Peat Moss and Other Interesting Stuff

Peat moss is not the same thing as the peat they burn for heating fuel in Europe. Well, maybe peat moss turns into peat fuel after it decomposes or something. I'll have to look that up one of these days. Anyway, peat moss is used by gardeners to lighten up clay soils. It's really acid, though, so you would need to put some lime in with it, unless you are growing acid loving plants like potatoes or cranberries. Peat bogs become acid because there is water seeping in from somewhere, but not draining out. Marshes that have both an inlet and an outlet generally run more towards the alkaline side.

I just looked up the M-15 on Wiki, but I didn't read the whole article. It said that the M-15 was supposed to replace the old Browning Automatic Rifle, but they found out that they could modify the M-14 to do the same job, and the M-15 was never issued to the troops. The AR-15 was a transitional model between the M-14 and the M-16, and I don't think it was ever issued either. I didn't see anything about a new M-15. I'll have to look that up one of these days.

I liked the M-14 and wouldn't have minded having one as a deer rifle but the military stopped selling surplus firearms to civilians shortly after JFK was assassinated. I have an old Springfield model 1903A3 that my father bought just before that. Here's a couple of pictures of it. There was a variant of the M-14 that was made for the civilian market, but it never became popular, probably because it was difficult to mount a scope on it.

I thought I remembered that the Club 27 closed down a long time ago, but my hypothetical wife just told me that it's still in the phone book. There used to be five other bars besides Club 27 within a block of the corner of Main and State Streets, which made it quite a destination back in the day, but they have all closed down over the years.

They already have background checks for all gun purchases from federally licensed firearms dealers but, like I said, they only check your police record. I agree that everybody who has a mental health issue is not dangerous enough to disqualify them from gun ownership. Maybe that's why they don't include it in the background checks. They would have to make some kind of standardized criteria for determining something like that, and they apparently never did that when they passed the original law.