The View From North Central Idaho

So I got this email today...

It's just a couple of college kids making a movie and they need a car blown up.  There were some emails exchanged and then we ended up chatting online for hours (until just a few minutes ago).  Ry and I, being nerds, wanted to encourage reality based stuff.  Such as no fireballs unless there really is excess fuel in the explosion.  And the sound arrives significantly AFTER the explosion occurs (at 700 yards, boomershoot range, it's about 2 seconds).  Only if the camera is right in the middle of the explosion would it happen at the same time.  They probably aren't going to go for it.  They want Hollywood reality, not physical reality.  <shrug>  Okay.  We can do that.  The first couple of emails follow.  We'll be blogging about the project as we know more.  They should have a website and trailer up before long.

From: Gideon Oakes
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:17 AM
To: joeh@boomershoot.org
Subject: Filming at Boomershot 2005

Hi Joe,

 

My name is Gideon Oakes. My buddy and I are students down here at BYU-Idaho, and we're putting together a feature-length action movie called "The Moment." In the film, there is a scene in which a car is supposed to blow up. I've visited your website and looked at everything, especially Project Fireball, with my eyes wide open. That kind of a fireball is exactly what we want. We're not looking to demolish the car, but we want to have a spectacular fireball blow through the windows and up into the air.

 

I've been trying to figure out how we could do this on our own, but the prospect of experimenting on blowing a car up (with no prior pyrotechnical knowledge) is somewhat of a frightening thing to me. So that's why I started looking for people who already knew how to do this kind of thing. When I came upon your site, I was first thrilled to see someone doing what you do. You guys are definitely my kind of people. I'm from South Dakota, where we too take our 2nd Amendment rights very seriously. Then when I saw that you did this all in Idaho, I nearly fell out of my chair. Of all 50 states, you're in the same state as us.

 

So, I guess what I would like to know is, what would it take for you guys to put a titanium powder firebomb in a gutted out car and blast it at Boomershoot 05? We don't know how far our movie is going to go, but we know that having this kind of special effect would definitely help its prospects out. Not to mention, it would be a heck of a lot of fun to do.

 

Please let me know if you're interested, so we can begin working on coordinating this project.

 

Thanks,

Gideon Oakes

BRP Digital Media

http://www.rushmore.tv

 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:40 AM
To: Gideon Oakes
Cc: Ry Jones
Subject: Re: Filming at Boomershot 2005

Rather than doing it at Boomershoot 2005 when my crew and I are very, very busy I would recommend some other time. Some weekend with a couple weeks notice would be probably work for us. Some of the issues I see are:

Do you have a car? If it wasn't scrap before, it will be afterwards.

Cleanup. Unless you film it where you can just leave it the car and any pieces that fall off will have to be cleaned up.

Cost. If you can travel to us we can be had very cheaply--perhaps free if you give us credit in your movie. If we have to travel there then we would expect some compensation.

If we travel there do you have a place where this sort of activity will not upset the neighbors? Houses may shake a couple miles away. You might be able to mitigate this by inviting them to watch...

We will detonate it with rifle fire. If we travel to you we will need a safe place to shoot a high powered rifle.

Equipment risk. Depending on how close your camera(s) must be there is some risk of them getting hit by something. We can discuss this in more detail to give you some idea but if you decide to put them inside of the radius we give you (probably about 200 yards) then you take the liability.

Looking forward to hearing more about your project.

Oh, one more thing... we don't do 'bombs' or 'firebombs'. We do "reactive targets"--some of which happen to create fireballs. Talking about 'bombs' will get you turned over to the ATF, the FBI, and/or various intelligence agencies.

-joe-
----
http://www.boomershoot.org
http://www.modernballistics.com

I thought the whole idea of "zero-tolerance" was to show that the problem was so serious that intelligence and common sense would not be allowed in the implementation of policy.  This serves to give a valuable lesson to students -- when something is really serious, you must make sure not to think.

 Fritz Sands
 4/15/99 2:36 PM
 Microsoft Gun Club Public Folder
 Regarding zero tolerance gun policies at schools resulting in suspending kids for tiny toy guns.

This post reminds me it's time to mention my web page on airline travel with firearms.  I used to travel on a plane about twice a week and I always traveled with one or more firearms in my checked baggage.  As result I ended up with a fair number of stories (see my web page).  I have a few more that aren't on the net too, but most of them are better told one-on-one so I can deny them later if necessary.

Be sure and read what the TSA has to say about air travel with a firearm and check out your airline for tolerance before getting on the plane for Boomershoot 2005.

