What are you thinking?

I’ve been busy recently and haven’t posted some things I wanted to weeks ago. It has come to the point I’m irritated so much that I have to say it. I’m withholding names to protect the guilty. Please don’t take offense if you decide I’m talking about you. I could be, but just because I am does not mean that I am going to shun you or am deliberately shaming you. That’s not my intent.

I’m pretty open minded about a lot of things. Reality is hard. I know that. Can we still keep things friendly even though I think you might have a circuit or two crosswired in your brain?

God? Gods? Pro-Life? Pro-Choice? I can probably argue four or more different sides to each of those questions and be reasonably convincing to the average person even though I am pretty sure which is the correct answer. Believe what you want as long as you don’t insist everyone conform to your beliefs and as far as I’m concerned we’re all good.

There are things which are less certain. Some of the UFOs (currently called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena–UAPs) are alien craft? Global warming/cooling/climate-change? The 2021 presidential election was totally rigged? Bitcoin will replace the U.S. Dollar in the next ‘N’ years? Bitcoin is a great/terrible investment? I just don’t know. I suspect the general public does not have enough information to determine an answer with a high degree of certainty to any of these questions. Again, I can probably be convincing to the average person no matter which side I wanted to take.

There are other things which are more clear cut. Actual moon landing or faked? Flat earth or spherical? 9/11 was an inside job? Sorry. You don’t get any slack from me if you start trying to convince me we don’t actually have satellites in orbit or that because steel doesn’t melt at burning jet fuel temperatures the WTC collapses had explosive help.

Let’s think about the claim all test animals for the mRNA “vaccines”* died. I first heard this several months ago and went looking for the research papers. It turns out that, at least in the papers I saw, this was true! Damning evidence, right? No.The animals died because the researchers performed necropsies on all of them. The results, that I saw in the papers I read, were that everything looked normal.

It is as if someone was trolling the general population to see how many people would draw the incorrect conclusion from factual data. Good joke! I actually laughed at the cleverness. But why would anyone persist in believing that even if they didn’t find the research papers and read them? Think about it some!

Suppose all, or even 10% of the test animals, died from the mRNA vaccine. How many researchers are going to go before their human subject testing review board** (sample of what is involved here) and say, “All the test animals died. We are going to test it on humans next.”?

Sure, there are people that think people are a plague on the earth and all humans (except perhaps others like them who are sufficient “woke”) should be exterminated. They don’t convince tens of thousands of other people to work on their project, get billions of dollars to produce and deliver their product without someone getting cold feet about the prospects and delivering overwhelming evidence to the general public of the impending doom of half the human population. Even small religious cults have people leaving and telling the dark stories from the inside.

After giving this a little thought, if you actually believe the whole mRNA “vaccines” are “Going to kill 100s of thousands (or more)” and people knew this all along, I have to ask, “Really? What are you thinking? How do determine truth from falsity? What color is the sky in your universe?

You want to talk about VAERS data? Okay. Let’s talk about it.

You might claim there is a huge increase in adverse reactions to mRNA “vaccines” compared to all other vaccines. Yup, it’s right there for everyone to see. But, there are some things to take into account before you reach valid conclusions. Unless you received a COVID-19 immunization you probably did not know people who received the “vaccine” were encouraged to sign up to receive and fill out a survey every day for a week, then once a week for several weeks, then another after a few months. They would send a text message to (IIRC) the CDC. Then they would receive text messages with links to the surveys. They would be asked how they were feeling. They were encouraged to report even very mild stuff, like a headache or muscle stiffness. Anything that might be considered an “adverse reaction”.

Suppose, they had a headache or some stiff muscles a month later; was it because they drank a little bit too much the previous evening or were hunched over the reloading bench all afternoon? Or was it because of the vaccine? They didn’t ask about those possibilities. The CDC just wanted the “adverse reaction”. I expect the noise was to be filtered out by looking for correlation with reports from other people at week ‘N’. To the best of my knowledge this has never been done with other vaccines. If you are looking at the raw data, without the noise filtering, you are going to see a lot of noise. And the number of reports are going to be much larger than with other vaccines because maybe 100x more people received the COVID-19 shots than your normal flu, MMR, and/or tetanus vaccinations. This combined with the encouragement and easy reporting of trivial “adverse reactions” results in the raw numbers being huge.

