That’s the point – gender should have no bearing – I learned to cook, but also to handle wood working tools, and a rake and shovel. My brother learned to work with machinery – but also to sew, cook and do laundry properly. No gender division – just learning , opportunity and fair play.
You may have mixed up a word, but your artwork is beautiful, and you’ve got Monica showing excellent gun safety as well as making the firearm completely recognizable. I’m VERY impressed.
Actually, “sight” is correct. A “gun site” is a location, not a thing. “Gunsite” is a training facility. Saying “sites” instead of “sights” is more of a colloquialism. “Sight” refers to the fact that you’re looking through them and taking a “sight” on the target, like a surveyor or navigator.
Firearms instructor. Sorry.
It is a very nice weapon, though. I have a similar one that I use for training new shooters, a S&W Model 10 in .38spl with a 5″ pencil barrel. It was a police service weapon, with dead-accurate sights and not a lot of recoil. Even with the original wooden grips, it’s comfortable to shoot, and balances perfectly. I think the one I have was made in 1937, I forget where we tracked the serial number to, it was a few years ago. This one in the strip looks like the heavy barrel instead of the pencil barrel. I used to use one much like it for speed & accuracy shooting.
awww, i was hoping i was gunna be first… {(feelsbadman.jpg)type this in google images to see it. stuff in paranthesis that end with .jpg, google it on images}
Shooting isn’t the reason for any hearing loss i have – well, come to think, the twelve-gauge fired past my head when i was sixteen or so (being closer to the muzzle of a twelve-gauge fired at night than the operator is visually awe-inspiring, too…) left me with a gap in the intelligibility range – but the fact that i began attending Kinks concerts when i was twenty-seven and frequenting music clubs (the kind that featured punk/New Wave stuff, mostly) when i was thirty-seven or so has probably left me a tad less than fully-equipped in that regard at sixty-three.
I am left-handed and shoot black powder. The first time I fired my percussion rifle, I spent the next 10 minutes digging percussion cap fragments out of my right forearm. I then bought a cup that fits under the percussion nipple and catches those nasty little pieces of brass. Right-handers don’t have the same problem because their extended left arms are out of the path of the fragments.
Some bodies got to say it. Considering her center of gravity, HOW can she possible hold that mass in her hand, at arms length and not face plant herself. Paul shows only her top half and I cringe at the thought of the split she must be doing to brace herself.
better than some other people bending over backwards when shooting rifles & handguns who then wonder why the recoil almost toppled them 😉
There is a reason why instructors in the Military tell you to “lean in” to a shot.
My hubby had a replica of a Colt Army .45 for a while. My favorite part of that one was you could pop out the revolving cylender and put a new one in, thus reloading six shots in six seconds, as often as needed before it got too hot.
And having your other half standing by reloading the empty ones was fun… 😀
(Aside: I’m only a good shot with a scope and plenty of time. Pistols are my nemisis on the range.)
The contrary for me. As a Military Policeman, I was alwas a better shot with Machine pistols (UZI) and pistols (FN GP) than the “dedicated”sharpshooting stuff.
Made expert on the FN, including quick-fire, Fire from half-cover, “noodweer vuur” Dutch for “quick-draw-point-shoot”
M’s gun seems to be a later model “peacemaker” With that extraction pin and the looong spring.
Revolvers aren’t my favourite. Too much nozzle-jump. You can compensate, but never as good as with a semi auto with the barrel closer to the top of the hand, although the FN GP could have a nasty kick when not properly held….
That would be the 1860 Colt Army, a percussion gun, with no top strap.
This appears to be the 1873 (i think) Army design, metallic cartridge revolver that loads through a gate on the right hand side; that thingy under the barrel up there is the ejector that you push back and forth to pump out the empties, one at a time.
So far as i know, guns that had the ability to swap out cylinders for fast loading were cap-and-ball (percussion) guns – like the one referred to in “The Devil’s Right Hand“, that i quoted from, further down – something like the Dragoon or the Walker Colts.
(BTW – any film or story that refers to loading a Colt revolver with shells prior to 1871 is either wrong or the piece would have to be a conversion; Smith & Wesson held the patent on through-bored cylinders that allowed the loading of metallic cartridges, and Colt couldn’t produce them until it expired…)
Yeah, that’s the ’73 Single Action Army, aka “Peacemaker”. Gotta say, though, for a little girl, M has some big honkin’ hands – even with the SAA’s smaller grips, you can see the bottom of the grip frame when I hold one like that.
My next pistol was a Colt .45,
Called the Peacemaker but I never knew why
I never knew why, I didn’t understand,
Momma said the pistol was the Devil’s right hand.
