The View From North Central Idaho

I just finished up participating in a Vicious Circle episode. The supposed topic was Boomershoot. In fact we basically started on Boomershoot and mostly ended up talking about Boomershoot but as it the case with all Vicious Circle podcasts there was a lot of topic drift. Also discussed were:

• The Jews In The Attic Test
• Nationalized health care
• The perfection of Lucy Lawless's nipples and how to view them
• Yet another way to blow up a plane that the TSA cannot stop
• Total world-wide economic collapse
• The Texas Navy
• Screwdrivers
• Windows Phone 7 Series
• Narcissistic personalties
• Caleb
• How many boxes of .22 ammo it will cost for a virgin after the total world-wide economic collapse

There was also a lot of giggling--particular when I told them that Barb asked me if Alan edited out the naughty words.

And that is just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head.

Update: It is available now.

A friend of mine and blogger is asking for donations.

I got a call from Oleg yesterday. He plans to attend Boomershoot this year.

Of course he wants some pretty girls to take pictures of. It just so happens I know of two who will be there. So we talked about daughters Kim and Xenia.

He will be shooting with Lyle @ UltiMAK in position #74.

If you do a search of blogs for "Brady Campaign" you get progun posts. Nice!

One of my posts is number one with Bing. Say Uncle has a post with the top honors via Google.

No wonder the Bradys think they are fighting the NRA when it's really reduced to fighting a bunch of guys in their pajamas. Actually, I don't have any pajamas. I'm wearing a robe at the moment.

I got an email from Dave Hardy:

I just got my ballot issue of the Amer. Rifleman. I’d greatly appreciate if you could mention the candidacy of Carol Bambery, of Michigan, and her webpage at http://www.carolbamberynra.com/. I know you like to quote from her brief in Heller (she filed another in Chicago). There is much to be said for a director who carries twice the committee assignments of the average director, hunts whenever she can, and loves to shoot NFA weapons!

I knew that I had quoted her a few times. I didn't realize how many until I went looking (10 times).

As I forwarded from Mike yesterday we need to have a Starbucks Appreciation day. In some back channel communication with other gun bloggers and friends in the gun rights community (Ashley V. suggested some wording for me to use) no one had any objection to Mike's suggestion. Therefore I would like to announce that one week from today on Sunday February 21 gun owners should have a Starbucks Appreciation Day.

I would like to suggest we do this without an overt display of firearms. Our message of Starbucks Appreciation will be overshadowed by the known presence of firearms if we make having a firearm on our person the point of the message. Let's keep it simple and let the barista and manager know why we're making a purchase that day.

You can get the message across just as well by saying something like:

Please know I'm here because firearm owners across the country want to show Starbucks our appreciation for your decision not to ostracize customers who own and carry guns.

I'm going to be consuming Starbucks products on a regular basis now and would like for other gun rights supporters to do the same. But next Sunday we should make a point of telling them why and explicitly telling them thank you.

Update: One supporter (Lorena) says, "Have a cup of joe with Joe!"

Five gets you ten his new company has nothing to do with fruity “LDA” triggers.

It must have been physically painful to have been contractually obligated to pimp those things.

Tam
January 21, 2010
Comment to Todd Jarrett Leaving ParaOrdnance.
[Similar, but far less succinct and articulate, thoughts went through my head when I read the news.--Joe]

If you read my blog directly you probably noticed a few cosmetic changes today. Mostly it was a side effect of me fixing the comment text entry box which was all messed up. I had to learn a bunch about Cascading Style Sheets to fix the problem and tweaked a few things along the way.

I moved the "Bloggers I Have Met" list to a different page because it took up so much real estate on the sidebar. I also updated the list. If I have overlooked someone please let me know. It wasn't intentional to ignore anyone--except for wife Barbara.

Yes, she has a blog--with three posts since it was created on September 13, 2009. I refuse to link to it until she posts a little more frequently. Currently she has had a total of 13 visits. I think all of those visits were by me.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[I was reminded of this after reading Roberta post The Greater Depression. I snorted in laughter when I read the last line of her post but then it took me several minutes for me to give Barb the context so she could get the joke. She claims it was worth it.--Joe]

A few days ago there was was a pretty big discussion on some blogs about the "Godwin-y" comparison of publication of concealed weapons permit holders to Jews (etc.). The relevant posts are below in chronological order. There was one post prior to this where the Jews in the Attic Test came up in private email but I'm not including it since it was not public.

The comments are where most of the action is:

• The Herald Times fires back (In the comments the first mention is made of "Jews" and my Jews in the Attic Test)
• In Other Gun News (African Americans are drawn in along with Jews)
• Moral cripples with the ethics of syphilitic weasels... (Add residents of battered women's shelters and homosexuals to the mix.)
• Take a deep breath. (Joanna says it's gone a bit over the top.)
• Take (another) breath. (Joanna emphasis her point and protests some of the criticism of her position.)

For the most part it appears to me that many of the participants were talking past each other. Joanna appears to be justified for expressing some irritation with:

I'm gonna say this once, and I'm gonna say it loud and use small words, so everyone understands me.

IT'S NOT OKAY THAT NEWSPAPERS MADE DATABASES WITH INFORMATION ABOUT CONCEALED-CARRY WEAPONS PERMIT HOLDERS

BUT

IT'S NOT KRISTALNACHT.

But then she appears to talk past them because as near as I could tell no one said it was anything like Kristallnacht.

That said I mostly disagree with Joanna saying it is over the top to make the comparison between the list of CCW holders and Jews.

It boils down to three things that need to be addressed.

1. How bad does it have to get before it is okay to say it is acceptable to make the comparison?
2. Just what is the current state of affairs?
3. Gun ownership is a choice. Not something immutable like the color of your skin, your gender, or perhaps (let's not go there, okay?) your sexual preference.

Point 1.

Silence = Death

My claim is that if you wait until the bigotry is so bad that you have events which are the equivalent of Kristallnacht you have waited much too long. At that point the police are looking the other way if not actually participating in the injustice.

A little bit of history (mostly from memory which is probably more than a little bit fuzzy so correct me where I make errors) is in order.

The abuse of Jews in Germany did not spring up out of nothingness when Hitler rose to power in the mid 1930s. Most people know there was a lot of anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany after WWI. But there was a strong German dislike for them going back several decades. And in some places in Europe it extended back hundreds of years.

That sentiment and the associated abuse did not include extermination camps until 1941. It sometimes involved unequal treatment under the law, segregation, and even driving them out of the country. But a greater proportion of the time it involved ostracism, boycotts, and public humiliation.

When is the appropriate time to complain about being mistreated as a group? Just what is the threshold before you get vocal and, in no uncertain terms, tell the bigots to back off?

Is it when the other kids in school make fun of your child because of the funny hat he wears sometimes? Is it sufficient if the newspapers attribute most crime and/or disease to "your kind"? Will it be time when the textbooks portray you as inherently evil (see also here)? Or what if the schools and public accommodations are segregated and significantly unequal? Do you wait until you are spat upon nearly every time you are in public? Or maybe you wait until it becomes illegal to have a government job.

I claim the time to get vocal about is as soon as it happens. I don't think it is appropriate to stand secure in your position, unruffled, and get on with your business. It is very rare that you can win a war if you always play defense. You must go on the offense because otherwise your enemy will chose the time and place of his attack such that it maximizes his opportunity for success. If you are always fighting to protect your weakest flank what do you expect the result will be? We must fight on their weakest flank with our strongest "troops".

A somewhat proportional response (Joanna's best point) is appropriate. You don't shoot the school bully after he splashed mud on your daughter's dress (you look the other way while daughter Kim takes him down and rubs his face in the mud). You do shoot the police herding your family into the railroad cattle cars (a few hand grenades into their fully loaded APCs wouldn't hurt either).

In 1987 gay activists came up with the slogan Silence = Death. They used this as the text for a poster composed of a pink triangle on a black background. The pink triangle, of course, was appropriated in the 1970s as a reminder of Nazi Germany where an inverted pink triangle was used to identify known homosexuals.

Silence in the face of injustice is almost certain to result in more injustice. And left uncorrrected long enough it will result in the extermination of the targeted population. The extermination may be the result of conversions to non-targeted groups or it may be through the physical elimination of that population.

Silence is not an option.

Point 2.

We don’t know who discovered water, but we know it wasn’t a fish.--Marshall McLuhan

We are blind.

I think one of the problems the Jews faced in Germany was the "boiling frog" problem. Things moved slowly enough that there was never a big enough change in one day/week/month that they could justify taking a stand over the latest injustice. The cost of putting up a fight versus the possible benefit never looked better than just trying to "keep your head down" and getting through another day. For those familiar with optimization problems--I view it as seeking a local optimum while actively avoiding the search for a global optimum.

I think it is far too easy for gun owners and especially the neutral but non-gun owning population to be unaware of the current state of affairs because it "is just the way it is". The status quo almost always seems perfectly normal.

I will now point out some things that I think most people overlook when they think of gun owners and the situation we face. I do this in a fairly general manner and don't even get into the most extreme situations like in New Jersey where "When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril" (New Jersey v. Pelleteri). In order to see how bad it is I use comparison to other specific constitutionally protected rights.

Individual treatment.

There are people advocating that parents ask if their child's friend has guns in their home before allowing them to visit. What if it were a religious or skin color test before they could visit?

There are celebrities who advocate that you be sent to jail if you own a gun.

There are people advocating "snuffing out" gunshop owners and pro-gun legislators--complete with lists.

There are people advocating the killing all gun owners.

The schools.

Of course you know that guns are only allowed near schools in a handful of states under very restricted situations. And you've heard about kids being suspended for possession of "GI-Joe" action figures with "guns" the shorter than your thumbnail. Or a sandwich eaten into the shape of a gun. What sort of message does this send the children about guns and gun ownership?

Are there any school textbooks that portray the shooting sports, self-defense, or the individual right to keep and bear arms in a positive manner? If so I have never seen them.

If it were a First Amendment issue regarding religious symbols or clothes what would be the effect? There would be a law against Jewish/Christian/Muslim symbols within 1000 feet of a school. If you park you car with a bible in it just outside the limit they suspend you anyway. And if you make the sign of the cross in front of another student you get kicked out of school.

Businesses.

Nearly all workplaces forbid you to carry a gun. It doesn't matter that you are a petite female, elderly, wheelchair bound, or unable for any reason to defend yourself yet work the night shift in the bad part of town. Your best tool for defending yourself against death or permanent injury has to remain in your car and parked off the company property or you, almost for certain, will be fired on the spot.

If you park your car with guns in the trunk so you can go hunting when you get off work they will bring dogs in to sniff for them on the first day of hunting season--and then fire you.

Many businesses and shopping malls have signs on their doors forbidding you to carry on their property.

eBay, PayPal, and other commerce sites turn you away when firearms and/or firearm related accessories are involved. And in many cases who can blame them? The ATF has a reputation of  confiscating records, computers, products, and jailing the people involved in legitimate firearm businesses and frequently refusing to even tell them of the allegations against them.

Laws.

You can't carry a gun on a plane, train, or many buses. You can't carry a gun in the post office. There are some places where you cannot carry a gun in hosptials or churches.

Where is the Federal agency charged with enforcing the laws and making regulations restricting the First Amendment? What form do you have to fill out when you purchase a serial numbered Bible, Koran, or Torah? The form that must be kept for 20 years and be available for inspection by law enforcement?

And shouldn't you have to pass a background check before you can purchased a religious book? And wouldn't a 10 day waiting period be a good idea? What could it possibly hurt to wait a few days before getting possession of such powerful words they have been used as justification for the death and oppression of millions of people? It's not like if you you need a copy of the Bible or Koran to defend yourself against an abusive ex who is threatening to kill you. You can get along just fine for a few days (or months) while the police interview your neighbors to see if you really should be allowed to own a book. And don't forget mandated, government approved, training on the responsibilities of religious book ownership.

What if there was a law that enhanced penalties for crimes committed by Jews/Muslims/homosexuals? Suppose if you robbed someone while being a Muslim you automatically had another five years added to your prison term. How does that sit with you? We have that situation for gun owners, right now, in this country.

What if the standards of evidence were different if you were a Jew? Instead of the prosecutor having to prove your guilt you had to prove your innocence? I had one former New York City prosecutor tell me that if you shot someone in NYC the gun owner, and rightly so, had to prove it was self-defense. It was not the job of the prosecutor to prove it wasn't self-defense.

There was a case where failure to pay a $200 tax on a shotgun (a jury eventually acquitted them of all of the alleged crimes and recommended the Federal agents compensate them for shooting the family dog as well) resulted in snipers in camouflage surrounding the house of the alleged perpetrator with the orders, "Deadly force can and should be used against any armed adult outside the house". This order was in effect even without any occupants of the house knowing there was law enforcement outside or that they had orders to shoot on sight. The occupants of the house were exercising a constitutionally protected right when they left the house carrying their guns--as they always did when they went outside. It resulted in two of them being seriously wounded and a mother with a baby in her arms being killed via bullet to her head. What happened to the shooter and the people who gave the order? Even after congressional hearings they didn't even loose their jobs or pay a fine. How much worse does it have to get before one can consider it the equivalent of the treatment of Jews in Germany 75 years ago?

Everyone knows about Nazi Germany treatment of Jews. But what about their treatment of private gun owners? The story of the Belgian Corporal is just one example. Did you know the U.S. Gun Control Act of 1968 was based on the German Weapons Control Act of 1938? And someone dares to say it's inappropriate to compare gun owners with the plight of the Jews?

Point 3

Chilling Effect Doctrine: In Constitutional Law, any law or practice which has the effect of seriously discouraging the exercise of a Constitutional Right.--Blacks Law Dictionary.

True. There is a something to be said about "having a choice" to be a gun owner. You don't have a choice to be black, racially Jewish, and perhaps homosexual. It is for this reason I frequently mention "interracial marriage" as a comparison. You don't have to date, marry or stay married to someone with a different skin color. You don't have to be openly gay. And you don't have to be Baptist, Catholic, or Muslim.

So if your name and address was published in a list of all the Catholics in a state, right next to the sex offender database, you should just suck it up and not worry about it? Or how about the list of people in interracial marriages? It isn't valid to compare that to a list of Jews because you can get off the list by changing the church you go to, or divorcing your spouse? Are you serious?

In this country we have a specific, constitutionally, protected right to belong to whatever church we want to as long we don't hurt anyone else. And punishment for hurting someone else cannot be in the form of prior restraint. The law may punish someone for falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater, but the law may not remove someone's ability to yell while in the theater. Yet we have that in this country for gun owners.

When someone starts publishing lists of "those people" it doesn't really matter whether the list is of racial Jews or people that worship at the church of John Moses Browning. The publishing of that list serves just one purpose. And that purpose is not for the benefit of those on the list. The purpose is to cause a chilling effect on the exercise of that constitutionally protected activity.

Conclusion

The comparison of gun owners to Jews is valid. It currently doesn't compare to the situation of Jews in Germany in 1941 or even Kristallnacht in 1938. But it's not much different from their situation in 1931. The social stigma, the negative stereotyping in the press, schools, and the enhanced harshness of the laws all parallel the plight of the Jews in 1931. We even have politicians talking about the "Gun Problem" just like there were German politicians talking about the "Jewish Problem". There are only a few people that want to kill us and a few more "enlightened ones" who just want us in prison. But you will have no difficulty finding people that want to stigmatize, harass and impose further restrictions on us.

Perhaps when comparing gun owners to Jews it should be qualified with "the Jews in 1931". They didn't have it so bad, did they? They didn't have anything to worry about, did they?

True, our situation has been improving over the last few years. The trend is definitely up compared to the dark days of 1994 and 1995. There were smart, extremely well informed gun rights professionals, who then believed that the fight for gun rights would all be over in ten years. In ten years, they told me, the only people with guns would have a government paycheck or would be criminals. There would not be any young people to carry on the culture and the culture of freedom associated with gun ownership would be essentially extinct within 20 years. They were wrong. But the situation is only marginally improved.

Ten years doesn't sound like a very long time but the changes can be profound. Just because the are no extermination camps for gun owners today doesn't mean we can't run a path parallel to the German Jews of 1931.

I wonder who slapped their wrists:

In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used.

Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served with a subpoena by two TSA agents on Tuesday, told Threat Level that he received a phone call Thursday evening from John Drennan, deputy chief counsel for enforcement at TSA, telling him the administration was withdrawing its subpoena.

Frischling was told the TSA would no longer be pursuing the investigation into how he received a security directive that he published on his personal blog, Flying with Fish, on Dec. 27.

Being a critic of TSA apparently is frowned upon by the government thugs:

Two bloggers received home visits from Transportation Security Administration agents Tuesday after they published a new TSA directive that revises screening procedures and puts new restrictions on passengers in the wake of a recent bombing attempt by the so-called underwear bomber.

Special agents from the TSA’s Office of Inspection interrogated two U.S. bloggers, one of them an established travel columnist, and served them each with a civil subpoena demanding information on the anonymous source that provided the TSA document.

The document, which the two bloggers published within minutes of each other Dec. 27, was sent by TSA to airlines and airports around the world and described temporary new requirements for screening passengers through Dec. 30, including conducting “pat-downs” of legs and torsos. The document, which was not classified, was posted by numerous bloggers. Information from it was also published on some airline websites.

“They’re saying it’s a security document but it was sent to every airport and airline,” says Steven Frischling, one of the bloggers. “It was sent to Islamabad, to Riyadh and to Nigeria. So they’re looking for information about a security document sent to 10,000-plus people internationally. You can’t have a right to expect privacy after that.”

