Petzal: Politics, and Yet More Savagery
“I didn’t say we should learn politics,” said Pogo. “We’re lovable cartoon characters. Politics is the kiss of death. I...
“I didn’t say we should learn politics,” said Pogo. “We’re lovable cartoon characters. Politics is the kiss of death. I said we should learn parlor tricks.”–from “Pogo the Possum,” the first comic strip with balls. By Walt Kelly.
Two quick political notes, and then back to guns. I take great joy in the current round of town meetings. But I’m puzzled that no one has pointed out the following: We are told that it is radio and TV commentators and bloggers who have set the badger loose, but unless there was already a great, basic distrust of, and dislike of, government and its works abroad in the land, Rush Limbaugh would be just a fat guy with a microphone. Sooner or later, something was going to tap into this current, and it happened to be health care.
Memo to the Secretary of State. Madam Secretary: Pay more attention to who does your translating. And avoid men with harpoons.
Thank you. I got to shoot with Bill Dermody, who handles PR for Savage, and picked up the following:
Savage, he pointed out, is now making a considerable number of expensive rifles, particularly target and tactical guns that break the $1,000 mark. The competition guns are doing very well against custom firearms that cost a lot more, and people are perfectly willing to pay serious money for a brand that once meant only ‘cheap”.
Savage’s version of a fancy gun, said Dermody, is not a rifle that has a lot of money put into it so it will look nice; it’s a rifle that has had a lot of money put into it so it will shoot accurately. And with those words he set into my gnarled hands a Model 12 Series Long Range Precision Varminter in .223. It has a price tag of over $1,200, and is about what you would get if you went to a sophisticated gun builder and asked for a state-of-the-art varmint rifle. I think this may just be the first factory rifle I’ve used that will crack the ½-minute barrier. I will let you know.
I also got to shoot a brand-new Savage that will be introduced at the 2010 SHOT Show. It’s a specialized long-range big-game rifle in 6.5×284, and the one I tried grouped like a sumbitch. I would tell you more, but then Savage would have to kill me–provided the Death Boards don’t euthanize me first.