The View From North Central Idaho

It's kind of bizarre to think that we have a "choice between coercion and choice" which is an oxymoron, but technically we do have it:

In a just world, we would never need to waste a minute discussing this, except with our young children, or in elementary school history classes, but see if you can guess which will outperform; a Soviet-style, government-run monopoly or a free market (our current public school system or school choice)?

Walter E. Williams of course nails it as usual.  The video, done by Stossel and 20/20, is excellent also.  I especially liked the "rubber room" concept they have in New York, as it upholds everything I've ever said about our socialist education system (I do have to hand it to them as I’ve often said we’d be better off paying certain public workers to stay away from the job, and here we find that they’re doing exactly that).

Our current system really is anti-American, anti-choice, and anti-success, and it needs to be scrapped as soon as possible.  The best teachers and administrators will form their own, better schools virtually overnight.  The worst ones?  They can always pick fruit for a living.

I don't blame the Sheriff's office or FBI for this--some criminal is responsible. But I don't want to hear anyone whining about only the government should be allowed to possess certain things when the government can be stolen from as well as private citizens or businesses. The following news release is dated June 13^th:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the FBI and the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department announced today a joint reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the theft of explosives from an explosives storage bunker at the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department training center.

An FBI agent discovered the theft at the center, located at 1835 Highway 94, yesterday. The magazine was utilized by the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI’s St. Louis office.

Investigators from ATF, St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI responded to the scene immediately, and determined that commercially manufactured high and low explosives were stolen. The types include C-4, dynamite, cast boosters, safety fuse and detonating cord. Not all items in the magazine were taken. The follow-up investigation has determined the theft occurred within the last 10 days. Leads are being followed up as the investigation continues.

Also, someone should get their wrist slapped because the theft should have been discovered in seven days or less:

§ 55.204 Inspection of magazines.
Any person storing explosive materials shall inspect his magazines at least every seven days. This inspection need not be an inventory, but must be sufficient to determine whether there has been unauthorized entry or attempted entry into the magazines, or unauthorized removal of the contents of the magazines.
[T.D. ATF-87, 46 FR 40384, Aug. 7, 1981]

ATF's longstanding policy has been to provide total access to trace results to the law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction with respect to the trace request, but to safeguard those results from third parties. Congress' appropriates restriction simply codifies ATF's longstanding policy of sharing trace data with other law enforcement agencies for the purpose of conducting a criminal investigation.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
ATF Disclosure of Firearms Trace Data (176.87 KB .PDF on my server)
[I put this on my server for safe keeping and so you can avoid generating web log entries on the ATF website with your IP address. The above quote is for all those anti-gun bigots that claim the ATF policy is hampering "illegal gun" efforts. Mayor Bloomberg, are you listening?--Joe]

Ammonium nitrate is the primary ingredient in Boomerite. Two years ago I bought the last of the fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate in the county. I had enough for about four years at the previous rate of consumption. With the increased number of participants, increased number of targets, and increased size of the targets it was looking like I had enough for 2008 and maybe 2009 if I stretched the ammonium nitrate a little bit. That wasn't really acceptable.

For the last year and a half I have been trying on and off to find another supplier. I could get it in Missouri or Vermont but transportation was "an issue". Earlier this week I found a supplier that would deliver it to my doorstep for $0.50/pound. My last batch cost $0.14/pound. Heavy sigh. But in the big scheme of things just a couple extra shooting positions covers the difference in cost of the AN.

So... I ordered 5000 pounds which was delivered this morning:

This means I don't have to be at all stingy with the targets for the immediate future. Boomershoot 2008 and 2009 will be bigger blasts than any previous event.

Tomorrow I start trying to pack into in the Taj Mahal. I think I have just enough room...

Robyn Ringler is almost friendly to gun owners in her latest post:

The bill also includes an appeals process if you get listed in the database and feel it is unfair. This was insisted upon by the NRA. Fair enough and a good idea.

