The View From North Central Idaho

David has some new wall paper up on his office wall (and here). He calls it "Wall o' Freedom".

Very nice.

But I'm biased.

I guess that the Democrats will try to pass the healthcare bill in Kennedy's name. Of course, if you want an accurate descriptor, they would call it the Mary Jo Kopechne Memorial health service, and patients would spend their lives getting taken for a ride by an elected official who will try their best to screw them, and then die while they wait for someone in the government to do the right thing.

'Doc' Russia
August 26, 2009
More gallows humor
[Via an email from Scott K.

I cannot think of a single thing to add to this.--Joe]

Suppose you are interested in improving your pistol scores in a game where time matters--a lot. USPSA, Steel Challenge, or IDPA for example.

How do you go about that? Well, practice, sure. But what do you practice? And how do you know what your weak areas are? It was several years ago (since this post is about precise units of time it was 12 years, 10 months and 1 day ago) but I took a class called Intensive Handgun Skills and learned some interesting things about this topic.

I'm not sure why but a lot of people spend a lot of time practicing their draw (I used to too). They will spend hours trying to shave another 0.1 or 0.2 seconds off their draw. 0.5 seconds faster? That would be awesome, right?

Maybe not. Let's do some simple arithmetic.

Suppose you are shooting a fairly simple stage such as El Presidente. You draw (and turn), shoot six rounds, reload, and shoot six more rounds.

That involves one draw, one reload, and ten splits. If you were to cut 0.05 seconds off each of your splits you are just as well off as if you had cut that awesome 0.5 seconds off of your draw or reload.

What about something even simpler? A Steel Challenge stage has five plates and involves drawing and shooting five rounds (assuming you hit them all with one shot). So that is one draw and four splits. In order to match that awesome 0.5 seconds you worked so hard to gain on your draw you need to improve your splits by only 0.125 seconds each.

That doesn't mean you can ignore your draw or reloads but it does mean, in absolute terms, your split times are generally more important than the draw and reloads.

But how much is there to be gained in your shooting? If you are already getting 0.25 second A-zone double taps on the USPSA target at 10 yards getting another 0.05 seconds represents a 20% improvement. If your draw is 2.5 seconds then 0.5 seconds also represents a 20% improvement to it. One might think that the effort involved should be about the same, 20% either way. Right?

It turns out that isn't true. Or at least that isn't the way to bet.

A better way to look at the problem is to compare yourself to other shooters and keep yourself "balanced". If you improve your weakest areas you will get a better return on your investment in practice time and ammo.

Here is a table they gave us (I added the "Calculated El Presidente" row) at that class nearly 13 years ago:

In the table above it is assumed you are getting all A-zone hits. If you aren't getting A-zone hits in practice you are going too fast. You should push yourself until you occasionally get a non-A hit but then you back off such that you are just on the edge.

So if you are already getting 0.25 second A-Zone double taps you are shooting at about 95% of the skill level of the best shooters in the world. But if your draw is 2.5 seconds you are at about the 55% level. If you spend your time on your draw you should be able to cut 0.5 seconds off of it much faster and easier than you could cut another 0.05 off of your splits. And probably you will get over a full second off of it without too much trouble.

This assumes you are using the proper technique. You may be hitting a "wall" because you are practicing the wrong thing. If you are way off "balance" and things aren't getting better as fast as you think they should then get some expert instruction to make sure you are practicing the right thing. Remember what Say Uncle said one year and five days ago.

Similar trade-offs can be made for determining what other skills you should practice.

Keep it balanced and practice the right things.

Sometimes when I read the news I think I'm back in jr. High school.  This time it feels like fourth grade elementary.  When I was in fourth grade, I observed a girl enjoying some canned cherries during lunch.  Unable, for whatever reason, to leave her in peace to enjoy her cherries, I walked close to her and said in a low voice; "You're eating cow guts".

Apparently this caused her to lose her appetite, and she was distressed enough to tell the teacher, who later called me on it.

Fast-forward to adulthood.  Today if you're enjoying a hamburger, you hear from the food Nazis; "That'll clog your arteries, contribute to deforestation in South America and pollute the atmosphere with methane (cow farts)."  You're enjoying a smoke; "That'll give you cancer and cause kids to have health problems, and you're supporting Big Corporations that are trying to keep you addicted and kill you for profit."  You're having a soda; "All that sugar will detonate your pancreas and make you fat."  You're having a diet soda; "Those artificial sweeteners will give you cancer."

