Obama’s eight years on the board of the Joyce Foundation, which paid him more than $70,000 in directors fees, do not in any way conflict with his campaign-trail support for the rights of gun owners.

Ben LaBolt
April 2008
Obama linked to gun control efforts
Spokesman for Obama’s presidential campaign in a statement issued to Politico this week.
[I say Wayne LaPierre's years as the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the NRA would not in any way conflict with support of a national ban on handguns. And David Duke's time as a Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and his founding of the National Association for the Advancement of White People do not in any way conflict with his support for the rights of blacks.

I can only think of two alternatives:

1. LaBolt thinks people will believe this even though he knows it isn't true
2. LaBolt believes this himself

Either way he has crap for brains.--Joe]

After our second child, Kim, was born I figured that was enough. One boy, one girl. Isn't that enough? Barb wasn't convinced and ultimately convinced me another child was a good idea. "We're both smart", she said. "And we make enough money to raise and educate our children well. Think of it as our gift to the world." What can you say to something like that?

So Xenia is our gift to the world. A few days after Xenia was born I got a vasectomy and a number of years after that Barb had a hysterectomy. Xenia was our last gift of that type to the world.

The other day Xenia told Krystal (some random person Xenia knows) that our youngest child was our gift to the world.

Krystal: "What's the return policy?"

Kim: "You can't return clearance items."

Xenia: "It was a closeout sale on Mom's uterus. Everything must go."

Today I picked up the last of the supplies for Boomershoot 2008. 1200 surveyors stakes, 100 pounds of lime, and three air-horn cartridges. When I was getting the stakes the guy behind the counter asked, "Are you going vampire hunting?" I wish I had been quick enough to answer something like, "Not exactly. I'm the regional supplier for Buffy." But instead I told him the truth. "No. I'm going put cardboard boxes filled with high explosives on them and people will shoot at them." I'm not sure if he thought that story was any more plausible than the vampire one but he didn't question me further.

As a side note, 1200 stakes isn't enough for Boomershoot 2008. We have some left over from last year that we will be using.

Son James and I tried to go to Moscow, Idaho last night. It was snowing in the Seattle area and eastbound Snoqualmie pass was closed due to car accidents cause by slick roads. We looked at the pass reports and Stevens pass looked good. Assuming light traffic and good roads it's an hour longer but at least it wasn't closed and the road was bare. Maybe we could drive faster than the storm and make it to the pass before the storm did.

We took off and the traffic in the Seattle area was heavy and it became stop and go as we neared Monroe. By the time we got to within about 10 miles of Stevens pass the road had a couple inches of snow and was very, very slick. Stop and go traffic on a incline halted our progress and we had to turn around and come back into the Seattle area. We are going to try again today. The backyard of my bunker has snow on the ground this morning. Mid-April snow at less that 500 feet above sea level in the Seattle area? There can only be one explanation: Al Gore was right, it has to be Global Warming Climate Change.

Just north of Kirkland.

Just north of Woodinville.

Update: We made it home via Snoqualmie Pass without incident, arriving about 12:20 PM. The above post was written, but I was unable to post it, about 6:45 AM.

Drugs are bad. M'k?

James Huffman-Scott
April 18, 2008
[This was after I had a minor medical procedure, was not allowed to drive for 12 hours because of the drugs they gave me, and could not remember certain things later in the day. I thought I was feeling fairly well at the time. I can remember things that happened before the incident. I can remember things that happened just after the incident. But I cannot remember the event in question.--Joe]

The WA/BC border is one of the most significant entry pts for terrorist that our country has, as well as for illegal materials.

Canada is a significant staging ground for terrorists of all brands.

Besides building their own networks, all type of terrorists will use smuggling routes and the in-place smugglers themselves, to move people and materials.

[...]

As the masses sleep, we and our allies have prevented quite a few attacks bigger than Sept11. and probably hundreds of small ones. We CAN't talk about them because doing so means the "journalists" and lawyers, etc. will know HOW we stopped the attacks and that tool will no longer be available. The only way to keep the evolutionary cycle in our favor is Operational Security of our techniques.

