Last week I ordered some supplies. I picked up the cardboard boxes for the targets last Thursday and the Potassium Chlorate was just delivered (as in Barb is on the phone this very second asking where to put it). Everything is on schedule.

I'm pleased but somewhat surprised. It is a news story on the Heller case rather than an editorial disguised as news.

Ry was on site this weekend, took some pictures, and reported "The Boomershoot site was a snowy marsh".

Yup. It sure is. And with Boomershoot only six weeks away one might be quite reasonably be concerned about the conditions we will have for the event. Will it be nothing but mud or even still have some snow?

Anything is possible but here are some pictures from 1999 to give us some hints about how things dried up back then:

Boomershoot target area March 7^th 1999.

Target area April 25^th 1999

Shooting area April 25 1999.

In 1999, seven weeks prior to the event, the ground was covered with snow and even more "in the deep freeze" than this year. Yet by the day of the event the ground was ground was damp (I remember the picture above being taken*) but clearly it wasn't so muddy that people couldn't shoot directly from the ground. Hence there is nothing to be particularly worried about at this time.

I probably will take some more pictures this coming weekend and examine the site two weeks and probably one week before the event. I'll keep you posted.

---

* I was trying to connect with a half-pint milk carton at 600 yards away with my AR-15 to see if the .223 could detonate the targets at that range. It was particularly challenging because of the wind (see the streamer flying essentially horizontal?). I fired about 60 rounds without getting a detonation. Later examination of the target showed that I had gotten one solid hit and a couple of nicks. It did not detonate. The target recipe has been modified extensively since then although at 600 yards the .223 is still marginal for both wind and ability to detonation the targets.

On July 6, 1775, after Lexington and Concord, after General Gage had declared martial law in Boston on June 12 of that year, Congress issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms. In the Declaration the Congress states, as one of the reasons for taking up arms, that Gage had disarmed the people of Boston and seized their weapons. Finally, one year after the Declaration of Causes, the Continental Congress concluded that it was forced to declare independence.

It would seem strange if the authors of the Bill of Rights were to insist upon protecting other rights against government interference yet exclude from that protection the auxiliary right which is necessary to protect the most fundamental of all rights, the right to life. Recall that the confiscation of private arms was list as one of the causes for taking up arms against the Crown. Recall that the Declaration of Right asserted that we are entitled to the protection of the laws of England, including the right to arms for self-defense, which was declared to be our birthright which was restored by act of parliament. Would they have written such amendments to protect against oppressive government, having recently experienced oppressive government, without protecting the auxiliary right which is necessary to protect the one right without which no other right may be enjoyed? Of course, as we have said, contemporary thinkers believed that this right had been secured in the Second Amendment.

At the time Madison wrote the Second Amendment, there was a right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense. This right was believed, by the Framers, to be an right inalienable. Every word of the Constitution, and the articles of amendment, was written, approved, and ratified by men who believed this.

James H. Warner
February 2008
Brief for amici curiae Disabled Veterans for Self-Defense and Kestra Childers in support of respondent.
[Only one more day until oral arguments.--Joe]

I sort of remember that picture being taken now--and thinking, "No one will really notice, will they?" (notice the smirk on my face). Of course I have had my hand down her shirt so often for the last 30+ years that by now Barb is almost oblivious to it.

Mr. Completely politely ignores it and tells us about the other joys of attending the Gun Blogger Rendezvous and urges you to sign up for the next one.

It made me smile:

Consumption of alcohol is a threat that costs hundreds of innocent lives every year in Virginia, many of them children. We must stop giving in to the alcohol lobby and enact reasonable restrictions on the sale of alcohol for outside the home consumption! As you are no doubt aware, Virginia does not have "bars" in the traditional sense of the word. They have restaurants that are also licensed to serve alcohol. Although, there are establishments which are truly "bars" that are very thinly disguised as restaurants. This circumvention of the law is known as the deadly "restaurant loophole."

There's more too.

In 1946 there were 34,400 civilian firearms per 100,000 Americans and the murder rate was 6.9 per 100,000 population; 60 years later in 2004, gun ownership had almost tripled (85,000 guns per 100,000). Yet the murder rate had actually declined to 5.5 per 100,000. This evidence discredits the simplistic notion that increasing the civilian gunstock produces concomitant (or any) increases in murder.

