The View From North Central Idaho

Sometimes when your battles are going too well you have to wonder if there is an ambush being prepared. We won Heller, incorporation looks like a shoe-in, we (will soon) be able to take guns in National Parks, and the police, in some jurisdictions, can be sued if they even temporarily detain someone for openly carrying a gun. Except for Heller all of that occurred since "the most anti-gun administration in U.S. history" took power.

As thrilled as I am about all the progress we have been making it also makes me a little bit paranoid. Certainly the administration has lots of other high priority tasks facing it. The economy, the war, and the self-flagellation of advocating more government control of health care probably does distract from their campaign promise of attacking gun owners. And certainly a case could be made for incompetence for accomplishing anything other than getting elected. But could it be the administration have some clever, nefarious plan to make all our civil rights gains moot?

If so, it probably can't be through the legislature and the courts. It would have to be something like martial law, emergency powers, or possibly an international treaty. Such a treaty is being discussed again:

Seven countries have launched a campaign for the U.N. to start negotiations on a new treaty regulating the global arms trade to help prevent the illegal transfer of guns that kill and maim thousands every day.

...

According to a report published this week by the British relief agency Oxfam and 11 other non-governmental organizations, some 2.1 million people -- overwhelmingly civilians -- have died either directly or indirectly as a result of armed violence since the General Assembly first voted in December 2006 to work toward a treaty regulating the growing, multibillion dollar arms trade.

This is the equivalent of more than 2,000 people dying every day -- worse than one person killed each minute, the report said.

"There is an overflow of government sponsored and private illegal armies, ethnic militias and non-state guerrilla forces," former U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland, who now heads the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, said in a forward to the report.

"And they are supplied as never before with lethal weapons by reckless states," Egeland said. "Only a forceful, unambiguous and verifiable convention can control transfers and do away with the networks of illegal arms brokers that supply our generation's weapons of mass killings and mass misery."

Duncan said that after three years of discussions, Britain, Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan and Kenya have proposed a resolution establishing negotiations to draft and agree on a treaty.

The idea of a treaty "is still contentious," Duncan said. But supporters are hoping the disarmament committee will support the resolution and the 192-member General Assembly will approve the measure later this year. That would pave the way for negotiations leading up to an international conference in 2012 that would hopefully adopt the new treaty.

Last year, the assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a working group to move toward negotiations by a vote of 147-2, with the U.S. and Zimbabwe casting "no" votes. Others were either absent or abstained.

Whether President Barack Obama's administration will now back negotiations remains to be seen.

Gun control is a hotly contentious issue in the United States, where the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizens the right to "keep and bear arms," and powerful lobby groups routinely oppose almost every effort to restrict gun sales and ownership -- and usually win.

Supporters of a new treaty stress that it will not interfere with legal arms sales but will target illegal weapons transfers.

What these people apparently fail to consider is the number of people that are killed because of gun control. Even in their own numbers above they are including deaths by governments intent exterminating people because of racial and/or religious differences which could have been prevented had the oppressed been able to defend themselves.

Probably the biggest risk of the treaty to U.S. gun owners is such a treaty will almost certainly require that guns be registered so their movement can be carefully tracked. Registration must never be allowed. The risk is just too high. Remember my Jews In The Attic Test and just say no until you are out of ammo.

In reality, you either do or you do not advocate government control over the right to keep and bear arms, you either do or do not support the second amendment, and you either do or you do not advocate a nanny state-- you either do or do not embrace the principles of the Left. Any attempt to place yourself "in the middle" puts you in agreement with the basic principles (rationalizations) of those who would violate your and your neighbors’ rights.

Why can't we all just get along? Because some people want their liberty and others want to control everyone. Are you going to stand on the side of liberty or on the side of the aggressors? Pick one, or stay the hell out of the way.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
October 10, 2009
Comment on Quote of the day--John Hardin
[Actually I put myself "in the middle". But that is because Lyle is using a different definition of "the middle" than the one I use. In actuality a strict and literal interpretation of the Second Amendment is "the middle ground".--Joe]

I played the word substitution game in this opinion piece in hopes it communicates how my blood pressure rises when I read about repression of gun ownership:

A preview of the argument is made in a case making its way through the federal courts. It challenges the District of Columbia’s gun ni**er law, which was revised after the Supreme Court’s prior action. It allows handgun ni**er permits only for residents who intend to use the guns for self-defense at home allow them to visit in their homes. It still bans people from carrying guns ni**ers around the nation’s capital, where each year millions of tourists, schoolchildren, visiting officials and foreign dignitaries come to conduct business, immerse themselves in history or celebrate spring amid the splendor of cherry blossoms.

