Halloween is almost upon us, and Zombies are everywhere. Predominating in “haunted house” funfests. On TV in “The Walking Dead.” You may just see more little zombies than traditional witches, princesses, ghosts, and goblins on Trick or Treat night.  And of course, the video games, books, and movies.

Ruger has just come out with a Zombie Killer model of their little .380 pistol, the LCP, sold complete with a Zombie Survival Manual. Hornady has recently brought out a Zombie Killer line of ammunition as a novelty.  (One blog reader wonders what the implications will be in court if that stuff is used in actual self-defense.  My answer is, if you shot an Obama campaign worker with it, the use of specific zombie ammo might be construed as an element of premeditation.)

But, seriously, there hasn’t been a zombie outbreak since the last Presidential election. That kind of zombie needs to be defeated with ballots instead of bullets.

Some commentators think those who go to zombie shoots, buy zombie targets, or play first person shooter games where the targets are the undead, mean the participants are repressed mass murderers taking out their homicidal impulses on targets already dead to minimize their sins and expiate their guilt.  Some others see the zombie meme as a commentary on a society which has surrendered itself to a herd mentality in which they seek to greedily gobble all they can, and in which brains are destroyed.  (Ever notice how many zombie films take place in shopping malls, amusement parks, etc.?)  Others have ominously suggested that it gives practice for the day when society collapses into apocalypse, and hordes of people one considers less valuable than oneself must be executed for him to keep his trove of wealth and food and cetera.

And some of us think that whole deal has been a bit over-thought.

But, hey, what do I know? Only that shooting them in the head is bunk, strictly for movie zombies.

For real zombies, the ones we have to deal with every day, you’d have to shoot off their Bluetooths or put a bullet through their iPhones to render them helpless.

Maybe some folks are simply having harmless fun with the whole thing, like my friend Miguel Gonzalez in Miami, who is holding a three-gun Monster shoot for Halloween. There, you’ll have more to worry about than the Living Dead.  I’ve been to enough shooting matches to experience the Night of the Living Sandbaggers.

Enough from me: what’s YOUR take on the whole zombie meme?

The poster for Miggy Gonzalez’ Halloween Monster Mash Match.

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Halloween approaches. It was my favorite holiday, next to Christmas, when I was a kid.  There’s still a special place for it in my heart.   When I was a (relatively) young dad, it pleased me greatly to take my kids out trick or treating and stand in the dark autumn night behind them and watch the fun.

Over the last several years, I’ve noticed the emergence of Halloween shoots at local gun clubs. They turn out to be big fun, too.

Some clubs have pumpkin shoots.  Blow hell outa those pulpy orange things. Its lotsa fun when you’re doing it… though it will never be any fun to clean up after.

Back in the ‘90s, a gun club I belonged to in New Hampshire had a Halloween pistol match every year. The targets were bowling pins on tables…and you had to shoot in costume.  Folks had fun with it. There were coneheads.  There were vampires.  There were witches.  One of my daughters went as a cowgirl, complete with Buscadero gun belt and a really-for-real .45 in her holster, which she used to decimate the pins.

One year I dressed up with a vampire cape and a sharkskin gun belt and holster…yes, I went as an attorney.

Early this month, I was in California teaching a class when the host club’s IDPA chapter (International Defensive Pistol Association) had a Halloween-themed match.  I was stuck lecturing in a classroom (AAUUGGHH!!) while everyone else had fun with stuff like:

There’s a witch target flying across the range on her broomstick, courtesy of the moving target apparatus.

And… you have to nail the first few targets, then reload with “your special silver bullets” to engage a werewolf, all while the clock is running.

And of course, it would take a whole separate blog entry to discuss the currently trendy zombie element…

In our country, Halloween has evolved into a time for fun.  It pleases me to see that this has come to encompass the shooting sports.

What’s you folks’ take on it?

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The Evil Princess and I recently attended the marriage of the daughter of a dear friend.  Times have changed.

The minister delivered a moving ceremony.  He read his Bible passages from a Kindle.

The music was administered from an electronic board that resembled something from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, complete with attached laptop.

The commemorative ice sculpture was fitted out with tubes through which icy martinis were mixed and dispensed to the attendees.  In assorted flavors such as apple and raspberry.  It turns out that raspberry vodka martinis are blue, and apple ones are green and don’t actually taste too bad…I never had a tart martini before.

I suddenly felt very, very old.

I hadn’t felt that antiquated since the marriage of my older daughter. I told her that since she was supposed to wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue,” I’d be happy to let her borrow the old, blue steel Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special I was wearing under the cummerbund of my tux on the night I married her mother almost thirty years before, and I’d be happy to buy her a new thigh holster so she could wear it under her bridal gown.

She told me I was unclear on the concept…

Is it me, or have wedding customs changed?

The minister reads the vows for the happy couple from a Kindle.

 Hi-tech ice sculpture martini mixer.

 Apple flavor green martini makes its way through the ice cavern.

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Kara’s Hope, founded to provide support for brain-damaged babies and their families, is raffling a gorgeous Ed Brown Custom Centennial .45 to benefit the charity.  
It’s a seven thousand dollar pistol. Ed Brown is an honest man and master gunsmith – my own Ed Brown guns work perfectly and I’d recommend them to anyone – and when you click on the link below, be prepared to drool on your keyboard if you appreciate fine firearms.
Our friends at Galco have thrown in a super deluxe belt/holster set for it, done in alligator, that will make you the envy of the “barbecue gun” set.
Only two weeks to enter if you’re so inclined. Seems like a worthy cause. Kudos to Ed Brown and Galco for their support! All info available at the link below:

http://karashope.weebly.com/custom-1911-raffle.html

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On 9/11/11, my old friend Tom Gresham dedicated his radio show “Gun Talk” to the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attack on our country. He brought in many of us to comment. I made my contribution from a cell phone at the Harrisburg Hunters & Anglers Club, where I was teaching, and mentioned the fact that this region had just been hit with what the newspapers were calling a “hundred year flood,” and “The Great Flood of 2011.”

It was a microcosm of the spirit that pervaded America in general and the city of New York in particular after the atrocity of a decade before.  People working together and helping each other. As in the incident of ten years ago, transportation had been shut down. Some of the students couldn’t make it to the class; some roads into Harrisburg were closed by the flood.  Flying in from the east coast, I’d been stranded in Philadelphia during the massive rainstorms that caused the flood, and had to rent one of the last cars available at the airport to drive to Harrisburg through solid downpour.

The class still went on, as life went on after 9/11/01.  Thousands of people had to be evacuated as the Susquehanna River rose.  Countless homes were ruined.  There were injuries and deaths. The inconvenience most of us suffered was, by comparison, insignificant.

Yet, coming at the time of the somber anniversary of The Atrocity, it showed that the resilience of American spirit was alive and well.  People helping people…helping neighbors, helping strangers.

We have among us senior citizens who remember The Great Depression.  Who remember World War II, from which a generation returned from the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man to create “golden years” of peace, prosperity, and productivity.

Their spirit still lives, and it’s something of which all of us in this great nation can be proud.

 The threat of terrorism still hangs over our nation, as seen in this headline in the days before the anniversary of 9/11…

…and when the flood devastated the area along the Susquehanna, neighbors helped neighbors and even strangers, in the best American tradition…

 …below is the Harrisburg Hunters and Anglers range where  I was teaching, the high water on the trap range visible beforehand and the flooded practical pistol range in the background behind the trees. Volunteers are already repairing it.

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