When faced with important decisions, it helps to understand the situation as completely as possible.  In light of all the facts, and with an understanding of history, one can usually see the right choice, or the right set of options, with little difficulty.  Knowing Hamas and their ideology, it then becomes impossible to understand why anyone would want to compromise with them without coming to the conclusion that it is only because of an overwhelming desire to avoid reality.

This from our friend in Jerusalem:

Friends:
The Palestinian Authority's President, a Hamas member, is in Iran.  He says Hamas will never accept the State of Israel.  More, the only acceptable way to be rid of Israel is by force of arms. 
BELIEVE HIM.
Howard

Land for peace anyone?  I've spoken with several Leftists who either don't know what the Jihadis are saying, or do not believe them, or do not believe that their words are actually their words.  They instead attribute their hatred for the West to silly things like U.S. foreign policy or our "taking" (like we never pay for it-- to the tune of billions) of mideast oil (the fact there is, America is their best customer-- they should love us).

I suggest that if you want to know why they hate us, you might try listeneng to them.  Oh, but I understand that that wouldn't let you blame the U.S. and the Jews, or G.W. Bush, which seem to be the main goals for some Americans.

The stranglehold of oppression cannot be loosened by a plea to the oppressor's conscience. Social change in something as fundamental as racist oppression involves violence. You cannot have progress here without violence and upheaval because it is a struggle for survival for one and a struggle for liberation for the other. Always the powers in command are ruthless and unmerciful in defending their position and their privileges. This is not an abstract rule to be mediated upon by Americans. This a truth that was revealed at the birth of America and has continued to be revealed many times in our history. The principle of self-defense is an American tradition that began at Lexington and Concord.

Robert F. Williams
Negros With Guns
Chapter 7--Self-Defense: An American Tradition
Copyright 1962

I updated the Lewiston Pistol Club website with results from the last Action Pistol (IPSC) match and threw in some pictures. Not only did the snow not slow us down but Adam shot with his knee all messed up from sword fighting a few days earlier. He had surgery on it a couple days after these pictures. Adam is the guy sitting on toolbox with his left leg out straight in the last picture.

Saturday evening Xenia went to the dance with Jesse. Never mind she is engaged to another guy. Jesse is gay so it didn't matter. Jesse came over early and had dinner with Barb, Xenia, Sara, and I. I took some pictures and about 21:30 or so Jesse and Xenia left for the dance. Xenia tells the rest of the story with a bunch of pictures. Here are some pictures she didn't post:

Sara and Jesse

Dmitri and Xenia

One of the skunks

The following was from the Google discussion group "Lewiston Pistol" discussing the next steel match--which happens to be scheduled for Christmas Eve. Numerous people contributed. With the names removed to protect the guilty:

As the scripture sayeth: Where 2 or 3 are gathered there shooting is also.

(Gospel of St. John Moses Browning Chapter 9 Verse 45)

I shall gather at the range with thee and we shall make joyful noises of gunfire and shall celebrate the goodness that St. JM Browning hath bestowed upon us.

Those that doth present unto the Range Officer a Glock shall be cast out for these are an abomination unto the eyes of holy men.

Yay I say unto you that you are correct and I shall hopefully be there with bells on.

And for those for whom there is a great wailing heard in the house let he say unto her "Get thee back to the kitchen woman and know thy place for I am man and I am required to worship this day at the cathedral of St. Browning." and unto the male spawn of thy loins say unto them "go forth and fetch thine own range bag and pistol for thou shalt come and worship in the cathedral with thine father and learn the ways of men" and unto the female spawn of thy loins say unto them "thou are not yet forsaken from the cathedral of St. Browning and thou canst join thy father therein and worship in the proper manner for the order of St. Browning needeth more members of the fairer sex. Fear thee not the perverts that thou hast seen thy father associating with for they are harmless if thou be not a sheep. The choice be thine own."