...

“They want to establish a constitutional right to take any gun ni**er, anywhere, at any time,” says Dennis Henigan, vice president of law and policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Ni**er Violence. “They want to force that into every nook and cranny of American society.”

Many Americans were unnerved at the sight of gun-toting ni**er protesters at health care discussion forums and even outside of events where Obama was appearing in the summer. The cheerless truth is that the gun ni**er lobby, with the probable blessing of the Supreme Court, proudly promises more of the same.

Uh,huh. And no supporter of abortion should ever make a decision over abortion, or a supporter or illegal immigration should make a decision over amnesty for illegals, or a gay person should make a decision over gay issues, and on, and on...

Show us Mr. Henigan why the judge's judgment has been impaired and then we can talk. Until then your opinion smells of bigotry.

RWB
October 10, 2009
In response to Dennis Henigan saying, "I don't think gun dealers should be deciding the constitutionality of gun laws". From the comment section of the article Justice who wrote gun decision is a gun dealer.
[This comment wouldn't normally make the cut for my QOTD but the bigotry meme made me smile. It's the proper state of mind for dealing with the anti-gun people.--Joe]

Take a tactics class, do some scenario-based training, but don’t buy yet another gizmo expecting that it will somehow solve a problem better dealt with by behavior-based training.

Kevin Kerkam
October 8, 2009
Comment to Concealed Carry Identifiers
[This reminds me of when I first started working for Microsoft and participated in pistol shooting leagues. Almost everyone at MS that were in one of the leagues would get involved in on-line discussions about what gun and/or ammo would be best for the league. They had more money than time and tried to throw money at a training problem. I was shooting my Ruger P89 (see the web page of my activities at the time here). I shot in two and sometimes three league matches a week, practiced before every match, and took numerous classes. After a couple years the other guys were debating if they should buy another $2K gun and I had 30K rounds through my pistol and was winning most of the matches. I finally did buy the $2K STI when I was certain the pistol was holding me back.--Joe]

I received an email today from Dave Mason that I thought people might be interested in:

OPI is proud to announce the expansion of our Exploding Target line! In addition to the Rifle targets, we are now offering Rimfire, Pistol, and Exploding Clay Targets.

Our Rifle Targets are the 1 pound, and 2 pound targets everyone has come to appreciate as the ground shaking confirmation of a good shot.

Added to these traditional targets are the Rimfire and Pistol Targets. By popular demand, these targets will detonate when hit with something as small as a .22 CB round or even the fat, slow .45 round. These are available in a 10 pack, but MUST be mixed individually, on the range. These targets are $25.00 for 10 targets, shipping included to the lower 48 states.

We also have Exploding Clay Targets for the shotgun shooters out there. These targets attach to your clays and CANNOT BE USED with automatic launching equipment. You must use hand or spring launchers as you cannot stack the targets. These targets are also $25.00 for 10 targets, shipping included to the lower 48 states.

A word about our New Web-Site: The good news is that is has been completely revamped and looks amazing, including the long requested on-line shopping cart for convenience. The bad news is that it still has a few kinks and is a work in progress. Namely, a few of the pages are coming up, even on our home and business computers, with a security certificate error. There is not a security risk posed by the website, however, please feel free to contact us via e-mail at sales@ozarkpyro.com as alternative ordering method.

In the Research and Development department: Designed primarily for Patrick Flanigan (http://www.patrickflanigan.com) we are back working on explosive fireball and various colored explosions for Patrick’s shows. As soon as we can get these targets in a consumer friendly format, I’ll let you know so that you can buy them too!

Our next Thunder In The Hills was scheduled for 17 October 2009 but there is no way that we can pull it off as we are so busy at this point. We hope to have a spring shoot next year.

For business owners and entrepreneurs out there, join our growing list of distributors and purchase at wholesale prices for sales in your store and/or at gun shows. Please e-mail us for an information packet about what OPI can offer your business!

