The View From North Central Idaho

It is distressing to see that the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle Program will be part of the Highlands County Library's Youth Summer Program. This was mentioned in Highlands Today on July 2.

The NRA is a lobbying organization dedicated to putting more guns in the hands of criminals. As a lobby group, the NRA twists the facts when it uses them at all. The NRA often sues cities and states to advance its radical program. How did the NRA get to be considered a harmless organization that should have access to our libraries and our children?

Dale L. Gillis
July 13, 2009
Gun safety among children
["Dedicated to putting more guns in the hands of criminals?" I guess that is why they have they have the support of four million members, right? And that is why two thirds of the states Attorney Generals support the NRA lawsuit against Chicago.

"Twists the facts when it uses them at all?" See projection.

Gillis is just another bigot.--Joe]

Sometime in the mid '90s Alan Gottlieb spoke to the Microsoft Gun Club (now called the Gun Club @ Microsoft) and I asked him, "From the evasive words they use it's clear the anti-gun politicians know gun control doesn't make people safer. So what is the real reason they advocate more gun control?" He answered, "It depends on the politician. Some want to change the culture to one of dependence on government. Others just hate guns. And we have sometimes joked that because of the high number of criminals in his district Chuck Schumer was just voting to protect his constituents."

Perhaps it wasn't really that much of a joke. Apparently the intent of the Sullivan Act was to protect the criminals:

New York state Sen. Timothy Sullivan, a corrupt Tammany Hall politician, represented New York's Red Hook district. Commercial travelers passing through the district would be relieved of their valuables by armed robbers. In order to protect themselves and their property, travelers armed themselves. This raised the risk of, and reduced the profit from, robbery. Sullivan's outlaw constituents demanded that Sullivan introduce a law that would prohibit concealed carry of pistols, blackjacks and daggers, thus reducing the risk to robbers from armed victims.

The criminals, of course, were already breaking the law and had no intention of being deterred by the Sullivan Act from their business activity of armed robbery. Thus, the effect of the Sullivan Act was precisely what the criminals intended. It made their life of crime easier.
As the first successful gun-control advocates were criminals, I have often wondered what agenda lies behind the well-organized and propagandistic gun-control organizations and their donors and sponsors in the United States today. The propaganda issued by these organizations consists of transparent lies.

By advocating more gun control Chuck Schumer and Carolyn McCarthy are just continuing the fine tradition of New York politics.

Apparently this is an actual image from a poster planned to be used in the case of a quarantine (page 420):

Via email from Chet.

If people can't be trusted to not sell guns to the drug dealers in Mexico then the government should take all the guns away from those type of people. A case in point:

An F.B.I. agent in El Paso has been arrested and charged with dealing guns, some of which ended up being used in gunfights between the authorities and drug dealers in Mexico, law enforcement officials said. The agent, John T. Shipley, was indicted Wednesday on charges he dealt firearms without a license for more than two years, buying the weapons from dealers on the Internet and then reselling them to unidentified buyers. Mr. Shipley sold more than 50 weapons, the indictment said. Some were recovered after shootouts between the Mexican Army and drug dealers in Chihuahua on March 8 last year that left seven dead, officials said. Mr. Shipley, who was released on bond this week, has been suspended without pay since March 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

So distant is America today from it's founding principles that it is difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government. It is not strictly a constitutional republic, because the Constitution has been and continues to be easily altered by a judicial oligarchy that mostly enforces, if not expands, the Statist's agenda. It is not strictly a representative republic, because so many edits are produced by a maze of administrative departments that are unknown to the public and detached from its sentiment. It is not strictly a Federal republic, because the states that gave the central government life no live at its behest. What, then, is it? It is a society steadily transitioning toward statism.

Mark R. Levin
Page 192, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
[H/T to Kevin who inspired me with this quote to get the book.--Joe]

Sebastian has a post up about Tall Tales of High-Power Shooting which I started to comment on but got a little carried away and decided to make a post out of it.

