Replication errors–how to prevent and correct them

I received the following story from an email list I subscribe to. It’s just a funny story but I do sometimes wonder if this sort of thing might have contributed to our current political mess. Politicians, and the people that elected them, ignore and deliberately bend the first principles of our Constitution and even the philosophical underpinning (yes, Ayn Rand’s book Philosophy: Who Needs It has made big impact on me) of how we determine truth from falsity and right from wrong. Little by little the nature of our government morphs into something completely unrecognizable and unrestrained by the founding document.

A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying from copies, not the original manuscripts. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies.

The head monk says, “We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.” So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours go by and nobody sees him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying.

He asks the old monk what’s wrong, and in a choked voice comes the reply…”The word is ‘celebrate.'”

Even in the simple story above it would be tough to change. All those centuries of tradition and the hundreds of collaborating volumes by “great teachers” who based their scholarly works on simple clerical errors. Who would be willing to say their greatest leaders through the ages were mistaken and totally wrong?

So, what was the fatal error or errors of our founding documents that allowed the replication errors to be introduced and never corrected? It’s not as if we were actually making copies of the copies. The original documents are available and other than perhaps the question of a comma or two no one questions the integrity of copies.

I believe there is a single flaw that allowed this to happen. This fatal flaw permeates our state constitutions as well as our U.S. Constitution. That flaw is that there is no punishment for those that violate the Constitution. If a politician votes for a law, another signs the law, the judges, the police, and the prosecutors enforce the law. If it is later declared to be unconstitutional the very worst that happens to all of the people involved is they say, “Whoops.” Hence there is nothing to lose for them when they engage in illegal activities. How can you expect any other outcome than what we have today? Imagine how your children, your employees, employer, your local merchants, your banker, your neighbors, etc. would behave if they could cheat, steal, lie, and injury people and the worst that would happen to them is they had to say, “Whoops, I’m sorry.” That is what has happened to our governments.

I keep wondering how to restore our Constitutions (yes, I remember Jack Anderson’s quote–I deal with him in that post). There needs to be some punishment for those who violated the constitution. But the same judges, prosecutors, and police who violated the constitution would be reluctant to convict themselves. One thing that might work is a separate branch of government whose sole task is to prosecute violators of the constitution. But at this point I don’t think our government needs to get any bigger. I have a better plan. This plan will not only eliminate the problem of unconstitutional laws being passed and enforced it will also reduce the size of government.

Joe’s Enforcement of Enumerated Powers (JEEP) would be implemented as follows:

  • Whosoever shall identify a government employee who is acting under the color of law but outside constitutional boundaries shall post said transgression on a special Internet website.
  • The identified government employee will have seven days to constitutionally justify their actions on the same website, correct their error, or remove themselves from government employment for life.
  • If, after the seven days have elapsed, anyone who does not believe the constitutional justification or correction of the error was adequate may remove said government employee from the gene pool. This shall also apply to anyone that attempts to prevent him from said gene pool cleaning.
  • After successfully cleaning the gene pool the pool cleaner(s) must identify themselves and may post information on the same website to support their actions.
  • After successfully removing the pond scum from the gene pool said pool cleaner(s) will stand trial via a popular election in the jurisdiction of the government employee. Hence in the case of a city mayor being removed from the gene pool the pool cleaner(s) will be judged by the voters of the city. A U.S. Senator would require a state election. A President would require a national election.
  • The criteria for finding the pool cleaner(s) not guilty of murder will be that if 10% or more of the voters, having read the web postings and tested to make sure they actually did read the postings, believe the pool cleaners had probable cause to engage in said pool cleaning the pool cleaners will be declared to have engaged in praiseworthy homicide. Note that is “Probable Cause”, not “Preponderance of Evidence” or “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”.
  • If the pool cleaner(s) are found NOT guilty of murder they will receive all of the material assets of the pond scum which they removed from the gene pool.
  • If the pool cleaner(s) are found guilty of murder they will be punished as any other murderer.

Expect a rapid and dramatic reduction in the size of government and strict adherence to the enumerated powers.

See, that wasn’t so tough was it?

Promote JEEP, it’s the for the good of our children.

Quote of the day–Anonymous

Thank you for saving my life, and to the rest of you thank you for fighting for this man’s right to protect me and my child. Tell him for me that I will no longer be part of the group who invades his home, and tries to tell him how to store his guns. Tell him I will never be part of any group who tries to make it impossible for him to buy his tool he used to save me. And tell him I will never again tell him how to raise his children properly, because obviously I was oblivious to the fact that responsible people such as him know how to raise their children better than I do.

