The following article was actually the motivation to write my post last night, How government creates crime. From New Zealand:

Green Party MP Keith Locke has called for greater controls on the owners of military style weapons, in the wake of the Police seizure of hundreds of military style weapons during raids on 55 gun collectors and dealers.

"When even the Police express surprise at the extent of the seizures, this indicates serious flaws exist within the gun control system they administer," Mr Locke says.

"The raids are very welcome, and hopefully indicate a fresh determination by Police to tackle this problem. The Police vetting system has become far too loose, and it has become too easy to register and trade as a 'collector.'

"The profits possible from on-selling these weapons are clearly proving too much for some of these registered gun collectors to resist.

"While one can sympathise with genuine collectors, it is not acceptable that the 'collectors' market is being used as a cover for a black market trade in guns, some of which ultimately end up in the hands of gangs and criminals.

"The initial looseness in the control system is that gun owners must be registered, but not their guns. In future, guns need to be registered."

Who are the victims in the "crime" mentioned above? If you said the gun collectors and dealers you are correct. They engaged in victimless crimes. Any further restrictions, as suggested above, on the free market will only create still more "criminals" and victims.

End of the year roundup on things:

• There are only two slots left and they are in the .50 Caliber Ghetto
• There is a waiting list of four teams (six people) for the smaller caliber area some of whom claimed .50 Caliber Ghetto slots
• There are 110 shooters signed up
• There are, on the average, 1.62 shooters per position
• Excluding the targets consumed in the Precision Rifle Clinic (full since November 8th with a waiting list) on the average there will probably be 6.5 targets per shooter
• Excluding the Precision Rifle Clinic targets there will be on the average 10.5 targets per shooting position
• Excluding the Precision Rifle Clinic targets there will be on the average 21.4 pounds of explosives per per shooting position
• Excluding the Precision Rifle Clinic targets there will be on the average 13.2 pounds of explosives per shooter
• The average price paid per paying shooter (staff not counted) would buy only about 7.5 pounds of Tannerite (see also Target Master exploding targets) at list price in case quantity
• The smallest targets for Boomershoot 2007 will have three times the explosive charge of the largest targets at Boomershoot 2000
• If we use the same number of targets as last year we will consume over 1600 pounds of explosives (see More boom in the boomers)
• Assuming no unexpected expenses and an comparable level of participation then Boomershoot 2008 (a year or more from now) will be enable me to pay off the last of the debt on the construction of the Taj Mahal

Waiting for the door-to-door gun confiscation?

Better use that time to prevent them: Vote. Run for office. Train new shooters. Educate fence sitters.

Oleg Volk
November 11, 2006

Speaking of Oleg Volk, Say Uncle points out this picture from Oleg. It makes me wish I had taken pictures of my girls when they shot guns for the first time.

The title for this post is stolen from the commenter dantheserene to Oleg's post.

I helped Ry with a car problem tonight and he asked me if I had read the Oleg Volk's post about waiting for door-to-door confiscation of firearms. I hadn't. He gave me a version that was slightly mangled and said Oleg said it much better. Then in his post about it Ry pointed out the picture for the posting is an UltiMAK equipped rifle.

A portion of Oleg's advice, "Train new shooters" and "Educate fence-sitters", is a significant portion of the motivation for Boomershoot.

So what have you done to prevent door-to-door confiscations recently?

One of my pet peeves is how government creates crime and gets away with it. Not even a whisper of it in the press when some new crime creating law is being debated. "Government creates crime?", you ask. Yes, beyond any doubt. Alcohol prohibition is one example that most people can agree on without much effort. By banning most types of alcohol consumption they created a black market for a product that was in high demand. Turf wars, corruption of the police and public officials, and enforcement of business contracts via violence were the inevitable result.

Most people can also see a similar result has occurred with recreational drug prohibition.

Firearm prohibition has the same result but, probably because demand isn't as great, to a limited extent.

Prohibitions are just one of the areas however. Taxes are another. Anytime the taxes become "too high" on a product a black market is created. It's simply a light version of a ban on a product. I've heard it said that "too high" is greater than about 15%. When the taxes on a product are below 15% of the free market retail price a black market isn't viable. Above 15% and the government created a black market and all the crime that comes with that black market.

And what most people don't realize is that taxes on income helps create crime too. If someone steals $100 do you think they are going to report that as income and pay taxes on it? $100 of illegal income, assuming you don't get caught, is worth more than $100 of legal income you report and pay taxes on. The higher the income tax rate the more incentive there is to obtain your income from illegal sources. Hence government taxes on income are a crime incentive.

