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john q publik

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  1. Posted

    And for the conclusion.......

     

    Sunrise at Coffin Rock

    Thomas sat alone upon the cold stone, shivering slightly in the chill pre-dawn air of this

    April morning. The flashlight was turned off, resting beside him on the bare granite of Coffin

    Rock, and involuntarily he strained his eyes in the gray non-light of the false dawn, trying to

    make out the shapes of the trees and the mountains across the river. Below, he could hear the

    chuckling of the water as it crossed the polished stones. How many times had he fished there,

    his grandfather beside him?

    He tried to shrug away the memories, but why else had he come here except to

    remember? Perhaps to escape the inevitable confrontation with his mother. She would have to

    be told sooner or later, but Thomas infinitely preferred later.

    "Mom, I've been expelled from the university," he said aloud in a conversational tone.

    Some small night animal, startled by the sudden sound, scurried away to the right. "I know this

    means you won't get upgraded to C-3, and they'll probably turn you down for that surgery now.

    Gee, Mom. I'm sorry." It sounded so stupid. Why? she would ask him. How?

    How could he explain that? The endless arguments. The whispered warnings. The

    subtle threats. Dennis had told him to expect this. Dennis had lost his parents in the First Purge

    back in ‘04, and his bitter hatred of the State's iron rule had failed to ruin him only because of his

    unique and accomplished abilities as an actor. Only with Thomas did he open up. Only with

    Thomas did he relate the things he had learned while in the Youth Re-education Camp near

    Charleston. Thomas shuddered.

    It was his own fault, he knew. He should have kept his mouth shut like Dennis told him.

    All of his friends had come and shook his hand and pounded him on the back. "That's telling

    them, Adams!" they said. But their voices were hushed and they glanced over their shoulders as

    they congratulated him. And later, when the "volunteers" of the Green Ribbon Squad kicked his

    ass all over the shower room, they had stood by in nervous silence, their eyes averted, and their

    tremulous voices silent.

    He sighed. Could he blame them? He'd been afraid too, when the squad walked up and

    surrounded him, and if he could have taken back those proud words he would have. Anyone is

    afraid when they can't defend themselves, he'd discovered. So they taught him a lesson, and he

    had hoped it would end there. But then yesterday had come the call to Dr. Morton's office, and

    the brief hearing that had ended his career at the university. "Thomas," Morton had intoned,

    "you owe everything to the State." Thomas snorted.

    The light was growing now. He could see the pale rain-washed granite in the grayness as

    if it glowed. Coffin Rock was now a knob, a raised promontory that jutted up from a wide,

    unbroken arm of the mountain's stony roots, its cover of soil pushed away. There were deep

    gouges scraped across the surface of the rock where the backhoe had tried, vainly, to force the

    mountain to reveal its secrets. He was too old to cry now, but Thomas Adams closed his eyes

    tightly as he relived those moments that had forever changed his life.

    The shouts and angry accusations as the agents found no secret arms cache still seemed

    to ring in his ears. They had threatened him with arrest, and once he had thought the man called

    Goodwin would actually strike him. At last, though, they had accepted defeat, turned away from

    Coffin Rock and walked slowly down the mountain, following the gashed trail of the backhoe as

    it rumbled ahead through the woods.

    At home, he had found his mother and father standing ashen faced in the doorway.

    "They took your grandpa," his father said in disbelief. "Just after you left, they put him

    in a van and took him."

    "But they said they wouldn't!" Thomas had shouted. He ran across the yard to the old

    man's cottage. The door was standing open and he wandered from room to room, calling for the

    grandfather he would never see alive again.

    It was his heart, they said. Two days after they had taken him, someone called and

    tersely announced that the old man had died at the indigent clinic a few hours after his arrest.

    "’Sorry," the faceless voice had muttered. Thomas had wept at the funeral, but it was only in

    later years that he had come to understand the greatest tragedy of that day: that the old man had

    died alone, knowing that his own grandson had betrayed him.

    That grandson was Thomas, and he was now too old to cry, but in the growing light of

    the cold mountain dawn, he did anyway.

    Thomas was certain that his father's de-certification six months later was due to the

    debacle in the forest. As much as anyone did these days, they had "owned" their home, but the

    Certification Board would still have evicted them except for the intervention of Cousin Lou, who

    worked for the State Supervisor. As it was, they lost all privileges and, when his father came

    down with pneumonia the next autumn, medical treatment was denied. He had died three days

    after the first anniversary of Grandpa’s death.