The bloggers report of the incident is here.

I keep wondering if I'll get a knock on my bunker door next. Apparently I haven't been trying hard enough to be at the top of the list.

Details on the Boomershoot 2010 Precision Rifle Clinic are now available. You don't have to participate in the main event to get coaching and shoot in the clinic.

The clinic fills up every year and Gene has lots of repeat attendees so you know people are getting their money's worth.

Sign up and learn how to turn money and time into earth shaking noise and smoke.

As a side note, Boomershoot statistics are here. Probably most interesting is that there are 110 participants and we have 11 bloggers-exactly 10%.

We will be having a blogger/media day again on Thursday April 22^nd.

If you would not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.

Ben Franklin
[Or both.

Boomershoot, this blog, the software I have written (some used by 100s of millions), the hardware I have designed (10s of thousands of units shipped), and my children are my attempts.--Joe]

A 34-year-old research scientist at the Bristol Initiative for Child Health recently announced that she is the (formally) anonymous blogger known as Belle de Jour --Diary of a London Call Girl.

To me the most interesting part of the revelation is the following:

Dr Magnanti, who studied anthropology and maths in Florida, was completing a PhD at Sheffield University's department of forensic pathology when she became a call girl.

Realizing she had no objection to having sex for money, she contacted an agency and worked as a prostitute from 2003 to late 2004, which she said was 'so much more enjoyable' than her shifts in another job as a computer programmer.

This reminds me of another woman I met at a party about four years ago. Let's call her 'N'. She was middle aged but very physically fit. After only a sentence or two you knew she was smart and not just an empty head on a pretty body. Talking about what kind of work we did it came out that she had been an engineer for many years, traveled all over the world for her job and finally got tired of it and quit. After a few months she started thinking about what kind of job she wanted to have. She was pretty sure she wanted a career change but wasn't sure what she would like to do and have the time and interest to go to school to get the required training. She was sitting in the park with a female friend of hers who finally asked, "If you could do anything you wanted for a living what would it be?" N answered, "I would like to get paid to f**k." And her friend answered, "So darling, why don't you? How do you think I worked my way through medical school?"

And so it came to be that N started her new and very profitable career without any formal training. She told me she had been doing it (pun intended) for a few years and was making more money than she ever imagined. She mostly lived alone although she had a steady lover that she spend most of her non-work nights with. She had a home in Bellevue Washington (generally an expensive part of the Seattle area) and was in the process of putting on a 10,000 square foot addition to the house. Part of it was her new "playroom".

She said she was 40 years old but she let slip the age of her parents and I didn't think anything of it until I saw the alarm in her eyes as she quickly added, "They became parents when they were much older than most." I did the math and didn't say anything but I then noticed the wrinkles in the hands and a few other places. I suspect her true age was really in the early fifties.

Out of curiosity, knowing full well that Barb wouldn't approve a budget item like that, I asked what sort of rates she charged. IIRC it was $400 for 90 minutes, $800 for four hours, or $1400 for the entire night. Weekend trips to exotic and interesting places would have discounts. She guaranteed she could be taken to company Christmas parties and the like and never embarrass you. Among other things she frequently did international travel with her clients as they traveled on business without their wives. She was very picky about her clients and never had more than about five or six at a time.

She painted a quite favorable picture of her new career and when I expressed my envy she told me she had a male friend trying to get into the business but most of the women were significantly overweight and wanted some sort of elaborate fantasy date that consumed nearly all of what they were willing to pay. Hence although he technically was paid to have sex he didn't make any money on it.

Another woman I know, let's call her "T', did some similar work for a while but had a different result. She was about 30 years old, very pretty, behind on her rent, and food was starting to become an issue. So she started putting on "girl-girl" shows for an old retired mobster with a lot of money. He apparently only had the capacity to watch rather than participate "in the action". T got something like $600 for an hour which she had to split with the "playmate" who was a friend of hers. Occasionally some guy would participate in the show with some simulated sex and would get paid some token amount.

T was quickly able to pay her back rent and put some food on the cupboards and decided to expand her clientèle. This ended up not being such a good idea.

She told a few married or attached men friends who had made passes at her that she was available for a price with confidentiality guaranteed. Some of them took her up on the deal and something unexpected happened. Once these men friends had paid for her services they treated her much different than they had before. They treated her like crap. The did not value her smarts and friendship anymore. It was about as friendly a transaction as one would have with a candy machine. After a few months she packed up her stuff and left the state.

I told N the story of T and asked if she had anything like that happen and she said no. Her clients were all gentlemen all the time. Perhaps it was because they knew she wouldn't stand for it. It was a sellers market for her product and it wasn't a problem to "fire a customer" and find a new one.

Life just isn't fair. Not only would I never be able to find high paying customers I'd be willing to service but Barb would be certain to find some reason why it wasn't a good idea no matter how much I enjoyed my new job.

I've been pretty quiet on the big open carry debate that has finally cooled down some. I have open carried a few times and had a few things to say over the years but never took a really strong position:

• Coming out of the closet has it's price (December 18, 2004)
• Fish Or Man pulls the plug (December 29, 2004)
• Right to chose (October 20, 2008)
• The media can play nice (June 8, 2009)
• Open carry in Bellevue Washington (June 15, 2009)
• The move to a new bunker (July 1, 2009)
• The rest of the story (July 20, 2009)
• Quote of the day--Brannon P. Denning and Glenn H. Reynolds (August 19, 2009)
• Did we just win? (August 19, 2009)
• Quote of the day--Rick Perlstein (August 20, 2009)
• Hiking on Mount Hood (September 13, 2009)
• Quote of the day--Eugene Volokh (October 2, 2009)
• Open carry being used as a political statement (October 24, 2009)

I have done my blog research* on the topic and am finally ready to take a stand.

On the infighting between pro gun people on the topic I think, for the most part, it was a misunderstanding. If you read the words very literally (it's difficult for me to do otherwise but I'm not normal in a lot of ways) I don't find much disagreement in philosophy between the various camps. One side says it is legal, in most cases, as it should be but it's easy to do something stupid which will make us all look bad and distract from more important matters. Another side says we need to use it or lose it but don't be a dick about it. About the biggest real difference of opinion was that some said gun retention training might be a moral obligation and others said no it's not.**

I didn't read all the comments but I read enough that I'm pretty sure there isn't very much disagreement at the fundamental levels.

My biggest problem with the entire issue is the infighting. We have external enemies that need to be fought and energy is better expended on them than on people who are really our allies. Agreed, we need to make sure we fight productively and that we don't waste resources. And I think that is the crux of the matter.

How do we know what is the most effective expenditure of our resources? We can't really know for certain. We could run a bunch of experiments with different types of political campaigns. But you can't run an experiment in the same town on two different occasions with a different input variable because you changed the state of the population with the first run. If you run the experiment in two different towns you have the problem of the two different cultures and even individuals within those towns. What worked well in Virgina might very well turn out to be a disaster in nearby D.C. or Chicago. For the most part it's going to boil down to educated guesses and opinions as to which is the best.

We see people openly carrying and handling guns in a safe and lawful matter probably a 100 or 1000 times more often than the people we want to influence. That experience differential biases our opinions such that we probably have the least reliable opinion on the topic. The anti-gun people have an experience reference point that is closer to that of the population we wish to influence. They are more aware of potential fears and are in a better position to push the "fear buttons" than we are to assuage those fears.

Robb Allen demanded proof that open carry hurts our cause. Sebastian (in the comments) said he didn't think any focus groups had been done on the topic . That isn't true. I talked to someone that did a focus group study. I don't think the results are going to be released. That sort of data is relatively expensive to obtain and can be used by the anti-gun people to fine tune their attacks against us.

I don't have a lot of information on the study but the basic result was that people see openly carried guns as "deadly force" and threatening/fear-causing which makes it different than gays holding hands, interracial couples, or woman's bare ankles being visible. Sure, some people are fearful of gay cooties, Jews controlling the world, and their daughter dating a black guy. But it's pretty easy to point out the silliness of those types of fears. Openly carried guns are different. If they didn't have at least some real fear inducing properties they wouldn't be useful for self-defense and as a deterrent against attack. Apparently that fear inducing quality persists to some degree in most people even after repeated exposure with non-threatening people carrying the gun. It may not be rational but people are not rational. Expecting or insisting people be rational is irrational.

Obviously focus group studies weren't done in every political jurisdiction in the country. It may be that in some locations that is the best expenditure of resources. Virginia Citizens Defense League has had wonderful results. And it was in Virginia the one time I open carried in a public place with many people around for a couple hours.

So, it comes down to sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

This gets us to the question of how we might determine when it might work or how to best make it work. The following needs to be backed up with focus group studies but I think it probably is a pretty good start.

It is my hypothesis that certain conditions enhance the probability open carry will work as a political statement. Below is an enumeration, elaboration, and enhancement of the "don't be stupid" and "don't be a dick" suggestions put forth by others. Most of the following apply even if you are just carrying as you go about your everyday business. Whether you intend to or not, in the eyes of much of the public, you are representing all gun owners when you open carry.

• Open carry at a public demonstration the main topic should be gun rights. Guns at a health-care/abortion/taxes/etc. demonstration is likely to confuse the issue and allow the other side to spin it as intimidation
• Never allow quick to anger or violence prone people to be associated with your group
• Vulnerable looking women with children who open carry is better than large, scruffy, young men
• Save open carry for the "end game" in locations with well established gun rights rather than your "opening move" in hostile territories
• Small quiet groups with a mix of genders and races are better than large, noisy, homogeneous groups or loners with obscure and/or vaguely threatening signs
• Desensitization of highly sensitive people requires small levels of exposure--the butt of a gun casually exposed in an IWB holster is less fear inducing than a thigh holster or a rifle in hand
• Associate the open carry event with activities that give other people lots of "space"--road side litter pickup is not going to be as threatening as picketing a restaurant that prohibits guns on their premises, walking through an empty parking lot is not as threatening as a doing the same thing at a public meeting on a highly volatile issue
• High quality clothing and gear enhances your image and decreases the fear
• Consult with a lawyer prior to your event
• Never risk a "contempt of cop" charge--your interaction with them should be such they can "save face" during the public event
• You may tell the cops your lawyer is of the opinion the activity is legal but don't repeat it again and again--let your lawyer convince the judge to give the cops the lecture they so richly deserve
• Unless you have the full cooperation of your lawyer (such as if you are trying to get arrested) if the cops suggest it would be best for you to leave then politely collect their identifying information, exact words, and accept their invitation to go home without a pavement tasting party
• Physically cooperate with the police even if you know they are wrong
• As in all politically/media sensitive situations have a few experienced media people designated to represent your group--less experienced people should refer the media to the more experienced spokesmen

Even if you adhere to all of the above and more you still could mess up the politics. As much as I like to think of myself as an expert on gun rights I'm always amazed at how much I don't know when I talk to a true professional in the field. I strongly advise you to at least talk to your local gun rights organization to get their opinion on whatever great idea you have for "making a difference". If they are any good at their job they will be able to explain why something does or doesn't work and improve your approach.

Ultimately we want carry of all types completely legal and a non-issue in all jurisdictions. As long as it is done safely it should be a personal choice. I don't know of any gun rights activists who disagrees with that goal. It's simply a question of how or if we can get to that point.

We can attack the problem in a brute force manner or with a more sophisticated approach that arrives at the solution quicker and with less expenditure of resources. Let's not be so stupid as to think the same solution is appropriate for every situation.

*Some of the blog posts and podcasts relevant to open carry which I have read:

• Say Uncle: Don't scare white people (April 26, 2007)
• Kim duToit: Open Carry (May 5, 2007)
• Jim: Open Carry in Texas (May 8, 2007)
• Sebastian: Pennsylvania Open Carry Blog (January 28, 2008)
• Sebastian: PSH in Virginia? (February 27, 2008)
• Sebastian: We’ll All Be Open Carrying Soon Enough (March 9, 2008)
• Sebastian: Open Carry Activism (May 12, 2008)
• Sebastian: VCDL Response (May 12, 2008)
• Sebastian: Open Carry Dinner Gone South (May 22, 2008)
• Sebastian: Thoughts on Dickson City (June 2, 2008)
• Sebastian: Open Carry Troubles in Wisconsin (June 5, 2008)
• Sebastian: Positive Article in LA Times on Open Carry (June 7, 2008)
• Sebastian: The Root of Reasoned Discourse^TM (June 9, 2008)
• Sebastian: Open Carry Juvenile? (June 22, 2008)
• Say Uncle: In your face (June 23, 2008)
• Sebastian: The Open Carry Thing (June 23, 2008)
• Alan: More on Open Carry in Texas (June 23, 2008)
• Caleb: State Activism (July 22, 2008)
• Sebastian: Context Again (September 26, 2008)
• Sebastian: We’re A Political Minority, Not a Racial Minority (September 26, 2008)
• Sebastian: More on Open Carry (September 29, 2008)
• Sebastian: Open Carry Loss in Court (October 7, 2008)
• Sebastian: How to Lose Friends and Influence People (October 10, 2008)
• Sebastian: Context Again (October 19, 2008)
• Sebastian: Something for Us to Avoid (November 14, 2008)
• Alan: It's Time For Open Carry In Texas (December 1, 2008)
• Alan: More on Open Carry in Texas (December 3, 2008)
• Alan: Texas Open Carry Radio Spots (December 4, 2008)
• Lawdog: Texas Open Carry of Handguns (December 7, 2008)
• Alan: Lawdog on Texas open carry (December 8, 2008)
• Caleb & Breda: Open Carry (January 6, 2009)
• Sebastian: Working Together (February 2, 2009)
• Alan: Texas Open Carry Bleg (February 12, 2009)
• Caleb & Breda: More Open Carry (March 10, 2009)
• Sebastian: Take What You Can Get (March 15, 2009)
• Robb Allen: PSH – apparently it comes prepackaged with your welcome to college packet (April 3, 2009)
• Clayton Cramer: Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic (Also a very important paper for reasons other than open carry)
• Sebastian: Signaling and Carrying Firearms (April 7, 2009)
• Sebastian: Clarification on Concealed Carry (April 8, 2009)
• Clayton Cramer: Milwaukee Invites Lawsuits (April 22, 2009)
• Sebastian: Open Carry Issue in Pennsylvania (April 23, 2009)
• Robb Allen: Self defeating (June 5, 2009)
• Robb Allen: Open carry church event? Yup. Just a PR stunt (July 1, 2009)
• Kevin Baker: Open Carry ≠ Public Panic (August 8, 2009)
• Say Uncle: Open Carry (August 10, 2009)
• Robb Allen: As it should be (August 15, 2009)
• Caleb & Breda: Guns and Tea Parties (August 18, 2009)
• Ahab: Gun Nuts Radio: Guns are f***ing cool (August 19, 2009)
• Linoge: first open-carry experience (October 17, 2009)
• Caleb: Man does not break the law (August 17, 2009)
• Robb Allen: Disagreements amongst us (August 19, 2009)
• Breda: Turn off your TV. Do it now. (August 19, 2009)
• Sebastian: Views From Around the Blogosphere (August 19, 2009)
• Tamara: Important Public Service Announcement: (August 20, 2009)
• Alan: On Open Carry and Morality (August 20, 2009)
• Alan, Labrat, Stingray, and TD: Vicious Circle 15 (August 20, 2009)
• Robb Allen: You will respect my AUTHORITAH!!! (Updated) (September 21, 2009)
• Clayton Cramer: How To Lose Friends (October 1, 2009)
• Sebastian: Winning Hearts and Minds in Scranton (October 12, 2009)
• Robb Allen: Open carry is fine, so long as you don't do it where people can see you (October 12, 2009)
• Robb Allen: Who needs the Bradys (October 12, 2009)
• Eseell: Open Carry, Part the Whatever (October 12, 2009)
• Alan: Sebastian Zumbos Himself (October 12, 2009)
• Clayton Cramer: Whenever I Wonder If Anyone Reads My Shotgun News Columns... (October 13, 2009)
• Caleb: Controversy indeed (October 13, 2009)
• Caleb & Breda: Top 5 Rifles (October 13, 2009)
• Tamara: Yay! Controversy! (October 13, 2009)
• Robb Allen: Linoge harms the Second Amendment cause (October 17, 2009)
• Clayton Cramer: Open Carry in Banks--Not Smart (October 19, 2009)
• Alan, pdb, UJ, Robb and Jason: Vicious Circle 25 – Open Carry (October 23, 2009)
• Alan: Open Carry and Free Riders (October 23, 2009)
• Clayton Cramer: Openly Carrying Guns Can Be Unwise, Even When It's Legal (October 25, 2009)
• Sebastain: Clayton Cramer Clarifies His Position (October 25, 2009)
• Robb Allen: Stupid is as stupid does (October 25, 2009)
• The Duck: Another Open Carry Discussion (October 26, 2009)
• Lyle @ UltiMAK: More on the Practical Application of Principles (October 26, 2009)
• Ride Fast: Open carry. good for the cause (October 26, 2009)
• Sebastian: Quote of the Day (October 27, 2009)
• Sebastian: A Strategy Toward Acceptance (October 27, 2009)
• Brent: The Sheeple Bleat in Fear (October 28, 2009)
• Linoge: self-aggrandizement (October 29, 2009)
• Linoge: quote of the day (October 29, 2009)
• CTONE: Open carry righteousness (October 30, 2009)
• pdb: Open carry fail (November 2, 2009)
• Ride Fast: Open carry normalization (November 3, 2009)

** I have taken Handgun Retention & Disarming and highly recommend it. But as open carry advocates have pointed out data indicating private citizens are at risk of having their gun snatched is non-existent. If nothing else the class will give you the skills to take a gun from someone that is threatening innocent life with it. Good guys seldom threaten in the same way as bad guys. Either you draw and shoot or you draw and the bad guy withdraws. Hence disarming training is probably more important than rentention training.

