I don't want anyone to misconstrue this as a commercial, but I have found the magazine of the United States Concealed Carry Association to be very interesting.  It's not your typical gun magazine that seems to feature "gun professionals" who never have a bad word to say about anything.  You know what I mean.

Of course, Concealed Carry Magazine focuses on concealed carry, so it doesn't cover shotguns, rifles, or outdoor vehicles.  Gun reviews tend to cover regular guns, and aren't limited to anything with a MSRP of $1,200 or more.  (Although I'm still waiting for them to review a Kel-Tec).

The recent (May/June) issue had a review of the H&K P2000 that is so honest, it's funny.  I'm going to quote one paragraph as an example:

The trigger pull on this gun is something special.  Now, this gun I'm testing is traditional double-action/single-action.  There is another version that has something called an "LEM" trigger system.  Get the LEM trigger.  If there is no LEM vrsion of a P2000 available, then put your name on a waiting list for it because you do not want the DA/SA version.  The double-action pull is truly and amazingly horrible.  The pull weight is up there in the realm of "crossbow draw weight."  If it was just heavy, it wouldn't have been so bad.  But it was heavy and gritty.  Maybe gritty isn't the right word for it.  It's more like...rocky.  If this was a road, you would need a trail-rated Jeep with a winch and a lift kit.  This has to be the worst double-action trigger pull I've felt in a good long time.  The only thing worse was probably...no...my mistake...there was nothing worse.  The upside was that the single-action trigger pull was just fine.  Nothing special, nothing too bad...a completely average pull.

I don't agree with everything they publish.  For example, the "ordinary guy" who thinks that his constitutional rights were restored when he finally got his Georgia firearm license so he could once again carry concealed.  Wrong, dude.  Your rights won't be restored until you can get away with carrying your gun without that special little card.

Each issue also profiles two regular people who carry concealed, and this issue had one woman who grew up in Canada and never touched a gun until she moved to Texas.  The funny part about this one is, although the woman is fairly gung-ho (although she has the bizarre notion that she shouldn't own more weapons than she can carry), her husband is apparently a GFW.  He's probably from Austin.

Another article makes the case for single-action revolvers as concealed carry tools.

I just wanted to mention it because I thoroughly enjoyed reading an unfavorable gun review, for a change.

UPDATE:  In comments, ChuBlogga notes that the author of the gun review is none other than Mad Ogre.

We (as in my family and I) have been gone since Friday afternoon to our annual family reunion held at a small private park-like place in the boonies somewhere near the tiny town of Christine, Texas.  The posts that appeared over the weekend were pre-loaded last week.

More on hogs...when I said that some people made good money exterminating them, I didn't mean they made enough to quit their day job.  But there are people who make money at it, sometimes by charging a fee to the landowner for doing the dirty work, and sometimes by getting rid of the pigs for free but then selling the meat that they harvest.  The people I have known personally to do it for money used a combination of trapping and hunting, but mostly trapping.

One wild hog sighted early Saturday morning at the reunion place.  No rattlesnakes, unfortunately.  It's great country for rattlers and the owners of the place told everyone to be extra careful because they've seen more rattlers this year than ever before, and have even had to fish four of them out of the swimming pool.  It would have been nice to whack a big one and come home with a snake skin.  We don't have rattlers where I live here in the sandhills.  Just copperheads.  I did come across a fairly big rattler (at least 5 feet) down there one year, but it got away before I could find a stick big enough to whack it with.

James had a pretty good hog story.  I've never had close encounters with hogs before, other than seeing them crossing the road while driving, but I have run into javelinas a couple of times.  Javelinas aren't nearly as dangerous (usually) and are tiny compared to wild hogs (50 pounds versus several hundred pounds).  I do know someone who was carrying his M1911 while deer hunting once, and the story he told me is that he got surprised by a hog and in his first reflex, jumped up on a nearby fallen tree trunk to get away from its attack.  As it stood below him, he tried shooting it in the head with his .45.  Unfortunately, he was firing flat into its skull and the bullet did not penetrate.  This is no joke.  The really big ones have such heavy skulls that sometimes pistols--even the .45--can't penetrate, although such a mighty whack on the skull must be very painful and disorienting.  A shot from the side that doesn't have to penetrate the front of the skull is deadly enough, though.  Just behind the ear is a good spot.  Anyway, my friend said that he ended up killing the hog with his deer rifle at close range because he had suddenly lost confidence in his trusty .45.

My dad told me stories of a sort of oddball hermit uncle of his (deceased before I was born) who kept a few javelinas as pets.