The View From North Central Idaho

I've read so many books and articles on the Holocaust that I'd have difficulty enumerating them. The thing that always amazed me was that the Jews didn't fight back. Sure, the German Jews had registered their guns years before the Weapons Control Act of 1938 and would have had difficulty holding on to many of them when the thugs had a list of the guns in that home. But theft and ambushes on the police or isolated soldiers with the goal of capturing firearms and ammunition could have helped put weapons back in the hands of the victims. But except for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and a relatively small band in Russia there was virtually no resistance. With hindsight is seems so obvious that retention of firearms could have saved a lot of innocents lives. Israeli Jews seem to have the seen the light in regards to firearms in the hands of civilians so why don't most (yes, I know of JPFO) American Jews get it?

From the American Jewish Committee:

January 11, 2008 – New York – The American Jewish Committee filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court today, asserting that the District of Columbia’s strict gun control laws do not offend the Constitution. The case, D.C. v. Heller, will be the first gun control case before the Supreme Court in sixty eight years.

“Gun control laws safeguard liberty, rather then restrict it,” said AJC General Counsel Jeffrey Sinensky. “Democracy can only flourish when the government is permitted to protect its citizens from harm.”

The amicus brief argues that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to possess firearms for personal use, but rather “was designed to enhance state and local authority to protect life and liberty through the maintenance of militias composed of the local populace.”

AJC filed the brief with a coalition that includes the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, National Council of Jewish Women, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

AJC has a long history of supporting gun control laws, including the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, the federal Assault Weapon Control Act of 1989, and the Brady Handgun Prevention Act of 1993.

Just a little refresher from a previous post about how governments "protect their citizens from harm":

§ 1

Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.

§ 2

Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew's possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation.

§ 3

The Minister of the Interior may make exceptions to the Prohibition in § 1 for Jews who are foreign nationals. He can entrust other authorities with this power.

§ 4

Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions of § 1 will be punished with imprisonment and a fine. In especially severe cases of deliberate violations, the punishment is imprisonment in a penitentiary for up to five years.

§ 5

For the implementation of this regulation, the Minister of the Interior waives the necessary legal and administrative provisions.

§ 6

This regulation is valid in the state of Austria and in the Sudeten-German districts.

Berlin, 11 November 1938

Minister of the Interior

Frick

One of the Burning Man organizers wrote me last week saying he wanted to participate in Boomershoot 2007. We got to chatting and he sent me at link to this video of the fireworks show they put on for Burning Man 2007. He also gave some technical details:

The fireball was about 600 feet high and probably 500 in diameter or more as it expanded. I think it had somewhere around 1200 gallons of fuel shot into the air from the four tanks. Then several thousand gallons of liquid propane were shot up the middle of the 99 foot tall derrick.

Boomershoot's biggest fireballs have used four gallons of gasoline. Of course most of our viewers were within 20 yards, but still...

It was quite a while back that I invited Lyle to blog here. Via many long conversations and numerous lengthy emails it was clear he had penetrating, even brutal, insight that others would benefit from. He told me (IIRC) for me to offer him this forum was like the P.J. O'Rourke line about giving power and money to the government. But that he would think about it. Within a day or two the temptation overcame him and he made his first post.

Lyle hasn't posted that often and I always thought he was holding back some. But then he would get links to his posts from certain bloggers I had never gotten links from and that made me a little bit envious. Still, the razor sharp penetration, straight to the bone, wasn't on display as much as I expected.

His most recent post--now that's what I'm talking about.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

P. J. O'Rourke
U.S. journalist. Parliament of Whores
Preface, "Why God is a Republican and Santa Claus Is a Democrat" (1991).

If you parse their sentences, the speech of the Left can be at times befuddling.  That is, unless you understand their unique usage of terms.  So that you may better understand Left-speak in the future, I offer the following glossary.  This is by no means an exhaustive list.  Here are some of the more common and/or more recent examples.  You might want to print this and keep it on-hand for those times when you are unable to avoid Left-speak:

Border Security:  Racism

Change:  Socialism.  Example:  "I am the candidate of 'Change'."

Children:  Government.  (Variations are, "The Children" and "Our Children")  Example:  "In our 'Compassion' 'We' are creating this new entitlement program for 'Our Children'." (see "Compassion" and "We" below)

Climate Change:  See "Global Warming" below.  Climate change is slightly more flexible in that no matter what happens, it is bad, Liberty is to blame, and socialism, as for all things, is the solution.

