Authoritative warnings of jihadi attacks in our country did not come to pass, for which we can all give thanks. The only atrocity of the long Thanksgiving weekend was the home-grown nut case who killed three including a brave police officer, and wounded more, at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.  Too bad it couldn’t have been nipped in the bud by an armed doctor, like the Pennsylvania case in 2014, where the gunman had 39 more bullets and a plan for mass murder when the doc shot him down.

We all have much to be thankful for.  In my case, significant other and I and our families are all doing well health-wise.  Classes have been full.  We’re home from our last “away” class of 2015, with only one left on this year’s calendar at home base, a 40-hour advanced course that’s always fun to teach.  Gonna be more like “shootin’ real fast an’ grapplin’ with our buddies” than work. My last trial for this year is done, too.  Christmas season looks like something close to a vacation.  We get to see how normal human beings live, for a few weeks.  Looks as if we’ll have time to shoot some matches, even.

What did all y’all find yourselves giving thanks for?

22 COMMENTS

  1. All the best to you, Mas!

    Other than this blog; I am thankful for the following things, among many more indeed –

    1. My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is none other than exactly who he said and says he was/is.

    2. A truly inspiring, entertaining and most educational Big Game/ungulate season.

    3. Health, blessings and general Happiness.

    4. The chance to spend the upcoming months laying the smack down upon the predatory animals that have wrought havoc among other animals for whom I had plans for next season that have been clearly eaten alive from the ass end forward.

    Cheers!

    It is time for I to bring season’s beatings to the predators as best I can! Snowshoe Hares and Squirrels are to comprise a large part of the energy I need to do so.

  2. I’m thankful for my daughter. She’s always happy and sees the best in life. I’m thankful to experience life through her eyes.

  3. What Spencer B. said, for starters! Alas, my hunting experiences have been minimal and in the distant past, but here’s hoping 🙂

    No matter how much the Left may screech about how we who for some quaint reason believe in some old man in the sky want a theocracy in this country the fact remains that we can choose to believe in whatever higher power we wish…or choose not to do so at all. No matter which you choose, you have the freedom to do so in this country and for *that* I am thankful.

    I am thankful that for the most part, it is only the miniscule fringes of any religion in this country who have the insane “convert or die” philosophy that so many other countries seem to have.

    I am thankful that after a failed attempt at a marriage, I was fortunate enough to find a lovely lady who actually agreed to marry me, and since we’ve learned from our previous mistakes seem to be getting it right this time!

    To close this list (before I drone on further) I am thankful for those not with their families at this time of year because their service in foreign lands. May God bless and protect them and bring them home safely and soon.

    Amen

  4. My Daughter hard work is paying off and she almost has all her college education paid for with scholarships. Our Family all have jobs and are in good health.

  5. I’m thankful to our father in heaven, and his son Jesus Christ my lord and savior. And to be living in a great nation.

  6. I believe one report I saw said one of the dead civilians was a vet accompanying a patient. Don’t know if he had a ccl or could have carried in the clinic but things might have turned out different if he had.

  7. Happy Thanksgiving to you, Mas! Among so many other things, I’m thankful that I could shoot a round of sporting clays on Friday with my nephews and brother-in-law and then shoot my Kimber at my backyard range on Sunday afternoon. We often take that right for granted.

  8. I’m thankful for my and my dog’s good health, having adequate food and shelter (plus a few nice guns), and for us living in the greatest country on this planet (at least for now, but we’re going down the toilet rapidly).

    I’m thankful and also fearful that out Dear Leader’s reign will only last another thirteen and a half months, but he could still do a lot more damage before he vacates the White House, and maybe try to steal some furniture like the Clintons did too. However with HillBilly, that was understandable as they were not only “flat broke” but owed lots of money when the Rapist-In-Chief’s term was finally over. Fortunately for them, Hillary’s economic wizardry, which she had demonstrated in the past, turned their financial ruin into a fortune of over $150 million in a very short time (no telling how much dough they secretly made during the eight years of their extremely corrupt regime).

    As far as the murders in Colorado Springs, our Dear Leader said in a press conference in Paris today, that mass shooting like this “don’t happen in other countries”, obviously hinting that guns are too easily available in America. Huh? Isn’t France one of those ‘other countries’? Didn’t a mass shooting just happened in the very city the Anointed One was speaking from? Oh I forgot! What happened in Paris was ‘workplace violence’.

    I’m thankful our Dear Leader has not declared me an ‘Enemy Combatant’ on a personal whim, and sent his black clad stormtroopers to shoot my dog and drag me away in the middle of the night to a super max prison.

