The View From North Central Idaho

Joan Peterson writes, "Rights of gun owners will be placed right along side of the rights of Americans to be safe from senseless shootings."

You have zero rights "to be safe from senseless shootings" or be safe from someone beating you with a baseball bat, or be safe from someone cutting your liver out with a sharpened credit card.

What you can reasonably expect is such criminals will be punished by our legal system.

Peterson thinking is so scrambled that I don't think she even understands the concept of a right but this time I think she said something refreshingly honest and almost profoundly revealing. She wants people to have same right to own a firearm as "to be safe from senseless shootings". That is saying she want you to have no right to own a firearm.

Thank you Brady Campaign Board Member Joan Peterson for finally saying what we have long claimed and you and your organization have long denied.

Update: Mostly off topic but I left the following comment on her post. I post it here out of fear she will not allow it to be seen on her blog.

Last September at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous I spent many hours talking to Paul Barrett and have continued discussions with him via email since. And he will be attending a shooting event I am hosting in April. He readily admits he is a novice in the field of firearms and still has a lot to learn.

He has also agreed with me with there is no data to indicate a legal limit on the capacity of firearm magazines would result in a net increase in safety of the public. And even in his book he states that efforts to pass such a law would fail and would hence be a waste of time and effort.

I told you if you came back, I was gonna kill you.

Anonymous St. Louis Woman
January 2012
Self-defense shootings to get closer scrutiny
[And she did kill him. She will not be charged.

From reading the article I am strongly inclined to conclude that while her actions were probably within the letter of the law she violated the spirit of the law, and acted immorally.

On the other hand if the backstory been that it was my daughter and she had been beaten by him for years (from the story above this is not known to be true), finally kicked him out, and had a restraining order against him at the time he broke in I would have been strongly inclined to handle it differently. Rather than giving the gun to the woman as the guy in this case did I would have had a strong urge to tell her, "I can shoot better than you. Close your eyes and plug your ears." Then I would have done my best to empty the gun into him before he dropped to the floor. At close range 18+1 rounds should take on the order of 3.8 seconds and leave a hole on the back side that you could hide a basketball in.

Then the daughter would call the cops (she is the one still be able to hear) and tells them nothing but there has been a shooting and they should send an ambulance. Then she would then call a lawyer who will answer all questions from the police.

Regardless of what really happened in the case above it appears to me this woman made some serious errors. Others should learn from those mistakes.—Joe]

Via email from Brennan at work we get this story from "an award-winning writer". As Brennan pointed out, "Like all good gun-grabbers the writer knows that there is no such thing as a justified shooting, only 'extreme self-defense tactics', 'settling scores', 'vigilantes' etc."

Here is a sample:

What didn't grab the headlines, though, was that more citizens are settling their own scores with criminals.

…

The unabated crime spree even has more residents resorting to extreme self-defense tactics. In 2011, Detroit reported 34 justifiable homicides, according to Fox2 News Reporter Charlie LeDuff - a whopping 80 percent increase over the previous year.

…

This rush to arm and self-administer justice would not be encouraged or condoned under normal circumstances. But in the current lawless environment, it is easy to believe these options have broad public support.

Many residents are apt to nod their heads in approval, glorifying potential victims who get off the first deadly shot against a predator. More than a dangerous precedent for society…

…

The chief's optimistic crime report does little to restore public confidence in his less than vigilant crime-fighting commitment. So don't be surprised that frightened, increasingly vigilante-minded residents continue to send the message to City Hall that safe neighborhoods will be restored by any means necessary.

In the comments Sean Sorrentino does an awesome job concluding with, "The writer may be an award winner, but he is clearly incapable of the most basic distinctions between lawful self defense and murder. No one who is that confused should be taken seriously."

But what really drew my attention in articles was this:

Protection of human life and safety and making neighborhoods safe is the first duty of government.

As pointed out by Frank Clarke in the comments, "Not according to scores (if not hundreds) of cases from every circuit as well as SCOTUS. The police have NO duty to protect any individual before the fact of crime. Their duty is to draw a chalk line around your supine form."

