Barb and I are sitting in the Reno airport waiting for our plane. I'm pretty sure I'm the last of the gun bloggers to leave town. Barb and I had dinner last night at the Black Bear Diner with The Conservative UAW Guy, his wife, Mr. Completely, and Keewee. Back at Circus Circus I chatted with them and Ride Fast, the last hanger ons, about airport security theater until about 21:00 when most of us said our good-byes. Mr. Completely, Keewee, Barb and I had breakfast together this morning and the Gun Blogger Rendezvous was over.

I have a few pictures and will post more later, particularly about our day at the range, but for now here is an odd gun I saw at the museum today with Barb. This gun was part of an exhibit on bootleggers:

Sawed off pistol. (Click for bigger.)

[Please excuse the poor photo quality. I used my cell-phone camera.]

I noticed one of their exhibits was mislabeled and they seemed very grateful when I corrected them. A device used to clean wheat had original markings saying it separated wheat from wild oats. But was labeled as tool for separating wild oats from chaff. <shrug> Just me being nit-picky as usual.

The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters... and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult.

Jacques Yves Cousteau
[This is widely attributed to Cousteau but I have not been able to find the context. Regardless this is a very mild version of what a great number of people believe. What they don't understand is that hunters and other shooters raise more money and do more for wildlife preservation than, probably, any other group. Bigotry is an ugly thing.--Joe]

Say Uncle says he knows the guy quoted in the newspaper article. The article is about the NRA ad being correct when it says Obama voted for a bill that would have outlawed most common hunting ammo. Obama and others on the left say the NRA ad is a lie. The reporter quotes a gun blogger as a reference to support the NRA's claim. I know that guy too.

That blogger would be me and this blog post.

Sebastian also noticed.

What I noticed was that the headline to the article wasn't something to the effect that "NRA is right--Obama tried to ban hunting ammo" but instead, "NRA ad draws fire for dubious claims".

What media bias?

Lack of sleep (up very late talking to other bloggers) combined with Barb wanting to use my computer meant I haven't really posted anything about the rendezvous. Sorry, it's not going to get much better for a few days.

Check out what others have been saying:

• GBR-III Update: Nice Hat! (this is the picture I should have taken of Ashley. I only got a couple before she left and both were crap compared to this one)
• GBR-III Update: Range Day, with Gun Pr0n (picture of me preparing to shoot--a story I promise I will tell before long)
• We're Either Dedicated or Crazy
• GBR-III Saturday 101108 - Range Day
• GBR Day 3 (lots of pictures--See previous posts as well)

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and more frequently fall into than that of defrauding the government.

Ben Franklin
[Socialized medicine anyone?--Joe]

What the District’s current firearms laws do is manifest "gross indifference" to the self-defense needs of women. Effectively banning the possession of handguns ignores biological differences between men and women, and in fact allows gender-inspired violence free rein. Those biological differences should, under these limited circumstances, be influential to the Court’s decision.

M. Carol Bambery
Brief of amicae curiae 126 women state legislators and academics in support of respondent in D.C. v. Heller.
[A lot of people in the gun rights community worry about the aging of the gun owning population and the need to get young people into the culture. Just as important and, in a logical sense, an easier sell is to get women into the culture. Defense of self and defense of your family is a very powerful argument.--Joe]

Barb and I arrived in Reno a little to late to get on the visit to Cabelas and the NRA presentation from Ashley Varner. I did participated in the show and tell and Barb came in for the tail end of that just before went to dinner.

I'm am now sitting in the corner listening to discussions of how bad Obama is and how the race is closer than the national polls indicate. I certainly hope so.

Oh, and David gave me a Serenity poster. Cool!

I am a new NRA member. I have been a citizen for only fourteen years. I believe in the Constitution and the Second Amendment, and when I see Obama, I see Communism, and I am afraid. I believe he is going to win the election. Do you have any plans in place if this happens?