I’ve heard things to the effect of “Bill Gates is behind it and he is evil.” Gates was ruthless as a business man. I would have had serious moral qualms doing many of the things he did to competitors. He was good to his employees. When I worked at Microsoft I had numerous people who know him far better than I do say things to the effect that he would be more than fair to employees in situations where he had no obligation to be so. I’ve know people who talked to Melinda Gates about the work done by the Gates Foundation. I know people who worked on the Gates house and had long term personal contact with Bill and Melinda. I know one woman who went on a date with him. I know a woman who volunteered at the same charity has Bill’s mother and worked with her frequently. None of them even hinted at any dark side with him or his family. He was sometimes a little odd, but this was in a geeky rather than evil genius or creepy way.

Could Gates be bankrolling the deliberate extermination of millions? The odds are extremely low. He couldn’t hire enough guards or pay them enough money to keep the angry mobs at bay once it was discovered. He is not stupid. He is not suicidal. I believe the Gates Foundation really is intended to make the world a better place for humans. There is no intent to make the world a better place without humans. It is inconsistent with everything I know about him, his family, and the foundation. I think there is enough public information for anyone to arrive at a similar conclusion without many reservations.

Do I agree with all his politics and projects? No, but I think they are well intentioned even if they are misguided or flat out wrong.

On a different tangent maybe we can work out some answers on our own without relying on information from questionable sources like random podcasts, YouTube videos, word of month, memes, and worst of all, the CDC and other government sources.

Let’s run a little statistics experiment. In the comments or by sending me an email tell me how many people you have personally met*** which meet one or more the following criteria:

  1. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in an ER visit and/or hospitalization.
  2. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in long term (two or more months) adverse effects.
  3. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in death.
  4. Had COVID-19 which which resulted in an ER visit and/or hospitalization.
  5. Had COVID-19 which resulted in long term (two or more months) adverse effects.
  6. Had COVID-19 which resulted in death.

Don’t double report anyone. For example, if the person died don’t also report them as having long term adverse effects.

Here are my answers:

  • One person for item 1.
  • One person for item 4. (Added on 1/25/2022 after I remembered someone else).
  • One person for item 5.
  • One person for item 6.

Please be honest. “Stuffing the ballot box” isn’t going to change anything beyond a tiny corner of Joe’s world. And, almost for certain, the statistics will point you out as being a liar.

Next weekend I’ll collect the data and make a short report. My guess is that this little experiment will be more “interesting” than most people think it would be.


* Quoted as a deliberate concession because I don’t think that point is particularly important one way or the other.

** I had to do this for one project I worked on. I was gathering anonymous data from computers about the movement of the mouse. I was not gathering any information about what applications they were using or even if they clicked the mouse. I only collected timestamps and the position of the mouse at that time. It took weeks and answering lots of questions to get approval.

*** This needs to be carefully defined to get valid results. Consider “personally met” as meaning you were, at least once, in the same room/location as them and there is a good chance they would remember you as well as you remembering them. My brother’s niece, on his wife side of the family, who I have never met, having serious complications from COVID-19 linger after a year doesn’t count.

Quote of the day—Star-Ledger Editorial Board

When he was in the state Assembly, Jack Ciattarelli voted against banning 50 caliber weapons, those military-grade exterminators that can sever limbs and puncture armor. These are the weapons of choice for urban warfare, and a skilled sniper can use it to take down light armored vehicles, helicopters, or even a taxiing airplane — from nearly a mile away.

Star-Ledger Editorial Board
October 25, 2021
Ciattarelli and guns: A history of misfires
[And how many 50 caliber “military-grade exterminators” are used in any type of criminal violence each year in the U.S.? Rounding to the nearest 0.1 percent, the answer is zero.

Because they have no principled argument, no legal argument, and no practical argument they lead with what they do have a huge advantage with, their lies and deception. It’s in their culture.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Walsh

Loosening our bounds to reality is attractive also because calling things by whatever names serves our immediate purpose liberates us from the hard work of understanding things not of our making, and gives us the illusion of mastery over our environment. It is especially attractive to those who have power over others, because it frees them from having to persuade the rest of humanity. For society’s mob of lazy under-performers, pleasing the leaders is an easier way of securing one’s place than competing for merit. Anyhow: intellectual/moral deterioration has ever been an easier sell than the hard acquisition of skills and virtues.

Michael Walsh
September 22, 2021
The Prince: Angelo Codevilla, 1943-2021
[The redefining, or perhaps it’s better called undefining, of words is a source of great irritation to me. Words mean things. And when people start ignoring the true meanings of words we no longer have a basis of communication. Such people might as well use a few grunts and snorts rather than multisyllable words.—Joe]

Deception is a part of their culture

As I have explained before the anti-gun crowd has a culture of deception.

