Stumbling Into the Hard Truth

…and then denying it.  Pete Sessions, NRCC Chairman, sends out regular e-mail alerts.  Every single one of them can be interpreted as “Look at those dirty rotten Democrats!  Give us money!”

Today’s e-mail alert title was “Threatening is Not Governing”.  Even though it’s completely wrong of course, I might be tempted to see that title as a sign of some positive development in Mr. Sessions’ understanding in that it touches upon an important point, but I know him too well.

What he referred to as “threatening” was Obama’s “threat” to “…veto any plan aimed at fixing our budget crisis that does not include his demand for a new $1.5 trillion tax increase.”  That contains so many layers of idiocy that I won’t even get into it.  Forget the president and that it’s fully within his job description to “threaten” to veto anything Congress pukes out.

The point is that any and all governing is threatening.  Every law, rule, ordinance, every tax or restriction, every subsidy– they’re all backed by threats, and all government threats include a group of people with guns who are ready, willing, and I dare say eager to make good on those threats.

I’d say I’m hopeful that even Pete Sessions has stumbled upon an important truth, but he of all people will never admit to understanding it.  Maybe, since he has broached the subject, more of us can expand on it.

Mr. Sessions; I see your accusations in much the same way I’d see a drunk sitting at a bar with a martini in his hands accusing the drunk next to him of being a drunk.  Only worse– the typical drunk probably isn’t going to work every day to find new ways to formulate threats against the whole of The People.

Quote of the day—Weerd Beard

You see the antis claim that these guns and practices would result in MORE violent crimes. Just the opposite has happened.

But they’re attempting to spin this as a victory…I guess to the legions of the VERY VERY stupid.

We are blessed to have opponents such as these!

Weerd Beard
September 19, 2011
Fails of the Antis
[As near as I can determine we have three types of opponents:

  1. The evil.
  2. The ignorant.
  3. The intellectually challenged.

The evil use the intellectually challenged and the ignorant to further their agenda but fortunately there are not that many evil people currently in positions of power and/or they are keeping a low profile. They have not been a significant threat in recent battles. There probably is no cure for evil except to recognize it and to remove them from positions of power.

The ignorant are less able to remain ignorant with the Internet. They are very quickly informed once they publically show their support for gun control. That they vote without becoming visible or becoming informed is probably the biggest threat they pose to us. Probably our best weapon against these people is for us to come out of the closet and to take these people to the range.

The intellectually challenged can be transformed into gifts to our cause. Every time they say something stupid we can (and do) broadcast it for others to see and point out the stupidity. Who wants to be on the same side as people who say such stupid stuff? So, yes, we are blessed to have opponents such as these!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Paul Krugman

Fortunately, physicians no longer believe that bleeding the sick will make them healthy. Unfortunately, many of the makers of economic policy still do.

Paul Krugman
September 19, 2011
Decline in manufacturing capacity is probably only the beginning of the bad new: Paul Krugman
[He is apparently oblivious to the irony as he goes on to say, even though the U.S. Government is broke, “For the time being we need more, not less, government spending, supported by aggressively expansionary policies from the Federal Reserve and its counterparts abroad.”

Krugman believes that budget austerity is the equivalent of “bleeding the patient” when sane people would recognize it as reducing the hemorrhaging. One has to wonder if Krugman is practicing doublethink, doublespeak, or both. In any case he has crap for brains if he thinks the majority of the people will believe him.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bruce Schneier

Given the credible estimate that we’ve spent $1 trillion on anti-terrorism security (this does not include our many foreign wars), that’s $62.5 billion per life lost. Is there any other risk that we are even remotely as crazy about?

Bruce Schneier
September 15, 2011
Crypto-Gram Newsletter
[Some people are that crazy about guns. But for the most part I think Schneier has it nailed.—Joe]

Odd stuff

I was going through my projects folder on my computer and saw a number of projects I didn’t recognize.  Looking at the code they were clearly my coding and comment style but I still didn’t remember many of them. Most were junk projects that appeared to be something that solved, or would have solved had they been finished, some simple problem.