This ad appeared on my blog:

The sad part is that eBay forbids the sale of firearms and that Google won't allow ads for firearms so in a sense the 2nd Amendment has already been sold out by them.

And remember that, even though income taxes can be a 'pain the neck,' the folks at the IRS are regular people just like you, except that they can destroy your life.

Dave Barry

I don't know how many people have had the pleasure of meeting Alan Korwin in person but he ranks right up there with Robin Williams in terms of energy and ability to make you laugh.  His writing can't fully communicate his energy but it's funny and right on in terms of gun rights and how to deal with the gun haters.  His latest paper is titled The Last Refuge for Hate: Gun Hate.  Here is an excerpt:

... since the bulk of resistance to the American right to arms has its roots in a medical condition, no amount of history, legal analysis, precedent, logic or argument will resolve the issue.

People who are terrified of and hate guns -- hoplophobes -- don’t care about anything rational, and we waste our time on such arguments. They want guns to go away. They don’t trust guns. They don’t trust people who have guns, and especially people who like guns. The only exception is “official” people with guns, meaning, they’re from the government, a source of relief.

I know, I know, that’s irrational. But that’s the nature of the disease, and it will not be fixed by DOJ reports.

...

Hate is a terrible thing.

It must be confronted vigorously, righteously, and in a forthright manner. Logic and law do not confront hate, or help lessen it. We must learn not to tolerate gun hate, anywhere we find it.

Hoplophobic behavior in government, schools, and all facets of public life must be recognized for what it is, exposed, and rooted out or treated. Seemingly utopian pacifists are free to profess their love of a weapon-free world, but they must start by disarming the evil, criminal and tyrannical. Disarming the general public is a vent for their twisted fear and hatred, a grotesque affront to freedom, and unacceptable.

Guns save lives. Guns stop crime. Guns are why America is still free. The history of freedom is inextricably tied to the development of weapons (an interesting study, by the way, if you have the time to examine it). Good people need guns. Efforts to end that are immoral and unjust, and when done by government, is a direct failure to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” That’s a violation of the oath of office, which should lead to removal from office and possibly even criminal charges.

The people we elect or hire for public service should be screened for latent or overt gun hatred, and disqualified if such hatred is found, before it can do any more harm to our nation and its values.

It is well past the time when the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the catalog of recognized mental infirmities, includes “hoplophobia,” in all its forms, and serious medical research is conducted to identify and treat this pernicious condition that threatens us all. The doctors among you should begin raising this issue. If you’re not a doctor but have one or two, ask them about it.

There's a lot more.  Go read it for yourself and buy some of his books while you are there.

If you are explaining, you are losing.

J.C. Watts
July 22, 2002

Say Uncle asks:

So, why do we have the fourth amendment again? I mean, I’m just asking since it seems like we don’t really use it.

The same question could be asked of virtually all the protections against excessive government in the entire constitution.  I recognize the sarcasm and know Say Uncle doesn't literally mean that but in a sense it is a valid question.  If our government isn't going to follow the rules then why not just draw up a new set of rules and try to enforce the government from crossing the new restrictions?  I say, “No”.  I take that back.  That should be, “Hell no!”  Even though we are nearly constantly reminded of government excursions into areas they are forbidden we are reminded by the existence of those violated restrictions.  It gives us something to “hang our hats on”, it gives us the moral high ground, it gives us a goal to strive for, and it reminds us why we need to hold onto our guns. 

How is that?  How does it remind us why we need to hold onto our guns?  Because rules aren't worth the paper they are written on without a means to enforce them.  I've gotten into debates on a Universal Biometric ID card and had a lawyer tell me we just needed to put “substantive rules“ in place prevent it's abuse.  As I told him:

If you believe "substantive rules ... will continue to be administered" will assure me the database will not be abused then you haven't been listening. The "substantive rules" that I would required to be put in place in order to believe the contents of the database would not abused would cause the most enthusiastic Auschwitz guard to cringe at my creativity in punishment methods, violate numerous protections of the Bill of Rights, and probably inspire several additions to it.

Government cannot be trusted to follow the rules--constant reminders of that are a good thing.

Usually I just end up jousting with windmills (and here).  But this time maybe I may have made some progress.  At least I got reasonable responses.  First this story:

Nine out of 10 Richmond-area residents support a proposed law that would close the so-called "gun-show loophole," a newly released crime-and-safety survey shows. 

The loophole allows unlicensed gun dealers to sell firearms at Virginia gun shows without making background checks of purchasers.

The survey also shows that residents in the region overwhelmingly rank crime as the biggest threat to their quality of life and that most believe the crime rate is tied to the availability of guns.