If you take such a class bring gloves to protect your hands and wrists. Bring lotion to lubricate and soothe roughed up skin.

The Second Amendment Foundation, NRA, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Washington Arms Collectors filed suit against the city of Seattle (see all the SAF news release):

"Every time the anti-gunners want to push gun control, they say we are doing this for the children," said Alan Gottlieb with the Second Amendment Foundation. "It's almost like it's their lead banner every single time, no matter what."

They say the ban violates Washington State's long-standing preemption statute.

"The ban makes it impossible, under threat of criminal trespass penalty, to lawfully carry firearms for the protection of spouses, partners and children on public property where these citizens have a right to be," he said.

But there was some support for the ban at Green Lake.

"I don't know why anyone needs a gun at a playground or any place where there are kids around," said Brain Nevenhouse.

But for others, they say the need for protection is everywhere. One of those party to the suit is Bob Kennar who supervises parolees for the state. He carries his own gun, because some of the bad guys don't like him.

"It's in the back of my mind," Kennar said. "I don't lose sleep over it, but like the police I know there's a chance that could happen."

Kennar has carried a gun for 29 years. He says the city of Seattle can't tell him no.

Ray Carter is gay. He's a founder of the Seattle Chapter of Pink Pistols. He carries a .380 because he says gays are targets and police can't prevent that.

"They can show up in time to write the report and mop up the blood and maybe find out who did it," Carter said. "As a potential victim that doesn't do me a lot of good."

Carter and Kennar use parks and community centers They understand the desire to protect children, but say they need protection too.

Ray Carter is a Seattle area blogger who uses a pseudonym so I'll not provide the link to his blog. But I have known Ray since long before there were blogs. Ray has been a force in gun rights for many years. See for example this Seattle Time Editorial that mentions both Ray and I. It was at a pizza restaurant in Seattle where Ray, some other pro-gun people and I were planning our (political) attack against the anti-gun organization Washington CeaseFire who had been scoring some painful blows against our rights in the late 1990s. It was Ray who said we should call our little organization for Washington Cease Fear. It was while doing work for this group that I came up with my Jews in the Attic Test. That organization didn't thrive even though it still exists as a the Yahoo Group ceasefear. About a year after our founding and work on Capital Hill (see the Jews in the Attic Test web page) the Pink Pistols came out with essentially the same idea and took the nation by storm. Ray was a founding member of the Seattle Chapter of the Pink Pistols.

I'm not surprised he is taking point on this lawsuit.

In some of my training via Insights the instructor referred to the initial stages of a violent confrontation as being interviewed. The interview might be conducted in silence from a distance, it might be by asking you for the time or for "money for a cup of coffee", and it might only take a few seconds. But almost for certain the bad guy will conduct an "interview" of some type before attacking. In predator/prey terms it is the predator looking for easy prey. They want something that will be easy enough that they don't get hurt yet profitable enough to not be a waste of time for the benefit gained. A couple of cops in full uniform leaving the donut shop are seldom prey. Frail little old ladies, with a big purse, pushing a walker, alone on a dark street look like food.

Your goal is to fail the interview process so they look for some other prey. Your first line of defense is to be aware of your surroundings. Just noticing that you are being interviewed and letting them know that you noticed is usually enough to "fail the interview" as in this encounter Barb and I had. If you make it past the first stage of the interview you may have to engage in some escalation of force to defend yourself or other innocent life. This might involve retreat, taking a defensive or aggressive posture, display or use of pepper spray, or display or use of a weapon. This escalation could take place over the course of a fraction of a second or over a minute or more.

Gun Nut Caleb had an interview with a choir boy on Saturday and apparently passed the first stage of the interview and threw his coffee at the interviewer during a later stage.

I tell my students that they should always be alert and thinking, "If 'this' happened what should I do?" When you are walking down the sidewalk, when you are in the grocery store, when you are driving and stopped at a light, or wherever you are. Think about what could happen and how to solve the problem. Your hands are full with bags of groceries, or a child or three. You are strapped into a car, or you are pushing a shopping cart. These are real life situations, not the range with a paper bulls-eye target at 30 feet or even the attempt at "combat shooting" when well defined "bad guys" are rigidly fixed precisely 21 feet away with the "hostage" covering only the left half of their torso. The range time is essential practice but real life is different and you need to at least go through the effort to translate the range exercise into real life in your mind.

One of my "what if" scenarios solutions is where the contents of my hands (except for children) goes into air in the general direction of the attacker. Fast movement is exceedingly distracting. It is very difficult for your eyes and thought to not be drawn to movement. Putting material into the air should distract the attacker some from your drawing of a weapon. When the checkout line is long and I'm bored the thoughts extend to fantasy and the solution involves the can of baked beans bouncing off the head of the masked gunman holding up the clerk while I draw, double tap his cranium, then catch the can of beans returning from on high in my weak hand and proceed to scan for more threats before holstering and continuing through the check-out line.

Reality is not fantasy. Read how Caleb handled it and how it turned out. It probably wasn't how he expected such an encounter would go down but it certainly was good enough that the good guys can pat him on the back and say, "You did just fine."

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.

Winston Churchill
On formal declarations of war.
[As I was looking through my collection of quotes for some reason this one reminded me of the Threepers.

I considered using something about unicorn bacon that I heard in a recent Gun Nuts podcast but I thought this one was more appropriate. Unicorn bacon reminds me of Threepers too but that is more difficult to explain.--Joe]

First they came for the machine guns, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and who needs a machine gun to hunt with?

Then they came for the "assault weapons," and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700 and who needs an "assault weapon" to hunt with?

Then they came for the .50 caliber rifles, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and who wants to hunt with a .50 caliber rifle anyway (apart from those black powder nuts)?

Then they came for the semiautomatic handguns, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and who hunts with a pistol? (Though those big-bore hunting revolvers are kinda neat, in a sick way.)

Then they came for the rest of the semiautomatic rifles, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and anyone who needs more than one shot isn't a real hunter.

Then they came for the high-power sniper rifles; and even though my Remington 700 has a scope, and fires a round that will go through a car door, and I can hit the eye of an elk at 500 yards with it (not that I'm bragging or anything), the Second Amendment _says_ we can have guns for hunting, and I only use it one week a year for _hunting_.

But there was no one left to speak up for me, and they took it away.

John Hardin
November 14, 2008
The lament of the AHSA supporter
[I was reminded of this today when I was listening to Breda and Top of the Chain on Gun Nuts: Road show talking about going to GRPC and the discussion there about normalizing the ownership of "Evil Black Rifles".--Joe]

The FTC has declared they are the ethics police for bloggers:

Certainly, it seems like this is an update that’s time has come. While most well-run social media programs already include appropriate disclosure, there’s still no shortage of unscrupulous marketers using deceptive practices to sell products. Now, with the threat of serious fines, those who look to push the boundaries of ethical blogging will be doing so at their own risk.

I wonder if those advocating more government regulation are required to disclose their voting history, tax filings, and political donations.

As reported elsewhere Kim and Connie sent out some emails to announce their return to the Internet. Here is most of mine:

From the "Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Roam The Internet" department:

Connie and I have decided to explore this strange new technology called "radio." Starting on Saturday October 3rd, we will begin a weekend Internet radio show on BlogTalkRadio.com.

The show will run on Saturday and Sunday evenings, at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central. You can find a BlogTalkRadio widget to listen to our "preview" show at our new site: www.kimandconnie.com.

We need help getting this off the ground, and a link or mention from you would be very much appreciated.

...

Kim
P.S. I still think this Internet thing is just a passing fad. Soon we'll be back to quills and parchments, as it should be.

There is also a possibility that Kim will be attending Boomershoot 2010. The stars have to align properly for him and a position has to open up. But the odds are probably better than 50-50.

Bitter and Sebastian are teasing us on Twitter:

bitterb Oh wow. I just did a little Googling and found a pretty sizeable story on MAIG. Wait until tomorrow kiddies...

SebastianSH Sometimes in politics, the prairie dog sticks his head out of the hole and presents an easy shot. Tomorrow we eat prairie dog stew!

I'm looking forward to it. I expect it will appear here.

Update: It's out, "That’s right, Nacheman admitted that in his position with MAIG, he also represents the Brady Bunch and that they both seek to accomplish the same agenda."

The final topic we got into was what he thought the biggest threats to the Second Amendment were, and what we, as bloggers, could do about it.  His response was that he did not feel that the biggest threat to the Second Amendment came from groups like the Brady Campaign, VPC, or the now defunct Second Amendment Research Center run by Saul Cornell.  He believes the biggest threat to the Second Amendment comes from our own extremists and lunatics, and that the biggest way we could contribute as bloggers is in confronting that cancer within our community.

Sebastian
September 15, 2009
Mr. Gura Goes to Reno
[I think it is extremely telling that the Brady Campaign and VPC are not considered a significant threat. They are headed for the dustbins of history.--Joe]

Hanging with Alan Gura. I’ll tell him you said ‘hi’.

Say Uncle
September 11, 2009
Cool
[If I were there (the Gun Blogger Rendezvous) I would say "Thank you!" After that I'd probably be tongue tied. What meaningful thing can you say to someone like that?--Joe]

I found out a few minute ago that daughter Kim has Swine flu. She was at PAX last weekend and they are reporting others got sick there too.

Son James was also there and got sick as well but hasn't been tested. He is feeling better but Kim is very sick with low blood pressure and the doctor wanting to give her an IV.

Barb spent quite a bit of time around Kim while she was sick before coming over to Seattle to see me yesterday. Tomorrow we leave to celebrate our anniversay (33 years last month) near Mount Hood and planned to do a lot of hiking. If we get sick those plans will change.

Gun bloggers are probably now very happy we are not going to be attending the Rendezvous.

Update: Kim is feeling much better this (Thursday September 10^th) morning.

I didn't do as much blogging this weekend and yesterday as I normally would have. I had extra things to do at work the last few days. Plus I went out to the Boomershoot range and played in the dirt (pictures to follow) all day on Saturday.

At work yesterday afternoon I gave a short presentation and demo (actually I had Gang do the demo since his demo was completed and mine wasn't) despite mangling a few sentences got laughs and applause at all the right spots and I should be able to give blogging a little more time tonight.

I really want to say something about "Prags" v. "threepers". It appears I accidently lit a match near a powder keg with this post (see here and here). Maybe late tonight I'll have something...

This is mostly to the other bloggers that went to Summer Camp with me last year but I thought it might be of more general interest as well.

When I went to the range last night I was wearing my Blackwater USA (recently rebranded to "U.S. Training Center") cap and t-shirt. I've worn the hat there before but never the shirt. The staff was extraordinarily friendly to me. They had a big smile on their face and didn't ask to see my ID card and had my stack of free targets in their hand and extended to me before I even reached the counter.

Has anyone else noticed people treating you differently when you are wearing Blackwater branded clothes?

Although I was happy not to have talked myself into a corner on the show there were some things I would have liked to have said differently, explained, or expanded on.

First off, sorry about the bit about asking if you wanted ketchup or relish on your hot dog. I removed my head set and held it away but James' voice apparently came through even though he was a good ten feet from the microphone.

Sometimes being extremely literal is to my detriment (it also has advantages but that is a different story). When Caleb asked which blog posts I was most proud of I did not include The Jews In The Attic Test because that isn't a blog post. That is a web page on a different website written long before I had a blog. Caleb didn't let me get away with not mentioning it however and posted a link to it in the chat room. See also Breda's post about the other bloggers "greatest hits".

In the last few seconds of the show Caleb asked what we bloggers would like other bloggers to do differently. I could have spent a minute or two on the topic instead of 15 seconds (or whatever it was). In fact at Gun Blogger Rendezvous II (October 2007) I had asked for an hour for a discussion of that type. Mike said I could bring it up during a particular time slot and when the time came he pressed me pretty hard and I declined to elaborate. I just didn't have the idea whittled down to it's essence in a way that would come across as coherent. The basis of my thought is this:

• We all have something that we do well in the blogosphere--most likely because we are passionate about it
• Each of us have a niche that is at least somewhat different from everyone else
• If we can recognize and articulate what it is that we do well and want to accomplish we that will probably enable us to do what we do better

Microsoft used to have the mission statement "A computer on every desk and in every home". It is now "At Microsoft, our mission and values are to help people and business throughout the world realize their full potential". I've also heard it expressed as "Your potential, our passion."

I think every blogger should have a mission statement. It doesn't have to be posted on the banner or part of the name of the blog. It doesn't even have to be written down. I just has to be something that the blogger refers to when he or she is thinking about when they are working on that "really great post" or when they are searching for something to blog about. "What is my mission here?" should have an answer that can be articulated even if it is done silently and rarely.

I made some suggestions on the show and here they are (perhaps modified a bit) along with some others. Can you guess whose blog they might refer to?

• Be the best aggregator with minimal fluff and maximum coverage
• Educate people on the philosophical foundations and practical reasons for liberty
• Make the Brady Campaign the social equivalent of the KKK
• Mock the arrogant, the pretentious, and the criminal
• Have no shame but shame those that need it
• Proselytize the shooting sports and self-defense
• Preserve our future through knowing our history
• Politics are complex so explain and enable people to be effective
• America's most aggressive defender of firearms ownership (from an existing website--guess who)

There might be multiple mission statements for a given blog but with more you increase the risk of not being able to succeed in any one of them.

Think about it. And just because I might have suggested something you think was for your blog doesn't mean you can't tell me I'm way off base that your blog is about something entirely different. My perception, my error.

John Fogh has started blogging. John is an instructor at Insights.

I also have quoted him here and here.

I was invited to be on Blog Talk Radio tonight. I'll be talking (or maybe mostly just listening) with a bunch of Gun Nuts. The official description of tonights show is (links added):

Joining us tonight will be a veritable cornucopia of blogging awesome, as LabRat, Stingray, Kevin Baker, Joe Huffman, and Robb Allen will be joining us to discuss blogging and current events. Don't miss it!

Caleb also has a post up about the show.

Update: Breda says, like herding cats. She also says, "notorious for their independent, quick-witted, and sometimes even contrary characters". The others on the panel are definitely very quick-witted I won't think of witty things to say until an hour after the show is over. However, Barb will vouch for me being "notorious" and "contrary".

Everyone knows what Russian Roulette is. But have you heard the joke about French Roulette? Yes, there is a real game by this name but many decades ago it was also a joke involving Bridget Bardot.

The post from Tamara this morning reminded me of the joke. I have modified it by substituting a different person for Bardot and it becomes "Gun Blogger Roulette" instead of French Roulette.

Q: Do you know how to play Gun Blogger Roulette?
A: Six guys take showers and you give them each a towel when they get out--one of the towels has Roberta X. in it.

Yeah, I know. I'm risking a lot with that.

It's all in good fun, right? Right? Please?

Senator Ted Kennedy died yesterday.

Posts from gun bloggers on this topic:

• Mary Jo Kopechne's killer finally called to account.
• Ted Kennedy Est Mortuus
• Not Going to Have Ted Kennedy to Kick Around Anymore
• No loss
• Ted Kennedy is dead
• Sic Semper Tyrannis
• Ted Kennedy Dead
• I’m not going to say anything
• Breda (no titles on her posts)

Kennedy was a vehement foe of gun owners. I gave him a little slack because two of his brothers were murdered by people with guns. But he used that all up, and more, with his treatment of women in general and Kopechne in particular.

Update: More gun bloggers have something to say:

• MAY HE BURN IN HELL FOREVER....
• Sileo In Abyssus
• Am I a bad person?
• Teddy K passes away
• Quote of the day:
• another dead criminal
• My only thoughts on Ted Kennedy
• Big, fat hairy deal.
• Teddy, RIP

We've known for several years (see posts here, here, here, and here) that we were winning on the gun control battlefield. The expiration of the "assault weapon" ban and the Heller decision were just the two best known battles. There were thousands, perhaps millions if you count the wins of the hearts and minds of neighbors, friends, relatives, and co-workers.

I recognize open carry is on the path to victory but I figured it would be in the form of open carry at picnics, highway litter cleanup, and maybe as an organization at parades. People need to be desensitized to gun ownership. And concealed carry just doesn't help that much. When and how we do that desensitization can matter a great deal.

I've been open carrying in a few circumstances for a couple months now (here and here). There has been no obvious notice taken and certainly no adverse effects have occurred. Yet, had anyone asked my advice about open carry at a political protest about the nationalization of health care I would have told them I didn't see any good could come out of it. Obviously these people didn't ask for my advice or take similar advice from someone else.

In my opinion these people took a huge risk. They were throwing the dice in a game that affected tens of millions of people in this country. I'm not exactly risk adverse, after all I play with explosives for the fun of it and even have my children help make the explosives. But I wouldn't have taken the risk they did.

And what happened? It's as if we had been slowly advancing against the enemy. We were a little surprised to win the battle on carry in National Parks and we almost won a battle for nationwide reciprocity we couldn't have imagined even coming up for a vote had we thought about it after the election last November. But the enemy was still putting up resistance and we thought they were still formidable opponents. Then they collapsed. The White House (or Red Shed as a commenter recently called it) said it was no big deal to open carry. Public opinion is affected by statements from the White House. Having the most anti-gun administration in U.S. history say it's no big deal to open carry is huge.