I thought it looked like a Peacemaker in Friday’s comic.
As a definite non-expert, I thought the popularity of revolvers (expecially in days of yore, when ammo was not as reliable) was because a misfire would not keep the next bullet from firing, while a misfire in a semi-automatic pistol would mean you have to stop and rechamber the load by hand.
OTOH, as noted, revolvers take a long time to reload, since each cartridge has to be inserted individually. One solution was the revolvers with clips holding three cartridges each. Still, a pistol with a magazine holding 8 or 15 (or nowadays, up to 30+) cartridges is a lot faster.
True. Models like the Peacemaker Monica is using require you open a small gate on the side of the frame and rotate the cylinder to eject each spent cartridge individualy. You loaded it the same way. The other gun Monica has been seen with, the “Bull Elephant”, appears to be a double action Smith & Wesson. Since it was her G’pa’s service revolver, it is likely a S&W Model 1917 chambered in .45ACP, the same cartridge used in the semiautomatic Colt 1911.
During WWI Colt had trouble keeping up with demand for the new semi-auto 1911 and the War Department ordered Smith & Wesson to chamber their new large frame DA revolver in the same cartridge the auto pistol used.
The same revolvers would have been issued during WWII for the same reason. There weren’t enough 1911s to go around.
As you point out Bmonk, this required the use of half moon clips to load and extract the cartridges and had the side effect of making the 1917 one of the fastest loading revolvers. The modern version of the gun, the S&W Model 625 holds the world record for fastest shots with a reload by competitive shooter Jerry Miculek.
REALLY is the Seabees blowing up a rock in a construction area on the perimeter of the base at Cam Ranh Bay without warning anyone … while the COMMSTA was having Change of Command and a couple of Admirals and various other officers by the bushel were on base.
Or maybe it was EOD disposing of several tons of assorted munitions All At Once across the cove from our receiver site – again without warning; i actually saw the shcok wave walking across the water through the air.
REALLY loud is a flight of B-17s and B-25s doing a bombing run on the runway three blocks from my house. Unfortunately not using real bombs (a miss could kill a couple thousand spectators) but the pyro guys set up equivilent amounts of explosive at a safe distance and blow it on cue.
My house shakes.
(Here’s a picture. If the link doesn’t work right, it’s #16… eaa.org and search “wall of fire”.)
at first i thought you were talking about the plunger, and was “Huh? how does this compare?…” until i realized it was actually about her Aunt telling off her Uncle…
While I’m not a big gun person and all, I did find out (after someone tried to break into my house over last year’s T-giving break and my parents insisted I learn how to shoot) that I’m a natural sharpshooter. My mom and her two friends started calling me Annie Oakley when all 15 of my first 15 shots were within the circle, and all but one were either bullseyes or within the black area. (I’m SURE it had nothing to do with my height… right?)
Yeah… anyone thinking of taking advantage of little ol’ me might want to think twice. Plus I have a big, sweet dog who turns into a vicious beast if she thinks someone’s intruding or trying to hurt me.
I’m not one to brag usually, but in this case, especially in my circumstances, I gotta show off a little:
“God created man. Sam Colt made them equal.”
For a time in the Old West, pistols like the Peacemaker were called equalizers. I think you have illustrated why quite nicely.
If her G’Pa SULLIVAN taught her how to shoot,then Monica is as dangerous as she looks in the last panel. I wonder if he taught her how to ride a motorcycle? That would make a GREAT Fan -pic: ‘BIKER-CHICK’ Monica on a Harley-No wait – an INDIAN motorbike w/ Monica in black leather and ‘athletic T’, plus harness for the gun.
The granddaughter of Aaron Sullivan ride anything but a Harley?
(Though i personally think the Indian was a better bike all ’round, and, at least at one time, it was the only “other” bike that could be actually named in Iron Horse magazine.)
Certainly he took her riding in a sidecar when she still had braces…
As Wapsi tends to have.. um.. larger then life dimensions 😉 we will all have to just think that is a really large .38special revolver… as .45 Colt is not legal to own in Mexico.
Thank you Paul, my apologies on the error.
.45 Colt is a classic cartridge and the SAA (single action army) was the most Representative revolver for it.
Does that have anything to do with Jack Black Pershing and a certain future four WWII general I wonder? I know that George Patton was a terror during the hunt for Panco Villia and he carried a Colt SAA. Or is .45 just deemed to powerful for civilians south of the border?
The Firearms laws in Mexico are even more quixotic than those in the USA. (ok maybe not Chicago…)
“Title Two of the Federal Law (Mexico) of Firearms allows possession and carrying of handguns in a calibers of .380 or less, although some calibers are excluded, most notably .357 magnum and 9mm parabellum” D.Kopel
As an odd side note.. at one time .38 Dia. and not Military was legal criteria thus Colt mfg and others made the iconic 1911 in .38 Super. New laws have lowered the power factor down so that it would be illegal now from what I have read.
