her family kudos for wishing to mourn in private. This doesn't mean I don't respect the families of the other victims, we're used to our media exploiting tragedy to gain ratings.

Why aren't these media outlets searching for the many heroes that acted immediately to help the victims? Not all of them were police or medical personnel. In some of the photos, I've seen other runners trying to aid victims. A couple of National Guardsmen moving debris to get to victims. People coming to the aid of other people. Why isn't this a story?

My thoughts go out to the victims and their families.

Someone is censoring my blog

I was just looking at my blog and discovered that a portion of my last entry was blocked out. Here is the original post as seen in my editor:

And here is what it looks like on my page:

I am curious if Google is doing the censoring or if DHS is doing it. I have the right to exercise my First amendment as much as I have the right to exercise my second amendment. Censorship of the first just adds to the whole Gestapo theory.

I am expecting to be harrassed at any time by law enforcement, be it local, state, or government level or perhaps all 3.

It is a shame that our country is going down this path. I spent almost 12 years serving my country and I went to war for her. I did all of this thinking I was defending the Constitution and now look what is happening to it.

Luck

I'm not crazy superstitious but I do have some beliefs. I don't believe that walking under a ladder is bad luck. I don't believe that breaking mirrors is bad luck (although that might explain a lot now since I used to install mirrors and have broken enough to last my family for several generations). I do believe black cats crossing my path is bad luck because something has happened every time one has crossed my path.

When I deployed to Iraq in 2003, my best friend had some dog tags made for me for good luck and I put one on my chain with my issue tags and kept it on my person at all times. My then 7 year old daughter had sent me a small purple ribbon and a Pokemon card for good luck and they went right in my wallet and stayed on my person the entire year I was deployed.

I believe these "charms" got me home safe as well as my men.

Moving forward to the present day now, my daughter (now 17) and I were enjoying a 2nd amendment appreciation day yesterday at my parent's house and shooting my XDs .45. My backdrop is an old wood pile and I was 10-15 feet away. My daughter had fired about 3 magazines and I had just fired the last round of my 4th mag when right after I squeezed the trigger I caught a quick glimps of something coming right at my head just before it made impact. It knocked my hat off and almost knocked me on my ass. I caught my hat and immediately felt my forehead checking for blood and there wasn't any. I looked at my hat to see if there was a hole and there wasn't
one. We had been recording each other with my flipcam so after making sure I wasn't dead or in danger of dying, I looked at her and asked if she was taping. Unfortunately the answer was no. She still hasn't realized what happened yet until I told her and she got a little freaked out.

We started looking around for the bullet that almost took me out but couldn't find it and I told her that it had to be somewhere behind where we were standing and would likely never find it. We began policing up the brass and she points at something on the ground and asks "what's that?" I looked and said "that my dear is what could have made things a lot different now."

The ricochet grazed the top of my forehead above my right eye, had it been an inch lower and made a direct hit on my head, I may not be here to write this. I don't think it had enough velocity left in it to penetrate but it could have cracked my skull for sure and I'd probably been in the hospital.

After going and inspecting the wood pile, I realized that some of those oak logs were hard as rock. I wasn't ready to stop shooting yet but I knew it was no longer safe to use the wood pile as a target trap and I didn't want to push my luck. I need to talk to my stepdad and see if I can get a load of dirt to use as a trap, if he doesn't want a mound of dirt back there, I don't know what other options I have other than going to a range and have to start paying fees.

Conspiracy theories.

I have been watching a lot of "tinfoil hat" kind of stuff on YouTube lately but it's not my first time seeing or reading about them. Some times, probably most of the time. I think these people are bat-shit crazy. There are some notable people though that do bring up valid points that would cause you to take a step back and go hmmm.

There is a very large group of people that believe 9/11 was an inside job. They have some pretty compelling evidence that can point it in that direction. However, there is also compelling evidence debunking those very theories. I don't think I would put it past the government to try and pull off a false flag attack like this but the biggest evidence I believe that makes this nothing more than a conspiracy theory is that our government can not keep a secret. There would be way too many loose ends and somebody would have leaked it by now.

Something I was enlightened to recently was that our birth certificates and social security cards are being traded on the stock market. I started googling that information when I got home and what I found was a lot of information trying to steer people into believing this. There was indeed a number in red ink on the back of my BC and a number on the back of my SS, but the numbers were not the same. I realize that the stock market can be manipulated and whatnot but two different entities cannot own the same property. If we were actually being traded on the stock market as collateral for money the government borrowed, I think the numbers would match.

One of the more scary theories I've stumbled across is the FEMA death camps. This one I'm not real sure about. According to what I've read and watched on YouTube though, there are hundreds of these camps all over the country. However, after trying to find a few of these camps using google maps, I was unsuccessful in doing so. I'm not ruling this out though since FEMA does fall under the Department of Homeland Security and that office is acting very shady.

Here is what I know as truth:

The Obama administration and many of his liberal stormtroopers wants to take our guns. This is no secret and it has been in the news (the liberal lame stream media). Obama is using the tragedy at Sandy Hook, exploiting the deaths of these children (which by the way is another conspiracy theory) to push his gun control agenda. Obama knows and has admitted that banning the so called assault weapons won't stop another mass shooting or even reduce crime, what he wants is to strip our ability to defend ourselves from his tyrannical agenda. There are bills being presented to allow a third term for him and just the other day I read about a senator pushing a bill to allow Obama to be president for life. That would officially make him a dictator.

The Department of Homeland Security has purchased nearly 2 billion rounds of ammunition, 7000 personal defense weapons (which in case you didn't know, that's what they say are assault weapons when in the hands of law abiding citizens), and nearly 4000 armored vehicles.

Congress has asked Janet Napolitano, the head of DHS, for an explanation of these purchases and she replied with "The DHS doesn't have to tell you anything." Are you kidding me? The DHS is allowed to operate outside of the government? Every time I hear "Department of Homeland Security" I immediately think of Hitler's Gestapo. Maybe Obama is using DHS as his Gestapo.


I have some friends that believe in some of the conspiracy theories I mentioned and I'm not poking fun at them or even saying it is or isn't the truth, I just haven't seen enough evidence that convinces me. I do not trust our government, especially the current regime.


Do some research and come to your own conclusion.

Guns save lives

Taken from the American Rifleman:

Bryan Lee, owner of the Almond Avenue Pharmacy, had no choice but to fire his .45-cal. pistol when a 31 year old male entered his store firing a similar model. The gunman entered the store and immediately fired multiple rounds striking Lee's mother, Sophie Lee, in the leg. Bryan Lee returned fire, causing the man to flee. He collapsed a block away and later died at a local hospital. Lee was unharmed and his mother was expected to make a quick recovery. Lee said, "We just did what we had to do to survive." (The Fresno Bee, Madera, Ca. 1/11/13)