We knew recent poll results showed us winning. But I thought that would take time to translate into our enemies fleeing before us. But it appears now that the brave actions of a few open carry advocates broke through the empty shell of the anti-gun organizations and there are going to be a lot of Sad Pandas tonight and people looking at their bottles of cheap rum.

Now, more than ever, we have a chance to push these bigots into political extinction. When they are on the run they have their backs to us and cannot organize and put up effective resistance. We need to acquire the proper state of mind and pound them as hard as we can as fast as we can. There are still pockets of resistance in New Jersey, Chicago, California, etc. but we may have just won the war.

Update: This post just got linked to by Glenn Reynolds. I would like to suggest my new visitors also look at some of my other posts:

• What TSA really stands for
• Just One Question
• My Jews In the Attic Test

Thanks visiting.

It's not exactly a research paper with lots of data but it is a plausible hypothesis:

One of the most intimate forms of loving, it’s far from unsexy. When it comes to excreting buckets of moisture from your skin, wetter can be better. While many would wrinkle their noses at the notion of an antiperspirant meltdown, the action it can inspire captures sexy in its most animalistic form.

...

So who would’ve thought sweaty sex could be sexy and good for you? There are a number of benefits to working up a sweat; provided you both have a clean bill of health and you stay hydrated.

Sweaty sex:

— Means more calories and fat are being burned during a vigorous sex session;
— Allows for more slithery sex as your bodies slide all over one another;
— Makes for a body suctioning effect that enhances feelings of “we’re one” during sex;
— Offers new sensations that appease our need for variety, like salty kisses;
— Puts a twist in your routine as it taps into your inner instinct of raw, uninhibited sex;
— Can have the two of you resembling the wet sleekness of “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit models, with slicked back hair or shiny skin;
— Releases more of our natural scents, particularly those around the groin, which can be an aphrodisiac, even if on a subconscious level.

I'll put it on Dr. Joe's list of things that need further first hand (so to speak) research.

I'd tell you which blogger this reminds me of because she very recently mentioned both sex and a sweaty experience on her blog--but then I would have to kill myself.

Via Dave Hardy.

The government is not allowed to:

5 US Code §552a(e)(7) commands that any Federal agency

"(7) maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity;"

This wouldn't protect some blogger making viable threats against a politician (and rightly so). But it could be used to punish someone in the Federal Government (and rightly so) for keeping records of your peaceful opposition to proposed legislation (if that link goes dead here is a saved version of the page from Whitehouse.gov as of August 8, 2009 at 2315 PDT).

This makes sense. I mean, email is kind of like the blogosphere in much the same way that the U.S. Mail is like The American Spectator. After all, they're both full of words printed on paper, right?

Tamara K.
August 4, 2009
Just not getting it.
[Someone should print out a copy of the Internet for this "Jim" guy and let him read the whole thing. Then maybe he would understand the difference--or at least he wouldn't annoy anyone (see also here) for a while.--Joe]

...“Brady PAC Illinois” has just released its first semi-annual report of contributions and expenditures.

Their first fund-raiser was held in Chicago, which makes sense; Chicago is one of only a few pockets of serious anti-gun sentiment in Illinois. 91 out of 102 Illinois counties have now passed a “Pro 2A Resolution” that clearly states their opposition to all future gun control efforts in the state. Obviously Cook County is one of the 11 lagging behind on gun rights; the same fund-raisers held anywhere else in Illinois would likely have lost money. The question is, how well did they do in Chicago?

It can be hard to tell from the minimum information available in such reports, but here are the highlights of the Brady report:

• Brady PAC Illinois reported that it raised $27,150 in its first six months.
• Brady PAC Illinois further reported that it paid out $26,517.14 in expenses during the same period.
• This leaves Brady PAC Illinois with $632.86 to show for its first six months.

Don Gwinn

I have two reasons for making this post.

1) He's wrong. Robb is a smart guy and almost always comes up with the correct answer after a few milliseconds of deep thought. I've seen him in action and was impressed. But this time he is wrong. And we all know that if someone on the Internet is wrong you have to do something about it.

Sure, I am pretty proud of my letter and post to Senator Murray, but it was simple and easy for me. My brain takes everything literally. It takes effort for me to translate what people say into what they mean. For example; If someone were to say "It's a piece of cake", "Drier than a popcorn fart", or "Finer than frog hair" I have do a little mental translation. I have to think about the image given and try to fit it into the context, find out it fails, then search for alternate meanings before I know what they meant. When Senator Murray wrote, "Legislation to regulate the use of firearms is and should remain primarily a state issue." I took that literally and applied it to her known position on gun control and it was like she had written she had walked home from Mars last night or a T-Rex had eaten her brain shortly after she was born. It just didn't make any sense and it was blindingly obvious she didn't mean what she wrote.

She had just came up with a justification for doing what she wanted to do. She apparently gives no thought to principals, philosophy, or the Constitution. She just votes the way she feels. Pointing that out to her was fun but it took nearly no effort on my part. I do that sort of thing all the time.

You should see what I do when I'm given a specification to review at work. My co-workers laugh at me when I point things out to them but they also thank me and keep sending me specifications to review. Barb says they shouldn't encourage me because she has to live with me. Apparently having someone point out all their errors and contradictions starts to get tiresome after a few decades. I can't imagine why. I figure it is just the price she has to pay to approach perfection. But somehow she doesn't see it that way.

Robb said it was, "Snark that even Tam should find inspiring". I'm sorry, but I can't even come within ranging distance to Tamara. She puts together disparate ideas together in incredibly novel ways. She connects things that I couldn't imagine connecting and makes the joining totally seamless and completely appropriate. I couldn't do the stuff she does if my life depended on it. What sort of brain can do that? I can imagine writing a computer program to do what I do. But what sort of algorithm would do things like the following?

When I design my dream home, it's not going to be visitable by a SEAL team with air support, much less a lone individual in a wheelchair; I'm thinking barbed wire and tiger pits, not ramps and braille on the doorbell. It's not that I have a problem with visitors gimpier than myself; it's visitors in general that make me want to release the hounds.

"Avon lady in the wire! Blow your claymores!"

Visita-what?

Or:

In his article, Westen proudly displays his passport from Bizarroland, a place superficially similar to planet Earth, but where drooling idiots with hearts full of hate run amok absent guidance from their spiritual and intellectual betters in politics and academe.

 ...

I was waiting for the lizardoids to show up around paragraph seven or so and symbolically rape Gaia while carrying off Al Gore to be a slave on their homeworld, Karlrovia.

*sniff* It's a thing of beauty.

That just can't be the result of a mere mortal.

I am not worthy to be in the same plane of existence as Tam let alone be an inspiration for her.

2) I'll bet you forgot there were two reasons. I didn't. My brain wouldn't let me.

There aren't many things I fear, but being a snark target for Tam is one of those. I rank it worse than a 0300 SWAT team visit but not as bad as being burned alive or The Wrath of Barb.

I just want Tam to know that she doesn't need to take me down a notch or two just because Sharp as a Marble Robb made a mistake.

I received a request for help from James in the UK. Here was my response (actually sent in two pieces, but combined here):

I would like to suggest you follow the links in the post Just One Question. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reviewed a number of studies and was unable to conclude gun control made people safer. That review, and the studies they looked at, are probably the most reliable data points.

The following links are not to statistics. The CDC study would be the best reference I have for that.

I don't have it but I think this book would be very useful:

http://www.joyceleemalcolm.com/books/guns_and_violence

I've read a few excerpts and it seemed quite good.

This might also be worthwhile:

http://www.joyceleemalcolm.com/books/keep_and_bear_arms

For more background and potential ways to approach the problem take a look at these:

http://blog.joehuffman.org/SearchView.aspx?q=%22James%20Kelly%22
http://blog.joehuffman.org/CategoryView,category,PlacesWithoutGuns.aspx
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/britain-is-capital-of-crime-says-us-tv-channel-715251.html
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html

Good luck!

Update:

Gun control also violates my Jews in the Attic Test.

Markadelphia questioning my logical reasoning ability is like Helen Keller questioning my taste in music.

Robb Allen
July 4, 2009
In a comment to It's the End of the World as We Know It
[Markadelphia, for those that don't know, is a liberal who frequently makes comments at Kevin's place.

I am of the opinion that with the quote above Robb actually somewhat understates the situation.--Joe]

The View From North Central Idaho currently comes in at number seven. But there are a lot of gun blogs not listed.

It's no surprise that Say Uncle comes in at #1.

H/T to Say Uncle and Traction Control.

Apparently I've run across another novice trying to run with the big dogs. I posted about him earlier today and he let my comment go through then responded with this:

This is what really gets me about people who believe that the Second Amendment means that we have a constitutional right to own a gun. I provided a whole bunch of statistics in this post about the cost of our love affair with guns in terms both of money and the impact on our lives, but yet, you choose not to address any of that. Instead, you pose a question which is completely unanswerable, as if that’s supposed to render everything else I’ve described as irrelevant, which it doesn’t by any means (and by the way, I have no desire to waste my time trying to find an instance like the one you describe).

As noted here, “in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court departed from over 100 years of judicial precedent and held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for self-defense purposes unconnected with service in a militia (in the Heller ruling).”

Even the Cruikshank case you cite states that, “The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution.”

Individual states and municipalities should be allowed to regulate guns as they see fit, but I will never believe that there’s a Second Amendment right to own a gun (and, in Cruikshank, it sounds like Chief Justice Morrison Waite didn’t think there was either).

I responded with the following which apparently went through without moderation:

What really gets me about people trying to infringe up on our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is they only look at the downside of gun ownership. They refuse to look at the benefits. There are between 800,000 and 2,500,000 defensive gun uses in the U.S. each year. Most of those were without a shot being fired resulting in no injuries to anyone.

Another thing that gets me about people trying to infringe on our rights is they include legally and morally justified deaths and injuries from successful defensive uses of guns in their totals of dead and injured. They even include justified police shootings!

If you had read the actual decision you would have found that the question of an individual right was supported 9-0 in Heller. The 5-4 decision was about whether the D.C. law infringed upon that right.

If you had read the very next line in the Cruikshank decision you would have discovered "Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." The right to keep and bear arms is a preexisting right. The Second Amendment is a guarantee that it will not be infringed.

If you "will never believe that there's a Second Amendment right to own a gun" then I guess there really isn't any more to discuss. Facts and legal decisions are irrelevant to you. But I just have to ask, are you also of the same opinion in regard to the 13th Amendment as well? Should individual states and municipalities be allowed to regulate slaves as they see fit?

If you carefully read his comment above you will notice he has announced phase one of "Reasoned Discourse" (graphic stolen from Robb Allen):

Also note that he says Just One Question "is completely unanswerable". Nice of him to admit that right up front.

I will not be surprised if phase two, deleting or blocking of comments, occurs shortly.

Have fun with the new toy I found for you guys. Play nice now. Be sure to share your toy with others.

Update June 10, 0800: More comments are coming in. His inability to pay attention to detail is remarkable.

Scott:

Here’s some statistics on deaths and injuries caused by medical care: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm
(with links to supporting documents)

783,936 total iatrogenic deaths annually; 98,000 specifically from medical errors. From these numbers would you make a case that we should ban doctors?

When you look only at the “cost of our love affair with guns” and not the benefits you’re making a case for banning doctors due to the harm they cause.

Another question for you: are all deaths by gunfire bad?

When armed robbers, muggers, psychotic ex-boyfriends, etc. are shot and killed by their intended victims – is that a bad thing? Those people are counted in the statistics you cite.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but anecdotes are useful in understanding the data. See http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html for defensive gun use anecdotes.

doomsy:

I took a look at the claytoncreamer site you linked to, and you’re right; you’re talking about anecdotes of people who defend themselves with their guns versus the statistics I presented in my post. I don’t know if the number of people in this country using guns to defend themselves matches the number of suicides/accidental shootings, but I have a feeling they don’t (have to leave it up to someone else who has the time to compile those stats, if they can).

I could find stories of accidental victims of gun violence if I had the time or desire, but Bob Herbert already noted them (happens all too often in Philadelphia, for example, followed by the predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth while nothing changes). And concerning the claytoncreamer site, I have no issue at all if the guns the people used to defend themselves were purchased legally.

Oh, and your suggestion that I would be in favor of banning doctors is so silly that it doesn’t deserve a response.

doomsy:

OK, I just saw the comment including the link to the Keszler study citing (allegedly) two million instances of defensive gun use. Good for you – you made your point.

Just make sure you communicate this information to the families and friends of police officers killed in the line of duty because they’re outmanned by thugs, or families and friends of school children killed by stray fire from drug dealers. God forbid that they impugn your right to own any gun you want whenever you want.

doomsy:

Sorry, I meant the Gary Kleck study – and speaking of which, you might want to look at this.

Joe:

That criticism of Kleck's study was published in 1997. A lot of followup studies have been done to address the concerns expressed there and elsewhere. The results keep coming up very close to the same.

Regardless of the actual number any honest advocacy of restrictions on weapons must take into account the benefits as well as the harm attributed to free access. Hence my Just One Question which you say you have no interest in answering.

I therefore can only conclude public safety is not your real objective. Just what is your objective with advocating restrictions on this specific enumerated right?

Update June 10, 0910: Phase two of Reasoned Discourse has been implemented:

Not Found

Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.

Update June 10, Final: I found his deleted post in the Google Cache for future reference. It doesn't include the comments however. The above and the comment here are probably all but one or two.

I know the Brady Campaign people sometimes read the gun blogs, including mine, so maybe they actually are listening to some of their critics. From todays blog post by Paul Helmke:

Keeping this in mind, there is an immediate economic and public health crisis in America that, so far, both the President and Congress have chosen to ignore: approximately 12,000 gun homicides, 17,000 gun suicides, 650 accidental gun deaths, plus 70,000 non-fatal gun injuries occur every year in this country.

Do you notice anything unusual about those numbers? They are breaking out the suicides and accidents from the homicides. This is not their normal modus operandi. Usually it's just "30000 gun deaths per year".

It's a step in the right direction Paul. Thanks.

Now if you would just break out the justified and praiseworthy shootings we might be able to have a "meaningful dialog" about the utility of guns in society.

I have listened to all 11 episode of the Vicious Circle podcasts now. Most of them were in two five hour stretches. Shortly after listening I was fairly pleased. But now I'm starting to hate it--for several days I have had this earworm of the music they use.

Will a trip to the range without hearing protection rid me of it? Or am I going to have to use a couple pounds of Boomerite?

Alan Gura will be attending.

That's the equivalent of having someone like Stevie Nicks showing up at my high school prom! And like my high school prom, I won't be attending GBR IV. [Heavy sigh]

I listened to all (I only had time for half of #7 which I had previously heard) the Vicious Circle podcasts on my way to/from Idaho this weekend. The most common topic is guns with some porn and technology discussions thrown in. My kind of stuff!

With very little structure, mediocre production quality, and a fair amount of rambling it's never going to win any awards. But I enjoyed it. It certainly was much better than merely listening to road noise.

In some episodes (especially #8, We be hating) it sort of reminded me of gossipy Jr. High girls whispering to each other about someone else behind their back. And then there was another than made perhaps a few too many "short jokes" for me to be entirely comfortable with it (and I'm not short). But there wasn't really anything I hadn't said in private conversations before. But I wouldn't make those sort of conversations public.

I'll be adding more to my Zune as they come out for further entertainment while on the road.

Full disclosure:

#7, Boomershoot 2009, was very favorable about Boomershoot. Late in #5 a favorable mention of somethings I have said appears to be at least partial inspiration for episode #6. I think there was another favorable mention or two of me in some of the episodes as well.

I don't believe these significantly affected my opinion of the podcasts but I thought you should know they might have.

Did you know that some gun bloggers had to get ATF approval?

Yes, it's true. Here is a picture of some of them.

I made a comment on the CSM article about gun bloggers from yesterday. It hasn't made it through the moderation process yet so I'm posting here as well:

Here is a blatant example of [what] mostlygenius is talking about. At the end of the story, which is presented as a news article, is a notice that it was written by the Brady Campaign.

Susan Gill, it's a logical hypothesis that more gun control would result in a safer society but the facts don't support it. This is the basis of my Just One Question post. Before you advocate for more restrictions on firearms you need to answer Just One Question:

"Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?"

We have many, many examples of gun control in every state and in every country. You would think that with all those experiments in gun control that social scientists and criminologists would have data showing some benefits to gun control. No such reliable data exists.

As constitutional lawyer and criminologist Don Kates said, "The gun control debate is not really about criminology but rather about bigotry."

Susan, I'll bet you have never fired a gun and perhaps don't even think you know anyone who owns a firearm. I work in the Seattle area and would be glad to take you to the range to see what guns are all about. I'm a certified NRA firearms instructor and about 70% of my students have been women. See for yourself what the gun culture is all about rather than what you imagine it to be. Base your opinion on first hand facts rather "news articles" from organizations that are the 21^st century equivalent of the KKK advocating for the elimination of a specific enumerated right.

Contact me via my blog (voted one of the top ten gun blogs of 2008) and I'll supply the guns, ammo, and range fees.

Update May 18, 2009: There are 79 comments to the CSM article now. Mine has not shown up but I only counted two that are anti-gun and the rest are pro-gun so I cannot claim my comment was blocked because of the nature of my viewpoint. Perhaps there was a technical problem or it simply got lost in the flood of comments.