Ly Chho
October 9, 2008
A question for NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.
Via Kevin Baker.
[Kevin reports Mrs. Ly Chho, was born of Chinese parents in Cambodia, raised and schooled in Taiwan, and hence "she should know".--Joe]

One might reasonably speculate that the NRA is going to engage in a full court press against Barack Abomination Obama starting today and continuing until election day.

Here are some hints of what we will see today:

• NRA ad uses Clinton's words against Obama on guns
• Hillary Was Right: You Can't Trust Obama With Your Guns
• NRA to Make Major Election Announcement Thursday, October 9, 2008

The news should be out of the bag by now. It's 8:00 in PA but I haven't seen what is being said yet and I really need to get back to bed and get some sleep.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
[Ebner-Eschenbach is apparently the originator of the "stopped clock is right twice a day" quote:

Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes.

Which wouldn't be a bad QOTD during this political season as well. But back to fear and dodging...

Obama dodges. What does he mean when he says the following?

"I think we have two conflicting traditions in this country." (gun ownership and restrictions on guns)
Politico, 2/11/08

"I think that local jurisdictions have the capability to institute their own gun laws."
BaltimoreSun.com, 2/15/08

He could settle all this by promising, as President of the United States, to veto any gun control restriction bill that reaches his desk. But he doesn't.

Gun owners have something to fear in Obama as a person in power.--Joe]

Barb and I are currently in the SeaTac airport eating a late lunch. Soon we will be on the plane to Reno, then from there we will rent a car and drive to Tonopah. We will spend a few days looking around at historical and genealogical things. Her father lived and worked there in the '30s.

Friday we will return to Reno for the Gun Blogger Rendevzous.

If you are interested follow the boring details on my Twitter account. Please ignore the typos. My Pocket PC has problems with rapidly typed letters hence "looking" comes out as "loking" and I often make an update while walking or doing something else and don't check for errors as well as I should.

Health care is a right the same as guns are a right. You have the right to provide it, or to purchase it as you are able, and government should have no role in the matter except as protector of your rights.

I know that wasn't the framework of the question however. Honestly put, the question would have been, "Do you believe free healthcare, paid by someone else under threats from the government, is your right?"

But liberty isn't even on the table for discussion in this election. How can we be bothered with such abstractions as liberty when we're worried about the crisis-of-the-day, and who is going to take care of us and keep us all safe, happy and warm?

Lyle @ UltiMAK
October 8, 2008
In the comments.
[We have a long way to go. Sometimes it takes Lyle and others to put it in proper perspective.--Joe]

Kevin is leaving tomorrow evening. Barb and I are packing tonight. Our plane leaves at noon tomorrow but we will be in Tonopah until Friday which means we will miss out on the super secret event on Thursday evening.

The gun stuff I'm packing includes:

• Gun Blog 45 and 200 rounds of ammo
• STI Eagle 5.1 and 200 rounds of ammo
• Shot timer
• Spotting scope (I hope I can find it!) and tripod
• .300 Winchester Magnum and 100 rounds of ammo
• Laptop computer with Modern Ballistics (yeah, I'm a geek)
• Some cleaning supplies

Anything I'm missing that I can legally take on the plane (no, I won't be bringing my chemistry set) and would be nice to have on the range Saturday?

Update: I can't find my spotting scope so I'm not bringing the tripod. I am bringing my laser range finder and a pair of good binoculars.

From a random link I clicked on:

One moment struck me as particularly unfortunate for McCain: When Tom Brokaw asked whether health care was a privilege, a responsibility or a right. McCain said it was a responsibility, but left unclear whose responsibility it might be. Obama said he believed it should be a right...

Did Obama really say health care should be a right?

Wow! And I thought he was supposed to be a constitutional scholar. Anyone that passed their high school government class should give Obama a failing grade for even being on the city council or the local school board for getting that one item so wrong. As a U.S. Senator he should be tried for attempted treason.

This is a little bit into my gray area. I disagree with the judge but I can see his point even if he overstates it with the shirt in question:

"The impact of violence is so great that it now has equal importance as the issue of illegal drug use in schools," U.S. District Judge James Knoll Gardner wrote in an opinion handed down this week.

