Amicae therefore contend that depriving women of the right to possess a handgun in the privacy of their own homes reflects at best an insensitivity to women’s unique needs created by their inherent gender characteristics. A handgun simply is the best means of self-defense for those who generally lack the upper body strength to successfully wield a shotgun or other long gun. To therefore deny half the population a handgun, as the District and the Office of the Solicitor General urge, evinces the "blindness or indifference" to women that only perpetuates women’s vulnerability to physical subordination.

M. Carol Bambery
Brief of amicae curiae 126 women state legislators and academics in support of respondent.
[About 70% of my firearms students are women wanting to get their concealed carry permits. As I have said before getting women out to the range is one of the things we must do to win the battle against the anti-gun bigots.--Joe]

Some countries take their prohibitions against sexual freedom very seriously. In some places you could get up to six years in jail for having sex with someone not your spouse in a public place:

A British businesswoman is facing up to six years in a Dubai jail after she was allegedly caught having sex on a beach.

Michelle Palmer, 30, was arrested on 5 July, along with another Briton believed to be a male tourist.

The Foreign Office confirmed that two British nationals had been arrested and the case was under investigation.

The Sun newspaper said Ms Palmer had been charged with having sex outside marriage, indecent behaviour in public and being drunk in public.

If you want to partake in Dr. Joe's cure for everything I suggest checking the local laws first. Getting your daily dose in prison might not be as healthy or as pleasant as the stuff you get on the outside.

Son James sent an IM to me today with this link:

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers (video also shown below).

This bracelet would:

• Take the place of an airline boarding pass
• Contain personal information about the traveler
• Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
• Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes

The conversation with James then went something like this:

James:
  may be taken out of context or blown out of proportion depending on what sources you consider credible *shrug*
Joe:
  My bet is I could smuggle a knife through security and get out of the bracelet before I ever got on the plane.
James:
  oh yeah, there's all sorts of ways you could subvert the bracelet
  plus, the bad guys could figure out a way to set off the bracelets themselves, thus immobilizing any resistance!
Joe:
  And something that is going to immobilize a Sumo wrestler is probably going to kill an 80 year old little old lady with a heart problem.
James:
  yeah, basically the plan has FAIL written all over it
Joe:
  Another way to defeat the bracelet would be to wrap it in aluminum foil. You would disappear off of the location monitoring device and no radio or laser could trigger the shock.

While some of the gun bloggers are off sweating at a summer camp in the North Carolina heat you should not feel sorry for yourselves. You should go to your own summer camp on the opposite coast during some of those same days (August 23 - 31):

This course will encompass how to patrol, recon, ambush, and raid, and will involve individual and small unit tactics, leadership, planning, operations orders, warning orders, and rehearsals.

One of the ultimate expressions of this was done during the Vietnam War and was know as MACV-RECONDO school . This school was set up by Project Delta (yes, the guys who later founded Delta Force) and then turned over to 5th SFG. This was the basis for LRRP/Ranger type operations in Vietnam. This course will be modeled after that school but with a modern backdrop and modern planning procedures.

There will be instructors from the actual Vietnam Recondo school along with modern experienced Rangers and Special Forces personnel. Outside of the military nothing like this has ever been offered before. Others have done fantasy camps, no one has run the real deal. Most active duty infantrymen never get a chance for this level of training!

This course will be a 24/7 immersion conducted out of a "fire-base" with large military tents and cots, in a training area of more than 800 acres. Food will be provided. The missions will go from very small unit recons, to two-element ambushes, to multi-element raids, with QRF or "hatchet force" operations as well. Basically, 5-6 man to full-class operations. All students will be involved in leadership and planning. This class is not just about tactics-the leadership and planning portions are as important as tactics, as is working as a team. Stress will be induced through the rapid pace: this is a learning tool for leadership and teamwork that cannot be overemphasized.

Do it now before a new administration declares this sort of thing to be a domestic terrorist training camp or some such thing.