I’ll bet they are really feeling good about this one:

Parkland parents tricked ex-NRA president into a ‘graduation speech’ to empty chairs representing gun victims

Earlier this month, David Keene, the former president of the National Rifle Association, stood on an outdoor stage in Las Vegas as he addressed thousands of empty white chairs. Keene was rehearsing his speech to the James Madison Academy’s 2021 graduating class.

“Let me begin by telling you what an honor it is to be here to help celebrate your graduation,” Keene, 76, said. “There are some who will continue to fight to gut the Second Amendment, but I’d be willing to bet that many of you will be among those who stand up and prevent them from succeeding.”

But the 3,044 white chairs he faced were never meant to be filled. The private online high school? It never existed.

It was all a carefully organized stunt.

Lies. It is all they can do because the truth is on our side.

Quote of the day—Alcibiades Anon

Sociopaths will inherit the earth.  We are built for the chaos to come.  We are built to benefit and thrive in this new land of opportunity.  We must begin to raise our brothers and sisters through the ranks and teach them to function.  The Trickster’s Path can help those that need to find their way.  There are other sources, other ways.  We must find the way forward.  We must be placed to take the power that is ours by right.  The flies have ruined our world, ruined our societies.  It is time a new people take dominance.

We must be the guiding light, and iron rod.  Many of us are in positions of power already, we must unite under our own flag.  Emotions and fear have ruled this world for too long already.  It is time for the hyper-rational to take their turn.  In the chaos that will come we must lead.  We must be the spiders placing ourselves in the darkness for our prey.  We must spin our webs, and make our plans.  If we wish to truly dance in the ashes of “civilization” we must be ready.

Alcibiades Anon
July 5, 2017
We Must Prepare for the Chaos and Violence to come
[Be careful what you wish for. This applies to empaths, sociopaths, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, everyone. There are many political factions and none appear to have a majority of power. If the rule of law breaks down too far then who and what emerges from the ashes may be something quite different than you imagined, or even could have, imagined.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ryan Born

When conservatives appeal to “free speech,” it is actually a calculated political move, designed to open up avenues of political discourse while shaming others from moving in active political opposition. I argue that when conservatives resort to this move, they can be safely ignored, as they are appealing to a right that does not exist. In my belief, when conservative ideas are opposed, there is no right that is being infringed.

Ryan Born
September 25, 2017
Speech is free
[At first I though Born was setting up a straw man with “it is actually a calculated political move….”. But that hypothesis was blow away in the following sentence.

Born needs to retake a junior high class on U.S. government and receive a passing grade before attempting to have a conversation with adults. In the mean time don’t ever forget this is what many people on the political left think of specific enumerated rights.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dana Loesch‏ @DLoesch

Spent my weekend preparing to move due to repeated threats from gun control advocates.

One guy hunted down my private cell phone number, called when police were here, threatened to shoot me in my front yard. Another guy created a string of social media accounts, posted photos of my house, threatened to rape me to death. Another gun control advocate, after threatening to hunt me down and assault me, dragged my kids into it.

Dana Loesch‏ @DLoesch
Tweeted on October 15, 2017
[Violence. It’s the nature of the political left.

The scumbags of the political left did the same sort of thing to Michelle Malkin a few years ago. (I suspect it continues to this day). I set up a honey pot for catching those threatening Malkin. The link below is another honeypot. If you link to it from your website/blog using the appropriate text it will get more Google Page Rank and appear closer to the top of search engine results.

Dana Loesch’s address and phone number.—Joe]

This is what I was talking about

The other day I said:

Don’t ever forget there are certain inalienable rights all humans have.

Well, here is why we always need to have our guard up:

Notice, they didn’t complain about surveillance before. My assumption has been that with a Muslim running DHS, a Muslim DCI, and a Muslim POTUS, the Muslim community was pretty much surveillance-free. Now they know the worm is turning.

What I hope Trump will consider is not stopping at the Muslims, but going a step further. Democrat politicians, liberal political activists, #Blacklivesmatter assholes, global warming cult believers, Democrat contributors, Cuckservative never-Trumpers, mainstream media traitors, and other enemies of the state should all get their own government-funded perpetual proctological exams.

Once you get a government violating the rights of the “deplorables” it is very difficult to get it to stop. Government bureaucracies almost always grow and expand their original scope. Resist the urge to create such agencies to begin with and capitalize on every opportunity to shrink and/or eliminate them, and convict those who violated the rights of others, no matter how much you despise the victims of their crimes.

Why are progressives so violent?

Milo brings out the true nature of “progressives”:

Milo Yiannopoulos has been forced to cancel an event at Florida Atlantic University after what the FBI is calling a “credible death threat.”