This distinguishes her from a lot of the anti-gun bigots who insist that if you are on "terror suspect" list you should be banned from owning a gun even if there is no way to challenge the validity of your name being on the list. Another intolerable situation is when someone shares a name with someone who is on the list and both have their rights restricted without due process.

However, Ms. Ringler still has more education in her future:

I cannot support the stand that there should be NO restrictions at all on gun ownership. We restrict free speech, we restrict behavior, we restrict what movies children can get into, we restrict certain foods, medications, products. And all for good reason.

It makes sense to restrict gun ownership to you, the sensible people who are out there being responsible.

I'm glad she compares gun ownership to free speech. It's a good comparison. Both are constitutionally guaranteed rights. Kids going to movies and medications are not guaranteed rights. But she misses a critical point. The restrictions on free speech do not involve prior restraint. You are not muzzled prior to gaining access to a crowded theater so that you can't do the classic "shout fire in a crowded theater". You don't have to get a license from the government before you can post your opinions on your blog. You don't have to pass a background check before you can buy a printer for your computer. There are laws against slander and libel just as there are there are laws against murder and assault. It should make no difference whether someone murders someone with a baseball bat (video of an actual baseball bat crime--thanks Rob) or a gun. We don't license or restrict baseball bats, possession of which is not a constitutionally guaranteed right, and we shouldn't license or restrict firearms which are a constitutionally guaranteed right. We restrict the actions which actually cause harm. And we do that by punishing those people who engage in those prohibited actions. There is no victim when someone purchases a .50 caliber precision rifle so they can punch holes in paper or connect with boomers 700 or 1000 yards away. Driving drunk or at high speed in a residential neighborhood is sort of an edge case. By itself there isn't a victim but the risk is so high with no reasonable justification for the action that restricting that behavior is acceptable. Plus it's not a guaranteed right.

Banning some .50 caliber rifles when the number of shooting victims where the criminal used such a rifle in the last 20 years can be counted on one hand (even if you are missing a finger or two) is not "sensible". It's prior restraint and it's bigoted.

Update: Jason pointed out to me in email that a baseball bat (clubs) could be considered arms and hence are protected by the Second Amendment. I tend to agree with him but worry that the anti-gun bigots might start claiming as long as we are allowed at least one type of club our RKBA is not being infringed.

Though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found to be generally true: That in ages in which the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people will have a chance...

George Orwell
Essays, Volume IV 
[Just a reminder--Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984. Both should be required reading in High School.--Joe]

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are a huge issue for our forces in the sandbox. Because I have some experience in making improvised explosives this was one of the areas where I was trying to contribute when I worked at PNNL. Unfortunately that didn't work out and I was involuntarily sidelined in that effort. Here is some tantalizing information on how the battle against IEDs is going:

There may be an unlimited supply of explosives in Iraq, but there is not an unlimited supply of people who know how to wire the detonators. In 2004, CIA operatives in Iraq believed they had identified the signatures of 11 different bomb-makers. They proposed a diabolical - but potentially effective - sabotage program that would have flooded Iraq with booby-trapped detonators designed to explode in the bomb-makers' hands. But the CIA's general counsel's office said no. The lawyers claimed the agency lacked authority for such an operation, one source recalled.

Aside from the aneurysm inducing restriction imposed by the lawyers this is very interesting information. There are a very limited number of people in the Islamic extremist community with the technical skills to connect a remote garage door opener, walkie-talkie, or cell phone ringer, to the two wires of a blasting cap. This is an incredibly foreign concept to me. On the farm I was working with explosives when I was 10 years old and making electronic projects (and yes, some of them used vacuum tubes which means my son will claim it was in prehistoric times) by the time I was 12 or so. I don't remember how much before that I was doing simple things with electric circuits -- which is all the expertise you need to connect detonators.

I expect this is some sort of cultural difference. They think entirely different than we do, some say it may be more different that we can think. And apparently the reverse is true as well. Something that I could do as a child before my voice changed is a rare skill in their culture. So if we can't remove those rare individuals from their society with sabotaged detonators how else can we take advantage of their lack of people with technical skills above that of a 12 year-old?