I couldn't be in Phoenix with all the cool kids so I went to all the stores in town that sold ammunition and/or components. Here is what I found:

• Walmart
  • Shotgun primers only
  • A little bit of brass and I bought all the .45 ACP brass they had
  • Virtually no handgun ammo
  • Virtually no powder
• Tri-State
  • Lots of rifle and shotgun ammo
  • Lots of .40 S&W ammo
  • Three boxes of .45 ACP ammo but I bought two of them adhering to Tamara's etiquette
  • Don't carry reloading components
• Big Five
  • Don't carry reloading components
  • Virtually no handgun ammo
  • Some rifle ammo
• Sure Shot
• Lots of powder
• Lots of used 9mm and .40 S&W brass
• Shotgun primers only
• Virtually no handgun ammo
• Some rifle ammo

About half of Tri-State's rifle ammo and in the foreground 2/3s of the .45 ACP ammo for sale in the city.

Apparently Barb called ahead for me. But I didn't see any gun I really wanted except for the AR-50A1 and there was no indication Barb would allow me to buy the ammo to feed it.

Sure Shot had lots of powder and 9mm and .40 S&W brass.

Sebastian, Kevin, and others were quoted in the Christian Science Monitor today after being interviewed last night in Phoenix.

Bitter pulled The Josh Sugarmann Endorsement out of that article.

Great job guys! It makes me wish, even more, that I was there.

The pictures from Kevin create a great longing in me.

This year I decided to have a Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day. If you were a gun blogger you could show up on Thursday and get a behind the scenes tour and help (with the proper ATF paperwork) or watch the explosives being made. As it turned out most of it consisted of me standing around and telling stories. I had hoped they would have some fun ideas for doing things with the explosives like putting them in the water and/or mud, making craters, or blowing holes in old logs or some such thing. But everyone seemed to have a good time anyway, even after putting out the fire from the fireball demo.

Here is the list of Boomershoot Gun Bloggers and their posts about the event who were in attendence for at least part of Boomershoot (arranged by their shooting position on the line):

• Ry Jones (#1)
  • Moment of detonation
  • What can we learn from that?
  • Boomershoot Day 2
  • Calm down kthx
  • Somewhere, Petrdoubt is crying.
  • Made it back.
  • Boomershoot Sunday
  • Next year, it will be harder.
  • New worst injury at Boomershoot
  • Tango Down CS
• Benjamin (#2)
• Lyle at UltiMAK (#4, co-blogger here with me)
• Alan Andrews (#20)
  • Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day
  • Easy Shot
  • Boomershoot 2009 Fireball
  • Boomershoot Slacking
  • View from the hotel room window - Orofino, ID
  • Welcome to Orofino
  • The OTHER squeee! you heard was me.
  • Boomershoot 2009 - The Day
  • Through the Scope at Boomershoot 2009
  • Shooting the Anvil - Boomershoot 2009
  • Looking down on Orofino, ID
  • Dam!
  • Bloggers At Boomershoot 2009
• ErnestThing (#25)
  • Boomershoot 2009 (Added May 11, 22:10)
• JD (#25)
  • Boomershoot
  • bit of this, bit of that
  • I’ll just leave this here…
  • T-Minus
  • T-Minus (yes, a different post with the same title)
  • Boomershoot - Take Off, 4/22
  • Consternation
  • Boomershoot 4/23 - Media Day
  • Hardware
  • Boomershoot - Field Fire
  • Boomershoot Main Event
  • postcard
• Derek (#26)
  • Did I forget anything?
  • Boomershoot 2009 – Travel Day 1
  • Boomershoot 2009 – Travel Day 2, Arrival
  • Boomershoot 2009 – Day 3, Gun Blogger Day
  • Boomershoot 2009 – Day 4
  • Boomershoot 2009 – Day 5
  • Boomershoot 2009 – Day 6
  • Boomershoot 2009 – Day 7
• David (#27)
  • Boomershoot Prep Pics
  • More Boomershoot Prep
  • Less than 12 hours to go…
  • Boomershoot Dinner Raffle Prize
  • Back from Boomershoot
  • New Office Decoration
  • My Favorite Boomershoot 2009 Photo So Far
  • Trib Update
  • Triggerfinger and the Boomer Everyone’s Talking About
  • How I Broke Squeaky’s Nose
  • Derek and his prize from the Boomershoot Dinner raffle
• Bonnie (#29, sort of, she left early Sunday morning and someone else took her position)
  • Things DID happen. But first, a post about Boomershoot.
  • GAH.
  • Home.
  • Boomershoot 2009 - Epic Post #1 (Wednesday/Thursday)
  • Yes, I broke my nose. No, I don’t look like someone beat me up.
  • Spokane to Orofino
  • Friday
  • Boomershoot 2009 - Epic Post #2 (Friday)
  • THE NOSE STORY. *UPDATED* with David’s side of things.
  • Party Foul at Trib’s Place
  • The last of the photos people actually care about…
  • The long ride home.
• Aaron Neal (#50)
  • Home from Boomershoot '09
  • Some Boomershoot stuff
  • Boomershoot - the Journey
  • Boomershoot - the good stuff
  • Boomershoot - More Good Stuff
  • Boomershoot - Ponderings and People
  • Boomershoot - More Good Folks
• Barron Barnett (#54)
  • Boomershoot 2009
• Matthew (#61)
  • It's off to see the Wizard...
  • Boomershoot 2009: Media Day
  • Boomershoot 2009: Precision Rifle Clinic Day 1
  • Boomershoot 2009 High Intensity Event
  • Boomershoot 2009: Opening Ceremonies
  • Boomershoot 2009: Boomers with handguns
  • Launching the Anvil
• Kevin Baker (#74)
  • Another Trip to the Range
  • Range Report: I've Got My Boomershoot Load
  • If Someone Had Told Me a Year Ago...
  • Oh Thank Jeebus, We're Here!
  • How Cool is THIS?
  • Quick Post
  • Travel Report
  • HOME!
  • BOOMERSHOOT!
• George (#75)
  • Twi-nighter?
  • In crew rest
  • Boomblogging I
  • Boomerblogger II
  • Boomerfreezing III
  • Boomerblogging IV - Send it!
  • Boomershooting for real, Ch. V
  • Boomershoot wrap-up
  • Boomershoot photo post
• Earl
  • if I wanted to see the West, just go East
  • If I knew it all I wouldn't be on the road and so alive!
  • It's already Saturday, my library is closed...
  • Sometimes I really do well, and others...
  • Upon Reflection I am not as represented...
• Bill Waite
• Kris
  • Photo Friday
• Xenia Joy (Official Boomershoot photographer)
  • Day 217
  • - 365
  • - 365 (yes, another post with the same title)
• Joe Huffman (Boomershoot Event Director)

Thanks to all the bloggers that attended, posted wonderful stuff, and took thousands of pictures.

If I've overlooked a blogger or some posts let me know and I'll make the corrections. Thanks.

Update: I've made a couple updates since the original posting. I added a section for Kris and another post to Aaron's list.

Update2: I added a link to ErnestThing's (#25) post.

Update3: I added some more links from Matthew (#61).

Update4 (May 18): Another link to Aaron Neal's list of posts (#50).

I get a number of rewards from and it's hard to enumerate them all or say which is at the top of the list but things like this have rank right up there:

Domain Name		(Unknown)
IP Address		204.97.104.# (New York State Assembly/NYSERNET)
ISP		Sprint
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  New York City  :  Albany Lat/Long  :  42.6706, -73.7791 (Map) Distance  :  2,113 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution  :  1024 x 768 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		May 7 2009 11:38:42 am
Last Page View		May 7 2009 11:38:42 am
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...born five point plan
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		richard aborn five point plan
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2009/05/05/PlatformOfABigot.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2009/05/05/PlatformOfABigot.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		May 7 2009 2:38:42 pm
Visit Number		499,572

Someone at the New York State Assembly in Albany did a Google search for "richard aborn five point plan" and found my post explaining why Richard Aborn, candidate for District Attorney in Manhattan, is a bigot.

What were the odds of me getting that viewpoint to that person or persons in a position of power and hundreds (or more--I get about visits from about 45K unique IPs per month) of others with so little effort prior to the Internet and the existence of blogs?

There is talk in this post (and some behind the scenes email) about having a "Gun Blogger Invitational" match. There is a poll on Caleb's post and lots of comments. Robb Allen has his own thoughts on the topic as well.

Check them out and give your own suggestions.

I just finished listening to Alan's (and Squeaky and PDB's) podcast on Boomershoot 2009. It was nice. I've been reading all the various posts and looking at all the pictures everyone being posted but the podcast was something a little different and I really liked it.

At the Boomershoot dinner I promised I would post a list of all the bloggers in attendance and I will do that (and more) soon. That will probably happen this Saturday when I have some time to do the job right.

There are many recurring themes among the left.  Then there are mantras for every leftist, but one that gets passed around, modified, recycled and reused a lot is the "America is evil for having actually used the A-bomb" meme.  The jihadists have been using that one, as have socialist and communist governments around the world, for years.  At least someone agrees with John Stewart besides a few pimple-faced high school students watching Comedy Central on their parents' TVs. 

Whittle does a wonderful job of refuting this blatant ignorance.  "Ooh! Ouch!"

Watch the whole thing.  Whittle didn't even have to mention what the Japanese did in China.

I almost feel sorry for Stewart.  Almost, but then I have to think that surely he knew all this stuff beforehand, and was just playing out a shtick on his show.  That would be giving him the benefit of the doubt I suppose.  Maybe he really is that vacuous.

The left however will be clinging to this worn-out meme for generations to come, no matter how many times it's proven wrong.  As they say; there's sucker born every minute.

One of the things that came up while I was telling Boomershoot stories yesterday was my first successful creation of a reactive target. I told them that I got very excited about it and there was a video. No one had seen the video. It's here. More background is here.

I suppose I should put it on one of the video servers or something but its been at its current location since before YouTube had even been thought of.

The reason I was so excited was that I had been working on trying (off and on) to make my own rifle detonated targets for over two years. After working on something for two years with nothing but failures to show for it you get really excited when one of your experiments works.

Boomershooters get a little taste of that because I make the targets challenging enough that most of them cannot get a target in a single shot. They have to work at it for a while. When they do connect it is a bigger thrill than if they had plopped their gun down on the ground and got a first round hit 10 seconds after going prone. They have to earn their reward. They don't get as excited as I did when I got my first one but then most people probably don't have the patience to work on trying to get one to go off for two years either.

We made and people detonated over 500 boomers today. Most of them were from about 20 yards away.

People seemed to have a good time. I just feel tired.

Alan made a lot of the explosives. Kevin Baker showed up around noon. Without having permission from the ATF I had him doing more mundane things like folding cardboard boxes into the proper shape and sweeping off the anti-static rug that goes inside the explosives magazine.

I was a bit concerned about Bonnie doing her first long range shooting at the Precision Rifle Clinic today. I saw her at lunch and asked. She reported things were going well and had only missed (steel targets, not boomers) three shots and that she was having a lot of fun. Great!

Derek is also a new boomer shooter and it's pretty clear from the pictures and video that he is having a good time.

This was our fireball demo. Notice the milk jugs filled with gasoline on the left and the road flare to ignite the gas on the right.

Here we have the gas mixing with the air and the fireball just starting.

The gas air mixture is in flames now.

The fireball is rising and expanding.

Ry has the most awesome picture of a detonation of a simple boomer I have ever seen.

See also Snarky Bytes and Trigger Finger posts on our day.

This is an open letter to all the talk show hosts, pundits, party hacks, cheaters, scumbags, sick twisted freaks (you know who you are) and pro-freedom bloggers.  We could spend the rest of our lives cataloging the outrageous behavior of nasty, America-hating, ignorant, self-loathing, cultist, freedom-hating, anti-human, leftist politicians including Progressive Republicans.  We know they're bad, OK?  If there are three or four people who still don't get it, that's all right.

I'd rather try to figure out how we're going to get some principled Americans nominated so we're not always forced to choose between bad and worse-- between more socialism slower, and more socialism faster.  This last national election was a real puker.  The Republican Party is, at the moment, just as lost, dumbfounded, selfish and clueless as ever.  They're a herd of does, staring blankly into the headlights of an on-coming truck, and the worst part of it is; they don't even suspect that they're clueless.  They in the Republican leadership think they have some really clever answers, which amount to more of what got us into this mess.  I recently heard it described as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  That fits very well.  The Republicans have some really super great, super ultra smart ideas for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  No really, listen...  (all the while we have this simple, proven model for success, and it's being ignored.)

We need to change that.  You need to change it.  I need to change it.  There isn't anyone else.  I suppose, since it's up to us, it will have to be on the local level for most of us, being as we're not billionaires.  That's OK.  We can still do what we can do.  A lot of people are jazzed up right now.  They just need somewhere to start.  Well, pick a place, a local issue or a local politician that needs a hand (or a very public spanking) and get to it!

That there are clueless people is not the issue.  There will always be the clueless.  They'll sit on the sidelines, worrying about who likes them and who doesn't, trying to figure out where the "center" is so they can position themselves in it and claim superiority for having done so, while someone else does the lifting.  Are you a sitter or a lifter?

I have a bad feeling that things could come to blows before this government is brought under control, and I really don't want that to happen.  Do you?  This country is far too important in the grand scheme of things.

And with that; I don't have much more to say on here, other than to repeat myself or talk about the weather and what I did last weekend, unless it's to tell you what I'm doing on the local level to influence politics.  Now I think I have some calls to make.

(Note that I placed this in nearly every one of Joe's categories. It's relevant to everything we do and every opportunity we want for our kids in the future)

I won't be attending the Second Amendment Blog Bash and NRA convention next month. I just sent my regrets to the organizer.

Xenia's getting married in June and there are a lot of other things that are sucking up time and money this year so I just can't make it happen.

Last year I had a wonderful time (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for examples). Nearly every time my wife or kids talked to me on the phone they commented on "how happy you sound". I think Barb got a little jealous that I sounded happier to be with other bloggers than be with her. Yeah, I had a really, really great time.

Maybe next year. For this year the Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day next Thursday, with 11 gun bloggers attending, is going to have to be my main fix for the year. Even the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in September is out.

For quality Tam does far better than I can even dream of. Robb Allen doesn't quite have the quality of Tam but seeing them side by side for a few days:

And it was obvious Robb has the edge on quantity.

But for truly amazing snark check out Ann Coulter. I'm so in awe that I can't even laugh. Here are some example from Let's all surrender our weapons – you first!

After being pulled over for a routine traffic violation, Lovelle Mixon did exactly what they teach in driver's ed by immediately shooting four cops. Mixon's supporters held a posthumous rally in his honor, claiming he shot the cops only in "self-defense," which I take includes the cop Mixon shot while the officer was lying on the ground. 

...

It's something in liberals' DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control. 

...

The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama's response to North Korea's openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile this week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament.

...

If the SAT test were used to determine how stupid a liberal is, one question would be: "The best defense against lawless rogues who possess _______ is for law-abiding individuals to surrender their own _______________."

Correct answer: Guns. We would also have accepted nuclear weapons.

...

Obama explained that "the United States has a moral responsibility" to lead disarmament efforts because America is "the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon."

So don't go feeling all morally superior to a country whose business model consists of exporting heroin, nuclear bombs and counterfeit U.S. dollars, and of importing Swedish prostitutes, you yahoo Americans with your little flag lapel pins.

On the other hand, the Japanese haven't acted up much in the last, say, 64 years ...

Wow! I can write code which inflicts wounds like that but I can't even dream of writing words which impart that much damage.

Update: Alternate picture of Robb and Tam together. This is so I can better respond in the comments to Robb's post.

Sorry for the light blogging the last few days. Lots and lots of Boomershoot stuff to work on.

There are two positions that have just opened up. Positions 8 and 17, both in “Lowlands”, are now open. Sign up here.

Odds and ends:

• A quick update on the weather... it has been snowing about every other day in Moscow (400 feet lower than the Boomershoot site). They got six inches yesterday.
• I paid the deposit for the Saturday night dinner.
• I arranged for a bartender for the social hour.
• We have a tentative speaker for the dinner--Sean Carlock. Carlock is the shooter in this video, is a "technical advisor" for Nightforce, custom rifle builder, and former Boomershooter.
• I'm really looking forward to seeing and chatting with all the bloggers that are showing up for Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day (schedule and outline of the events is here).

Update: April 3, 8:38 AM. Both open positions have been filled. One was taken by some people that attended regularly for a few years in the early days and were avid Blanchard Blast shooters. But I haven't seen them in ages. I frequently look at the pictures of them on the web site (the three in the foreground) and wonder what happened to them. I got a call from one of them this morning and he was asking if he should bring hip waders to get through the mud. "No", I told him, "But you might want to bring snowshoes."

Update2: Sean says he can't make it.

Caleb says he would sell off body parts to acquire the Browning 1917 I posted about the other day.

It turns out he probably could just sell a kidney and keep the lung and piece of his liver and still have some change left over after purchasing it. I inquired as to the price and got this reply:

$6000 and it comes with a ton of extras: This is a Colt 1928 variation with safety; flash hider only 635 built and in this variation the right side plate was build with a much stronger design. We had the weapon changed to 8mm due to cheaper and more readily available. Only a few were built in semi auto we’ve seen them go for between $6000-$8000 without as many extras. Pictures are available upon request.

Tripod is a colt the 1928 version with Colt brass logo on rear leg. (These sell for $1000-$1200)

(7) 250 round cloth belts

Condenser hose and condenser can

(2) Oak 250 rds ammo boxes

1918 Browning loader w/ 8mm conversion with transit box. (these sell for $1000)

Custom 2 piece Mahogany transit chest on a removable roller base. One box holds weapon and the other all other parts

Two manuals

3000 rds of 8 MM

It's a long story but I deleted the list of Gun Bloggers planning to attend Boomershoot 2009.