    Thomas had been sure that he would be turned down at the University, but once again his

    cousin had intervened and a slot had opened for him. But now that was finished, he reflected.

    He would be unable to obtain any certification other than manual laborer. "Why didn't I keep my

    mouth shut?" he asked the morning stillness. In a tree behind him, a mockingbird began to sing

    its ageless song and, as if in answer, the forest below began to twitter and chirp with the voices

    of other birds, greeting the new day.

    No, what he had said had been the truth and nothing could change that. The State was

    wrong; it was evil. It was unnatural for men to be slaves of their government, always skulking,

    always holding their tongue lest they anger The State. But there is no "State," Thomas

    considered. There are only men, holding power over other men. And anyone who speaks out,

    who dares to challenge that power is crushed.

    If only there was a way to fight back!

    Thomas shifted on the stone, hanging his feet off the downhill side. His feet had almost

    touched the grass that day, but now, although his legs were certainly longer, it was at least

    twelve inches to the scarred rock surface below. As he kicked his heels back and forth, he could

    almost hear his grandfather speaking to him from long ago...

    ... one day, America will come to her senses. Our men will need those guns and they'll be

    ready. We cleaned them and sealed them up good; they'll last for years. Maybe it won't be in

    your lifetime, Thomas. Maybe one day you'll be sitting here with your son or grandson. Tell

    him about me, boy. Tell him about the way I said America used to be.

    You see the way this stone points? the old man had said. You follow that line onehundred

    feet ... Thomas' heels were suddenly still. For many minutes he did not move, playing

    those words over and over in his mind. ... Follow that line ...

    What hidden place in his brain had concealed those words all of these years? How could

    the threats have failed to dislodge it? He stood upon shaky legs and climbed down from the

    Coffin Rock. In his mind's eye, he could see the old man pointing and he walked down the hill

    and through a clinging briar patch, counting off the paces. The round stone did seem solidly

    buried, but he scratched around near the base and found that the rock ended just an inch or so

    beneath the surface. One man with a good bar can lift it, Gramps had said. Thomas forced his

    fingers beneath the edge and, with all the strength in his twenty-one year old body, he lifted.

    The stone came up, and he slid it off to one side. Cool air drifted up from the dark opening in

    the mountain. Thomas looked to the right where the scars of the State's frustration ended, only

    fifteen or twenty feet away. They had been that close.

    He squatted and stared into the blackness and then remembered his flashlight. In a

    moment, he was back with it, probing the dark with the yellow beam. There was a small patch

    of moisture just inside, but then the tunnel climbed upwards toward the ridge. On hands and

    knees, he entered.

    It was uncomfortably close for the first twenty feet or so, then the cavern opened up

    around him. The men who had built this place, he saw, had taken a natural crevice in the granite

    rock, sealed it with poured concrete, and then covered it with earth. The main chamber was

    bigger than the living room of his house, and they had left an opening up near the peak of the

    vaulted roof where fresh air and a faint, filtered light entered.

    Wooden boxes and crates were stacked everywhere on concrete blocks, up off of the

    floor, stenciled with legends like RIFLE CAL30M1, 9MM PARA, M193 BALL, MAK90,

    7.62X39MM, and 5.56MM. He pushed between them and crawled to the wall where he found

    cardboard boxes wrapped and sealed in plastic sheeting. These were imprinted with names like

    OLIN, WW748, BULLSEYE, and RL550B. There were also green steel boxes, stacked almost to

    the ceiling. He did not know what the crates and boxes contained, and was afraid to break the

    seals, but near the center of the room he found a plastic wrapped carton labeled OPEN THIS

    FIRST. With his pocketknife, he slit the heavy plastic wrapping.

    It contained only books, he saw with some disappointment. But he studied the titles and

    found that they were manuals on weapons, how to repair them, how to clean them, how to fire

    them, and ammunition ... how to store it, and how to reload it. And here was something unusual:

    A History of the United States. He lifted it from the carton and crawled back to the open air.

    Leaning against a stone, he tore open the heavy vinyl bag that enclosed the book and began to

    read at random, flipping the pages every few moments. On each page something new met his

    eye, contradicting everything he had ever been taught.