Marc James Ayers
February 8, 2008
Brief of criminologists, social scientists, other distinguished scholars and the Claremont Institute as amici curiae in support of respondent.
[Only two more days until oral arguments.--Joe]

Many of the proponents of gun control have commented on the need to restrict other constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to enforce gun control or prohibition laws. A federal appellate judge urged the abandonment of the exclusionary rule in order to better enforce gun control laws. Malcolm Wilkey, Why Suppress Valid Evidence?, Wall Street J., Oct. 7, 1977 at 14. A police inspector called for a "reinterpretation" of the Fourth Amendment to allow police to assault strategically located streets, round up pedestrians en masse, and herd them through portable, airport-type gun detection machines. Detroit Free Press, Jan. 26, 1977, at 4. Prominent gun control advocates have flatly stated that "there can be no right to privacy in regard to armament," Norville Morris and Gordon Hawkins, The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control (1970).

Stefan Bijan Tahmassebi
February 2008
Brief of Amicus Curiae Congress of Racial Equality in Support of Respondent
[Only three more days until oral arguments.

These aren't the only outrages documented in the brief. Most of the others were familiar to me such as the laws enacted and enforced explicitly for the purposes of suppressing Italians (the Sullivan Act), blacks, and other minorities and enabling the Klan and other bigots.

To those that would say gun control doesn't mean encroaching on other guaranteed rights please remind them of the exceptions carved out of the Bill of Rights for the "wars" on drugs and terror.--Joe]

A friend sent me this link to a video (about 45 minutes long). The synopsis is:

Naomi Wolf on

It not only can happen here, it is happening here.

Mussolini created the blueprint (with inspiration from Lenin), Hitler elaborated on it, Stalin studied Hitler...

Here's how it works (notice how many Bush & Co. is using now.):

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

Wolf's conclusion? Impeachment of Bush and Cheney is not enough. Prosecuting (and jailing) them for crimes committed is the only rational solution.

I wouldn't normally think my readers would be interested in this kind of stuff but something came up in this video that surprised me. She mentioned the 2^nd Amendment. Each time she immediately went on to something else. She just used the words, "Second Amendment" then, basically, changed the subject.

Are the extreme left wing people (the organization who owns website for this video and many others with a similar theme is based in San Fransisco) thinking it's time to consider the 2^nd Amendment as an individual right?

The so called "Gun Guy" seems to think there were or are some such thing as "local rights". I've never heard that phrase before. A quick check on Live Search and Google didn't reveal anything meaningful either.

It's times like this that one has to give serious consideration that he's just doing a poor job at a VPC blog. He obviously has no clue when he says crazy stuff like this:

No American should be held hostage to the stranglehold of the gun industry and gun enthusiasts who value firearms over life.

Philadelphia and cities like it should be able to determine their own law enforcement and gun violence prevention policies.

That’s a freedom that a city that is our cradle of liberty deserves to have.

Just, "Wow!". Cities have freedoms? Now one could argue that King George had freedoms, but not England. Americans fought for their individual liberty, not to replace one tyrant with another.

He's just loco, right?

Sometimes there are no compromises possible. This is one of those times:

"I don't think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy," said Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. "There can be no freedom without limits."

A collective right view could logically include all variety of weapons currently within the federal arsenal, because the states would be empowered to arm themselves sufficiently to thwart those same federal forces. Pet. Br. 21. Given the fact that there is no Constitutional limitation upon the types of weapons that the federal government can possess, a collective states’ right position could logically require a similar freedom for the respective state militias. If the logic behind the Second Amendment is to preserve the right of states to maintain militias that constitute a counterweight to federal forces, as Petitioners contend, then states would logically be allowed to keep and bear even the most potent and destructive weapons of modern warfare.

Renee L. Giachino
February 11, 2008
Center for Individual Freedom
[Only four more days until oral arguments.

Wow! For some time now one of my biggest fears in this case was the concern the Court might have about the harmful consequences of deciding the 2^nd Amendment was an individual right. It never occurred to me the consequences of a decision that it is "state right" (there is no such thing, states have powers not rights) might be an even bigger issue--it means the individual states are constitutionally justified if they want nukes. I love it, sort of a Cornelian dilemma for the fuzzy liberals.--Joe]

What arrogance! Read this brief then tell me the following is something you would let the D.C. police get away with:

D.C. police are so eager to get guns out of the city that they're offering amnesty to people who allow officers to come into their homes and get the weapons.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced yesterday the Safe Homes Initiative, aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said.