In general it boils down to this: Any government restriction on the free market is an incentive for people to "go illegal" to bypass that restriction. Anytime someone "goes illegal" they no longer have the court system available to them to resolve disputes and enforce contracts. The result is not only the crime of bypassing the government restriction but the crimes of police and political corruption and contract resolution via violence.

I'm not saying that all government restrictions on the free market are to be abolished. I'm just saying that any restrictions increase the price such that it exceeds some threshold, perhaps in the range of 15% of the unrestricted price, and a very careful cost/benefit analysis is required. And of course as we know from the gun control debates people seldom bring up the downside of a government restriction. They seem to be only able to see the potential upside.

And before someone else points it out (Lyle, I'm thinking of you) most government in the U.S. is already criminal. Where do they get the authority in their constitutions to do even one tenth their normal "business"? So it's not surprising they wouldn't be concerned about creating crime--criminals are their idealogical brothers.

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on Earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Thomas Jefferson
Letter to James Madison
Dec. 20, 1787
[It's as true today as it was 219 years ago. And keep in mind that the bill of rights is a list of things the government must not do. It is not a list of what it should or must do. There is no "right" to health care, education, or employment. There is a right to due process, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seziure, and the right of the individual to keep and bear arms.--Joe]

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

William O. Douglas
US Supreme Court Justice

I'm far from the first on this topic but no one I have read has pointed out what comes immediately to mind when I see this sort of thing:

That said, I understand that this will not be well-received everywhere. Some folks complained loudly in the past when, as a matter of routine, this newspaper published the names of those granted permits in Minnehaha County - and likely they will complain loudly now, arguing that it is none of our business whether they have a license to carry a gun.

Some will invoke the Second Amendment, which only protects their right to have guns.

Wrong. The Constitution does not give people the right to own guns. It guarantees that preexisting right will not be infringed (see An Individual Right and search for Cruikshank).

People also have the right to marry someone of a different race--even if it isn't guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Should those people be registered? Does the public have the right to know who is in an interracial marriage?

The registration and publication of gun owners and their guns only serves one purpose and that is harassment and discrimination. Bigotry is an ugly thing no matter who is practicing it.

Update: My exact same comments also apply to this article.

One of my favorite Boomershoot stories is that Paul and Tammy celebrated their honeymoon by attending Boomershoot 2001. As popular as Boomershoot is it just doesn't draw that many honeymooners. But as rare as that is I suspect that a Honeymoon in Iraq is even more rare. In addition to the admiration I have for them performing dangerous work to help secure world peace and stability I'm honored for Chris to claim he reads my blog almost every day and he made a very favorable post about my Just One Question.

Thank you Chris and Desert Lizard. Please make it back safely.

One of the most interesting, after the ant experiments and the safe cracking, parts of Richard Feynman's book Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! was his experiments with smell. While he was out of the room he would have a group of people pick a book from a shelf, handle it briefly then replace it on the shelf. He would then come back into the room and identify which books were handled and by which person. He said it was surprisingly easy.

Feynman's experiments are entirely consistent with these which extend human smell to tracking.

Ry says they don't have handles and gives this page as reference. However informative and useful the reference I beg to differ with the claim they don't have handles. Even most Manx have a little something that can be used as the rear handle and the scruff of the neck works well for the second handle. This presumes of course you have heavy leather gloves to prevent the slitting of the wrist of the hand utilizing this handle.

I have successfully accomplished the task with only minor wounds and scars that, after 15 years, only barely show. The biggest problems were the two girls, ages four and six I think, that were climbing on my back and screaming, "Daddy's trying to drown the kitty!!" Once Barb dragged them off of me things went pretty smooth--all things considered.

I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills.  All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

Mohandas K. Gandhi
(1869-1948), Indian political and spiritual leader.
Harijan (28 March 1936).
[This is something for gun owners anxious to "push the reset button" to remember. We have truth on our side and for now we have non-violence. Once the non-violence threshold has been breached many of the terrible things they say about us will become true. That is to not to say there isn't a valid time and place to use violence. It's just that we must be very careful to have sufficient moral justification for using violence.--Joe]

The power is on for both James and I where we work so we need to be back at work tomorrow. James has power at his apartment but I don't have any at my place so I'm taking my 3500W generator. I should be able to get the gas furnance working and if not my roommates and I can continue to burn wood in the fireplaces. The generator should keep the refrigerators and the computers up. Candles and kerosene lamps for lights and we will be comfortable. We should also be able to run the washing machine if we shut down some of the other stuff to wash clothes. The water heater is gas and hasn't been affected by the power outage.

We head out in a few minutes and hope to get over Snoqualmie Pass before it snows too much.