Willie Nelson guest-starred in one of the few episodes of Miami Vice i’d consider saving – “El Viejo”, playing a former Texas Ranger, hunting down the dealer who killed his partner’s son.
When he hears about the killing, he’s living in a cheap Miami SRO hotel, getting by on Social Security, and eating canned dog food.
When he walks in on Crockett and wossname’s sting, he’s wearing a fancy suit and a beautiful white Stetson.
They find out he pawned one of the matched brace of Colt Armies he’d carried as a Ranger, when he and his partner fought their way out of an ambush by banditos with tommyguns.
Man… what is it with you all and handguns? They are not big cars or cool custom bike or fancy yachts, they are tools designed expecially for killing human beings, my god! If ever my mum would have asked my dad if this had been an issue if G-dad had taken his son to the shooting range instead of his daughter his answer would have been “yes indeed! thou shall not kill!”
No, they’re tools designed specifically for placing high-velocity chunks of lead at a specific location. It’s the person who uses them who determines whether that location is in a paper target or elsewhere.
The difference between “tool” and “weapon” lies entirely in the intent of the wielder.
Yes they are designed for killing people but how many are actually used for that? I’ve had many guns over the years and never came close to shooting anyone. I just enjoy a nice quiet (so to speak) day at the range just target shooting. I have a T/C .54 cal Hawken muzzle loader that’s relaxing to shoot and makes a nice BOOM! Rock and roll is fun but sometimes a waltz is what you need.
Guns are tools and ANY tool can be used for evil.
Dude! Take a chill-pill! Ted Kennedy’s CAR has killed more people than any of my handguns. I use it for target practice, and heaven forbid, self defense as a last resort. Just like enlightened folks that go target practice with bows and arrows. This isn’t the place for anti-gun rants.
I love handguns, but when it comes to home defense nothing beats a pump shotgun.
The clack-clack sound of a round jacking into the chamber is the #1 intimidator.
Everybody knows what it sounds like and It Means Business even in the hands of a tyro.
Different cultural conventions, I suppose. I own several handguns and enjoy shooting them. Target shooting is very relaxing to me. There is something meditative about lining up the sights and squeezing the trigger and putting a hole in the paper where you want it to be. I have never killed another human being and feverently hope I never will, but I like shooting.
I acknowledge the destructive power of a firearm, and can see why they make some folks nervous, or even incite hatred toward them. I find them facinating.
Guns like Monica’s Peacemaker are pieces of history. A well made handgun represents both the best and worst of us, the power to create beautiful things, and the power to destroy.
It says “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, not “Thou Shalt Not Blow The Ever-Lovin’ Shit Out Of Rocks As Stress Relief”
For what it’s worth: My dad had a gun collection. From a very young age, my sisters and I were made aware that these were TOOLS, not TOYS. We were taught to respect them and the basics of keeping them clean and maintained, because just like the knives in the kitchen, you could hurt yourself or someone else if they were used improperly.
To begin with the phrase means “Thou shalt not murder,” not kill. The Bible sanctions the killing of game and domestic animals for food and humans in self defense.
Only specific guns are made specifically for killing humans. Many others are made for killing game and can be used on humans as well.
The gun is a fact of life. You can live in fear of them or you can use them as protection and sport. Being a fact of life, learning to use them safely and effectively is the better option. Otherwise you can just be a sheep hoping the wolves don’t get you. The gun brought us out of forest and to the apex of the food chain. Personally, I like being at the apex.
Pssst! SoWhyMe? We had pretty much conquered the planet long before gunpowder. Guns did not bring us out of the forest and to the apex… the atl-atl did… 🙂
I remember reading somewhere that we ended up at the top to the food chain because we mastered a peculiar evolutionary trick — we are the only species that kills at a distance.
Our rise to apex status was a result of a highly-developed brain more than anything else. But it’s true that, with the possible exception of the stone axe, the atl-atl was the single most important tool in the development of prehistoric hominids.
The Bible also sanctions the killing of slaves, “dishonorable” or “disobedient” wives and children, entire tribes the Hebrews were on bad terms with, people who don’t believe in Yahweh… it goes on. The Ancient Hebrews were a brutal, warlike people.
Hence why I get my morals from philosophy, not from the writings of long dead desert nomads with a multi-millenial history of grudges and bloodshed. Later on there was a Galilean carpenter who had some decent things to say about human nature, but he was killed for herecy and his message got twisted around and lost in the confusion of time.