Common Good:  Socialism

Compassion:  Desire for government intervention.  Example:  "'We' must approach all issues with great 'Compassion'." (see "We" below)

Compromise:  Letting go of your silly, ignorant and outdated American ideals of Liberty, and moving always in the direction of pure socialism as a way of showing those who want to destroy you that you are not closed-minded, stubborn, silly, ignorant or outdated.  You are then closed-minded, stubborn, silly, ignorant and outdated again when the Left wants you to cave-in the next time they want something, which starts approximately three seconds after you last caved.

Criminal:  Victim-- especially a victim of the exploitative middle and upper classes.  (No one would ever do anything to hurt anyone else, except when goaded into it by the horrible conditions created by the adherents of capitalism)

Dissent:  Dissent is a good thing-- it is one of the things that makes America great (so long as we are talking about a leftist dissenting with anyone who favors Liberty.  In all other cases, see "Divisiveness" below).

Divisiveness:  Speaking ill of or disagreeing with socialists and socialism.  Divisiveness is one of the worst things in our society today and is largely perpetrated in talk radio, blogs, private conversations, etc., by members of the pig Bourgeoisie.  This can be cause for legal action, since it could in theory cause other people to question socialists and socialism, thereby "harming" them.  (You have no right to harm another person unless that person is being 'Divisive', in which case it is encouraged).

Economic Justice:  Socialism (see "Social Justice" below)

Education:  Socialist education.  Example:  "'We' must support 'Education' for the sake of 'Our Children's' future.

Fairness:  Socialism

Global Community:  Most of the population of the world lives under some form of socialist tyranny, often very brutal socialist tyranny.  Americans have historically lived much better lives due to our relatively higher levels of freedom and Liberty.  For this we are to hate America (if anyone is poor or unhappy, it can only be the willful doing of the more prosperous) and we are to strive to make America more like the rest of the world (poor and oppressed) as a show of solidarity, thus achieving the "Global Community". (See "Peace" below)

Global Warming:  (See "Global Community" above)

Illegal Immigration:  A thoroughly meaningless term invented by racists, purely as an epithet.  Attempting to use "Reason" to explain it will reinforce your status as a racist.

Judgmentalism:  Thinking for one’s self in one’s self-interest, i.e. making decisions or value judgments based on principles, evidence, and rational thought.  In the eyes of the Left, this is one of worst crimes that could be committed, especially if it results in your becoming a successful American pig.  (see "Reason" below)

Liberal: Socialist.  This is an impossible term to use correctly without adding qualifiers.  Most liberals hate being called liberals.  "Liberal" has become an epithet in the eyes of the socialist, either because it implies that one is an advocate of Liberty, which socialists aren't, or because it correctly describes them as socialists. No one knows for sure which.  (Archaic: One who advocates Liberty.  Thomas Jefferson would have considered himself a liberal.  Today's liberals would consider Thomas Jefferson a "Judgmental" and "Divisive" pig.  If he were president, they would engage in "Dissent" with a vengeance.

Need:  This wonderfully flexible term can mean anything the socialist wants it to mean and can change from one instant to another.  Example:  "You have far more than you 'Need' so 'We' are going to take it from you and use it for the 'Education' and 'Safety' of 'Our Children'."  (see "We" and "Safety" below)

Open Mind:  One that unquestioningly embraces socialism as the answer to all things.

Peace:  The lack of meaningful opposition to socialist, Marxist, Fascist, communist or jihadist military expansionism, as in, "It's time to stand up and fight for 'Peace'".

Progressive:  Socialist.  We once spoke of "progress" as that which improved our productivity, opportunity and standard of living.  Like many of the terms they use, the Left has turned this one around exactly 180 degrees.

Reason:  This word is not used by the Left except when describing it as a "weapon" used against the oppressed classes.  Instead they use the word "reasonable" as in "reasonable restrictions" (any restrictions) on your Liberties (see "Compromise" above and learn to be "Reasonable").

Safety:  Existence under strict government oversight.  Some examples are "Airline Safety", "School Safety", "Home Safety", "Gun Safety", "Workplace Safety", etc..  Example: "It is the job of our elected officials to ensure our continued 'Safety'".

