Monthly Archives: June 2012

What, indeed, my friend

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A lot of people are thinking the same thing.


But let’s not be too coy about it.  What if Al Capone actually condoned illegal activities in Chicago?  Gosh; that would be shocking, wouldn’t it?  Oh but that would mean…. No; it’s too much to contemplate.


And again, because it isn’t sinking in.  At all;
Saying that the guns were “allowed” into Mexico is a bit like saying that the Reichstag building was “allowed” to burn.  Why; they just stood by and let it happen.  That’s it– there were all these petty arsonists all over the place, setting fires all the time, so all that happened was someone (we don’t know who) turned off the pumper truck.


No, you fools; Obama and Holder longed, they desired, they were frustrated, so they planned, they plotted, they bought the gasoline, they bought the matches, and they lit the fire.  THEN they “allowed” it to burn, see?  You still don’t really know what we’re dealing with?  Do I need to slap someone upside the head?  Can you read the ten-foot high letters on the wall in front of you?  No?  Well then take a few steps back and look again!

Check Your Premises

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I thought we knew what we were fighting for, and against.  I thought we were in favor of the right to keep and bear arms.  I thought we understood what a right means and how it works in the world.  Instead, it seems we have Chief Runs-with-a-Premise in charge of setting our narrative (and the fact that it seems we even have a narrative, meaning repetitions of the same fool nonsense over and over, is fairly disturbing in itself).


I thought we had dispelled the left’s highly imaginative premise that says a criminal can’t get a gun (and therefore can’t hurt anyone) unless our “lax” gun laws “allow” criminals to get guns, but it turns out that most of us are embracing that very premise with regard to Fast and Furious, and embracing it with relish.


Posit; You see a video of some jihadists sawing the head off of a captured American.  Is your first reaction; “Well Goddamit, I want to know who made that saw!!!  We must also find out who sold that saw and see to it that they are punished.  Enough is enough!  Enough of these lax saw laws!  The National Saw Association is just as guilty of murder as anyone!”  Really?


No, Young Grasshopper; check your premises.  Please.  It’s not about where the saw came from is it?  Yet that’s the very case you’re making against Obama, Holder and the gang.  You are ceding one of the primary, false premises to the Enemy.  Stop it!


The Mexican drug gangs get their guns any damn where they want to, and they sure don’t need anyone in the U.S. for that.  They will kill one way or another, and they will get their guns one way or another (and our drug Prohibition law will ensure that this never stops– Oh yes, our drug laws, gun laws and gang are inseparable, though you thought this three way, authoritarian-feeding racket was all about “helping people”, reducing crime, or some such blather).


Grasshopper; are you listening?  Snap out of it, Man!


The point is; Our President along with his carefully hand-picked attorney general, the BATFE and the FBI, collaborating with Mexican gangsters, initiated a fraud against the American people.  They initiated and perpetrated a fraud so as to garner support for more infringements on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms.


If you want to point out the deaths from infringements on Americans’ gun rights, point to the multitudes who’ve been victimized in gun free zones, or anywhere or any time someone who would have had a gun for defense was prohibited by law from having a gun for defense, and died or was seriously injured or otherwise victimized as a result.  THAT is your body count.


We need look no farther than here;
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/242fin.htm
Read those words very, very carefully.  I now doubt that many of you have been paying a lot of real, serious attention.  I believe that you’ve been caught up in the game, or with your blogs and radio show businesses, or something else I don’t know about.


Read.  The.  Words.


Forget about what you feel, or the business aspect, or the silly political game or whatever it is you’re playing, or what you want to see and hear verses what you actually see and hear.  I’ve been seeing a trend among our ranks– a lot of assuming, inferring and…I don’t know what to call it except failing to understand the basics and failing to see and hear what’s being written and said, and I don’t like it.  I don’t want to be everyone’s friend, or accepted in this or that group or whatever, so I can say it– you’re missing the point and it’s sad.


