TriggrCon, Media/Industry day.

When we last we saw our intrepid blogger, he was stuck in traffic, heading home from Triggrcon Range Day.

In case you hadn't heard, the Seattle-Tacoma area has nasty traffic these days. Besides, all that free ammo can really take it out of a guy, you feel an obligation to not let it go to waste.

So, first things first: Today and tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday July 29th and 30th, TriggrCon is open to the public for "Enthusiast Days." Go to the website to register, for free.

Up front, I did confirm that the last pistol caliber carbine and sub machine gun I fired at Range Day was by Battle Arms Development, and made that correction in my previous post.

The show itself is being held at the Greater Tacoma Conference Center.

Which bans guns and knives on site, and has security pawing through your bags and checking you with a hand wand.

It was hardly a TSA-level search, and I suspect I could have gotten a pocket pistol in, in my bag, but it's still annoying that they couldn't find a venue that either had more reasonable policies, or was willing to make an exception.

Especially since you walk in and turn left, and Freedom Munitions was selling ammo by the case, and knives, and if you turn right the Triggrcon Proshop is selling guns.

While wandering over to the Proshop I stopped at the Sig Sauer station -- they have a trailer set up as a traveling display, I've sen it elsewhere -- and confirmed that Sig does have plans for a .22LR P320, it's just that no one knows when...

But first... Before you got to the security station, there were several tables set up out front, mostly of local operations.

Mostly... The first stop I made was at the booth/table/display for PHLster Holsters. I've been admiring their Flat Pack Tourniquet "device"
(Another pic-heavy post, after the break...)

Triggrcon, Range Day

TriggrCon is the Northwest Shooting Sports Expo, which has been described as a "Mini-SHOT Show."

Well, I have a had time making it to Vegas for SHOT Show, but I can sure make it to Tacoma for this...

Signing up for tickets for Mrs. Drang and I for the "Enthusiast Days", I went ahead and applied for a Media Pass, because, hey, New Media and all that. I wasn't sure I'd get it, but what the heck...?

Sometimes I feel like the guy that does the police blotter for the Resume Speed Shopping News and gets invited to a press conference with the Times and stuff.

Anyway. Thursday was Range Day. The invite said it was at an "undisclosed location" which changed "at the last minute." I dunno about that. From the route the bus driver was taking I was pretty sure I knew where we were going, especially when someone said "I heard we were going to a sheriff's range."

Yep.

So here's the layout:

It's a pretty good set up. We were last there probably10 years ago (!) or more, for a muzzleloader shoot, when the range complex was pretty new, and still mostly bare dirt and rock. The best part is that it is far enough out in unincorporated King County that development stops before it gets this far, and the commute is too much for anyone.

Also, it shares the grounds with the before-mentioned King County Sheriff's Office range, as well as the Seattle Skeet & Trap/Boeing Employee's Shotgun Club range. (A friend of mine who worked on building the new range complex told me that, one night during the construction work, they came out of the club house after  meeting and witnessed a cougar taking down an elk. It's waaaaay out there...)

Anyway. A close up of who was at the range:

Click to enlarge.

Mostly pictures after the break:

Update on the Burien "Hatchet Attack" Shooting

I shared this event here: Today's Heart Warming News Item; in case you missed it, a local was making his daily 7-11 stop for coffee (yes, people around here do get their daily java fix somewhere besides Starbucks) when sumdood went amok with a hatchet. He connected once, then Our Hero produced his pistol and stopped the attack.

Yesterday, the Seattle Times had some updates, including ID'ing the attacker.

The hatchet-wielding man fatally shot by a customer at a South King County 7-Eleven store on Sunday morning has been identified as ... a felon who had served time for assault and a drug offense.

(Here I follow a convention I've seen on other blogs by not naming the bad guy. That guy? Screw thta guy.)

Today, Dave Workman has an interview with a relative of the attacker.
Beware the Ides of March; exclusive update on weekend hatchet attack | Examiner.com. The relative, Susan Svensk

said in a telephone conversation that {the attacker's} death, while it came as a shock, did not come as a surprise.
“This has been an on-going problem for many years,” she stated.

She went on to say

“There are people on the street that are mentally ill, addicted to drugs,” she observed. “They’re ordered by state to do something about that but the state doesn’t do anything about it to enforce that.”
She talked about people with similar problems, noting that “any one of those people could be a Poncho.” And Svensk added, “The state doesn’t want us to be able to defend ourselves against people like that.”
Svensk contended that when an incident like this happens, many state and federal authorities “have this knee jerk reaction.” Instead of disarming and punishing offenders, she contended, gun control proponents decide what must be done is to take away everyone’s ability to defend themselves.
“They treat us all like criminals,” Svensk observed.

I don't know what the answer is.

I do know that disarming the law-abiding will not make them safer.

The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Gun Control

Semantics triggers opposition to I-594’s gun-sale checks | Local News | The Seattle Times

Because for us to say that, where Ballot Initiative 594 says 

‘Transfer’ means the intended delivery of a firearm to another person without consideration of payment or promise of payment including, but not limited to, gifts and loans

that it really means "selling a gun over the internet."