"That car of yours is going to destroy the planet, you filthy planet killer you."

"Unsafe at any speed" etc., etc., "That salad you're eating is full of pesticides and that stuff was grown on corporate, industrial farms that have no regard for the planet..." etc., etc., etc.  It never ends, and if you're resistant to this crap, congratulations, if you can avoid getting the "Swine Flu" which happens to be just like any normal, run-of-the-mill flu, but ZOMG we're all gonna dieeee!

Today's reason not to enjoy yourself is that your candlelit dinner is going to give you cancer.  So quit enjoying yourself (you selfish twit) be afraid, and call your Congressman to demand something be done about "Big Candle" before the children all die and the puppies all get cancer just so someone can enjoy a nice candlelit dinner while people in (insert country) are starving.

And you leftists think you're all about rights and freedom and privacy and stuff.  I'm gonna tell the teacher on you.

I found a reference to this candle scare on Rush Limbaugh's site  (and there are some great comments at the Washington Times article on the subject) while looking for the fantastic quotes he found regarding Death Panels.  More on that later.

Someone is actually spending money and time to research candle pollution.  Wow.  Like no one knew that burning things releases combustion products into the air.  I find that the phrase, "too much free time" tends to spring to mind.

The Soldier

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag,
who serves under the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Father Denis Edward O'Brien
USMC
[Although O'Brien used the above poem in his writings he was apparently not the original author.

I'm reminded of this poem because, via Say Uncle, Take a Vet to Lunch is a worthy cause.--Joe]

Everyone knows what Russian Roulette is. But have you heard the joke about French Roulette? Yes, there is a real game by this name but many decades ago it was also a joke involving Bridget Bardot.

The post from Tamara this morning reminded me of the joke. I have modified it by substituting a different person for Bardot and it becomes "Gun Blogger Roulette" instead of French Roulette.

Q: Do you know how to play Gun Blogger Roulette?
A: Six guys take showers and you give them each a towel when they get out--one of the towels has Roberta X. in it.

Yeah, I know. I'm risking a lot with that.

It's all in good fun, right? Right? Please?

The bigots in New York and New Jersey routinely violate Federal law and arrest gun owners that attempt to check their guns in as baggage on commercial flights.

David Hardy has links to briefs in the lawsuit against them. The facts of the case will probably enrage you:

However, Torraco testified that Sgt. Goldberg’s first question was “Where is your New York license?”. Goldberg testified that he asked if Torraco had a New York permit, to which Torraco explained that under 18 U.S.C. § 926A, he did not need one.

Torraco urged Goldberg to call the state prosecutor or other person who would know about § 926A. Goldberg “told me federal law does not apply in the State of New York. He told me very condescendingly that he ain’t calling nobody and that I was in his jurisdiction.”

...

Defendant Officer Robert Paulsen arrived at the scene and requested, and was shown, Winstanley’s permits for the firearms and driver’s license. He asked Winstanley if he had an Arizona permit. Winstanley responded that he did not need a permit to carry a weapon openly in Arizona, but that he did have a Florida permit, which permitted him to carry a concealed weapon in Arizona. Paulsen disagreed, although he later testified that he was only trained in New York and New Jersey state law. Winstanley asked to speak to Paulsen’s supervisor. Paulsen told Winstanley that if he persisted in asking to speak to a supervisor, he would place him under arrest.

"Federal law does not apply in the State of New York" and "I was his jurisdiction". What if this was some big-bellied sheriff in Mississippi or Alabama saying that to a black guy and his wife peacefully going about their business?

I did note with some satisfaction the lawsuit "seeks to redress the deprivation, under color of the laws, statute, ordinances, regulations, customs and usages of the State of New York, of rights, privileges or immunities secured by the United States Constitution and by Acts of Congress." And that it is against the following organizations and individuals:

PORT AUTHORITY OF NY & NJ BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS; KENNETH J. RINGLER, JR., Executive Director, Port Authority of NY & NJ; PORT AUTHORITY POLICE DEPARTMENT; SAMUEL J. PLUMERI, JR., Director of Public Safety/Superintendent of Police, Port Authority Police Department; CHRISTOPHER TRUCILLO, Chief, Port Authority Police Department; Port Authority Police SERGEANT GOLDBERG; Port Authority Police Officer ANTHONY ESPINAL (shield # 2134); Port Authority Police Officer PAULSEN (shield # 2306); Port Authority Police Officer, unknown at present (shield #1400); Port Authority Police LIEUTENANT, unknown at present (Lieutenant John Doe IV); Port Authority Police SERGEANT, unknown at present (Jane Doe I); Port Authority Police Officer, unknown at present (John Doe I); Port Authority Police Officer, unknown at present (John Doe II); and Port Authority Police Officer, unknown at present (John Doe III)

Until the individual bigots involved start having to pay a price this sort of thing will not stop. Maybe this time they will get slapped down by the courts rather than merely having the charges against the gun owners dropped as is usual in these cases.

Even so, it is my intent to not set foot in New Jersey unless I can buy hunting tags for New Jersey law enforcement and politicians.

On Saturday daughter Kim and I went to the Boomershoot site to do some prep and infrastructure work. We also did the data reduction thing on this visit.

Kim folded another 300 boxes to be used as target containers:

That is a total of 1135 boxes we have ready for next year. We plan on making another 1007. Those numbers just boggle my mind. The first three Boomershoot combined only had about 1/10^th that number of targets.

I dug up the barrel used for cleaning water storage:

I rubbed the skin off my right thumb digging the hole. Kim offered me some gloves before I started digging but I figured my hands were tough enough to handle it. I was wrong.

I didn't dig the hole entirely by hand...

I managed to misjudge where the barrel was and mangled the barrel with the backhoe pretty badly. But I didn't damage it enough that it required repairs or replacement:

We thought we had a leak because the drain tile should have filled the tank with spring run-off but there was no water in it when we wanted it for Boomershoot 2009. As near as we could tell we did not have a leak at the outlet pipe as I suspected:

I now suspect that the tile overflow was actually more of a bypass than an overflow. We put in several gallons of water that we know went into the barrel and will go back in a couple weeks and see if there is still water in it. If there is then I will just modify the inlet/overflow and fill up the hole again.

Also on my next on-site visit I will be taking the bulldozer over to enhance the shooters berm. It needs to be made deeper and a little wider.

Senator Ted Kennedy died yesterday.

Posts from gun bloggers on this topic:

• Mary Jo Kopechne's killer finally called to account.
• Ted Kennedy Est Mortuus
• Not Going to Have Ted Kennedy to Kick Around Anymore
• No loss
• Ted Kennedy is dead
• Sic Semper Tyrannis
• Ted Kennedy Dead
• I’m not going to say anything
• Breda (no titles on her posts)

Kennedy was a vehement foe of gun owners. I gave him a little slack because two of his brothers were murdered by people with guns. But he used that all up, and more, with his treatment of women in general and Kopechne in particular.

Update: More gun bloggers have something to say:

• MAY HE BURN IN HELL FOREVER....
• Sileo In Abyssus
• Am I a bad person?
• Teddy K passes away
• Quote of the day:
• another dead criminal
• My only thoughts on Ted Kennedy
• Big, fat hairy deal.
• Teddy, RIP

There is no constitutional right to carry a firearm. This is not even close on the constitutional scale — I have a right to carry a firearm wherever I go — it’s just not.

Jim Kessler
Of Third Way
August 25, 2009
Guns near Obama fuel 'open-carry' debate
[This is what I (and others, I forget where I originally saw it) call "Proof by vigorous assertion". It is most frequently used by two-year olds and in most cases is out-grown by age four. Mr. Kessler's development was apparently retarded.

The article claims Third Way is "the successor organization to the gun-control group Americans for Gun Safety" (see also the Wikipedia entry). It's nice that someone in the MSM (in this case MSNBC) is finally admitting AGS was anti-gun rather than an organization that intended to "promote responsible gun ownership". It's also interesting that if you go to the AGS Foundation website (http://www.agsfoundation.com/) you are redirected to Third Way and a pop-up informs you:

For current gun safety data and other information, we recommend the American Hunters and Shooters Association, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

For someone to simultaneously recommended AHSA with the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations tells you all you need to know about AHSA--unless you wanted to know how many members this "national grassroots organization has". According to their Wikipedia entry, in 2005, it was less than 150.--Joe]

A couple weeks ago I wrote about evidence that niece Lisa shared genes with me.

Today she applied for a concealed weapons permit.