I have reconstructed the list as best I could and sent an email to those people. If you are a gun blogger planning to atttend Boomershoot 2009 and did not get an email please let me know and I'll add you to my list.

First I want to get something out of the way before I make my main points.

I've been laying it on Catherine pretty thick and she updated her blog post to include some of my comments such as suggesting she look up the definition of "shill", and commenting on my equating our struggle for gun rights to other civil rights. I will partially concede one point to her. At least one dictionary defines "shill" merely as "to act as a spokesperson or promoter". The definition I was working from required the person pretended no association with the group or organization being promoted. Except for the Merriam-Webster dictionary cited above all the other on-line definitions I found mention deceit (or similar such as "put under cover") as a component of the definition:

• Dictionary.com
• The Free Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• MSN Encarta
• AskOxford
• YourDictionary.com
• The American Heritage Dictionary
• Infoplease.com
• Online Etymology Dictionary
• OneLook Dictionary
• RhymeZone
• Allwords.com
• 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary
• WordNet 3.0 Vocabulary Helper
• Look Way up

Hence even though I promote the civil rights agenda of the NRA because I am open about being a (life) member of the NRA, an NRA certified instructor, and communicate with them fairly regularly I am not a shill of the NRA--except if you use Catherine's and the Merriam Webster definition. Perhaps in our on-line war of words we should just drop the shill issue. We both have adequate justification for our positions and it's a distraction from the important points.

The more important point is that despite being a lawyer and a BA in English magna cum laude she has a reading (and spelling but I don't hold that against her) problem. For example she stated:

Some NRA proud propagandists (they displayed a badge stating “NRA propoganda” [sic] blogger)

But the actual badge doesn't say that. The badge is:

The badge does not say what she claims it says. Furthermore it does NOT have ANYTHING to do with the NRA. Not only doesn't it say NRA, it is not affiliated with the NRA in any way other than there is a strong correlation between people that have those badges and a NRA membership.

Another example. She stated:

They only seek to ridicule viewpoints different from theirs in the most base and crude ways.  I will not engage in that.  See my comments.  That is my right.

She implies someone was trying to infringe her rights in some way. No. They, and I, tried to point out the flaws in her statements and I asked her Just One Question. She refused to engage on those issues and shut off the comments. Fine, it's her blog she can do whatever she wants with it (within legal limits such as libel and certain limits on pornography, extortion, blackmail etc. which are not at issue in this case). As near as I can determine she had trouble reading the actual words said and imagined they said something completely different.

Because of her refusal to engage people did ridicule her and I did call her a bigot in regards to which had the following to say:

I have been referred to as a “bigot” because I have a different opinion. They equate gun ownership with the struggle for civil rights that African Americans had in this country, which is why I am a bigot?  Yet they say my view is narrow?  Such chutzpah to even to equate gun ownership with the struggle for civil rights.  That says a lot about just how extreme and fringe they are.

No. Not because she had a different opinion. It was because she without thought, is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles or identities differing from her own. She wants to ban "assault weapons" but refuses to address the facts they are probably protected by the Second Amendment, and restrictions on them have never been shown to improve public safety. Facts, as near as I can determine, are irrelevant to her beliefs and she continues to push her beliefs. That makes her a bigot.

In still another example that can be explained by her inability to read we have the issue of the D.C. v. Heller ruling. I gave her a link and quoted from it. This ruling clearly states the Second Amen dent is a specific enumerated right that protects the rights of individuals to keep and bear arms. That means gun ownership is, beyond any doubt, a civil right. Either she cannot read what the ruling clearly states or something else is going on. In any case that I can think other than some sort learning disability it is further confirmation she is a bigot.

Also of note is that my posts regarding the bigot at hand generated some hate mail. It's been so long that this really made my day:

From: Skujins Andre [mailto:askujins@shaw.ca]
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2009 2:43 PM
To: blog@joehuffman.org
Subject: Comments on: Shills

Boy your title says it all mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger.  What a  complete asshole.  Hope your dog gets shot by your drunk buddies.

First off, I don't have any dogs (my wife and kids have two small dogs that I occasionally interact with when I go home to Idaho). And two, I almost never drink anything with alcohol nor do I hang around with friends that are drunk. So what is appears what we have here is another person that is willing to apply false stereotypes to someone they don't know because of their bigoted beliefs.

Get your gear here.

I have one badge on the right shoulder of my Boomershoot coat and another badge on the cork-board in my office.

Mexican Carry and David Young's On Second Opinion have both been added to my RSS feed reader.

Welcome to the gun blogger community!

I received an email from Para USA a few minutes ago. They are preparing for SHOT Show and will be distributing a new catalog at the show. The page 34 of the catalog looks like this:

You can download the 2009 Para USA catalog off their website at this link http://www.para-usa.com/new/product_catalog.php.

You might have noticed the video link on the image to a web page and video of the gun blogger event. Yeah, it doesn't work for me either.

Robb claimed Someone is getting an early start on "Weirdest Search Term for 2009" (see also the followup posts Whale tits and Oh, like I wasn't expecting THIS to happen)

This afternoon I submitted my entry (a search phrase one of my visitors used to find my blog) to him via email:

Robb's response?

From: Robb Allen 
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 5:25 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: Someone is getting an early start on "Weirdest Search Term for 2009"

 

You win...

Yeah. I'm competitive like that. Just ask Barb.

Update: Also note that the perv was using an iPhone instead of something Windows based. I always sort of wonder about those type of people.

A few days ago I posted about a blogger that anticipated great changes in this countries gun laws with the incoming Obama administration.

He noticed the traffic from my blog to his and "clarified" his position on my blog saying he respected the Second Amendment only wanted "reasonable" changes in our gun laws.

Today he tells us what he thinks are reasonable changes:

1. Ban assault weapons from private possession
2. Ban .50 caliber (armor piercing) weapons from private possession
3. Allow local communities to determine what is appropriate for their circumstances. If cities such as Philadelphia and Washington D.C. feel that stricter gun control laws are needed than state or federal law provides, they should be allowed to govern their particular situation. The view (and conditions) from Idaho can be significantly different from major urban centers such as Chicago, LA, and NYC.
4. Improve oversight of corrupt gun dealers
5. Limit the number of guns an individual can purchase in a month. This will reduce the number of guns purchased with the intent to sell them illegally on the street, also known as straw purchases.
6. Mandate that sales at gun shows include criminal background checks. This is a major loophole in current law.

Yes. His ignorance is showing. Please play nice as you introduce him to the realities of guns and gun law. His comments are open. Here is my first lesson:

1. The definition of "assault weapon" is so ill defined and nearly always is based merely on cosmetic features, not function, that any such ban boils down to bans on guns that someone thought looked "evil" or "ugly". Beyond that the percent of crimes committed with guns that met the definition of "assault weapon" as defined by the 1994 Federal ban was so small that the weapons "feet" and "hands" are used to commit more murders each year than the banned firearms. Even if the criminal intent on using such a gun in a crime failed to find a substitute weapon and did not commit the crime that would have been enabled had they had such a weapon the drop in the crime rate would have been less than 1%. Hence any claim for an "assault weapon" ban as being reasonable must be with a goal other than crime reduction. So I ask, Mr. Weinstein, what is your goal with such a proposed ban? What is it that makes such a proposal "reasonable"?
2. To the best of my knowledge only one .50 BMG gun has been used in the commission of a crime in the last 30 years. Hence any claim for a .50 caliber ban as being reasonable must be with a goal other than crime reduction. So I ask, Mr. Weinstein, what is your goal with such a proposed ban? What is it that makes such a proposal "reasonable"?
3. You appear to acknowledge the 2^nd Amendment guarantees a right to keep and bear arms. I presume you also support the 13^th Amendment. It then would appear the two amendments should be treated in a similar manner in their application. Hence I must conclude that you would also advocate the states and cities determine what is appropriate for their circumstances in regards application of the 13th Amendment. If I am in error on this point please correct my misunderstanding. Once we are clear on this point then I can better respond to your "reasonable" suggestion.
4. I wasn't aware there was a list of corrupt gun dealers that were lacking in oversight. If some gun dealers are known to be corrupt then they must already be in violation of some law or rule. It would seem to me that prosecution, pulling their license, or fines for violations would be more appropriate rather than "oversight". But no matter, I am skeptical there is some large problem with gun dealers in this country. What evidence do you have that would tend to indicate I am wrong?
5. Straw purchases are already illegal. How would this help? This type of law has been passed in numerous jurisdictions. Can you demonstrate any reduction in the crime rate from these restrictions?
6. Sales at gun shows are no different than sales at gun dealers. Background checks are always required when you purchase from license dealers. There is no loophole. The Brady Campaign has been telling this lie for years to the point most people believe it. It is not true.
7. In my first post I suggested you study and answer Just One Question before proposing more restrictions on a specific enumerated right. You do not appear to have done this. Please do so. I think the answer will dramatically affect your response.

As far as I'm concerned, all governments cross my "line" on Day One. But governments are not like a single baddie confronting one in an alley; you cannot simply shoot them when they try to do you harm. Life can become very inconvenient for you if you even try.

Roberta X
December 10, 2008
Governments, Sandlines And Me
[Roberta hasn't said anything previously in the "Three Percenter" vs. "Pragmatist" debate and I have said very little. She explains why for both of us.--Joe]

Cool! I am especially thrilled with all the tall good-looking women (RobertaX, Tamara, and Brigid) I get to hang out with and help save the world.

Don't forget there is a gun blogger meet this evening. Details are here. Barb and I plan to attend.

Via Ry. Post Zumbo, post Cooper. How many more are there out there than need to get their asses kicked for supporting Obama in this election? Gentlemen, we can out them. We have the technology. We have the capability to spend our dollars only with those gun companies that support our specific, enumerated, individual right to keep and bear arms.

So, lets do it.

As pointed out in comments (Lyle in the second comment) it would be very interesting to know "What in the world were you thinking?"

Caleb is putting some effort in to answering the question.

In regards to Cooper Firearms incident it appears the board of directors has taken swift and decisive action. David has the story.

It's the power of the Internet at work. It's a new world out there.

The plan for the next gun blogger meet is for us to get together at the Mexican restaurant on Beacon Hill called La Cabana Cafe:

2532 Beacon Ave S
Seattle, WA 98144
(206) 322-9643

1800 on November 9th.

Peter uses something I wrote over three years ago as he QOTD. Nice.

Sometimes it is amazing what one, essentially, insignificant, unknown person can do. "Joe the Plumber" is in the news right now and may be "a bone in the throat" of Obama. I even got a text message from my old boss asking, "Are you watching the debate?" I replied, "No. Should I be?". He responded that "Joe" was what the debate was about. Since I don't have a TV it wasn't until the next morning that I figured what was going on.

On a much smaller scale my barely read blog occasionally gets attention from people of power. That's pretty cool. But what really amused me was what happened yesterday.

I noticed I had a hit from Handgun Control Inc. who was doing a search for "Joe Huffman". Apparently I am known, by name, to the biggest, baddest, anti-gun bigots in the country:

Domain Name		sct.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address		65.242.56.# (HANDGUN CONTROL)
ISP		Verizon Business
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.9042, -77.032 (Map) Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft Win2000
Browser		Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.17) Gecko/20080829 Firefox/2.0.0.17
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution  :  1024 x 768 Color Depth  :  16 bits
Time of Visit		Oct 16 2008 12:45:39 pm
Last Page View		Oct 16 2008 12:55:48 pm
Visit Length		10 minutes 9 seconds
Page Views		6
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...2US261&q=Joe Huffman
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		joe huffman
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Oct 16 2008 3:45:39 pm
Visit Number		370,096

Further investigation revealed that on March 21st of this year they did a search for ""@stopthenra.com" -www" and found me. On May 14th they did a search for '"north central idaho" gun' and found me again. They have done several searches for "Dennis Hennigan" (Brady Campaign attorney) and found my blog.

And yesterday after specifically doing a search for my name they added my blog to their RSS reader. I feel so honored. Hello Sarah, Jim, Dennis, and Paul! I have Just One Question for you. Think about that for a while...

Yesterday was apparently good day to be noticed because New York City got my opinion on the issue of microstamping (Google ranks my blog post #1 with a search phrase of "microstamping research"):

Domain Name		nyc.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address		161.185.151.# (City of New York)
ISP		City of New York
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  New York City  :  Brooklyn Lat/Long  :  40.6525, -73.9554 (Map) Distance  :  2,162 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution  :  1024 x 768 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Oct 16 2008 1:55:43 pm
Last Page View		Oct 16 2008 1:55:43 pm
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blog.joehuffman.org/content/binary/MicrostampingSEM.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blog.joehuffman.org/2008/02/18/MicrostampingResearch.aspx&h=515&w=516&sz=38&tbnid=9x03aBEr7zUJ::&tbnh=131&tbnw=131&hl=en&prev=/images%3Fq%3
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2008/02/18/MicrostampingResearch.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffm...tampingResearch.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Oct 16 2008 4:55:43 pm
Visit Number		370,120

Sometimes I feel rather impotent (in a way Viagra can't help) in regards to what is happening to freedom and gun rights in this country and the world. Even Boomershoot, which I consider my greatest accomplishment, seems like too little but when I think of my impact in terms of what it was 10 years ago or compared to the impact of the non-professional gun bigots like Robyn Ringler I'm doing fairly well. I'm not a Wayne LaPierre, Alan Gottlieb, Alan Gura, Joe Waldron, Dave Kopel, David Hardy, or an Ashley N. Varner. But other gun bloggers and I are doing okay for not being on the payroll (the wheelbarrows full of cash aren't part of the official payroll) at the Apex of the Triangle of Death. I don't know if it is enough but we are having an noticeable impact.

Update: I was also quoted in a newspaper last week which may have been the reason the Brady Bunch became interested in me.

Barb and I are sitting in the Reno airport waiting for our plane. I'm pretty sure I'm the last of the gun bloggers to leave town. Barb and I had dinner last night at the Black Bear Diner with The Conservative UAW Guy, his wife, Mr. Completely, and Keewee. Back at Circus Circus I chatted with them and Ride Fast, the last hanger ons, about airport security theater until about 21:00 when most of us said our good-byes. Mr. Completely, Keewee, Barb and I had breakfast together this morning and the Gun Blogger Rendezvous was over.

I have a few pictures and will post more later, particularly about our day at the range, but for now here is an odd gun I saw at the museum today with Barb. This gun was part of an exhibit on bootleggers:

Sawed off pistol. (Click for bigger.)

[Please excuse the poor photo quality. I used my cell-phone camera.]

I noticed one of their exhibits was mislabeled and they seemed very grateful when I corrected them. A device used to clean wheat had original markings saying it separated wheat from wild oats. But was labeled as tool for separating wild oats from chaff. <shrug> Just me being nit-picky as usual.

Say Uncle says he knows the guy quoted in the newspaper article. The article is about the NRA ad being correct when it says Obama voted for a bill that would have outlawed most common hunting ammo. Obama and others on the left say the NRA ad is a lie. The reporter quotes a gun blogger as a reference to support the NRA's claim. I know that guy too.

That blogger would be me and this blog post.

Sebastian also noticed.

What I noticed was that the headline to the article wasn't something to the effect that "NRA is right--Obama tried to ban hunting ammo" but instead, "NRA ad draws fire for dubious claims".

What media bias?

Lack of sleep (up very late talking to other bloggers) combined with Barb wanting to use my computer meant I haven't really posted anything about the rendezvous. Sorry, it's not going to get much better for a few days.

Check out what others have been saying:

• GBR-III Update: Nice Hat! (this is the picture I should have taken of Ashley. I only got a couple before she left and both were crap compared to this one)
• GBR-III Update: Range Day, with Gun Pr0n (picture of me preparing to shoot--a story I promise I will tell before long)
• We're Either Dedicated or Crazy
• GBR-III Saturday 101108 - Range Day
• GBR Day 3 (lots of pictures--See previous posts as well)

Barb and I arrived in Reno a little to late to get on the visit to Cabelas and the NRA presentation from Ashley Varner. I did participated in the show and tell and Barb came in for the tail end of that just before went to dinner.

I'm am now sitting in the corner listening to discussions of how bad Obama is and how the race is closer than the national polls indicate. I certainly hope so.

Oh, and David gave me a Serenity poster. Cool!

Barb and I are currently in the SeaTac airport eating a late lunch. Soon we will be on the plane to Reno, then from there we will rent a car and drive to Tonopah. We will spend a few days looking around at historical and genealogical things. Her father lived and worked there in the '30s.

Friday we will return to Reno for the Gun Blogger Rendevzous.

If you are interested follow the boring details on my Twitter account. Please ignore the typos. My Pocket PC has problems with rapidly typed letters hence "looking" comes out as "loking" and I often make an update while walking or doing something else and don't check for errors as well as I should.

Kevin is leaving tomorrow evening. Barb and I are packing tonight. Our plane leaves at noon tomorrow but we will be in Tonopah until Friday which means we will miss out on the super secret event on Thursday evening.

The gun stuff I'm packing includes:

• Gun Blog 45 and 200 rounds of ammo
• STI Eagle 5.1 and 200 rounds of ammo
• Shot timer
• Spotting scope (I hope I can find it!) and tripod
• .300 Winchester Magnum and 100 rounds of ammo
• Laptop computer with Modern Ballistics (yeah, I'm a geek)
• Some cleaning supplies

Anything I'm missing that I can legally take on the plane (no, I won't be bringing my chemistry set) and would be nice to have on the range Saturday?

Update: I can't find my spotting scope so I'm not bringing the tripod. I am bringing my laser range finder and a pair of good binoculars.

