I suspect this will be my last post for a few days.  I'll either have Xenia post a "Quote of the Day" or back date them after Boomershoot 2006 is over.  I have to work all day today at my new job then drive home to Idaho tonight.  Thursday morning I head out to the Boomershoot range to prepare for the big event.  No internet access from Thursday morning until late Sunday night.  By late Sunday night I will be ready for a shower and sleep.

Every time they cry wolf, they lose a little more credibility and support. Their ideas on gun control were tried, and failed. The social experiment is over. It is time to stop denying our rights and heritage based on a pack of lies.

Dan White
21 April 2006
Protestors Cry Wolf Again
Ohioans for Concealed Carry
[Lies and bigotry.--Joe]

It's not done yet but it's close.  And it's nearly seven MBytes.  Boomershoot 2005 history video.

Update: It's midnight and I just finished it.  It's nearly 7.5 MBytes now.  I just need to make 100 CD's with it (and some other stuff) on it.  It's taking about four minutes per CD so that means I should get to bed about 6:00 AM.

The high resolution version being put on the CD is here (nearly 39 MBytes).

What do people even need handguns for? Protection, right? However, if no one could buy or carry a handgun legally, no one would need a handgun to protect themselves.

The Minnesota Daily
Editorial April 25, 2006
[I'm thinking 6th grade.  Maybe as high as the 8th grade.  The thinking can't be attributed to someone beyond that level.  What about people that don't need a weapon because of their size, or other weapons such as knives, clubs, or illegally obtained firearms?  Whoever wrote this needs to grow up and answer Just One Question.--Joe]

Weather reports are looking very good.  From My-Cast (using the lat/long of 46.5422, -116.39128):

DAY		Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon
SKY
HI TEMP (F)		67	71	73	78	77	73	70
LO TEMP (F)		42	42	46	48	49	49	47

I'd like to believe this will be the best Boomershoot ever.  There is still lots of work to do but things are coming together quite well.

The pistol ban was one of those knee-jerk things. I think people realize now that the pistol ban hasn't done anything to reduce gun crime.

Kate Hoey
Labor Party lawmaker
London
From UK Competitive Shooters Can't Train at Home
[Perhaps there is a tiny spark of hope for the people of the U.K.--Joe]

This kind of fuzzy thinking is typical of anti-gun lobbyists, who never let facts get in the way of a good story or tarnish their dream of a world without guns.

Michael S. Brown
Friday, April 21, 2006
Local View: Gun-control activists ignore facts
The Columbian

It may be there is more to it than what appears in the paper.  And of course the kid is living and going to school in the repressive Peoples Republic of Massachusetts.  What from what I see in the paper, except for the recreational drugs (which should be legal but I would ban them in my house) if it were my kid I would be asking the police, "And your point is?"  Instead they are charging him with possession of bomb-making materials.

STOUGHTON — Alexander J. Wilson, 17, who was charged with having bomb-making materials after an incident in March was ordered held on $100,000 surety or $10,000 cash bail Monday in Stoughton District Court.

...

When police stopped Wilson's car March 29 in the O'Donnell Middle School parking lot next to the high school grounds, authorities reported finding gunpowder and a pellet gun.

Also found were model "rocket engines, igniters for those, wires and miscellaneous other stuff that could be used to make bombs," said acting Police Chief Christopher Ciampa.

Most of the materials were in the trunk of the suspect's car, and some were under the front seat, the chief said.

Police also recovered a small amount of marijuana and marijuana residue in a pipe, Ciampa said.

The problem is that it's a rare house that doesn't contain materials appropriate for making a bomb.  People shouldn't be charged with possession of things that might be used in a illegal fashion.  Only if there is clear intent to do harm to someone else or someone else's property should they be harassed by the police--which is the way it is in Idaho with explosives.

After the big collection and destruction of firearms in Australia we have some more numbers:

Tasmanian Auditor-General Mike Blake produced a $63,000 report on the impact of the reforms last year.