There were projects like “NetConnect” which apparently was intended to pop up a dialog box of the machines visible on the network and handle assigning a drive letter to their public shares. Another project was “Wait” which wouldn’t compile because the requested version of Windows was so old. “SurveyProcess” appears to be for processing the Boomershoot participant survey results from 2006.

But the oddest project I found was “UniDecrypt”. I appears to be something to test the feasibility of a “universal decryption algorithm”. It is junk code. Something very “quick and dirty” that I apparently started working on at about midnight in late November of 2006. The time stamps of the various files continue through a little after 8:00 AM and then the last timestamp being about 1:30 AM the following day. This project probably was something that woke me up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t go back to sleep after thinking about it. That happens every once in a while. I once woke up in the wee hours of the morning and had to go find my “Modern Physics” text book (is it still considered “Modern Physics” if I took the class in 1976?) to look up why it was I had not thought up a way to travel faster than light.

Yeah, my brain is a little warped at times.

Soldiers Angels SIG SAUER 1911

Via email:

The Soldiers’ Angels engraved SIG SAUER 1911 is now up for auction.

Thanks to our friends at SIG SAUER and Gunbroker.com, this one-of-a-kind reverse two-tone 1911 is going to help raise funds for Soldiers’ Angels.

With this donation, all of your readers can help out Project Valour-IT and purchase a true collector’s piece.

Heck, if you didn’t win a gun in Reno, here’s your chance!

The auction closes at 9 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, October 23rd. Get your bids in, share the link and good luck to everyone!

Direct link: http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=251295122

SoldiersAngels-1SoldiersAngels-3

This is very pretty. I could use a functional 1911 pattern gun in .45. I could shoot “Single Stack” as well as “Limited” class in USPSA but the current bid of $2075 is more than I want to pay. My birthday is coming up…

Woolrich Elite Series supports Project Valour-IT

One of the sponsors of the Gun Blogger Rendezvous was Woolrich. They are a long time clothing manufacturer that has recognized concealed carry clothing as a worthy marketing niche. They donated a “Elite for a Year” package to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous prize table. Ry won the raffle for that prize but you don’t have to be left out. I received an email announcing:

Woolrich Elite Series wants to give readers of Rendezvous bloggers a chance to help out Soldiers’ Angels – Project VALOUR-IT.

Through a partnership with one of their dealers, Woolrich Elite has created a private shopping page where fans can purchase the latest Woolrich Elite Series gear. Woolrich Elite will then donate 2% of the total sales back to Project VALOUR-IT!

“From the beginning, Woolrich has supported American servicemen and women. We’re proud to support the outstanding work of Soldiers’ Angels and their Project VALOUR-IT,” said Jerry Rinder, Woolrich Elite Series vice president.

Visit http://tacticalgear.com/woolrich-elite-clothing to see the complete selection of Woolrich Elite Series products and make your purchases to help Soldiers’ Angels.

My birthday is coming up. I wear 34×34 pants and large shirts. You can have gifts drop shipped to my address here.

Quote of the day—Charlie Beck

We are a modern civilized community, and we should work on peaceful solutions to end criminal behavior.

Charlie Beck
Los Angeles Police Chief
September 16, 2011
Gun control bill in Gov. Brown’s hands
[Since the people that work for him are on the front lines of the criminal behavior modification efforts Beck should be consistent. He should order all of his police officers to not carry firearms in public.

Other advice for Beck might include having his police officers hold hands with the criminals and sing Kumbaya.

While he is evaluating how that turns out the rest of the country will be packing heat and questioning his sanity.—Joe]

Three out of five

I just found out another one of my former co-workers at Microsoft is leaving because of our insane boss. Sometime next week is his last day.

That will make three out of five people on our team who have quit the company because of him. The three most senior people.

It’s rough on those of us leaving but perhaps the message will eventually sink in to his boss that we all tried to tell that this guy was virtually impossible to work for.

When I had my last conversation with my skip level manager about my boss he asked me, “What do you really feel about him? Do you think you can work with him?” I told him, “I feel complete contempt for him. I cannot and will not work for him any longer than I have to.” His response was, “It’s good to have clarity.”