Anonymous
Forgive me, for I have sinned.–An About Face After Being Saved by a Gun Owner
Via Uncle
[This is one of those stories that is almost too good to be true and I’m suspicious. I could email the person that supplied the story, Brian Clifford, but I haven’t. If someone finds out it is a fabrication please let me know.

Update: More suspicion of fakery.–Joe]

Visual acuity and long range shooting

One of the things I frequently dwell on is the ability of people to see their targets at Boomershoot. My informal tests concluded I could see 1 Minute of Angle (MOA) objects with good contrast and lighting. An email from a list I’m on confirmed that conclusion:

Contrary to common perception, 20/20 vision is not “perfect eyesight.”

It is common to refer to 20/20 vision as being “perfect eyesight,” but by definition it is “normal” visual acuity. 20/20 means your eyes can resolve a spatial pattern separated by an angle of one minute of arc. Put another way, 20/20 vision signifies that you can see at 20 feet (the first number) what a normal person can see at 20 feet (the second).

However, it is common for young people to have visual acuity around 20/15 or 20/12. Recent innovations in corrective eye surgery suggest that 20/10 acuity, or even 20/5, may be possible.

Wikipedia reports the following:

Visual acuity depends upon how accurately light is focused on the retina (mostly the macular region), the integrity of the eye’s neural elements, and the interpretative faculty of the brain. [9] “Normal” visual acuity is frequently considered to be what was defined by Snellen as the ability to recognize an optotype when it subtended 5 minutes of arc, that is Snellen’s chart 20/20 feet, 6/6 meter, 1.00 decimal or 0.0 logMAR. In humans, the maximum acuity of a healthy, emmetropic eye (and even ametropic eyes with correctors) is approximately 20/16 to 20/12, so it is inaccurate to refer to 20/20 visual acuity as “perfect” vision. 20/20 is the visual acuity needed to discriminate two points separated by 1 arc minute. The significance of the 20/20 standard can best be thought of as the lower limit of normal or as a screening cutoff. When used as a screening test subjects that reach this level need no further investigation, even though the average visual acuity of healthy eyes is 20/16 or 20/12.

[…]

Normally visual acuity refers to the ability to resolve two separated points or lines, but there are other measures of the ability of the visual system to discern spatial differences.

Vernier acuity measures the ability to align two line segments. Humans can do this with remarkable accuracy. Under optimal conditions of good illumination, high contrast, and long line segments, the limit to vernier acuity is about 8 arc seconds or 0.13 arc minutes, compared to about 0.6 arc minutes (20/12) for normal visual acuity or the 0.4 arc minute diameter of a foveal cone. Because the limit of vernier acuity is well below that imposed on regular visual acuity by the “retinal grain” or size of the foveal cones, it is thought to be a process of the visual cortex rather than the retina. Supporting this idea, vernier acuity seems to correspond very closely (and may have the same underlying mechanism) enabling one to discern very slight differences in the orientations of two lines, where orientation is known to be processed in the visual cortex.

So, if you have fine straight lines in your scope and are aligning with another line on your target you can align things about 4.5 times as accurately than you can with a scope that doesn’t have straight lines (think “post” type reticles) or targets with straight lines.

I’m wondering if this accounts for some of the increased consumption of the square targets we have been using the last couple of years compared to the round targets we used previously.

This tidbit has obvious application to snipers, and perhaps less obviously, to their camouflage.

Quote of the day–Ayn Rand

A perceptual consciousness is unable to believe that ideas can be of personal importance to anyone; it regards ideas as matter of arbitrary choice, as means to some immediate ends. On this view, a man does not seek to be elected to a public office in order to carry out certain policies–he advocates certain policies in order to be elected.

Ayn Rand
Philosophy: Who Needs It, page 49
[I don’t need to point out the application of this quote in the current space-time context.–Joe]

Why do they push irrelevance?

Sebastian asks, “Why is it that anti-gun folks love pushing bills in response to tragedy that would in no way shape or form have even remotely prevented it?”

It probably was a rhetorical question but it fit in so well with the book I’ve been listening to, Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand, that I felt compelled to offer some answers.