And Lo! the not-so-wise men were guided to that place by a great column of smoke; bringing with them gifts of lead, Hoppes #9, and Dickel. There they did make a joyful noise unto Heaven and St. John Cooper looked down upon them and saw that it was good. For though the not-so-wise men be rebuked and cast out upon the sofa in their dwelling places for a fortnight they were were blessed for their righteousness and suffered not the high primer until the end of their days. But them that feareth the wrath of their females and shooteth not woe unto them! For plauges were visited upon them: of misfires and rounds which squibbeth, and their lubrication abideth not in the crevices of their slides.

I received an email asking my opinion about this article. The important part is the following:

The death of Alexander Litvinenko by radiological poisoning points to the possibility that the former Soviet spy may have been involved with Islamic terrorists in the preparation of tactical nuclear weapons for use in the jihad against the United States and its NATO allies.

Litvenenko, a former KGB agent, died in London on November 23 after ingesting a microscopic amount of polonium-210.

...

Litvinenko, who was born an orthodox Christian, was a convert to Islam with close ties to the Chechen rebels. His last words consisted of his desire to be buried “according to Muslim tradition.”

...

The neutron source or “triggers” of the suitcase nukes are composed of beryllium-9 and polonium-210. When these two elements are combined, the alpha particle is absorbed by the nucleus of the beryllium causing it to decay by emitting a neutron. Such “triggers” were a feature of early nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Soviet stockpiles.

Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days, necessitating the replacement of the triggers every six months. For this reason, the suitcase nukes are far from maintenance-free. In addition, the nuclear core of these devices emit a temperature in excess of one hundred degrees Fahrenheit - - further exposing the weapons to oxidation and rust. Small wonder that al Qaeda operatives including Adnan el-Shukrijumah, who are spearheading “the American Hiroshima” have received extensive training in nuclear technology.

I'm a little annoyed at the article. The physics are non-sensical. Things don't "emit a temperature". They can emit radiation of various types which could include infra-red energy which could be called "heat". They might generate enough heat to maintain a temperature of 100 degrees F while stored at room temperature. And a temperature of 100F does not necessitate "further exposure to oxidation and rust". That makes me a little bit more skeptical than I normally would be.

I haven't read much more than the headlines in the spy poisoning case so I really can address the question and comment accompanying the link:

Sounds a little far fetched. Have you heard anything similar? If it is actually true, it would mean there are mushroom clouds planned for sometime in the next six months. The biggest Christian holiday is Christmas........

Something to keep in mind this holiday season.

I'm going to make sure I know where my Geiger counter is and that it's working. Lots of other safety gear to check up on as well. There's not much else I can do. We can all "thank" the bigoted felons at PNNL for taking me out of this fight.

For those of you who say the press is out to get us, I say NONSENSE. I have dealt with virtually every major news organization in the USA and certainly every credible media outlet in Illinois. I have always got a fair shake in the press. You just have to give the press a story. The anti-gunners are just plain better at doing that than gun owners. They bring heart rendering emotion to the debate, we bring facts and figures. One picture of a dead boy with a grieving mother beats a 1,000 John Lott’s.

John Birch
President Concealed Carry Inc.
December 5th, 2006
Concealed Carry, Inc. Closes Doors For Good
[The experience of Mr. Birch is consistent with mine--as long as you go to the press first. If they came to you after being alerted by the anti-gun bigots then you were at risk of being treated like Martin Luther King, Jr. at a Klan rally.--Joe]

I found this quite appealing for some reason. Probably related to me liking sick humor. From Kim:

Something to point out to the non gunnies. The slide is locked back and there is no magazine. In this context this means the gun has been shot empty.

This is just part of the reason. This was the view out our living room window last Saturday. Picture by Sara.

In the Seattle area they stop shooting action pistol matches in the wintertime. Here is the calender for the Snoqualmie Rifle Club. Notice that in October they have an Action Pistol match on the second Saturday but nothing on November or December. For the Northwest Section of the USPSA notice for December there are no matches at Custer, Kitsap, Marysville, or Renton.

