I found the bit of information I was waiting for.  The security guard at the school in Minnesota was unarmed.  It took men with guns (the police) to stop him.  The teachers (and probably the security guard) were disarmed by law and were unable to provide effective protection.  How long will it be before the lawmakers in this country figure out what others already know about how to prevent or at least drastically reduce the damage of, these type of events?

I had problems the first time.  It was a little better the second time, but it still wasn't good.  Once when Barb and I were driving by the Red Cross Donation center I pointed it out to her and said that was where she could pick up my body if they managed to kill me.  She didn't think my joke was nearly as funny as I did.

This morning I donated for the third time.  The nurses/technicians seemed to recognize me and remember notes they had made on me from months ago (I think the last time was October). Not a good sign I suppose.  They started out really slow and gave me lots of Tums (for the calcium which mitigates the problems with the anti-coagulants) but after a few minutes I started having the tingling in my lips and they slowed things down even more and gave me more Tums.  Every 30 minutes or so it would happen again.  Then I started sneezing.  One of the people came over and asked if I just wanted to call it quits.  I said it was just allergies.  She said it was one of the symptoms.  I only had about another 20 minutes left and I said to go ahead and finish up.  I made it through and as I was being disconnected they told me that it would be best if I didn't try to donate again.  She thanked me for persisting but said it's hard on me physically and probably mentally as well.  Some people don't have problems with donations of any type, some donate whole blood without any problems (I am one) and can't donate platelets and some people can donate platelets but have problems with whole blood.  She recommended I stick with just donating whole blood.  I'm okay with that and, of course, so is Barb.

I've been exploring ways to get internet access to Boomershoot 2005.  I don't know how much it would cost yet but I found the SpeedRay 3000.  It's not quite available yet anyway.  But it's very cool.

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

Daniel Webster

I went in to have my teeth cleaned this morning and was pleased to have LeEllen as the hygienist. She is incredibly bubbly and friendly. She makes me smile--as much is possible when your mouth is full of hand tools and portions of her hands. She and her husband are also students of mine. They took a handgun class from me a few years ago and we frequently talk a little bit about guns when I see her. This time when she introduced me to the new dentist she told him about my being her instructor and that I was "a really good teacher". That made me feel good and caused a real smile since she had temporarily removed the tools and her hands from my mouth.

The thing that made me smile, to myself, the most was something she surely didn't intend to be funny. She talked about the new dentist and how he liked to "do everything" in dentistry--just like Dr. J that we have been seeing for the last dozen years who is the primary owner of the clinic. She then went on and on about "Dr. J. likes to do root canals and he likes to do extractions, everything!" My mind immediately thought of a sadist getting pleasure from causing pain to someone else. Not at all what she meant and certainly not what my experience with the good Dr. J. has been. But my mind twisted her words to give me many minutes of pleasure on my long drive to work this morning.  I thought of her, so cheerful and bubbly, and the gentle Dr. J. in some sort of Monty Python like skit where they do root canals and tooth extractions because they enjoy them so much.

A belief is not true because it is useful.

Henri Frederic Amiel

I finally updated numbers of the referrals from the various bloggers.  My ISP had some problems for a while and I didn't have any log files for several weeks.  That has been corrected.  I also changed the target size information.  I may change the target number (up, not down).  I need to run some numbers first.  But my guess is I need more targets now.  The new targets are four and six inch squares instead of four and six inch circles.  The rectangles will be easier to hit.  The largest target is now a 7 3/8 x 7 3/8 rectangle compared to the old 8 inch circle.  So that will be just slightly larger.

I also updated the general information page on what to bring.  The biggest change there is I removed “tarp” from the options to shoot off of.  Shooting off a slick tarp on the built up shooting positions can be “challenging”.  A non-skid shooting mat is preferable.

My family, from the farm, showed up for Barb's birthday party yesterday and I found out there have been several grass and brush fires in the neighborhood recently.  Most years there would still be snow on the ground.  But this year they are having fire problems in mid March!  I probably will have to take special precautions to reduce the chances of fire this year.  Unless of course it snows on us--which has happened.