That sealed it for me. Both of those guys should have been given jobs scrubbing toilets at minimum wage.

Quote of the day—Carrie Severino

I’m not sure exactly what these folks are pledging to do. Are they living constitutionalists pledging fealty to the Constitution on the day they sign the pledge? Or some future Constitution the exact substance of which they don’t even know when they sign the pledge? Is each person pledging to their own Constitution which just doesn’t change to them? Unless, of course, they are all pledging to a Constitution that actually has a definite, knowable, unchanging substance — in which case I look forward to joining them in celebration of Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia’s service at the next Federalist Society convention.

Carrie Severino
September 16, 2011
More on the Living Constitutionalists’ ‘Pledge’
[People who “believe in a living constitution” haven’t thought things through. Do they also believe in “living contracts” where the terms of the contract change without all parties to the contract agree to the changes or even being notified that the contract no longer means what it says? To say, “we have a living constitution” means we have no constitution.—Joe]

Quote of the day—4moreDubya

Look at it this way, do you think it’s up to the states to set their own rules on slavery? Or search and seizure?

4moreDubya
September 14, 2011
Comment to House Weighs Bill to Make Gun Permits Valid Across State Lines
[States have powers to set their own tax rates, build (or not build) roads, license businesses, and many other things. States have not been given the power to infringe upon specific enumerated or natural rights. Some people just don’t grasp the difference between exercising powers granted to them and infringing upon rights specifically protected. Some people just aren’t very bright.—Joe]

Fundamentally Transform This

Our second amendment protects a pre-existing, fundamental human right to self determination and self defense, including defense of one’s community and of liberty in general.  The American Founders understood all of this very well, and specifically added that, practically speaking it would deter (“hold in awe” I believe were the exact words) any army that our government could muster for the purpose of tyranny against the general population.

The phrase “…a rifleman behind every blade of grass” is often attributed to Imperial Japanese warning their own against an open attack upon the American mainland.  The story of Sergeant York was widely known at that time too.  Whether it was actually said, the reality was there and no doubt it was, and is, a deterrent.

In my neck of the woods, there may not be one rifleman for every single blade of grass, but school teachers, housewives and mothers, grandmothers, farmers, business owners and professionals in large numbers tend to own and regularly use firearms.  As for the socialists, general leftists and other nitpicking, envious busy-bodies who are incapable of minding their own business, who strive to use the power of government to beat back the American Principles of Liberty and self reliance – Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kids;

Photo by Oleg Volk.  I generally don’t believe that saber rattling is good politics, but then I didn’t start it either.  Too many people have fallen for the deep lies that form the rationalizations for Central Planning, and make no mistake about it – Central Planning (or Redistributive Change, or whatever the hell it’s called this week) by government relies purely on threats against peaceable citizens.  This has gone on far too long.

All I want to do is mind my business.  I avoid getting into other people’s faces as long as they stay out of mine.  I’m ready and willing to help out when need arises, and I understand that my own success, such as it is, in addition to setting a good example, increases my ability to help those in need.  But that is my prerogative and mine alone.  That goes for me and several million of my closest friends who favor liberty over tyranny.  So go ahead and march for “One Big Global Union”, screaming for revolution, carrying your picket signs attached to baseball bats.  Go ahead and plan ’till you’re blue in the face, and plan to carry out your threats.  I’ll be sitting here quietly minding my own business and respecting other’s right to do the same, until it comes time to act.  I hope you’re not that stupid, but I know from experience that I can’t count on socialists having a lick of sense, even when it comes to self preservation.  They tend to get themselves in far, far too deep before they even begin to understand the implications.

I’m reminded of a saying from the movie Broken Trail – “There are things that knaw on a man worse than dyin’.”

Quote of the day—Daniel Sitarz

AGENDA 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on earth… Effective execution of AGENDA 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced — a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources.

Daniel Sitarz
1992
Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save our Planet
[This sounds like something out of a dystopian novel.

If they try to “reorient” me they might succeed in a manner in which they had not intended.

I wonder how many people he is willing to kill to accomplish his goals. I know how many I am willing to kill to stop them if they choose that method of “reorientation”.