There has never been a serious study to determine what - if any - impact the multi-Billion dollar NICS program has had on violent crime and criminal misuse of firearms. Instead, every evaluation of NICS has been based on the number of transactions and denials the system processes and how quickly they do their job. Stopping sales does not necessarily equate to reducing crime and it is well past time for the Government Accounting Office and the Justice Department to examine the true value of this expensive intrusion on civil rights.

Jeff Knox
Director of Operations
The Firearms Coalition
fcalerts-list -- News from The Firearms Coalition
June 13, 2007

One of the most frequent questions I get about Boomershoot is, paraphrased, "Do I have enough gun for the job?" In almost all cases the answer is yes. If you have a centerfire rifle, shooting a rifle cartridge (.357 or .44 magnum rifles don't have a chance), with a scope then there are very few modern rifles that don't have a reasonable chance of claiming a few boomers. In fact there are some pistols that have been successfully used on the closer targets. Here is a picture of three pistols successfully used at Boomershoot 2007.

And while I'm on the topic of Boomershoot--this weekend I should have some news to release about Boomershoot 2008. I shared it with a couple people yesterday and they expressed "great joy". There are only 14 long range positions left for the April of 2008 event. Sign up soon if you want to participate.

We now have a memorial to the millions of victims of communism:

President Bush, attending Tuesday's dedication of a memorial to an estimated 100 million victims of communist regimes, compared the fight against radical Islam to the Cold War battle against totalitarian communism.

...

The ceremony was held on the 20th anniversary of President Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, in which he implored Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Two years later, the wall fell.

The Victims of Communism Memorial is a bronze Goddess of Democracy statue. It is a replica of a replica - a reproduction of the papier-mache statue that Chinese students modeled on the Statue of Liberty and carried into Tiananmen Square during pro-democracy protests in 1989.

What amazes me is that there are still people in this country who are advocates for such a murderous and failed economic/political system. A survivor of Russian communism when asked what he thought of "trying to do it right this time" said something to the effect of, "There are 100 million corpses from the previous efforts. Do you want to donate your body to the next attempt?" That was a pretty good verbal response. Numerous non-verbal responses come to mind as well but such hand signals can cause you to be talked about.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

John F. Kennedy
In a speech at the White House, 1962
[For some reason when I think of the McCain-Feingold Act this quote comes to mind.--Joe]

I took the video with one eye incapacitated. That it's usable is a testimony to Xenia's editing ability.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is managed by Battelle. It was these people that wrongfully, and feloniously, terminated my employment there just over two years ago. Apparently they had an issue with me exercising my First Amendment rights in advocating for the right to keep and bear arms. I am now in the middle of a lawsuit against these bigots. Increasing their vulnerability is Battelle's contract to manage the lab is about to expire:

The future for about one-tenth of the Department of Energy lab is in limbo as the federal government looks for a way to call for bids on operating the lab.

At issue are $65 million to $80 million in private contract work out of PNNL's overall annual $750 million budget. $52 million to $60 million of that private work would be lost if the Department of Energy decides not to allow private work under a new lab operations contract. The rest could be converted to government research projects.

Battelle spokesman Greg Koller said "significant job losses at PNNL, probably in the 300 to 400 range" are possible if the private work is not somehow preserved in DOE's call for competitive bids.

Battelle has operated the lab under contract with DOE for 42 years. But DOE officials announced in January 2006 that there would be a competitive bid for running the lab after Battelle's current contract expires at the end of September.

That they have a problem with people exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights and see fit to keep felons on their payroll might be a point of interest for certain people as a new contract is being considered.

If banning guns in the inner cities is not keeping guns out of the hands of 12, 13, and 14 year old children, then we need to think of another way.