Here in Idaho we have matches all year long. The first time I shot my STI at a match here it was -10F. I was careful to lubricate it for the weather and I had no problems. Some others were shooting as if they had single shots. The slide would come back and usually eject the shell casing but then it would creep forward so slow that it would stop when it tried to strip the next round off of the top of the magazine. They would have to manually assist their gun by slamming the slide forward with the heel of their hand after every shot.

Last week at the IPSC match it was fairly warm, in the upper 20's, but there was snow on the ground. No big deal. We had one of our larger turn outs and since it was so warm...

Those Seattle area shooters are all WIMPS!

It's 2:39 AM at Moscow High School on December 2nd. Xenia and Ms. Cooke the drama instructor. Xenia and Meghan had come in first in the entire state. It's been a long day and the appropriate level of excitement really wasn't showing:

Coming back from the Seattle area yesterday afternoon I snapped this picture. I was trying for 66 MPH but I think I missed.

Rather than cut off the bottom of the tree to make it fit in our living room Xenia figured it would be easier to cut off the top.

First she tried the bolt cutters but she wouldn't let me put any of those pictures up even though (perhaps because) I thought they were quite amusing.

[Shrug] The result is satisfactory.

While there is room for optimism, one presents a Second Amendment case before the Supreme Court with great risk. New rights are discovered with extra-legal phraseology like “liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions,” and explicit rights – to include core political speech – are swept away. The first case the Supreme Court takes on the merits of the individual-collective rights issue will be critical. This area of the law is no exception to the precept that the Court’s door should be knocked only with the utmost seriousness and preparation.

Stephen P. Halbrook
The Second Amendment in the Supreme Court: Where It's Been and Where It's Going
29 Hamline Law Review, No. 3, 449-59 (Summer 2006)

Yesterday Say Uncle posted about the 2nd Amendment case in Washington D.C. Later in the day I got an email from a friend pointing out the same story in a different paper. In part he said:

I find the current political landscape so depressing that I just want to wrap myself up in some nice little cotton-wool sleeping bag and pretend it isn't happening.

Obviously, it is and there'll be no hiding from it if these attorneys prevail:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Gun_Ban.html

If they prevail and if the Supreme Court agrees, it's all over. Who would have thought the Supreme Court would trash the 1st Amendment -- _seriously_ trash it -- by criminalizing "political" speech? But, they did. If they can trivialize the 1st, imagine how unimportant they think the 2nd is.

I replied:

I knew this was in the works and I heard about this AP story earlier today.

The gun-rights leaders have been working on this for several years. It is figured to be one of our best chances to get the Supremes to overthrow some oppressive laws. It was hoped we would have some more pro-gun judges on the Supreme Court before it made it there but it's not entirely clear that will happen now that the Senate is control by the Democrats and more importantly the makeup of the Senate Judiciary committee. We'll see....

My friend wrote back saying, in essence, "One should be careful what you wish for...". This is exactly correct and why many top level people in the gun-rights movement breathed a sigh of relief when the Supremes failed to take up the case of the California assault weapon ban. In that case because it "only" affected a subset of guns it was feared the court could rule that it didn't violate the 2nd Amendment. They could say something like, "As long as you are allowed to own at least one firearm then your rights have been met."

The gun rights leaders wanted a more clear cut case and went to Washington D.C. to get it. In addition to being less complicated because of the lack of state law it also completely bans handguns and renders all long guns useless. It can't get much more simple and direct. This makes it more difficult for the judges to dance around the issue and not throw out decades of oppressive gun laws. This simpleness and directness also makes it risky for the civil rights advocates.

A commenter to Say Uncles post gets it right when he says, "Don’t worry (or get elated) until the Supreme Court grants cert - and I put the odds of that at 99:1 against." The judges are going to be very reluctant to rule in such a way that thousands of laws, most of which are several decades old, will be at risk of being overthrown. To rule in favor of the civil rights advocates would throw into question the convictions of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of prisoners.