Milo was due to speak at FAU on Thursday but authorities deemed the talk too dangerous, not because Milo’s speech on “How Feminism Hurts Women” was too controversial, but because student organizers received a note from an unnamed individual, threatening to blow up the event, or kill students who attended.

It’s in their nature.

Quote of the day—William Safire

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar.

Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.

William Safire
Essay;Blizzard of Lies
January 8, 1996
[Note the date. This was over twenty years ago and refers to Hillary Clinton.

Everyone who went through the Clinton Presidency knows that both Clintons are congenital liars. If you were too young at the time or have forgotten, please read the entire article. It became such a common occurrence that I suspect RESEARCHERS ANNOUNCE NEW MEDICATION FOR CONGENITAL LIARS was inspired by the Clintons.

At first my reaction to this lying was outrage. Then as it became expected it was mundane. Then, at the end of Bill’s last term in office, it became pathetic. Even the Democrats of the time stopped trying to defend them and just shook their heads each time another lie came out.

Our country shouldn’t have to endure another lying Clinton presidency.—Joe]

Letter to my representative

“Regarding the gun issue (and all issues really); We who advocate liberty are getting tired of reacting to the Left’s latest outrages. Shouldn’t they be forced to react to our “outrages”? In that spirit, I call for a bill removing all firearm restrictions on the state level, and for ordering all state and local law enforcement to prevent any federal gun law enforcement in the state. In other words, uphold and protect the constitution you’re all sworn to uphold and protect.

How’s THAT for an “outrage”? Let’s see the leftists go nuts trying to pick that one apart, and get them to feel lucky if WE only get half of OUR way this time through.

See how this works?.

Sincerely,
[Me]”

Not that it’ll have a whelk’s chance in a supernova of doing any good. We’re dealing with Republicans after all. But it has to be said, if for no other reason than to be able to say we told them so, to give them a chance to do the right thing while they still have a chance.

Incident number 2013-8424

Remember the guy that threatened me with, “If you know whats good you will keep your fucking mouth shut about Obama or you will come up missing on the news.”?

Yeah. Real piece of work. He called me. I was on the phone with daughter Kim at the time but I got a garbled voice mail and I called him back a couple minutes later.

After talking about a minute I hung up on him. It was difficult to even figure out what he was talking about and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He called again, and again, and again…

He left a second voice mail which was as follows (reading my blog post for the first part):

  • Any place that I frequent should be considered a known distance gun range.
  • If I can see you then you are within range.
  • My eyesight is quite good.
  • Don’t mess with me.

Yeah. I’m pretty sure those are threats. You looking at some jail time buddy. Have a good day.

He also sent me text messages. Actual time of calls (PST) and text messages were as follows. After the first two calls I did not respond to anything. Typos, punctuation, and grammar errors in the text messages are his:

  • 12:49 (missed call)
  • 12:51 (my outgoing call)
  • 12:55 (ignored call)
  • 12:56 (ignored call)
  • 12:56 (ignored call. Yes, every few seconds)
  • 13:02 (ignored call)
  • 13:02 (ignored call)
  • 13:07 (Text: 206-622-0460 seattle FBI’s number and I also logged a restraining order through the San Diego office next call is to my lawyer to file a suit)
  • 13:11 (Text: I tried to be nice and let you delete it yourself now Im leaving it to the courts. You breaking federal laws Joe not just state.)
  • 13:14 (ignored call)
  • 13:18 (ignored call)
  • 13:18 (ignored call)
  • 13:23 (ignored call)
  • 13:23 (ignored call)
  • 13:23 (Text: and if anything should happen you are held directly responsible. Enjoy the next 4 years of Obama you nazi republican jackoff)
  • 13:25 (ignored call)
  • 13:26 (ignored call)
  • 13:29 (ignored call)
  • 13:29 (ignored call)
  • 13:30 (ignored call)
  • 13:30 (ignored call)
  • 13:31 (ignored call)
  • 13:33 (Text: Thought so you fucking pussy republican asshole. . I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE NOW MOTHER FUCKER!! Thanks)
  • 15:26 (Text: I dont even own a single weapon. I dont hide behind a gun or computer screen like some conservative pussy from seattle washington. Sleep tight.)

After the message at 13:33 I went to the Bellevue, Washington Police station. I talked to Officer Dill who gave me the incident number 2013-8424 and gave my new “friend” a call. I only heard one side of the conversation but it sounded a lot like my conversation. Officer Dill couldn’t complete a sentence and sometimes even a word without being interrupted. At the end, after maybe a couple minutes, Officer Dill was almost yelling at him in a vain attempt to get him to call the Bellevue police department with the incident number. But he was unsuccessful and my “friend” hung up on the officer.

