Monthly Archives: November 2008

Quote of the day–Greg Hamilton

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Recently I was told “well you guys are all Glock guys” “you all just like glocks” we are surely NOT “glock guys” I don’t shoot glocks because I like them. I like them because they do for me what I want. They have the combination of reliability and longevity I want; in a reasonable package size, for a reasonable price. Funny things is a lot of people pick Glocks because of how much ammo they carry, that wasn’t really in my criteria at all. The only way that would fit into my decision making is if two guns were equal in ALL other areas and one carried more ammo, then sure I’ll always take more for no trade off.

Greg Hamilton
Founder and Chief Instructor Insights Training
Insights Email List: October 25, 2008 12:21 PM Subject: Random Thoughts
[I frequently get asked “What gun should I buy?” My response is typically a heavy sigh. It depends on what you are going to use it for, how often you are going to shoot, and probably a dozen other things. The Insights instructors mostly shoot Glocks but their criteria is a little different than mine. And my criteria is a little different than the last five people that have asked me what gun to buy.

I advise new shooters to buy something fairly cheap and shoot it until they are fairly certain they are shooting better than the gun or they understand their needs well enough to buy something more appropriate. My first rifle was a SKS I paid $125 for. I put over 1000 rounds through it before I had a need for a better rifle. But I knew the rifle was holding me back and a better rifle would get better results. My first handgun was a Ruger P89. I put about 30,000 rounds through it. I even won a few steel and USPSA matches with it. By that time I knew the P89 was holding me back and I knew why. I then bought my STI Eagle because it would overcome the weaknesses for my uses I had exposed in the P89.–Joe]

Anti-sniper technology

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This is a very cool device:



The palm-sized device designed by Qinetiq, the British defence firm that was once the government research laboratories, is pinned to the uniform and uses acoustic technology to calculate the exact position of the rifle fire.


Then a electronic voice passes on the “bearing and range” to the soldier allowing him to jump to safety and return fire.


The machine has already been purchased by the Americans for deployment in the New Year and the British are looking at a vehicle mounted version.


…


The device, which costs around £2,500, works by isolating the crack of the sniper rifle thanks to four microphones, a GPS system and a powerful microprocessor.


It takes less than a tenth of a second and provides the results in audio and visual formats. It can even send a grid reference via radio to supporting artillery and aircraft.


The system, which weighs less than 6oz, is so sensitive it can tell the difference between outgoing friendly fire and incoming enemy fire and can distinguish a sniper even in a gun battle.


It also works when the soldier is travelling at up to 50 mph on a vehicle.


The device has already been road tested in Iraq and Afghanistan to claims of great success.

Quote of the day–Alan Gottlieb

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The mayor is beating his chest trying to make a statement that he’s anti-gun. The mayor and violent criminals in this case have something in common this time — neither of them have any respect for the law.

Alan Gottlieb
November 21, 2008
Nickels expects December start to city gun ban
[Seattle Mayor Nickels says he is going to defy state law and prohibit guns by executive order on city property. The Washington State Attorney General says state law prohibits him from doing that. A public hearing is scheduled for 6:30 PM, December 15, at City Hall.

You can read the proposed rules and comment on them here. See also the Citizen’s Committee to Keep and Bear Arms news release. Be polite, run your comments through spelling and grammar checkers, and ask someone else to read them before submission. You might also consider get yourself into the proper State of Mind, and/or thinking about Just One Question before writing your comments.–Joe]

Services for Joe Metz

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Last January I reported a fellow shooter, Joe Metz, was terminally ill. He passed away April 26 but there is another service being performed this Sunday, November 23, at the Bernie Petersen Memorial Range at 9:30. There will be a small memorial and they will spread the remainder of his ashes.


I will be in the Seattle area and unable to attend but I wanted to make the announcement a little wider.

Quote of the day–Milton Friedman

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History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.