And you Republicans; Why is it so damned difficult to see a crime, CALL IT a crime, and prosecute it as a crime?  Seriously.  Wasn’t that supposed to be your job?  I mean, isn’t the fact that we have downright criminals in high places in our government pretty much an overriding concern?  Get busy, you slackers!  Or do you have too much to hide, yourselves?  Or are you just cowards?  I think we’ve had just about enough of cowards in government, haven’t we?


ETA: It seems the DOJ took down the link, so here are the words, right in your lap;


DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Summary:
Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.


For the purpose of Section 242, acts under “color of law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official’s lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim.


The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.


TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

Quote of the day—Appellate Judge D. Michael Swiney

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There is no economic sliding scale for the right to engage in constitutionally protected activities. The richest and poorest among us, as well as those individuals in-between, all have the same rights under the constitution. We hold that, as the ordinance could apply to virtually any pair or group of people engaged in a common activity, the ordinance is overly broad.

Appellate Judge D. Michael Swiney
Tennessee Court of Appeal
Street preacher wins battle against Maryville permit ordinance
June 19, 2012
[This was in regards to $50 permit being required by the city of Maryville Tennessee in order to exercise your First Amendment rights in public.

Via Say Uncle who asks, “So, we should get rid of the fees associated with getting a permit to carry a firearm?”—Joe]

5.56 versus .223

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This is probably more information than you are really want to know—unless you are a gun geek. 5.56 vs .223 – What You Know May Be Wrong

The differences between .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO have been hashed out many times on the internet. Unfortunately, many of the “facts” that are often thrown around are simply what someone has heard from someone else, leading to a lot of misinformation being accepted as gospel.

…

My findings, and the opinions of many experts in the industry who deal with the topic every day, were not exactly what some might expect. In fact, many of them had already discovered what I am reporting, although my research was conducted independently.

I liked it.

Boomershoot 2013 entry schedule

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Boomershoot 2013 will soon be open for entry. The schedule for entry is as follows. All times are Pacific Daylight time.

Staff: 6/22/2012 6:00:00 PM.
2012 participants: 6/24/2012 12:00:00 PM.
Everyone: 7/7/2012 12:00:00 PM.

The link for entry is http://entry.boomershoot.org/

If something drastically wrong shows up in the software these times could change but I probably can manually recover without starting over or disrupting the schedule above.

There are some changes I would like to bring to your attention.

1) Clinic and Field Fire Registration is done on the web site as opposed to directly with Gene Econ as has been the case in the past.

2) There is a new Boomershoot event on Friday evening: Private fireballs. For $500 you may shoot a fireball of your own at (up to) “entertainingly close” range. We will supply the rifle, ammo, and a shooting table. This is an experience suitable for even novice shooters. There will be a 7″ square target at relatively close range with a red-dot optic on a .223 caliber rifle. This will be a low recoil, easy sighting, highly exothermic experience.

If you have any questions or experience bugs using the updated entry software please let me know (joeh@boomershoot.org).

Boomershoot 2012 stats

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I’m about to update the software on the Boomershoot entry web site and reset all the data so I captured the data from the statistics page before all the information is deleted.

  Total Average per position taken Average per total positions
Positions Taken

71

–

0.93

Participants

152

2.14

2.00

Shooters

140

1.97

1.84

Spotters

12

0.17

0.16

Friday High Intensity participants

23

0.32

0.30

Saturday High Intensity participants

27

0.38

0.36

Dinner participants

112

1.58

1.47

Media/Bloggers

11

0.15

0.14

ATF Approved

15

0.21

0.20

Staff

26

0.37

0.34

The final numbers were probably a little different because of some last minute changes that didn’t get reflected on the web site but they are very close.

Quote of the day—Jeff Knox

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To date, no gun-control scheme of any sort has ever been proven to deliver even minor reductions in crime, accidents or suicides in any nation. Even if restrictions were to reduce some aspect of crime, they could not be justified because they undermine both the individual right to self-defense and the collective right to political self-determination.