Officer Dill told me (paraphrasing some), “Yeah. Same as what you described. He is clearly irrational.”

[Stuff deleted on the advice of a psychologist.]

About 15 minutes after I left the police station the 15:26 text message came in.

Liberals are violent. We are better than this.

Update 2/19/2013: I don’t know that either is related but I received a call from a Brooklyn, NY number at 12:52 AM this morning and one from an Illinois exchange at 8:26 AM. Both calls hung up when I answered.

I would like to add, up front, that I cannot recall saying anything more offensive about Obama than I wasn’t going to vote for him and that I believe he is anti-gun. And furthermore I don’t even consider myself a Republican. This guy threatening me is nuts.

Crazy talk

For a long time I never really understood battered person syndrome where someone would stay with, go back to, or find a new partner that also abused them. Why couldn’t they see what everyone else thought was obvious? How could they think that was normal?

I understand better now. Even though I’m not a psychologist I’ve dealt with a number of crazy people in my life and I’m getting pretty good at recognizing “crazy” when I see it and what to do about it. This book helped a bunch: Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder.

It turns out a close parallel can be drawn between those that tolerate and even seek abuse in their personal relationships and our current relationship with the anti-gun people and our governments.

Read this and look at the parallel:

Since the victim is not at fault and the violence is internally driven by the abuser’s need to control, this self-blame results in feelings of helplessness rather than empowerment. The feeling of being both responsible for and helpless to stop the violence leads in turn to depression and passivity. This learned depression and passivity makes it difficult for the abused partner to marshal the resources and support system needed to leave.

We are told that “gun violence” is our fault. We are abused for something we had nothing to do with. We are told we must change and tolerate yet another abusive act. But no matter how much we concede, no matter how much abuse we put up with they always come back and abuse us more.

It’s driven, as in the battered person syndrome, by the abuser’s need to control. It is not because of anything we have done wrong.

We are dealing with a form of insanity and we tolerate it.

You don’t think so? Let me give some examples (see also this blog post).

Goldilocks guns

The anti-gun people want to outlaw guns that are “small and easily hidden”. They want to outlaw “.50 caliber sniper rifles” that are large and powerful . They want to outlaw guns that are “deadly accurate”. They want to outlaw guns that can be used for “spray shooting from the hip”.

You would think that perhaps a gun that fires an intermediate cartridge and is of medium weight and is not easily hidden would be acceptable to them. Nope. Such a gun, when capable of full auto” was called an “assault rifle” by the Germans during WWII. The anti-gun people, utilizing their talent for twisting words and preying on the ability of the public to be easily confused, banned these type of guns as “assault weapons”.

These intermediate power, intermediate size, with intermediate rates of fire, semi, not fully, auto guns were called “assault weapons” and banned.

So some guns are too big. Some guns are too small. But no guns are “just right”. Some guns are too accurate. Some guns can be wildly “sprayed”. But there are no guns that are “just right”.

That’s crazy talk!

1000 round arsenals

To anti-gun people and the press even a hundred rounds of ammunition found in the trunk of a car or in someone’s home is cause for concern. If the police decide to search someone’s car or home the finding of a few hundred rounds of ammunition will nearly take the breath away from the talking heads in the media. If it was within a few blocks of a school they make sure the implication is that each one of those rounds could, and should, be translated into the intent of the gun owner was to kill at least that many children.

This fascination with the number of rounds of ammo reached the point that in 1994 the U.S. Congress was contemplating requiring an arsenal license for people that had more than 1000 rounds of ammunition. There was talk of something similar again after the Newtown Connecticut shooting.

If I am going to the range for practice it is about 400 rounds per handgun and 100 for a rifle. If I were to go to a regional match I would take at least 1000 per gun. If I were to attend a weekend class the minimum round count is typically about 1500.

1000 rounds and they want to require a special license? I can put 1000 rounds of .22 LR in my coat pockets. Do they want me to license my coat?

And even in the most horrific mass shootings only something on the order of 100 rounds are fired. How could a restriction on owning more that 1000 rounds possibly make any difference?

That’s crazy talk!

Registration of guns

Of what benefit is it for guns to be registered? I’ve blogged about this many, times before. It is exceedingly costly and contrary to what you see on T.V. and at the movies it has near zero impact on solving crimes. But still the anti-gun people insist on gun registration.

That’s crazy talk!