Cases of persecution similar to Galileo's (which are also found in Protestantism) are a significant indicator of the extent to which Christians themselves have been aware of the conflict between reason and faith.  The issue is not whether Galileo was right or wrong.  The issue is:  Why has Christianity found it necessary and desirable to suppress free inquiry with the threat of force?  If reason will only lend support to the dogmas of religion, why have those countries with a strong Church-State alliance displayed such an eagerness to enforce religious dogmas and eliminate dissent through the power of the State?  Why has Christianity refused, whenever possible, to allow its beliefs to compete in a free marketplace of ideas?  The answer is obvious - and revealing.  Christianity is peddling an inferior product, one that cannot withstand critical investigation.  Unable to compete favorably with other theories, it has sought to gain a monopoly through a state franchise, which means: through the use of force.

George H. Smith
From Atheism the Case Against God
[This same argument can be used to even greater effect with Islamic extremists. They have been "converting by the sword" for centuries. Frequently murdering everyone in an entire town. I'm listening to Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism and the picture it paints about the history of Islam is worse than I thought it was. Which was already extraordinarily negative.--Joe]

Now they are taxing sex. It's an extension of the "pleasure tax":

The sex levy is part of the "pleasure tax," which originally placed a duty on casinos and arcades and was later extended to include brothels, massage parlors and table-dancing clubs.

Okay. So it's only on the business sex. But they also pay other taxes:

The city's finance department was not able to say how many prostitutes worked in the city as individual tax numbers could be registered to entire brothels. Prostitution is legal in Germany, where sex workers also have to pay income and value-added taxes.

Value-added tax? I"m going to have to think about that one for a while...

The last couple years we have been using cardboard boxes for the targets. The Boomerite (also known as "Joe's Special Recipe") is put in zip lock bags and then put in the boxes. The zip lock bags for the 7 1/8" x 7 1/8" x 1 3/8" targets have been, when flat, 8" x 8". When filled with Boomerite they are no longer 8" x 8". When put in the cardboard boxes they leave a gap of about a half inch all the way around the edge. This year I purchased 1000 of the next size larger zip lock bags 9" x 12". This will allow us to completely fill what we call "the seven inchers" and result in slightly bigger booms.

Also for the last couple of years we had "six inchers". Boxes which were slightly smaller than the seven inchers but held almost as much Boomerite. To simply purchasing, inventory, etc. I decided to not have any six inchers this year. Where we used six inchers in the past we would use seven inchers. No one should have a problem with that. The bigger targets will be easier to hit and have bigger booms.

So far, so good, no big deal. I wasn't even going to mention the above but then when I took the newly purchased boxes and the zip lock bags out to the Taj Mahal today I noticed something about the "four inchers". I ordered, and received, boxes that were 4" x 4" x 3". Previously we had used 4" x 4" x 2". I had pressed the wrong button on the online order form. Here is the difference between the boxes:

I just tested out one of the zip lock bags we have for these and confirmed that the four inchers will have about 50% more Boomerite than last year. And since I bought 1000 of these boxes we will have some left over for next year as well.

Oh well. It wasn't what I planned but I don't think there will be any complaints.

In other news I was able to drive the van over the culvert I put in last September. There was quite a bit of water flowing but all the dirt appeared to be in place and grass is growing. Unless there is some really unusual weather next spring I don't think there will be any problems with it.

One last thing. After leaving the Taj I went to my parents place for lunch. When I walked into the shop to chat with my brother and Dad my brother was on the phone trying to help Dean Gimstead with his new computer. Dean brings the "roach coach" that provides breakfast and lunch to Boomershooters. I ended up doing the computer support and then let Dean know the exact dates for Boomershoot 2007. I just need to order the Port-a-Potties and all the major issues will be taken care of until just a few days before the event.

See also the Seattle Times article here. These were all taken on Friday December 15 between 8:30 and 12:00. I took the first one and James took the rest.

Typical residental street

Near Redmond on Highway 202 on our way out of town

Near Redmond on Highway 202 on our way out of town

Notice the power line is down on the left as well as half of highway 202 is blocked

What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent? In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded that it takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil's view, the simultaneous peaking of four of the many cycles of American life. First, a base of technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done. Second, a period of national uneasiness about America's place in the scheme of human activities must exist. Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses the national attention upon the direction to proceed. Finally, an articulate and wise leader must sense these first three conditions and put forth with words and action the great thing to be accomplished. The motivation of young Americans to do what needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of conditions.... The Thomas Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John Kennedys appear. We must begin to create the tools of leadership which they, and their young frontiersmen, will require to lead us onward and upward.

Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt
Sen., New Mexico
[To win wars? Hmmm... If Schmidt is right what are we missing?--Joe]

The power flickered many times with the first record in my uninterruptable power supply logs at about 17:00 yesterday. There were numerous 10 and 20 second outages until it went out for the night about 22:30. For James it was very early this morning. Work was closed and although I could have kept our computers up it just wasn't worth the effort. We drove back to Idaho today to wait for the power to be restored to the Seattle area.

The snow on the pass and all the way to just a few miles west of Vantage wasn't bad but it was coming down pretty good so we were glad to make it across when we did. The worst part was making it through all the traffic on the Eastside of Lake Washington. With no power all the traffic lights were 4-way stops.

Ry reports in and is doing fine.

Phil at Random Nuclear Strikes hasn't said anything but I'm sure he is doing well unless he suffered a direct hit from a tree.

Mr. Completely has several reports and seems to be doing well:

• Storm Report II
• Storm Update III
• Storm Report IV
• Storm Report IV (?)

James and I took a few pictures and I'll put something up later. I need to make supper before Barb gets home from work.

During our recent motor touring, we noticed on several occasions the road sign "Gusty winds may exist." Now I find that pretty fascinating. The notice that gusty winds may exist suggests some thought be given to the relationship of reality to existence. Whether such winds may or may not exist opens the door to questions about what constitutes existence. Descartes declaimed, Cogito ergo sum (I think: therefore I am). Whether winds may or may not really and truly exist calls for serious thought. I almost ran off the road considering this matter.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
[Gusty winds do exist. Seattle without power is proof of that.--Joe]

Via Tam I read more about the wanna be truck driver I mentioned yesterday. Barb and I talked about it some tonight. This guy is really stupid:

Mohammed Yusef Mullawala wanted a license to transport hazardous materials and to learn how to drive commercial tractor trailers. There was nothing unusual about that, until he told his teacher that he only wanted to learn how to drive forward, and he wanted to learn fast.

...

Crawford said Mullawala came to the school with a Rhode Island driver's license inquiring how to obtain a commercial driver's license within a month. It normally takes around eight weeks for a student to go through all of the required courses before he or she obtains a permit, she said.

"We've been doing this for quite a long time and a lot of things just didn't add up," Crawford said.

Crawford started documenting suspicious activity: Mullawala lived in New York City but traveled to Rhode Island for the driving classes; he missed his first day of classes; and he was very insistent on getting his hazardous material transport license.

But the fact that he only seemed interested in driving forward was the most concerning.

"We tell them from Day One, 'you will be backing up,' 'you'll be backing up every single day,'" Crawford said, adding that it normally takes two to three weeks of practice backing up before drivers get road permits and learn how to drive forward, among other things.

...

After Mullawala took two classes, Crawford contacted Highway Watch, which had conducted an anti-terrorism and safety program at her school.

Two classes. That's all it took for him to totally blow his cover.

So why don't I get a warm and fuzzy feeling that this guy is pegged and probably getting a one-way ticket to the far side of the world? Because it seems all the potential terrorists we catch are incredibly stupid. I'm not so arrogant to believe that the average law enforcement people we have working on these sort of cases has 50 I.Q. points over the best and brightest of our enemy. I can only think of two reasons for what I see in the news.

1. Only the dumbest get caught. The smart ones are working on something big, keeping a low profile and haven't been noticed by our law enforcement.
2. We are nabbing brighter guys but we aren't publicizing it. The law enforcement types don't want the brighter guys to know how we are catching them so they only report the most stupid of the bad guys. The others quietly disappear in the middle of the night and get free plane trips to Club Gitmo, Turkey, or Pakistan for further questioning by professionals.

I'm hoping it is either number 2. or there is a third reason I haven't thought of or didn't consider viable.

Last night I posted about a letter I received from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This morning they came visiting:

Domain Name		usda.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address		199.156.60.# (USDA Office of Operations)
ISP		USDA Office of Operations
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  Colorado City  :  Fort Collins Lat/Long  :  40.524, -105.1396 (Map) Distance  :  730 miles
Language		English (United States) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution  :  1024 x 768 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Dec 14 2006 8:37:30 am
Last Page View		Dec 14 2006 8:37:30 am
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffm...1d-6c7a83021e29.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffm...1d-6c7a83021e29.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-8:00
Visitor's Time		Dec 14 2006 8:37:30 am
Visit Number		120,426

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

Buckminster Fuller
[I'm currently listening to Orson Scott Card's Empire as an audio book.--Joe]

The anti-gun bigots are at it again. They are claiming victory when they fudge the numbers:

Gun-control measures that Australia adopted after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre have eliminated mass killings and halved the number of suicides and deaths from firearms, according to a new study.