Here are the pictures from the party.  A sample:

The video I made for the party, Barbara Scott From 1 to 50, is here.

Update: Barb requested that I make a slight change in the movie.  She was right, it made it better.  The original is here.

I found some more pictures in my camera, browsed through the pictures that were in Xenia's camera and put a few more up.

Sheep can be controlled by the sheepdog for the same reason they fear the wolf -- they are both predators.  The same relationships hold with the general population, the police, and the criminals.  Most people are sheep, but you don't have to be.  If you have the skills and attitude of a predator the criminals will leave you alone -- because they will recognize you as a predator and there is easier game available.

Greg Hamilton (paraphrased)
Self Defense Instructor
February 5, 1997

Barb's sister Susan asked me to do this.  Xenia helped with scanning the older pictures.

It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.

From Sir Francis Bacon essays.
Attributed to Virgil; a Roman writer 10/15/0070 – 09/21/0019 BC

From Periodic Journal of my wanderings.  Two of my favorite hobbies but I never combine them in any fashion what so ever.  These two did-- with disastrous results.  How many safety rule violations can you count here?

 WEST VIEW, Pa. -- A Ross Township man accused of shooting his girlfriend waived his right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday

Authorities say a 17-year-old McCandless girl was shot in the groin on Feb. 27 at Timothy Madden's Perry Highway apartment.

The girl and the 23-year-old Madden were engaged in "bedroom activities" when the gun discharged, police said.

Details are graphic, but police said the incident involved a .45-caliber handgun with a condom on it, and the weapon somehow went off.

"The act itself did involve what anyone reasonable would conclude are some bizarre, strange, sexual fetishes and activities," Ross Police Detective Bill Barrett said. "(The girl) is very lucky, I think, to be alive. Everyone is amazed."

Madden said he and the teen are still a couple, and he looks forward to seeing her again soon.

"I'm very glad to see that the person that I love most is doing better, and I'm very glad that she came to see me (in court) and I hope that she does much better in the future," Madden said. "This was a mistake. It was an accident."

Madden is charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and corruption of a minor. No trial date has been set.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw doesn't get it.  There are just so many things wrong with this guys thinking.

Jack Straw has vowed to lead a global drive to force the world's arms exporters to sign a treaty controlling the £15bn-a-year trade in conventional weapons.

Warning that a person is shot dead every minute in the world, the Foreign Secretary said "more misery and destruction" was caused by smallarms than by tightly controlled weapons of mass destruction.

...

Mr Straw said legally binding controls could be drawn up on conventional arms exports to match those on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. He promised to put the issue on the agenda of the June meeting of the foreign ministers of the G8 group of politically powerful nations, which he will chair.

...

A LETHAL BUSINESS

* In 2003, global military expenditure and the arms trade was estimated to be $950bn

* One person a minute is killed by small arms

* 14 billion ammunition rounds and eight million small arms are made every year.

* There are 639 million small arms on the planet, 60 per cent in civilian hands. There are more guns in the world than cars. In the Democratic Republic of Congo there are 800,000 illegal guns.

* 300,000 child soldiers are involved in conflicts.

* About one million guns are lost or stolen every year.

Guns aren't the cause, people using the guns are.  And assuming the point about one person a minute is by someone using small arms is true--So what?  If those were all people that needed to be shot then we should be working to increase the rate.  By itself that statistic is totally meaningless.  Beyond that guns and ammo are too easily made and too easily smuggled to restrict any more than you can restrict recreational drugs--including alcohol and tobacco.  Other than increasing his personal power I can't imagine what he thinks he can accomplish with such an agenda.

Liberate the Mideast, the Midwest, Canada, and then the UK.