Which reminds me. I never mentioned that at the last Boomershoot daughter Kim was stopped by the police while driving to Orofino. I think it was a headlight that was out...

Anyway, the police officer said nice things to Kim about having a concealed weapons permit.

I'm so proud of both of them.

[The County should not] provide a place for people to display guns for worship as deities for the collectors who treat them as icons of patriotism.

Mary King
July 20, 1999
Attributed to an Alameda County Press Release in plaintiff's brief.
[Reading the brief was enlighting to me. The case isn't really about a misguided attempt in "preventing crime" or accidental shootings. The county even admits that isn't the reason. It's about bigotry and deliberate repression of free expression. This gives me hope that the 9^th circuit giving the case another look might not be about throwing out the 2^nd Amendment incorporation finding.--Joe]

You've heard the 200 million guns in this country before, right? The anti-gun people fainted and after they woke up they told anyone that would listen there was approaching almost one gun for every man, woman, and child in the country. We of course were concerned as well because that meant some of us weren't doing our part and buying enough guns to arm all the neighbors in case of a Zombie attack.

Alan points out that maybe the numbers were actually understated:

The lamestream media has been claiming for years and years there are about 200 million guns in America. With about 100 million sold in just the past decade, even the brain dead can tell the media is just parroting a number without doing any research. At the very least, they should up the numbers from time to time, no?

If I recall correctly the 200 million number is an estimate at least partially based on survey results. If so then people are going to under report the number of guns in their homes.

That would explain 100 million sold in the past decade when the destruction, loss, confiscation rate is certainly going to be far, far below that.

I'm feeling better now. When the Zombies attack I want a gun and a back up gun with lots of ammo available for everyone. It appears we have almost enough guns now and we can start stocking up on the ammo now.

Alan Korwin has a really good post about the guy with the AR-15 in Arizona. As Alan lives in the area he knows a little more about the guy than the rest of us.

I just love the media interactions Alan had after the event:

Chicago’s WGN couldn’t believe we have the right to keep and bear arms out here. I had to tell them most places have RKBA, a surprise to them in their little cloister. “Do people shoot each other on the streets a lot?” They actually asked that. These folks aren’t in a bubble, they’re in a vacuum, they get nothing. “With your new guns-in-bars law, which has created quite a commotion here in Chicago, are there shootouts in bars?” I'm not making this up.

...

A Chicago caller to the show asks, “Well do you carry your golf clubs or exercise equipment into a restaurant?” This imbecile actually thinks he’s making sense. Gun ignorance has so blinded him, this is how he uses his 30 seconds of fame. I tell him of course I don’t. So he concludes, “See, you’re full of baloney,” and hangs up. He’s not even thinking rationally, and is convinced he’s right. Does he even know what the shooting sports are? I don't think so.

WGN mentions that in Chicago, NYC, and DC, where the major news orgs are based, this black-man-with-a-black-gun thing strikes them as stunning. Coincidentally these three cities are among the most repressive civil rights deniers in the nation -- and they have the gun-crime records to show for it. Guns are virtually banned for the innocent, yet armed criminals run around at will. But they cannot connect the dots.

So let me ask them. “Why aren’t the people who stole your rights arrested?”

Seattle Mayor Nickels is not only one of Bloomberg's mayors against guns but is very active on his own. He believes he is above the state preemption law on firearms. He even hinted he believe his city should be considered as a state it in the meeting with him at work that I attended. After he answered my question he went on to say the population of Seattle was just as large as entire states were at the time the colonies became a nation and as such justification to be able to make laws just as freely as a state made sense. And beyond that he said he would ban guns from city property, including parks and other public areas, by executive order. When gun rights groups referred to him as wanting to be a king they were right.

His Majesty got a taste of reality in the primary election last week with some help from Seattle gun owners:

Seattle gun owners can take much credit for the ouster of anti-gun Mayor Greg Nickels in this week’s primary election, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said this morning following what amounted to a concession speech at his press conference.

Nickels came in third in the city’s “Top Two” primary, signaling that voters in Seattle were fed up with his bully pulpit style, and perhaps more than anything, his arrogance, said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. No single episode has better underscored that haughtiness than the mayor’s open defiance of Washington State law that denied him the authority to set up the city’s own restrictive gun laws.