Jeff Knox
June 14, 2012
Chinese plot to strip Americans of firearms–Jeff Knox explains how communist ideals converge in both Asia and U.S.
[And yet those that would ban guns keep trying. One could claim they are ignorant or have evil intent. But I think both are somewhat rare. As near as I can tell the vast majority of anti-gun people are mentally defective.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Samuel Der-Yeghiayan, United States District Court Judge

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[T]his court finds that the strict scrutiny balancing test would be the most appropriate test to apply in the instant case, since “the right to possess guns is a core enumerated constitutional right” and Section (b)(3)(iii) of the Chicago Firearm Ordinance completely restricts that right.

Samuel Der-Yeghiayan
United States District Court Judge
Gowder v. City of Chicago (N.D. Ill. June 19, 2012), Page 24.
[Strict scrutiny!

The Brady Campaign, VPC, CSGV, and others are on the wrong side of history. They are no different that those advocating for ignoring or repealing the 13th Amendment years after it was passed.—Joe]

Extraordinary offer

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Today Attorney General Eric Holder had a 20 minute meeting with Rep. Darrell Issa about the failure of Holder to comply with subpoenas for documents in Fast and Furious.


Apparently the meeting went something like this:



Issa: Turn them over or tomorrow we will hold you in contempt of congress.


Holder: I’ll let you peek at them if you will agree before you ever see them to stop the investigation after you have seen them.


Issa: I think we are done here. We’re voting on the contempt charge tomorrow.


Holder (direct quote to the media): “The ball’s in their court. We made what we thought was an extraordinary offer.”


Imagine for a moment that you or some gun shop owner had sold and/or given thousands (not the hundreds like the article erroneously says) of guns to criminal organizations who used them to murder hundreds of people include at least one if not two government agents. After finding out about it the prosecutor lets you stay out of jail and asks you a few questions and turn over documents and emails to find out who your accomplices were. You sort of comply but just enough to avoid claims that you are completely uncooperative.


Had you told the prosecutor you would turn over some more documents on the condition they stop the investigation before they ever saw the documents, what do you think the reaction would have been?


What is extraordinary here is that Issa didn’t have Federal Marshalls rip his jacket and shirt off, tie him face down on the table, stuff a copy of the subpoena in his mouth, give him 30 lashes with a bull whip, then tell him there would be a whipping every day at 9:00 AM until he fully complied or his flesh had been stripped off and his bones were polished clean.


I understand why Issa didn’t do that but had it been me I would have being showing extraordinary restraint had I only done that in the face of that level of contempt for the law and Congress. Prohibitions against “Cruel and unusual” punishments would just seem inadequate had they been able to even just read my thoughts. “Crimes against nature, humanity, and being an inspiration to Satan” would probably come up in my trial just for a glimpse of what I would have been thinking.

Unauthorized Eating! Oh My!

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I went to an FFA meeting a while back.  It was a pot luck banquet.  We all ate food that was prepared by semi annoymous, untrained, untested, unlicensed cooks in multiple households without inspection, using unlicensed, uninspected, unauthorized cooking equipment.  It was served in the open on low tables with no sneeze guards, and in some cases there were no tongs for serving things like hotdogs and hamburger patties.  We were drinking lemonade from an unknown source, dispensed from a communal, uninspected cooler that was being serviced by multiple, untrained, unlicensed kids.  There were no ingredients listed and there was no nutritional information posted.  No one knew for sure whether there were organic or green or union-made or imported or genetically altered foods, whether the various types of not exactly specified meat were “free range” or not and no one gave a flying crap.  It was good food.  Shockingly, no one died, or even got sick from it.  No one wet their pants even.


Better yet, a good time was had by all– There were no parasite/bureaucrats or parasite/government thugs getting in our way, no one was accusing us, no one was groping us and no one was threatening us.  This is how we eat on a regular basis and we will keep it that way.


So yeah; if you don’t like what we’re doing in this neck of the woods, just keep your worthless, less than worthless, pathetic, parasitic, self-serving, batshit insane, power-mad selves out of our way.  I know that it is virtually impossible to reason with you.  To beg people who don’t believe in freedom, asking them for our freedom, is a fool’s erand, and so I have to say that when push comes to shove, there are plenty of people who can shove back as hard as you can shove and who aren’t intimidated.  Just go and bang your head against a wall next time you feel the urge to fuck with someone.  It’s much safer.