Guns are, indeed, a fact of life. But just because one has to accept that they exist, one doesn’t have to foster acceptance of them in one’s own culture.
Could everyone in the world own a gun and use it responsibly? Sure, in an ideal world, that’s entirely possible. But the simple fact of the matter is that extant gun culture promotes a more violent society.
As my dad told me: “An ARMED society is a POLITE society”. no clue where he heard it, but it sure makes sense, if you ‘know” that somebody may be liable to shoot you if you spin them up the wrong way, you’ll do your best to make darn sure you DON’T spin them up, and likewise they do the same for you.
It depends. The Swiss are known for their military culture and being armed–every home with a militia member, which is everyone above the minimum age, has a military rifle–but they are not known as being particularly violent.
Well, to be fair, if you’re talking about the Christian Bible, you would be quoting the Old Testament. That is no longer valid, with the coming of the New Testament which did away with the old.
One can try their best to live in a culture of no guns, and that’s fine. Just that the rest of the world isn’t going away and neither are the guns. Then there is the fact “culture” has always been violent. Look into the old Roman and Greek rule, not to mention the Dark Ages. The advent of guns did not make it more so. Violence relates the the nature of a people, not the weapons they use to promote or dissuade it.
From what I see on the web, it looks as if most (all?) of the 1873-type Colt Army variants do not have a stick-up rear sight… just a notch in the upper rear center edge of the frame. This would not be visible at all in the last frame, and might very well not be visible in the first due to the angle M is holding the pistol.
Annoying when folks force you into roles because of your gender ^^
Good ol Monica’s mom 😀
Agreed. Monica’s mom gets points for that line.
Yeah, but I always hated it when my sisters would pull genter roles to get out of doing yard work.
That’s the point – gender should have no bearing – I learned to cook, but also to handle wood working tools, and a rake and shovel. My brother learned to work with machinery – but also to sew, cook and do laundry properly. No gender division – just learning , opportunity and fair play.
*gender
wow, nice gun!
Um, Paul?
Not “Sites”, “Sights”.
Hit refresh. *hides head in shame*
You may have mixed up a word, but your artwork is beautiful, and you’ve got Monica showing excellent gun safety as well as making the firearm completely recognizable. I’m VERY impressed.
Actually, “sight” is correct. A “gun site” is a location, not a thing. “Gunsite” is a training facility. Saying “sites” instead of “sights” is more of a colloquialism. “Sight” refers to the fact that you’re looking through them and taking a “sight” on the target, like a surveyor or navigator.
Firearms instructor. Sorry.
It is a very nice weapon, though. I have a similar one that I use for training new shooters, a S&W Model 10 in .38spl with a 5″ pencil barrel. It was a police service weapon, with dead-accurate sights and not a lot of recoil. Even with the original wooden grips, it’s comfortable to shoot, and balances perfectly. I think the one I have was made in 1937, I forget where we tracked the serial number to, it was a few years ago. This one in the strip looks like the heavy barrel instead of the pencil barrel. I used to use one much like it for speed & accuracy shooting.
Speaking of sight, I assume target practice must help with estropia, as well.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/07012002/ (and previous)
And as an aside, the conversation brings up family differences and solutions. That’s a very positive turn.
Not really. Monica wears contacts.
awww, i was hoping i was gunna be first… {(feelsbadman.jpg)type this in google images to see it. stuff in paranthesis that end with .jpg, google it on images}
Love it!
It’s “sights” and glasses and earplugs would be good, she doesn’t want the permanent buzz in the ears that I have.
I know…picky, picky!
i imagine including that lot in would make it not as much fun…
Having picked a fair amount of high speed metal out of various appendages I like to keep my eyes and I try to save what hearing I have left.
It’s still lots of fun!
Shooting isn’t the reason for any hearing loss i have – well, come to think, the twelve-gauge fired past my head when i was sixteen or so (being closer to the muzzle of a twelve-gauge fired at night than the operator is visually awe-inspiring, too…) left me with a gap in the intelligibility range – but the fact that i began attending Kinks concerts when i was twenty-seven and frequenting music clubs (the kind that featured punk/New Wave stuff, mostly) when i was thirty-seven or so has probably left me a tad less than fully-equipped in that regard at sixty-three.
I am left-handed and shoot black powder. The first time I fired my percussion rifle, I spent the next 10 minutes digging percussion cap fragments out of my right forearm. I then bought a cup that fits under the percussion nipple and catches those nasty little pieces of brass. Right-handers don’t have the same problem because their extended left arms are out of the path of the fragments.