"There is nowhere that is truly safe or immune from the problem of school violence, from the one-room schoolhouse to America's largest universities," Gardner said.

"Students," he said, "have no constitutional right to promote violence in our public schools."

What this judge apparently doesn't understand that his own orders are carried out with the threat of violence. There is illegal violence and there is legal, even praiseworthy violence. I don't see that the shirt advocated anything illegal or immoral:
 

According the court order and the article the complete text on the back of the shirt says, "Special Issue-Resident-Lifetime License--United States Terrorist Hunting Permit--Permit No. 91101 Gun Owner-No Bag Limit". The front of the shirt has a gun on the pocket which has a gun and says, "Volunteer, Homeland Security".

And how does this "promote violence in the school system"? It is promoting the rapid stopping of illegal violence using legal violence. If the shirt advocated hunting Muslims, blacks, Jews, or some other ethic, racial, or religiously identified group I would agree with him. But not this. Terrorists are not, or at least shouldn't be, a protected group.

I must conclude this is another case of simplistic minds either refusing to or being unable to see the total picture.

Earlier today Say Uncle sent me an email asking if I could help out a reporter looking for "someone of authority" to address the body armor versus deer hunting ammo issue. I know a lot more about exterior ballistics (I wrote Modern Ballistics) than terminal ballistics but I'm not totally ignorant of it either. So I agreed to "look up a few references" for the guy.

My email, with very minor edits, to the reporter follows. His email response indicated he was happy with my answers.

Say Uncle asked that I address your “deer ammo going through body armor” story. I’ll address it as best I can but strictly speaking I’m not an expert. I’m a very well informed hobbyist.

Although there is occasional some controversy over the National Institute of Justice testing procedures and standards they are still “the standard”. You can read their standard here.

Their main page on Body Armor is here.

Probably the part that is most relevant to your issue is the body armor classification. This can be found in section 2 starting on page 17. The basics are that body armor is classified according to the level of protection it provides. Those classes are, in order of increasing protection level:

• Type IIA (9 mm; .40 S&W)
• Type II (9 mm; .357 Magnum)
• Type IIIA (.357 SIG; .44 Magnum)
• Type III (Rifles)
• Type IV (Armor Piercing Rifle)

Most law enforcement officers wear type II or IIIA. Higher levels of protection require metal or ceramic inserts which increase the weight, bulk, and the body heat retention. See also Section 6, Selecting the Appropriate Level of Protection in this document. At some point in the tradeoff between comfort and protection the police officer will stop wearing the armor on an everyday patrol. In a high risk entry/arrest situation they are more likely to upgrade to type III armor if it is available.

The problem certain well intentioned politicians get into is that they don’t realize the body armor problem is as much a velocity problem as it is a bullet construction problem. Certainly sharp pointed Teflon coated tungsten carbide (a very hard metal used for metal working tools) bullets will penetrate a higher level of armor than a blunt nosed soft lead bullet. But that only goes so far. Increasing the velocity of the bullet by a few hundred feet per second will overcome the inferior construction in most applications. Rifle bullets are much faster than common pistol bullets. The typical handgun bullet is on the order of 1000 fps. A typical modern center fire rifle bullet leaves the muzzle at a velocity on the order of 2500 fps or greater.

I’ve done some informal testing with the 30-06 rifle on an engine block. The Speer Reloading Manual says of this rifle cartridge, “It is safe to say that the 30-06 Springfield is the best-known and most successful centerfire cartridge ever developed.” In a typical hunting load (see http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=260) at 100 yards from the muzzle the bullet is still traveling at over 2600 fps. The tests I did were with a target cartridge and bullet (http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=148). At the muzzle this bullet is traveling at about 2700 fps and is still going at over 2500 fps at 100 yards. I was shooting into the side of a six cylinder car engine from the early fifties from about 50 yards away. This was a very heavy engine block compared to today’s cars yet the target bullet would penetrate half way through the block penetrating the water jacket, one side of a cylinder and frequently one side of a piston. A very high velocity (1350 fps at the muzzle) 9mm bullet shot at the same engine block only knocked the rust off of the metal. It did not dent or crack the side of the engine.