Scientist:  Increasingly, this term is used to silence all discussion or debate.  In this sense, a "Scientist" is one who is enlisted by government interests to place a stamp of approval, under the guise of irrefutability, on socialist programs or laws.  Example:  "Any decent 'Scientist' will tell you that man-made 'Global Warming' is a real and present danger, and that our 'Safety' must be ensured through swift action."   Previously, the term "Clergyman" or "God" served a similar purpose, and does so to this day in certain Muslim circles.  (Archaic:  A person engaged in the scientific process, with full disclosure and peer review, as a means of testing theories and discovering knowledge)

Social Justice:  Socialism (see "Economic Justice" above)

Sustainabe:  Under never-ending, complete government control.  Example: "A market-based economy is not 'Sustainable'."

Tolerance:  Tolerance [of socialists and socialism].  Failure to tolerate socialists and socialism is something that should not, and will not, be tolerated.

Unity:  Similar to "Peace", unity describes a situation in which all opposition to socialists and socialism has been effectively silenced.

Universal Health Care:  Socialized medicine, i.e. socialism—specifically, a means by which you would be obliged to support or tolerate a certain political party or doctrine in order to save your very life.

We:  We socialists.  We the collective.  This is a subtle term, but it has a powerful meaning.  Saying "We" this and "We" that reinforces the collective thinking of the "Progressive" a bit like a mantra.  Example:  "'We' must ensure the 'Safety' of all through 'Education' for 'Our Children' and with 'Progressive' programs such as 'Universal Health Care', 'Social Justice', 'Tolerance', 'Peace', and by fostering the 'Unity' of the 'Global Community', through the advocacy of 'Change' while working with the 'Scientists'."

I'll be compiling more as I come up with them.  Reader submissions are welcome.

Sebastian tells us about a Random Conversation About Fingerprinting. A woman (who happens to be very anti-gun) doesn't want to get her fingerprints taken just so she can be a crossing guard near a school. Sebastian compares it to gun owners exercising constitutionally guaranteed rights having to submit fingerprints first. Which leads to his observation:

What goes around, comes around. You can’t expect to empower the state to take away liberty from people you find undesirable, and then expect the state to respect your liberty when you end up in the cross hairs. When you find yourself in that situation, the people who’s liberties have already been trampled on may not be sympathetic enough to help you.

Of course this reminded me of the famous Niemoller quote and I mentioned it in the comments and figured that will be the end of it. But then commenter ParatrooperJJ says the FBI just checks the fingerprints and discards them after they come back clean. That set off my alarms because just a few days ago this came out:

FBI effort will build biggest biometric database

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here.

Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives.

And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists.

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

If the technology exists it will be used, data obtained will be kept, used, and abused. The features will creep into areas that were promised would never happen. Remember that NICS records were supposed to be destroyed and then Janet Reno kept them for "audit purposes". Then they used those "audit records" to see if suspected terrorists had purchased firearms. My SS card says "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES--NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION". None of my childrens SS cards have any such markings. It used to be something like a $10K fine if anyone tried to use your SSN for anything other than tax purposes. No so anymore.

We are creating all the mechanisms necessary for an effective police state. Remember what Milton Friedman said.

This is in regard to the old blow up the dead whale on the beach video.

Phil asks some questions. My answer:

Pound for pound Boomerite is not much different from what they used. So about 1000 pounds (which is less than what we typically use at Boomershoot). A single rifle bullet would detonate it just fine. If you are using a high BC bullet in a .300 Win Mag (or "better") 1000 yards distant would be possible.

I get requests to blow up all kinds of things. I usually agree to help on one condition--they have to clean up the mess. I almost never hear from them again.

This would be no different. The common perception appears to be that when something is "blown up" it just disappears. Of course this isn't true. Explosives can rip things into very tiny pieces and scatter them but chemical explosives do not destroy matter.

I have an alibi and I have much better places to play with my chemistry set than next to a freeway and bicycle trail:

Authorities are searching for the person or people responsible for setting off an improvised explosive device (IED) on a bicycle path that runs parallel to I-205 last night.

The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said the device was ignited on a bike path that runs along the highway near Strawberry Lane on the west side of the highway. A sheriff’s deputy was driving southbound on the highway around 9:30 p.m. when he witness a flash and a plume of light that stretched across the highway.