I wrote about this last September, but other people have been talking about Zeus which is actually in the field and while very cool doesn't have near the coolness that Close Quarters Shock Rifle has.  I did some more research on it and found another article.  I can't talk about the briefing and pictures I saw last summer, but think Startrek Phasor and/or a Starwars light saber:

While I was talking with Pete Bitar, yesterday, I told him that basically, with the XADS Stunstrike CQSR "you're shooting lightning at people", to which Pete said something to the effect of "yeah, that's pretty much it". What's interesting about the StunStrike is that the lightning bolt that comes out is visible (just like natural lightning), and has an ending point, like a light saber. Pete told me that the electrical "beam" is both visually and audibly intimidating, and should prove to have a profound psychological effect on people. Basically, it looks and sounds scary, which is usually what you want with a less-lethal device.

Imagine a mob of Allah worshiping thugs trying to storm a US embassy calling us heathens and blasphemers.  A couple of Marines on the roof then educating them on the name of the one true god, Uncle Sam, and strike them down with lightening bolts from above.  I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.

It's been known for a long time that picture ID is almost completely worthless.  Numerous papers have been written on the absolutely appalling performance of people who check photo ID.  But this is a little extreme even from my jaded viewpoint.  Numerous checkpoints didn't even notice the gender was wrong:

The appallingly lax state of security at Britain's airports has been exposed once more after a teacher flew from London to Spain using her husband's passport.

Geraldine McCauley, 41, passed through three security checks at London's Luton airport and Spanish passport control, before realising she had accidentally travelled with her husband's second passport instead of her own.

Despite the heightened threat of terrorist attacks on UK targets, not one member of staff noticed that she was carrying a passport bearing her husband's photograph.

The author lives in a flatland where self-reliance is in an inaccessible direction called 'up'.

Sean Flynn
3/30/98
In reference to a rabid anti-gunner.

I find this incredibly funny:

I saw it coming in November

At about 7:30 central when my fundie meighbors were celebrating the coming apocolypse. I knew then and I know now we're going to get some nasty foul shit shoved down our throats.
If we aren't headed to full pitched civil war by this time next year, then it'll surprise the hell out of me.

The Promise of America

has become an oily, black, bottomless cesspool.

THERE IS NO POLITICAL SOLUTION NOW. We've passed that point.

Bouncy Ball, the only time people will be marching in the streets is on their way to the local GITMO.

Did they forget something?  Like maybe it was their political party that has been restricting weapons for the last 20 years?  So who do you think owns all the personal weapons, knows how to use them, and who the instructors are?  I just wish they could see this as a “teaching moment.”

Kim du Toit and friends have their favorite quotes from this same thread too.

She slept for nearly 12 hours straight then wanted to leave immediately after putting in her contact lenses without breakfast or taking a shower.  I got her to eat an apple and talk with me for a few minutes but she really wanted to go home (her home, not Barb's and my home).  Oh well.  She gave me several hugs, got directions, and left.  Heavy sigh...

Some police are advising people to just comply with a mugger/rapists demands in hopes of not getting hurt.  The next time someone does that I'm going up to him and start taking down his pants.  When he asks what I doing I'm going to tell him I'm raping him and he should follow his own advice and submit so he doesn't get hurt.

Greg Hamilton
Self Defense Instructor
February 6, 1999

I dropped off the three girls (Xenia and her two friends) in Sunnyside, about 35 miles west of Richland, where they were spending the night with a friend. As I start back to Richland I call and leave a message on her voicemail. She should have been in Richland by then and I hope she has just left her phone in the car while she is visiting a friend in Richland. About 10 minutes later she calls back and is quite agitated. She left Interstate 84 and has been driving on Oregon highway 207, as per her mother's directions, for about 30 minutes without seeing signs for Pasco, Kennewick or Richland or even Washington State. It turns out she has been driving south on 207 instead of north as her mother believed. Kim is not happy with mother. I tell her not to call her mother and detail her faults. Barb has had enough "fun" for her birthday without dealing with an angry daughter that knows how to push all the "right" buttons. I tell her to drive north, back the way she has come, and I can probably meet her at about the same place she got confused before. I headed south and pulled into a rest stop on I-84 at 19:46, four minutes after she arrived. We utilize the facilities, she ate a cereal bar I had in the van, and then we look at the map together. I give her a walkie-talkie and I lead her back to Richland.

