More evidence Dr. Joe's cure for everything (more sex) works.

Mostly this is for the people at Microsoft that read my blog, but I'm sure there is application in other companies.

Here at Microsoft there is a big push during the month of October to sign people up for charitable donations. I think last year employees donated something like 72 million dollars. I'm pretty sure that is before the matching, dollar for dollar, funds from MS are counted. It is claimed MS employees donate more per capita than any other company.

This whole "giving" thing annoys some people. An argument could be made that is, barely, voluntary socialism. I'm not going to make that argument. Instead I think you just have to choose your charities carefully.

And of course there are organizations like JPFO and SAF that will help in our fight against the bigots that want to take away are civil rights but maybe that isn't sufficiently "in your face" to suit you. There are other options.

On Saturday evening at dinner at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous Chuck told us his story of being wounded in Iraq and how Soldier's Angels was such a huge help to him. I was glad I was in position such that nearly no one (I think Barb might have noticed) saw the tears running down my checks as I listened to his story. Barb and I bought $100 worth of raffle tickets but had to sell some of them to someone else because all the tickets were purchased before everyone had a chance to get some. Not only is that a worthy cause but supporting the "baby killers" might be enough to make someone in the Breasts Not Bombs crowd perk up and if you have seen any of the pictures you know that would be a remarkable and worthwhile accomplishment.

But if you want the ultimate slap in the face for the PC crowd you can play out this fantasy of mine--When you are asked to tell your story about why you donate you tell them its because you like to reach out and touch people you wouldn't have otherwise been able to. You don't need to tell them you donate to Snipers Online--unless you really want to. They are already in the Microsoft database, Ry put them there a year or two ago.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

John Adams
[One could make the argument that this is more true today than when Adams said it 200 years ago.--Joe]

There has been a lot of talk (and here) about how the anti-gun bigots got pwned by a section in the microstamping bill that says it won't take effect unless the technology is "available to more than one manufacturer unencumbered by any patent restrictions". Furthermore those people dancing in the streets point out the primary patents won't expire for another 15 years.

I hate to rain on everyone's happy dance but check this out:

Question: Is microstamping a sole-source technology that would create a government-sanctioned monopoly for a single company?

Answer: The patent holder of microstamping technology has announced that a royalty-free license will be provided to every manufacturer in the United States on guns sold in California.

Tell me again who got pwned.

This (see the comments here) isn't the first time someone has said something like this about me (see also this and this post in which I believe I contributed some to his conclusion). I could name off a half dozen people that said something similar. I'm not saying I disagree with them. I just don't get what it is I say or do that causes people to arrive at these conclusions after a brief encounter.

About the only thing I can think of that might have given them this idea was that I explained how easy it was to get a knife through airport security (Sebastian said, "I'm glad you are on our side" after I did this). But then Uncle explained how to get a gun through which is a little more difficult but uses the same principles as I used in my knife example--so I'm not sure why I was singled out as an example.

This might help the "bullets on target" problem I have with machine guns but I still am put off by the cost of feeding such a device. At 1000 yards with my "Spud Gun" (some call it "insanely accurate") will deliver a bullet just as accurately and with as much momentum as I could with this sub gun at 25 yards and with far less chance of receiving return fire.

It is a neat engineering advance in guns though. I applaud them for their ingenuity.

It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong. But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants.

Dr William Gray
October 12, 2007
Gore gets a cold shoulder
[Man is not causing global warming. Policitial correctness, desire for political power, and a hatred of capitialism are the driving forces behind the global warming scare.--Joe]

As we see it, the technology to implement the micro-stamping is flawed, there would be an increase in the potential for civil liability for law enforcement agencies that continue to use handguns which will be placed on the "unsafe" handgun list, there would be an increase in law enforcement training costs due to not being able to reuse spent cartridge casings, the technology could be easily defeated since the stamping is only 25 microns deep and the cost of the technology would be passed on to law enforcement agencies and citizens alike.

The North State Sheriffs'
Bill Analysis, Senate Rules Committee, Third Reading, Bill No: AB 1471
[I'm not sure why the reuse of shell casings would be affected. Any ideas?--Joe]

Gun Blogger Rendezvous 2007 is now over and Barb and I are sitting in the airport waiting to board. I probably averaged about five hours of sleep each night and I haven't had any caffeine for several days now. I'm starting to crash from the prolonged excitement and fun as well as the less than normal amounts of sleep.

I have 299 pictures from the event. I shared most of them with The AnarchAngel, Sebastian, Uncle, The Conservative UAW Guy, and Kevin. Keewee, Mr. Completely and US Citizen took a bunch of pictures too so look around if I don't post enough for you.

Update: Our flight has been delayed a few minutes. You can track our flight back to Seattle in near real time here.

You guys are scary smart.