There are several plausible answers to Sebastian’s question and they are not exclusive, it could be several of them are correct depending on the individual and the tribe they belong to. More on “the tribe” later but first a quote from Rand, page 9:

Those who seek to destroy this country, seek to disarm it–intellectually and physically. But it is not a mere political issue; politics is not the cause, but the last consequence of philosophical ideas. It is not a communist conspiracy, though some communists may be involved–as maggots cashing in on a disaster they had no power to originate. The motive of the destroyers is not love for communism, but the hatred for America. Why hated? Because America is the living refutation of Kantian universe.

Today’s mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble, the flawed, the suffering, the guilty, is a cover for the profoundly Kantian hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able, the successful, the virtuous, the confident, the happy. A philosophy out to destroy man’s mind is necessarily a philosophy of hatred for man, for man’s life, and for every human value. Hatred of the good for being good, is the hallmark of the twentieth century. This is the enemy you are facing.

And from page 41, where the tribe reference originates in this post:

As an example of the principle that the rational is the moral, observe that the anti-conceptual is the profoundly anti-moral. The basic commandment of all such groups, which take precedence over any other rules, is: loyalty to the group–not to ideas, but to people; not to the group’s beliefs, which are minimal and chiefly ritualistic, but to the group’s members and leaders. Whether a given member is right or wrong, the others must protect him from outsiders; whether he is innocent or guilty, the others must stand by him against all outsiders; whether he is competent or not, the others must employ him or trade with him in preference to outsiders. Thus a physical qualification–the accident of birth in a given village or tribe–takes precedence over morality and justice. (But the physical is only the most frequent apparent and superficial qualification, since such groups reject the nonconforming children of their own members. The actual qualification is psycho-epistemological: men bound by the same concretes.)

With that background I offer several possible answers to Sebastian’s question. All come, perhaps in a somewhat obscure manner, from the first few chapters of Rand’s book.

  1. Because the gun is a means of individual power and threatens the power of the collective. The more power an individual has the less it needs the collective. They believe the collective is more important than any, and in fact all, individuals and therefore must be suppressed by any means possible to preserve the collective.
  2. The tribe of the people of the gun are outsiders to the tribe of the people of the non-gun. Anything that harms the outsider is good because outsiders are viewed as threats to the tribe.
  3. The question assumes facts not in evidence. In particular the question assumes the anti-gun mind is capable of understanding cause and effect. Therefore the question has little or no meaning within the context of the anti-gun tribe advocating restrictions on guns.
  4. Because they are incapable of distinguishing action from accomplishment. These are the same people that protest, demonstrate, and chant. Action for the sake of action is their “currency”.
  5. The leaders of the anti-gun movement know the truth but also know that the majority of people are so philosophical bankrupt they can be persuaded to use the force of government against innocents to further their own agenda.

STI GP6

Just announced:

With the GP6, STI International, Inc. delivers a compact SA/DA polymer pistol which serves equally well either on or off duty. With its integrated tactical rails, it is equally suitable for Military, Law Enforcement or Civilian carry.

Built on a light weight, highly durable polymer (Polyamide GF 30) frame, the GP6 incorporates integrated tactical rails and textured side panels, front and rear straps. The GP6’s all steel slide is tri-topped with front and rear cocking serrations and features a fixed 3 dot sight system. The controls consist of ambi-thumb safeties, an ambi–slide release, firing pin safety, and a user configurable magazine release for equal ease of use in either right or left handed configuration. The barrel is 4.25” in length featuring an innovative rotational lock up system. Long term durability testing units have fired more than 110,000 shots without any change in internal geometry. The GP6 comes standard with a storage case, 2 magazines, and sight keys.

The GP6 is currently available exclusively in 9mm.

In competition I shoot a STI gun, I carry a STI gun and you should too.

Quote of the day–Rick Seley

A few years ago this would have seemed like a scene from behind the Iron Curtain or some futuristic George Orwell movie, but in our post-9/11 world it was just a Tuesday at the Reno airport. As silly and un-American as it all sounds, I do it because I want to do my part to help the good folks at Homeland Security keep our country safe; that and because they will pull me aside for a cavity search if I don’t.