At 21:02 she parks in my driveway--finally. She's been driving almost constantly for 14 hours. She only stopped for gas and to wait for me at the rest stop. Xenia and friends had put the sheets in the washer before we left but I hadn't made it back to put them in the dryer yet. Kim doesn't care, "The bed has blankets, doesn't it?" "Yes." "That's all I need." I persuaded her to take out her contact lenses, she can use my spare case and solution so she doesn't need to go back out to the car. She didn't want any food, just sleep. She kicked off her shoes and got into bed with all her clothes on.  I try to ask her about going to breakfast with me in the morning but she had the blankets pulled almost all the way over her head, like her mother does, is very groggy. I kiss her forehead, turn out the light, and close the door. My baby is safe for the night.

And I'm not there to comfort her.  I can only listen to the reports on the telephone.

• High wind warning in effect for her area of operations (home health).
• Truck accident completely blocks a road to one of her patients.  Her Jeep is able to cross the ditch and bypass the truck by going through a field.
• Bloody nose starts after a sneeze.  Massive amount of blood all over the inside of her Jeep and her clothes.  Quick Care tells her to go to emergency room.

Just wait until she finds out what her siblings have planned for her at the party on Saturday in Potlatch (call Nancy Amos if you want to attend).

No.  I'm not writing about Dan Rather.  Actually it's Kim du Toit this time.  Publicola has an interest in the document as well.  It's a document that purports to be:

(NOTES AND MINUTES OF MEETING OF FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1993) ROUGH DRAFT PROPOSAL FOR INTERNAL MEMO AND FIVE YEAR PLAN (OF HANDGUN CONTROL INC.)

I remember reading it years ago and the general consensus was that it was fake.  It doesn't matter.  If it is real that was over 11 years ago and not many of the same people still work there and the ones that are have a completely different plan from then anyway.  And what's the point in getting upset about it even if it was completely true and up-to-date?  There isn't anything in there that should surprise anyone.  There are lots of people “out there“ that want to remove all firearms from private ownership.  That they would form an organization and talk about a means to that end surely isn't a surprise.  If you want to counter their plans then reading questionable intelligence data (I really need to finish my intelligence essay) isn't the way to go about it.  Read their current plans and propaganda from their own websites as a first defensive step:

Brady Campaign

• Assault Weapons Ban
• Carrying Concealed Weapons
• Gun Shows & Private Sales
• Licensing and Registration
• Press Releases

Join Together Online

• The Problem
• The Response
• Strategies

Violence Policy Center

• An Agenda For Genuine Gun Control
• A Core Comprehensive Strategy
• The Next Steps
• About The Violence Policy Center
• Press Releases

There are lots more, particularly at the state and local level, and most have websites.  But as Publicola points out our side needs a plan and to act on it. 

It turns out we do have plans.  Most people just aren't that in touch with the leaders in the gun rights movement.  How many people attended the Gun Rights Policy Conference last September?  I haven't been to it for several years (I was a speaker in 1999 and 2000) but I am giving it serious consideration for this fall.  IIRC the 2000 event had about 700 people attend.  Want to do something more than just preach to the choir?  Want to have some influence in the direction we take our fight?  Attend GRPC 2005.  You will be amazed and impressed with the quality of the people involved in our fight.  Make contacts with other activists and team up to make a difference.

Although Greg Hamilton had a different context in mind I think it applies here just as well.

Kim has called me several times this morning to check on minor details.  She is making good progress and is making her way through Oregon now.  I'll feel better when she parks her pile of junk car in the driveway in front of the house and gives me a hug.

From the State Journal Register:

From a police officer's perspective, the lines between criminals and law-abiding citizens are blurred immensely when you allow everyone to carry a weapon.

“Allow”?  He must think of the average citizen as a child.  Their mindset is so incredibly alien to me.  IF I were in a position of power and had come to the conclusion that some sort of restriction were necessary I would think of it in terms of all things are permitted except for the things we need to deny. Instead it appears these people think in terms of all things are prohibited except that which they specifically allow.  I am pleased to no end the article points out the hypocrisy these same people have:

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley urged state lawmakers Tuesday not to pass a "concealed-carry" law for average Illinoisans, even though his city's aldermen can carry guns under a little-known statute.