Ask me how I know.

In the right column I have a list of the bloggers I have met. I just found out a friend from way back (nearly 25 years) just started a blog. I'm not sure the general population of readers here will find all that much to agree with her on politics but she does take pretty pictures and says she will be posting her pictures there.

I have referred to her in my posts here a few times as one of my lesbian friends and she is the one that wrote the email referenced here. I tend to avoid discussing politics with her. Chess, places we have worked together, and other geeky stuff can keep us happily chatting for a long time however. And then there was the time I took her and her friend to the nudist club...

Excuse me, I've got some video to watch. . .

Kevin Baker
October 3, 2008
Hey! We're on Video!
[On the Gun Blogger Weekend videos that are now up on Down Range TV. See also the blog post from producer Marshal Halloway and the news release (pointed out to me by Sebastain). But it was an email from Say Uncle that first informed me.--Joe]

But Sebastian points out it's too inflationary and we should return to the Goldfish standard.

While at the Gun Blogger Summer Camp last month I won a set of Crimson Trace laser grips--whatever set I wanted. I finally got around to asking for a set to fit a Ruger Mark II. I received them but haven't installed them. I went to range tonight thinking I would put them on and try them out but wasn't thinking ahead. I forgot to bring tools.

They look very cool but a full report will have to wait for a few days.

Six of us made it to the event (click on the pictures to see higher resolution versions):

Left to right, Phil, American Mercenary, Misty (wife of American Mercenary), Barb (my wife), and Gay_Cynic.

Barb insisted I should post a picture of myself as well, so here it is:

Joe Huffman and Gay_Cynic.

We had a nice time. No concrete plans to take over the world or anything. A report on Gun Blogger Summer Camp was requested. Gay_Cynic wanted to know if Tamara was as delightful in person as she is to read. I said she was but she seemed a little bit shy which I didn't expect.

Phil and I talked about our plans for guns to take to Reno next month.

We talked about Seattle Mayor Nickels attempts to break the law and ban gun owners from carrying on City property. Phil reports Nickels will release his plans after getting an opinion from the state Attorney General. If I recall correctly Phil said that was due out on October 20^th which will be in time for the election.

In response to something American Mercenary said about Democrats and socialism I said those people have a different set of basic assumptions about reality than I do and Phil says he will have blog post about that on Monday. I'm looking forward to it.

American Mercenary informed us about the use and misuse of full auto in the army. He explained a use I hadn't really thought of before. He said a machine gun set up in a street can prevent anyone from crossing for many hundreds of yards but that same gun on a roof is of limited use.

Barb and Misty talked extensively about being the wife of a military man. Xenia will soon be in that position and Misty has been living that life for quite a while now. Barb arranged for Xenia to take some pictures, "When Misty has her baby." Of course this was ambiguous to me. My first inclination was this probably meant during delivery--which seemed a little odd. But the shock on Barb's and Misty's faces when I wanted clarification on this point got me on the right track.

As mentioned before, there is going to be a gun/freedom blogger meet in Seattle next weekend. I received an email that the date has been changed. The new meeting info is:

10:00 AM
Sunday, September 14^th
Eggs Cetera's Blue Star Cafe
4512 Stone Way N
Seattle, WA 98103
Phone: (206) 548-0345

This weekend I spent a bunch of time culling the 1000+ pictures I (and a few others) took at Blackwater into a slide show set to music.

It's 11 minutes long and 31+ MBytes but here is the result. I like to play it with the volume cranked up to just below "noise complaint to the police"--especially at the beginning.

Update: Embedded version:

Para-USA Gun Blogger Summer Camp 2008 from Joe Huffman.

Phil of Random Nuclear Strikes and Gay_Cynic of FreeThinker (in email to me) are suggesting a blogger meet in the greater Seattle area:

I'm debating throwing together a monthly brunch in the PNW for pro-gun/pro-liberty bloggers.  Nothing fancy, nothing formal, just food, BS'ing, and the occasional mad conspiracy to demonstrate the essential foolishness of Nickels & Co and his regrettably common fellow travelers.

Maybe call it the "Fluffy Bunnies from Hades Brunch Group"? <evil grin>

Think you'd be up for it? Know others that might be?

If  you are interested send me an email or leave a comment somewhere.

Update: The time and place has been decided:

10:00 AM
Saturday Sunday, September 13^th 14^th
Eggs Cetera's Blue Star Cafe
4512 Stone Way N
Seattle, WA 98103
Phone: (206) 548-0345

Update2: The date has changed to Sunday the 14^th.

We now have another convert from the dark side. Caleb is now a believer in John Moses Browning.

Barb and I have made plans to attend the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno this October. We won't be there the entire time. We are first going south to Tonopah where Barb's father lived for several years. We will be in Reno sometime on Friday afternoon or evening and will be there all day Saturday. Sunday we probably will do something that isn't particularly gun related such as hiking or museums but if others want to hang out with us that would be fine.

I probably will bring my .300 Win Mag for long range fun on Saturday, at least one handgun, and my shot timer.

If you listened to the Gun Nuts on August 19 you would have heard me wonder how Jarrett was going to handle the wide range of shooting ability in the participants when we showed up on August 22. I believe I had the most training going in. A partial list of my firearms training:

• General Defensive Handgun
• Intensive Handgun Skills
• Low Light Handgun Skills
• Handgun Retention & Disarming
• General Defensive Rifle

Most of the others had not had any formal training. Other students who have taken courses from multiple schools have wisely told me that when attending a new class you should approach the class with an open mind and if you can take just one good thing away then the class was worthwhile.

Jarrett did a great job of dealing with the disparity. He obviously had to get everyone up to speed with the fundamentals such as grip, trigger control, and sight alignment. He did this on the first day mostly in the classroom. On the second day he did something everyone was impressed with. He made marks on our hands that helped us get the grip right:

Robb Allen's hands with the Para USA LDA .45 in full recoil. Notice the smoke leaving the ejection port?

Notice the mark on Robb's right thumb just below the joint? There is a matching mark on his left hand. These two marks line up when he was holding the gun properly. It's difficult to see but there is also a mark on his right hand directly behind the beaver tail safety underneath the slide. This mark should be directly in line with the long axis of the gun and the axis of the shooters arm.

When I saw what Jarrett was doing with these marks little shivers went through me. This was a brilliant teaching aid. I was the next to the last person to get the marks and he told me I was the only person to already have the proper grip. John D. to my left and the last person also got it right. I had made a very slight modification to my normal grip when I showed it to him. I had to shift my right hand just a little to get the proper alignment. The single stack gun is much narrower than what I am used to and once I got the marks on my hands I began practicing my draw making sure that the lines matched up even when I was drawing at full speed.

The draw was one of the areas where Jarrett cut some corners on the training. He talked about it some but didn't have us do any drills specifically working on the draw. He focused on doing a safe draw but not much on speed. This probably was a wise thing considering the other things that were going to be a lot more fun and new to the more advance shooters but in terms of self-defense shooting this probably was more important.

We shot at 8" plate racks from about 15' as we were pushed to shoot faster and faster. This was very frustrating for me because my plates would go down hard enough they would bounce back up. Some plates I put down three times only to have them remain standing.

We did some 25 yard slow fire shooting to verify our trigger control and zeros. On an silhouette target my gun was giving me head shots when I aimed at the chest. Jarrett verified it did the same for him and adjusted the sights for me.

Our range had the capability to give us moving targets:

Looking carefully on the left you can see the remotely reset steel plates then the turning targets. The two rails on the right are for targets that, from the shooters perspective move horizontally left and right. All of these were utilized.

This was nearly all new to me. In competition I have shot at moving targets and moved while shooting but I have had near zero formal training on it.

We shot at the turners. We were given two seconds to empty our eight round magazines into silhouette targets.

We shot over, around and through barricades:

Me, shooting at a steel plates over a barricade. Photo by JR.
Yes, I was taking advantage of my height when everyone else had to use two different shooting positions to get access to the same targets.

Me, supervised by Todd Jarrett, shooting around a barricade. Photo by JR.

We shot on the move. We advanced on the targets while shooting (photo by JR):

We shot at horizontally moving plates while standing still. We shot at plate racks while we were moving horizontal.

We shot at horizontally moving plates while we were moving both left to right and right to left.

The things I took away from this was:

1. Follow through on your shots with the moving targets. Keep the gun pointed at the target even after you fire. The gun just happens to go bang every once in a while as you are pointing it. It got so I could hit the moving targets almost as fast as the stationary targets.
2. When you are moving you need to keep your knees bent to keep yourself level.
3. Walk like you are on a tight rope or balance beam. This keeps you from rocking from side to side as you walk.

Me, supervised by Todd Jarrett, shooting at a steel plate while advancing. Photo by JR.

See also this video from Sebastian:

We did some rapid fire from the hip shooting at a steel plate about 18"x24" in size from just a few feet away from us. The point was to be able to get the gun on target in a close quarters situation. Below you can see Tamara, having just completed the drill, getting a little further instruction from Jarrett on the topic:

We then did some plate shooting from 35 yards. Here is Kevin hammering the plates (and having them bounce back up) at distance. 

One thing that I found as a glaring omission was learning to reload quickly. It was appropriate given the time constraints and disparate training of the students but I was hoping for some "fine tuning" of my reloads.

My biggest surprise was how useful laser sights are for training. I'm not convinced they are particular useful for the shooter as he or she is actually shooting but as an instructor or by video taping as the student is shooting a lot can be learned and taught. I was previously of the opinion the most useful aspect of them was as a toy for dogs and cats. One small example is to have the student shoot rapidly and watch the path of the laser on the target. It should track nearly straight up and down without overshooting the point of aim. Similar lessons can be learned and taught in transitioning from one target to another.

The most fun was the shoot house. I already have a full post on that and won't go into that again except to say that I disagree with Kevin with what was happening while we were taking turns going through. Kevin is of the opinion ninjas from Gunsite Ranch were spying on us. I think this was actually a vulture from the Brady Campaign hoping for some blood to be spilled:

Tonight the Gun Nuts will have another show on the events from this weekend. I don't know for certain who will be on. I was invited again but thought I would just listen and let other people talk this time. The live show starts at 2300 Eastern, 2000 Pacific time.

Para USA, Blackwater USA, Blackhawk, International Cartridge Company, and Crimson Trace will probably all be topics of discussion and will all get well deserved praise.

I won the bet with Caleb today. Caleb reported it live from the range. I won only because I made fewer mistakes than he did. In a second run through the house with a different configuration I again beat him by a slim margin because I made slightly fewer errors than he did. In both runs through others beat us. My second run was good enough for second place and I won a set of Crimson Trace laser sights.

I learned more in the last three hours than I have since I've been shooting.

Say Uncle
August 22, 2008
Referring to instruction from Todd Jarrett while being taped for Michael Bane's television show.
[I had told him, several times, that professional instruction would make a big difference. Not that he ever disagreed with me. But it's nice to hear him confirm what I had been saying. This is not to say that his shooting was particularly bad. Just that you learn a lot from someone who knows what they are doing and how to teach.--Joe]

One of the things we talked about last night was how much harder it is for an anti-gun mole to penetrate the gun rights movement than the other way around. One of the reasons is it is much easier for us to speak their language than it is for them to speak ours. I've mentioned this general topic before but it's worth reposting the gun portion:

...I worked on a political campaign to oppose a anti-gun initiative (I-676) a few years ago.  The people on the phone lines would tell stories about the anti-gun people that would call and try to get information about our plans.  You only had to ask one or two questions and the anti-gun people would, figuratively, fall in heap on the floor.  If the lines weren't very busy then they would play with them for a few minutes and have more material for the story telling later that evening.  They would just ask something like, “What type of gun do you have?“  “What caliber is it?“  They would get answers like “Glock“ and “.357 Magnum“ (only revolvers shoot .357 Magnum and Glock doesn't make any revolvers).  Or “Shotgun, I'm not sure who makes it, but it's a 9mm.”  With a little bit of suggestive questioning you could get them to agree to the most incredibly outrageous things.  It was great sport making fun of the people that were trying to do us harm and now I realize that it can be more than just sport.

You can get a better hour by hour update on my Twitter account but here are some pictures:

Leaving the Norfolk hotel to get on the Blackhawk bus.

This is the Blackhawk bus. It's very nice inside.

Gun bloggers picking up their holsters, shirts, belts, and other super tactical stuff at Blackhawk headquarters. They have some very cool stuff.

Todd Jarrett doing some classroom stuff.

This is not something you want to see. The muzzle of Todd Jarrett's gun.

Say Uncle gets his two minutes of fame with Todd Jarrett, Michael Bane, and video crew. Sebastian and I also got a couple minutes with them.

End of the shooting for the day and we walked from the cafeteria to the Blackwater hotel.

Despite us bloggers being no smarter than chimps everyone has been treating us like royalty. This has been an awesome day!

Currently the vote is 81% to 19% for me to win the bet between Caleb and I. That must because they expect the "old age and treachery" cliché to have a grain of truth. I must set the record straight on a few items.

There is no truth to the suspicion I arranged a false positive on the explosive sniffer as he went through TSA security yesterday.

There is no truth to the suspicion I poisoned him this morning so he couldn't eat.

It is true that I shot him while on the range at Blackwater (splatter from the steel).

Update: Bitter created a logo for the poll on who is going to win the bet:

This is like Disneyland for guns.

Tamera K.
August 22, 2008
While touring Blackwater.
[A few hours later Caleb said, "This is like Disneyland for gun nuts." I asked if he had heard Tamara say something similar earlier. He had not. I think Sebastian also said something similar while on camera with Michael Bane. It's really can't be adequately described in less that 1000 words and/or several dozen pictures. Being less articulate I just say, "Awesome".--Joe]

Uncle and I talked and he sent the shuttle out to pick me up before I even picked up my luggage in Norfolk. I ran into Kevin Baker before I even checked in. I met up with Sebastian, Rob Allen, Caleb, JR, Uncle, and Kevin in the bar across the parking lot. We talked for an hour or so and Tam showed up. About 11:00 or so Rob was crashing and that broke up the bar party.

Read (almost) everyone's blog posting of people here on one web page.

Sebastian invited us back to his suite where Uncle, a local guy (a reader of Say Uncle) and I all talked until after 2:00 AM.

The bus leaves for Blackwater at 9:00 AM.

I'm waiting to board at SEATAC. You can follow my flight progress for the first leg to St. Louis here. The second leg to Norfolk is here.

Tomorrow I'll be at Blackwater enjoying the company of several other gun bloggers and the hospatilty of Para USA.

I'm really looking forward to settling the bet with Caleb.

Update: I forgot to mention I plan to update Twitter frequently during this trip.

Co-worker Kris recently arrived here from Australia. Saturday he rode his bicycle from the Mount Rainer park entrance to the Paradise visitor center and then back down the mountain. The elevation of Paradise is 5400 feet and the temperature was 95 F. He estimates he burned 4288 calories and consumed 5.8 liters (1.5 gallons) of fluids. He also got hit by a car on the way up.

And he says eating Vegemite demonstrates Aussies are tough.

Well, not really "on the air" in the traditional sense.

Tomorrow night Rob Allen and I will be guests on http://blogtalkradio.com/gunnuts hosted by Caleb and Squeaky. The topic will be the Para sponsored training with Todd Jarrett at Blackwater this weekend. Caleb, Robb, and I (along with a bunch of others) will be participating. Caleb also wants to talk about our bet.

Listeners are welcome to call in so in addition to listening you should consider calling to tell me how silly it was of me to accept a shooting bet with someone I have never seen shoot.

Bonnie just got word the ATF trusts her to make explosives for me. Next April I will teach her--free of charge.

Doesn't that just give you the warm fuzzies? If we could only let them know I'll bet the Brady Bunch, the VPC, and numerous Cease Fire organizations would find their nightmares worsened.

At dinner with Phil and his wife last night we talked about religion some and for a short while Baptists in specific. Hence this isn't entirely random:

A man was seated next to a stiff-looking Baptist minister on a flight to Wichita. After the plane was airborne, the flight attendant came around for drink orders.  The man asked for a whiskey and soda, which he got.

The attendant then asked the minister if he would also like a drink. The minister replied in disgust, "I'd rather be savagely raped by a brazen whore than let liquor touch these lips."

The man then handed his drink back to the attendant and said, "I didn't know there was a choice."

This is for their dog Elsie:

Q: What has four legs and an arm?
A: A happy Rottweiler.

Barb and I have a very social weekend ahead of us.

First off is lunch with son James.

Tonight Barb and I are having dinner with Phil (from SoftGreenGlow.com) and his wife. Despite the references to the canned salmon mouse I'm sure we will have a pleasant evening.

Tomorrow is the company picnic with probably 5 or 10 thousand other people.

Uncle points out that gun bloggers can change the perception of the world. By providing more links to the viewpoint we want presented we move the ranking of web pages up the chart on Google and other search engines.

Our next target is Carry Permit Holders.

The top ten gun bloggers (it was a rigged election--I know it must be because I won) are going to Blackwater USA next month for some training with Todd Jarrett all sponsored by Para.

We aren't being trained as mercs but I figure it's a good story to tell people and I love the shock value.

Para is supplying the guns and has asked each of us what caliber we want. I asked for .40 because that is the pistol caliber I most frequently reload. Sorry, that wasn't an option. My options were 9mm and .45. I have all the components and equipment for 9mm so I initially asked for that. Then a minute or so later I asked what the capacity on that gun was. It is 9 + 1. Arghh! 9mm and it's not even a reasonably high capacity? I carry 18 + 1 in my .40! Okay, so if I'm going to be stuck with a low capacity gun I might as well go with the larger caliber. So it's the .45. It's a 1911 style gun and I can use it in the Single Stack division (I currently shoot Limited) for USPSA competition.

