The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem.

In the larger sense, however, the personal ownership of firearms is only secondarily a matter of defense against the criminal. Note the following from Thomas Jefferson:

The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny of government.

That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 2, No. 5
May 1994

Barb and I are going on vacation for a while starting Friday afternoon.  Friday is her last day of work and she has two weeks before she starts her new job. 

Barb, Xenia, and I went shopping for new camping gear yesterday. 

Our old tent had a bad zipper and we had to use duct tape to hold the door shut the last time we went camping.  So we bought a new five-man tent and a Queen size inflatable (comes with a built-in 12V pump that inflates it in 110 seconds) air-bed.  We also bought a three-man tent for Xenia to stay in.

As before the Huffman-Scott "compound" will be guarded while we are gone by the dogs, an adult child of ours trained on both rifle and pistol and access to my "arsenal".

According to these guys I imagine I exhibited all the symptoms of someone about to go postal, except for one.  The one missing was supplied by PNNL--by firing me.  How many other civil rights activists exhibit the same "symptoms"? 

Some type of obsession, e.g., weapons, other acts of violence, romantic/sexual, zealot (political, religious, racial), the job itself, neatness and order

Performance Problems, including problems with attendance or tardiness [I am a night person and I, and others, would arrive late and leave late]

Access to and familiarity with weapons

Being fired, laid off or suspended; passed over for promotion

As I read this web page I and others who advocate for the rights of gun owners, should never be hired in the first place.  There is a word for this--bigotry.

Peenie Wallie sent me an email with his post about a draft of the Iraq "Bill of Rights".  I finally got around to reading it this morning.  Yuck.  It's not a "Bill of Rights". It's a list of things the government must provide--such as health care.  And it specifically says citizens may not own weapons except by permit.

It's a draft.  It should be scrapped.  Rights are things that no government can give or take away--only infringe upon.  A Bill of Rights is a written promise to not infringe upon those rights.

"Free trade" is actually a misnomer, Grieshaber-Otto contends; the new global rules are actually aimed primarily at restricting government regulations, which is bad news for advocates.

Jim Grieshaber-Otto, Ph.D.
An international trade expert with the government of British Columbia.
From: http://www.jointogether.org/gv/default.jtml?O=264057
August 12, 2000

My license to manufacture high explosives just arrived in the mail.  They renewed it in something like 20 days.  Very cool.

I know that there have been a lot of people that have had problems with the ATF but every single encounter I have had with them has been good.  I don't like their rulings with regards to firearms.  I don't like that they have been given power over intra state commerce.  But given they have been tasked with making explosives manufacture, storage, and use safer I can't really complain in regards my manufacturing of reactive targets.

Bummer.  I just noticed they have the expiration date as July 1, 2005.

Update: I sent an email to Crystal last night.  I got a response this morning saying she thinks she has things straighten out for me.

Something I have long said about people and organizations: I am far happier with those that make an occasional error and correct it quickly than those that seldom make an error and don't admit it or correct it.

Update2: A few minutes ago I received a Letter of Authorization from the ATF Federal Explosives Licensing Center, via a FAX from Crystal, to continue manufacturing high explosives until the corrected license is received.

I'm doing some research on employers that enforce an anti-freedom bias on their employees.  I was inspired by the recent American Rifleman article and some other events.  I'm just getting started but I ran across this "Hiring Guide" and I would rather not pay the $20.00 for it.  Does anyone else have access to it?  If so can you tell we if it says anything about gun ownership or free speech advocates?  A sample of the description of the guide:

This guide presents valuable tools and approaches:

• Critical Behavior Traits
• Checklist for Evaluating Resumes
• Important Questions to Include in the Employment Application
• Interviewing Techniques
• Reference and Background Checking
• Employment Verification and Release Form

If not it, how about any similar hiring guides--even if they are specific to a particular company.

Thanks.

If all mankind minus one were of one opinon, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

John Stuart Mill

Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.

H.L. Mencken
MicroNews
[This doesn't mean that all aberration is a form of human progress.  Just as in DNA mutations--most of the mutants are not viable.  -Joe-]

Barb and I went to Moscow Mountain for some geocaching this morning.  It was a most successful and rewarding trip.  First we replaced the Moscow Mountain High ammo can with the bullet hole in it:

Then we found Moscow Mountain Higher which we were not able to find on our last trip out on June 4th:

More pictures can be found here.

The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by rule of construction be conceived to give the Congress the power to disarm the people.

William Rawle
1825
He was offered the position of the first U.S. Attorney General, by President Washington.

With a hat tip to Neaderpundit--The Archangel posts some 'interesting' news.  First he says the FBI wants to talk to him.  Next he says a Fatwah has been issued against him.  Like that is going to help convince the public Islam is a religion of peace.  [sarcasm] I'll bet this will convince another 10 or 20 percent of the population that the U.S. is wrong to be fighting terrorists. [/sarcasm]

I think his response, while appropriate, doesn't go as far as I would take it.  He only says:

 If you attempt to do anything to me, to my friends, to anyone I care about; I WILL KILL YOU. I will not simply defend myself, I WILL kill you, and while you are dying I will piss on you.