I remember showing a 100 yard target to some co-workers. I put four groups on it. Each group was a little under one inch in size with most of the holes touching. The groups were arranged in a square about 10 inches on a side. One guy held it up to his chest, smiled, and said, "Pretty good. If we were on opposite ends of a football field I would be in trouble if you were shooting at me." I raised an eyebrow and another co-worker laughed at him and explained, "At 100 yards he can put every shot into your eyeball." The first guy went white and was skeptical and it took a minute or so of convincing that it was even possible.

After I had shot a little bit of pistol I heard about IPSC.

Within a year I was shooting better than what I would have thought was humanly possible when I first started. Really, now. Who could possibly be facing away from three humanoid targets ten yards away, hands in surrender position, then turn, draw, fire two rounds of each target, reload, then fire two more rounds on each target--all in under nine seconds? A turn, a draw, 12 shots, and a reload all in under nine seconds? It's got to take at least one second for each shot making the total much more than that, right? Wrong. The stage is called El Presidente. The last time I did it in competition it took me 6.94 seconds (with one miss).

What is even more interesting to me is that I was shooting better than the best shooters in the world of 30 years prior. Equipment has improved some but mostly it's the technique that has improved.

Even though I know, probably much better than most, all the math, physics, etc. involved and I've done it multiple times under different conditions I'm still amazed at putting the first round on target from 1000 yards away. When I point out objects that are 800 or 1000 yards away to people to aid explaining this they get this look on their face like I was talking about being abducted by aliens.

I am of the opinion all politicians should observe a 1000 yard match prior to taking office with a short refresher course on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and a reminder that they are servants of the people. I'm mostly joking when I suggest that prior to running for a second term they have to have an apple shot off of their head by a random pick of volunteer constituents from 100 yards away. Third term it's a plum. Fourth term it's a grape. Fifth term, well... we just shoot the politician. I think it would remind them to not let their power go to their heads lest someone else let something go to their head.

I was talking with a pro-gun lobbyist recently and he suggested a possible solution to a weakness the bigots are trying to exploit:

Under the proposed legislation, to carry concealed weapons people need only meet the minimum requirements of federal law to possess a gun, be permitted in their home state to carry a concealed weapon, and abide by a state’s concealed carry location restrictions. For example, Alaska allows adult residents to carry a concealed weapon without a license, background check, or training as long as they are allowed to possess a gun under weak Alaska gun laws - even if they have committed repeated violent misdemeanors or have committed misdemeanor sex offenses against minors.  This legislation would force the other 47 states that allow concealed carrying to allow many Alaskan violent misdemeanants to carry concealed guns in their state, even if a state completely bans gun possession by such persons.

This same sort of thing is why Nevada stopped recognizing Utah carry permits.

His proposed solution would be for states to create a two tier concealed carry license system. Tier 1 would be whatever the State thought was appropriate for their need. If that was a lifetime permit, no training requirement, and you had a detectable pulse, then fine. Tier 2 would have a set of requirements which was the union of the most stringent requirements of all the other states. Hence if Nevada required four hours of training, and Texas required eight hours (pulling numbers out of the air) then the training requirement for a tier 2 CWP from State X would be eight hours. Similar things for other requirements on license duration, age restrictions, etc.

This could be a win for both people that want to carry and the state that issues the tier 2 permit. You would have to get just one permit to carry in all the states that recognize out of state permits. And the state would be in a position to have a decent revenue stream because they were "selling a valuable product".

Is there a downside to this scheme? Sure, the 2^nd Amendment should be my carry permit. But we aren't there yet. But this would be one step closer to being able to carry nationwide with far less effort. When you can and do carry in all states we can then more easily demonstrate the bigots are just blowing smoke and we can work on reducing the most onerous restrictions in the unfriendly states and making "tier 1" in the friendly states be "Vermont Carry".

Is there some unintended consequence that might come out of this and come back to bite us?

I'll bet some Microsoft geeks had fun with this.

You should hear about some of the parties we have had. Read Renegades of the Empire for some hints.

[Via an email from Rob.]

The NRA perfectly epitomizes the paranoid and hate-filled mind-set of the Republican voting base.

The registration and tracking of firearms, which is so necessary for effective law enforcement and actually protects legitimate gun owners, is equated by the ultra-loons at the NRA with an utterly paranoid and wholly unsupported claim that "they are coming to take my guns away."