Milton Friedman
[It’s really sad that people are:



  1. Unaware of this
  2. Unwilling to accept this
  3. Or, most likely and saddest of all, don’t want political freedom

For those interested in political freedom I would like to suggest the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and 13th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution would be good additions to capitalism toward achieving political freedom. Although if the Second is uninfringed then the 13th pretty much should be taken care. Isn’t it ironic that our first president with a skin color strongly correlated with slavery in our country wants to continue the infringements that kept those people in slavery? And furthermore the first infringements upon that right in this country were enacted to keep people of that skin color from obtaining and using firearms? Condi Rice gets it. Barack Obama doesn’t. What makes the difference?–Joe]

What people really care about

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The new machines being proposed for airplane security give results like this:



Never mind What TSA Really Stands For, that almost for certain it can never be effective security, and it costs billions each year that could be spent on something more effective, the response is:



After the machines were introduced at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport last year, officials there said they had few complaints from passengers, saying most approved because lines moved faster.


Sheep.

Israel continues to commit suicide

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Death by a thousand, self-inflicted cuts.  This from our friend Howard;



Friends:

 

Today we really have a poporie of news. 

 

I’m on duty patrolling downtown this evening.  20:30 I get the patrol officers briefing.  21:00 we get our volunteers briefing.  Hope the rain holds-off.  Then again if it starts raining for real I guess we just go home.

 

Soon we may be all the protection the public gets.

 

The public transportation unit is gone.  More cops are leaving than replacements can be found.  The Ministry of Interior is disarming the public who have licensed guns…after passing [a] process determining need for a gun and background, physical and mental record checks.

Who ever said registration and licensing were the path to confiscation?  Once again we see Jews being disarmed, only this time Jews are doing it to each other.



Now the Finance Ministry is not going to fund the minimum wage school guards receive.  So the schools will be totally unprotected.

This is what is known as the “Peace” process– The lack of meaningful opposition to socialist, Marxist, Fascist, communist or jihadist military expansionism.

Quote of the day–Daniel G. Jarcho

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The handgun ban is a reasonable restriction, because handguns constitute a unique class of firearm that have an unmatched ability to cause violence and kill human beings.


Daniel G. Jarcho
Brief of Violence Policy Center and the police chiefs for the cities of Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Seattle as amici curiae in support of petitioners in D.C. v. Heller.
[Handguns cause violence? Unmatched in their ability to kill human beings?


And all this time I would have thought it was atomic bombs (super novas probably outperform A-Bombs but they haven’t actually been demonstrated on human inhabited planets that I know of) that were unmatched in their ability to implement violence and kill human beings. And that is why I was accepting of “reasonable restrictions” on atomic weapons. But now that the Supreme Court says handguns are protected by the Second Amendment and, according to Mr. Jarcho, atomic bombs are less dangerous than handguns I guess that means atomic bombs should be protected as well.


I’m glad Mr. Jarcho was able to clear that little misunderstanding up for me. I’ll be consulting his work more frequently from now on to make sure I don’t make some future similar mistake in my classification of weapon systems. Now, where is a nearby public range where I can rent an atomic capability artillery piece and buy some ammo for it? I want to evaluate some possibilities for the next Boomershoot.–Joe]

More about Jim Jones and those who supported him

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I’ve referred to Jim Jones and the “People’s Temple” several times.  They represent my ideal of the ultimate fate of a socialist organization.  I visited San Francisco twice in the mid to late ’70s.  My older siblings had spent time in West Coast quasi-religious, socialist communes (all very, very “hip” you understand) and I’d visited them, spending several nights at one of them in Oregon.  I was even “touched by the spirit” at one of their rallies, and I’m here to tell you; that s#^t is real and it is powerful (something about human evolution having selected in us a tendency to bond tightly with our group, with extremely powerful emotions, in times of stress, but I’ll leave that to the sociologists, anthropologists and biologists).  I learned all I wanted to know about these groups.  Specifically, that I never wanted anything to do with them ever again.


These groups had sprung up in a lot of places back then, accepting the assertion that “All You Need is Love” or other similar nonsense.  They were very socialist, as any description with the word “free” in it was super cool: Free love, free food, free store, free drugs, etc..  Everything belonged to everyone and all was love, love, love…  Only trouble was, as you would expect, the takers always seemed to outnumber the givers, and so the givers (most anyone with options in life) would become disgusted at some stage and leave the group.  You had to use extreme measures to coerce members into staying on, much as the Russians had to build the Berlin Wall and Jim Jones had to imprison his followers in a remote jungle.