  9. Spence and Jaji, you lift and inspire me with your words. You two are among many who bring me here nearly every day, most times to ummm, I think the term is “lurking,” which I define as reading and not contributing – a very good thing. It is one of my most desirable habits as I enter the final stages of my life, which began by having the supreme gift of being born in the greatest country in existence. Jaji, I, too, have had the most beautiful woman I have ever met enter my life some 35 years ago and transform it – saving it spiritually and physically. Everything in my life has flowed from her and I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

    Everyone – please be as alert and careful, every minute, every day. This life is SO worth living, folks. Let’s get to it!

  10. Mas,
    Glad you and the EP had a good Thanksgiving. I hope you have a quiet and peaceful month and get plenty of rest to gear up for the coming year.

    Tell the Gang I said “Hey” and Ya’ll have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year

  11. Hi Mas,

    Like you, thankful for good health (for an old guy), a loving family and Liberty.

    Also thankful for the 5 guys I meet up with at the gun club every Wednesday. We shoot rifles and/or pistols, tell big lies and then go to our favorite rural tavern for lunch where more tall tales are told, and retold.

    I’m also grateful to have a man of your caliber (no pun intended) in the Second Amendment corner

    Stay Safe and Free,

    Jim Burgess
    Watertown, WI
    http://www.acnow.us

  12. A week before Thanksgiving my wife went in for her second knee replacement. It was touch and go in recovery afterwards because her blood pressure would not stabilize, but it came out just fine in the end. Of course I got ripped off in the hospital cafeteria. I give thanks that my wife came through the 4 hr. surgery and is all ready down to just using a cane and sometimes doing some walking without it. Full recovery takes 1 year. I also give thanks to the surgeon. Cutting open the leg, pushing the muscle tissue and tendons aside and then sawing through the bone above the knee and below the knee to leave the exact space necessary for the artificial knee joint is truly a miracle of modern surgery. The doctor says that he is doing more of these as the population gets older.
    Merry Christmas to all!

  13. I know it is off-topic but I wanted to mention that the Anti-gunners are not resting during this holiday season. They are exploiting recent mass shootings to push their agenda. They recently succeeded in stopping (temporarily at least) a gun show that has been held in Nashville for 35 years. See this link:

    http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/davidson%20/2015/12/01/metro-halts-gun-shows-nashville-fairgrounds/76609946/

    The anti-gunners will seize any excuse and make the wildest claims to push their agenda. For example, one claim made, against the Nashville gun shows, was that guns from Nashville were being smuggled into Australia! So, not only are the evil gun owners of America responsible for defeating the anti-gun paradise of Mexico, but we are attacking Australia too!

  14. I’m very thankful that the feast day weekend went over fairly well as far as our national temperament (14 dead from weather, tho). In my years as an adult, I’ve worked many, many Thanksgivings as either a nurse or EMT; this year my blushing bride and I took off to visit oour youngest son in Alexandria, VA, where he and his very significan other have landed for the time being— we had no cooking, cleaning, decorating, NOTHING to do but eat; for these things and so many more I am truly thankful. I don’t generally care to travel, but my wife and I put 2,000 miles on a brand-new rental car that drove like a dream, and I didn’t have to worry about my carry equipment. More thanks for that!

  15. Below is an email we sent to our Elected Federal Representative (At Large), as to both of our Elected Federal Senators, Demanding that they Oppose Obama’s attempt to use the Terrorist no-fly list as a secret “Gun Ban” in order to cover up his inability to effectively deal with Obama’s Brother Islamic Muslim Middle Eastern Jihadist’s!!!
    ___________________________________________________________
    We are contacting you, our Elected Federal Legislators, because President Obama is at it again.

    This time, he’s attempting to divert attention away from his own ineptitude.

    A recent CBS poll has revealed that two-thirds of Americans think that President Obama has no clue on how to deal with the most serious threat facing our nation right now, the problem of ISIS.

    So what does a liberal, anti-gun Democrat do when an overwhelming majority of the country thinks he’s “out to lunch”?

    Well, he goes back to talking points that will rile up his liberal base, and he talks about gun control!

    The big ruse: Get Americans to ignore Obama’s incompetence

    Breitbart News reports that the White House is now adopting this failed gun control tactic as a ruse to “distract” Americans away from the President’s inability to take effective action against Islamic Terrorists.

    Instead, he’s only offering up only “faltering Islamic State strategy” to cover up his own inability to deal with his brother Islamic Muslim Terrorist’s in an effective manner.

    So what is this latest push by Obama?