It showed that in 1994, of 2364 crimes against the person, firearms were used in just 69 cases. In 2004, the level of crime against the person had soared 90 per cent to 4492, and just 56 of those instances involved firearms.

I have Just One Question.

Ah, the voice of reason.

Ry Jones
21:18:47
April 21, 2006
[Blog posting about a lowlife barking moonbat who commented on my blog about Michelle Malkin saying he wanted to rape her with a broken beer bottle.--Joe]

Further nasty news from the nasty United Nations Organization:

One Eric Kibuka, who delights in the title of "Director of the United Nations African Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders," has gone on record to the effect that "The international community (sic) has decided that firearms regulation is at the core of democracy and good government." The connection between firearms regulation and democracy is about as obvious as the connection between traffic regulation and quail hunting, but that is not likely to trouble a U.N. official. As we have all noticed, the cry of the modern left seems to be "To hell with the facts. It's the gut reaction that matters."

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 6, No. 1
January 1998

Looking for Michelle Malkins home address and phone number?  Look no further: Michelle Malkin's Address and Phone Number.

I'm posting this everywhere I think Boomershoot spectators might be checking for information.  There is a dinner on Saturday April 29th the evening before Boomershoot 2006.  Specators as well as participants are welcome. Please get your reservations in soon. Details are here.

I've added a new page to the Boomershoot.org website.  It's on the relationship between bullet shapes and the detonation of boomers.

Compare the mindset of these Jersey City professional victims (emphasis added):

(CBS) JERSEY CITY Jersey City Police today released surveillance videotape of a known Bloods gang member running away after shooting a man twice in broad daylight on Easter Sunday near Grant Avenue and Martin Luther King Blvd.

He's identified as Jamal Ebron and he's still on the loose considered armed and dangerous.

“The individual who he shot refuses to cooperate with the police,” Jersey City Police Chief Robert Troy said.

Investigators say this video shows how important it is to enact tough Federal gun legislation.

Just last night, police confiscated the guns and a thousand dollars in cash.

Four suspects have been charged with bringing the guns here from Georgia, where police say gun laws are laxed and where gun owners aren't required to report stolen weapons.

“This gun here is marked a hundred and ninety-nine dollars, this gun sold in Jersey City last night for five-hundred dollars.”

Investigators say the weapons were found in a car that had a secret compartment, where the trunk can be accessed quickly.

With the mindset of a gun owner:

I have been completely baffled by the content of many letters to the Cape Argus and other newspapers in response to the antics of "killer cops" in the past week or so.

Some call for the police to be given higher salaries. Others call for the police to be provided with better working conditions.

Even more call for civilians to be more sympathetic towards "overworked, underpaid cops".

Sympathetic? Higher salaries? Better working conditions? Surely when somebody goes on a killing spree, society should call for the trial, conviction and imprisonment of such criminals instead of increased perks and sympathy?

It did not make any sense until I discovered the definition of Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome can be described as "bonding to one's hostage-taker as a survival strategy or mechanism". The term was coined after the world witnessed the bizarre behaviour of several hostages in a botched 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden.

While the hostages were held, they bonded with their captors to a point where they actually defended their captors and resisted attempts by the police to rescue them, despite the fact that they were strapped with explosives and victimised.

In a hostage situation, the hostage instinctively understands that any harm to the captor could cause the captor to harm or even kill the hostages. The hostage hopes that as long as the hostage taker is alive and his demands are met, he will see no need to harm the hostages. Hostages' survival strategy is to persuade the hostage taker to have as many reasons as possible to keep his hostages alive.

The relationship between killer police and sympathetic citizens could be described as some sort of variation of this syndrome.
The police are seen by many helpless and defenceless citizens as the only barrier between themselves and violent criminals.

As with the Stockholm hostages who overlooked the fact that they had explosives strapped to their bodies, it would seem that unarmed and helpless South Africans are prepared to tolerate immense abuse from the police for the mere promise of survival and protection.