Greg Hamilton
March 24, 2008 2:48 PM
Insights Training Discussion Group
[It's an interesting dilemma. And it goes much further than what is obvious at first glance. If you were to arrest and prosecute them then only the first one or two attempts would be unsuccessful. The methods of detection would come out in the trial(s) making it much more likely subsequent attempts would work. So what can you do? Put a sack over their head and ship them Club Gitmo on a military plane in the middle of the night? Put a bullet in their head and feed them to the sharks and crabs? But what about due process? Yeah, they are terrorists. But what if President Obama declares the NRA to be a terrorist network? Do NRA members then get the same treatment?--Joe]

Xenia's boyfriend, John, pointed out to me the MP3s of debate on the recent New York gun bans. I mentioned the .50 caliber ban in my QOTD the other day.

From reading the bill one would assume they were totally ignorant of guns. But as I listened to the debate I found they carefully and accurately informed the sponser and others that rifled shotguns would be covered by this poorly written bill. The sponsor said it wouldn't. When pushed on this the sponsor changed the subject. When asked "How many crimes were committed with .50 caliber rifles?" And again she repeatedly changed the subject. The truth does not matter to these bigots.

Listen for yourself.

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

Milton Friedman
[I'm tempted to claim that the statement would be more accurate if "mismanagement of" were removed from the above statement. However, my respect for Mr. Friedman is such that I am hesitant to make that claim without his concurrence.--Joe]

The other day I posted about the number of school shooting incidents before and since the law making schools "gun free zones". A commentor wanted references so they could use the stats in a paper they were writing. I wrote to Jeff Knox at Firearms Coalition asking if he could share the references with me and he responded with the following:

Joe,
Those statistics were compiled by my sister Shan.  Here is how she answers the question:
Our article was about the impact of the gun-free school zones, so death tolls are
limited to that criteria.  There was an error in the stats - it should have been 14 prior to
1990 and 79 post 1990 (80, now)  - I accidentally messed up on the numbers.  There were two
shootings at "Cleveland Elementary School" in California - one in Stockton, one in San Diego. 
I must have knocked one out, thinking I was duplicating it, so the before figure should have been 13,
but in researching this today, I came across another one that wasn't included in our original findings,
so the actual pre-1990 figure was 14. 
 
The post-1990 figure should have been 79 - there was a shooting in DC which wasn't included -
I don't know why.  The killer was acquitted of murder, so maybe it wasn't showing up as a
homicide in the FBI stats.  There has been one additional fatal school shooting at a Washington
State HS since our report, bringing the total to 80.
 
Since the Crime Control Act of 1990, There have been a total of 80 gun homicides
in school shootings perpetrated by killers who illegally carried firearms onto
elementary or secondary school grounds, or fired onto school grounds,in violation of
the 1990 law.  The number is actually higher - there have been several firearms suicides
comitted in schools, but we only counted suicides concurrent with homicidal school shootings. 
Those weren't included in the FBI report we looked at, but they should rightly be included,
since they still spotlight the gun-free zone" fallacy. 
 
There's what appears to be a complete list - which includes the suicides and a lot of other info, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school-related_attacks and also at
http://www2.indystar.com/library/factfiles/crime/school_violence/school_shootings.html
 
There have been additional people killed on college campuses and post-
secondary institutions during that time, but those places weren't included in our figures,
because they weren't included in the gun-free school zones provisions.
 
There have also been many, many more people wounded, or killed by other types of weapons.
 
I was using the FBI uniform Crime Reports, but there's a pretty
full list on wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting  For some reason,
it doesn't include Laurie Dann, or details of Oakland Elementary, and a few others
which I'll list later.