“When the mayor announced last year that he would ban legally-carried firearms from city property when he knew it would be contrary to the state’s preemption statute,” Gottlieb recalled, “it made tens of thousands of Seattle gun owners furious. Nickels insulted their intelligence by promising to ban guns by executive order, which is the height of municipal contempt for the rights of citizens under the state Constitution. He literally threw away their votes.”

CCRKBA Projects Director Thomas McKiddie, a West Seattle resident, said he and his gun-owning fellow Seattleites had simply had enough of the mayor’s condescension toward their rights to be safe on city streets, in parks and on other public property.

“I don’t know a single gun owner in Seattle who voted for Nickels,” McKiddie said. “After he threatened an executive order, he lost the nerve to actually issue one because he knew he would lose that fight in court. Instead, he included gun prohibitions in use contracts for the Seattle Center and other venues. He knew a citywide ban would be unenforceable, and his ouster demonstrates that Seattle gun owners were having none of it.”

“We hope this sends a signal to Nickels’ successor,” Gottlieb observed, “that stirring the wrath of gun owners is a mistake. This week’s primary result in Seattle should stand as a warning to other mayors who signed on with New York’s Michael Bloomberg to trample the firearms rights of their constituents.

“Mayors are not monarchs,” Gottlieb concluded. “They are not above the law. Greg Nickels is going to have a long time to think about that, as he watches this election season from the sidelines.”

As near as I can tell from the other candidates websites here and here guns weren't an issue in the campaign. My guess is they don't want them to be an issue either. If they say nothing more about them that would be fine with me.

The Second Amendment Foundation announced today they have joined the Montana Shooting Sports Association in suing the Federal government to stop enforcing gun laws against guns and ammo that stays entirely within the state of Montana.

The article in the Missoulian elaborates:

That the guns and ammo not be used outside Montana is important, Gottlieb said. So far, the federal government has justified federal control over guns by citing the "interstate commerce clause," which states that the federal government can regulate commerce between the states.

But if a gun will not be leaving Montana, there is no "interstate commerce" and the federal government has no standing to enforce its laws, Gottlieb said.

Marbut said he'll planning to file suit in Montana federal court the day the law goes into effect. He said he's received letters from Montanans interested in making their own guns, but who aren't sure the new law will protect them from federal prison time.

This makes perfect sense to anyone that hasn't read the Federal case law that came out of the 1930s (and since). But after hearing about the case law in which a farmer growing wheat on his own land for his own use was found to be engaging in Interstate commerce you realize we have a much higher hurdle to clear with this sort of lawsuit. That one case was just the beginning. There have been thousands of cases and laws built upon that one finding. How can a gun rights case find a niche in that "wall"?

Everyone I have talked to about this thinks the Firearms Freedom Acts (Montana and Tennessee so far) are only good for entertainment value. But SAF throwing it's weight behind this causes me some doubt. Sure, it makes great copy for fundraising. But so would a lot of other gun lawsuits that are lost causes. I've had a lot of "behind the scenes" conversations with the SAF people over the years and while I acknowledge fundraising is one of their objectives I know they are smart enough to not back a completely lost cause. Winning lawsuits is far better for fundraising than losing a case no matter how noble a cause.

Perhaps my email to Gottlieb's and my Senator, Patty Murray, convinced her to pull a few strings on her end in Washington as well.

A couple months ago I suggested people buy their "assault knife" now because of proposed regulations that might make many folding pocket knives illegal.

I posted that I had just made my bulk purchase from The Blade Shop. In the comments people reported there were many people who had delivery and customer service problems with that particular outlet. I received my knives within a few days and thought that they had gotten their act together and that there was no need to be concerned.

That was two months ago.

Today I received this email from reader Ben:

I have read your blog for a long time now and very much appreciate your knowledgeable writing on firearms and explosives.

Several months ago you posted a snippet about how you picked up several knives from a place called The Blade Shop. Since I was in the market, I took your suggestion for the place to buy the knifes. I ended up ordering $165 in knives from them. It is now two months later and I have not receive anything except excuses.

After several weeks of not having received anything, including a status update on merchandise being back ordered I emailed them asking what was going on. They responded that one of the items was on back order and it would be a couple of weeks. After that deadline had come and gone I asked again. They said that item was still on back order. I asked to be refunded the money for that particular knife and send the rest on their merry way. The person at the other end said that they were going to refund the money and ship the others, but that it would take 10-14 days for the refund to go through. Now three weeks later I don't have a refund or any knifes.