Furthermore this "award-winning writer" (I keep thinking of Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead when I read this line) should be encouraged to look up the dates of when cities first hired full time police officers and compare those dates to when we first had governments. A study of Federal and State constitutions for "the first duty" of governments might prove enlightening to him as well.

But with all the evidence presented in just this one article I'm nearly forced to conclude he has crap for brains and is incapable of being enlightened.

It's not scary looking guns that frighten me, it's the thought of an unarmed citizenry at the mercy of a tyrannical government that makes be toss and turn at night.

The one thing that all slaves have in common, they don't own guns.

John West
January 2012
Comment to RCMP to seize more ‘scary-looking’ guns before registry dies.
[Nor do slaves own weapons of any type.

I have nothing further to add.—Joe]

I received an email from author Paul Barrett (my review of Glock: The Rise of America's Gun is here) this afternoon with a link to this article. The most interesting thing I found was the following:

Apparently, the executives at Glock Inc., the Smyrna, Ga., subsidiary of Glock GmbH are worried about the book’s look behind the scenes at the company. So Glock Inc. forced the National Shooting Sports Foundation to rescind my press credentials for the 2012 SHOT Show expo floor. Talk about disrespect for First Amendment free speech rights!

What?

Okay, so the First Amendment doesn't always apply to non-government actors attempting to silence or restrict your access information. But even if it isn't actually a First Amendment issue there are some principles involved here.

I can understand Glock being miffed at the revealing of some unsavory insider details in the book. But this is shutting the barn window after the horse has left, found a mare or three, and established a herd on the open plains.

I could see Glock employees refusing to talk to Barrett and maybe even asking him to leave their booth. But putting pressure on NSSF to rescind his press credentials? That's way out of line. It was also stupid. Can you say, "Streisand Effect"?

And NSSF went along with this?

Shame on both of them.

Someone understands economics (but has yet to learn about audio recording).  Via an an e-mail from Ry;

I've met and talked to a lot of anti-gun activists. With perhaps one exception I always got the impression they were generally nice people. Misguided, sometimes ignorant, and frequently not very bright but they were nice and I wouldn't have minded having one of them as a neighbor or socializing with them if the topic of guns didn't come up.

That said we sometimes ascribe evil intent to the anti-gun people. In the case of certain politicians such as Chuck Schumer, the Clintons, and President Obama (none of which I have ever met or talked to) this may be true. But generally there is something else going on. The people just aren't the "evil type".

But of course just because someone is a "nice" person doesn't mean that they wouldn't inadvertently advocate for and enable something terribly evil all the while believing they were doing good. Like I said, a lot of these people aren't that bright.

Lorne Gunter said something on this topic that struck me as highly likely (emphasis added):

There are around 340,000 violent crimes reported to police in Canada each year. Just over 2% of those (around 8,000) involve firearms. (There’s another reason to question the initial wisdom of the gun registry: Why was Ottawa expending so much time, effort and taxpayer money on such a tiny percentage of violent crimes, while doing comparatively little to prevent the 98% of murders, robberies, kidnappings, rapes and beatings not committed with a gun?)

Typically, gun crime is committed by street criminals using stolen or contraband weapons. The gun registry never had any effect on this class of thug. Some of the 8,000 violent gun crimes no doubt were committed by licensed owners using registered guns — people who might be tracked or even deterred using a registry system. But since no one in Ottawa ever had any idea how many people are in this latter group, they had no way of determining the usefulness of the registry.

A cynic might say that not knowing was the point all along. Backers of the registry knew it would produce very little impact, so they deliberately didn’t bother collecting data that would confirm the database’s uselessness.

I think the truth is less conspiratorial (and far more arrogant): Backers were so sure the registry would produce tangible benefits, they never thought they might need to show proof. After all, they were experts and they had thought it up, so how could it not work?

…

It was purely on blind faith that supporters of the registry — police chiefs, victims’ rights groups, women’s shelter operators and grandstanding politicians — assumed that making Canadians register their guns would magically cut down on violent crime.