I’d seen the History Channel’s documentary on Jim Jones, but there is a ton of stuff in Dan Flynn’s account that was never mentioned.  I mean, Wow!  Take some time to read the article (hat tip to Micheal Savage).



By virtue of producing rent-free rent-a-rallies for liberal politicians and causes, Jim Jones engendered enormous amounts of good will from Democratic politicians and activists. They allowed their political ambitions to derail their governing responsibilities. Frisco pols like Harvey Milk never seemed to care how Jones could, at the snap of his fingers, direct hundreds of people to stack a public meeting or volunteer for a campaign. City Councilman Milk just knew that he benefitted from that control, and therefore never bothered to do anything to inhibit the dangerous cult operating in his city. Instead, he actively aided and abetted a homicidal maniac. It wasn’t just local hacks Jones commanded respect from. He held court with future First Lady Rosalyn Carter, vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale, and California Governor Jerry Brown.

Quote of the day–Cedric T

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Guns got to go! Too many redneck, bible toting racist with them. There honestly is no need for anyone to have a gun, for any reason. Hunting included. Obama said he would get rid of guns and he will. Last season for hunters. Enjoy while you can.


Cedric T
THE AGENDA: GUN CONTROL
November 19, 2008 10:05 AM
Chicago, IL
[Μολὼν λάβε Cedric. Μολὼν λάβε!–Joe]

Quote of the day–Herbert Marcuse

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Self-determination, the autonomy of the individual, asserts itself in the right to race his automobile, to handle his power tools, to buy a gun, to communicate to mass audiences his opinion, no matter how ignorant, how aggressive, it may be.


Herbert Marcuse
An Essay on Liberation, ch. 1 (1969)
[Some people don’t want to be liberated. And a great many more don’t want others to be liberated either.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Ross

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President-elect Obama, I wish you all good fortune as you embark on your Presidential career. I suspect that you will come to realize (if you haven’t already) that Socialism and Communism don’t work, that we can’t tax our way into prosperity, and that punishing motivated people who succeed on their own by forcing them to support those with little or no ambition is a recipe for disaster. If you don’t figure those things out, that’s okay too. We might have to wait for the midterm elections of 2010, but one way or another, because of you, the nightmare of Socialism will finally be over for America.



John Ross
November 8, 2008
Hallelujah! The Nightmare Is Over!, or Thank You, Mr. Obama, for Putting So Many Bad Things Behind Us
[If it were only so easy. Maybe he’s right. But Barb tells me I always optimistic and I’m not optimistic in our present situation. Is this the way it has ever been? People elect a socialist to the top spot, he or she takes the country down the toilet and everyone realizes it was a terrible mistake and becomes capitalistic overnight (two years)? Show me an example where that has been the case and maybe I can be optimistic again.–Joe]

Vandals go to the range

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If you are in the Moscow area you might be interesting in going to the range with some (University of Idaho) Vandals:



This Sunday, the 16th is a range day sponsored by the Vandals for Firearms Education and Training (VFET). We are meeting in the Safeway parking lot here in Moscow at 1pm and caravaning out to the range out on Lenville Road.


Look for the silver Subaru Forester with the fishing bobber antenna topper and the yellow flag on the antenna on top.


So come on out and have some fun at the range.


Daughter Kim and I plan on attending.


Update: Kim can’t make it due to a study session with a fellow classmate. I’m going to work on Caleb and Xenia and try and get them out there.

Quote of the day–Sick in the U. P.

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I won’t apologize for concluding that anyone who supports the free and unfettered possession of deadly weapons is sick in their head. Why in God’s name should the Democratic party, or any organization dedicated to improving the lives and future of Americans, give up on the idea of gun control? Has mental illness spread so far in our country that the concept of curbing violent death by gun is no longer viable?


Here’s my take: all gun owners should immediately submit themselves for psychiatric examination, to determine the extent of their illness and begin treatment before they do harm to someone.