I will be calling my credit card company today and asking for them to reverse the charges. They have a 2 month policy, thankfully I am a few days inside of that.

Please spread the word that at least some people are having difficult with this particular shop.

Thank you,

Ben

Rats.

Sorry about that.

They used to say that the difference between conservatives and liberals were that conservatives thought liberals were stupid, and liberals thought conservatives were evil. Now it would seem they think conservatives are terrorists.

Sebastian
August 24, 2009
The Media’s Shallow Understanding
[I suspect it isn't really "shallow understanding". It's about attempting to demonize in any way possible those who oppose their agenda. People believe what they want to believe and anything that supports their belief system will be latched onto with far less fact checking than if it contradicted their belief system. I've been guilty of this too. But there have also been times when I thought (borrowing a literary tool from Say Uncle), "Self, this is too good to be true. You better check this out." And nearly every time it was too good to be true.

In the case of the present day "militia movement" I can't help but remember in the mid-90s I knew the names of several different militias both in the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the country. I read about them, by name, in the paper and heard about them in the social circles I communicated with. I saw their displays at gun shows. I occasionally even talked to member of militias. This time? The only "militia movement" I have heard about all traces back to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I think it's too good to be true for the left and they latched onto it without checking into it. Someone should check it out and, if my hunch is correct, slap them down. With appropriate timing and proper location it could be a good political tool.--Joe]

On Friday my officemate told me Kris had just stopped by and left something for me. I found a damaged Pocket PC with a note on it asking that I do an Idaho Stress Test on it. I contacted Kris via IM for more details. The screen had been damaged and was completely non-functional. There was company sensitive data on the device which needed to be destroyed and Kris wanted me to do this for him.

On Saturday daughter Kimberly and I went to the Boomershoot site and, among other things, destroyed the data for Kris. I also had a hard disk that was in similar need of "data reduction" and we deleted the data on both items at the same time.

Tomorrow I'll deliver the pieces Kim and I found to Kris but for the rest of you here are a few pictures assembled into a video:

Looks like Jackson Pollack threw up in here.

Tamara K.
August 24, 2008
Referring to all the previous use of Simunitions in the Blackwater 360 degree shoothouse.
[I want to do the "Blackwater thing" with all the gun bloggers again. That was really fun.--Joe]

Ry says, "facepalm". There are other phrases that could be used to describe the act of giving your attacker the ammunition to shoot at you with:

• Dummer than dirt.
• Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
• Not the coldest ice cube in the tray.
• Not the greenest tree in the Forest.
• A few bricks shy of a load.
• Head whistles when the wind blows.
• A few clowns short of a circus.
• A few fries short of a Happy Meal.
• An experiment in Artificial Stupidity.
• A few beers short of a six-pack.
• Dumber than a box of hair.
• A few peas short of a casserole.
• The wheel's spinning, but the hamster's dead.
• Has an IQ of 2, but it takes 3 to grunt.
• Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.
• He fell out of the Stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.
• An intellect rivaled only by garden tools.
• As smart as bait.
• Chimney's clogged.
• Forgot to pay his brain bill.
• His antenna doesn't pick up all the channels.
• His belt doesn't go through all the loops.
• If he had another brain, it would be lonely.
• No grain in the silo.
• Receiver is off the hook.
• Too much yardage between the goal posts.

As a strong supporter of the country's National Parks System, I just don't see a logical reason why anyone would want to carry a concealed weapon into such naturally beautiful places like Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Redwoods, Crater Lake, Grand Teton or any of the national parks.

Is someone seriously afraid of being accosted or robbed by Old Faithful or El Capitan? Are there criminals hiding out in the Petrified Forest?

These places should be off limits to such practices because of the presence of children. Just because you have the right to pack heat on a vacation doesn't mean you should.

Chuck Bloom
Plano, Texas
... but what about the children?
August 21, 2009
[A extraordinary clear example of scrambled thinking on the gun issue. Perhaps the reason he doesn't see a logical reason for carrying a gun in the national parks is because he is severely logic impaired.

What does being "a strong supporter of the country's National Parks System" or their natural beauty have to do with concluding there is no "logical reason" to carry a concealed weapon?

Even his straw-men of "being accosted or robbed by Old Faithful or El Capitan" is extraordinarily weak.