Faith, in this context, means believing in something without, or even in spite of, evidence. It was, and is, blind faith motivating these people to continue advocating for gun control. As I have pointed out before and some of them have even agreed, they do not know, or care, how to determine truth from falsity.

As an engineer this is abhorrent to me. When I design a filter using an op-amp, a couple capacitors, and resisters I can predict the frequency response within a fraction of a decibel. But I still test it because it's possible I made a mistake someplace or a part doesn't meet the vendor's specification that I used for the design.

When I design an algorithm for estimating the location of a phone based on the presence of visible Wi-Fi access points and cell towers I know pretty darned close what the accuracy is and how long it will take to do the calculations. But I still test it and there is a test team doing their best to shoot my design and implementation down.

I recognize that human behavior is far more complex and less predictable than electronics and software algorithms. But that just screams that tests have to be done on social experiments. Yet, these people are so stupid (or, granted, in some cases malicious) they not only don't even bother trying to predict the results or think to do tests but cannot imagine why tests would be needed.

These people deserve all the "respect" of a cargo cult or Heaven's Gate followers.

Unfortunately this faith is not confined to just gun control. It is my hypothesis that this same blind faith template would match most U.S. government program of the last 100 years.

"Project Gunwalker" was not a "botched" operation--it was a massive crime, perpetrated by our own government, to justify attacking our Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human rights.  And now is the time to hold those responsible to account.

Kurt Hofmann
January 23, 2012
Brady Campaign underpants gnome Dennis Henigan missing the news?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

I was a big proponent of patronizing Starbucks after the Brady Campaign attempted to intimidate them two years ago:

• What must be done
• Starbucks Appreciation Day
• Quote of the day--New York Times
• On being a jerk

I don't like coffee and haven't spent all that much at Starbucks recently but wife Barbara does like coffee and visits them sometimes. It appears one of our activities for Valentines Day this year will be to visit Starbucks again to show our appreciation for not submitting to the pressure from the anti-gun groups.

The reason is because a one-day boycott of Starbucks is being advocated by an anti-gun group and our response is a "buycott".

Other blog posts on the February 14th event:

• Say Uncle
• FreeThinker
• Janelle
• Thirdpower
• Dave Workman
• FirearmsTruth
• John Lott
• Jonn Lilyea
• KAHR40
• Daisy
• Brock Townsend
• El Bombardero
• John

With all the permit holders, it's getting to where violent crime isn't safe anymore.

Dave Hardy
January 23, 2012
CCW customer kills robber
[I've been listening to another economics book by Thomas Sowell. He gave many examples where criminals were entirely rational and responded to "economic" pressures. Sowell's definition of economics is "the study of allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses". When a violent criminals scarce resource is their body and that it might be reallocated by someone else as worm food most probably come up with the correct answer when they ask themselves the question, "Do I feel lucky?"

That violent crime is going down and the murder rate is at it's lowest level in 50 (I think, I don't want to bother looking it up right now) years could be because of the dramatic increase in CCW and the number of gun owners in general.

I may just be that the anti-gun people were wrong and the NRA, SAF, CCRKBA, JPFO, GOA, etc. was right (again).—Joe]

It’s like having a .60 caliber penis in your pants. Only you can kill a person with it.

Vic Frasier
June 21, 2009
Five Guns That Are Clearly Compensating for a Tiny Penis
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

And if he thinks .60 caliber is a large for a human penis then he needs some anatomy lessons as well as psychological help.—Joe]

New York state has enacted rational gun laws for one very simple reason: to protect everyone visiting, living, or working in New York.

Erin M. Duggan
January 21, 2012
Director of communications for the New York City district attorney's office.
New York gun law triggers confusion, arrests for visitors
[“Rational”? What part of “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” does Duggan have trouble understanding?