"So what", you say? If someone was convicted solely on the basis of a violation of an unconstitutional law shouldn't they be set free? From the "good of society" perspective the answer is, "Not necessarily". Suppose the ex-boyfriend of some woman breaks into her home and beats the crap out of her. The cops arrest him in Washington D.C. and find him in possession of a gun that is forbidden under the D.C. law. The woman then decides she doesn't want to testify against him for whatever reason. The cops and prosecuting attorneys decide he is a scumbag that will likely severely injury or kill the next woman that he "hooks up with" and society would be better off with him behind bars for a few years. They can get a slam-dunk conviction on the gun possession charges and do so without addressing the fact that he has a habit of "tenderizing" women after he has used them. This also reduces the chances that he will "finish the job" he started with the woman when he gets out of prision. After all, she "did what she was told" last time. Do you want this piece of garbage roaming the streets a month after the ruling comes out? Neither do I and neither do the judges.

So what we are left with is that the judges will be faced with the overwhelming evidence that the 2nd Amendment means what it says and that the D.C. ban is unconstitutional and therefore from a legal standpoint they must rule with the civil rights advocates. On the other hand they will be faced with the practical consideration that they will be turning thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of scumbags loose on the streets. How many deaths are they willing to accept on their hands for doing the "right thing" from a legal standpoint?

One solution they could adopt is to "hold their nose" at the legal stink they would create and say the 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to individuals. But these judges aren't stupid or completely out of touch with the mindset of ordinary people. They know such a decision will likely result in violence of a different type and perhaps be even more disruptive to society.

The easiest solution for them is to refuse to hear the case. This will let the illegal law stand, keep the scumbags in prison, and avoids inviting the civil war that might result from such a blatant violation of a fundamental part of the U.S. Constitution.

Update: Say Uncle agrees with me and asks "What now?" My answer is that we have to just keep fighting the battle one oppressive law at a time. We have to undo things the same way it happened. It took decades to get here and it may take decades to regain our rights. But we don't know yet for certain. We have to wait and see for a while. The Supremes could bite the bullet, so to speak, and we'll suffer some scumbags on the street, and great wailing and knashing of teeth as laws all over the country are revised. We should know in a year or two.

Don’t worry (or get elated) until the Supreme Court grants cert - and I put the odds of that at 99:1 against. They’ve been ducking directly addressing the meaning of the 2nd for 70 years. In the last case where they did look at it, they sent the case back to a lower court for factfinding on whether Miller’s sawed off shotgun was a “militia weapon” - implying that Miller had an individual RKBA for anything that fit that description. (Except Miller was dead and his lawyer was unpaid, so the lower court hearing was never held.) Following that logic, when the army started widely issuing full-auto individual weapons, they became covered under the individual right protected by the 2nd, and the SC would rather refuse to hear cases forever than acknowledge that…

markm
Comment to The Parker Case gets some WaPo Time at Say Uncle
[I'm not sure the odds are quite 99:1 but certainly they are not good. Markm has nailed the crux of the problem. More about this in my next post.--Joe]

As one would expect with dealing with the media this didn't turn out quite the way I intended but it's not so distorted that I'm particularly annoyed.

I received a call yesterday from someone that identified himself as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. A young man was caught making pipe bombs in his dorm room. The reporter, Justin Vellucci, did a search about pipe bombs and found me via Boomershoot. He wanted to know how difficult it was to make a pipe bomb. He also wanted to know what laws had been broken. I told him I couldn't speak to Pennsylvania law but I did know a little bit about Idaho, Washington, and Federal law.

I discussed how different laws were from state to state and that if he broke Federal law it was probably because he built a "destructive device", not that he was making explosives. And from the sound of it he wasn't really making explosives. Even though he was very polite and showed interest he probably was rolling his eyes when I explained the difference between high explosives and low explosives and the difference between a detonation and rapid burning as in the cartridge of a gun.

I explained it was trivial to make a pipe bomb. The toughest part was not getting blown up in the process. That's also easy but not obvious you need to be concerned about the mechanism until it's too late. We talked about the effects of such a bomb, how much damage it would do. I gave him a link to my web page on explosive effects. I explained that getting the materials was very easy and they couldn't really be successfully restricted. The toughest was gun powder and even if it wasn't available for purchase it could be made from potassium nitrate, sulfur, and carbon with the recipe being known for several hundred years. The toughest of those ingredients is the potassium nitrate and that can be made from manure.