 

Sincerely,

Dave Mason
President
Ozark Pyrotechnics, Inc.
P.O. Box 118
Hartville, MO 65667-0118
417-741-1142
http://www.OzarkPyro.com
http://www.ThunderInTheHills.info

I've had lots and lots of request for "Shotgun Boomers" and I put a couple of days worth of effort into it without success. Dave apparently has it figured out and is offering them for sale. I can occasionally get a pistol to detonate the boomers but that usually requires that you be entertainingly close and I don't recommend that unless you fill out your nomination form for a Darwin award beforehand. And for rimfire detonation of our targets it requires a rifle, high velocity ammo, and close ranges.

I have this "thing" about encouraging people to learn precision long range shooting and just don't have that much interest in the shotgun and pistol side of things. The "clean up"/high-intensity events came about because it wasn't that much additional effort for me and so many people wanted to do it. I don't really "get it" like I do the long range stuff but if that gets you fired up then Dave's your man.

Please check the laws in your state/county before you decide to buy exploding targets. I would hate to have contributed to you having unexpected "quality time" with your local law enforcement officer. And please be very, very careful with them.

First they came for the machine guns, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and who needs a machine gun to hunt with?

Then they came for the "assault weapons," and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700 and who needs an "assault weapon" to hunt with?

Then they came for the .50 caliber rifles, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and who wants to hunt with a .50 caliber rifle anyway (apart from those black powder nuts)?

Then they came for the semiautomatic handguns, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and who hunts with a pistol? (Though those big-bore hunting revolvers are kinda neat, in a sick way.)

Then they came for the rest of the semiautomatic rifles, and I didn't speak up because I have a Remington 700, and anyone who needs more than one shot isn't a real hunter.

Then they came for the high-power sniper rifles; and even though my Remington 700 has a scope, and fires a round that will go through a car door, and I can hit the eye of an elk at 500 yards with it (not that I'm bragging or anything), the Second Amendment _says_ we can have guns for hunting, and I only use it one week a year for _hunting_.

But there was no one left to speak up for me, and they took it away.

John Hardin
November 14, 2008
The lament of the AHSA supporter
[I was reminded of this today when I was listening to Breda and Top of the Chain on Gun Nuts: Road show talking about going to GRPC and the discussion there about normalizing the ownership of "Evil Black Rifles".--Joe]

In just six months we have gained still more public support for regaining our civil rights:

According to Rasmussen, only 39 percent of Americans believe the country needs stricter gun laws. That’s down from 43 percent only six months ago.
Democrats still emerge as the party of gun control, with 65 percent of respondents claiming Democrat affiliation supporting tighter gun laws while 69 percent of identified Republicans and 62 percent of independents do not support more gun laws.

“It’s ironic that the Chicago case just went to the Supreme Court,” Gottlieb noted, “while Rasmussen tells us that only 20 percent of adults believe city governments have a right to prevent citizens from owning handguns.”


Sixty-nine percent say city governments do not have that authority, and 11 percent were undecided, the poll disclosed.

“This suggests that those who support a handgun ban in Chicago are way out of the mainstream,” Gottlieb said. “Gun control is a losing proposition, for the public that wants to fight back against criminals, and especially for anti-gun politicians who cling to that failed philosophy as the nation leaves them behind.”

We cannot ease off. We must make these bigots as much outcasts as the KKK is today. Have the proper state of mind and keep up the fight.

This week I'll be doing my share by taking two people to the range tonight then some people from work are going to Idaho with me this weekend for a private Boomershoot party.

We’d like to retire that word [redistribute] from the political vocabulary because you can’t redistribute something that is already highly socialized, and wealth and income in the “era of knowledge-based growth” (whoever ends up “owning” it) is indeed highly socialized. Most importantly (and more to the point), individual productivity is increasingly dependent on what can only be described as a collective good, a common inheritance of knowledge. No one deserves to benefit from this common inheritance more than anyone else, by moral definition, because it’s not created by any individual. So, to the extent that inherited knowledge (“technical progress in the broadest sense,” as Solow termed it) is increasingly driving economic growth, the fruits of knowledge—the wealth being generated by knowledge—should be more equally shared. Wealth that is commonly created should be equally, or at least more equally, shared.