This is the same sort of person that would claim separate restaurants, drinking fountains and toilet facilities is “rational” too. I’m looking forward to the day when a Judge strikes those laws down and threatens the bigoted politicians, prosecuting attorneys, and police officers with arrest and jail time when they fail to obey in a timely manner.—Joe]

Barron and I drove out to the Boomershoot site today for some more testing of the potassium chlorate. There was a large snow berm blocking the road out to Mecca and the snow was too deep to drive across anyway. We parked at my cousin Dennis’ place, packed up our stuff and started to walk. It is only 789 yards (I wrote an app for that!) but the crust on the snow was weak enough that I broke through about every other step and Barron broke through almost up to his knees with each step.

The wind was coming up and it was starting to snow and I decided (after getting confirmation from Barron) that this wasn’t a good idea. It was going to be a lot of work getting out there and back. So much work that it was bordering stupid to even try. We drove back to Moscow without doing the testing.

I’ll be back in town in two weeks. Maybe the weather will be more cooperative and if not we’ll bring snowshoes and we will win the battle with the snow.

New York state has enacted rational gun laws for one very simple reason: to protect everyone visiting, living, or working in New York.

Erin M. Duggan
January 21, 2012
Director of communications for the New York City district attorney's office.
New York gun law triggers confusion, arrests for visitors
[“Rational”? What part of “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” does Duggan have trouble understanding?

This is the same sort of person that would claim separate restaurants, drinking fountains and toilet facilities is “rational” too. I’m looking forward to the day when a Judge strikes those laws down and threatens the bigoted politicians, prosecuting attorneys, and polices officers with arrest and jail time when they fail to obey in a timely manner.—Joe]

The Washington Post, notoriously anti-gun, published a book review written by Mark A. Keefe IV -- editor in chief of American Rifleman. The book reviewed is Glock: The Rise of America's Gunby Paul Barrett. The review was quite positive without even a hint of anti-gun sentiment between the lines.

It is a good book (my review is here). But in the Washington Post?

Wow!

Dear Lord: Please keep them that stupid until they disappear.

Amen.

Miguel
January 20, 2012
Comment to What That Flushing Sound Is...
[While carefully controlled experiments have failed to demonstrate the efficacy of pray I remain confident the stupidity of the Brady Campaign will continue for quite some time. Whether it will be sufficiently severe in depth and duration to cause them to disappear will require the experiment be run to completion.—Joe]

Don't waste your time or mine by calling me on the phone, asking me for my company's name, address and such like.  Everything you need to know (and a thousand times more) to list my company in your 'directory' is right there on my web site.  If you haven't looked at my web site, you don't really care at all, and in that case I don't understand what you think you're doing.  You make no sense.  You're phony.  Go away.

On a not altogether unsimilar note; Dear customer; I continue to fail to understand why you get on your computer, find our web site, and then e-mail us from the web site asking for a catalog.  There has never, in the history of retail been a print catalog that has as much information and imagery (including moving and talking pictures) as you have right now in front of you on the web site.  It's always there, you can't lose it in a stack of magazines and mail, you can access it from anywhere in the developed and semi-developed worlds, it won't get damaged by your kids and pets, it won't sit around getting in your family's way, and your spouse won't have to ask you six months from now if it can finally be thrown out.  I know that you, as the customer, are always right, and I appriciate your interest.  I just don't understand some of your aspects.

Dear computer, computer software company, mobile device manufacturer or sellers and ISPs.  I frequently talk with people who do not have internet access.  I was told just today by a customer, for example, that he didn't have a computer because he though he'd have to take a computer class and he just didn't have that much interest or willingness to undergo what he believed would be a pain in the neck.  There are thousands and thousands of these people out there.  Maybe you don;t care about them one teeny tiny bit and that's why you're njot making any effort to get their business.  Instead all I can remember from any comercials is; "Spam, Malware, Viruses, SPY WARE!!!!  You could lose all your personal data!!!  Identity theft!!!  Your hard drive Will Crash, FOR SURE!!  Subscribe to our backup service or you'll LOSE EVERYTHING!!!"  That's your industry's image in the minds of the people who represent the pieces of the pie you're not going after.  They're afraid, and for some good reasons.  It's fine and understandable going after your competition's customers, but there are a whole bunch of other potential customers no one's going after.  Grow the pie, Man.