Joe Golonka
Paranoid NRA thinking
July 11, 2009
[It sounds to me like Mr. Golonka has a little bit of hate going on there himself.

"Unsupported claim"?

• Does he remember Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans? I do.
• Does he remember what happened in California? I do.
• Does he know what happened in New Zealand, Canada, U.K. and Australia? I do.
• Does he know what the Weapons Control Act of 1938 enabled? I do.

"Necessary for effective law enforcement"?

• Does he know how many crimes have been solved in Canada because of gun registration? I do (as of 2000 it was one).
• Does he know how many crimes have been solved in Hawaii because of gun registration? I do (as of 2000 police did not know of any).
• Does he know how effective the Nazi Police Battalions were in law enforcement because of gun registration? I do. Between July 1942 and November 1943 just one Battalion murdered an estimated 38,000 Jews. They lost only two of their own (read Hitlers Willing Executioners for the details).

Ignorance and bigotry is a terrible thing. Poor Mr. Golonka exhibits all the symptoms.--Joe]

Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!

Frederic Bastiat
[This isn't the first time I've quoted Bastiat see here, here, and here. I really should get a book or two on or by him.

Additional info about Bastiat from Wikipedia:

Bastiat asserted that the only purpose of government is to defend the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property. From this definition, Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies inherently opposed to these very things. In this way, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the thing it is supposed to defend.

Which is entirely consistent with our consititutions and entirely at odds with our governments.

Via Marc Gallagher.--Joe]

Via an email from Chet:

The source is here.

I'm sure glad the stimulus plan saved 150,000 jobs since February. Just for scale, assuming the claim was true, those alleged 150,000 jobs account for about two widths of the horizontal lines in the above graph--since the beginning of the recession in the middle of 2008 about 6.2 MILLION jobs have been lost. Hence those 150,000 make a difference of about 2.4%.

So the government authorized spending nearly $800 Billion of money they didn't have and now is considering spending more in a second attempt.

I think I see a trend here--these people just don't learn, do they?

Via an email from Mike B.

The city of Seattle can't ban firearms from being carried openly because of state preemption--so they do what they can:

Q: Is it illegal to bring an unconcealed airsoft handgun into a public place?

A: Seattle police say it is, and reference Seattle Municipal Code section 12A.14.083, regarding weapons in public places.

That states: "It is unlawful to knowingly carry or shoot any spring gun, air gun, sling or slingshot, in, upon, or onto any public place."

"An airsoft gun specifically fits into that weapons code," police spokesman Jeff Kappel said.

But police note the above code does not reference or regulate the carrying of firearms which are different from airsoft guns.

So I could legally walk down the sidewalk with my fully loaded (18 + 1 of .40 S&W) STI and a spare magazine openly displayed in a holster on my belt and someone else with an unloaded Airsoft gun in their backpack could be end up paying a fine of up to $500 and/or spend two months in jail for a first offense (up to 12 months for a third conviction).

Bigots, they try to get away with whatever they can no matter how ridiculous it is.

Yesterday I came across a letter from a supposed Idaho gun owner that really has me wondering. Is this some sort of Brady revenge for Mary McFate? Are they having people send out fake letters? Or is just some old guy with the early signs of Alzheimer's?

July 8, 2009

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy                  The honorable Jeff Sessions
Chairman                                                        Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary   U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building           152 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510                              Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Sessions:

I am writing to express strong disagreement with the National Rifle Associations' (NRA) views on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. NRA concerns were sent to you in a letter from Executive Director Chris Cox dated July 7, 2009.

I am a veteran, a manufacturing firm executive and a gun owner. I own three pistols, two riles and a shotgun. I enjoy hunting, target shooting, and the feeling of safety that guns provide.

I have lost respect and trust in NRA to deal with gun matters in America and encourage you to ignore their advice about Judge Sotomayor's confirmation.

NRA characterizes the firearms issue through the narrow toilet-paper tubes of fear that 'liberals' with an anti-gun agenda will take away our guns. The reality is that illegal and improper use, storage, or transfer of guns is a significant problem in America. I strongly support gun ownership but come down on the side of organizational and personal responsibility and competence with respect to guns. Guns are dangerous.