When I was little, got upset about something and was presenting my case with "the volume set to 11" my great Uncle Walt used to tell me, "Speak softer, I can't hear your" and I would have to repeat myself without all the "enthusiasm" of my first explanation. His advice was good. But some members of congress are turning that sage wisdom against us. 10s of thousands of us had comments in favor of being able to defend ourselves with the best available tools in the National Parks and rather than listening to what was said they want to "get more input".

The real story is the anti-gun bigots in congress are trying to delay the allowing of firearms in National Parks until their is a new administration in the White House. The Apex of the Triangle of Death has the details and what to do about it.

Daughter Kim called me a few minutes ago to tell me she has been officially accepted at the University of Idaho.

Yaaaaahhhh Kim!

She plans to study accounting. She is smart and is good with math so this should be a good match for her.

Now I just need to get her connected up with Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. There is a conference in D.C. on August 1^st that would be interesting for her to attend--if I could get her to leave her husband for a few days. Fat chance of that happening... Maybe she will participate in the empty holster days. That would be nice. But, more important than my political goals is for her to get the education she needs so she can get a good job.

Here is a picture of her just so you know who I'm talking about:

Microsoft is run by a very bright, very energetic, very healthy person who has very few outside interests -- and he has a killer instinct.  I admire the guy -- I think they ought to bronze him and break up his company.

Scott McNealy
[Bill has left the building. His last day at Microsoft was June 27.--Joe]

That the colonists cared little about the prospect of having their guns seized is not the only ahistorical concept underlying Petitioners’ repudiation of the Second Amendment. Redcoats and Patriots alike would have puzzled at Petitioners’ notion that the Revolution produced an exclusive governmental right to operate an organized militia. The "well regulated militia" of the American Revolution operated not merely beyond the control of, but in direct challenge to, the King’s governors.

Alan Gura
Robert A. Levy
Clark M. Neily III
February 24, 2008
Brief on Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit.
[Sometime I should make a list of all the absurdities in the belief system of the anti-gun bigots that contributed to the Heller case. It would make for very amusing reading.--Joe]

Caleb and Squeaky will be pod-casting tomorrow night on the summer camp some of us are attending:

Talking about the recently released results of ParaUSA's blogshoot contest, where 10 bloggers and one lucky reader will get to go to Blackwater's state of the art training facility in North Carolina for a weekend of shooting with Todd Jarret.

Assuming I'm not on the road (I'll be traveling back to the Seattle area tomorrow afternoon/evening) I'll be listening.

I'm not surprised but it's nice to have the numbers to back it up:

There's new advice for older men who want to preserve their sexual function: have sex, and have it often, researchers say.

In a study that followed nearly 1,000 older Finnish men for five years, researchers found that those who were regularly having sex at the start of the study were at lower risk of developing erectile dysfunction (ED) by the study's end.

In fact, the more often the men had sex, the lower their ED risk.

The implication, say the researchers, is that men should be encouraged to stay sexually active into their golden years.

Dr. Juha Koskimaki and colleagues at the University of Tampere in Finland report the findings in the American Journal of Medicine. The study included 989 men who were between the ages of 55 and 75 at the outset.

Overall, those who said they had sex less than once per week were twice as likely to develop ED over the next five years as men who had sex at least once a week. Furthermore, compared with men who had sex three or more times per week, their ED risk was increased nearly four-fold.

This reminds me. At the reunion our classmate Les Schillings asked me how Barb managed to stay so young looking. I told him, "lots of sex" and you should have seen Barb blush as she explained "Joe's cure for everything." A half hour later or so John Anderson asked Barb how she managed to stay so young and she asked me to tell him. John responded with, "That doesn't seem to be working for me. Maybe I need to be having sex with your wife." I said that could be true and got a fresh blush out of Barb. I should have asked if he thought I could rent her out.