It's crap like this that will get Tannerite and Target Master banned.

One would think that eventually they would figure it out when something isn't working they would stop doing it. Nope. This is the U.K. and guns. All rational thought must be resisted.

Banning real guns didn't solve their problem so now they are banning deactivated guns. What is a deactivated gun? From the BBC News:

Typically, a deactivated gun has its barrel sawn down the middle and a metal rod is then welded inside to make it incapable of discharging a bullet.

The breech block - which contains the mechanism to actually fire the bullet - is ground down so there is no firing pin.

Hmm... so these must be used in crime a lot in order to justify banning them. Wrong:

However, the most recent Home Office firearms figures from 2005/6 show that reactivated or deactivated firearms were used in just eight offences, out of a total of 11,084.

Reactivated handguns were used twice; deactivated firearms were used four times; and other reactivated firearms were used twice.

So what is going on here? As near as I can tell it's mass insanity. Other links:

• Deactivated firearms 'to be banned this year' (The Independent)
• Deactivated guns to be banned by end of 2008 (AFP)
• New gun control plans 'paper over cracks' (Guardian Unlimited)

And of course the anti-gun bigots are pleased:

Gill Marshall-Andrews of the Gun Control Network said: "We are delighted. This has been on our agenda for a long time. It is a big loophole in our firearms legislation."

When you hear the bigots in this country call the lack of a repressive gun law a "loophole" keep in mind there will always be a "loophole" for these people.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

Alexis de Tocqueville
[Tocqueville died in 1859. Some things never change.--Joe]

And a party it should be!

The anti-gun bigots in San Francisco got their asses handed to them with Proposition H. Sebastian and Uncle have already posted on it. The NRA has their news release here and SAF has their's here.

The Brady Bunch, the VPC, and the "Gun Guys" are all strangely quiet. Maybe someone forgot to invite them to the celebration.

What I wonder is who it is that thinks they are the innocent party here:

WARSAW, Poland - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.

Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

"I was dumbfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper on Wednesday.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

[Mostly this is a rant because I'm pissed. I don't particularly blame the NRA-ILA or any other pro-gun group. Political reality is significantly different from gut response. The following is 95% emotion and its to just get it out of my system.]

The instant Bush signed the NICS Improvement Bill into law we get this crap:

President George W. Bush signed the nation's first new gun-control legislation in 14 years Tuesday to help keep guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill, and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy immediately announced she would take her crusade to the next step.

This time, she and others want to close the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows some dealers to sell firearms without background checks.

[...]

Schumer agreed that the next item on the gun-control agenda would be to require background checks in every gun sale, but predicted that would be harder to get passed because of opposition by the National Rifle Association. The law signed Tuesday, in contrast, had NRA support.

And this from Paul Helmke:

Many of us in the gun violence prevention movement are excited about the year ahead.

America is turning a corner on the gun issue, because the people are finally being heard.

Today, President Bush signed into law the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 – what some have called “the first major new gun control bill in more than a decade.”

[...]

Brady background checks have stopped an estimated 1.4 million people from legally buying guns since 1994, but background checks are only as good as the records in the system.

[...]

Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from common-sense gun laws that will reduce the toll of 30,000 gun deaths every year in this country.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from preventing suspected terrorists from walking out of a gun store or a gun show fully armed.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from getting a background check for every single gun purchase they make, including at gun shows (this is closing the gun show loophole).

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from strengthening Brady background checks to make sure that “prohibited purchasers” like felons, the dangerously mentally ill, and domestic abusers are denied guns at the point of sale.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from reporting lost or stolen guns to the police in a timely manner.

• Law-abiding Americans (who aren’t in the legal gun business) have nothing to fear from being prevented from buying guns in bulk purchases.

• Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from keeping military-style assault weapons out of most civilian hands, reserving them for military and law enforcement use only.

If you "compromise" with the Devil don't be surprised if you get burned.

Sean's words need to be repeated here:

What typically gets lost, and lost deliberately, is the meaning of the word 'compromise'. In a compromise, both sides gain or lose bargaining points in a mutually acceptable, if not optimal fashion.  In the gun control debate, the meaning of compromise is twisted to, "Okay, we'll only take half your guns, this time." The pro-RKBA folks are never even offered anything in return. This is a variation of the slippery slope that I call "Zeno's Paradox of Lost Rights". As with the paradox of motion, the remaining scope of the Second Amendment is progressively halved, and halved again. The illusion is that we never lose the right, because there is always the remaining half. The Theory of Limits suggests otherwise.