Rifled, single-shot hunting weapons aside, this country should immediately consider laws making the possession of any handgun or assault weapon evidence of serious and dangerous mental illness, and anyone having such a weapon on their possession should be subject to immediate immobilization, hospitalization and confinement for treatment. The sale of — or display with intent to sell — any handgun or assault weapon to a private citizen should result in that person’s inventory being seized and immediately destroyed, and the seller hospitalized immediately for treatment. Any factory producing handguns or assault weapons caught selling their product to private citizens should be closed, their corporate officers hospitalized, and the inventory destroyed.


Sick in the U. P.
Oct 27, 2008 06:07 PM
In a comment to this article: Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control
[Sounds like some people are in full support of sending us for an extended stay in the reeducation camps. I wonder if he realizes what it would entail to get 80 million (or even a significant fraction) armed people to the camps. I would like to suggest it is they that need to seek psychiatric help.–Joe]

Interview with a Moderate

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I sometimes do a back-and-fourth with a self described centrist, or moderate (which is another name for a leftist in denial, something like a “moderate drinker” who can’t get through a day without alcohol) over at Say Uncle in the comments, but I thought it should be posted here too.  Today we’re talking about the proposed (yet another) GM “bailout”.  I explained how propping up failure is inviting more failure, while at the same time negatively influencing the way we make decisions, while at the same time freezing out some of the small, hungry, innovative businesses and potential businesses, to say nothing of unfairly punishing taxpayers for the bad decisions of others.  He offered some of the regular arguments against pure capitalism;



“…the party with leverage will take advantage of that leverage, often to the level of exploitation..”


To which I replied;



I know that is the age-old argument, but what you describe has a simpler name. It’s called crime [or corruption]. That’s what government is for– to protect basic rights by punishing (retaliating against) crime.


And the reason why centrism is the superior stance;



“…pure capitalism and pure socialism are both bad…”


How so? Do you have any proof of that? Any evidence? Have we ever seen pure capitalism? If so, I’d like to know. Give me an example. I’ll bet you a case of beer that any example you attempt to give will in fact be an example of what happens when government get its nose into the market, creating some form of monopoly [either that or government has simply failed to do its job as protector of basic rights].


I’ve been all through this many times before. Please read the book, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal or I’ll be forced to re-write the whole damned thing right here. Trouble is; that would take months and I’d go broke wasting my time writing. As I said, you haven’t seen this stuff [these ideas] before, and so you’re falling into all the old traps. You need some genuine de-programming. I know that sounds really insulting and condescending, but the same is true anytime you try to tell an alcoholic he’s an alcoholic. This is damned tough stuff. I’m saying here that you’re addicted to a belief in government-sponsored coercion. You’re convinced that it has a proper place in a free society. I’m saying that that is a contradiction in terms.


The coercion pushers have gotten to you and got you hooked. You’ve grown up with pushers and you’ve known nothing else. The same happened to me and it was a tough, slow, painful withdrawal. Even still it’s one day at a time. I have to go to regular meetings with other people struggling with the destructive effects of believing in socialist theories. Oh sure, I thought a little bit here and a little bit there would be fine. A lot of people do it just to get along in social situations. Lots of people think like that, but a little bit is never enough, is it? You always end up needing another fix, and there’s always another pusher ready and willing to sell it to you…


“Hello. My name is Lyle and I’m a recovering socialist…”


You have to first admit you have a problem before you can take the steps to solve it. Your original post is a good start– you’re asking questions. That’s good, but you’re fighting the answers because they go against everything you’ve ever known. If you really want the answers, it’s going to take a lot of effort on your part. It will be time-consuming and it will be painful. Some of the people you thought were your friends are going to chastise you [even disown you]. Stay strong. Only you can help you, but we can help point you in the right direction. You will have friends.


What the centrist doesn’t realize is that, though some people are bad and as a result sometimes people will get burned, when government shifts away from being the protector of rights and becomes the main perpetrator of coercion, we’re all screwed.  This has been referred to as the equal distribution of misery.