Rick Seley
January 19, 2008, 12:05 AM
What’s up with our Homeland Security?
[Think about it. What would you have thought had someone told you that in order to use common, public accessable, transportation you would have to take off your coat, hat, shoes, and submit to being patted down by a government official before you proceed? And that there would be lines of hundreds of people ready to submit to this at every boarding station? It is a scene from behind the Iron Curtain or a Orwellian movie and we have meekly granted them permission to do it.–Joe]

Transparency in government

My post yesterday on government gathering information on it’s citizens triggered a post by Sebastian on a Transparent Society. So this is a good time to post about something that has been bouncing around in my brain for a while but I never got around to putting it out on the tubes of the Internet.

People that don’t see anything wrong with licensing gun owners, registration of firearms, being searched at the airport, and just about every other intrusion into your privacy will often say, “If you don’t have anything to hide then you have nothing to fear.”

How about if we turn this around and see if it still makes sense?

What if every firearm owned by our government were “registered” in a publicly accessible (read only) database that was required to be kept up to date including information on who was responsible for the firearm? What if every “public servant” were required to put their firearms qualifications, credit history, fingerprints, iris scans, pictures, physical description, firearm possession, home address, vehicle registration, spouse, children, financial data, phone numbers, property records, and mental health records in a publicly available database?

After all, they are public servants. Shouldn’t we know all those sorts of things about our servants? If they don’t have anything to hide then they have nothing to fear, right?

But if the claim is that only government employees should be allowed to keep that information on private citizens then who is really the servant and who is the master?

Boomershoot 2008 Charity Position Available

If you missed out on getting a shooting position for Boomershoot 2008 here is another chance.

Last May Boomershoot donated a position to the King County Friends of NRA to be auctioned off at the 2008 Seattle Sportsmen’s Convention:

http://www.working4wildlife.com/

Show up at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, WA February 15th and 16th to get another shot at Boomershoot 2008 and know your entry fee will go to a good cause.

Quote of the day–John Roush

This is a really bad idea. It would run counter to our tradition and the principles on which we operate our community.

John Roush
Centre College President
Campus gun bill is likely to die–Various officials oppose proposal
January 22, 2008
[Roush was referring to a bill that would allow people to bring guns onto college campuses — and use them if they were threatened. Yes, I suppose it would run counter to their principles. I suspect those principles are those espoused by Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Bunch, who in the same article said, “The colleges and universities are the ones who should be making the decision on how to keep people safe.” I wonder what those principles are exactly.

One of the following I suspect:

  • Sheep are supposed to obey their owners and only bleat whenever they are threatened with death or permanent injury.
  • The individual is of no concern to their society. Only the collective is important.
  • All people are considered of equal value. The predator has just as much right to not be harmed as the victim.
  • You are not authorized to make decisions for yourself. The Central Committee will make your decisions for you.

Regardless of the principles Roush and Helmke subscribe to they are at extreme odds to the principles I subscribe to and are guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment.–Joe]

Government is a source of insecurity

There are some aspects of security the government is and should be responsible for. But when you give the government too much “responsibility” (power) it becomes a source of insecurity. Guns are probably the example most of my readers will readily identify with. The government has a need for weapons but it must never have a monopoly on weapons. To do so would change the fundamental relationship between a free people and their government.

Information is a weapon as well. Giving the government too much information puts innocent people at risk. Read IBM and the Holocaust or for a hint read my Jews in the Attic Test and think about it a little bit.

Here we get still another glimpse of why governments collecting data on people is risky:

Here’s an ugly prediction that you can take to the bank: as the amount of data that the feds collect on innocent civilians grows, so will the number of people who are victims of crimes that were made possible by unauthorized access to a government database. I’m not just talking about identity theft, though that is a huge danger with Real ID, but violent crimes as well. As I explained in the OneDOJ post linked above, this prediction is just Metcalfe’s Law at work:

This is, of course, a fundamental problem inherent in the very nature of any massive, centralized government data-sharing plan that spans multiple agencies and connects untold numbers of state and federal law enforcement officers: the usefulness of such a system to any one individual (a white hat or a black hat) grows roughly with the square of the number of participants who are using it to share data (Metcalfe’s law). So the more white hats that any of these programs manage to connect to each other, the more useful the network as a whole will be to the small handful of black hats who gain access to it at any point.

There is another ugly prediction you can take to the bank when these incidents happen: The politicians will always propose solutions that involve more money and more power being handed over to the government.

Quote of the day–Mike Brown

On this day set aside to honor the great warrior for the rights of Americans to be free of oppression by their government I like to reflect on the great struggle of the ’60s and remember the sacrifices made in the name of Constitutional Rights.