Larry Weeks
From Brownell's while at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous 2007 referring to us bloggers who were listening to him tell us about their new magazines.
[Yes, there were a lot of very smart people there. Almost intimidatingly smart.--Joe]

I can't get WiFi on my computer so I'm using a cell-phone shared Internet connection. I don't have much time either, otherwise I'd post a bunch of pictures. So I'll defer to others you are faster and better than me on this:

• SayUncle says
• US Citizen says this about the NRA meeting yesterday afternoon and has a bunch of pictures from the trip to the range up.

The trip to the range was great. I brought my Spud Gun this time. So I put a couple rounds in a target at 200 yards just to make sure nothing had changed in the last two years since I had shot it. Pictures of that target will posted later. The "group" (two shots don't mean a lot) was 3/8" of an inch just under an inch left of the bull. I then went to 300, then 600, then spotted for Chris as he started hitting at what the range master said was 953. He spotted for me and I was able to connect on nearly every shoot too. I left it zeroed for that range and numerous other people who had never shot at those distances reached out and touched the metal at nearly 1000 yards.

Later (more about this when I get the pictures ready for posting) I shoot the Ko-tonics 6.8 SPC. Uncle has a red-dot sight on it zeroed for 400 yards and from the bench it was easy to hit the 400 (12 inch?) yard plate nearly every time so I shot a few rounds offhand at the 400 yard target. Much more challenging but I think I hit about 1/3 of the time.

It was a great day at the range!

Time for Barb and I to head to the banquet...

Democracy is that form of government where everyone gets what the majority deserves.

James Dale Davidson

Glen Caroline and Ashley Varner are here and we having a great dialog even if the wheelbarrows of cash didn't show up.

So far the best message coming our direction is they vigorously welcome our input. Pick up the phone, send an email, etc. They don't have enough ears to pick up and filter all the useful information "out there".

There is a lot of talk about internal bickering in the gun community. We need to improve things and there are some good ideas on how to deal with it better.

Update @ 15:35: We are now discussing the NRA support/non-support in the Parker/Heller case.

Update @ 15:41: NRA says, "How do we address the perception problem?" This is regarding the NRA being perceived as pro hunter and abandoning the black rifle crowd. Not to mention the NFA people. In other words the "NRA is Zumbo organization."

Update @ 16:10: Ashley says she likes my blog and loved the pictures from Montana. She agrees the "Gun Porn" with Kim wasn't a problem. The woman that was disturbed by it was disturbed before she saw it. Uncle suggested the NRA get the CMP program funded again and stop destroying the military surplus ammo.

Update @ 16:25: Glen talked about translating talk into action. We need to put links on our sites to congress critter contact information and NRA-ILA newsletters/action alerts.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutory pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the path to truth is often at the same time opened.

Charles Darwin
[Think of how much mileage the bigots get with the erronous studies about a firearm being 43 times more likely to blah, blah, blah... versus some opinion piece in a newpaper.--Joe]

I'm ready to go. Barb and I are leaving on a jet plane for Reno and the Gun Blogger Rendezvous this evening. That's assuming the TSA will allow me, my guns, and ammo on the plane. Alaska Airlines will only allow me to take 50 pounds of ammo [heavy sigh]. That would have been enough for what I want to do except that with all the other stuff I'm taking (Boomershoot give aways, knives, spotting scope, tripod, range bag, magazines, holsters, guns, shot timer, eye and ear protection, laser range finder, binoculars, spare batteries, gun cleaning gear, walkie-talkie, altimeter, wind gauge, thermometer, exterior ballistics calculator, targets, and a clean pair of socks) I started running up against a different weight limit without bringing all the ammo I wanted.

I have enough match rifle ammo and if I decide I want some more pistol ammo I'll buy it in Reno sometime tomorrow.

Update: We made it through security without incident. We are now sitting at our gate waiting to board. Pretty amazing considering all the electronics and cables I had in my computer bag. The holster in the computer bag apparently didn't raise an eyebrow either. And the empty water bottle... I thought for sure they would want to open my backpack to make sure it was actually empty. They were cool with me wearing a shirt with the picture of a gun on it and the Boomershoot coat too. All nice to know. Maybe they are happy with just infringing on one constitutionally guaranteed right at a time.

So far the flight is on time. You can track it in near real time here.

James and I loved the first two seasons of Andromeda. Great characters, stimulating story line, it was wonderful writing and execution.

We got the first DVD of season three and episode after episode we looked at each other in confusion. What the heck was that? The actors were doing their job but the story sucked. We watched five or six episodes and gave up on Monday. It's on to something else.

James read a synopsis of the remaining episodes declared they were all crap and made up his own ending, "Tyr takes over the ship, then conquers and rules the entire universe." Works for me. It's also entirely within character for Tyr. Some quotes to illustrate:

Tyr Anasazi: What would you like, Jaguar?
Charlemagne Bolivar: The usual. Hundreds of grandchildren, utter domination of known space and the pleasure of hearing that all of my enemies have died in terrible, highly improbable accidents that cannot be connected to me. And you?
Tyr Anasazi: [Laughs] The usual.