Pleh-juh, Vuh-Lee-junss

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When I was five, my first-grade teacher taught us to repeat a random string of syllables she called “the Pleh-juh, Vuh-Lee-junss”.  We were to recite it every day at the beginning of class for the next several years, while holding our right hand to the left side of the chest (reportedly, this is where our hearts were to be found inside the chest cavity).



Getting ready for that first day of school (I never attended kindergarten) my mother told me, “Now, do what the teacher tells you”.  No “goodbye” no “be sure to learn something new and interesting so you can come back and tell me about it.”  Just “Do what you’re told.”  I was frightened.
And so we learned to repeat these random syllables, every day, for years.



It was only much later in life that I began to wonder whether these syllables could be broken out into actual words, and even later before I wondered what the actual words meant.  No one ever attempted to teach us.  I suppose the teachers were doing this exercise for the same reason we kids were doing it– because we were told to do it.  If you’d asked me, at age six, what language the Pleh-juh, Vuh-Lee-junss was in, I’d have been at a loss for an answer.  Surely it’s a trick question.  Are you trying to make fun of me?  I want my mother…



“Eye Pleh-juh Vuh-Lee-junss, tootheuh flag, of the united states uvuhmerika, and toothuhrepublik for whitchit stands…Won nation, induhvizuhble (invisible?) with libertee and just us four all.”  I knew there were actual words in there (I could recognize several) but it never occurred to me even to wonder about them.  All the other kids apparently did the same thing, for the same reason, and never spoke about it.  It was simply the thing to do because we were told, like so many of the other things we did in school for no readily apparent reasons and no explanation.  The school principal would occasionally step in, see that we were at attention, right hands on the left sides of our chest cavities, facing the flag and reciting all the correct syllables in the correct order, and it all appeared to be fine and dandy (the principal was vastly more powerful than God.  He could physically grab you by the arm, shake you, and demand; “Why were you doing that?  Huh?  Why? To which you invariably gave the standard reply; “I don’t know…”)  Wonderful how the kids are learning respect for the flag of their country, and the critically important principles it represents!  He left satisfied.  The God was satiated.  All was well.



But they never taught us a damned thing about it.  Nothing.  Ever.  Likewise, we were taught “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America” and we’d occasionally sing “Alaska & Hawaii” (this was in 1963 when those were brand new states. We knew nothing about such things, but dutifully repeated the syllables) and no one ever discussed the lyrics.  At all.  It wasn’t until I was out of high school that I began to actually learn some of this stuff, such as the difference between a republic and a straight democracy, or what a pledge is, or an allegiance.  That was after the effects of having my curiosity crushed to death in school had started to wear off.


 


Richard P. Feynman wrote about this in his autobiography.  As a professor of theoretical physics, he often visited other universities.  When on a visit to a South American university (in Brazil, IIRC) he was introduced to a class of very high-level students (which is to say they got extremely good grades).  It took him some time speaking with them to figure out that they knew next to nothing.  They could recite, practically word for word, from the text books but when it came to understanding and applying the concepts they were at a total loss.


 


This is the Soviet model, come here to roost in our public education system.  Hope you like crap.

Can you say “black market”?

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From admittedly “not the wisest person in the world“:



One way to probably lower gun use would be to make the price of the bullet higher. I think one bullet should cost almost as much as a gun and I think bullets should be sold individually.


I feel that if people had to pay a lot more for bullets, they wouldn’t buy them as freely.


I’m not the wisest person in the world, but I know if people had to pay $100 just for one bullet, people would think twice about how important it really is to kill themselves or other people with that bullet.


The black market starts appearing when the tax on something goes above 15%. $100 for a single round is on the order of 20,000%. Her suggestion would work about as well as the prohibition against recreational drugs and probably would use much of the same supply chain.


Jeff has other comments.

Quote of the day–Alan Korwin

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He says “these” firearms (Clinton included normal magazines like police use for protection), belong on “foreign battlefields.” God help us if they’re needed on domestic battlefields against a government confiscating rights. Mr. Obama — I know these people. Disarm criminals, mobilize robust support, disarm the public, mobilize robust resistance. Please choose wisely.


Alan Korwin
November 13, 2008
Hope for Obama’s Gun Bill
[“Battlefields” appear to be a theme recently. I wonder why.–Joe]