Safety

If there were a very clear correlation between highly restrictive gun laws and lower violent crime, suicide, and/or accidental injury or death by gunshot then we could have a meaningful discussion about the merits of firearm regulation. But despite over a 100 years of gun regulation in this country there still isn’t any conclusive data any of the gun laws have improved public safety in any of the instances where they have been implemented.

A decent case can even be made there is more violent crime where firearms are banned. Yet in response to a mass shooting in yet another “gun free zone” they demand still more “gun free zones”.

That’s crazy talk!

Background checks

I’ve blogged about this too. But the more succinct version can be expressed in two sentences.

Background checks to prevent some people from gaining access to firearms is like checking ID to prevent underage drinking and smoking. How long does it take your average high school dropout to find a way to light up while drinking a beer?

Yet even most gun rights activists and gun rights “leaders” don’t object to something that is expensive, time consuming, and open to abuse.

The anti-gun people want to expand a system that clearly doesn’t and can’t possibly work any better than ID checks for underage drinking and smoking.

That’s crazy talk!

One gun a month

Who needs to buy more than one Bible a month? Why do Bible owners get all upset about the minor inconvenience of restricting people to just one Bible a month? It would cut down on trafficking of Bibles from states with lax Bible laws to those with strict Bible laws.

Is that crazy talk? Yup. It’s also crazy talk when you substitute “gun” for “Bible” in that paragraph.

[If you want to claim Bibles aren’t “responsible” for killing people like guns are then substitute “Koran” or “Communist Manifesto” and reevaluate before you engage me in that debate.]

Waiting periods

The anti-gun people want waiting periods before someone can take home a newly purchased gun. When asked why, even in the age of nearly instant background checks, they said they wanted a “cooling off period” so people wouldn’t buy a gun when angry or depressed and used it to harm someone else or themselves without having a few days to think about it.

It that were true then why did they insist on waiting periods even for people that already owned dozens of guns?

That’s crazy talk!

Conclusion

It’s not going to get any better if we continue to tolerate this misbehavior. It’s not in the psychology of the individual that batters their partner and it’s not in the history of governments.

We are better than this.

We must do something about this bad relationship. We need to recognize we are enabling it and we need to place the blame where it really belongs. Only then can we have a normal, healthy relationship. But most of all we have to recognize we have made only feeble attempts at “couples counseling” (the courts) when we probably should be trying to “get out of the relationship”.

Original Principles

You cannot claim to defend the second amendment while supporting or openly accepting the NFA of ’34 and GCA ’68. Or background checks. It makes absolutely no sense.

Progressive president FDR knew exactly what he was doing. Before 1934 you could buy a Thompson sub machinegun by mail order with no paperwork. Or a BAR. Or an M2, et al. The second amendment said so. It was understood. The convenient ruse was Prohibition. Never let a crisis go to waste. Prohibition naturally led to gang warfare, widespread corruption and a general degradation of society, just as the “War on Drugs” does today. Then, as now, the violence and degradation guaranteed by a profitable, government-enforced monopoly for criminals is used as a tool to intimidate you into accepting infringements on your rights. It isn’t so much a conspiricy as a natural progression for those in power.

You don’t HATE children, do you? Of course not, and so you must give up more of your rights, and your children’s rights. Remember that, Grasshopper; this “for the children’ or “for the good of society” crap demands giving up not just yours but your neighbors’ and your children’s rights – so now who hates children? Who hates your grandchildren? Since you gave up THAT little bit (NFA, GCA, NICCS, et al) you have ceded the enemy’s point. You’ve agreed that restrictions on gun ownership are a legitimate and sensible way of addressing crime. You’ve proven to everyone that, under the right pressures, you’re willing to give up more, and more and more, until you’ve forgotten what the right was in the first place. Which is where we are now. You’re dancing someone else’s dance and you don’t even know it. It works so well that many of us are afraid to articulate the true meaning of the second amendment in public, for fear of being branded as extremists. That cheap, transparent game is as old as the hills, but it’s so effective, over and over again, that many of you reading this are still falling for it. Cowards. Don’t think that your clever rationalizations make you less of a coward. You’re clever cowards.

If we allow ourselves to be suckered by proposals for “mental health” screening for gun purchases, for example, just watch how quickly the number of people being determined to have “mental health” issues starts to climb, and climb, and climb exponentially. Don’t ask later, in bewilderment, (NRA) how it could have come to such a state of affairs. It will. And you will have helped it along (which means you’re crazy, which means you can’t have guns ; )

No, Young Grasshopper; the only way to fix this is to rediscover Original Principles, then articulate them clearly, then stand our ground, and then win it all back. The enemy wins through subtle lies, mind tricks, degradation, intimidation, smear, and outright lies. We are better than this. We win with the truth, and with the courage to stand up for it.