Bud’s frown last week must have been concentration, because it’s certainly not in evidence now…
Some bodies got to say it. Considering her center of gravity, HOW can she possible hold that mass in her hand, at arms length and not face plant herself. Paul shows only her top half and I cringe at the thought of the split she must be doing to brace herself.
better than some other people bending over backwards when shooting rifles & handguns who then wonder why the recoil almost toppled them 😉
There is a reason why instructors in the Military tell you to “lean in” to a shot.
Meh…back muscles can do amazing things if they are strengthened properly. 🙂
And, of course, Monica has some built-in weights to lift every day, all day. 😉
I shoot without sights too, made Expert.
Which is impossible to do now, what with todays ACOG happy military.
PS… I hate you
/jealousy
That’s one hell of an old relic. Colt? or maybe S/W?
Colt, i’d guess; my Dad had a .22 calibre pellet gun replica of it, whatever it is.
Some variant of the Colt single-action Army design, judging by pictures online.
“Thumb buster”.
My hubby had a replica of a Colt Army .45 for a while. My favorite part of that one was you could pop out the revolving cylender and put a new one in, thus reloading six shots in six seconds, as often as needed before it got too hot.
And having your other half standing by reloading the empty ones was fun… 😀
(Aside: I’m only a good shot with a scope and plenty of time. Pistols are my nemisis on the range.)
The contrary for me. As a Military Policeman, I was alwas a better shot with Machine pistols (UZI) and pistols (FN GP) than the “dedicated”sharpshooting stuff.
Made expert on the FN, including quick-fire, Fire from half-cover, “noodweer vuur” Dutch for “quick-draw-point-shoot”
M’s gun seems to be a later model “peacemaker” With that extraction pin and the looong spring.
Revolvers aren’t my favourite. Too much nozzle-jump. You can compensate, but never as good as with a semi auto with the barrel closer to the top of the hand, although the FN GP could have a nasty kick when not properly held….
/geeking-out 😛
That would be the 1860 Colt Army, a percussion gun, with no top strap.
This appears to be the 1873 (i think) Army design, metallic cartridge revolver that loads through a gate on the right hand side; that thingy under the barrel up there is the ejector that you push back and forth to pump out the empties, one at a time.
So far as i know, guns that had the ability to swap out cylinders for fast loading were cap-and-ball (percussion) guns – like the one referred to in “The Devil’s Right Hand“, that i quoted from, further down – something like the Dragoon or the Walker Colts.
(BTW – any film or story that refers to loading a Colt revolver with shells prior to 1871 is either wrong or the piece would have to be a conversion; Smith & Wesson held the patent on through-bored cylinders that allowed the loading of metallic cartridges, and Colt couldn’t produce them until it expired…)
I’m guessing that this is the piece you’re talking about.
Yeah, that’s the ’73 Single Action Army, aka “Peacemaker”. Gotta say, though, for a little girl, M has some big honkin’ hands – even with the SAA’s smaller grips, you can see the bottom of the grip frame when I hold one like that.
I learned to shoot a cap & ball Navy Colt. Suckers are heavy!
… shoots right fast but it loads a mite slow.
loads a mite slow – soon found out,
get’cha into trouble but it won’t get’cha out …
Did you come up with that? It’s awesome… 😀
Nope – Steve Earle, “The Devil’s Right Hand” – and i see i misquoted it; it’s “…shoot as fast as lightning…”
My next pistol was a Colt .45,
Called the Peacemaker but I never knew why
I never knew why, I didn’t understand,
Momma said the pistol was the Devil’s right hand.
I thought it looked like a Peacemaker in Friday’s comic.
You mean, like this one?
As a definite non-expert, I thought the popularity of revolvers (expecially in days of yore, when ammo was not as reliable) was because a misfire would not keep the next bullet from firing, while a misfire in a semi-automatic pistol would mean you have to stop and rechamber the load by hand.
OTOH, as noted, revolvers take a long time to reload, since each cartridge has to be inserted individually. One solution was the revolvers with clips holding three cartridges each. Still, a pistol with a magazine holding 8 or 15 (or nowadays, up to 30+) cartridges is a lot faster.
True. Models like the Peacemaker Monica is using require you open a small gate on the side of the frame and rotate the cylinder to eject each spent cartridge individualy. You loaded it the same way. The other gun Monica has been seen with, the “Bull Elephant”, appears to be a double action Smith & Wesson. Since it was her G’pa’s service revolver, it is likely a S&W Model 1917 chambered in .45ACP, the same cartridge used in the semiautomatic Colt 1911.
During WWI Colt had trouble keeping up with demand for the new semi-auto 1911 and the War Department ordered Smith & Wesson to chamber their new large frame DA revolver in the same cartridge the auto pistol used.
