Today I placed an ad on google for Boomershoot 2004.  I used some key words and phrases that didn't show the event in the search listing.  It turns out virtually no one was advertising with these words and I was able to get very cheap rates for at or near the top of the listings.  It's expected to only cost about $35/month for an estimated 25 clicks a day or so.  Shotgun news is costing me about $50/month and resulting in about 10 clicks per day.  In addition I only pay for actual clicks on google whereas I have to pay for the Shotgun news banner ad whether I get any clicks or not.  We'll see if they will pay for themselves or not.  The web logs give me pretty good tracking information so I can see how well each of the “Ad Campaigns” do.  The National Rifleman classifed ad will come out soon too.  I really need to fill up the Boomershoot this year to pay for the new explosives magazine.

Today it was reported in the Washington Post:

The highest court in Massachusetts declared today that the state legislature may not offer "civil union" instead of marriage for same-sex couples, in a ruling that guarantees that the first state-recognized same-sex marriages in U.S. history can take place beginning in mid-May.

As pointed out in the article this will be a big debate point in the coming election and cause further division in the politics of this nation.  But it is a major step forward for freedom.  The other states will have to deal with that pesky “full faith and credit“ clause in the constitution that says they must recognize the licenses of other states.  Which will bring up the issue of concealed carry licenses.  Lots of implications here.  Glad to see it.

Now if MA would just get rid of bunch of their draconian gun laws.  Why is it that people seem to only want one or two particular flavors of freedom at a time?  I can't help but think that people don't want freedom at all, or at least they only want it for themselves and not everyone else.

I got a call this morning from someone in Pennsylvania.  They were about to make their airplane reservations for Boomershoot 2004 and wanted to make sure there was still openings for the event.  I told him yes, there shouldn't be a problem if it gets here the next week or so.  Pennsylvania!  First time for that state to be represented.  Cool.

Entries are actually running a bit behind normal so I'm pleased to hear people are in the process of signing up even if I haven't received the entries yet.  I got a couple emails this week saying “the check is in the mail” so that should help get me to the point where I can order the rest of the materials needed for this year's event.

I got an email from someone suggesting the targets have various color stripes or other markings on them to aid in the spotter/shooter dialog.  Good suggestion.  We knew it was a problem and planned to put up colored or marked stakes of some sort in the target area to use as landmarks.  But this would be even further help.

Kim du Toit put a link on his blog to http://www.boomershoot.org and doubled the number of page views overnight.  A couple of other blogs put up links as well, apparently after reading Kim's post.  See http://web.tampabay.rr.com/coastwatcher/ for example.  I am very pleased.  Thank you Kim.  You will be our first representative from Texas.  And it was most pleasant listening to your South African accent when we talked on the phone.  I'm looking forward to seeing you and your family in May.

From the BBC News -- Blunkett plans tougher terror law

Home Secretary David Blunkett wants new anti-terrorism laws to make it easier to convict British terror suspects.  He has discussed lowering the standard of proof required by a court and introducing more pre-emptive action.

Just a couple of steps further.  They already given up the right to be confronted with charges and a speedy trial.  From the same article:

The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 allows foreigners who are suspected international terrorists to be detained indefinitely without charge or trial in the event their lives would be in danger if they were dported.

Britain is holding 14 foreign terror suspects under this law, based on evidence which is tested in secret.

They are planning for secret trials and inability to confront your accusors, again from the same article:

Evidence in the new trials would be kept secret from the defendants to protect MI5, MI6 and GCHQ intelligence sources, Mr Blunkett said.

And they have already given up part of the right to remain silent, from the BBC guide to suspect rights: 

The previously important right of silence was amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Courts can now draw conclusions from your silence...

And of course everyone knows they gave up their right to keep and bear arms years ago.  It's likely that it won't be long before they realize the right to keep and bear arms is what guarantees the preservation of other inalienable rights.  Now would be a good time to review The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek again.  Hayek spells out why socialism is a slippery slope whose inevitable conclusion is the loss of economic and person freedom resulting in tyranny.  It's not that the proponents of the socialist system were intending for that to happen, but that it is a necessary conclusion of it's implementation.  And that the good intentioned, probably trustworthy, early promoters, will be pushed out by those who crave the power and will abuse it.  It's excellent reading material.

I got a call from Barb today.  She was pretty upset.  The nursing home where her mother, Joy, lives was audited by the state of Idaho and was told they have too high a percentage of patients that have railing on their bed.  Barb's mom was one of the residents that would have their railings removed.  Joy has fallen out of bed three times and in one of those falls broke her hip.  A railing seems to be more than just a good idea, but the state has some sort of quota system and Joy was going to pay the price.  Barb called the state inspector and was told, “You are very hostile.  Calm down.”  Barb managed to get some of the anger out of her voice but she still expressed her view of what the inspector should do in regards to the stupid regulations.  The inspector told her that maybe her mother could have her bed on the floor instead of having a railing.  For some reason this helpful suggestion was not received with as much enthusiasm as might have been expected.  Another suggestion was that we take her out of the state licensed nursing home.  This is actually a rather good suggestion if it wasn't for the fact that the state takes so much of our money in taxes that we cannot afford private care for her.  We could have provided far better care for her if our tax rate was 1/2 of what it currently is.

I explained this is the sort of thing that happens with government “provided” anything.  They take our money from us because they know how to spend it better than we do.  They then spend it according to the whims of the “central committee” and the central committee in their infinite wisdom will come up with rules such as what we are experiencing in this case.  It happens all the time.  It's not just health care, it's nearly everything the central committee does.

Vote Liberatarian, the party of principle. 

I follow the politics of the anti-freedom movement in this country with particular attention paid to gun control.  One of my tools for doing this is google's news alerts.  It's a wonderful tool.  This morning I got a notice about Gun control reappears as political issue. Heavy sigh... It included this little nugget:

...the recently enacted omnibus appropriations bill rolls back the government’s timetable in tracking illegal guns. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) sponsored in the provision in the House. It requires the FBI to destroy gun-buyer records 24 hours after a weapon is sold. The Brady law had required the FBI to retain such records for up to 90 days.

This is a commonly held belief but it is false.  The original Brady Act said:

(2) If receipt of a firearm would not violate section 922 (g) or (n) or State law, the system shall--
(A) assign a unique identification number to the transfer;
(B) provide the licensee with the number; and
(C) destroy all records of the system with respect to the call (other than the identifying number and the date the number was assigned) and all records of the system relating to the person or the transfer.

Item (C) was interpreted by the pro-freedom activists to mean they would be destroyed almost immediately.  This would allevate the concerns about creating a Federal gun owner database by default.  The Brady Act would not have passed without this provision.  The FBI didn't destroy the records.  Janet Reno said they were being held for “audit purposes“.  Unfortunately they were also being used for other things as well.  One would have thought that if they were by law to be destroyed then they could not be legally used for tracking down gun owners that passed the initial background check.  But this wasn't the case.  Law enforcement was using the records for far more than “audit purposes“.  The new law restores the original intent and the big fuss this created by the new law should be that law enforcement was violating the law to begin with and another law was necessary to curb them.

I wrote the author of the article a polite letter explaining things and suggested he should check any facts obtained from the gun control people carefully.  They are frequently misleading in their statements -- for example there is no such thing as a “Gun Show Loophole”.  All the laws and regulations that apply at a gun shop also apply at a gun show.