When I was a youth and through my 30s I was an NRA member, looked forward to my American Rifleman magazine, and counted on NRA to help keep 'gun control' a private, not government matter. NRA provided hunter and sportsman skills, safety, property rights, and firearm maintenance training for many years; however, NRA's emphasis has become political, not around firearm competence and responsibility. When I was a Boy Scout assistant scoutmaster, NRA was not there for my sons and other boys in the troop so I was forced to arrange gun safety and skills training through off-duty police. Here in Idaho where I live there are no NRA basic firearm training programs even though this is a great outdoor sports state.

I have high respect for Judge Sotomayor. If I were able to question at her confirmation hearing, here are some I would like to ask:

• Do you believe that gun ownership in America carries responsibility by the owner to be competent in the storage, handling, maintenance, and use of the owned firearms?
• Do you think that the 'well regulated militia' language in the second amendment implies that private gun owners should be trained and certified perhaps as automobile drivers are tested for knowledge, skill, and abilities?
• Should gun ownership carry insurance requirements for liability and health damages caused by the gun owner?

Thank you for considering my views.

[Signed]

Laurence P. Gebhardt
1200 Aspen Drive
Pocatello, ID 83204

From reading what I can about this guy (samples are here [in the comments], here, here, here, and here) he has significant liberal tendencies. So this may just be an issue of supporting whatever the Democrats support. I assure you, what he says about the NRA and gun ownership does not represent any of the gun owners I know in Idaho. I know a fair number of gun owners that are unhappy with the NRA but what their problem with the NRA is that they feel the NRA should compromise less and take a stronger stand against unconstitutional and ineffective laws. Just the opposite of this guy. And he has basic facts wrong. Example:

• He claims "the NRA's emphasis has become political, not around firearm competence and responsibility". I'm sure that comes as quite a surprise to:
  • The many thousands of NRA certified instructors
  • The thousands of people that shoot in NRA matches each year
  • The recipients of NRA range grants
  • Thousand and thousands of other people who have personally benefited from the many NRA programs
• He claims "Here in Idaho where I live there are no NRA basic firearm training programs." But probably 10% to 20% of the shooters I know in Idaho are NRA certified firearms instructors and regularly put on classes. It's possible that isn't true in Pocatello, but I have a tough time believing he even looked for someone that teaches NRA classes in Idaho.

He then goes on to suggest Judge Sotomayor should be asked questions that are totally inappropriate for a judge. They are appropriate for a legislator or someone in the executive branch, but a judge? And the content of the questions are of a type I would expect to be asked by some intern at the Brady Campaign.

This isn't like any Idaho gun owner I know.

The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.

Milton Friedman
[Friedman probably was talking about economics but, as I'm sure he knew, the statement is much more broadly applicable than that. Those that would ban or even restrict gun ownership appear to be in denial of or are oblivious to the truth of the statement.--Joe]

...(or how many times you've seen it already) that's funny right there.  With credit given to Larry The Cable Guy (you do also have an alter to him in your bedroom closet, complete with votive candles, don't you?  Or am I weird?)

This goes out to Dennis A. Henigan, who clearly needs some cheering up these days as he's being beaten by a bunch of redneck dolts, and to the people of the TSSAA, who need a little bit of reality therapy to help them in their decision making during these trying times.

Dennis; the dialog in the video is a little more than one of us dumb, inbred, backwoods Idaho rednecks can fit on a bumper sticker.  Maybe we could reduce it to a simple, easily repeatable and easy to spell phrase like, "Gun Free Zones Are Dumb".  I don't know; with your superior intellect, maybe you could do a little better.  If you do a good job I promise to put it on the back window of my "rig" as we say in Idaho.  Just be sure to make it small enough that it doesn't obscure the AR-15 in the gun rack of my beat-up 4 x 4 pickup.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The economic stimulus plan has created or saved 150,000 jobs since its inception in February, a senior White House Budget Office official said Wednesday.

Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a congressional panel that the jobs figure is based on an economic model used by the Obama administration.