As. Many. As. It. Takes.—Joe]

I second that

What he said. Referring to someone that another blogger recently described as, “Seldom wrong and never in doubt.”

Quote of the day—Alan Gura

Give money to SAF and take people to the range.

Alan Gura
September 10, 2011
Gun Blogger Rendezvous
In response to the question he posed, “What can you do to help?”
[SAF is the main funding source for the lawsuits Gura has been engaged in. Taking people to the range, particularly new shooters, decreases the odds they will vote for an anti-gun politician or donate money to anti-gun organizations. And, most importantly, it makes Sarah Brady, Josh Sugarmann, and Michael Beard cry.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James Verini

Let’s start with the obscenely irresponsible laws that cover gun sales in America. For instance, anyone without a criminal record can legally purchase as many rifles and other long guns as they want in the United States. You read that correctly. If you have no criminal record, you can walk into a gun dealer and buy 100 AR-15 rifles, 200 AK-47s, the store’s entire inventory of shotguns, or a .50-caliber sniper rifle that can take down a low-flying aircraft — as long as you have the cash.

James Verini
August 30, 2011
Mexican Roulette
[And anyone, regardless of their criminal record, can purchase as many copies of the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, and Korans as they want in the United States. Anyone can also purchase as much gasoline, road flares, and matches as you want. Or you can purchase as many baseball bats, hammers, and knives as you want. What you can’t legally do is deliberate or carelessly harm other people.

As seen in this light that you have to pass a government mandated background check to exercise a specific enumerated right demonstrates that firearms are over regulated.

It’s time for Verini to grow up. The government is not, cannot, and should not be his mother or anyone else’s.

H/T to Col. Milquetoast for the link.—Joe]

Living With Sclerosis

In this case, the sclerosis of the USPS.  My wife thought I’d taken care of it, and I thought she’d taken care of it, so neither of us took care of it and our P.O. box rental lapsed.  “No problem” says the postmaster to my son on Friday, “you can still renew it on-line by the end of day Saturday.”

After much searching I find the PO boxes link in that grey fine print at the bottom of the page.  Then I have to create an account.  Funny – I’ve never run into this hurdle before, “profanity in the password. please choose another password”.  I always figured no one would ever see your password, so why the hissy fit?

After much fussing around, I finally get to enter my particulars.  “Street Address”  That’s an easy one.  It’s been the same for decades.  As far as I know it’s been the same since the house was built, more than 100 years ago.  “Invalid Address.  Please select from the the alternatives below.”  There were none, so I click through and this time it accepts it.  Next is “Post Office Box Number”.  So I enter that along with my zop code.  That box number with that zip code has only existed since that post office was built, sometime in the mid 20th century, so I can understand how they might not have gotten it entered into their database yet.  So it comes up “invalid Post office box”.  I quit.  I did get a nice e-mail notice this morning though, thanking me for setting up an account.  It listed four or five things that were really super great about having an account with them, one of which was “manage or renew a post office box”.  Super.

So I went in to the post office this morning, saying I’d tried the on-line thing and failed, explaining in detail.  “Oh, No!” the flabby man behind the counter says, “you should have entered your PO box number, not your street address…”
“It asked for the street” and I spell it out for him “Ess Tee Awr Eee Eee Tee, Street Address.” He ignores that. “So what can I do”  Now this is the Monday after the Saturday that was our last day to renew.
“I have to change the lock, and you’ll have to pay the fee. How many of the new keys do you want?”
“I’d rather keep the same keys if it’s all the same to you. Charge me the fee and you can avoid the absurdity of changing the lock” Well that put him all in a pother.
“I’ll have to fool the computer….” and he pittered and pattered around the office for a bit, printed something off, cussed, threw it away, printed something off again, I wrote the check, thanked him, and was on my way.

All I could think of after that ordeal was the old saying among business owners everywhere; “If they ran a business like that, they’d be bankrupt.”  Oh wait.

It also reminds me of Douglas Adams’ Vogons, or of Ayn Rand’s description of the Soviet Union as a “morbid absurdity”.