Lew Daly
Via AmericanMercenary in the post What the hell is "Social Justice"?
[This is very scary stuff. Strip away just a little bit of the fluff and it's, From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Just reading the praise for the book you realize these people not only have zero respect for the right to own property but they don't believe you even have a right to your own thoughts. This is what inspires thoughts of Atlas Shrugged. In this book the people of the mind went on strike. Those that contributed through the power of their creative minds declared those that demanded the product of their minds through the force of government had received their last handout. You can force someone to work but you can't force them to think.

After reading of people like Daly I don't just long for a John Galt but a Ragnar Danneskjöld as well.--Joe]

From Time magazine:

National Rifle Association v. Chicago / McDonald v. Chicago
At issue: Second Amendment rights to gun ownership.

A pair of cases challenge Chicago's 27-year-old ban on handgun sales within the city limits. Originally designed to curb violence in the city, the ban has long irked Second Amendment advocates, who take an expansive view of the amendment's wording that the "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." But the Supreme Court had long held that the Second Amendment pertained only to federal laws, until a 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller struck down a ban on handguns and automatic weapons in Washington, D.C. The ruling marked the first time the Supreme Court acknowledged an individual right to bear arms, and it opened the door for these challenges to the Chicago regulation.

Do you notice anything wrong with that?

Bad question. It would be easier to answer, "Do you notice anything right with that?" But I'll answer the harder question:

• It's not just or even primarily about a ban on handgun sales within the city limits. It a ban on possession within the city limits.
• D.C. v. Heller had nothing to do with automatic weapons -- unless you want to abide by D.C. definition of automatic weapon which included semi-autos.
• This was not the first time the SC acknowledged an individual right to bear arms. Check out U S v. Cruikshank which said "The right there specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress." Or even U S v. Miller which allowed Miller had standing. See also An individual right.

It is very, very rare that when I read an article in the MSM where I know a fair amount about the topic that I don't see substantial errors in the presentation of the material. I can only conclude the articles where I don't know all that much about the material are also filled with errors. Hence, I cannot trust the MSM to provide me facts. Facts are apparently irrelevant to them.

Kevin made a post about this in the last year or so with, IIRC, a fancy name. I only had about three hours of sleep last night and am much too tired and cranky to go looking for it. And I still have more work work to do tonight...

Just so we're all clear;

Such is the state of today's most critical issues: political rights versus "economic rights".  It's either or.  One destroys the other.  But there are, in fact, no "economic rights," no "collective rights," no "public-interest rights".  The term "individual rights" is a redundancy: there is no other kind of rights and no one else to possess them.

Those who advocate laissez-faire capitalism are the only advocates of man's rights.

Ayn Rand - from the appendix "Man's Rights" in her book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"

If you don't have a copy, get one.  The first copy I saw had every other sentence or paragraph highlighted by the owner.  It's that kind of book.  It was written back in the 1960s, though it seems to be directly addressing our current crop of idiots, moonbats, loons, thugs, bounders, cads, hucksters and charlatans in Washington (to say nothing of the Democrats).

The FTC has declared they are the ethics police for bloggers:

Certainly, it seems like this is an update that’s time has come. While most well-run social media programs already include appropriate disclosure, there’s still no shortage of unscrupulous marketers using deceptive practices to sell products. Now, with the threat of serious fines, those who look to push the boundaries of ethical blogging will be doing so at their own risk.

I wonder if those advocating more government regulation are required to disclose their voting history, tax filings, and political donations.

It's possible there are few lines of some of my prototype code that made it through to release. I'm not certain. Windows Mobile 7 will have significant input from me.

Here are the details:

AT&T today announced two new smartphones based on Microsoft Inc.'s new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, HTC's Tilt 2 and Pure (see images, below.)

AT&T didn't announce full details for all six new phones, but said the HTC Pure is now available at AT&T stores for $150 after rebates, and the HTC Tilt 2 will cost $300 after rebates. Both require a smartphone data plan commitment and a $40 or higher voice plan in order to receive the rebates.

6.5 is a big step in the right direction and 7.0 will be awesome.

So no matter how the incorporation debate shakes out, an endorsement of originalism would be a victory for conservatives who prize intellectual honesty in constitutional interpretation.