After the conversation I followed up with this email:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 1:39 PM
To: Justin Vellucci
Subject: Ease of making an explosive.

If you had read between the lines of our conversation you might have realized I regard it as futile to restrict access to materials in an attempt to improve public safety. Even easier than making your own gun powder is using match heads for the chemical portion of a pipe bomb.

Going beyond that I believe it is possible for me to be stripped naked, enter into your or almost any functioning office, emerge an hour later and have the room explode a few seconds after I exit. I haven't tested this but I've seen enough demonstrations of the critical aspects to believe it is possible. See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_bomb. Instead of flour I would use paper in your office to make the dust. I would then disperse it in the air and have it ignited by an electric spark.

The question then becomes, "What do we do to prevent these sort of things?" My response is that things can't be restricted. The actions of people can be punished which serves as a deterrent in many cases. Beyond that we can sometimes infer intent and stop potential criminals. This was how, in the specific case we talked about, the hardware store people came to call law enforcement. The specific set of materials purchased raised suspicion. This sort of involvement and concern about public safety is the way things should work in a free society.

It would create a tremendous hardship on society to attempt restricting and/or regulating all the materials that could be used to harm people or property (anyone for registration and licensing of sharp sticks?). Instead, where there is high potential for materials to be misused the people that sell and work with those materials should assume a greater sense of responsibly and be aware of things that "aren't quite right". In the case of purchasing the gun powder it could be kept in a locked cabinet and the clerk could ask what appear to be a few casual questions like, "What caliber are you reloading?" "What sort of muzzle velocity are you getting out of that?" A legitimate customer will know the answers and volunteer them without skipping a beat. The potential criminal will not and will put the clerk on alert.

Yes, some criminals will be able to sneak through such a system. But the total cost to society will be lower even though we will have to suffer some criminal acts going through to completion.

This blog posting of mine from last week might be of interest to you as well:

http://blog.joehuffman.org/2006/11/29/Bomb+Building+Help+Request+From+New+Zealand+Girls+High+School.aspx

Joe Huffman
Boomershoot Event Director

After all that here is what ended up in the newspaper:

One bomb-making expert said much of what Blattner needed could be found at home-improvement stores, and even gunpowder would not be tough to find.

"It really is very, very easy to do something like that," said Joe Huffman, who organizes an event in Idaho where individuals use long-range precision rifles to shoot explosive targets. "The stupid thing is to do this in your dorm room."

Other than the title of "bomb-making expert" it's completely accurate. I can't complain.

The slaughter, rape and torment of the citizens of Darfur would end if humanitarian aid included guns.

...

Darfur is one more reminder that gun control is genocide's best friend.

Dimitri Vassilaros
April 1, 2005
Gun Controls Best Friend
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
[Via Jeff. How very odd that I would run across a link to this paper today via one of my usual blog reads. I'm quoted in todays edition of that same paper. My next post will be about that.--Joe]

This is from the U.S. Department of State. The Right to Bear Arms:

(The accompanying essay is under review.)

I would like to suggest they use what the U.S. Department of Justice says about the right to bear arms as the primary reference for their essay.

The amusing part? Kevin points out that this essay has been "under review" for nearly three years ever since it received this spanking.

So here’s my idea of compromise with the gun grabbers. I’ll support training and a gun license on two conditions:
1) There will be no registration of any gun including Form 4473s that could be used as registrations;
2) That everyone in the country with no exceptions must receive training and a license that cannot be voluntarily surrendered to the authorities for any reason. Anyone with a license could buy a gun.