Shootings in elementary and secondary schools in the US prior to 1990 - 
 
Cleveland Elementary San Diego, California, January 29, 1979  (2 killed)
Parkway south JH, Saint Louis, MO  Jan.20, 1983  (2 killed)
Goddard Junior high , Goddard, KS  Jan. 21, 1985: ( 1 killed)
Hubbard Woods School  (Laurie Dann) Winnetka, IL  May, 20, 1988 (1 killed)
Oakland Elementary - Greenwood, SC - Sept 26, 1988 (2 killed)
Cleveland Elementary Stockton, California, January 17, 1989 (6 killed)
 
For post-1990, the list is too long to type, but  the Wikipedia link -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting  - has a list of
most US shootings, but also includes post-secondary schools.  It did not include
the fatalities for East Carter High ,  Grayson, Kentucky, 1993 (2)
 
It also did not include:
Wauwatosa West High School  December 1, 1993 Wisconsin (1)
Fayetteville, Tennessee, May 19, 1998 (1)
Lew Wallace High School Gary, IN, Mar 30, 2001 (1)
Lake Worth Middle School , Lake Worth, FL  May 26, 2000 (1)
Ballou Senior High School.  Wash, DC, Feb. 2, 2004 (1)
Henry Foss High School Tacoma, Washington, January 3, 2007 (1)
 
Hope this helps!
Shan

The 50-caliber weapon is one of the most dangerous weapons in the U.S. military's arsenal.

New York State Assembly
BILL NO A02772A
[As they have defined 50-caliber weapons this wasn't true even 200 years ago, long before AC-130s, B-52s, cruise missiles, ICBMs, and tactical nukes. I can't imagine what alternate reality these people live in. I can only conclude they have mental problems. How did these mental cases get elected to office? Are the majority of people in New York State suffering from some sort of mass delusion?--Joe]

It's a start. Now she should get the Feds to arrest the city council and mayor on charges of violating 18 USC 241 and/or 242:

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham says the city's newly enacted gun control laws are unconstitutional.

From my Bomb Help email folder:

From: Peter 
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 7:47 AM
To: joeh@boomershoot.org
Subject: let make thing happen

 

Hello...

My name is peter and i am really sad because the mothers in my hood simple told thier daughters to stay away from me because i am too bad a science and i may use their daughter for lab. experiment so i want you to help me do some thing really loud to disturb the peaceful sleep of the hood and blow up some cars that they never ride.....i like bombs from watchs and home appliances but let the procedure be simple so i will never get confused durung the process for safety

reasons.......http://www.boomershoot.org

Cheers

Peter...

  between 0000-00-00 and 9999-99-99

I wouldn't even consider him for suicide bomber mission:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 10:16 AM
To: 'Peter'
Subject: RE: let make thing happen

 

If you are easily confused and bad at science then you sound like you are far too stupid to be let anywhere close to explosives.

The complete message header will be made available upon legitimate request from law enforcement.

Last night I talked to a couple people that live within two miles of the Boomershoot site. They said that over the last few days the temperature got up to 70F and the wind was blowing. The snow just disappeared and the ground dried out enough that a few farmers were out in their fields on Sunday.

Then there was a 40 degree drop in temperature between Sunday and Monday and it snowed.

The weather and conditions for Boomershoot still could be anything. Current forecasts for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the event are for cloudy, rain, and rainy. I have no idea what the difference is between "rain" and "rainy" but that is what the website says.

I won't have much faith in the forecasts until we get within about three or four days of the event. In the mean time participants should be prepared for any type of weather except tornadoes (extremely rare but not unheard of in this part of the country) and hurricanes.

Chris Cox of the NRA has this to say:

“Today’s announcement by New York City (NYC) Mayor Mike Bloomberg comes as no surprise to National Rifle Association (NRA) members across the country. None of these joint Wal-Mart/Mayor Bloomberg initiatives will lower crime, because they ignore the real cause of crime -- criminals.

Mayor Bloomberg has long confused his NYC mayoral podium for a national bully pulpit from which he feels entitled to push his personal gun control agenda outside NYC. Now, instead of trying to impose his philosophy on other cities and states, Mike Bloomberg has set his sights on our country’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Bloomberg proves his disdain for individual firearm ownership, and his assertion that only the privileged should own a firearm and should have the right to defend themselves and their loved ones.

NRA will continue to oppose any scheme that puts burdens on law-abiding Americans and not on criminals.”