Seemingly aware of these implications, the Left is trying to preserve the contrivances of “substantive due process” in an originalist guise. They want to define “privileges” and “immunities” as broadly as possible, to include what Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center calls “very important progressive values,” such as abortion rights and same-sex marriage. The goal is to continue expanding “individual rights” while permitting restriction of property rights and economic freedoms.  So if the Supreme Court decides in McDonald’s favor, it could end the controversy over gun rights but begin a host of new battles in other areas.

Yet Robert Levy, chairman of the Cato Institute, is not afraid of opening a can of worms. He says that libertarians see McDonald as an opportunity “to resurrect economic liberties suspended by the Court under the post–New Deal version of substantive due process.” Conservatives should see this case as a rare opportunity to base any incorporation of the Bill of Rights on originalist grounds — an opportunity they should waste no time in seizing, for it may not come again.

Will Haun
June 08, 2009
[I find it very interesting that the phrase "conservatives who prize intellectual honesty" is used. What does this mean? Does it mean that most conservatives are not "intellectually honest" but liberals are? Or does it mean that no liberal can be considered "intellectually honest" but some conservatives are?

Regardless, there are those that have high hopes for the Chicago Gun Case to get us started on the path to liberty again. I admit to seeing a glimmer of that possibility but know that economic liberty is going to be a much tougher war than guns are and don't have very high hopes. Even if the current system suffers a complete meltdown (and there are lots of indications that it will) there will still be strong resistance to liberty from those that will claim the collapse justifies even less freedom and a much great role for goverment to take in implementing a "planned economy" than it already has.

H/T to ubu52 for the link.--Joe]

My blog has been getting new comment spam at the rate of about one every 15 seconds for several hours. I've enable Captcha for Comments which might have bugs in it which make leaving valid comments problematic.

Sorry about that.

Daughter Kim and her husband Caleb took friend Amber to the range last Monday. It was the first time Amber had ever shot a gun.

They borrowed my Ruger Mark II and all the reports indicate Amber enjoyed herself and did well:

Welcome to the community Amber.

And thank you Kim and Caleb for making her introduction to shooting enjoyable.

Last year, the Supreme Court overturned a handgun ban here in the federal enclave of Washington and ruled that the Second Amendment protects individual gun ownership (the justices did leave room for firearms regulation, saying government could prohibit guns in "sensitive places" and forbid ownership by certain dangerous people, such as felons). But the court did not say whether the Second Amendment also applies to the states.

...

The Supreme Court’s decision on whether to accept the Chicago case for consideration will be a key one and have a significant effect on gun-related litigation across the country.

Mike Beard
President
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
September 28, 2009
Does it Apply?
[Contrary to what fellow bigot Paul Helmke thinks Beard agrees with most pro-gun people in that the Chicago Gun Case is a big deal. We have a lot of work ahead of us. To continue my previous analogy just after the Heller decision we have liberated Paris from Germany and still have fierce resistance to overcome before we can win the war.--Joe]

Via following a Sitemeter referral (someone at the FBI was looking for answers and ended up on my blog) I discovered The California Criminalistics Institute did a study on obtaining forensic evidence from cartridge casings before and after firing. The conclusions were:

Likelihood of obtaining useable fingerprints on c. cases:

Not likely.

If you eliminate bloody prints from consideration, then only 3/32 [9%] cartridge cases displayed useable prints.

No useable prints were obtained on the cartridge cases that had been fired.

...

If you eliminate bloody prints from consideration, then no DNA profiles were obtained.

I'm not sure that it's of any use to me but I found it fascinating.

The Supreme Court prefers to work in "baby steps," changing the law slowly. The Heller case was a very carefully and cautiously crafted to open the door to further Second Amendment jurisprudence. Had they attempted to overturn 20,000 gun laws all at once, all nine Justices would have run out of the courtroom with their robes pulled up over their heads, screaming. Step one was Heller, to get the SCOTUS to acknowledge that the Second Amendment was written to reaffirm and protect the right of the INDIVIDUAL citizen to keep (not necessarily bear) arms for personal defense, inside the federal enclave known as the District of Columbia, where there is no state constitution, just the US Constitution..

Step two (McDonald) is to extend that acknowledgment to the states. Why McDonald?" Because the Chicago handgun ban is a duplicate of the DC ban. If the DC ban is unconstitutional, so must the Chicago ban be. But Chicago is part of a state, not a federal enclave.

Once that occurs, we start knocking down the "house" of gun control laws, one brick at a time.