It is a very different problem to stop a rifle bullet than to stop a handgun bullet. Although it isn’t quite this simple you can think of it as an energy problem. The energy of the projectile is proportional to the mass of the bullet times the velocity of the bullet squared. That is E = m V². The mass of a common hunting bullet is on the order of 150 to 180 grains. The mass of a pistol bullet is on the order of 125 to 200 grains with the heaver bullets moving much slower than the lighter ones. The rifle bullets typically are moving about 2.5 times as fast as the pistol bullets. Hence they will typically have about 2.5² or about 6 times as much energy as the pistol bullet.

Even the ancient 30-30 Winchester cartridge has a muzzle velocity of nearly 2400 fps with a 150 grain bullet (http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=28) which will cut through the typical concealable body armor worn by law enforcement on a daily basis. Higher end rifles for larger game such as, the still very common, .300 Winchester Magnum with a 165 grain bullet (http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=592) have muzzle velocities of over 3000 fps. Run the numbers on that and see the sort of problem the body armor is facing.

Hence, the NRA claim that outlawing ammunition on the basis of its ability to penetrate typical body armor would result in the banning nearly all common rifle hunting is true. It is possible the politician did not have that intention but that would be the result.

That is probably more information than you really wanted but I hope it answers your questions. If not or if you have any further questions please let me know.

The NRA has a special deal going on with Midway and Aimpoint.

Pat Kelley (who won the USPSA match I was at on Sunday--I came in third and seventh out of 18) has a bunch of really neat gun and gun related pictures on his media website. Here are some samples:

Organized capitalism has sublimated and turned to socially productive use frustration and primary aggressiveness on an unprecedented scale -- unprecedented not in terms of the quantity of violence but rather in terms of its capacity to produce long-range contentment and satisfaction, to reproduce the "voluntary servitude." To be sure, frustration, unhappiness, and sickness remain the basis of this sublimation, but the productivity and the brute power of the system still keep the basis well under control. The achievements justify the system of domination. The established values become the people's own values: adaptation turns into spontaneity, autonomy; and the choice between social necessities appears as freedom. In this sense, the continuing exploitation is not only hidden behind the technological veil, but actually "transfigured." The capitalist production relations are responsible not only for the servitude and toil but also for the greater happiness and fun available to the majority of the population -- and they deliver more goods than before.

Herbert Marcuse
1971
An Essay on Liberation from the chapter "A Biological Foundation for Socialism?", page 13.
[It seems to me that those that advocate socialism have a very simplistic, idealized view of the world. And they have this view of "social justice" such that, Susan K. once told me, "They would rather everyone make $1.00/hour than most people make $100/hour if there are some people that make $1000/hour." Capitalism creates envy because of the disparity of wealth but it also produces the greatest good for the greatest number.--Joe]

Via the Apex of the Triangle of Death:

Fairfax, VA-Today the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) expanded its advertising campaign with the release of additional commercials further detailing Sen. Barack Obama’s long anti-gun record in battleground states across the country. The NRA-PVF commercials began airing Monday in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Minnesota and Michigan.

These ads, which expose the truth about Obama's record opposing the rights of law-abiding gun owners, are currently running in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Colorado. The media spots feature a variety of people from all walks of life, including war veterans, hunters, families and former law enforcement officers criticizing the many anti-gun and anti-hunter votes cast by Obama as a state and as a U.S. Senator. NRA-PVF is also running Spanish-language commercials in several states.

In an attempt to suppress free speech rights protected under the First Amendment, Obama's campaign has threatened television stations to stop airing the NRA-PVF ads under threat of revocation their FCC licenses. NRA-PVF has provided documented evidence to support the statements about Obama's record in the ads.

Commercials may be viewed at www.gunbanobama.com.

We felt that, for a variety of reasons, the collective rights model was under represented in the debate, and wanted to give scholars an opportunity to enhance or further illuminate the collective rights position. Sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium. I did not, therefore, invite anyone who I knew subscribed to the individual rights model.

