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Cleaning My Gun While Reading Gulliver’s Travels

I keep a weather eye on the horizon, back to the wall
I like to know who’s coming through the door at us all

It’s the old Army training, kickin’ in
I’m not complaining
It’s the world we live in

Ronny and Malarkey, they’re a devious firm
They’ll take you to the cleaners, let you burn
The help is breaking dishes in the kitchen
Thanks a lot
We hired the worst dishwasher
This place ever got
Hidden below the radar, they want to spoil our fun…
In the meantime, I’m cleaning my gun

Excerpted and Annotated by Lance De Boyle

There was a great lord at court, nearly related to the king, and for that reason alone used with respect. He was universally reckoned the most ignorant and stupid person among them… [Schmuck Schumer]

In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and manufactures; All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose…. The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair: [Democrat party]

My conductor led me into a room where a great physician … had a large pair of bellows, with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when the disease was more stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle while the bellows were full of wind, which he discharged into the body of the patient; then withdrew the instrument to replenish it, clapping his thumb strongly against the orifice of then fundament; and this being repeated three or four times, the adventitious wind would rush out, bringing the noxious along with it. [Anthony “Tiny Tot” Fauci]

Senates and great councils are often troubled with redundant, ebullient, and other peccant humours; with many diseases of the head, and more of the heart; with strong convulsions, with grievous contractions of the nerves and sinews in both hands, but especially the right; with spleen, flatus, vertigos, and deliriums; with scrofulous tumours, full of fetid purulent matter; with sour frothy ructations: with canine appetites, and crudeness of digestion, besides many others, needless to mention…

Another professor showed me a large paper of instructions for discovering plots and conspiracies against the government. He advised great statesmen to examine into the diet of all suspected persons; their times of eating; upon which side they lay in bed; with which hand they wipe their posteriors; take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool… [FBI]

From Gulliver’s Travels

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • gwbnyc February 5, 2021, 7:25 PM
  • DrTedNelson February 6, 2021, 8:59 AM

    Don’t ask me; I’m just another yahoo.

  • Missy February 6, 2021, 9:06 AM

    I love Mark Knopfler and this song, but his all time greatest, in my book, is “Skateaway.” But thanks for the reminder to clean my my gun, well the shotgun, a beautiful Ithaca double barrel c. 1882-1903 (#18966). My brother gave it to me as he lay dying last March. Handed down from our grandfather, it is oddly a comfort to me on many levels.

  • EX-Californian Pete February 6, 2021, 9:59 AM

    Pretty cool song, and a good tune to clean guns by.

    More bad news for Californians- with some of the most restrictive and Communist gun laws already on the books which make buying guns or ammo almost IMPOSSIBLE, seems that their illustrious AG- “Ban-it Becerra” just “de-certified” about 1500 MORE firearms from the “Safe Roster,” which now makes them ILLEGAL to sell or purchase in the entire state of Commiefornia.
    http://blog.joehuffman.org/2021/02/04/1482-guns-decertified/

    Here’s the actual BANNED list from AG Becerra’s own website-
    https://oag.ca.gov/firearms/de-certified-handguns

    Please notice that 99.99% of these guns are PERFECTLY SAFE, and made by major manufacturers with spotless reputations. Not one of the guns listed have had quality control problems or failures that have caused death or injury. There were no safety recalls, no deadly design flaws, no causes for concern. So WHY were they banned?

    Because- in California, they are literally COMING AFTER YOUR GUNS.

    Good luck!

  • ghostsniper February 6, 2021, 2:59 PM

    In times of laziness I’ve been known to clean guns by forcing soft metals at very high speed through the barrels. Blows the dust, spider webs, dead leaves, etc., right out.

  • azlibertarian February 6, 2021, 10:16 PM

    To hell with “keeping a weather eye out on the horizon”. The commies are already inside the wire!

  • Dirk February 7, 2021, 7:17 AM

    One has to wonder if the gun cleaned is the mighty Ithaca Model 37 featherweight? When last seen, the trigger was sticky. Easy fix.

    DW

  • ghostsniper February 7, 2021, 8:06 AM

    Pete sed: “Please notice that 99.99% of these guns are PERFECTLY SAFE…”
    ==========
    I’d hazard the guess that ALL guns are 100% PERFECTLY SAFE.
    Until they are made accidently or purposely unsafe they are just inert objects like other safe objects that most people possess.