Now I find out that this isn't exactly a 1911 style as I think of it. It's a "Light Double Action" trigger instead of a single action trigger! The 9mm they offered has a single action trigger. Hmmmm... It's looking like we're talking the lesser of two evils here.

Okay. I'll give them chance. I'll still go with the .45 but this might be putting me at a disadvantage with the bet I have with Caleb. He's going with the 9mm and he is spending a lot of time practicing.

Uncle is doing a survey to resolve his similar quandary.

Rob is going with the .45.

I have had a tendency in my young life to occasionally run my mouth with abandon (my wife is shaking her head at that); however I have been fortunate in the majority of this situations to be able to back up my mouth with skill or plain old dumb luck.

The more I read Joe’s archives, the more I realize I’m going to need a lot of the latter to win our friendly wager.

Caleb of Call Me Ahab
July 15, 2008
Pride goeth...
[Caleb will be at Gun Blogger Summer Camp with me next month. In a long email thread among some of the bloggers with the subject "My dad can beat up your dad" Caleb ended up challenging me to a bet on our shooting abilities. I can only recall accepting two bets in the last 35 years (I won both). I just don't bet unless I'm pretty close to certain that I'm going to win. This was the most risky bet I have accepted in the last 35 years. Based on the cards face up on the table I've got a better hand but one never knows until all the cards are turned over. That will occur on August 24^th.--Joe]

Caleb and Squeaky will be pod-casting tomorrow night on the summer camp some of us are attending:

Talking about the recently released results of ParaUSA's blogshoot contest, where 10 bloggers and one lucky reader will get to go to Blackwater's state of the art training facility in North Carolina for a weekend of shooting with Todd Jarret.

Assuming I'm not on the road (I'll be traveling back to the Seattle area tomorrow afternoon/evening) I'll be listening.

I just got a call from Kerby Smith from Para USA, Inc. They congratulated me on being one of the top ten bloggers in their contest. Other winners include:

• A Keyboard and a .45
• Say Uncle
• Tamara K.
• Caleb
• armed_citizen from Gun Truth
• Rob Allen
• Kevin Baker (Updated)
• Dave Hardy (Updated--according to Kevin)
• The Maddened Fowl (Updated)

There should be three others as well. I expected Sebastian and Kevin but Sebastian says he hasn't been notified and Kevin hasn't posted anything about it the last time I looked.

Michael Bane (Update: with Bitter and Sebastian) will be attending as a video photographer, plus there will be some lucky voter that will attend as well.

In other news, Kerby said they just announced their new tactical rifle and they are opening up shop in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dear Joe,

Congratulations, you were one of the top ten bloggers in the Para Gun Bloggers Contest.

Kerby Smith
Email sent Monday, July 07, 2008 12:24 PM
[Whooo hooo!!! I'm going to Virginia to train with Todd Jarrett! Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all the votes.--Joe]

I've mentioned this before but a reminder that this is your last chance to vote for me can't hurt.

The back story:

There were 40 gun bloggers, including myself, that participated in the 2nd Amendment Blogger Bash at the NRA Convention last month. There is now a contest to select 10 of those bloggers to participate in “Gun Blogger Summer Camp”.

Action item:

Would you please vote for me? Go here and find “The View From North Central Idaho” near the bottom of the list: http://www.para-usa.com/new/special/blogger_contest06-08.php#vote click on the radio button and submit it. You don’t have to put in your address and phone number unless you would like a chance at attending the camp as well (one lucky voter will get to attend with the blogger winners).

Please do it today. This is the last day of the contest.

Thanks!

I never been called this before:

Joe Huffman, the full-throated Second Amendment activist

For some reason that brings to mind "deep throat" and there is no version of that phrase that applies to me. Particularly in the context of the Pink Pistols as was the case in this post.

It must be something new. The rest of the post was nice. I think it was a compliment.

I have a huge backlog of things I want to blog about but I have been rather distracted by other things.

Barb and I had barely seen each other for several weeks. The week after I went to Louisville for the 2^nd Amendment Blog Bash (and NRA Convention) Barb went to Sacramento to visit her sister. Then I had a very busy time at work and was unable to go on vacation with Xenia, Barb, and her family to Montana.

Finally, on Wednesday, Barb arrived at my bunker in the Seattle area and we tried to make up for lost time. I did make it out of bed long enough to go to work for a few hours and we go to dinner and see a movie (Get Smart -- It had it moments, but there were some parts that were too silly for me) with son James and daughter Xenia. But for the most part we were pretty much inseparable.

Then Saturday I started opening up Boomershoot 2009 registration for staff, on Sunday for 2008 participants, then yesterday for the general public. Even though that is mostly automated it has resulted over 170 emails being received or sent plus countless hand edits of data files and fixing of obscure bugs in my code.

One bug was particularly "interesting". If two shooting positions used the same phone number for registration and I then tried to swap the shooting positions of those two entries then both entires would be deleted (I had a back up and it wasn't that tough to recover from the bug). That bug had existed since day one over a year ago and I just now tripped it.

In any case that spike of Boomershoot activity will soon settled down because the event is almost full (91%) with only seven positions still open as of 11:00 PM. I was surprised at the number of bloggers that took me up on the offer. Those free spots are costing me a LOT of money in the short term. David and Phil have a big tent and are filling it with bloggers. Other bloggers signed up include BillH of Free in Idaho!, Matthew from Trigger Finger, Kevin of Smallest Minority, Barron Barnett, and of course Ry, Xenia (not really "signed up", it's more like "drafted"), and I. I expect Lyle at UltiMAK (who blogs here with me) will sign up too.

Speaking of Matthew in the context of Boomershoot, he just put some new posts with pictures and text up from Boomershoot 2008:

• Driving to Boomershoot
• Friday fireball! (That wasn't a fireball, this is a fireball and it was actually Sunday not Friday)
• View from the Berm

Gun bloggers planning to attend Boomershoot 2009 should send me an email at JoeH@boomershoot.org. I posted about this last month and several people expressed considerable interest but didn't actually say yes.

General announcement of Boomershoot 2009 registration will be made soon. The event fills up very quickly and I want bloggers planning to attend to get a fair shot at getting a position.

Via the Para website:

You can help send your favorite gun blogger to summer camp at Blackwater USA with world class shooter and instructor Todd Jarrett... and have a chance to win a invitation for yourself as well. Para USA, along with Blackwater, USA is sponsoring a weekend of first class instruction at the most exclusive training facility in the United States.

The top ten gun bloggers in our contest will get an invitation to shoot a special Para pistol and learn the secrets of a World Champion from Todd Jarrett. Blackwater USA is hosting the event at their facility in North Carolina. Gun Blogger Michael Bane and a video crew will record the event for Down Range TV.

Best of all, by voting for your favorite gun blogger, your name will be put into a drawing for an invitation to this exclusive event. That’s right 10 gun bloggers, and maybe you could spend a weekend learning the shooting secrets of the best shooter in the world.

The Para-Blackwater Gun Bloggers weekend will be August 22-24, 2008. Invitees must provide their own transportation to Norfolk, Virginia. Firearms, ammunition, accessories, room and board during the event will be provided by the sponsors. Participants must be 21 years or older and legally able to own and shoot a handgun.

Act now, voting ends July 1st! Winners will be annouced in early July. You may only vote once in this contest.

You want to see Todd Jarrett blow up a car by shooting at it, don't you?

And I'm sure I can find excuses why you shouldn't vote for anyone else, for example, that last time I talked to Kevin he had has a project he has to finish up in late August anyway so he won't be able to make it.

Barb has to work that weekend so we will be celebrating our anniversary another weekend anyway.

Pretend you are a democrat and vote early, vote often, and vote for ME!!! I'm listed as "The View From North Central Idaho" near the bottom of the list.

I was invited to speak at the Boeing Rifle and Pistol Club tonight. This will be something like the fifth time. Tonight I will be talking about the NRA Convention and the Second Amendment Blogger Bash.

My notes for the presentation:

• Huge, fancy, gun show
• Nearly 70K people
• Media credentials for bloggers
• Second Amendment blogger bash
  • Bitch girls
  • Snowflakes in Hell
  • Say Uncle
  • Michael Bane
  • Smallest Minority
  • Books, Bikes, Boomsticks (broomsticks)
  • Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease
  • Call me Ahab
  • Sharp as a Marble
  • Third Power (Days of our Trailer)
  • Traction Control 
  • The Ten Ring (Denise and Bill)
  • 40 in all

• Sessions
  • Legal
  • Activists
    • Its not the critic that counts
    • In their own words
    • They don't fear me they fear you--Chris Cox
    • You have the final say--Wayne LaPierre

• Blogger activities
  • Happy hour with Bane
  • Todd Jarrett
  • Publisher of Soldier of Fortune
  • Eyeblast.TV
  • Talk until dawn

• Celebrities
  • McCain
  • Mitt Romney
  • David Hardy
  • Ollie North
  • Ted Nugent
  • Cam Edwards
  • Glenn Beck
    • It comes down to Larry, Moe, Curly?
    • The Democrats sold their soul to Karl Marx.
    • We like lawyers, crooks and crack dealers better than Washington.
    • Before I pay over 10 for a gallon of gas I will drill through a polar bears head.  ----- I would feel bad but I would do it.

In addition to the postcard from Dave Barry I also received some other stuff today that thrilled me almost as much.

I received a couple of patches from Thirdpower. I'm going to put one on my Boomershoot coat and the other one on my cork board at work.

I received the explosives handler form Squeaky filled out a few days ago. It sure looks like we are going to have another gun nut playing with explosives next April. Cool!

I have been wondering about this for a while and even asked a few people what was, if anything, going on. It turns out the case has been resolved. Not to my satisfaction but good enough. I would have preferred the ATF be disbanded and the guilty be given life sentences and sent to the prison labor lead mines to help reduce the cost of ammunition--but then I'm a perfectionist in cases like this.

Here is the best story on it I have found so far:

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is dumping the "Always Think Forfeiture" motto it's used for more than a decade to help combat crime.

U.S. Rep. Bill Sali, R-Idaho, and others complained that multipurpose tools engraved with the slogan could be seen as encouragement to seize property, including guns, of law-abiding citizens.

The pocket tools were to be given to federal, state and local law-enforcement agents participating in the agency's asset forfeiture training programs, as a reminder of one way to disrupt or dismantle criminal organizations.

None of the engraved tools, stored in the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., have so far been distributed. And now they won't be, at least until the engravings have been removed.

The agency will no longer use the slogan on materials given out during its training programs, said Robert Browning, chief of ATF public affairs in Washington, D.C., adding it was never intended to undermine lawful gun rights.

Sali had said that the ATF "through its engraved motto, sends a message that these rights are secondary to the government's apparent goal to 'always' seek forfeit of private property."

The tools also included the words "ATF - Asset Forfeiture."

Update: In the comments Jed points out the Idaho Stateman article. I have to agree it's better because of this:

That changed March 19, when a blogger looking at ATF contracts on a government-purchasing database found an order for 2,000 Leatherman tool-kits engraved with the slogan.

The blogger wrote about it on www.freedomsight.net, and the issue took on a life of its own in the blogosphere. Gun owners and private property rights activists seized on the phrase as a sign that the agency was biased toward law-abiding gun owners.

As I said before, Jed did good. Real good.

At the NRA convention last week I told several bloggers I was contemplating having a special Boomershoot for gun bloggers*. I have had time to think about this quite a bit more.

The following is tentative so if you have suggestions let me know before I finalize it in the next week or so.

Boomershoot 2009 is currently scheduled for Sunday April 26^th with Friday and Saturday the 24^th and 25^th being the Precision Rifle Clinic. Nearly all of the gun bloggers who have never attended Boomershoot I have talked to expressed concern their long range rifle skills were deficient so I think participating in at least one day of the clinic is a good idea for them. Partially for this reason I have decided combining the gun blogger event with Boomershoot 2009 is a good idea.

What I think is one of the more interesting part of the event is the making of the targets prior to the event. We have repeatedly invited the mainstream media to observe and/or participate and only once had them accept. I'm guessing gun bloggers will be more inclined to take me up on this invitation. Hence I have decided to make Thursday April 23^rd 2009 Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day. On this day gun bloggers will be given media credentials and a special behind the scenes tour of and participation in Boomershoot 2009. If the individuals involved want to actually mix explosives and package the targets they will need to fill out some paperwork at least a couple months in advance. This paperwork will be submitted to the ATF and if the ATF approves it these individuals will be allowed to actually make explosives and reactive targets. If individuals do not wish to submit the paperwork then they will still be allowed to observe target manufacturing and participate in all the other activities.

Other activities planned for Gun Blogger Day will include discussions of explosive chemistry, alternate materials for explosives, target detonation theory, fireball target construction, the history and future of Boomershoot, Boomershoot safety, Why Boomershoot, "entertainingly close" detonation of targets by the participants and almost any other safe and legal activity related to guns and explosives the participants can think of.

Do you want to blow something up? Toilets, laptop computers, and hard disk drives are just some of the things we have subjected to "Idaho Hardware Testing". If you have something you want subjected to Boomerite let me know and we'll figure out how to make it happen safely. The only catch is that you need to clean up (or pay for) the mess afterward.

Gun bloggers who are attending Boomershoot for the first time will also get free admission to the main event on Sunday April 26^th.

While at the NRA Convention there were numerous times when someone say, "I once made about post about that." Most of the time others would say, "Yeah! I remember that." Occasionally someone would say, "I must have missed that. Could you bring me up to speed?"

This is for those times when people missed one of my posts.

For Kevin, Sebastian, and Bitter on Sunday night when we were talking about powdered sugar and coffee creamer in regards to A Security Theater. Check out the video link.

Photo below by Rob Allen (see this post of his for more pictures from Friday evening) which was taken within a few minutes of the discussion:

Left front and going clockwise: Jeff, Kevin, Joe, Say Uncle.

We were talking about endangered species and I mentioned the post I made about Habitat destruction leads to extinction. That got a laugh. But then we nearly fell out of our booth laughing as Kevin described it as deforestation.

Update: Late last Friday, the night we are not to blog about, someone who shall remain nameless mentioned a problem with insomnia. This same someone at a different time acknowledged reading about Dr. Joe's cure for everything. But they apparently didn't make the connection that their insomnia was a prime candidate for a treatment with Dr. Joe's cure. I was tempted to make the connection for them but thought it would be inappropriate "to go there" in the given circumstances.

Last Friday night Michael Baine hosted a social event for us bloggers. Todd Jarrett reported that 10 bloggers would get training from him at Blackwater and then take home a Paraordinance gun at the end of the training. Bitter has some details.

I spent probably 15 minutes talking with Jarrett and he got really interested in Boomershoot and told me he wanted to blow up a car. He wants to be able to shoot bullets into it and have it lift about four feet off the ground. I gave him my card and told him I thought I could do that. He seemed interested in exploring that further. Cool!

Several of the bloggers, myself included, in attendance at the NRA Convention were looking forward to meeting the Empress of Snark^tm. She and Roberta flew in on their broomstick Saturday and left again before most of us got a chance to meet them. Tamera was persuaded to visit again on Sunday and some waited in the pressroom for quite some time. When she finally arrived we went in search of food:

Left to right are Bill, Mike W., Denise, Tamara, and Rick.

Tamara checking out her taco cone.

I'm almost always surprised when I meet someone in person who I had some non face-to-face contact. I expected Tamara to have a big smile on her face almost all the time as she laughed at the world around her and she would let rip with one snarky comment after another. Instead she was reserved and seemed to be pushing herself to overcome shyness. But maybe that was just her restraining herself from decking one or more of her groupies.

Regardless she was very tolerant of all the attention people gave her and to the best of my knowledge she didn't have to even brandish her knife.

Update: In response to a comment from Chuck--She has eyebrows. It's just that her light red hair is difficult to distingush from her pink skin.

See?

Despite thousands of people walking around carrying guns and even drinking while armed the only shooting I saw was the air gun stuff going on at the convention hall. Rick from Traction Control challenged Kevin and I to a little friendly shooting. The targets are below.

I cheated. Something Greg Hamilton of Insights teaches his students--the goal is to win. In a gun fight winning is the only thing that matters. Playing fair is for losers.

Rick and Kevin shot first and reported the gun was shooting low and right. So I aimed high and left. I scored a 49 and won.

We have a long, hard road ahead of us. I feel more comfortable knowing you all will be there by my side as we battle the forces of stupidity and take comfort in the knowledge that each of you will do everything they can to retain our rights as citizens of the free world. And, if God forbid it all goes south, at least we have Joe Huffman on our side.

Rob Allen
May 20, 2008 in an email he sent to bloggers he met at the NRA convention.
[Rob is Sharp as a Marble, but for some reason he wasn't the only person that has been saying things like that about me. I would like to think it was because of my target from the friendly little air-gun competition we had. But there were hints that wasn't it. It was before that and/or in a completely different context Kevin said the same thing and numerous others that said the same or something similar. Bitter, for example, said she would never look at powdered sugar the same way again. I appreciate all the nice things people are saying but aren't you just moving me to the top of some list I really don't want to be on?--Joe]

I had said I wouldn't blog about Friday night but since it has been widely reported elsewhere that Say Uncle has teeth like little vaginas I would like to make something very clear. The next morning when Uncle said he had a headache I did not offer Dr. Joe's cure for everything.

Uncle and his hotel roommate Rob Allen had already pegged out my squeam-o-meter when they started talking about "the lube".