The program is scheduled to start March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. Officers will go door-to-door seeking permission to search homes for weapons. Police later plan to visit other areas, including sections of Columbia Heights in Northwest and Eckington in Northeast.

"If we come across illegal contraband, we will confiscate it," Lanier said. "But amnesty means amnesty. We're trying to get guns and drugs off the street."

The "amnesty means amnesty" line is a lie. Later in that same article they say:

If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges.

This isn't receiving universal approval:

Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association, questioned the Washington effort. As a lifelong D.C. resident and a former police officer, he said, he would not consent to his house being searched.

"They haven't earned that level of access or respect from the community," Hampton said.

I think Congress should issue hunting licenses with no bag limits on D.C. politicians and cops, no restrictions on baiting (I've heard recreational drugs and/or hookers work well), no restrictions on hunting zones, with bounties for ears turned in. After a couple weeks D.C. residents could start over with no new laws and all new public servants.

H/T to Uncle and Ravenwood for the link.

Here is the picture the New York Times has of Spitzer's playmate:

Here is the picture found elsewhere:

I wonder why the cropping of the picture. Was it just for space or was there some other reason?

---

As a side note the above pictures reminds me some of Barb and I can't help but think she would have made a lot more money had she not married me when she was 21. Here is a picture of her at about age 18:

Fellow Lewiston Gun Club and IPSC/Steel/etc shooter Mike Brown has been working on strengthening the gun owner protections in Idaho. Technically Idaho already has a range protection law but it turns out it is essentially made of tissue paper and the anti-gun people can drive VW Micro Buses right through it.

Here is Mike's latest report. 

What interests me is the politics involved:

All of the concerns raised were red herrings (for instance: the police department won't be able to tell the cops which guns they can carry) planted to give cover to closeted anti-gunners who want to vote against freedom!

They find excuses, no matter how flimsy and transparent, to avoid being open and honest about their motivations. One law enforcement person told Mike he was 110% behind the proposed law. Currently the county limits them to four night training exercises per year and they must be done by 10:00 PM. The proposed law will overthrow that restriction and be very unpopular with the "furry liberals" as the LEO called them.

If you are a voter in Idaho please sign up for the alerts Mike sends out and contact your representative when he asks for your help.

Amici therefore set out below the right to have and use arms in English law by the time of the Founding. Amici then show how early American authorities claimed and extended that right, including in interpreting the Second Amendment. The English right was a right of individuals, not conditioned on militia service; individuals might exercise the right collectively, but the unquestioned core was a broadly applicable and robust right to "keep" firearms in one's home for self-defense. Even the "well recognized exceptions" confirmed this core right, by focusing on the carrying, not the keeping, of weapons. That core right is what the District of Columbia tramples. It bans keeping a handgun in one's home (including use there in self-defense) and keeping any functional firearm in one's home.

C. Kevin Marshall
February 8, 2008
Brief of the Cato Institute and history professor Joyce Lee Malcolm as amici curiae in support of respondent.
[Only five more days until oral arguments.

This brief makes it very clear the individual right to keep and bear arms was universally agreed upon, not only in America, but in England at the time of the writing of the 2^nd Amendment. It is not a recent "invention" by the Apex of The Triangle of Death.--Joe]

Dr. Joe is further validated:

LONDON: A steamy sex session in the morning can keep you in good health, say British researchers.

According to a research from Queen’s University in Belfast, a good morning session at least three times a week, decreases the risk of heart attack or stroke by half and a regular session improves circulation, thereby reducing blood pressure.

According to a study in New Scientist, a steamy session twice a week enhances IgA, an antibody that provides protection against microbes that multiply in body secretions, reports the ‘Sun’. Morning sex also helps in alleviating arthritis and migraine. It burns around 300 calories an hour that simultaneously diminishes the risk of developing diabetes.

Moreover, an American study involving 300 sexually active women whose partners did not use condoms revealed that they were less prone to depression.

Sex increases the production of testosterone that provides stronger bones and muscles thus helping to stave off osteoporosis.

A good morning session can make the hair shine and skin glow by raising the output of oestrogen and other hormones which are associated with it.