Sebastian is pretty pissed but counsels restraint when writing your letters to corporate headquarters.

Here is what really got to me:

Creating a record and alert system to record when a gun sold at Wal-Mart is later used in a crime. If the purchaser of that gun later tries to buy another gun at Wal-Mart, the system would alert the sales clerk of the prior buy and could refuse to make the sale.

Retaining the recorded images of gun sales in case law enforcement wants to view them later as part of an investigation.

Have they ever heard of "due process"? The RKBA is about to be declared, by the highest court in the land, as an individual right guaranteed to not be infringed. And yet if I bought a gun at Wal-Mart and someone stole that gun from me and used it in a crime Wal-Mart would hold that against me if I tried to buy another gun. Why stop there? Why not do the same for knives and baseball bats?

How about flashlights? I'm sure burglars need flashlights when they are sneaking around someone's house in the middle of the night. What if Bloomberg put pressure on Wal-Mart to keep flashlights out of the wrong hands? Would Wal-Mart cave to him about that? Or would they offer to insert their finest four D-cell flashlight someplace where it would help him find his way out of his cranial rectum inversion problem?

What would happen if some KKK member in political power put pressure on Wal-Mart to "retain the recorded images" of blacks/Jews/Gays that made purchases "in case law enforcement wants to view them later as part of an investigation"? This is no different. Guns are just as legal to sell and own as claw hammers, baseball bats, and kitchen knives. For Wal-Mart to single out gun buyers as a special class of people worthy of extra scrutiny and suspicion is deplorable. They are supporting the oppressors of essential freedoms and should be treated the same as those that would collaborate with the KKK.

Wal-Mart management would do well to remember K-MART.

The messed up thing about taxes is you don’t ‘pay’ taxes. The government TAKES them. You get your check and money is GONE! It was not an option! That ain’t a payment, that’s a JACK! I been TAX JACKED!…[The] worst part about it, we pay taxes for [stuff] we don’t even use….Why are black people paying Social Security? I won’t get the money till I’m 65….Meanwhile, the average black man dies at 54. Hypertension, high blood pressure, police….I used to work at McDonald’s making minimum wage….I would get $200 a week and they would take out $50 in taxes. That’s a lot of money if you only making $200….What do you get with that $50? All the free street light in the world. As far as I am concerned, give everybody a candle. Just give me back my $50.

Chris Rock
Via Tempus Fugit
[Even after having my employer take out an extra $600 a month for all of last year we found out yesterday we need to pay several thousand more today. Our accountant said, "Please don't shoot the messenger." Barb is pissed at the government. And I'm thinking, "Just wait until they pay off everyone else's mortgages and our health care is free."--Joe]

After having taught many people to shoot, I've found a universal challenge (in addition to the well-known and documented challenges): It seems that most people have a hard time grasping the idea of charging a semi-auto pistol or rifle.  There is a tendency to want to ease the charging handle (or slide) forward, rather than pulling it all the way back and letting go, so it can fly forward under its own spring tension as should be done.  We demonstrate the technique, and explain why it should be done that way-- the gun operates this way every time it's fired, and it's necessary to let this happen when charging it by hand, so as to ensure a solid lockup of the mechanism prior to firing, and in some cases, to avoid having your fingers bitten by the mechanism.

Still, while doing a team-teaching session this weekend in NRA Basic Pistol, we had a guy cut his finger while charging a MK II pistol.  "It will bite you" I tell them now, "if you don't let go of the slide.  Just let it fly forward."  In my next class it will be an objective to see to it that this doesn't happen again.

It was a very rewarding day, and all the students came away from it satisfied that they had acquired a good basic understanding of the safety principles, of pistols, and of pistol shooting.  The fact that it was a twelve-hour ordeal came to my mind only afterward.  For those who would like the rewarding experience of teaching people to shoot, using proven, time-tested methods, see Joe's post here or contact the NRA about instructor training classes being held near you.

I'm not surprised by this. They know that its bad politics to be on the wrong side of the gun issue. The political graveyard is full of gun control supporters and they are trying to avoid the same fate.