Sean Flynn
6/15/98

If McCarthy, Schumer, and their ilk were asking me to compromise my initial position would be that they get the death penalty under 18 USC 242. The only people that aren't allowed to own weapons are those that are locked up or are unable feed themselves. If they are safe enough to be allowed on the streets with a 2000 pound car, a full tank of gasoline and a book of matches then they are safe enough to be allowed a M60, a M60 Patton, or, with suitable storage facilities, TNWs. And finally the 2^nd Amendment guarantees the RKBA and since a right someone can't afford to exercise, just like a right to an attorney, isn't really worth anything the Federal Government should subsidize arms for those that want them but cannot afford them.

We start our negotiations there.

And now that I'm got that out of the way let's talk about those words from Helmke:

So, 1.4 million people were stopped from legally purchasing firearms. Since there are about 200 million adults in the country and only about 40% own firearms that must mean that about one out of every 60 people that tried to by a firearm were legally prohibited. And that's not good enough for him. When will it be good enough? One out of 20? One out of 10? No. We know what the real number he is looking for, one out one.

Those "30,000 gun deaths" include justified, even praiseworthy, shootings by police and private citizens. Either Helmke is deliberately misleading or he thinks the life of a thug who put an innocent life in immediate jeopardy of death or permanent injury is just as valuable as the innocent life. In either case he is not to be trusted.

If suspected terrorists are to be prevented from owning guns, the list of suspected terrorists is created without due process as currently is the case, then President Hillary could declare all NRA members, or all even private citizens, suspected terrorists and we all are screwed. Helmke is an enemy of the U.S. Constitution if he supports the disemboweling of both the 2^nd and the 4^th Amendments.

As for the other bullet items, except for the last item, those can only be implemented if you have a gun registration in place. And we all know that registration always leads to confiscation within at most a few decades.

As for the last bullet item, Helmke has demonstrated he can't be trusted, so Μολὼν λαβέ.

And because this is what I was listening to while writing this and I think it fits Schumer, McCarthy, and Helmke well; Runnin' With the Devil by Van Halen:

I live my life like there's no tomorrow
And all I've got I had to steal
Least I don't need to beg or borrow
Yes I'm living at a pace that kills
Runnin' with the devil
Runnin' with the devil
I found the simple life ain't so simple
When I jumped out on that road
I got no love, no love you'd call real
Ain't got nobody waiting at home
Runnin' with the devil
Runnin' with the devil

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin
[Yeah, I know. Everyone has heard this one before. That is most of the reason I have never used it directly before. Today is special however. Check out my next post, Runnin' With the Devil, people compromised with the Devil to gain temporary "safety" and the ink hasn't dried before they are pushing for the "next step".--Joe]

I was reminded of this by today's QOTD.

Banning light bulbs isn't enough, of course.  I heard mention of this today by Jason Lewis on the radio, and via crypton.  There is now talk of requiring remotely (web) controlled thermostats in private homes.  The idea is that a utility company be able to remotely alter your thermostat setting, overriding your selected setting, to save energy, you know, for your comrades.

It will happen.  Also get ready for total use restrictions-- a family of four, for example, will not be allowed to exceed a certain KW/h, or therms, etc., monthly usage without paying large fines.  When that fails to make us all happy, safe and comfortable, as it surely will, we can expect something more severe.

We asked for this the second we decided it was OK for government to involve itself in the energy (or any other) industry.  Anyone warning of this very thing would of course have been put down as an alarmist, and so here we are.

Once the principle (of private property in this case) has been violated, the only debate possible is over the degree of the violation.  There is no principled stand to be taken in favor of any particular degree of violation of a human right.  But this has all been said before.

Of course you knew PayPal won't handle transactions for "certain firearms, firearm parts or accessories, ammunition, weapons or knives", right?

You probably knew Google has issues with guns too.

Here is a story I don't think I have told here before:

Years ago, when I first created Modern Ballistics, I tried to get a merchant account for processing credit cards. I had one a few years earlier when was selling software to software developers instead of gun owners and I figured it wouldn't be a problem. I sent in my application and to my surprise they turned me down. At first they wouldn't tell me why. But after much calling and pestering them they finally told me it was because of my product. I carefully read through all their fine print and couldn't find where there was anything wrong with my product according to their published rules. I told them I didn't understand, what is wrong with my product? The most I could get out of them was that I could submit my application again if I wanted but it probably wouldn't make any difference.