The same revolvers would have been issued during WWII for the same reason. There weren’t enough 1911s to go around.
As you point out Bmonk, this required the use of half moon clips to load and extract the cartridges and had the side effect of making the 1917 one of the fastest loading revolvers. The modern version of the gun, the S&W Model 625 holds the world record for fastest shots with a reload by competitive shooter Jerry Miculek.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF2vOkqTBoA&feature=player_embedded
The eight shot revolver is a S&W 627 .357 Magnum. Revolvers may not hold as many bullets as auto loaders, but they aren’t slow.
Somebody – Dance Bros? – offered a “.36” calibre (same as we call “.38”) percussion revolver with twelve chambers.
Real loud is an old Sharps 50 cal. Buffalo gun .
Nah, really REALLY loud, is a Leopard tank on the range in Hohne (Germany) firing 112mm shells at a rusted hulk.
Even when standing at least 500 yards away, our van still shook violently with every “Boom!” 😆
PS: I believe Bud’s “enhanced” shot would make about the same ruckus..
REALLY is the Seabees blowing up a rock in a construction area on the perimeter of the base at Cam Ranh Bay without warning anyone … while the COMMSTA was having Change of Command and a couple of Admirals and various other officers by the bushel were on base.
Or maybe it was EOD disposing of several tons of assorted munitions All At Once across the cove from our receiver site – again without warning; i actually saw the shcok wave walking across the water through the air.
Um. “REALLY loud…”
my dad was a Seabee…they got work to do, they do it!
“we don’t give a crap about your stinkin ceremonies”
and if you think the work was loud..imagine when they’re done with the job, have extra explosives and lots of free time! now THAT’S loud!
REALLY loud is a flight of B-17s and B-25s doing a bombing run on the runway three blocks from my house. Unfortunately not using real bombs (a miss could kill a couple thousand spectators) but the pyro guys set up equivilent amounts of explosive at a safe distance and blow it on cue.
My house shakes.
(Here’s a picture. If the link doesn’t work right, it’s #16… eaa.org and search “wall of fire”.)
Ok not as loud as the several tons… but still…
Today’s strip reminded me of an similar instance in Monica’s life from yesteryear.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/02212003/
at first i thought you were talking about the plunger, and was “Huh? how does this compare?…” until i realized it was actually about her Aunt telling off her Uncle…
… unless I actually was talking about the plunger!!!
DUN DUN DUN
I’m impressed and intimidated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunslinger_Girl I don’t think she quite qualifies for a Gunslinger Girl in the anime…
Wrong post, should have gone with the post under this one…
Gunslinger Girl.
Girls with Guns!
Babes with Benelli’s!
Hotties with HK’s!
Somebodies gotta Rule 34 this!
It has been done.
*slowly, and deliberately pours brain bleach into skull*
Is that purely from imagining, or did you go investigate and encounter Something Best Never Seen? 🙂
“Man has his will, but Woman has her way.”
😉
Shouldn’t that be, “Man has his will, but woman has her *won’t*”? 😛
Normally, yes…but since in this case the woman was having a “will” and the man having a “won’t”, the original quote will apply. 😛
Very nice, Paul!
Interesting that she always refers to him as “G’Pa” and not “Gramps” or Grandpa” or anything like that… I wonder if that’s something significant?……………
NAAAAAAAAAA.
Which reminds me. Paul, how does Monica pronounce “G’Pa”? Gee-pah? G’paw? Or what?
In my head, Monica pronounces “G’pa” as Gah-pah. 🙂
Awwwww!
While I’m not a big gun person and all, I did find out (after someone tried to break into my house over last year’s T-giving break and my parents insisted I learn how to shoot) that I’m a natural sharpshooter. My mom and her two friends started calling me Annie Oakley when all 15 of my first 15 shots were within the circle, and all but one were either bullseyes or within the black area. (I’m SURE it had nothing to do with my height… right?)
Yeah… anyone thinking of taking advantage of little ol’ me might want to think twice. Plus I have a big, sweet dog who turns into a vicious beast if she thinks someone’s intruding or trying to hurt me.
I’m not one to brag usually, but in this case, especially in my circumstances, I gotta show off a little:
The Little Pistol
WHOA! Nice shootin’ there, Tex.
“God created man. Sam Colt made them equal.”
For a time in the Old West, pistols like the Peacemaker were called equalizers. I think you have illustrated why quite nicely.
If her G’Pa SULLIVAN taught her how to shoot,then Monica is as dangerous as she looks in the last panel. I wonder if he taught her how to ride a motorcycle? That would make a GREAT Fan -pic: ‘BIKER-CHICK’ Monica on a Harley-No wait – an INDIAN motorbike w/ Monica in black leather and ‘athletic T’, plus harness for the gun.