I just got a call from Kerby Smith from Para USA, Inc. They congratulated me on being one of the top ten bloggers in their contest. Other winners include:

• A Keyboard and a .45
• Say Uncle
• Tamara K.
• Caleb
• armed_citizen from Gun Truth
• Rob Allen
• Kevin Baker (Updated)
• Dave Hardy (Updated--according to Kevin)
• The Maddened Fowl (Updated)

There should be three others as well. I expected Sebastien and Kevin but Sebastien says he hasn't been notified and Kevin hasn't posted anything about it the last time I looked.

Michael Bane (Update: with Bitter and Sebastian) will be attending as a video photographer, plus there will be some lucky voter that will attend as well.

In other news, Kerby said they just announced their new tactical rifle and they are opening up shop in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dear Joe,

Congratulations, you were one of the top ten bloggers in the Para Gun Bloggers Contest.

Kerby Smith
Email sent Monday, July 07, 2008 12:24 PM
[Whooo hooo!!! I'm going to Virginia to train with Todd Jarrett! Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all the votes.--Joe]

Have pity for the moderators here. I haven’t seen such a sh!tstorm descend on any one target since Jim Zumbo dined on his foot. Wow.

Nomen Nescio
Comment 285 at the ACLU blob post "Heller Decision and the Second Amendment".
[Yup. The comments are moderated, probably to keep the spam out, and there are now 668 comments. I suspect there are a couple hundred more waiting for moderation. My count is two supported the ACLU, one was neutral, and 665 were negative. Plus there is a gathering storm in the comments to this post as well.--Joe]

Plan A
Translation: Shooting "scumbag" in the chest.

Plan B
Translation: Shooting "scumbag" in the head.

Plan C
Translation: Shooting "scumbag" in the pelvis.

From the Greg Hamilton to English Dictionary by Meredith Robinson

Barb and I went to our 35th High School reunion tonight. We are Orofino Maniacs. There is more going on tomorrow, this was just a warm up. As usual we had a good time. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Dale Nickels and Terry Thornton.
Terry supplies the portable toilets for the Boomershoot. His wife was a high school teacher for our children.

Phyllis (McIver) Parks. Phyllis is from the class of '74 but married Ray Parks who is in our class.
Phyllis is also a distant cousin of mine. I went to school with her since grade school.

b
Barb is showing off her tattoo to Lori Bruce and Sally Duty.

Lance Jones and his wife, Sandy, of 21 years. We hadn't seen Lance for over 35 years. I used to play chess with him and hung out quite a bit with him.
He retired from the navy after 24 years. He joined straight out of high school and married one of Barb's best friends just before he left for boot camp.

Terri Duff and Barb.

Debbie Estenson hit me after I showed her this picture. Barb says that now she is going to kill me.
Update: I told her about the picture and I'm still alive. She did try to bite me though. But I don't think she
is all that mad at me because she told me her husband lets her do whatever she wants and then later she
gave me her email address and phone number. She lives in the Seattle area now.

Here is a better picture of Debbie.

Via Dave Hardy I came across this:

It also sent shockwaves across France where the loss of two of the country's finest young minds was seen as proof of Britain's spiral into knife-obsessed lawlessness.

...

Mr Bonomo was stabbed 196 times, with up to 100 wounds inflicted on his back after death.

Mr Ferez, who lived several miles away in Thornton Heath, suffered 47 separate injuries.

So... how's that gun control and hostility toward self-defense working out for you guys on the other side of the pond? Confiscation of knives followed by rocks and pointed sticks seems like what is needed next.

As Jed points out (and I had noticed a few minutes earlier via a Google News Alert) World Net Daily quoted me when reporting about the ACLU getting ripped apart by comments on their own blog regarding their stand in regards to the Heller decision.

Cool! I was proud of that rant but I didn't expect any big names to pick it up. I should have put a link in the comment I guess. No traffic from WND is being directed here.