Happy Robert E. Lee’s birthday!

Mike Brown
January 21, 2008
Lewiston Pistol Club Email Discussion List
[If others can bring up John Moses Browning today then I figure Mike is within his rights to put even a little more twist into it.–Joe]

Let the District Have Its Gun Law

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post and an article in the Seattle PI (via Uncle) about a brief filed in the Heller case the following argument is made; The Federal government should allow local control. The local know what is best for their society, and what is needed to reduce crime with the type of people they have in their cities and states. Apparently this argument generates considerable traction. I, on the other hand, am shocked that anyone could subscribe to such a concept.

What happens in my mind is that the word “ni**er” or a variation thereof is substituted for variations of the words gun, and gun-owner in all their arguments. And the 13th Amendment is substituted for the 2nd Amendment and the argument is reevaluated. The wording of both is absolute in both. If you are to argue that “reasonable restrictions of firearms” is acceptable then you must also argue that “reasonable involuntary servitude” is acceptable.

As an exercise do that on your own with the following paragraphs from the WaPo piece. Imagine the year is 1866 just after the 13th amendment was ratified:

In Heller, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the District’s ban on handguns on the grounds that any law banning any single type of “arms” is, necessarily, a violation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. We believe this is wrong.

[…]

There are hundreds of state and local gun control laws. Each of those measures was enacted by local elected officials in response to local needs and desires. And each of those local governments is called on to balance people’s desire to possess weapons for self-defense against the obligation to protect public safety.

In the District — where handgun violence is particularly acute — our elected mayor and council struck this balance by prohibiting handguns in the home but permitting rifles and shotguns. Congress could have overturned this decision, but it did not.

People in other parts of the country might have struck this balance differently. In fact, many jurisdictions have permitted handguns when the District’s elected officials have not.

But the question is not what is the right policy for the District but who should make that policy. The standard the Supreme Court should apply in the pending gun case is whether the District’s gun law is reasonable. And “reasonable” means that the law is a reasonable public safety response to the city’s handgun violence and protects residents’ right to possess other types of arms for self-defense.

The plaintiffs in Heller would prefer a gun control law different from the one enacted by the D.C. Council. But the Supreme Court should not defer to the plaintiffs and use the Second Amendment as a vehicle for federal courts to micromanage gun laws in this country.

Instead, as Justice Anthony Kennedy said in a case we quoted in our brief, local legislatures should be allowed to devise “various solutions” to local problems “where the best solution is far from clear.” That is what our mayor and council did. The Supreme Court should uphold their decision.

These bigots would do well to remember this quote:

Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it’s not an individual right or that it’s too much of safety hazard don’t see the danger of the big picture.  They’re courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don’t like.

Alan Dershowitz
Quoted in Dan Gifford
The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason
62 TENN. L. REV. 759 (1995)

But then I can’t help but sometimes think my comparison to the 13th Amendment won’t get that much traction with the socialists even when it is presented to them. The socialists do want to treat the 13th Amendment as they do the 2nd. The only difference between 1865 and now is that the socialist want government to own all the slaves instead of individuals. The elimination of the 2nd Amendment is just a bump on the road to their true goal. As the slave owners of 150 years ago knew, you can’t allow your slaves access to weapons or you would have a revolt on your hands.

Update: Similar exercises are available for the reader in the Solicitor General’s brief in D.C. v. Heller. An example is this snippet:

As the court of appeals correctly held, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms, including for private purposes unrelated to militia operations. But like other constitutional rights, that individual right is subject to reasonable restrictions, must be applied in light of context and history, and does not provide any protections to individuals who have never been understood to be within the Amendment’s protections.

STI SteelMaster

Announced just a few days ago:

Inspiration from STI International’s proven race pistol design led to the creation of the STI SteelMaster; a shorter, lighter race pistol for faster target acquisition and reduced muzzle flip and dip. With patented 2011 technology, a 4.15″ classic slide, Trubor compensated barrel system, and STI’s revolutionary Recoil Master, the STI SteelMaster delivers all the advantages of a full size race pistol in a smaller, lighter, faster reacting, and less violent package.