    Freedom is not won, he learned, by proud words and declarations. He remembered a

    quotation taught at the University: "Blood alone moves the wheels of history." An Italian

    dictator named Mussolini had said that, but now he read of a man named Patrick Henry who

    said, "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and of

    tyrants." Mao was required reading at the University, too, and he now recalled that this man

    called a hero by the State had once said, "political power comes out of the barrel of a gun."

    Freedom is never granted; it is won. Won by men who are willing to die, to lose

    everything so that others may have that greatest possession of all.

    Mentally, he began to list those he could trust. Men who had been arrested for speaking

    out. Women whose husbands had been arrested and had never returned. Friends who had been

    denied certification because of their father's military record. The countryside seethed with anger

    and frustration. These were people who longed to be free, but who had no means to resist ... until

    now.

    Thomas laid the book aside and then worked the stone back into position, carefully

    placing leaves and moss around the base to hide any evidence that it had been disturbed. He

    tucked the book under his arm and started for home with the rays of the rising sun warming his

    back. He imagined his grandfather's touch in the heat. A forgiving touch.

    A long, hard struggle was coming, and he knew with a certainty that defied explanation

    that he would not live to see the day America was once again free. His blood and that of many

    patriots and tyrants would be spilled, but perhaps America’s tree of Liberty would live and

    flourish again.

    There is a long line stretching through the history of this world: a line of those who

    valued freedom more than their lives. Thomas Adams now took his place at the end of that

    column as he determined that he would have liberty, or death. He would be in good company.

  4. Posted

    Let me be the first to inform you there are NO public ranges anywhere near Somers Point, however there are several private ones some members may be willing to bring you in as a guest. The closest to Somers Point in the Atlantic County Police Range, on 559, but I believe ANYONE using it must be a member, so your brother might want to look into joining there as its only 10 minutes away. Further out there is Cumberland Rifelman in Millville, and Hutton Hill and South Jersey Shooting Club in Winslow. Even further still is USANA, out in Pitts Grove TWSP. There is also another down in Cape May, but the name escapes me at the moment.

     

    When were you planning on doing this, I may be able to bring you as guests if I have the day to go shooting.

  5. Posted

    +1 on SJSC! I have been a member for a year now - better than I imagined. Great folks, the owners are usually onsite, the buildings and grounds are immaculate and even the bathrooms are clean. No "voluntary"

    work requirement, and the addition of Bangers is awesome, Chuck, Jake and the folks are friendly and helpful - no attitude and no price gouging- always fair and willing to talk. I see a fair number of women at the club and Bangers has a mix of men and women employees so there is always someone to work with no matter what your question might be. I am a fan!

     

    Not to mention a whole slew of us Range Safety Officers who are also NRA instructors and always willing to help out and give some pointers here and there, especially for the new shooters.

  6. Posted

    I'm on the other side of Somers Point from you, and I go to South Jersey Shooting Club in Winslow.....membership fee, but no hourly charges. Outdoor ranges only, 25, 50, 100, 300, soon to be 15, and otu paved action range out back we have plate shoots, idpa, 3-gun, and such. There is also now a full service gun store on premises, Bangers Sports Shop, so if you need more ammo, or whatever, you can just go in and get it right there. If you're interested in checking it out, there is a 3-gun this coming Sat. that I have to help work(I'm one of the RSOs there), so you can hitch a ride up with me(but you'll have to stay for the duration), or you can follow me up. You do not need to be a member to attend the action shooting events, but you do need to be a member to use the front ranges. Requirements are to be an NRA member, dn they can sign you up for the NRS right there if you're not already, pay the appropriate fees, and sit in on the orientation, which is given regularly.

     

    It's also open for shoting rom dawn to dusk(9am to dusk on Sundays) 364 days a year.

  9. Posted

    South Jersey Shooting Club, Piney Hollow Rd., Winslow. Open 7 days, dawn to dusk, Members, and guests only. Outdoor facility, 25, 50, 100, 300 yd ranges, building a 15 yd, and a 20 yd action range used for various events. But no skeet. No .50 BMG's, but anything else goes, so long as it's legal in NJ. Orientations are every other weekend. Or if you just want to check it out, I can take you in as a guest.