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

Milton Friedman
[Gun control, laws against recreational drugs, welfare, socialized medicine, and rent control are just the examples that come to mind in the first few seconds.--Joe]

As Third Power, Say Uncle, Progun Progressive, and Dave Hardy have been pointing out our current FBI Director Robert Mueller "is not happy with the Supreme Court's recent handgun ruling."

But this isn't the first time the Director of the FBI has acted as if he knew better than the courts. In 1995 there were hearings on the incident at Ruby Ridge. This was after Randy Weaver were acquitted of all charges except failure to show up in court (only Weaver, not Harris). Harris's killing of Federal Marshal Degan was found to be justifiable homicide. Despite that jury finding FBI Director Louis Freeh repeatedly referred to Degan's death as a murder. I recall, but can't find the written transcript, him being called on this and responding something to the effect that he "fully respects the court system and abides by it. But Degan was still murdered." If I could have jumped through the T.V. and grabbed him by the throat when he said that I would have. He cannot simultaneously respect the courts decision and claim Degan was murdered.

Mueller apparently thinks he is no less superior to the courts than Freeh thought he was. He needs to be reminded that he is a public servant and not a public master.

Update: Sebastian and the NRA-ILA have something to say as well. I overlooked them when I first made the post.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms laughs and points at Bloomberg caught with his pants down:

WHILE BLOOMBERG FRETS ABOUT OUR GUNS, NYPD CAN’T KEEP TRACK OF THEIRS

BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should “mind his own store before telling others how to operate theirs,” said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, after an audit found that the New York Police Department lost track of dozens of guns in its own storage lockers.

“While this guy has been bullying gun dealers around the country about so-called ‘slip-shod’ operations,” chuckled CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “his own police department seems to be slipping quite a bit on its own. Bloomberg needs to back off, shut up and get his own house in order before telling others how to operate.”

According to the New York Times, “nearly one out of three handguns and rifles that had been turned in to the police could not be immediately accounted for in a Manhattan property clerk’s office.”

“We’re waiting for Bloomberg to send a team of undercover vigilante investigators down there to find out what’s wrong,” Gottlieb said. “Can one of his infamous lawsuits be far behind?”

Bloomberg dispatched non-police “investigators” to run stings on gun shops in several states more than two years ago, ostensibly to show how easy it is to illegally obtain guns in other states. He then sued gun dealers in five states. This rogue operation landed the mayor’s office in hot water with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for jeopardizing on-going legitimate investigations. Ultimately the Justice Department warned the mayor not to pull that stunt again.

“If Mayor Bloomberg wants to find mismanagement of a firearms inventory,” Gottlieb stated, “he doesn’t need to send goon squads to Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia or anywhere outside of his jurisdiction. All he really needs is to do is visit the police property room in Manhattan and turn his lawyers loose.

“It’s a pity that Bloomberg can’t lose his arrogant attitude as easily as his cops can lose track of their gun inventory,” he concluded.

In some ways, the Supreme Court term that just ended seems muddled: disturbing, highly conservative rulings on subjects like voting rights and gun control, along with important defenses of basic liberties in other areas, including the rights of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The key to understanding the term lies in the fragility of the court’s center. Some of the most important decisions came on 5-to-4 votes — a stark reminder that the court is just one justice away from solidifying a far-right majority that would do great damage to the Constitution and the rights of ordinary Americans.

...

In other cases, like the gun-control decision, the rulings might have been more sweeping and more damaging if the conservative bloc had not needed the moderate-conservative Justice Kennedy’s vote to form a majority. One more conservative appointment would shift the balance to the far-right bloc.

If that happens, the court can be expected to push even further in a dangerous direction. It would most likely begin stripping away civil liberties...