Marxist—No ethics and no shame

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Don’t believe anything people or “news” organizations on the left tell you. Check it out for yourself:

Introduced by Andrea Mitchell saying: “I get the feeling–take a look at this– that Mitt Romney has not been to too many Wawa’s along the roadside in Pennsylvania,” Romney says: “I was at Wawa’s, I wanted to order a sandwich. You press the little touch tone keypad, alright, you just touch that, and you know, the sandwich comes at you, touch this, touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier, there’s your sandwich. It’s amazing.”

Momentarily speechless, Mitchell repeats, “It’s amazing,” as her guest breaks into sharp laughter.

Too bad the clip was taken wildly out of context.

In reality, Romney was illustrating the difference between private and public sector efficiency. After telling a story where his friend had to fill out a 33-page form twice to complete a change of address with the government, Romney holds up touch-tone sandwich-ordering as an example of private sector efficiency– not as a marvel of how the “common” man lives.

They claim they fired the producer that did a similar edit in the Zimmerman case. But the last time I looked they did not give the name of the person fired. Perhaps he got reassigned instead.

I have to suspect the ethical environment at MSNBC/NBC is the problem rather just one or two people drinking the communist Kool-Aid with no shame. “Communist?”, you ask. Yes. In both cases it was about promoting a “class struggle” view of our culture. These people promote a Marxist view of our culture and belong in dustbin of history with Marx and Marxism.

I don’t really trust non-liberals all that much either but I haven’t ever seen anything close to this level of misrepresentation in supposed news outlets.

Quote of the day—Raffy Mulivor

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Americans are peace-loving people, but if you start up with us, we’re going to kick your butt.

Raffy Mulivor (12 years old)
June 16, 2012
This was when he was asked to explain the meaning of the arrows and olive branch in the eagle’s claws on symbols in the Great Seal of the United States.
[Via email from his father Phil Mulivor, author of Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms–Joe]

Gun laws are complicated

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We in the gun rights community have often complained the gun laws in this country are far too obscure and complicated. You almost have to be a lawyer to be able to understand all the complicated ways you can break the law merely by assembling your firearm with parts made in the wrong country, driving too close to a school you didn’t even know was there, or even having a piece of brass caught in the tread of your shoes.

But when even the lawyers get things wrong and people are in prison even though the law they are accused of breaking did not apply it’s way past time to do a major overhaul of the laws. When the prosecutors are aware there are people in prison who should not be there and they don’t even notify the prisoners it’s time to prosecute the prosecutors:

Federal prosecutors in North Carolina have been aware for nearly a year that dozens of North Carolinians currently incarcerated in federal prisons should not be there, but they have done next to nothing to help them, and in at least once case are actually trying to prevent an innocent man’s release, according to an investigation by USA Today.

The fundamental reason these and other innocent people are in prison is because the anti-gun people pushed for and obtained firearms laws that created victimless crimes. It’s time to wipe our law books clean of all victimless crimes.

There was, and is, a conspiracy to infringe the right to keep and bear arms under the color of law. Those responsible should be charged and prosecuted. People in jail who are clearly known to be innocent cannot be tolerated.

Quote of the day—Dorothy Parker

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The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.


Dorothy Parker
[I recently was talking to someone who herself is quite good with wisecracks and told her, “That reminds me of a Dorothy Parker quote” (the one about using horticulture in a sentence). She didn’t know who Parker was so I gave her a 1 minute biography. Parker’s complete biography, Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?, is quite good even if it is a slow motion tragedy.


The next day my friend sent me an email saying she had looked up information on Parker. So I did a quick search to see what she might have found and came across the quote above which was new to me.