I wonder if that was using the same economic model that generated this graph (from Kevin):

At Microsoft when our tools yield results that even a little bit erratic we investigate and fix them. I would suggest the Obama administration examine their tools but I am suspicious the tools involved are producing the results desired by the administration and they see no need to even investigate--let alone fix them.

Shortly after I began my career as a lawyer and advocate for the nation's leading gun control group, I started to notice a peculiar repetitiveness in my opponents' arguments. Whether it was on radio or TV talk shows or panel discussions or speeches with audience Q&A, there was a striking similarity in the substance of the arguments, and even the language, used by my opponents. Over and over again, I would hear that "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." I would hear "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." I would hear "An armed society is a polite society." I had seen these sayings on bumpers stickers for years, but I discovered that my opponents actually argued in these terms. Even when these exact phrases weren't used, the thoughts they express were conveyed in other words. In more scholarly settings, critics of gun regulation would dress up their arguments in the arcane language of academia and in mounds of statistics, but their basic claims could, to a remarkable degree, be boiled down to the same themes I had heard on countless talk shows.

Dennis A. Henigan
Pages 5-6, Lethal Logic -- Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy
[I've addressed some of his points in this book from a press release here. I now have the book in hand having borrowed it from Carnaby last night. We'll see if there is anything particularly interesting in it. So far, part way through the prologue, he is just complaining that the gun control movement has trouble getting any traction and all the pro-gun people have is bumper stickers.

It seems to me that if your opposition is able to hold you down with a few bumper stickers then perhaps your vehicle is lacking substance under the hood.--Joe]

Via Ry.

As I have pointed out before it's not really possible to keep explosives off of airplanes. Of course it's not going to be any easier to keep them out of buildings on the ground. This obvious truth has just been demonstrated:

Government investigators smuggled bomb-making materials into federal buildings past the police agency charged with protecting those buildings and found numerous other gaps in security, according to a congressional report.

The Government Accountability Office said investigators carried bomb-making materials past security at 10 federal buildings. Security at these buildings and a total of about 9,000 federal buildings around the country is provided by the Federal Protective Service, a target of the probe.

Once GAO investigators got the materials in the buildings, the report said, they constructed explosive devices and carried them around inside. For security reasons, the GAO report did not give the location of the buildings.

It's Security Theater. I hope you enjoy the show because you are paying enough for it.

Some people call them vultures. I call them capitalists providing a much needed service. It's no surprise the people calling them vultures are in San Francisco:

The California IOU has become the prey of so-called vulture investors who hope to profit by buying them on the cheap and redeeming them later.

The idea is that "distressed asset investors" (their nicer name) will pay less than face value to mom-and-pop businesses that receive IOUs but need cash immediately to meet payroll or other expenses. Once the IOUs mature on Oct. 2, the investors will cash them in for their full value plus the 3.75 percent interest the state is offering.

They call the IOU "the prey"? What does that make the state of California? Bambi's mother? The parents of baby seals? In reality the state is the predator. The state contracted for services and/or goods (or taken excess money in taxes then failed to return the excess as promised) and is now failing to live up to the contract. Had they given IOUs to those that had not provided goods and/or services, such as welfare recipients, I would be less harsh in condemning the state. But to receive something of value and then fail to compensate them as agreed is really unacceptable.

But these people see the state fail to live up to its obligations creating countless victims, the capitalists provide relief to the victims, and then they condemn those providing the relief--that is some sort of insanity. Sometimes I have to conclude that Michael Savage is right on at least one point--Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.

The sad part is that the IOUs are, in essence, a new form of currency. I'm certain the state will soon realize this and start offering to pay in IOUs instead of money. The people, knowing they can sell them for 85% (whatever) of face value will ask for IOUs with face value of $118 for every $100 (85% of 118 is ~100) of goods and/or services. The state will, in a sick, perverted, rationalized sort of way, figure their money mostly problems are solved and not cut back on spending. This will drive the state faster and harder into the financial abyss.

Expect that result to be blamed on "vultures" as well.