  • Vanderleun February 7, 2021, 8:53 AM

    I’ve always had a soft and sentimental feeling about the Ithaca Featherweight. Worth cleaning carefully if you have one.

  • EX-Californian Pete February 7, 2021, 11:05 AM

    Well, “hazard” would be the perfect word to use on any insane assumption that “all guns are 100% perfectly safe.”
    I won’t name brand names or models, but I have seen, reconfigured, repaired, and (in rare instances) have actually refused to work on some pretty ill-designed, unknowingly abused, and cheaply made firearms. Also, sometimes gun parts wear out or break- often with no warning signs. Dirty and improperly maintained guns can be quite hazardous.
    Manufacturers’ recalls on certain models happen almost every year.

    Anyone who knows firearms even fairly well can spot the few guns on Becerra’s List that are known “POS” items, and that list means both ‘new’ and ‘used’ models.

    In other words, “assuming” something is safe can generate lots of “Darwin Award” recipients.

  • Boat Guy February 7, 2021, 3:19 PM

    Trying to name Knopfler’s “greatest” is akin to naming a ” best” firearm. Is it GrandDad’s 1911 from the Great War? Dad’s M1?
    Saw Mr Knopfler in concert and most times he still includes Sultans and Romeo and Juliet in the set so those have to be in contention. There was a great video done to Skateaway, but I think it was taken down. We are blessed by MK’s prolific output. Soooo much good music -and the occasional firearms reference “shells for the twelve and razor wire” that I wonder if he’s sympatico or just painting with words

  • ghostsniper February 7, 2021, 6:02 PM

    Can someone, anyone, explain how an inanimate object sitting there minding it’s own business can be anything other than “100% perfectly safe”?

    Back in the 80’s I bought an Iver Johnson pistol because it was small enough that I could carry it in my pocket if I so chose. Thing would not fire more than 3 rounds in a row before misfiring. Even after being sent back to the factory twice. So it laid in a dresser drawer for a couple years and then I traded it in at a gun store for something else. Though it was flawed, in all the time I owned it it was “100% perfectly safe”. Just like every other inanimate object on this planet.

  • EX-Californian Pete February 8, 2021, 8:19 AM

    Ghost- Let me explain it in the simplest and least complicated way I can.
    Guns like your IJ would be UNsafe to use for self protection- by anyone.
    Things that are poorly made can be dangerous, especially in the hands of stupid people.

    A blow dryer and a bathtub are “inanimate objects sitting there minding their own business,” yet they should not be used together- and that’s why there’s a warning label on the dryer- for stupid people.

    ALSO-
    A stick of dynamite is “an inanimate object sitting there minding it’s own business.”
    So is a live landmine, a steel-jaw trap, a hidden vertical mine shaft, or a 1000′ cliff.

    Oh, and guns are NOT designed to “sit there and mind their own business.” They were designed to be used by their owner- as in SHOOTING at targets or bad guys. Ask any gun manufacturer!

    Hope that was helpful, cleared up any confusion, and might help prevent your having any life-threatening accidents due to misunderstanding “inanimate objects!”

  • ghostsniper February 8, 2021, 8:47 AM

    Now you’re just flip flopping back and forth, one minute it’s 100% perfectly safe and next it’s not.
    I’m bored with this silly game.

  • Ex-Californian Pete February 8, 2021, 10:12 AM

    “Game?”
    The one where I post factual info about CA’s stupid new gun bans?
    Then a snarky, uninformed, off-topic and ridiculous question is posted as a reply?
    Followed by my answer- based on just under 4 decades of gunsmithing, gun collecting, and gun building.
    Then another snarky reply- containing an admission of ignorance of gun quality and safety.
    And THEN, once again, an even SIMPLER explanation of ‘safety concerning inanimate objects,’- obviously posted in vain.

    My apologies, as I didn’t realize it was a ‘game.’ Silly me- I mistakenly thought it was some kind of discussion- up until reading about your forfeiture of it.

    And I guess the joke would be on me- imagine trying to seriously discuss gun safety with someone who says that his guns have “dust, spider webs, dead leaves,” and possibly a boresnake saturated with some unnamed type of grease (bacon? KY? axle?) in them!

    Geesh, am I some kinda dingbat, or what?

  • Krishna February 10, 2021, 10:26 PM

    Worth cleaning carefully if you have one.