According to Yale School of Medicine researchers, having morning sex can aid in averting endometriosis, a condition where the tissue that normally lines the uterus, grows in other parts of the pelvis.

I said some nice things about an ATF agent and the DOJ takes notice. Good.

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The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has failed to provide adequate police services to the District of Columbia’s citizens. The District is consistently a national leader in various crime categories while simultaneously demonstrating inability to adapt or change under the crippling bureaucracy endemic to the District. Compounding this deadly combination of high crime and inflexibility are constant examples of corruption, incompetence and outright misfeasance in the operation of the department.

[...]

Unfortunately, this is not a mere phase or temporary problem for the District. Since the 30-plus year old implementation of what amounts to a complete ban on owning, carrying or using firearms for self-defense, the MPD has cycled through new chiefs and precinct commanders with depressing frequency. The only constant within the department has been the incompetence, corruption, cronyism and failure to perform the most basic duty of a police department--to protect and serve.

L. Kenneth Hanson III
Brief of Buckeye Firearms Foundation LLC, National Council for Investigation and Security Services, Ohio Association of Private Detective Agencies, Inc., dba Ohio Association of Security and Investigation services (oasis), Michigan Council of Private Investigators, Indiana Association of Professional Investigators, and Kentucky Professional Investigators Association, as amici curiae supporting respondent.
[Only six more days until oral arguments.

I've only read about a quarter of the briefs supporting the respondent but surprisingly this brief makes the strongest case, for me, for supporting the RKBA in D.C. Had they concluded, instead of urging the court to affirm the lower court decision, asked the court to issue varmint hunting licenses (no bag limits) for residents for the taking of D.C. cops and politicians I would have cheered.

Assuming you have the stomach and the blood pressure meds for it, read the whole thing.--Joe]

Sean said he has a dream. Now he just has to get a really big bonus this fall so he can bring it to Boomershoot 2009.

Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (6 MB WMV).

Boomershoot enthusiast, Bruce, sent this to me. He wants one for the flat trajectory when shooting squirrels.

DOJ and now DHS.

This time they are interested in the 5000 pounds of ammonium nitrate I bought and had my daughter pose for a picture with it.

I really need to do a Privacy Act request and get a copy of the file they have on me.

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I suspected the Heller case had the most amicus briefs ever. I was wrong. Amicus Briefs Are Ammo for Supreme Court Gun Case:

The 67 amicus briefs in what is simply known as "the D.C. gun case" fail to topple the record number filed in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases in 2003 -- 107 -- but they easily fit within the top 10 filings at the high court.

Guns are not pathogens, and the loss of lives from guns is not a public health phenomenon in any meaningful sense. Vaccines could be taken as a public health analogy for guns. Vaccines are widely recommended or even mandated with the support of the APHA and AAP despite the fact that many are killed or injured by them, and their effectiveness is imperfect. But the APHA’s and AAP’s logic could be applied to vaccines with the false conclusion that all vaccination programs are harmful because all vaccines have some side effects. The benefits of vaccines and guns are both indirect, but the benefits are very real in both cases, and it is essential to address those benefits in any argument attempting to ban the product.

Andrew L. Schlafly
February 7, 2008
Brief for amicus curiae association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. in support of Respondent.
[Only seven more days until oral arguments.--Joe]

I keep wondering if disgraced New York Governer and anti-gun bigot Spitzer was aware of the book Mayflower Madam when he booked a room at this particular hotel:

As recently as this past Valentine's Day, Feb. 13, Spitzer, who officials say is identified in a federal complaint as "Client 9," arranged for a prostitute "Kristen" to meet him in Washington, D.C.

The woman met Client 9 at the Mayflower Hotel, room 871, "for her tryst," according to the complaint.

The book was a true story and a very good one. If he hasn't read it already maybe he'll have time while he is in prison.

Just a couple of minutes ago I ordered the last of the critical items for Boomershoot 2008. I now have another 275 pounds of potassium chlorate scheduled to arrive within a week or 10 days. Over the weekend I ordered 1100 cardboard boxes.

The only remaining items are small things like air horn cartridges, wooden stakes, and garbage sacks.

Combined with the existing materials we have stored in the Taj Mahal we plan to build over 1600 reactive targets for Boomershoot 2008. This will require over 1700 pounds of high explosives which we will be manufacturing on-site in the two days prior to the event.