Perceptions

Joe and I, and several other bloggers, have referred to this photo as an example of how different people can look at the same thing and see something completely different;
woman
You see either a beautiful young woman or an old hag, or maybe both in rapid succession. It depends on your “wiring”. My theory is that most men will key in on the young woman because our brains are wired to notice them, but I have no evidence whatsoever to back it up other than watching other men in their cars or out and about, looking at young women. If the military could devise a system that efficient at locating enemy combatants, we’d never lose a battle. (Yeah; I see you guys zeroing in on all the women – it’s like a magnet drawing in all those iron filings you never knew could possibly be on your floor, or something)

A search for that image brought me to this site, which is great. I now do not remember what exactly it was I wanted to say using the above image as an example, but that first link also links to this site, where I found a great gift. The person who does most or all of the posts demonstrated the concept, and did so with regard to gun rights! This is a VERY beautiful juxtaposition (or something) on the subject, on a site that SPECIALIZES in perception and illusion art. How great is that?

First I found this, posted on January 12, 2013;

“We should all stop being petty about each other, learn to be tolerant, and stop aggressively intruding our ways on others. I think if we all learned to do this, we would find our place under the sun, and these differences wouldn’t even be brought as important.” (emphasis mine)

Excellent (the author sees the beautiful young woman). I couldn’t agree more.

And then I found, written by the same person (Vurdlak) on December 16, 2012 (on page three as of the day this is written)

“I have to say I’m still under shock after reading what happened in Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut (USA). My heart is broken, and I can’t seem to understand how such horrible things are even possible. What is happening with our species?! I also read how pro-firearms lobby suggests that every teacher should be allowed to keep firearms in their class (for protections)?! Are those lunatics for real? What makes you think this wouldn’t cause another incident??! I for one wouldn’t feel safe sending my kids to school where teacher keeps a gun in his desk. All this literally makes my stomach hurt. Owning a gun should be heavily regulated, like rest of the world does it – period.” (emphasis mine, for various reasons I’m sure you understand)

And there’s the old hag, and the author is just about ready to beat the shit out of you if you insist it looks like a young woman if you look at it differently. It don’t think it can get any better than that.

I could go on and on with a thousand or more words, fisking that last quote, but I think this audience already understands it completely.

Anyway, to change the subject entirely; check out those links. WOW! I got lost in there for about an hour before I knew it. Now my eyes hurt a little bit. I love that stuff (you probably should avoid it of you’re epileptic – some of that stuff wanted to make me dizzy).

I now remember noticing sometime in junior high school that, looking at a shadow alone, you have zero information to tell you whether the shadow figure is “facing you” or “facing away from you”, hence the moving silhouette of the woman that can be seen to rotate in either direction. Did I tell you I love that stuff? Speaking of shadows; a few weeks ago my wife had a football game on the tele, and you know they use computers to “paint” the scrimmage line and the first down marker line on the ground for the TV audience, while showing the players above it. Pretty sophisticated programming, I figure. Anyway, the thought hit me at that time that it would be really stinking cool if there was a program that could delete the players’ images entirely, and only show their shadows, so you see a game played by teams of two-dimensional silhouettes painted on the turf, fighting over a two-dimensional “ball”. Yikes! Joe?

Background checks

The anti-gun people insist “improved background checks” and even “universal background checks” should not be controversial. Let me try to explain why they are both pointless and completely unacceptable to thinking people.

Pointless demonstration number 1:

The claimed purpose of background checks is to prevent “people who shouldn’t have guns” from acquiring them. That is a noble objective. It sounds so reasonable and “common sense” that I want to agree without giving it even a seconds thought. It’s an excellent idea! It’s such a great idea we should apply that to some other dangerous things. Let’s have background checks before people can purchase recreational drugs. Far too many people abuse them and destroy their lives and frequently the lives of others. Keeping recreational drugs out of the hands of people that would likely abuse them is just “common sense”. Right?

Oh! That’s right. We have something way beyond background checks in place for most recreational drugs. We have banned them not just from “people that might abuse them” but from everyone. How’s that working out? How long does it take the average high school dropout to find a way around the ban? Yeah, that’s right, Einstein. The average high school dropout can get all the recreational drugs they want within an hour anytime of the day, any day of the week. So just how effective you think a background check would be in reducing the abuse of recreational drugs?

Now apply what you know about the recreational drug issue to firearms. A background check is totally pointless.