Now via Sebastian and NSSF I find out:

Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp. are refusing to process any credit card transactions between federally licensed firearms retailers, distributors and manufacturers -- a move which will severely limit available inventory of firearms and ammunition to military, law enforcement and law-abiding Americans.

The first company to be affected by this decision appears to be firearms distributor CDNN Sports Inc.

"We were contacted recently by First Data/Citi Merchant Services by a June Rivera-Mantilla stating that we were terminated and funds were being seized for selling firearms in a non-face-to-face transaction," said Charlie Crawford, president of CDNN Sports Inc. "Although perfectly legal, we were also informed that no transactions would be processed in the future, even for non-firearms. I find this very frightening."

To voice your concern to Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp., please contact June Rivera-Mantilla at 631-683-7734 or her supervisor Robert Tenenbaum at 631-683-6570.

Read the letter, they claim a violation of the law but yet apparently don't bother to turn them into law enforcement. Just like some experiences I have had (above and with PNNL) if they want to get rid of you they will just make stuff up that is at best half true. They don't need or want to know the truth, they just want to get rid of you. It's very tough to win against people like that. Just like literacy tests for voting, when tested none of the blacks could read the daily newspaper, hence they failed the state approved test. Never mind the newspaper given to them was printed in Chinese. Technically they can get away with it but it's still not right.

If they were refusing to do business with people with a certain skin color, sexual orientation, or religion this would be on the front page of all the newspapers. But it isn't. And its because we are just "gun-ni**ers" and it is socially acceptable to the elites to treat us like this.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Milton Friedman
[The U.S. Constitution with its enumerated powers and the Bill of Rights was supposed to do the bulk of the protecting. But of course these days it's rare that any of the three branches of government even look at the Constitution as a mild suggestion of limits to its reach.--Joe]

The DOJ (the ATF is under the DOJ so it could be them) apparently is interested in what their subjects think about new regulations on AN. My blog posting is number six on Google for their query.

I should have mentioned in my previous post that I have several thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate that I plan to make into explosives. The people at the DOJ need something to get their blood pumping on a Monday, right? 

Domain Name		usdoj.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address		149.101.1.# (US Dept of Justice)
ISP		US Dept of Justice
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.9097, -77.0231 (Map) Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; DOJ3jx7bf; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution  :  1024 x 768 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Jan 7 2008 10:46:36 am
Last Page View		Jan 7 2008 10:46:46 am
Visit Length		10 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...ing ammonium nitrate
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		bush signs law regulating ammonium nitrate
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2007/12/31/NewAmmoniumNitrateRegulations.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2007/12/31/NewAmmoniumNitrateRegulations.aspx
Out Click		here http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1680:
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Jan 7 2008 1:46:36 pm
Visit Number		230,817

Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.

Dwight Eisenhower
[My guess is that this year there are only about two or maybe three presidential candidates, none of which are likely to win, that even have a glimmer of this fundamental truth.--Joe]

I just deleted another unpaid Boomershoot 2008 entry when they didn't answer his email or voice mail. I then sent out an email to the Boomershoot announcement list that a position was open.

It lasted 12 minutes again. It must the minimum time it takes the Yahoo groups email list server to deliver the open position notification, someone to enter in their data, and push the button.

I just finished some more tools for my web based management of Boomershoot. This time it was some statistics.

These number will probably change a little by the time of the actual 2008 event. But as it currently stands:

This is actually old news but I read it again here and it pissed me off again.

Fifteen states have closed what gun safety advocates call the "gun show loophole."

[...]

...gun safety advocates using federal statistics showing a significant portion of private gun show sales wind up in criminals' hands.

"Gun safety advocates"?

Since when are people advocating gun safety concerned with firearm sales at gun shows?

Of course they aren't "gun safety advocates" they are gun restriction advocates. They are just trying to redefine themselves, with the help of the media, to be something less offensive. Sort of like a KKK member turning in his white sheets and pillow cases for something with a floral pattern.