It's going to be a real blast.

Another person canceled and position 41 will become available at 8:00 AM Tuesday March 11th. See details of the position here. Refresh the page at 8:00 AM tomorrow to sign up. Remember, once you press the button for that position you have taken the position.

When viewed from a national perspective, the right to keep and bear arms is not an archaic right. The right to arms is deeply rooted in our nation's tradition and history. The Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. The earliest guarantees to arms were adopted in 1776 by Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The most recent guarantee was adopted by Wisconsin in 1998. Since 1945, twenty one (21) states have adopted or readopted the right to bear arms in their state constitutions. Presently, forty-four (44) states have a guarantee to arms. The people have spoken in support of the right to arms. It is a mainstream right that is still valued in the 21st Century, and it is a vital part of the Constitution.

Robert Dowlut
February 2008
Brief for amicus curiae American Legislative Exchange Council in support of respondent.
[Only eight more days until oral arguments. This brief includes all the state constitution provisions for the right to keep and bear arms. A nice reference.--Joe]

Sebastian points out new technology may make concealed carry more difficult.

What the people that develop these tools don't tell the politicians that will buy them is they are easy to defeat. Just as a tank can be defeated with a Molotov Cocktail, if you know what you are doing very simple and readily available materials can defeat multi-million dollar surveillance equipment.

In this particular instance what the developers probably aren't telling the potential buyers is that there is something called the Skin Effect. This is, in essence, a law of physics that says the higher the frequency of an electromagnetic wave the shallower the penetration of that wave through a conductor. It depends on the resistivity and magnetic permeability of the conductor but for copper a 1 Terahertz wave will have a skin depth of about 66 nm. The typical aluminum foil you buy at the grocery store has a thickness of 200 um which is over 3000 times thicker. I don't have the skin depth numbers for aluminum but I can tell you that lining your jacket with aluminum foil will make your jacket completely opaque to such machines. Even aluminized mylar balloons or "space blankets" will be opaque. Hence, these machines will not be able to see anything on the other side of the metal lined clothing. I expect even sequined purses and dresses will be opaque.

I just finished reading the DC response in the Heller case. The following sentence jumped out at me:

The Council concluded that concealable and lethal handguns are responsible for a disproportionately high number of violent crimes, accidents, and suicides, particularly in an exclusively urban jurisdiction.

Apparently "The Council" believes inanimate objects have volition and commit violent crimes, accidents, and suicides. Why suicides of handguns are a problem for them when "The Council" already bans them seems particularly odd but one cannot expect these type of people to be rational.

But what is even more odd to me is the mindset that in some jurisdictions the public servants apparently believe their masters to be morally and/or intellectually deficient. I've run into this before with people from the Chicago area. They will say something like, "Its okay for people in the country to have guns but the people in the inner cities just can't be allowed to have guns--they will use them to commit crimes." Realize what these people are saying. They are admitting to being bigots and frequently they are racist bigots. They don't trust the inner city minorities to own firearms. In their view the inner city residents are inherently immoral and if allowed the tools to commit violent crimes they will do so.

Of course, we also urge the Court to reject the invitation of Petitioners to read a fundamental Constitutional right stated in plain English in the text out of the Constitution altogether. The American people can read, and they can see that unlike some of the other rights found by the Court on the basis of complex reasoning, the Constitutional text forthrightly promises that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." No amount of artful linguistic acrobatics or fanciful historical tales can rub those plain words out of the text. We respectfully submit that the rights clearly stated in The Bill of Rights should be read broadly and vigorously enforced, rather than minimized to suit a particular ideology.

Peter J. Ferrara
February 2008
Amicus curiae brief of the American Civil Rights Union in support of respondents.
[Only nine more days until oral arguments.--Joe]

It is the cornerstone of American political philosophy that, as a human being, every individual possesses certain inalienable rights. Even a cursory glance at the text of the Founding documents reveals a recurrent intention to preserve these "endowed" human rights.

Jay Alan Sekulow
February 2008
Amicus Brief of the American Center for Law and Justice
[I find it very frustrating that many people believe governments grant rights. This leads to all kinds of kooky ideas such as people having a right to health care. Rights cannot be granted by a government--only infringed.--Joe]