This may also explain why several firearm owners, who have made successful use of their personal firearms in defence of life and limb, refuse to adopt similar soft-hearted approaches towards killer cops. Such firearm owners will simply call for the immediate dismissal of such rogue cops.

This could be further explained by the fact that the traditional barrier - police - between gun owners and the criminal thugs has been replaced with, in their own opinion, a stronger and more reliable barrier in the form of a shotgun or two.

Hence the popular saying among gun owners that "a gun in the hand is worth 10 cops on the phone".

The people of Jersey City are mentally ill and need to be asked Just One Question again and again until they figure it out.

It seems to me that the anti-gun crowd are all mentally ill hostages, who are under siege from criminals and who suffer from a variation of Stockholm Syndrome in their pathetic desire to protect the honour of this violent standing army known as the police, simply because they are their only means of survival from something worse.

On the other hand the pro-gun crowd are a healthy bunch who see reality as it is: killer cops deserve jail time, not sympathy. Gun owners have control over their guns and do not need to live in fear of an inanimate firearm. This results in firearm owners adopting a more balanced perspective.

Emilio Halepopoulos
Sandton, Gauteng
April 19, 2006
Letter to the editor titled Gun owners show way to true freedom in SA

Lots of hits now that we are only 11 days away from the big event (and Ben, bless his heart, can't seem to think of or blog about anything else):

• Just One Question (minor mention of Boomershoot)
• Boomershoot: The Final Countdown
• Range Report (The Tunnel Edition)
• My primary (actually Ben was so excited about this post he forgot to give it a title)
• E-Postal Match
• Boomershoot Anticipation and Angst
• 850 yards
• Hunter woulda LOVED this one....
• Fun with the boys.
• Caption Time

As Stephanie has explained to me if you want the media to cover your event you need to write the story for them.  Compare this article to our news release.

Keep this in mind when you are complaining about the bias against guns in the media.  Don't hide in the closet.  Give the media something positive to say about gun owners and make it really easy for them.  Then you can gloat as the anti-gun people whine about the bias in the media.

I suppose it depends on how you define "successful".  From New York Daily News:

The National Summit on Illegal Guns will take place next Tuesday. The event will begin with a symposium outlining successful gun control policies from cities across the country.

If they mean using legal restrictions on weapons to reduce crime then it will be a very short symposium.  If they mean disarming the victims and enabling murder and other violent crime to increase then they could probably spend months on the topic.  My prediction is they will measure success in terms of gun destroyed, not lives destroyed, by their illegal actions.

I have Just One Question for these nut cases.

Ry merely calls it Reading list.  I was busy when I first read his post and didn't follow the links.  Yesterday he talked to me about some of the content.  Mostly about "category errors".  Interesting stuff and there are some valuable lessons in studying that concept.  But that is a topic for a different time. 

More importantly Dan Simmons uses a science fiction short story as a vehicle to get some points across about WW III.  I had long thought the politicians had been calling it "The War on Terror" simply as a euphemism for the war against the Muslim extremists.  But perhaps that's not true.  If, in fact, they and the vast majority don't understand the true nature of who are enemies are and why they are at war against us then lots of people have some reading to do.  Simmons gives us a starting point.  It's required reading.  Just like Osama bin Laden's letter to America.

I come from a place and time where your grandchildren and hundreds of millions of other dhimmi are compelled to write ‘pbuh’ after the Prophet’s name. They wear gold crosses and gold Stars of David sewn onto their clothing. The Nazis didn’t invent the wearing of the Star of David . . . the marking and setting apart of the Jews in society. Muslims did that centuries ago in they lands they conquered, European and otherwise. They will refine it and update it, not toward the more merciful, in the lands they occupy through the decades ahead of you.

Dan Simmons
Speaking through a character he calls "The Time Traveler"
April 2006
[The link above may break soon.  I expect you will find it's replacement here.--Joe]