New York Times
Editorial
July 3, 2008
A Supreme Court on the Brink
[Conservative justices threw out the D.C. handgun ban so that people were allowed to exercise a "new" right. And if we have more conservatives on the bench they would do "great damage" to the rights of ordinary Americans and "begin stripping away civil liberties". What sort of mental problems do these people have? It's worse than the Nazis who claimed Jews were vermin and literally spread disease like rats and fleas yet they were also in control of the banks and many governments. How can they not see they fail to keep their story straight even for an entire paragraph? It's like something I would expect to hear from someone in a mental hospital.

I guess we don't really have to understand them. We just have to defeat them.--Joe]

My father in law sends me all sorts of chain mail.  My response follows at the bottom, but for the intro, here's the chain letter:

Subject: A Billion?

How many zeros in a billion?

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases.

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

(Actually, that's 1.5 billion, but that's not the point)

B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate our government is spending it.
 
While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans ...
It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans.  Interesting number...What does it mean?

A. Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528.

B. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

C. Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D. C
 
 HELLO!
Are all your calculators broken??

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt, we had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?  Can you spell 'politicians'?

And I still have to press '1' for English.

I hope this goes around the USA at least 100 times

What the heck happened?
 
For my money it is called greed.

----------------------------------------------

My response:

They left out special, punitive state and federal taxes on guns and ammunition, which account for a large portion of the cost of the product.

The list of taxes does not address the many and various requirements and restrictions on businesses.  One small example out of thousands is; a window was broken in our Clarkston, WA store during a robbery.  Had it been in Moscow, we could have called one of several glass shops and had it replaced the same day.  Because this happened in Washington, there is a tempered safety glass requirement for storefronts that increased the cost of the window by several hundred dollars (wanna bet some legislator’s cousin owns a safety glass business?).  But that wasn’t the main expense created by the law.  Far and away the biggest expense was that we had to wait several weeks for the window, meaning we had no storefront for that amount of time-- just boards.

That cost, and thousands like it, never figure into the costs with which we are saddled by local, state and fed restrictions. 

Add things like minimum wage laws, which outlaw many entry-level jobs outright.  Add laws requiring handicapped access, which can amount to 100s of thousands of dollars for a small business, even if they have no handicapped customers.  The list of such requirements and restrictions would take more than your e-mail in-box could hold, and these all amount to increased cost of doing business.  Often, the reporting and compliance requirements necessitate the hiring of extra employees-- people doing jobs for the government, paid by the business owner, producing nothing.  Ever see a WA state sales tax report?  Every city and county can have its own tax rate.  Since our music store does business in two states, and in many cities throughout WA state, we have a huge tax report for WA State (Idaho's is about the size of a post card).  As a very small business, the WA reporting requirement costs us and our customers at least as much as the actual tax money paid.

And did I mention that property taxes and utilities prices are higher for businesses than for a residence?  How many people know that unless they're in business?

Now add to the list of costs; the number of businesses that couldn’t bear these burdens, and just gave up and quit.  Then add the number of businesses that started up in other states because they had more freedom there (this is known as "brain drain" and it happens in all socialist societies-- the creative and the productive want the hell out of there).

But that’s just the beginning.  Add the untold thousands of creative people who never went into business because the hurdles were just a little bit too much to bother with (business being a stressful and risky proposition in the best of situations) and/or they knew the "safety net" would take care of them anyway, or they could get a government job with full benefits.

And so the monster grows-- fewer people paying taxes to support an ever-growing government sector.  Three trillion dollars annually and growing fast (it’s gone up almost 50% during this current "conservative" administration).  Divide 3 trillion by the total U.S. population, boys and girls, if your calculator can handle that many digits.

Many of these costs are impossible to measure.  They don’t show up on the spreadsheets or in the statistics, but I submit that they account for the greatest percentage of the total cost of socialist/statist systems.  But then, some would (and often do) applaud anything that shackles the creative, productive human mind and forces it to either serve their purposes, or just give up.  Everyone knows the score-- business (peaceable, voluntary exchange) is greedy and deserves to be punished, whereas "public servants" are altogether selfless and benevolent, right?