Of course my first thought upon reading it was Parker was reincarnated as Tamara. I think there is a good chance the timeline even matches close enough.—Joe]

Making choices

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For decades Libertarians and Republicans have been saying the economic and social policies of the left were destined to be catastrophic. Eventually all looters stop. There are only three options; 1) They stop because they realize theft is wrong, 2) They are stopped by force, or 3) They run out of places to loot.

Greece is the harbinger of our future and has the opportunity to select their option. Yet even now many do not see impending doom crashing in on them:

Riding a wave of anger to rise from obscurity to contender for power, leftist SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, 37, promises to reject the punishing terms of the 130 billion euro ($163.75 billion) bailout if he wins the nail-biter vote on Sunday.

On the right, establishment heir and New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, 61, says that would send Greece crashing out of the single currency and condemn it to even greater economic calamity.

With the election set to go down to the wire, European leaders weighed in on Saturday, urging Greeks to vote with their heads.

The bailout will not be renegotiated, warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country’s wealth is vital to shoring up its weaker partners in the bloc.

…

Some global businesses and banks are already in retreat: Europe’s biggest retailer, Carrefour, said on Friday it was selling up in Greece, a day after French bank Credit Agricole moved to take direct control of its Albanian, Bulgarian and Romanian units from its Greek bank Emporiki.

On Saturday, Germany’s Biotest appeared to become the first drugmaker to say it was exiting the Greek market in July after its customers there failed to pay outstanding bills of 7 million euros. Others have threatened to do likewise, as the Greek health sector struggles with huge spending cuts.

Spain and Italy will probably be next in line to make a choice.

When it comes time for the American left to select an option which do you think it will be? And will those that oppose them be ready if the left choses options 2) or 3)?

Mass vehicular assault

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From Lima Ohio:

Around 30 people were hurt, some seriously, when a woman drove her car into a street party in Lima, Ohio, Friday night.

“It was unreal. There were bodies, and shoes and jewelry,” The Lima News reported Amee Truesdale as saying. “They took many, many people to the hospital, and two or three of them looked seriously hurt … I saw men pick up that car and move out a gentleman that was pinned underneath.”

The driver, who reportedly had a dog with her, was parked five feet from the town’s main square when she accelerated rapidly, a police spokesman told NBC News.

Following this violent act will the Violence Policy Center follow up with media releases about the driver of the car having a drivers license despite a history of mental illness? Will the Brady Campaign be asking how the driver gained possession of the car? Will the CSGV demand that only the police and government officials be allowed to posses assault vehicles?

I can tell you the answers right now. No, no, and no. Those organizations are composed of people who have mental defects and cannot understand that both cars and guns are inanimate objects which have no volition of their own. They still adhere to the ancient belief that objects not people should be punished.

And this is why those organizations should be, and are being, left in the dustbin of history.

A step in the right direction

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Via Politico I found out Rand Paul has introduced legislation which from a principled viewpoint I find pathetic. Only if I put my Wookie suit in a hidden vault and delete thousands of blog posts could I praise his first piece of proposed legislation. It is “a ‘Bill of Rights’ for air travelers” (S. 3302). “Guaranteeing a traveler’s right to request a pat-down using only the back of the hand” is to be considered a “right’? Really?


We don’t need a new law like this, we just need to enforce those already on the books. I’m of the opinion the 4th Amendment is the guaranteed right. All who voted for or have been involved in the implementation of TSA should be prosecuted under 18 USC 241 and/or 18 USC 242. Impose fines for every violation and you would see second thought given to a lot of other government infringements of our rights as well as A Security Theater going down in flames.


The other Bill, S. 3303, “ends the TSA screening program and requires screening of passengers at airports to be conducted by private screeners only”. While elimination of the TSA would earn my praise the requirement that private business violate our 4th Amendment rights nearly nullifies the benefit.


But, as I said, that is from a principled viewpoint. Principles are a serious obstacle in politics. If you want to get anything done you had best leave your principles at the door and just keep a short cheat sheet up your coat sleeve when you enter the legislative arena. If either of these bills could be passed it would be a step in the right direction. Incrementalism is sometimes all that is politically feasible and that we have legislators looking for a path in the proper direction is something to be pleased with.