  11. Posted

    I have not noticed any effect on accuracy, either way, on mine. They do not lower the recoil. They MAY reduce FELT recoil, but not by much to really be noticed by most shooters. What they do is stop the rear end of the dust cover portion of the slide from hammering the recoil spring guide/frame, thereby supposedly extending the life of said components. That said, the US military used the design for over 80 years and had several tens of thousands of rounds shot through them by boot camp attendees that do no necessarily know much about firearms, and I don't think they had too many break the frame or slide in those contact areas.

  12. Posted

    They should come out without much effort, as they are not tapered or grooved or anything like that. Howerver, they are thin, real thin. So getting them back into the frame without bending them can be an exercise in patience. Just keep track of how everything comes apart, so you cna put it all back in the right order.

  13. Posted

    I have an old H & R top break in .38 S&W that I had to disassemble and replace a few springs in, then I sprayed it wiht moly-resin. I may be able to help ou out with it. Yes they are pins, and need to be driven out with a hammer/punch. I was able to get the springs I needed from Numrich, and Wolff. they are flat leaf springs inside, and gettign everything to stay lined up while re-installilng those pins was fun. The trigger spring has probably rusted in half on it. Let me know if you want to endeavor into it.

  15. Posted

    Yeah, cuz we do such a bang up job with our other elected officials SERVANTS. Elected judges are a terrible idea. Do you really want someone ruling on a case you might be involved in who relies on the public to keep him employed?

     

    Fixed that for ya. Until and unless we start caling them what they actually are, and not giving them fuel for their huge egos, and even bigger heads once they consider themselves "officials" over us, not much is ever going to change.

  16. Posted

    How is a plate scanners constitutional? I just read a giant circle jerk article in the paper about the town next to me doubling the amount of people they are pulling over. They went to 12 hour shifts which is fine. But then the started talking about the scanner they bought. Sitting there while a machine scans every person who goes by is not policing. It's harassing and tax collecting. IMO they can take them and red light cameras a shove em up their a**. On top of it my wife just got her liscence renewed and they made her take her glasses off so they can save her face for facial recognition. When is enough enough?

     

    It was enough roughly 25 years ago.....it's just a matter of time now until the firestorm starts.

  17. Posted

    But what is wrong with asking someone who is looking to get elected to represent us to actually tell us his opinion and thoughts on an issue.

     

    The simple fact is that, if they win an election for a public office, once they start that job, their opininos and thoughts on the matter are wholly and completely irrelevent as their new job description is to do what WE, the voters that hired them, tell them to do, regardless of how they feel about it.

  21. Posted

    Historic tags in NJ only apply to vehicles over 25 years, not 20. As for the emissions issue, depending on what exactly you have done to the engine, besides headers and x-pipe, a set of cats still might not be enough. A lot of the power enhancements one can execute on these days involve burning more fuel one way or another. That added fuel burning will by default increase your emissions. I would receommend putting the cat pipes on, and taking it through. Even if it fails, you have another 45 days to get ir to pass, but you also get a copy of the test results so you can see for yourself which gases are giving you the biggest problem. They are NOx, HC, and CO. excessive amounts of each give different reuslts. If you have an EGR valve still connected, make sure it works properly. You would be surprised by how many vehicles fail for NOx due to clogged ro restricted EGR valves.

  22. Posted

    Mid,

     

    They pick a fact (I believe you can buy face to face in KY without a background check - hey you can in NJ...) and they extrapolate and exaggerate it until it resembles their argument. It's a tactic. What bothers me is that the NRA is supposed to be fighting for us and I don't hear pro-gun talking points that we can use to deflate the anti-gun talking points coming from anyone except the grassroots organizations who are often far less inclined to be "politically correct". We need reasoned short arguments and we need reasonable vocabulary to turn around the arguments.

     

    re: vocabulary

    they say / we say

    high capacity magazines / standard magazines

    assualt weapons / (yeah need help here)

    cop killer bullets / criminal deterring bullets

    etc

     

     

    How about this....

     

    assault weapons/patrol rifle

    assault weapons/freedom rifle

    assault weapons/liberty gun

    assault weapons/revolutionary flintlock

     

    cop killer bullets/cop carried bullets

    cop killer bullets/police issue bullets

    cop killer bullets/citizen defense bulelts

    cop killer bullets/victim protection bullets

  23. Posted

    Not to hijack this thread, but most are highly recommending firefox. Can those of you using it please maybe explain to me why mine locks up/freezes on ANY youtube video, as well as most flash videos elsewhere? been bugging the hell out of me, I have two identical laptops, one is fine, mine locks up....

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