Voters are also willing to support stricter gun-control legislation and hold elected officials accountable on the issue.

...

You know how the story goes, almost for certain the survey wording was biased, the “gun-show loophole” is just a phrase invented by the freedom haters to further restrict sales of firearms, etc., etc.  Rather than explain all this to the reporter I sent a much simplier email and got a decent reply:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 12:44 AM
To: 'jnolan@timesdispatch.com'
Subject: Re: Closing gun-show loophole backed

Before implementing yet another gun control law people should look at the results of gun control laws world wide.  For example check out the recent report from the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-ref08x.html).

Then ask yourself just one question:

Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?

See this for background: http://blog.joehuffman.org/archive/2004/12/14/583.aspx

-joe-
----
http://blog.joehuffman.org
http://www.modernballistics.com
http://www.boomershoot.org

From: jnolan@timesdispatch.com
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 8:52 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: Closing gun-show loophole backed

Thanks, Joe. I'll check it out.

Then there was the editorial from someone already on our side:

Each year, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence publishes a “report card” rating each state in the country according to their “gun violence prevention laws.” They must not be very pleased with the direction of this country, as the national average was halfway between a “C” and a “D.” (“A” being the highest grade.) In order to understand the Brady Campaign’s perspective, one must examine the relationships between state legislative environments and the Brady grading system.

...

It’s okay to make baseless claims as long as they support Brady Campaign beliefs. The Brady Campaign revises the truth and capitalizes upon people’s pain and suffering to promote a political goal: banning civilian firearms. They roll out the “for the children” refrain in an attempt to grab moral high ground and portray those who disagree as too self-absorbed with guns to care about the death of innocents, even though statistical fact indicates that it is the Brady Campaign that prefers demagoguery to reality.

I sent him the following email and got a reply:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 8:29 AM
To: 'hnemerov@netvista.net'
Subject: Brady grades.

Thanks for writing the nice article.

See also "Brady 2004 Report Card versus crime rates":

http://blog.joehuffman.org/archive/2005/01/17/929.aspx

-joe-
----
http://blog.joehuffman.org
http://www.modernballistics.com
http://www.boomershoot.org

From: Howard Nemerov
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 9:25 AM
To: 'Joe Huffman'
Subject: RE: Brady grades.

That's pretty much what I found for rates per 100,000 population; not much difference between CCW and non-CCW states. Your spreadsheet is very good. Maybe send a copy to John Lott? The 2004 Brady report card was only slightly different from 2003, so it's still valid to do what you did. I discussed the slight variations to try to regress the report card to 2003 for a straight comparison. Thanks for reading my paper.

Howard Nemerov

I sent Mr. Lott a link to my blog on the correlation between Brady grades and violent crime.  No response yet, but it was just a few minutes ago so it's way to early to know if he will have an interest or not.

I've read (I think in Lt. Col David Grossman's book, On Killing) that most of the casualties in a battle are when one side turns tail and runs.  In a sense we have the anti-freedom gun banners on the run.  Check out these stories:

• Legislators Submit Bill To Repeal Ballistics Law (Maryland)
• There's only one way to protect ourselves – and here's the proof (The U.K.!!!)
• Packin heat?. . . a novice shares the choice she made (an AP reporter gets a CCW)
• CDC report on firearms laws (no evidence gun control reduces crime)
• Whether the Second Amendment Secures and Individual Right (U.S. Justice Department says it's an individual right)

So if we want to make sure we don't have to fight this battle again in ten years or our children fighting it in 20 we need to politically exterminate these anti-freedom extremists.  Continue with the studies and reports, repeal the stupid and oppressive laws, recruit new shooters, and most important get positive coverage in the mainstream media:

• Send out press releases about your shooting event
• Make the press feel welcome at your events
• Be well prepared for the press with “designated hitters“ for them to interview
• Thank the reporters and editorial writers when they do something right
• Politely educate reporters and editorial writers when they do something wrong
• Slap down gun owners that make us look bad

If you want some tips on dealing with the press send an email to me or Stephanie Sailor (the real expert).

We must drive our enemies deep into their caves then blow up all the exits.

Getting Equipped for the Boomershoot.  Remington 700 action, Hart heavy varmit barrel, HS Precision Stock, 8-32x50 scope, Precision Rifle Clinic...

Total cost: Too much for me to admit to in public

Take that!  You GFWs!!!!  Giving you something to REALLY worry about.  Ahhh... All warm and fuzzy inside. 

If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly.