…..almost called the shirt a “wifebeater” shirt, but that would have been Inappropriate.
The granddaughter of Aaron Sullivan ride anything but a Harley?
(Though i personally think the Indian was a better bike all ’round, and, at least at one time, it was the only “other” bike that could be actually named in Iron Horse magazine.)
Certainly he took her riding in a sidecar when she still had braces…
As Wapsi tends to have.. um.. larger then life dimensions 😉 we will all have to just think that is a really large .38special revolver… as .45 Colt is not legal to own in Mexico.
Here grandfather was Irish and lived in Minnesota. It’s a .45L Colt 😀
Thank you Paul, my apologies on the error.
.45 Colt is a classic cartridge and the SAA (single action army) was the most Representative revolver for it.
From the anecdotes told to me by my good friend who grew up in Mexico, that wouldn’t stop many of his friends. 😉
Does that have anything to do with Jack Black Pershing and a certain future four WWII general I wonder? I know that George Patton was a terror during the hunt for Panco Villia and he carried a Colt SAA. Or is .45 just deemed to powerful for civilians south of the border?
Erg. Future four star WWII general. Need to proof read.
Keep proofreading. It’s “deemed too powerful”.
And we won’t even mention “Pancho Villa”.
The Firearms laws in Mexico are even more quixotic than those in the USA. (ok maybe not Chicago…)
“Title Two of the Federal Law (Mexico) of Firearms allows possession and carrying of handguns in a calibers of .380 or less, although some calibers are excluded, most notably .357 magnum and 9mm parabellum” D.Kopel
As an odd side note.. at one time .38 Dia. and not Military was legal criteria thus Colt mfg and others made the iconic 1911 in .38 Super. New laws have lowered the power factor down so that it would be illegal now from what I have read.
This is a test.
However, Monica isn’t quite the shy, slightly dorky nerd she seemed at first, is she?
I guess everyone changes over the years…
Willie Nelson guest-starred in one of the few episodes of Miami Vice i’d consider saving – “El Viejo”, playing a former Texas Ranger, hunting down the dealer who killed his partner’s son.
When he hears about the killing, he’s living in a cheap Miami SRO hotel, getting by on Social Security, and eating canned dog food.
When he walks in on Crockett and wossname’s sting, he’s wearing a fancy suit and a beautiful white Stetson.
They find out he pawned one of the matched brace of Colt Armies he’d carried as a Ranger, when he and his partner fought their way out of an ambush by banditos with tommyguns.
Anything by Willie is worth saving – just saying..
Man… what is it with you all and handguns? They are not big cars or cool custom bike or fancy yachts, they are tools designed expecially for killing human beings, my god! If ever my mum would have asked my dad if this had been an issue if G-dad had taken his son to the shooting range instead of his daughter his answer would have been “yes indeed! thou shall not kill!”
No, they’re tools designed specifically for placing high-velocity chunks of lead at a specific location. It’s the person who uses them who determines whether that location is in a paper target or elsewhere.
The difference between “tool” and “weapon” lies entirely in the intent of the wielder.
Yes they are designed for killing people but how many are actually used for that? I’ve had many guns over the years and never came close to shooting anyone. I just enjoy a nice quiet (so to speak) day at the range just target shooting. I have a T/C .54 cal Hawken muzzle loader that’s relaxing to shoot and makes a nice BOOM! Rock and roll is fun but sometimes a waltz is what you need.
Guns are tools and ANY tool can be used for evil.
Dude! Take a chill-pill! Ted Kennedy’s CAR has killed more people than any of my handguns. I use it for target practice, and heaven forbid, self defense as a last resort. Just like enlightened folks that go target practice with bows and arrows. This isn’t the place for anti-gun rants.
I love handguns, but when it comes to home defense nothing beats a pump shotgun.
The clack-clack sound of a round jacking into the chamber is the #1 intimidator.
Everybody knows what it sounds like and It Means Business even in the hands of a tyro.
And for when you aren’t there to rack that round, there’s always the parrot saying “Jesus is watching you!”…
Jesus being the Guard-dog trained German Shepard…
Different cultural conventions, I suppose. I own several handguns and enjoy shooting them. Target shooting is very relaxing to me. There is something meditative about lining up the sights and squeezing the trigger and putting a hole in the paper where you want it to be. I have never killed another human being and feverently hope I never will, but I like shooting.
I acknowledge the destructive power of a firearm, and can see why they make some folks nervous, or even incite hatred toward them. I find them facinating.
Guns like Monica’s Peacemaker are pieces of history. A well made handgun represents both the best and worst of us, the power to create beautiful things, and the power to destroy.
