In the video below, gravel-voiced Thunder Ranch gun guru Clint Smith (not shown above) pontificates on a number of gunfighting topics at a recent rifle course. After reminding his acolytes that they need to be able to pick up and run firearms discarded on the battlefield, Mr. Smith goes there. The caliber war, I mean.

Captain Thunderpants has nothing but contempt for people who dismiss .223 as a viable cartridge. If nothing else . . .

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“Good luck finding all that shit weird ammunition, okay, when the apocalypse starts, OK . . . There’ll be a f*ckload of .223 laying around.”

Just layin’ around? Or maybe laying next to the dead guy whose rifle you just recovered on the local battlefield. And if Mr. Smith is saying .223 is the one cartridge to rule them all rifle-wise, what’s with that ammo arranged in front of him?

As for Mr. Smith’s advice not to build your own AR — buy one that works, then buy another of the same sort, and then buy a third — I can almost hear the sound of rifle makers tapping their keyboards to thank the Thunder Ranch supremo. Good advice? Yes! Unless you like building ARs and keeping Magpul in business.

Anyway, I reckon Mr. Smith would make an awesome muppet, should Disney decide to get a bit edgier than pimping a cloth frog who worries about his pigmentation and fending off an aspiring cross-species love interest. Then again, it might be simpler just to screw-up Kermit’s voice box, give him an AR or three, and a hundred loaded magazines. Just sayin’ . .