David Hackworth

Due to neighbor complaints (I could sort of understand their concerns when stuff kept falling off the walls) I'm reducing the target volume on the largest targets this year.  I'm gluing part of an egg carton into the bottom of the 8“ target bodies prior to filling them with explosives.

I've measured the capacity and now the 8” targets have just about the same capacity as the 6” targets while still offering a larger shooting area.  I can get all the old egg cartons I want at the recycling center but the time involved is almost painful.  Including the cutting, fitting, and gluing it's taking right at five minutes per target.  Since I plan to have 60 of these size targets that means I'm going to be putting five hours of prep time just for these targets.  Well I guess the consolation is that if I loose money on the event this year it will reduce my loss in terms of $/hour.  Instead of earning -$1.00/hour I'll earn -$0.98/hour or some such thing.  That's better--isn't it?

For some of the background on this read my web pages on Reactive Targets--especially Project Nitro.  The recipe given there is obsolete, but it will still help you understand some of what follows.

The last year the targets just didn't detonate as well as they should have.  We changed the containers we used for the targets, we ground the NH₄NO₃ much finer that ever before, we used a KitchenAid^R mixer instead of hand mixing, and we put in a small amount of MnO₂ as coloring to help us tell when it was thoroughly mixed.  Too many variables and we discovered the problem just a week before the event.  We suffered through the event and then last fall I bought some books on explosives and detonation mechanisms and have spent a lot of time reading and thinking about what is going on with our mixture.  Some of my hypotheses were shot down after doing a few thought experiments.  Some others died after some field experiments.  My latest hypothesis is that when we grind the NH₄NO₃ it absorbed the liquid fuel (proprietary) and the KClO₃ isn't able to interact with the fuel as well during the detonation initiation phase.  This might also explain why the mixture becomes more and more difficult to detonate as the targets age--the fuel is absorbed more and more into the NH₄NO₃ and it's also possible it is evaporating through the container walls.  Fortunately if this hypothesis is correct the fix is easy--add more fuel and perhaps seal the containers better.  For maximum sensitivity the mix has always been very oxygen rich and I have wanted to add more fuel just to get more bang for the unit volume of target.  If adding more fuel works out I'll be pleased for more than one reason.

Most recently the ratio of NH₄NO₃ to fuel has been 24:1 by volume. This was based upon a density measurement from a long time ago with a different batch of NH₄NO₃ and I decided to measure the density again before doing these tests.  Previously I had measured a specific density of 0.96.  This time I came up with 0.875.  Ouch!  That could be making a difference too.  Time to redo all our sensitivity tests.  Tonight I finely ground four 500 mL batches of NH₄NO₃ and mixed in 20, 30, 45, and 60 mL of fuel in the respective batches.  That gives me ratios of 25:1, 16.7:1, 11.1:1, and 8.3:1.  I was amazed at how little of the fuel shows up in the 25:1 mix.  It's almost as if it doesn't exist.  I'm expecting that after letting it “soak” for a couple weeks even the 8.3:1 mix will look pretty “dry”.  After the next IPSC match (February 6^th) I'll mix in 125 mL of KClO₃ in each mixture and do the sensitivity tests while at the range.  This year I'm going keep tweaking things until we get everything working right again.

http://www.wherefreedomreigns.com/books.html

It sounds sort of like an Unintended Consequences story line.  From the website:

The year is 2018, seven years after the successful end of an American-led world war on terrorism, but the nation is now faced with an even more horrible prospect: a war against an enemy it can not defeat—itself. In the face of the gathering storm clouds of war, Jeremiah Kincaid, 59, the Republican Speaker of the House, struggles to mediate a growing firestorm of public debate over gun control. On the left is Alexander Webster, 49, the Democratic President, who halfway through his final term, decides to make the elimination of guns from America his legacy. On the right is Edward Morrissey, 61, the Republican Governor of Idaho, who bitterly opposes the President’s position.

Exacerbating the situation, militia seize a gun club built on Federal land in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, which the Park Service had closed. After losing patience with Morrissey’s handling of the problem, Webster sends in Army Rangers, and in the ensuing battle many men die. The militia’s handsome leader, Thomas Porter, 34, escapes. He is a multi-billionaire with a past shrouded in mystery. The massacre on the mountain sets in motion a sequence of events that eventually leads to the secession of Idaho from the Union. As the country falls apart around her, Sarah McGill, 34, a rising television network star, finds herself falling in love with two men; a dashing Army officer, Jake Kincaid, 36, the son of the Speaker of the House, and the enigmatic Thomas Porter; and what makes this drama of the human heart all the more poignant is that Jake and Thomas are long-lost brothers.