Built on the patented modular steel frame with polymer grip, the STI SteelMaster utilizes the innovative Trubor compensated barrel which is designed to eliminate misalignment of the barrel and compensator bore or movement of the compensator on the barrel. The shorter Trubor barrel system in the SteelMaster gives an even greater reduction in muzzle flip and the shorter slide decreases overall slide cycle time allowing the shooter to achieve faster follow up shots. The slide is flat topped with slide lightening cuts on the front and rear to reduce weight, and custom “Sabertooth” serrations. With an overall weight of 38.9 oz, the SteelMaster is significantly lighter in weight than full size race pistols. The SteelMaster is mounted with a C-More, 6 minute red dot scope with blast shield and thumb rest. Additional enhancements include aluminum magwell, stainless steel ambidextrous safeties, stainless steel high rise grip safety, STI’s “Spur” hammer, STI’s RecoilMaster guide rod system, & checkered front strap and mainspring housing.

The STI SteelMaster is available in 9mm.

In compettion I shoot a STI gun, I carry a STI gun and you should too.

Porn for peace

I’ve talked about this concept before, basically the extremist Muslim culture must be destroyed if Western civilization is to survive. I believe that, long term, their restrictions on human sexuality is a flaw that can be exploited to bring about a more tolerant Muslim culture. Here is part of the reason I believe that.

  1. From the book Infidel (see also The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam) by Ayaan Hirsi Ali we find that women, even those that have been subjected to severe genital mutilation, have strong sexual desires. Women, upon the pain of death, are required to be virgins on their wedding nights. Even if it was a brutal rape the woman can be severely punished for her failure to remain “pure”.
  2. Again from Infidel many Muslims believe that if a woman shows her skin, even a portion of their neckline or face, in public it will cause the breakdown of society. Men will be so overcome with lust that it will cause them to be unable to drive on the roads, work, or even restrain themselves from attacking the woman.
  3. The age of marriage has been increasing. In some areas the average age is near 30 now. By contrast when those Islamic laws were created by the prophet Mohammad the norm was much younger. For example Mohammad married one of his wives when she was nine years old and most “women” were married in their early teens. This puts more stress on both men and women (see for example The right of young Muslimas to have sex–Virginity rule ‘leads to hypocrisy’).
  4. Men are allowed to marry more than one woman leading to a shortage of marriage partners for many men.
  5. Jihad “martyrs” are told they will receive “72 virgins in paradise”.
  6. The extremist Muslims are adhering to a very strict interpretation of the Koran. And the restrictions and mandates that we find so abhorrent such as the punishment of rape victims, death penalties for apostates, non Muslims must be subjugated or killed, etc. are all in there. And if they are to be “good Muslims” they will not fit in with our “society of tolerance”.
  7. In Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America Kenneth Timmerman (this has been brought up by other authors as well) points out that Muslims are taught they are the “chosen people” and are rightly superior to other religions and cultures. Increased contact with Western Civilizations via TV, books (Ali in Infidel credits Nancy Drew and Harlequin Romances among others), and the Internet has caused Muslims to question their teachings. The extremists acknowledge the discrepancy between the quality of life in Western society and Muslim society but believe the solution is to become “better” (more extreme) Muslims and to attack the non-believers.
  8. It’s not easy for people to change (see for example this–thanks to Kevin). And it is much more difficult for people in Muslim cultures to change than ours. We value individuality and in their society deviance from the family, clan, and religious leaders are almost unthinkable. And even the simplest of scientific method experiments may “go right over their heads”. They think very differently than we do. One example from Preachers of Hate is when one Muslim was asked by Timmerman, if he had to make the choice, which he would choose, “To give up your land or give up your wife?” The response was immediate and unambiguous. “My wife of course. I can always get another wife.” Another example made throughout the book it that they believe all their problems and inadequacies are the fault of the Jews (and to some extent Christians). Even where there are no Jews, such as in Saudi Arabia, every problem, even the tiniest most local issue, has it’s origin in the continued existence of Jews someplace on the planet. This kind of “thinking” will be difficult to reform because it is not facts and logic that guide their thoughts and actions. Supplying them with facts and logic are almost pointless.

By exposing young Muslim men and women to Western society and showing them what is available we undermine the authority of the extremists in their culture. After water, food, and physical comfort, sex is one of the most powerful drives in humans. Muslim extremists have created a society where this desire is unfulfillable by many, severely restricted in most, then offer them death (and “72 virgins in paradise”) as their outlet. By offering them a more acceptable (to us) outlet for this desire we can drive a wedge between the extremists in their culture and the young people.