Tyr Anasazi: I have faith in nothing but this - when the universe collapses and dies. There will be three survivors - Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches, and Dylan Hunt trying to save the cockroaches.

We also need real control of identification. We need the right to be anonymous while exercising all other rights. So that even with our photos, our fingerprints and our DNA profile, they can't link our communication and trade and financial activities to our person.

Now I'm not talking about lack of accountability here, at all. We must be accountable to the people we communicate with. We must be accountable to the people we trade with. And the technology must be built to enforce that. But we must not be accountable to THE PUBLIC for who we talk to, or who we buy and sell from.

John Gilmore
A transcript of remarks given at the First Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, March 28,1991
[Another way of saying this is that government control of financial and communication identification fails my Jews in the Attic Test.--Joe]

Over the years I've had numerous queries about bringing a rifle to Boomershoot that shoots the .50 BMG cartridge. I've always told them it wasn't a problem but they had to set up some distance from "normal people" so they wouldn't hurt their neighbors with the muzzle blast. I put these shooters off to one end and it quickly got named "The Ghetto". After I started running out of shooting spaces I explicitly set aside positions with extra wide spacing for the .50 caliber shooters and I called the area by the name given to it by shooters years before, the ".50 Cal Ghetto":

Now via Tam I find there are "affordable" guns that shoot the manly 20mm cartridge. See the bottom of this page for a picture of the 20mm compared to the wimpy .50 BMG cartridge.

I haven't had any requests to bring 20mm rifles to Boomershoot but they are welcome to come. They will be thrown into the same ghetto as the .50 cal guys who will have to just suck it up when they get embarrassed by the size of their tools compared to the newcomers.

I had planned to leave the Seattle area at about 9:00 AM on Thursday and mistakenly made our airplane reservations for 9:00 PM. Hence Barb and I won't be arriving at GBR until nearly midnight. Oh well, I'm sure people will manage to get by without us for a few extra hours.

Kevin will be on his way to GBR in just a few hours.

Apparently having been refuted on the concept that my children grew up in "an awful environment" they have now changed the subject to anonymously attack me on another front (By NephriteAU, 10-10-07).

Whatever.

For reasons that must be confidential for the moment I have now posted a privacy policy for the Boomershoot.org and JoeHuffman.org domains.

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

Albert Einstein

Most anti-gun bigots have a strong tendency toward socialism and the concept of selfishness as a virtue is beyond the mental grasp of socialists. Hence it should not come as a surprise that the "Gun Guys" should think that if you wish to defend yourself that you are being selfish in a negative fashion. What I am surprised at is that he admits it:

Katz's demands represent the height of selfishness.

Katz is the Oregon teacher with a concealed carry permit that wants to be able to defend herself against her ex-spouse.

This started out to be a comment in response to Lyle then it got a little out of scope. The short background story is that Lyle says gun control advocates are vacuous loons and that if we had our act together would have politically crushed them decades ago.

Lyle, It's a little more complicated than what we would like. Read what Dar Korra'ti has to say to get a feel for just one of the issues involved. Another is, as I like to say, it is irrational to expect people to be rational. For example, people have a very strong tendency to believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts.

Also, many would like to believe that it's possible to create a perfect world--if only someone was given sufficient power/control/money to do it. They don't understand that trade-offs are a part of any engineering task whether it is an automobile, a plane, a computer, or a society you are trying to engineer. Most people accept a certain number of automobile, plane, and computer crashes while realizing, at some level, that with the money, time, and other constraints things are working pretty good and certainly they wouldn't be able to do any better themselves.

But when attempting to engineer a society nearly everyone believes themselves to be an expert and that anything short of perfection is reason to throw some baling wire and duct tape at the perceived deficiency. Then with nothing more than opinion they forge ahead. The rare few that bother to try to put numbers on things and pretend to do an actual engineering analysis almost always only look at one side of the equation. They only look at the potential good that might occur from their changes. They fail to look at the actual and/or potential damage their proposed changes will cause.

Are they "vacuous loons"? Well, yes. But I'm of the opinion that is the present state of the average person and there isn't much we can do about that. And that a form of society/government in which the loons are unable to participate is likely to have serious deficiencies of its own.

Deadly face is no substitute for due process.

Jayne Lyn Stahl
Another Poster Child for the NRA
October 7, 2007 at 22:34:36
[Yeah, it was a typo. But even correcting that it's still a pathetic attempt at rational thought. She gets her facts wrong, she has no idea what the rules and laws are for the use of deadly force, and she reaches irrational conclusions. As Uncle said, "I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much stupid in one place."--Joe]