You can pick a socialist out of large crowd in about 3.5 to 3.85 seconds.  He's the one angrily protesting the use of the word "socialist" while simultaneously advocating socialism, while simultaneously trying to sound educated.  That's quite a trick.  You have to give socialists that much; they can be fairly good at multi tasking and they have been known to work hard.  Loudly advocating stagnation and decay, while strenuously denying it at the same time, all while taking and disposing of other people's property and money, while compiling massive lists of massive lists of massive sub lists of dos and don'ts for all of us to follow, all under various threats, isn't easy.  Fighting the revolution and getting the constitution written and ratified was a minor task by comparison.

In comments here, Endif, running full speed and damn the torpedoes into my nets, referred to the federal takeover of banks and automakers (and presumably everything else the government has taken over in whole or in part, from education to agriculture to energy and transportation industries, to drugs, alcohol and gambling, etc., etc., etc., etc.) as "Investment".

Socialists get all agitated and defensive at the mention of the "S" word.  What is to be done about it?  What term designating state sponsored coercion would they accept as properly defining their belief system?  We know they quit liking the term "Liberal" and they never understood that "Fascist"  applied to them.  You call one of them a Fascist and they'll take offense, thinking you're calling them a conservative.  It's great fun but it doesn't lead to even a rudimentaqry level of understanding when two people are using the same words but speaking entirely different languages.  They seem to be using "Progressive" less and less too, now that more people know where and when that political term originated.

What's happening in the U.S. is more akin to Fascism.  It's all the same to me, or to put it another way; the subtle distinctions between different versions of state sponsored coercion don't interest me, nor do the distinctions between the Crips and the Bloods.  Nor do I much care what the advocates and practitioners of socialism prefer to be called-- I just know what they don't like being called, and that in itself is interesting.

Tell us which you prefer, Socialists, the word "socialism" or the word "Fascism".  If you dislike being called a socialist, surely you have some specific preference.  We know you don't like "Nazi" mainly because you think it too means conservative.  "Moderate" works for me, since moderates are people who have accepted the premises of socialism but aren't willing to admit it.  "Socialist in denial" is pretty descriptive too, if redundant.  Ooh; how about "Investment Coordinator"?  Hey, I like that.  We can henceforth refer to socialists as Investment Coordinators.  They'll like that, I bet.  But wait; what would we call real investment coordinators?

On second thought, I'll keep calling socialists socialists.  We all know what it means, even if socialists try to act like they don't.

Even though gun businesses are vilified by the anti-gun bigots there is a lot of cooperation with the ATF when they play half-way decent toward reasonable goals. The NSSF is gearing up for another "Don't lie for the other guy" campaign. My experiences with the ATF have all been positive even if there have been a few government bureaucracy moments.

I am of the opinion the ATF is unconstitutional and should be completely disbanded but that doesn't mean they don't do some good as well as the obvious harm. Ruby Ridge and Waco are just two of the worst instances, dozens, if not hundreds of incidents of abuse occur each year. But I don't really see the harm advocating gun dealers not sell to violent criminals or them asking for a sample of my explosives for forensic comparison (they haven't actually done this, but they said they might and I agreed to do so).

When the anti-gun bigots whine about people exercising their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms I think they should be asked, "Who has done more to catch criminals using guns and explosives for evil, anti-freedom advocates, or the "Merchants of Death"?

Via the apex of the Triangle of Death I just found out two-thirds of the nation’s attorneys general have filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in the case of NRA v. Chicago and hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

No doubt it was due to being encouraged by wheelbarrows full of cash. I know that was my motivation for posting the news.

In any case, having the states say, "Yes, the 2nd Amendment should be a restriction on the states as well as the Federal government" bodes well.

I wonder how the Brady Campaign, VPC, et al. are going to spin this. They probably will claim it had something to do with the wheelbarrows full of cash. If so, then it seems to me that the NRA should give those guys a few wheelbarrows and see if they can be encouraged to change their tune. After all it appears the Joyce Foundation is cutting back on funding and with all the new members the NRA should have more money available.

It's been up for less than a year and there aren't many guns there yet. But it's free to both sellers and buyers. GunListings.org.