There have been no mass killings since the passage of the first measure just after the massacre, researchers led by Simon Chapman at the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney said in the study, published in the December issue of Injury Prevention. In contrast, there were 13 such killings in the 18 years prior. The study covered 1979 to 2003.

``Removing large numbers of rapid-firing firearms from civilians may be an effective way of reducing mass shootings, firearm homicides and firearm suicides,'' the authors said.

...

The laws also doubled the pace at which firearm deaths were declining, they said. Gun deaths had been falling by 3 percent a year, and the rate rose to 6 percent after the new rules, the study found. The average number of people killed each month dropped to 332.6 from 627.7, it said. Suicides make up about four out of five firearms deaths; the remainder are either homicides or unintentional deaths.

And what's your point? Why should anyone care? This totally ignores the possibility of any benefit that might have resulted from people being allowed to own those firearms that were taken from them. The total murder rate and the total violent crime rate are what is important. A reduction in the number of crimes committed with firearms is, by itself, meaningless. You could reduce the number of murders committed with baseball bats by banning the sport and the bats but it's not going to reduce the total murder rate.

They can't win being honest with the numbers so they have to cheat. But what can you expect from people that have mental problems?

From the U.K. where, if the government hadn't implemented a Criminal Occupational Safety Act, an "equalizer" from Samuel Colt, John Moses Browning, or Smith & Wesson would make this sort of thing too hazardous of a hobby to partake in this frequently in the same small geographical area and small population:

There are growing concerns tonight that police are drawing a blank in the hunt for the Suffolk Strangler.

Officers from the Suffolk force - one of the smallest in the country - have been "overwhelmed" by the discovery of five bodies in 10 days.

...

One source said: "Even a larger force would have a problem resourcing at this stage. It is six weeks since the first prostitute went missing - and police admit it is a race against time before the killer strikes again."

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull, who is leading the manhunt, went on television to say the serial killer is "out of control". He has murdered five women in six weeks, an unprecedented rate in British criminal history.

Some of the prostitutes in Ipswich's red-light area have given police names of their customers and detectives are trying to compile a complete list.

...

The numbers of sex workers in the area is said to be about 40, but the hardcore is about 15 - five of whom are now dead.

I've been saying it for over 30 years and now celebrities are endorsing it:

Hollywood beauty Cameron Diaz thinks that sex is the remedy for all the world's ills.

The actress, who is dating pop singer Justin Timberlake finds lovemaking so therapeutic she believes it could be used as a cure for practically everything.

"Sex is the most amazing stress reliever. I actually think it's the best thing for everything! I think it should be 100 per cent part of everyone's life on a day-to-day basis. We'd all be a lot happier!" she was quoted by Hollywood Ragaas as saying.

Barb and I own a little bit of farm land and because of various government programs intended to help farmers (yes stuff related to the subsidies, but also "helpful" stuff mandated by the environmentalists) we get mailings from the Federal government every once in a while. The one I got the other day made me laugh. It must have tickled my sick humor funny bone. This one is from the United States Department of Agriculture. FSA stands for Farm Service Agency:

Dear Clearwater County Producer:

The Idaho State FSA Office has been instructed to devise a plan for closing offices in Idaho. In keeping with that directive, a Committee was formed last spring to identify and prioritize the offices with the State that could be considered for closure. Now six months later, after extensive debates, discussions and arguments, the proposal is out -- Clearwater County tops the list as the first office in Idaho to close should that become a requirement.

It is important to note that no directives have been issued to actually close offices at this time. The Agency is simply looking forward, and in an attempt to be ready should future budge restrictions force the issue the office closure plan would be ready for implementation. It is also important that you know that the entire process will take approximately two years to complete. After the plan is finalized in Idaho, it is submitted to the National Office for approval, then on to Congressional Representatives for review, and finally back to the local community for comment. All in all, it can take as long as two years for a plan to be finalized.

[... blah, blah, blah...]

Two years just to come up with a plan??? How long to actually close the office? A decade if they really work at it? If it were a private business wanting to close an office the size of that one the plan would take a couple weeks and by the end of the next month new renters would be occupying the office space.

There are very, very few things government can do well. Examples abound from the airport security issues to prohibition (alcohol as well as modern day recreational drugs) to gun bans. Government is colossally incompetent at nearly anything they do. My favorite example is that for 70 years the USSR tried to increase food production in their country. During essentially those same 70 years the U.S. government tried to decrease food production in the U.S. Both governments failed.