I have jsut rolled all my bullets in pig fat. I'm going to start carying around pieces of swine flesh with me; and I'll shove them into your wounds, then force feed them to you. Then I'll cut your cock and balls off and shove them down your throat.

I am heavily armed at all times, I have booby trapped my car and my home, and I am waiting for you. If you come after me or mine, you will die, and I will make damned sure you won't see paradise for all eternity you evil motherfuckers.

Having given this some thought after the Russian school incident last year I would be a bit more creative.  I have reproduced my inclinations for dealing with such 'people' from that post below:

This is my latest thought which should, of course, be video taped for our websites and the news.

1. Strip them naked.
2. Stake them to ground in a pen full of hungry pigs.
3. Let them be eaten alive (or dead if they had previously absorbed excess lead).
4. There should be close ups of their genitals being ripped off and chewed by the pigs.
5. Close ups as the manure with bits of hair and bone come out the other end.
6. Package up the manure and put it in “bombs“.  We were using laser guided concrete “blocks” during parts of the war so this should be easy enough.
7. Drop the bombs on their mosques.

If Archangel needs any help with guns, explosives, or pigs I'm available to help with expertise in all those areas and the time to contribute--Thank you PNNL.

I heard a story the other day from a long time cop in New York City.  The cops don't give first aid to anybody when they arrive at the aftermath of a crime scene anymore.  The roll up their windows and yell at the victims to sit down on the curb and wait for the paramedics to arrive.

Well, this cop and a rookie went to the scene and several young blacks came out of an alley all cut up and shot up, one had blood squirting out of his chest.  The cops rolled up their windows as the victims approached the car and the victims said, "Hey!  There was some niggers in there that was try'n to kill us".  This being almost entirely black area of town the cops yelled back, "You'll have to be more specific.  Which niggers were trying to kill you?"  The victims described them as best they could, standing there, blood dripping and squirting.  All but one of them finally sat down on the curb to wait for the paramedics.  The long time cop finally asked the one still standing if he was feeling a little short of breath.  The victim took a couple breaths and said, "Yeah!  I guess I am."  "How about dizziness?  Nausea?  Anything like that?", the cop asked.  The guy, looked off in the distance and thought for a couple seconds.  "Yeah, I suppose.  Why you asking me all this?"   "Well", said the cop, "Most people shot up as bad as you are, are already dead."  The victims eyes rolled back to complete whites and he toppled straight backwards on the concrete.  The rookie cop turned to his partner and said, "Jesus!  I ain't even HEARD of anybody killing someone that way."

The point of the story is that you don't stop fighting until the fight is over.  You don't need to go down just because you have taken a few hits.  As long as you believe you can keep going you will.  If you do go down, you are still going to win because you are going to gnaw through his Achilles' tendon and bring him down to where you can rip his head off.

Greg Hamilton
Self Defense Instructor
Nov. 19, 1995

I'm off to pick her up in Colfax.  She has been gone for two weeks.  We really missed her.  Everytime she has called she says she misses her cat but never anything about missing her parents.  I offered to bring her some of his body parts when I pick her up.

Update: No hug for me when I picked her up.  No hug while we were at Wal-Mart.  No hug when we arrived at home--except for her cat.  After her cat got a hug then I got something that technically could be considered a hug lasting a few milliseconds.  Does anyone have a pattern for making a pair of gloves, size large, out of the hide of one large domestic cat?

Cryptography is an enormously powerful tool that needs to be controlled, just as we control bombs and rockets.

David A. Lytel
Co-founder and managing partner Democrats.com

If someone says London was bombed because of their involvement in Iraq, or the U.S. involvement in the Mideast was the reason for the repeated attacks (USS Cole, World Trade Center bombing, WTC and Pentagon hit with planes, etc.) we suffered then ask them to think about this:

More than 80 Iraqis have been killed in at least 11 suicide attacks since London had its first taste of suicide bombings a week ago today. In the first half of this year more than 1,000 Iraqis have died in about 130 suicide attacks. It has been a sustained terror assault that has steadily grown in intensity and has no precedent in Israel, Beirut or anywhere else.

The Islamic extremists are killing thousands of Iraqis.  Many, if not most, of them are Muslim.  Further food for thought is available in the same article:

THE local kids rushed to greet the US patrol. “Hello, Mister,” they cried to the American soldiers, who started handing out chocolate bars and keyrings. At that moment a car sped from a side street and exploded right next to the crowd gathered around the Humvee.

More than 30 Baghdad youngsters, aged between six and 15, were killed yesterday in a suicide bombing that marked a new level of depravity even in a city used to daily carnage.

...

One woman, Hana Ali, failed to find her 11-year-old son at the hospital. When she returned to the blast scene, she found his head in the rubble.

“They killed all the children of the neighbourhood,” wept Radhi Hamud, but he was one of the “lucky” ones. His 13-year-old son, Husam, was among another 30 or so children who were merely maimed. Husam lost both his legs.

So what's the motivation?  Osama bin Laden told us.  And in this fight, who is a legitimate target (credit to Clayton Cramer)?

Asked what constituted a legitimate target, Bakri said: “We don’t make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and non-believers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity.”

Think about it.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer.

Henry Kissinger
[Although he said this decades before on another topic it could have been said about the Kelo decision.]