It says “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, not “Thou Shalt Not Blow The Ever-Lovin’ Shit Out Of Rocks As Stress Relief”
For what it’s worth: My dad had a gun collection. From a very young age, my sisters and I were made aware that these were TOOLS, not TOYS. We were taught to respect them and the basics of keeping them clean and maintained, because just like the knives in the kitchen, you could hurt yourself or someone else if they were used improperly.
It says “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, not “Thou Shalt Not Blow The Ever-Lovin’ Shit Out Of Rocks As Stress Relief”
Moses actually proved that with the first copy of that rule.
To begin with the phrase means “Thou shalt not murder,” not kill. The Bible sanctions the killing of game and domestic animals for food and humans in self defense.
Only specific guns are made specifically for killing humans. Many others are made for killing game and can be used on humans as well.
The gun is a fact of life. You can live in fear of them or you can use them as protection and sport. Being a fact of life, learning to use them safely and effectively is the better option. Otherwise you can just be a sheep hoping the wolves don’t get you. The gun brought us out of forest and to the apex of the food chain. Personally, I like being at the apex.
Pssst! SoWhyMe? We had pretty much conquered the planet long before gunpowder. Guns did not bring us out of the forest and to the apex… the atl-atl did… 🙂
Yeah, I guess you’re right. Even with bows and lances, we had pretty much done it long before guns.
I remember reading somewhere that we ended up at the top to the food chain because we mastered a peculiar evolutionary trick — we are the only species that kills at a distance.
Our rise to apex status was a result of a highly-developed brain more than anything else. But it’s true that, with the possible exception of the stone axe, the atl-atl was the single most important tool in the development of prehistoric hominids.
Species survival was still precarious until we worked out fences and walls. Now chasing down meat across the wilderness is just for fun.
Agriculture. It’s what guarantees dinner.
The Bible also sanctions the killing of slaves, “dishonorable” or “disobedient” wives and children, entire tribes the Hebrews were on bad terms with, people who don’t believe in Yahweh… it goes on. The Ancient Hebrews were a brutal, warlike people.
Hence why I get my morals from philosophy, not from the writings of long dead desert nomads with a multi-millenial history of grudges and bloodshed. Later on there was a Galilean carpenter who had some decent things to say about human nature, but he was killed for herecy and his message got twisted around and lost in the confusion of time.
Guns are, indeed, a fact of life. But just because one has to accept that they exist, one doesn’t have to foster acceptance of them in one’s own culture.
Could everyone in the world own a gun and use it responsibly? Sure, in an ideal world, that’s entirely possible. But the simple fact of the matter is that extant gun culture promotes a more violent society.
~D.
As my dad told me: “An ARMED society is a POLITE society”. no clue where he heard it, but it sure makes sense, if you ‘know” that somebody may be liable to shoot you if you spin them up the wrong way, you’ll do your best to make darn sure you DON’T spin them up, and likewise they do the same for you.
Neither arms nor politeness should be the measure of a society.
Your dad has been reading Robert A Heinlein!
It depends. The Swiss are known for their military culture and being armed–every home with a militia member, which is everyone above the minimum age, has a military rifle–but they are not known as being particularly violent.
Well, to be fair, if you’re talking about the Christian Bible, you would be quoting the Old Testament. That is no longer valid, with the coming of the New Testament which did away with the old.
One can try their best to live in a culture of no guns, and that’s fine. Just that the rest of the world isn’t going away and neither are the guns. Then there is the fact “culture” has always been violent. Look into the old Roman and Greek rule, not to mention the Dark Ages. The advent of guns did not make it more so. Violence relates the the nature of a people, not the weapons they use to promote or dissuade it.
@ roland. Well you got one thing right, guns are tools, for me they put meat on my table, so suck it little man
Oh, well and why not; Monica’s enough of a pistol as it stands. But we rarely meet a girl of her calibre…
I agree–she’s too big for the circus cannon.
BEWARE FRIENDS; THIS IS ONE GIRL WHO WILL BANG YOU!!! 8-o
Yeah, and she’s loaded too!
[drops two slugs in the pun jar]
i was having a hard time keeping track of what was going on. so i read through the archives again! fun and i’m back up to speed
Great last panel!
*Pun jar chases me around room yapping like an angry lil’ doggy* 😉
I just noticed there’s no rear sight on that cannon.
From what I see on the web, it looks as if most (all?) of the 1873-type Colt Army variants do not have a stick-up rear sight… just a notch in the upper rear center edge of the frame. This would not be visible at all in the last frame, and might very well not be visible in the first due to the angle M is holding the pistol.