Carl Bogus
June 12, 2001
Email regarding a Chicago-Kent symposium on the Second Amendment which only invited, and allowed, anti-gun owner viewpoints to be presented. This was done under the "community leadership" of Barack No Guns Allowed Obama--see also Obama and the Attempt to Destroy the Second Amendment.
[And would Mr. Bogus would say a more balanced trial of a black man is best served by the judge, both lawyers, and all the people on the jury being members of the KKK?--Joe]

Ask me how I know.

I just had a cancelation of one of the positions for Boomershoot 2009.

Position 62, on the berm, is now open.

Sign up here soon if you want it.

Update: The position has been filled. It was open for two hours and 18 minutes.

You put on the most politically incorrect event on the planet.

Pat Kelley
October 5, 2008
Referring to Boomershoot.
[Pat was at the USPSA match I went to today. I think it has been 10 years since I have seen Pat. He remembered me and said a lot of flattering things. I was a little embarrassed because he is such a great shooter he is totally out of my league. But he wasn't talking about my shooting ability. See also these quotes from him in other posts:

• Quote of the day--Pat Kelley
• Shotgunning: 12 shots in 1.73 seconds

He also tried shooting my Saiga 12 gauge. He had never shot one before. He was not able to out-shoot it even though he believes it probably is possible. I wish I had thought to put a timer on him and see what sort of splits he got. I just saw a blur of fire expel from the ejection port and the 10 round magazines were empty.--Joe]

In the right column I have a list of the bloggers I have met. I just found out a friend from way back (nearly 25 years) just started a blog. I'm not sure the general population of readers here will find all that much to agree with her on politics but she does take pretty pictures and says she will be posting her pictures there.

I have referred to her in my posts here a few times as one of my lesbian friends and she is the one that wrote the email referenced here. I tend to avoid discussing politics with her. Chess, places we have worked together, and other geeky stuff can keep us happily chatting for a long time however. And then there was the time I took her and her friend to the nudist club...

Howard Nemerov gives us some info on possible motiviation for Obama's support for gun control:

In politics, it is often difficult to determine why a person supports a policy. Fortunately, numbers speak louder than words: In this case, follow the money to understand Obama’s support of registration.

One of Obama’s biggest donors is the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Meagher and Flom, LLP, which contributed $340,264 to his presidential campaign as of September 2, 2008.[12] Skadden, Arps represents the inventors of a “firearm safety system,” patent number 6499243, which adds a biometric activator that links a gun to one owner. The “Summary of the Invention” section of the patent application notes:

The safety system further makes use of a person’s fingerprint data, which is a unique personal property that is highly suitable for tracking and control.[13] [Emphasis added]

Sidley Austin LLP has contributed $350,302 to Obama.[14] Sidley Austin represents the inventors of the “Gun identification kit,” patent number 7380706. This invention provides a way for every gun to have a spent cartidge case made available for entry into a ballistic “fingerprint” database. Of course, such a database is useful only if all firearms are entered into it:

Because the vast majority of publicly owned firearms have not been used in the commission of a crime, they will not show up in [such a] database. It would therefore be desirable to provide a means for increasing the number of firearms for which…information and data is available.

The inventors’ solution to this? Pass a law mandating that every gun is registered (serial number matched with shell casing and owner data, all permanently recorded):

One means of populating [such a] database would be to mandate that ballistic information be obtained and entered into the database for all firearms.[15]

$350,000 for supporting gun licensing? Sounds like motive to me. Why else would Obama be so cagey on guns? We know it's not about making people safer because no one has been able to answer Just One Question.

So, when Obama says he "won't take your guns" keep in mind he didn't say he wouldn't register them. See Nemorov's post for more about the wisdom of that. Obama says Chicago is different from Chyenne. See my post on community policy for a response to that.

If all mankind were of one opinion, and one man held the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one man than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

John Stuart Mill
On Liberty
[This is sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson. I believe this to be an error. Regardless it is apparent that Obama does not subscribe to this philosophy and McCain is not much better. They are both scumbags so this year I will probably be voting for Sarah.--Joe]