Denise was Here
Universal Licensing--A Modest Proposal
[As a compromise I do find it appealing. But I have been listening to so much of Ayn Rand's writings recently that I must decline from supporting it. As Ms. Rand points out there can be no compromise between a rapist and his victim. The Second Amendment and many state constitutions already guarantee we may buy as many guns as we want whenever we want without a license or training. This compromise would give up that right. It would be no different than a compromise with the rapist who is allowed to sexually fondle his victims at any time. However, I think Denise's compromise would be useful in political debates to flush out the true intentions of the anti-freedom bigots.--Joe]

I don't need to modify much. Just a little. I already eat lots of cashews and granola. I just need to up the foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids. Here are the detail:

Like many aspects of health, our sex drive is affected by what we put into our bodies. Certain foods affect the body in different ways. Depending on what you consume, wining and dining a date can induce more sleep than romance.

...

To really get your blood going, consider circulation-enhancing dishes. Food that's high in Omega-3 fatty acids such as mackerel, salmon and wild salmon are best. "Omega-3 makes your nervous system function better," says Dr. Barbara Bartlik, assistant professor of psychiatry and sex therapist with the Human Sexuality Program at Weill Cornell Medical Center. "Sex is really about circuitry."

...

Improved circulation results in greater erectile response. To accomplish that, go for food rich in L-Arginine, such as granola, oatmeal, peanuts, cashews, walnuts, dairy, green vegetables, root vegetables, garlic, ginseng, soybeans, chickpeas and seeds. Studies show that L-Arginine is helpful for improving sexual function in men.

How very odd for a couple of reasons. 1) I didn't realize petrol (it's from a UK paper) and Drano would cause an exothermic reaction. And 2) What in the world was going on in this woman's mind? Did she think the men would be so stupid as to try to use the condoms?

An ex-strip club worker has been sentenced after she admitted sending condoms filled with explosives in the mail.

49-year-old Kimberly Lynn Dasilva pleaded guilty to the charges of sending threatening letters and flammable material through the post.

The 'flammable materials' included condoms filled with a mixture of petrol and the Drâno drain cleaner – a combination that can cause an explosion.

Her targets included strip clubs where she had previously worked, as well as a television station and a radio station. She claimed that she was fed up with being mistreated by men.

The incident occurred in Boston and there were several domestic papers that carried the article but it was only in the UK that they mentioned the materials used. The other articles I found were:

• Courant
• ABC
• Forbes
• The Mercury News
• ChinaDaily

Now if they came in large enough sizes and detonated from rifle fire I might order a few from Ms. Dasilva.

Samantha has a list of excuses for missing work. Pretty good stuff. Adding my favorites to the list:

• Sixty Minutes wants to interview me about my working conditions.
• The voices in my head told me today was a good day to stay home and clean my guns.
• I was up all night reloading ammunition.
• I was on America's Most Wanted last night and I need to stay low for a while.
• My house is surrounded by a SWAT team.
• The ATF wants to see my explosives magazine (I always use vacation days, not sick days).
• A hundred people with guns from all over the world are showing up expecting me to give them explosives to shoot at and I don't want to disappoint them.
• My wife is out of town so my girlfriend and her twin sister are spending the day in bed with me.

In case you didn't know, I've never used the first five--I just thought they went well together and were sort of on topic with my interests.

I've never used the last one either. My social director (Barb) hasn't been able to make the arrangements even though, for the last 30 years, she keeps saying, "Sure. I'll work on that this weekend."

People working in the private sector should try to save money if at all feasible.  There remains a possibility that it may someday be valuable again.

Norman R. Augustine
From: Defense Systems Management Review
[Cynical? Who me?--Joe]

The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?

P. J. O'Rourke

Friday and Saturday Xenia and Meghan competed at the State of Idaho drama competion. In the humorous ensemble catagory, with 168 entrants, they came in NUMBER 1. Yes. The number one entrant in that category for the ENTIRE STATE OF IDAHO.

Their other entry, The Duel also went to state made it into the finals (top ten) but did not place.

Here is the video I took of that a few weeks ago at the district competition of the one that won--"Open To Interpretation":

Video: Open To Interpretation

[The video is a messed up in the middle for a minute or so. I'll try and recapture the video next weekend and fix it up.]

Xenia has her own Live Journal posting on the results here. There are some pictures there too.

Barb and I are very, very proud of her.