...

Chicagoans may not be able to carry guns, but their elected leaders technically can under the Illinois Municipal Code. Aldermen can become "conservators of the peace" with police powers if they get special training, and peace officers are exempted from state restrictions on concealed weapons.

When we are done liberating the Mideast we should give serious consideration to liberating the Midwest.

Update: Neanderpundit has a different view on Mayor Daley and hopes he lives to be 300 years old.

Today is my wife's birthday and I am unable to be with her.  Tomorrow night I will be home.

Why ask retorical questions?

Arun Sagar
March 10, 2000

I talked to her a couple of times on the trip but there were no problems that she didn't already have under control.  As far as I know she drove straight to her aunt's place with the biggest problem being stop and go traffic on I-80 for a while.

Tomorrow she will do the long drive from the Sacramento area to Richland.  I hope it goes as well.

The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts:  "Of course it is none of my business but--" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such moron with a period.  Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.

Robert Heinlein

When they are awake anyway.  Xenia and her friends Sara and CeCe came over to the Tri-Cities with me this week.  On the way over they slept most of the time. I have an extra room for them to use so it's not a big deal for the most part.  I just have to supply transportation (they want to visit some secondhand stores) and a little bit of organizational skills.  It's pretty entertaining to hear their banter and giggles in the background as I sit in my room.  It sure beats being alone.

From a link on Schneier's blog.  I never understood it but some people hate it when I start talking about stuff like this:

There are avenues of attack available to relatively poor, armyless terrorist groups that are both more lethal -- far more lethal -- and harder to defend against than the horrifying crashing of passenger-laden airliners into buildings. One such path became real on South Uist Island in the Outer Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland in the summer of 1998. On that blustery day, a group of men huddled around a van, jacketed against the 25-knot wind. The persistent whistling of the gale would cover any sound the aircraft’s engine might make; they would see it–if they saw it at all–before they would hear it. And it was already overdue on a potentially historic flight.

The small, single-engined aircraft was attempting the first solo flight across the Atlantic. Brown and Alcock were the first to fly across the Atlantic, they shared in piloting their Vickers Vimy. Lindbergh earned fame by doing it with one pilot. This plane was flying itself from one side of the ocean to a particular spot on the other side with no pilot at all: "We" had become "It". Instead of a compass and stars to steer by, it had a microprocessor and a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The men who had built the craft were interested in meteorological research, but if they succeeded, they would also unwittingly demonstrate the futility of president Bush's National Missile Defense program (NMD), as well as any anti-terrorism measures except direct spying within the terrorist organizations. Just as the Germans easily drove around France’s Maginot line, an impenetrable thicket of defensive bunkers, this small plane would barely be noticed, much less brought down, by anything the Defense Department has in its armamentarium.

I think it is critically important to know what you can defend against and what you can't.  We spending billions on airport security that would be far better spent on intelligence operations (including “snatch” and assassination efforts).  And so it is with many of our efforts to protect ourselves from our biggest current threat--Islamic extremists.  We would be far, far better off spending the money on search and destroy missions and destroying their extremist culture than harrassing the fireworks industry, the mining industry, and feeling up grandmothers at airports.

This is going to have me giggling for days:

A California judge ruled today that the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, despite social traditions and historical definitions that "marriage" is a union between man and woman.

Judge Richard A. Kramer of San Francisco Superior Court held, in an opinion that will surely be appealed, that "no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners."

Although the above generally makes me smile, I think marriage is a great institution and should be available to all free and sane people, it's the following that really tickles me:

Several trial judges around the country have ruled that bans on same-sex marriages violate state constitutions. But despite the intense interest in the issue nationwide, there is no obvious path - yet - for it to reach the United States Supreme Court, since state courts have the power to interpret their own respective state constitutions. But those bans could be put to a federal constitutional test if one state refused to grant legal recognition to same-sex couples who were legally married in another state.

As I have written before this will have many benefits with one of the most important being the “full faith and credit“ issues of concealed carry licenses.