Yes I know; paragraphs two and three are closely related and both apply to my own business.  Yes, I'm being slightly hypocritical.

We're hearing it more and more lately.  It's being said because we're starting to have a good influence; "The tone in politics has gotten so nasty lately..."  I heard it from my mother last night too.

It's like everything else in politics-- if the Progressives like it, it's great, no matter what, but if you love liberty and say things in support of it, you're being "mean and combative".

Our freedom can be attacked from all directions, and there's never a problem with that.  We can be told we should just back down and shut up, or guns are good for one things and one thing only: Murdering.  That sort of thing has been said for decades.  The very process of making a living in business can be maligned, vilified and smeared for generations, ownership of certain cars or trucks, or of guns, or simply being successful can be said to be a sign that we're (ehem) "Compensating for something".  We can be accused for generations of being racist if we want all people to live as equal under the law, and that's not "nasty".

Until we push back in favor of liberty-- Then we are being "nasty".  Then we're being told how unfortunate it is that things are getting so vitriolic. 

Well sure; the ideals of statism/Progressivism/socialism, and plain old blind-and-stupid anti-Americanism cannot coexist with the principles of liberty.  One destroys the other.  So it's been nasty all along.  As nasty as nasty gets.  How can a 100+ year long attack on the very ideal of human freedom and liberty be anything other than scum-sucking, in-the-gutter nasty?

So let's not play stupid mind games.  Leave that to the Left, to play on each other.  For generations we've been cowards.  We let them get away with it for fear of being ostracized from polite society.  We let them play us for fools, always hoping against hope that that would somehow buy us something with them, and always failing.

On that note; I notice a lot of our own using disclaimers.  "I don't work for so and so" etc. after giving a good review on a product or service.  Well how about this?  I love you, I respect you, I appreciate your input a LOT, but SCREW YOU!  That is to say; you don't need to excuse yourself for saying good things about something.  If it turns out you were being dishonest, we'll eventually find out and stop taking you seriously.  If it turns out you were right, as I suspect you are, I'll listen to you next time with heightened interest.  See?  Understand that your eagerness to put in with the disclaimers comes from your having been cowed all your life into believing that there is something wrong with what we've come to call "commercialism" (with a little cringe at the distastefulness of the word).  Stop it, gawdamit.  If we can't promote products for our own benefit, how long before selling ideas or principles for our own benefit becomes taboo?

How about this, just as an attempt to jolt you out of your life-long anti-capitalist hypnotic state (even though you think you've overcome it); How DARE you come here with nothing to sell!  How DARE you make comments with no products or services to offer your fellow Man.  How DARE you come here empty-handed, with naught but words.  Get your wits about you, Man.  Shake off the perpetual apologetic state and start selling something.  And no-- don't even go along in sarcasm, making disclaimers just to show how stupid they are.  That's how it starts you doing out of habit.

OK;  Buy UltiMAK.  See?  That didn't hurt a bit, did it?  Maybe I own the company and maybe I don't, and it's none of your business if I don't feel like telling you for some stupid reason.  I do own it, and if I didn't want you to know it would probably be because I was embarrassed by it and that should make you wonder why.  I'll let the products speak for themselves, mainly, and my opinions of them will be tested by time and experience.  Anything I say about them will either be proven a; true, or b; not so true, and my reputation will go likewise.  And if someone comes busting your door in for trying to make a living in your own way, or they try to seize your bank accounts, fuck with your family, etc., you can always shoot them.  So what's to lose?  You life, your liberty and your sacred honor.  That's just three things.  At the end, which will be most important to you?

I the spirit of keeping the tone polite and cordial; anytime anyone spouts the slightest bit of even semi socialist, quasi-moderate or anti capitalist, anti corporate drivel, any time, anywhere, in any company, tell them to sit back and shut up because you're sick and tired of the divisiveness and the nastiness.