It is a mark of modern ignorance to think that we have become progressively smarter.... Who is to say whether the task of tackling a problem without the benefit of a well-developed body of methods and information may not have required far greater intellectual vigor and originality than is needed [today] for proceeding from problem to problem within the safely established disciplines? Prehistoric, early historic, as well as medieval science have faced such a task.

Thomas Goldstein
The historian of science, not the other one.
[I would extend Goldstein's observation to politics. Compare the results of the U.S. Constitution to those advocated by Marx a few decades later and implemented a century or two later.

Modern ignorance. Yes, that describes what I see in politics today.--Joe]

A guy on our team speaks with a very noticeable German accent. I never thought much of it. Another guy is from South Vietnam, another from China, the new person on our team (just today) and my officemate are both from India. If there is anything unusual about the foreigners around the office is that they work harder than the U.S. born people. This guy is no exception. I see emails sent by him from late at night and all weekend.

But he stopped by to talk about stuff last Thursday and we ended up talking about where he grew up. He was born in East Germany. I hadn't realized that. For some reason I always thought of West Germany whenever I might have considered his origins. He hates the communists. "Communism makes people lazy. Yah!"

I said it always amazes me that experiment has been run so many times and resulted in 10s of millions dead and still people keep wanting to try it again. I told him of someone I know who told me they didn't think people should own their own houses. The government should own them and allocated them on the basis of need. This person told me, "You and Barb don't need such a big house. Some other family with a larger family needs it more than you do."

His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. "You tell them I lived that. You tell them to go visit this town. Yah!", and he showed me a town on a map of Germany. "Not one bomb was dropped on that town during the entire war", he said. "There was no fighting in that town. But if you go there that town looks like it was all bombed out. When people don't own their property they don't care. The roofs, they are all falling down. Yah! You tell him to go there and look for himself."

After he got married they applied to the housing allocation board for a place to live. There was "nothing available". But other people who applied after him got really nice places. But they were the children of the people on the board, and the people who had connections to people on the board. After two years the housing board told him that his parents had permission to make some changes to their place (I understood this to be partitions, plumbing, etc.) and then he and his wife could live there.

He told me he graduated, "The best in my class." But he couldn't get into college because his family weren't "good communists". He got a job in a picture tube factory (television sets I presume) and he did so well the company used its pull to get him a position in school. He got a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering. Then he got a PhD in Computer Science.

After the Germany's were reunited his father obtained his secret police file. Every letter to or from West Germany, where some of their family lived, was read and a summary was put in his file. He found out who had spied on him and who said things about him that put his loyalty to the communist party in doubt and stopped his career.

"Joe", he said, "People complain about how unequal things are with the rich executives in a capitalist society. But it's just the same under communism--it's the politically connected that have the money and the people that aren't connected don't have anything. I know. I lived it. Communism, it's very bad."

I need to ask what he thinks of the plans for health care and the take over of the banking industry, etc. in this country. That should be interesting.

Via Ben and his Dad, who do insurance for a living, liability insurance for people that concealed carry:

Comprehensive Firearms Liability Coverage For Holders of Concealed Carry Licenses

(currently available in AZ, CO & NM, TEXAS COMING SOON)

Nice:

An Iowa group once active in lobbying for gun control has disbanded after losing a major grant. The November 1st coalition began after the November 1, 1991 shootings on the University of Iowa campus and was later renamed Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence.

...

Honey says most recently the group has relied on volunteers to lobby the legislature. "There was a grant with the Joyce foundation for a period of close to a decade from the mid 90s well into this decade, and that funding did end," Honey said.

I wonder if the Joyce Foundation is cutting back on all their anti-gun funding or just some of them. Could it be they weren't getting their moneys worth from the Iowa group? I wonder if they are happy with the results of their grants to the Violence Policy Center, The Gun Guys, and The Brady Campaign. The Heller decision must be quite the "bone in their throat".

Markadelphia questioning my logical reasoning ability is like Helen Keller questioning my taste in music.

Robb Allen
July 4, 2009
In a comment to It's the End of the World as We Know It
[Markadelphia, for those that don't know, is a liberal who frequently makes comments at Kevin's place.

I am of the opinion that with the quote above Robb actually somewhat understates the situation.--Joe]