Maybe it's just me because I listen to words carefully and take them literally but I hear this sort of thing from salesmen sometimes. They say things that are almost half true and deliberately intended to be misleading. I immediately suspect everything they say and know they cannot be trusted with anything. I resist the urge to punch them out, glare at them, and walk away checking my wallet to make sure they haven't lifted it. Unfortunately with the anti-gun bigots they are selling their bigotry to lawmakers who will use violence against those of us who are the targets of their irrational hatred.

But these bigots have reached their zenith and we are now winning. We just need to keep them on the run and politically exterminate them. Don't let them redefine themselves. Just because their sheets are a floral design rather than white doesn't mean they won't lynch us if they get the chance.

Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

Alexis de Tocqueville
[I find this very odd. It's certainly true today, but I would have thought it was different in his time (the mid 1800's).--Joe]

At 15:56 PST I sent out an email that a position had opened up for Boomershoot 2008. At 16:08 PST, just 12 minutes later, the position was filled.

There are two other positions that might be opening up soon. They haven't paid for them, they haven't been answering their email, and I just left voice mail that had better be answered soon.

Ignore for the moment that the Federal Government does not have Constitutional permission to engage in socialized medicine. Look only at results where it has been tried. Kevin tells us about how it's working out in the U.K.

There are lots of other examples but the first implementation appears to have come from Germany and was a failure as well.

One of the basic problems with socialized medicine is who is spending who's money. As pointed out by Milton and Rose Friedman in Free to Choose there are four different possibilities (from memory):

1. One spends ones own money on themselves.
2. One spends ones own money on someone else.
3. One spends someone else's money on themselves.
4. One spends someone else's money on someone else.

On average, the first case is going to result in the best return on any given dollar spent. The person will optimize the result for the available money.

On average, the last case is going to result in the worst return on any given dollar spent. The person has little incentive to limit the amount of money spent and to get a good result for the money spent.

Socialized medicine most closely matches the last case and results in the least efficient spending of money.

Tell all the Democrat candidates for President to shove their illegal plans where the sun doesn't shine then save on their own health care by getting their colonoscopy for removal of the reams of paper done without sedation.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

William F. Buckley
[It's impossible to be truly assertive unless you have some means to back it. When the government usurps your ability to vote you have very few options in asserting yourself except by the force of arms. This is why respect of the 2^nd Amendment is essential for a free society and why any who attempt to infringe it must be vigorously opposed. This applies to all, except Richardson, of the current Democrat candidates for president and some of the Republicans.--Joe]

I just finished listening to Ayaan Hirsi Ali read her book Infidel. All 17 hours and 34 minutes of it. To be listening to her actual voice makes this book all the more powerful and meaningful to me.

The book starts with the following introduction:

One November morning in 2004, Theo van Gogh got up to go to his film production company in Amsterdam. He took out his old black bicycle and headed down a main road. Waiting in a doorway was a Moroccan man with a handgun and two butcher knives. As Theo cycled down the Linnaeusstraat Mohamad Boriar approached. He pulled out his gun and shot Theo several times. Theo fell off his bike and lurched across the road then collapsed. Boriar followed. Theo begged, "Can't we talk about this?" But Boriar shot him four more times. Then he took out one of his butcher knives and sawed into Theo's throat. With the other knife he stabbed a five page letter onto Theo's chest. The letter was addressed to me.

After that powerful opening paragraph she quickly goes back in time to when her grandma was young and works forward in great detail. At times I questioned the purpose of detailing her early and even pre-birth years. What does it matter that her father was imprisoned by a communist dictator in Somalia? Why the details of her mother working as a maid years before Ali was born? Why the stories her grandmother told her? Or the games she played with her sister? But by the time she described, in great detail, what she calls the excision of her sister and her I understood why. Although she doesn't explicitly say it she was "born of good stock". She was the least of her siblings academically. But her strength of will, ability to reason, and courage were of such a level that am in awe of her.

And after escaping to the Netherlands she struggled academically while attending University Leiden. But she obtained her political science degree, became an atheist, and a member of the Dutch Parliament. She worked to liberate Muslim women from the beatings and the domination by men.

How did this come about? How did she successfully escape and so many others, including her sister, fail? She is a very strong person but there other things too. Western culture planted the seeds in her mind, those seeds took root and through some good luck enabled her to cast off her destiny of submission and beatings.