Robyn Ringler
June 11, 2007
Enough Dead Kids Today, Yesterday, the Day Before—It’s Time For a Change
[Agreed. Can we now get rid of these silly bans? If you read her entire post you will discover she only wants to prevent young teenagers and children from having unsupervised access to guns not prohibit their exposure under all circumstances. I don't really have a problem with that. But what Ms. Ringler hasn't yet realized is that she needs to answer Just One Question before she proceeds to the conclusion that there exists any restrictions on firearms that might reduce crime.

You are making progress Robyn. Keep thinking and questioning the conventional wisdom and we might yet have you attending one of my NRA Basic Personal Protection classes.--Joe]

There are only two .50 caliber positions and 13 regular positions still available. Overall the long range shooting event is 80% full. General entry has been open for only nine days and it's still 321 days until Boomershoot 2008.

If I wasn't doing this to further gun rights instead making money I would have raised the price. I still might have to do that when I get in my next shipment of ammonium nitrate. I still have enough for 2008 and 2009 but I can no longer just visit the local farm supply warehouse and have them fill up the back of the truck with fertilizer at $0.15 per pound. It appears I'm going to have to pay the premium for the explosive grade material. I'm working on avoiding that but I'll have to just wait and see.

For an anti-gun person she is remarkably fair, and even friendly, to hunters in this post.

Thank you Robyn.

The only nit I have to pick is that she apparently didn't notice that a .50 caliber firearm was used in a legitimate activity and it didn't result in an instantaneous kill.

Xenia's graduation and party were on Friday night. Friday morning a little before 8:00 I took her to the ceremony practice and then I went straight on to the "Doc in a box" to have my eye looked at. It was red and painful. I got a prescription for some antibiotics but things kept getting worse and worse. I called the doc back about 15:30 and he referred me to a ophthalmologist. He gave me a prescription for a wider spectrum antibiotic and by the time Xenia's graduation was over my eye was feeling much better. Here is a picture after it was feeling better:

The more pleasant pictures from her graduation are here.

Update: Thanks for all the email suggestions that it might have been something other than a bacteria infection. The new antibiotics worked great. As of this evening nearly all the red is gone and my vision is very near normal again.

I've been saying "Real ID" is a bad idea for a long time. It's good to see some state legislatures are coming on board with that conclusion as well:

Defying Uncle Sam, four states have passed laws refusing to comply with federal rules to make state-issued driver's licenses more secure, casting further doubt on the future of the 2005 Real ID Act.

Although it is rare for states to reject an act of Congress, New Hampshire and Oklahoma in May joined Montana and Washington state in passing statutes this year refusing to go along with Real ID. The refusals mean those states' driver's licenses eventually won't be accepted as official identification when boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings.

In addition, the Idaho Legislature purposely left out any money to comply with the act. The Georgia Legislature passed a law giving Gov. Sonny Perdue authority to ignore the measure, but he is hoping the federal government will make the act more affordable, said his spokesman, Bert Brantley.

"Legal" doesn't necessarily mean "good" -- or "right" -- or "reasonable". Do you really just base your actions on what is and isn't _legal_? Do you really just hand over all your decision-making power to the government?"

Diane Holt

In Gaza, Islamic Jihad is planning to send waves of female suicide bombers into action against the Zionist Entity. Asked by an Israeli reporter whether self-detonating ladies enjoy the same 72-virgin deal as the lads, an Arab scholar said no, but that the gals will be served in Paradise by "dwarfs." Snow White got seven dwarfs, but it's unclear whether Blow White will get the full 72: Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, etc., all the way down to Incendiary, Non-Alcoholic and Anti-Zionist.

Mark Steyn
May 27, 2007
So much news, so little sense
[I've always wondered about the rewards for the Islamic female. So now we know.--Joe]

Democrats, NRA make deal on new gun rules:

WASHINGTON — Senior Democrats have reached agreement with the National Rifle Association on what could be the first federal gun-control legislation since 1994, a measure to significantly strengthen the national system that checks the backgrounds of gun buyers.