Gun control laws in the United States originated as a scheme for keeping blacks disarmed. By turning gun rights into privileges, granted at the discretion of local police chiefs and county sheriffs, whites could keep blacks from bearing arms while still in practice maintaining their own rights. The slope turned out to be slippery and, in all but eight states, whites lost their gun rights too. Finally in 1987 people of all races started to reclaim their gun rights through the "shall issue" movement, requiring police chiefs and county sheriffs to issue gun permits to all adult applicants who are not disqualified by history of crime or mental illness.

Alec Rawls
2002
Blacks and Guns
[Another one via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms  by Philip Mulivor.

It's the dirty little secret of gun control. And it's just one more thing anti-gun people have in common with the KKK.—Joe]

When I read stories like this (via Sebastian) I can't help but think of the story The Emperor's New Clothes.

Gun control activists are like the two tailors who keep telling the media and politicians (the Emperor) something that obviously isn't true. The people have finally stopped the pretense and are now laughing at those still attempting to maintain the pretense.

The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions.

Supreme Court of North Carolina
May 11, 1921
Stave v. Kerner, 181 N.C. 107 S.E. 222
[From Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.

Mulivor sent me a free copy which I am enjoying immensely. I will be stealing more quotes from it in the coming weeks.—Joe]

For people in the Lewiston, Clarkston, Moscow, Pullman area this may be of interest. Others, not so much.

If any Boomershoot staff wish to attend the class Boomershoot will pay the class fee (but not the USPSA membership fee) and provide transportation between Moscow and Lewiston on the days of the class.

If you are interested but don't have John's email address send me an email (ROClass@joehuffman.org) and I'll forward your email on to him.

I’ll be attending the class if that makes any difference to you.

From: John Grimes
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 4:37 PM
Subject: USPSA Range Officer 1 class in Lewiston on March 24 & 25!

Hi folks,

The Lewiston Pistol Club will be hosting a USPSA Ranger Officer 1 training by our own Kevin Imel, the newest instructor for the National Range Officers Institute, on March 24 & 25, 2012 at the LPC Indoor Range (2419 16th Ave., Lewiston, ID). 

Those who complete the RO training will become official USPSA certified Range Officers.  For those who don't know, ROs are the ones who run each shooter and do all the shouting at our monthly matches (the shouting is my favorite part).  Here are some more details: http://www.uspsa.org/about_NROI_new.php.

You do have to be a USPSA member to become a USPSA Range Officer when the class begins ($40, https://www.uspsa.org/uspsa-join-renew.php). You will be able to join or renew and pay for a USPSA membership on the morning of the class (via a separate check made out to USPSA).  There are some other advantages in joining the USPSA, most importantly, showing the number, variety and integrity of people who shoot.  The magazine's kind of nice, too.

This is also a great opportunity for seasoned ROs who have let their credentials slide to get right with the Range Gods.  You know who you are.

The class itself is $40 payable by cash or check made out to the Lewiston Pistol Club at the door on March 24th.  The class starts on Saturday at 8:30 AM sharp and runs through about 5 PM.  The Sunday class start time will be set by the instructor and will end in the afternoon, probably before 5. 

All participants will need to bring a rulebook and a notebook for use during the seminar.  You can print your own copy from here: http://www.uspsa.org/rules/2010HandgunRulesProof3web.pdf.

The Sunday class includes some hands on practice running shooters, so you will also need your eyes and ears, firearm and 100 rounds of ammo.  You will not need your own timer for the class, but in practice, most ROs buy them at some point.  We have examples of all three main brands at our monthly matches.

[…]

Questions - send them in.

John Grimes
LPC Action Match Director

Getting ready to make the left turn into our industrial park this morning, I find that the snow berm in the middle of the road is much too large to try to hop overt, even with a large 4 x 4, so I have to continue on, find a place to turn around and come back from the opposite direction.  In so doing I come across a guy in a sedan with a handicapped tag in his window, and he's hopelessly stuck in the cold, loose snow, with ice under it, at the edge of the road.

It turned out he's driving for the handicapped person, and he's a young, healthy guy.  First problem; get a shovel and learn how to use it, Dude. Second Problem; he's running street tires-- great in the South on a hot, dry day, but worthless here in the winter.