Heller is the alpha. not the omega. We're decades away from that. But we're working on it. We didn't get to the point of 20,000 gun control laws all at once, and we're not going to get free of them all at once. It ain't a "once and for all" system, much as we might like to see it that way.

Joe Waldron
October 1, 2009
Re: Supreme Court to hear Second Amendment Foundation challenge to Chicago gun ban
wa-ccw: Washington State Concealed Weapons Discussion
[People who are pessimistic (see also here) about the status our gun laws have forgotten or weren't of an age to be aware of how things were in the mid 1990s (see here, here, here, and here for some clues). Those were very, very dark days. The turning point may have been the 1994 congressional elections with the anger over the 1994 "assault weapon ban" playing a big role (I find it very interesting that the Wikipedia articles on this and Tom Foley don't mention this) or perhaps here.--Joe]

Currently the poll stands at:

Vote: Should Chicago's gun ban continue?

Are you in favor of Chicago's gun restrictions?

• Yes (1887 responses) 17.6%

• No (8823 responses) 82.4%

10710 total responses
(Results not scientific)

Police May Not Even Temporarily Detain a Person Simply Because He’s Openly Carrying a Handgun.

Eugene Volokh
October 1, 2009
[Wow! There's going to be a lot more open carrying. We just won another major battle.

The Brady Campaign is going to be needing to hire extra janitors to mop up the river of tears as they sob themselves into a stupor today.--Joe]

In an email alert today the Second Amendment Foundation announced:

GUN GROUPS FILE LAWSUIT TO VALIDATE MONTANA FIREARMS FREEDOM ACT

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today joined with the Montana Shooting Sports Association in a federal lawsuit filed in Missoula to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA), which takes effect today, Oct. 1, 2009.

Lead attorney for the plaintiffs’ litigation team is Quentin Rhoades of the Missoula firm of Sullivan, Tabaracci & Rhoades, PC. The MFFA litigation team also includes other attorneys located in Montana, New York, Florida, Arizona and Washington.

“We’re happy to join this lawsuit,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “because we believe this issue should be decided by the courts.”

“We feel very strongly that the federal government has gone way too far in attempting to regulate a lot of activity that occurs only in-state,” added MSSA President Gary Marbut. “The Montana Legislature and governor agreed with us by enacting the MFFA. We welcome the support of many other states that are stepping up to the plate with their own firearms freedom acts.”

The MFFA declares that any firearms made and retained in Montana are not subject to any federal authority under the power given to Congress in the U.S. Constitution to regulate “commerce … among the several states.” It relies on the Tenth Amendment and other principles to exempt Montana-made and retained firearms, accessories and ammunition from federal regulation. Marbut’s group advises Montana citizens not to manufacture an MFFA-covered item until MSSA is upheld in court.

Earlier this year, Tennessee passed similar legislation and lawmakers in 20 other states have indicated that they will introduce MSSA clone legislation, Marbut said. Information about the Firearms Freedom Act movement is being accumulated and made publicly available at firearmsfreedomact.com.

MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. It can be found at mtssa.org.

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

See also the article in the Missoulian.

I wish them well and figure it will be at least worth buying some popcorn and cold drinks for watching the comedy.

We live in an information age now. A incredibly vast amount of information is available so quickly and cheaply that I am amazed they still think they can get away with this crap. But I suppose it's just what they have always done and it's how they have won in the past. It's what they know how to do.

Even though she was not harmed, Colleen Dawson said she wishes she had a handgun when some men tried to break into her Northwest Side home last year.

Dawson, 51, said the court’s action should be a message to Mayor Daley and other gun-control advocates to “begin looking at a handgun as a tool given to us as a birthright by the constitution to defend ourselves.”

Growing up in Englewood, Dawson said her grandmother always kept a handgun in her apron pocket. She’d like the same right.

Chicago Police scoff at the notion that more handguns will lower the city’s crime rate.

“The logic they are using, that homeowners’ homes will not get burglarized, is ridiculous. You usually do not burglarize a home that is occupied,” said Mark Donohue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Interesting. I know one woman living in Chicago who acquired a gun (illegally of course) after waking up to a burglar going through her bedroom. The bugler told her to not worry, she wouldn't get hurt if she just stayed still. The burglar then went about his "business". Yes, I know, a single data point does not make a study.