The sensitive talks began in April, days after a mentally ill student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University. The shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, had been judicially ordered to submit to a psychiatric evaluation, which should have disqualified him from buying handguns. But the state of Virginia never forwarded that information to the federal National Instant Check System, and the massacre exposed a loophole in the 13-year-old background-check program.

Under the agreement, participating states would be given monetary enticements for the first time to keep the federal background database up to date, as well as penalties for failing to comply.

To sign on to the deal, the powerful gun lobby won significant concessions from Democratic negotiators. Individuals with minor infractions in their pasts could petition their states to have their names removed from the federal database, and about 83,000 military veterans, put into the system by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2000 for alleged mental health reasons, would have a chance to clean their records.

The federal government would be permanently barred from charging gun buyers or sellers a fee for their background checks. In addition, faulty records such as duplicative names or expunged convictions would have to be scrubbed from the database.

"The NRA worked diligently with the concerns of gun owners and law enforcement in mind to make a ... system that's better for gun owners and better for law enforcement," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who led the talks.

First: If someone is so dangerous they can't be trusted with a gun then I don't think they can be trusted with a can of gasoline and a book of matches either. Either they can be trusted in public or they should be locked up.

Second: Making the least agreeable portions of the infringement on our rights more palatable just means it will be more difficult to justify getting rid of it entirely later on.

Third: The longer this infringement stays in place the more accepting of it people are. The ban on new machine gun sales is so well accepted that most people believe they are banned entirely. Today it would be really tough to repeal the ban on machine guns and day by day it's getting more difficult for people to even consider repealing the Brady Act.

Fourth: The Brady/FBI database and reporting system is so close to a database of all gun owners and their guns that it is a hazard to the health of our freedom. Which has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peal anyway.

All that said, borrowing from a great book I just listened to recently, Survival of the Sickest, "Why would you take a pill that will kill you 40 years from now?" The answer is, "Because it will keep me from dying tomorrow." And so it is with this agreement.

They keep the truth from being taught in public schools, and they even write books laden with falsehoods in a dishonest attempt to rewrite history.

Seven years ago, Emory University historian Michael Bellesiles published a book purportedly proving there were few guns and gun owners in early America. The book garnered Columbia University's coveted Bancroft Prize. Two years later, primarily due to the efforts of a brilliant young research historian, Clayton Cramer, who had studied that period in history extensively, the book was revealed to be a total fraud, full of lies and fabrications. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory University and, for the first time in history, Columbia University rescinded the Bancroft Prize.

Every American who values his or her constitutional rights should know something about these frauds that gun control advocates perpetrate so we can be watchful and teach the truth to our young ones.

Sandy Froman

June 7, 2007
The history of gun control, part 1
Sandy Froman is immediate past president of the National Rifle Association of America and a longtime member of the NRA board of directors.
A practicing attorney in Tucson, Ariz., Froman is an international speaker on the right to keep and bear arms and an advocate for federal judges who will interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Aristotle
[We just returned with our daughter Xenia from her High School graduation ceremony.--Joe]

Damned good thing none of the victims had firearms, 'cause, you know, violence is never the answer and it only begets more violence:

The man then barged into a neighbor's house, where he stabbed and hacked to death a 37-year-old pregnant woman and her three daughters and two sons, aged 1 to 9.

All I want to know is; who sold him the machete, how much money did he make on the sale, and is he proud of it?  How is it that a madman can so easily get hold of such a deadly instrument?  Why are iron and carbon made so widely available when we know things like this are going to happen as a result?  What are the Filipino legislators going to do about this?  What do the Filipino cutlery manufacturers have to say for themselves and their irresponsible production of such deadly products?

There is one word missing in all the descriptions of the victims, which bears notice:  "Unarmed".  Add the correction and it makes more sense: 

"The man then barged into a neighbor's gun free house, where he stabbed and hacked to death the unarmed 37-year-old..."

Here's a news headline you'll never see:  "Machete-wielding madman kills eight concealed pistol carriers."

But some of our Great and Compassionate Leaders would prefer several dead innocent women and children to one dead criminal, shot by his intended victim.