    Says AWR Hawkins of Breitbart: The President wants to expand firearm “background checks to include individuals listed in the no-fly list.”

    This, when already roughly 95% of no-fly’s initial denials under the NICS system are “false positives.”

    So the idea of using a “secret blacklist” to keep people from purchasing guns is especially heinous, and will prevent even more law-abiding gun owners from purchasing firearms.

    The Terror Watch list is already riddled with errors

    For the record: There are a whopping number of names on the various government lists, 47,000 on the “No-Fly” list, with another 700,000 on the government’s “terror watch” list.

    One frequent criticism is that no one knows how the names got on these lists, or how people can get removed from this list.

    We do know that people like the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Representative Don Young (R-AK) have been temporarily blocked from getting on planes because their names were on a “watch” list, or their names were confused with people on that list.

    We do also know that an 8-year old Cub Scout from New Jersey is on the no-fly list.

    And like that Cub Scout, there are hundreds of thousands of people, at least 38% of those on this “secret blacklist”, who have been erroneously flagged, according to the Office of the Inspector General.

    There are no standards for populating the “watch list.” The uber-liberal Huffington Post says one way to get on the list is to just be “unlucky.”

    There is Bipartisan support for a “secret blacklist” gun ban?

    It is imperative that you contact your congressmen, regardless of whether they are a Republican or a Democrat.

    A ban on this secret gun ban list has tremendous support among not only Democrats, but even among some Republicans as well.

    Donald Trump, one of the Republican presidential hopefuls, has unknowingly voiced support for using the government’s “terror watch” list to ban Americans from buying guns.

    This is why your outpouring of opposition is so important. You can prevent even more Republicans from jumping on board this bad idea.

    On the other side of the aisle, Democrat Senators Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Chuck Schumer (NY) are pushing a similar idea. That legislation that could be dubbed as the “Let Terrorists Walk the Streets” act. (H.R. 1076 is the companion bill in the House of Representatives.)

    Under this proposal, if the Attorney General determines that an individual has been engaged in terrorism, the Democrat solution is to continue to let the terrorist walk the street, while simply adding his name to the NICS system to prevent him from acquiring guns, as if a law were capable of doing that.

    But here’s a Better idea for Feinstein and Schumer: “If you identify a terrorist, then you SHOULD ARREST him, rather than using him as a pawn in your gun control agenda.”

    Ominously, this bill specifically allows the Attorney General to conceal WHY that person was added into NICS, thus allowing an anti-gun Attorney General, like Loretta Lynch, to illegitimately add thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of Americans into the “no buy” list, without ever being called to account.

    That is why WE ARE DEMANDING THAT OUR ELECTED Federal Representative, and OUR Senators, OPPOSE every effort from the White House to cynically use Obama’s failure to curb terrorism as an excuse to impose a “secret blacklist” gun ban.

    Paul, and Pam, Edwards, (406)
    Stevensville, Montana

  16. Dang, Mas, now another one in California? I’d like to post a comment on every site that runs a story on that horrific event that “California has gun control,” but I don’t know what good it would do…all I can say is I’m glad to live in the Lone Star State!

    Thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families.

    TXCOMT

  17. The knee-jerk calls for more gun control have already started rolling in from the leftists and their sycophants in the media due to the California mass shooting. The automatic assumption of the left, that more gun control is the “miracle cure” that will greatly reduce all future mass shootings, is being given full play. All facts to the contrary, such as those presented here:

    http://www.politicit.com/ranking-states-with-the-strictest-gun-laws/

    are firmly ignored. Yet, the above link does make two (2) very interesting points. It concludes that the State of California has the toughest and harshest set of gun control laws on the books of any State in the Union. Yet, this “dream set” of gun control laws did not stop this latest outrage. How can anyone, not blinded by left-wing bias, view this latest mass shooting as anything but the failure of gun control? Why would anyone want more of the same tired, failed policy?

    The link also makes this point (in another way) by pointing out that there is absolutely no correlation between strict gun control laws and firearm murder rates. Yet, the “snake oil” salesmen of the left and in the media will completely ignore these facts and continue with the gun control sales pitch. It is almost unbelievable!

  18. Democrat talking point, henceforth “gun safety laws” shall always be used in lieu of the term “gun control”. TX and TN, you two must not be on the mailing list.

  19. Dang it, William, you are absolutely correct!

    You see what happens when you don’t pay your dues to the anti-gun organizations. They drop you off the mailing list just like a hot potato and, as a result, you lose touch on all the newest jargon and buzz-words which their spin-doctors have whipped up!

    Thanks for keeping me “in the loop”!

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