Pointless demonstration number 2:

Universal background checks can only claim effectiveness if they can be enforced. Prostitution is illegal in most states but if a beautiful woman leaves a $100 bill on my nightstand when she leaves in the morning (yes, stretch your imagination a bit, or a lot, for purposes of illustration) how does  the government enforce the “no sex for money” prohibition in this case? It was a “private transaction” between willing parties. Do you think either party has an interest in disclosing the transaction to the police? And even if they do there is a significant obstacle in that it becomes a “he said, she said” problem.

In the absence of gun and/or gun owner registration the case of the “private transaction” between gun owners boils down to the same thing. The government, and perhaps one party to the transaction, can claim no background check was done. As long as the person being prosecuted keeps their mouth shut and the transaction wasn’t recorded it is going to be impossible to prove that a background check wasn’t performed. Remember, in order to get the Brady Act (“instant” background checks for gun transactions) passed the law states that all record of passing background checks must be destroyed. Searching the records of all those authorized to perform background checks would be a violation of Fourth Amendment rights.

Pointless demonstration number 3:

Even if a background check is performed it only requires a stolen or fake ID to defeat it. The fake ID doesn’t even have to be for a real person! The check is not against a “white list” of people that are “allowed” to have guns. The check is against a “black list” of people that are disallowed from possessing guns.

Conclusion:

If you still advocate for background checks for firearms I can only think of two possibilities:

  1. You have a motive other than reducing the misuse of firearms.
  2. You also get confused when your caretaker is reading Dr. Seuss books to you.

Now that we have it settled that background checks are completely pointless let’s proceed on to the “unacceptable” demonstrations.

Unacceptable demonstration number 1:

Background checks cost money and time. The FBI portion of them is “free” to the people doing the transaction. But really that just means the government is wasting scarce law enforcement resources using money they obtained through taxes (obtained at gunpoint–oh, the irony!). The only people authorized to do background checks are people with Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs). Because it is time consuming they always charge a fee and you must do a face-to-face transaction. This adds more wasted time and money to the transaction. A transaction which is a specific enumerate right.

This pointless waste of time and money is unacceptable at any time but when the government is deeply in debt and the economy is doing poorly wasting precious government and private resources it is even more so.

Unacceptable demonstration number 2:

If law requiring universal background checks is passed it will only be a short time before the politicians will “discover” the “loopholes” that prevents the law from working as intended. These include the lack of gun registration and the lack of defense against fake IDs. Any attempt at gun registration in the U.S. will result in massive non-compliance on a scale that will make alcohol prohibition look like first graders failing to stay in a straight line while waiting to go on recess. Look at the non-compliance experienced in the failed long gun registration in Canada. Multiply that by three (the difference in per capita gun ownership rate), multiply that by two (U.S. citizens trust the government less than Canadian citizens), then add ten billion rounds of ammunition (annual consumption by private citizens). Or look at New York state,  multiple by fifty (the citizens of other states included in the non-compliance) and multiply that by ten (the citizens of New York state have the option of moving to a freer state, with no place to escape the resistance will be more fierce), then add ten billion rounds of ammunition.

The “ID loophole” was identified years ago by the Feds and they passed a law requiring “Real ID” by the states. How’s that working out?

For the government to force this sort of situation upon the people is unacceptable.

Unacceptable demonstration number 3:

Since demonstrating that background checks are pointless the continued insistence upon forcing them upon the people this must mean that those continuing to advocate for them are either evil (option 1 above) or have the comprehension skills no better than that of an above average German Shepard (option 2 above). Despite the existence of blue dog democrats we have never elected someone so stupid as a real dog to a Federal office (Senator Patty Murray is not a counter example, she is capable of reading and comprehending most Dr. Seuss books). One can only conclude those advocating for background checks are evil or are doing so under duress.

Good people don’t knowingly and willingly cooperate with evil. It is unacceptable.

Conclusion:

Background checks are pointless and unacceptable. We are better than this.

Even compromising with those that advocate for them is the moral equivalent of compromising with people that want “common sense” limits on the 13th Amendment or someone intending to rape your 10 year-old child. The response must be an exceedingly firm no.

Update: I almost forgot, as pointed out by Tim S. in email a few days ago, there is a form of background check almost all gun owners would accept. That is if there were an “endorsement” on your state ID card (such as drivers license) like the restriction for corrective lenses or endorsement for motorcycle or commercial drivers license. It wouldn’t be much, if any, more effective than that currently proposed by the anti-freedom people. But it would eliminate the concerns over registration and most of the expense and wasted time. If such a thing is offered as a compromise to the anti-gunners expect it to be vigorously rejected. They know it doesn’t meet their “needs” and as such will refuse to give in.

Update 2: See also the conclusions which can be drawn from this study.