I ask him; "Do you have a tow hook on this thing?  I have a tow strap and I can pull you right out."

Third problem; "I don't know" he says, so I crawl down in the snow to look for one.  Fourth Problem; his rig has a stupid f-ing air dam.  It acts as a plow blade, working against his forward progress in the snow.  Fifth problem; no tow hook-- everything under the front end is plastic. So I tell him to back up some distance, get a run at it, and try to get up enough momentum to crash through the deep stuff and onto the road.

Sixth problem; I have to alert him to the fact that there's a car coming on the road, and so wait a second, Skippy.  We make a couple of tries at it, and it becomes obvious that he's never done this before.  "Stay in your old tracks each time and you'll be able to get up more speed" I tell him.

"I can't see my tracks."  Oh boy.  He's for sure never done this before.  Ever heard of hanging your noggin out the window so you CAN see, if that's what it takes?  He keeps closing his window so I can't communicate with him.

"Do you have tire chains?"

"Yeah, but they're on so-and-so's car over there..."  Oh boy...

Then; "Thaaaanks!" comes the voice from the passenger seat.  I'm in the middle of trying to explain how easy it would be, still and all, to get them out and on their way, and again; "Thaaanks!"

OK then.  You're welcome.  Bye.

Not to brag, since it isn't bragging if it's true, but I've been in a freaking sedan in the freaking mountains on a freaking logging trail, with more snow than this.  We used to do that sort of thing just for fun, because that was the sort of thing kids did-- you go out and see just how far you can push it, then you go a little more, get stuck, and figure out how to get un-stuck and back 15 miles down the trail to a plowed road.  In the dark.  It made for some great adventures.  So yeah; I know how to get this guy out, for a fact, even though he's made no effort, and no pre-planning on his part.

The conditions are dangerous right here and now, but it's still what I call Karmann-Ghia weather.  A friend once had one of those rigs, and he'd drive that thing no matter what, because it was all he had.  He made it work.  If you can get around in a Karmann-Ghia with some modicum of planning and experience and some willingness to work a little when it's required, I figure the roads are fine, they don't need plowed, and there's just no excuse.

But as it often happens, the most knowledgeable and capable person present is the very one you endeavor to ignore or actively try to get rid of.

Guns are (pardon the pun) loaded with so much cultural baggage that you think you know what to expect. You don’t. TV gunshots sound and act no more like real gunshots than construction-paper snowflakes resemble real snowflakes.

My next thought is, I want to do that again! I have an immediate, exhilarated reaction. Partly it’s that what I’ve just done initially frightened me, so there’s a sense of a limit overcome. For many people I know, guns remain unreal—the accessories of fictional characters, or at least of the Other, not you and yours. Yet to fire a gun is to realize you can do it: You can operate one, understand how it works. Shooting gives me a rush that comes from a feeling of (admittedly incomplete) mastery.

Amanda Fortini
January 12, 2012
Should I Buy a Gun? -- After falling victim to a string of traumatic crimes, Amanda Fortini considers a controversial means of protection
[Via email from Mitchel at work who said, "If I knew a lady that’s been through as much as she’s been through I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT HER A GUN."

I would have too.—Joe]

Why is it that so many rifle scopes, even very high-end scopes, have their BDC or BDC/rangefinding reticles on the second focal plane, such that the reticles features are only valid at one specific magnification setting?

That seems like a handicap to me.  What are the arguments for or against?

We have passed the point, to be honest, where these folks deserve the dignity of being treated like reasonable adults. As they have plainly demonstrated, they are incapable of acting in such a manner.

Sebastian
January 16, 2012
The State of the Debate
[As I have said before, we do not have a common basis to even communicate with these people.

Their "political currency" is the tragedy of their victim "heroes". Ours is the enabling of self reliance and determination. There is no common ground upon which to compromise or even talk.

There is very little to be gained by engaging them. Point out the absurdities of their claims on our own and public turf then let them fade away into the dustbin of history.—Joe]