If it were teenage drinking instead of guns

Ry and I were talking about operation “Fast and Furious” on the drive back from the range yesterday. The synopsis is, suppose operation “Fast and Furious” were about teenage drinking instead of guns. Law enforcement would have given $70,000 to several underage people and told them to go buy alcohol at particular stores where law enforcement would tell the stores to not check the IDs of the people they gave the money too.

Law enforcement would then find receipts from those purchases at drunk driving accidents. The executive branch would then claim more laws are required to register people who want to buy more than one six pack of beer or one bottle of hard liquor at a time. The news media would enthusiastically support this proposal until it was discovered that a law enforcement officer was killed by one of the drunk teenagers. Then both the news media and the government officials would say they aren’t going to admit any wrong doing and the proposed laws are a good idea even if enforcement of the existing laws would have prevented the problems they used as justification for the new laws.

As Kevin and I discussed last night the entire scandal was only exposed when people who stomp kittens to death as part of their regular job found it too immoral to continue with the operation.

Quote of the day—Ry Jones

Yeah…. And I want to f*** supermodels tomorrow. Both have about an equal chance of success.

Ry Jones
September 10, 2011
This was in response to the Brady Campaign’s search for a new president who will be given the “Programmatic Objective” of “Build the movement to insure that all guns in our nation are childproofed by 2015.”
[Sebastian and Kaveman have more comments.

I also laughed at this one:

Develop strategies to determine and promote evidence-based arguments for public policies, which are grounded in research and support common sense efforts at reducing gun violence.

As a scientist I would be persona non-gratia in most scientific circles if I advocated for something like that. You don’t look for evidence to support your preconceived notions. Furthermore an abundance of evidence exists which supports the conclusion that the Brady Campaign is on the wrong side of the data.

And finally since they are looking for justification to infringe upon a specific enumerated right this goal is like the KKK looking for evidence to justify racial segregation and discrimination. Even if it exists they have no business attempting to use the force of government to achieve their objectives.—Joe]

Author of “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun”

Paul M. Barrett, the author of Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, showed up at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. We have been pushing him a little bit for some of the things he has written in the past. While he is someone I would characterize as mildly anti-gun* I don’t think I need to put on my tin-foil hat. With the limited information DirtCrashr had his suspicion was reasonable. But I’ve spent many hours with him now and I think he is probably being straight with us when he says he thinks we will like his book. I have agreed to read it and write a review of it. I expect I will get a preliminary version in a few days. My expectation is that I will find it an interesting read and will suggest it to others.

He went shooting with us yesterday and he shot a variety of guns and said he had a great time. He also said he tried to buy a handgun but going through the paperwork required by New York City had a rather chilling effect, “The police have no business knowing all the information they requested.” That was a very good sign to me.

In case you are wondering; after I showed him the video I made he showed me the video he made. We had a nice discussion afterward and (I believe this is correct) his position is that there might be some instances where the banning of possession of magazines greater than eight or ten rounds would save a few lives. He concedes there might be cases where such a ban would cost a few lives. In any case that’s not something worth investing political capital in. He put that in there mostly to point out that the 1994 “assault weapon” ban was totally worthless. The only thing that would have a chance of making people safer is a ban that would prohibit possession as well as manufacture and sale. But again the political difficulty of passing such legislation is not worth the effort.

The bigger story, again paraphrasing my discussions with Barrett, is that the anti-gun people biggest successes were the seeds of their failure. The Glock supposedly being “invisible to X-rays” got it unwanted attention by the Federal Legislature. But this increased its public profile and sales. The same with the 1994 ban on magazine capacity greater than 10 rounds. The irony is fascinating to him and he explores this in his book. This is part of what makes the book a very good read.

I’ll let you know after I read it but for now he has me about 90% sold when he says it is a good book that gun owners will enjoy.

*Update: After reading his comment I think that instead of “mildly anti-gun” it would be more accurate to say he is accepting of more gun regulation than I am comfortable with to call him pro-gun. And in any case as I have said before finding something to disagree with him on, which I could find many, is not the way you recruit people to your cause. Find the things that you agree on and work together on those issues. If necessary the points of disagreement can be revisited when you have accomplished everything you can as a team.