Chris Cox
April 13, 2008
NRA Lobbyist: Despite New Rhetoric, Clinton's "Name is Synonymous With Gun Control, Like Rosie O'Donnell"
[Say Uncle has a good take on the same topic.--Joe]

Reading the "Gun Guys" about "one gun a month" legislation I was reminded of something Alan Gottlieb once told me. The real issue is not the restriction of "one gun a month" but that the only way it can be enforced is if you have gun registration. The anti-gun bigots use the relatively benign sounding "one gun a month" proposal as a back door for the much more onerous and ominous universal gun registration.

This insight never seems to be brought up. I think there is a "Just One Question" response to the "one gun a month" proposals that will help flush these bigots out into the open:

How do you propose to enforce one gun a month?

I was cleaning up my desk and ran across an old Hard Corps Report from September/October 2007. In a little box in an article entitled Disarmed in "Gun-Free School Zone" was the following tidbit of information:

The Aftermath of Gun-Free School Zones
created by the 1990 Crime Control Act

	Years	Incidents
1776-1990	214	7
1990-2007	17	78

Repeal this terrible law. Do it for the children.

This study raises more questions than it give answers. I'm not disputing the results. In fact I have reason to believe it is accurate. But what could possibly be the clues that reveals such details about sexual intent?

Looking for love or lust? Your face gives it away Facial features tell if someone wants commitment or casual sex, study says

It’s no use being coy. If you’re looking for a fling, it might just be written all over your face.

A new study by U.K. researchers found that you can tell just by looking at someone’s face whether they’re interested in casual sex or long-term commitment. And, not surprisingly, women tend to be more attracted to the guys who look like true boyfriend material, while men are drawn to faces that seem to say “one-night stand,” found the study, published Tuesday in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

In a similar vein two different lesbian friends of mine claimed they have excellent "Gaydar". Some simple tests indicate that in fact they were able to determine sexual orientation with very little contact with the people in question. This including their laughing at me when asked if I was gay. Apparently I am so blatantly heterosexual that I couldn't fool anyone even if I wanted to.

Other experiences of mine, which would take too much time to explain, resulted in similar results.

Charlton Heston was a good and decent man, as well as a fine actor and a brave one, who did his own stunts.

Some people can't work out how the same person courageously went on civil rights demonstrations long before it was fashionable, and equally courageously opposed the authoritarian, futile silliness of 'gun control' when that cause wasn't fashionable either.

The two things are completely linked. Both are causes of liberty and justice, and both got him into trouble with received opinion.

Gun control, much imposed by dictatorships, restricts gun ownership to the State, to criminals and (in this country) certain officially approved terrorists.

It bans law-abiding people from defending themselves, even where the State is not doing its job.

Peter Hitchens
April 12, 2008
The week they sowed the seeds of a British secret police
[Some people in the U.K. get it.--Joe]

The details for the Boomershoot Dinner have been finalized. Please see the details and sign up here.

There is a discount if you RSVP early so do it soon. There is very little time left.

There will also be a raffle to benefit Project Valour-IT of Soldiers Angels. You don't need to attend the dinner to participate in the raffle. Please go to the above link to read the details. We are also asking for donations to raffle off. Please contribute to this very worthy cause.

We are only 15 days from the big event and weather forecasts are starting to have some validity. I was on site last Sunday and there was still a lot of snow and mud. Since then we have had some more snow as well as a few days of warm weather. I doubt it has dried out much.

Looking out two weeks is subject to a lot of error but currently the forecast for April 24, 25, 26 (Thursday->Saturday) is, respectfully, for rain, snow, and mostly cloudy with showers. Prior to that there is supposed to be a fair amount of cloudy weather mixed with some sun. I'll visit the site next weekend and will know more but my guess is that we are going to have some mud and perhaps even snow drifts to deal with. This will affect the Boomershoot staff more than the shooters but spectators and shooters should make appropriate plans.

Position 18 has opened up. If you know someone who would like to participate and has not signed up please send them here.