We can exploit their obvious disconnect from reality via their obsession with sexual repression. For example Hirsi related in Infidel how in the Netherlands she experimented by going in public without her scarf and expecting men to drive off the road when they saw her face and neck. It didn’t happen and she was forced to question her teachings. But because the scientific method is not something that comes natural to them we must augment it with the offering of sexual release. Another possibility is as Hirsi points out many of women understand the more blatant injustices and would welcome change in those areas. And the sex drive can do amazing things. Hirsi’s own sexual desires pushed her into actions she knew were extremely risky. As for the young men remember that up to 70% of the files exchanged between Saudi teenagers phones contain pornography.

Western society communication technology and sexual freedom is causing extreme conflict in their society. We need to encourage this conflict and support those that reject the extremists. It is far better that they rid themselves of these zealots than for our military, with the best of intentions, to be a “bull in a china shop” in the process of neutralizing that threat to our safety.

Support open communication, fight censorship, and enable access of young Muslims to as much sexual content/contact as you can. Support Porn for Peace and Dr. Joe’s Cure for Everything.

I didn’t know that

According to the ATF website if you have black tip 7.62 NATO or 7.62×39 steel core ammo it is considered illegal armor piercing ammo. But .223 green tip and 30.06 black tip are not considered illegal:

List of Armor Piercing Ammunition

bullet KTW AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a green coating on the projectile)

bullet ARCANE AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a pointed bronze or brass projectile)

bullet THV AMMUNITION, all calibers. (Identified by a brass or bronze projectile and having a headstamp containing the letters SFM and THV)

bullet CZECHOSLOVAKIAN manufactured 9mm Parabellum (Luger) ammunition having an iron or steel core. (Identified by a cupronickel jacket and headstamp containing a triangle, star and dates 49, 50, 51, or 52. The bullet is attracted to a magnet)

bullet GERMAN manufactured 9mm Parabellum (Luger) having an iron or steel bullet core. (Original packaging is marked Pisolenpatronen 08 m.E. May have black colored bullet. This bullet is attracted to a magnet)

bullet MSC AMMUNITION, Caliber .25. (Identified by a hollow point brass bullet. NOTE: MSC ammunition Caliber .25 identified by a hollow point copper bullet is not armor piercing)

bullet BLACK STEEL ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION, All Calibers, as produced by National Cartridge, Atlanta, Georgia.

bullet BLACK STEEL METAL PIERCING AMMUNITION, All Calibers, as produced by National Cartridge, Atlanta, Georgia.

bullet 7.62mm NATO AP (Identified by black coloring in the bullet tip. This ammunition is used by various NATO countries. The U.S. military designation is M61 AP)

bullet 7.62mm NATO SLAP (identified by projectile having a plastic sabot around a hard penetrator. The penetrator protrudes above the sabot and is similar in appearance to a Remington accelerator cartridge)

bullet PMC ULTRAMAG .38 Special caliber, constructed entirely of a brass type material, and plastic pusher disc located at the base of the projectile. NOTE: PMC ULTRAMAG 38J late production made of copper with lead alloy projectile is not armor piercing.

bullet OMNISHOCK, a .38 Special cartridge with a lead bullet containing a mild steel core with a flattened head resembling a wad cutter. (NOTE: OMNISHOCK cartridges having a bullet with an aluminum core are not armor piercing.)

bullet 7.62x39mm with steel core. (NOTE: these projectiles have a steel core. Projectiles having a lead core with steel jacket or steel case are not armor piercing)

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING CARTRIDGES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE DEFINITION OF ARMOR PIERCING AMMUNITION:

bullet 5.56MM (.223) SS109 and M855 Ammunition, Identified by a green coating on the projectile tip.

bullet U.S. .30-06 M2 AP, Identified by a black coating on the projectile tip.

The distinction in the law is made on the basis of whether or not it is handgun ammo. Apparently because there are sufficient numbers of handguns that will fire the 7.62×39 (huh? I didn’t know there were any!) and .308 cartridges they declared it handgun ammo.

I love the part about the .25 ACP ammo with a brass bullet is considered AP but with a copper bullet is just fine. Considering what most experts think of the .25 ACP round I find it incredibly amusing our Congress Critters consider it AP.

Just another one of the contributors to Huffman’s rule of firearms law.

Update March 12, 2013: The original link is dead but this has the same content. I am fairly certain the definition of AP above is obsolete. The current definition is 18 USC 921(a)(17).