The western culture had a profound influence on her included things such as Nancy Drew books and Harlequin romance novels. Through such simple ordinary things we take for granted she and her sister obtained a glimpse of what they thought was only a fantasy world. But when she saw the streets of a German city for the first time it crystallized into reality.

I want to believe there is way other than military domination to win the war against those in the Muslim world who seek our total destruction. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has given us a road map to do just that.

Here is Submission, the 10 minute movie written by Ali and produced by Theo van Gogh. It resulted in van Gogh's murder, Ali going into hiding for weeks, and the effect to Dutch politics was like a 130 dB klaxon going off next to your bed in the quiet of the night.

Submission Part 1

Submission Part 2

And this is what Fred Thompson has to say about Ali. Go Fred!

Ali is now a Resident Fellow at American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. Just today they posted a paper by her, Islam's Silent Moderates.

I will be reading and listening to all of her works from now on.

I would prefer to see a letter to the Attorney General saying, "Anyone involved in enforcement of laws restricting firearms should be prosecuted under 18 USC 242." But that is way, way too much to expect at this time. For the time being this is a decent enough start.

Of course I expect that the ATF response, internally at least, be something along the lines of "Who are you to tell us what to do? You are a mere subject. We are the King's men."

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

Thomas Jefferson
[The results in Iowa reminded me of this.--Joe]

Only those with a vested emotional interest in seeing through on the promise of total gun confiscation continue to hang onto the false hope of gun control. After years of being convinced of the righteousness of their cause they are blinded to reality and have begun to believe their own lies. That is the only way to explain how they can still be pushing their failed agenda.

If it wasn't such a serious issue the determination of anti-gun proponents would border on the laughable. Since their misguided ways have led to untold numbers of people being left at the mercy of armed thugs, it takes all the humor out of their laughable ways.

Still, their determination has brainwashed them to believe in their cause at all costs. I also proves that they are incapable of creating a conspiracy with the anti-gun establishment media. The sad sorry truth is they actually believe this crap.

Gerard Valentino
Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio Chair
January 3, 2008
There is No Leftist Anti-Gun Conspiracy - They Really Believe This Crap
[The conspiracy theory model explains a lot but ends up with more questions than answers. I'm with Valentino, as implausible and counter factual as their belief system is I think they actually believe it.--Joe]

Cool. Very cool.

Via Sebastian.

Jason sent me a picture of what his kids left out for Santa and his reindeer:

Yes, some people find it calming to go shooting but that isn't what this post is about. As Sebastian and Conservative Scalawag point out a replica of Malcolm Reynolds pistol from the movie Serenity is available for $150.

Son James and I are big fans of Serenity and the TV series FireFly which it was based on.

There are some very interesting questions brought up by David Levy's book, Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships (see also Programmed for love). Suppose robots get so human like they are practically indistinguishable from humans in their interactions? What if they are anatomically correct enough to have sex with without you being able to easily detect they are not human?

That's thought provoking enough but the really interesting questions are what this means to the concept of marriage fidelity as the technology is taken to the limit:

• If you have sex with such a robot is it "cheating"?
• Does it depend on whether you knew it was a robot or not?
• If it is considered cheating whether you knew it was a robot or not, then is it "cheating" when a person has sex with an "adult toy" of today?
• If it is considered cheating to have sex with the human like robot, but it's not considered cheating to have sex with an adult toy of today's technology then at what point in the sophistication of the technology does it become cheating?
• If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot then what is the basis for making that distinction? Is it just because one comes with a warranty and has parts that are dishwasher safe?
• What if certain parts of the robot are actually from human donors? How many parts need to be human before it's not considered a robot? Or how many artificial replacement parts must a human have before they are considered a robot?
• If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot, you think it is a robot at the time, what happens if you find out later it was not a robot?
• If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot, you think it is a human at the time, what happens if you find out later it was a robot?

Of course all these questions will have to be answered on a case by case basis by the humans and robots involved but my interest is in the basis of how people will make these decisions. I find it all wonderfully entertaining.

Sometimes people call me an idealist.  Well, that is the way I know I am an American.  America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

Woodrow Wilson
[It's interesting to contrast the ideals of this Democrat to the Democrat, and most Republican, politicians of today.--Joe]

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Benjamin Franklin
[I wish everyone could keep this thought close for the entirety of this year and all that follow. Especially when they vote this November.--Joe]