Criminal do their thing where they have the opportunity, means, and high probability of accomplishing their goal. If their thing involves robbing or hurting people the remote location and disarmed status of their victims in the remote parks can be good hunting grounds. One does not have life insurance for only when their risk is high, such as when traveling by car. They have life insurance for all occasions. And so it is with carrying defensive tools. If you knew you were going to be attacked you wouldn't go there. But you don't know so you carry defensive tools wherever and whenever you can. And not all of the threats are human:

Sign in Glacier National Park

Bear in Glacier National Park.

And finally, "because of the presence of children"? Come on, can any anti-gun person offer a plausible defense for that statement? Do children not need to be defended against violent attacks? Is it better to let them be injured or killed than for them to see a bear get shot? Is it better for them to see their mother raped and/or killed than to see the attacker stopped in his tracks by a gun in the hands of his or her parents?

I actually did use my gun while hiking through a state park with my kids several years ago. There was a rattlesnake near the edge of the trail. It was a threat both to us and other hikers that perhaps would not have seen and avoided it. From a safe distance I put a 9mm FMJ bullet through it's head. The kids did not seem to have suffered any short or long term adverse effects from the use of the gun in their presence. They even seemed relieved after the threat was neutralized.--Joe]

As pointed out by others MSNBC cropped the video of the black guy with a rifle at the Obama protest down enough to not show his skin color. Then they talked about gun owners being white racists against Obama.

I have to wonder what the basis for that belief was and why they would put effort into falsifying the evidence to fit their, obviously, false beliefs. Do they think they have some sort of telepathy such they can read the minds of others? Or is it as Say Uncle pointed out:

So, you were assigning stereotypes to a broad group of people? Supposedly trying to address bigotry in this country while being bigoted yourself seems to lessen your point. It’s OK, they’re only gun owners.

Although there are a people who believe they have telepathic powers I believe projection is far more common and all the evidence appears to fit that diagnosis.

Projection is very common in the anti-gun camp and it's one of the first thing you should look for when you encounter an anti-gun person. Do they say they are afraid of what someone might do if they carried a gun while at a school/church/restaurant/wherever? The evidence is overwhelming that people with guns in those places do nearly exactly the same things that other people without guns do in those places. It's actually their fear of what they might do if they had a gun in those places. Never mind that a police officer with a gun in the same location is just fine for nearly all of these people--disregarding the fact that police officers accidently shoot innocent people at a much higher rate than private citizens do.

So in this case the media representatives feel, without a factual basis, badly toward gun owners. They then search for something that could justify their bad feelings. Racism is an easy "hook to hang their hat on" since there once was a great deal of racism against people of color in this country and President Obama has the necessary pigmentation to be a target of white racists. But it's the feelings of the media that drove the conclusion that someone else must be racists rather than the evidence of racism that drove their feelings.

This can be generalized to freedom in general. People are afraid of making their own decisions and they attempt restrict others decisions via some "wiser" authority with the justification being that someone else might make a bad decision--regardless of the fact that government "one size fits all" decisions for nearly everything cost more and are less effective than private solutions. Hence because of their feelings of fear of their own decision making ability drove the demands that others not make decisions for themselves rather than actual fear of others making their own decisions.

I suppose another psychological model that could be applied is one of stress reduction. It's more stressful to believe that you are bigoted than to falsify the evidence to indicate someone else is bigoted.

In the case of the generalized freedom issue the stress reduction model works there too. It's impossible to predict the future in any detail so having someone else to blame for making the wrong decision relieves the stress of making the, possibly wrong, decision yourself--even if the situation of nearly everyone is worse than if they made their own decisions. It appears to be more stressful for many people to see a disparity of outcomes than for everyone to have the same bad outcome. As a friend, Susan K., told me many years ago there are people who would rather everyone earns $1.00/hour than for the minimum wage in a truly free market (no government imposed minimum wage) to be $100/hour if there were other people earning $10,000/hour. I found this hard to believe but I'm now convinced it is true as long as there is some method by which the person desiring this sort of outcome can put some sort of whitewash, such as using phrases such as "social justice", over the ugly truth.

As a side note I've heard it said that Bill Gates earned, on the average, about $100/second or $360K/hour while at Microsoft. This may have contributed to the great pressure put on Microsoft by the U.S. Justice Department during the 1990s and the European Union legal action that continues to this day.

Human psychology is a strange thing. What we call rational thought and socialization is only a very thin veneer over something far, far different which it pokes its ugly head through the veneer far more frequently than we realize.