And volume two:

Driven by emotion rather than logic, President Webster approves an ill-advised plan to kidnap Governor Morrissey using Army Special Forces. However, the attempt fails, which drives the governments of six other western states to secede and form the Continental States of America with Morrissey as its President. Eventually, President Webster is left with no choice but to declare war on the new confederacy. The brutal civil war that ensues lasts for seven days and involves the most ferocious and devastating tank battles in history. By the time it ends, the blood of over one hundred thousand soldiers has been spilled on the savaged soil of the sorrowed nation.

As I obscurely mentioned a few days ago I had freezing rain to drive through on the way to work last Monday.  Here are a few pictures of the van after I arrive in the desert town of Richland Washington.

Then today I was doing some errands around town when my daughter Xenia and I saw smoke coming from across town.  I dropped her off at home and went to get the oil changed in the van.  The smoke was coming from only a few blocks away so I walked over and took a few pictures of the house fire.  It was set deliberately by the fire department for training purposes and to get rid of an old house.

It is well known and widely accepted that homo sapiens are vulnerable to lasting denial-of-service attacks involving pyrotechnically accellerated projectiles.

Markus Kuhn, Computer Lab, Univ of Cambridge, GB
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25
In a Usenet post:
Subject: Re: StegOS - taking steganography to the next level
Newsgroups: sci.cryp
Date: 2002-06-20 04:07:12 PST

It is a historical constant that the strong rule the weak, and any shade of liberty enjoyed by the weak is nothing more than the benevolence of the strong.  You need guns because the world is full of the strong, and not all of them are benevolent.

 John Fogh
 Insights Self Defense Instructor
 April 13, 1999
 Microsoft Gun Club Email Folder

I updated Boomershoot Blogging just a few minutes ago.  All the referral counts are up to date as well as changing “Dipnut at Isntapundit” status to 'yes' on attending.  I received his entry yesterday.  No payment because he has well over 100 referrals to boomershoot.org from his site.  I'm tempted to grep through the log file for each of the IP addresses and see if any of them made it to the entry fee page.  From my quick scan only a very few made it past the opening page.  You have to give him credit though.  His post was quite to the point and got the result he wanted.

So far that makes nine bloggers who will be attending.

As Ry at Mindless Bit Spew points out there exist people in the gun communitity that have some sort of issue with homosexuals (and others with race).  I went to the forum on AR15.com that Ry was complaining about and I sort of lost it.  I posted the following:

Is there some connection between firearms and sexual orientation that I am unaware of?

I try my best to recruit people that traditionally vote against gun rights into the gun rights movement and it only takes a few jerks with a random comment here and there to undo everything. Do you want to engage in a civil war to maintain your right to keep and bear arms? Or would you rather subvert the evil party that keeps trying to take our freedoms away?

Examples of some of my efforts:

Palouse Pink Pistols IPSC match
Palouse Pink Pistol Article in local paper
AP version of above story
Seattle Time Editorial based on interview with me
Palouse Pink Pistols website (I'm a charter member)
Missoulia Montana article on Boomershoot
Newsweek article on Boomershoot
Outside Magazine article on Boomershoot

When I talk to liberal reporters and writers I want to be able to dispel their stereotypes of gun owners being red necked, racist, gay-bashers. They think that if we have guns we will shoot people just because we don't like the color of their skin or because we saw a couple guys holding hands. I want to be able to say that we just want to enjoy our sports, protect our homes, families, and communities. That we aren't a threat to anyone except those that would do us grave injury. And I feel like I am stabbed in the back when this kind of crap happens. I can spend hundreds of hours on pro-gun activism and have it all pissed away by ONE person talking trash. People believe what they want to believe and if they hear just one person make a derogatory comment or see just one post that confirms their bigoted beliefs about us then my efforts have just been flushed down the toilet.

If you don't believe me about how fearful they are (to the point of being irrational) take a look at this email I got from a lesbian friend of mine.

I don't care if you have strong feelings against gays but please don't express them in the context of firearms. You just shoot us all in the foot when you do that. Please, please, shape up. We are slowly starting to win this war against us and the people on the front lines do NOT appreciate having jerks sticking it to us from the rear.

It's been quiet over there for several hours now so maybe I made my point.  I hope so.  I'm still pissed though.  I'm going to be cranky for a few days.

Ry, thanks for pointing that out.  I know you have mentioned it to me before and I didn't respond.  This time the stars were aligned just so and I got pretty heated up.

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; also he lives precariously, and at discretion.

James Burgh
Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses
London, 1714-1775