Amazing, not only do the 1%'ers supporting this crap think only people who can afford to hire private security should have non-.gov guns to defend them, but they also think we're stupid.

Rain, rain...

So, one of the first words that pop into peoples' heads when you say "Seattle", along with "coffee" and "airplanes" and "software" and "online shopping" is "rain."

Tell them that Noo Yawk city actually gets more rain per annum and they'll accuse you of lying, but it's true: Seattle may have more rainy days per year than most other big cities, but it's usually either a steady drizzle or on-and-off showers, not heavy, steady rain.  When it comes to amount of annual rainfall, Seattle is solidly in the middle of the pack.

The winter just ended was fairly mild, even for here, let alone compared to the rest of the country; very little snow in the lowlands, but it rained a lot.  (Still is, we woke up this morning to rainfall that would have done credit to a tropical monsoon, albeit it didn't last as long.)  Lots of snow in the mountains, though, which is good even for those of us who don't like strapping boards to our feet to attempt to break our necks in the cold, as most of the municipal water supplies around here are fed by mountain snowmelt.

Plus, we don't usually mind rain so much, as it keeps the  area nice and green, and tends to keep the air relatively clear.  (With that huge mountain range to the east, Seattle would otherwise have an air pollution problem to rival that of LA, Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers or no.)

As Mrs. Drang noted in her post TOO MUCH RAIN!!! from yesterday, however, one can have too much of a good thing.

Seattle smashes record for all-time wettest March | Weather Blog |  KOMO News

I've noted elsewhere, in other posts, that Western Washington is rather challenged, geographically (and geologically) when it comes to places to put a major metropolitan area. Mountains, lakes, sound and straits, and what (relatively) dry land there is was temperate rain forest a century and a half ago.  For a long time after that, much of the cleared land, and especially what didn't need clearing because it was river bottom, was agricultural, so flooding didn't matter, and may have been good for the crops.

When we were house hunting, I rejected many houses and home sights without even entering the property because they were too close to a slope, a hill, or a river.  Realtors and builders tried to tell me "Oh, no, sir, this house is yards and yards from the river, no problem at all!" and then not 6 months later, sure enough, there the development would be on the news, complete with home owners complaining because they didn't have flood insurance.

In a few cases I had to look locations up online to see how stable they might be.  I suppose it made my own realtor's job easier, saved him the trouble of actually making the drive.

(OTOH, some of the websites are less than useful.  FEMA was telling me I lived in a flood zone even though we lived on top of a ridge miles from the nearest river.  Turns out they have a different criteria than simply "Will I wake up one morning to find carp in my front yard?")

And, with the way the local economy has boomed over the last 40 years or so (you hear about the "booms", never the "busts", even though I retired from the Army at the beginning of one of the latter) much land has been cleared, and often filled in, to build affordable housing.  (Not to mention unaffordable housing.  Some of those MacMansions...!)

And then... 530 Slide News & Resources | Snohomish County, WA - Official Website

(Last weekend's mudslide in Oso, Snohomish County, WA, is known officially as the "Highway 530 Slide", for the highway it cut.)(Google news search for highway 530 slide. As usual, of course, many of the hits there are simply the same story being picked up by other news outlets. Items bylined KIRO, KOMO, KCPQ or Q13, KING or KING5, or -- of course -- Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer, Everett, Arlington or Snohomish County, will be local.)

17 dead.  90 "missing and presumed dead", and 35 just plain missing.  The debris wall was one and a half miles wide and between 10 and 20 feet deep.  (On Staten Island after Hurricane Sandy I saw houses with high water marks at the nine foot level, halfway up the second floor...)

And, apparently, some folks don't perform due diligence.  While people keep looking at aerial photographs of the area of the Oso landslide, and an Army Corps of Engineers report has surfaced predicting disaster, survivors keep saying that no one told them there was any danger. Interactive: Before and after the 530 mudslide | Local News | The Seattle Times

And, of course, the finger pointing begins.  "State allowed logging on plateau"!  "Why weren't they told?"  "Why were they allowed to build there?!" Some of these are valid criticisms.  Some may be based on hindsight.  And some are just looking for someone to blame, because no one wants to say "Holy crap, who knew?"

Someone must have known, someone had to know, and they must be punished!

RIP, Professor

Things I didn't know about Russell Johnson, AKA The Professor (November 10, 1924 – January 16, 2014)from Gilligans Island:

• He lived on Bainbridge Island, just upwind of me.  (Well, across the sound...)
• During WWII he was a navagtor on B-25 Mitchells -- which pleases me as a military history and aviation geek, because that's my favorite WWII airplane.
• His plane ditched after a mission off Zamboanga in the Philippines, and he really was a castaway for a three hour tour that lasted a little bit longer...
• Was awarded the Purple Heart for that mission, on which he broke both ankles.  Also the Air Medal and various campaign and other service ribbons.
• Until The Professor came along, he was always typecast as the heavy.
• Tried to get a role on the Original Star Trek.

Hat-tip, appropriately enough, to The Professor. 

Wikipedia article, IMDB article.  (Note that the IMDB article seems confused as to aircraft types.)