Look at the burglary rates of occupied homes in the U.K. versus the U.S. Read Guns and Violence: the English Experience. The data is overwhelming. Either Donohue is lying or his head is buried very deep in the sand or some other place where the sun doesn't shine.

Next up is the Brady Campaign representative:

A 1988 Emory University study, Heimke said, showed “if you keep a gun in your home, it’s 21 times more likely to injure you or your family than a bad guy. It gets used by a depressed teen to commit suicide, or you think it’s a burglar but it turns out to be a neighbor or a brother-in-law.”

1988? A 21-year old study? At least it's not the fully discredited Kellerman study from 1986 which concluded it was "43 times more likely...". But I find it telling that Helmke overlooked the 1993 revised "study" by Kellerman in which he changed his number to 2.7. Even then he had to "bake" the numbers to get something that looked bad for gun ownership. And the only 1988 Emory study I can find reference to is also from Kellerman (see also here). And Emory is where Kellerman works so I have to conclude that Helmke is attempting to quote Kellerman and perhaps getting the number wrong. Was this carelessness or was it to avoid triggering a flag with the 43 number that we know is false?

Kellerman's work was so shoddy that in 1995 congress pulled CDC funding for his work. At the hearings he didn't even bother to show up to defend it.

And also of note is that this Chicago paper misspelled both Helmke's and Colleen Lawson's names. I'm glad we have "professional journalists" and their armies of fact checkers to "inform" the public.

I know it's Lawson instead of Dawson because of the court filing and I because met and talked to her at the 2008 NRA convention:

Update: Some edits were made for legal reasons.

One of the ways skilled attackers can get through security is to probe the defenses and see what the response is. Once they know the response they can plan an attack with a high probability of success. I wonder if that is what happened here:

A suspicious package found outside an eastern Minnesota high school Wednesday contained an incendiary device, the school district's superintendent said.

Princeton schools Superintendent Rick Lahn said he learned that in a meeting with Police Chief Brian Payne on Wednesday afternoon.

"He said it was some kind of incendiary device, but it's being investigated now and they're taking a look at it," Lahn told The Associated Press. "And he couldn't give me details. He just said it was very suspicious and it contained some explosive material. I don't think it was a large device, but I really don't know what kind of damage it could have done."

The package, which Lahn said was discovered by a custodian outside the school, was one of three found in Princeton on Wednesday morning.

...

Officials gave the all-clear late Wednesday morning after law enforcement officers and explosive-sniffing dogs combed the town of about 4,500 people about 50 miles north of Minneapolis.

"The entire town was searched for suspicious devices with negative results," Schmidt said.

Along with the Princeton Police Department and ATF, agencies joining the investigation included the FBI, the St. Paul and Crow Wing County bomb squads, the Sherburne and Mille Lacs County sheriff's departments, and postal inspectors, Schmidt said.

Interesting. They searched the entire town. This pulled police from multiple jurisdictions into the response. This probably left weak spots in other areas with increased response times and feeble responses had an attack occurred in these other locations.

I hope it was just some kid wanting to another day to study for a test rather than someone with serious intent in harming people.

The freedoms we enjoy as Americans are secured to us against violation by all levels of government. State and local politicians should be on notice: the Second Amendment is a normal part of the Bill of Rights, and it is coming to your town.

Alan Gura
September 30, 2009
SUPREME COURT TO HEAR 2ND AMENDMENT CHALLENGE TO CHICAGO GUN BAN
[The arrival of the Second Amendment needs to be followed up with arrests and prosecutions under 18 USC 242. If not it will drag on for decades like it appears to be in D.C. and it actually did with the Jim Crow laws in the deep south despite the fact that the 13^th and 14^th Amendments "came to town".--Joe]

These are bad days for Paul Hemeke and supporters. Just as people with a terminal illness go through the five stages of grief they see their world view dying and are experiencing a similar process. Here we have denial:

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the Chicago case is "unlikely to have much practical impact on most gun laws regardless of how the Court rules."

"Even if the Court were to hold the Second Amendment applicable to states and localities," he said, "such a ruling is unlikely to change the crucial holding by the Supreme Court in Heller that a wide range of reasonable gun laws are presumptively constitutional, and that the Second Amendment right is narrowly limited to guns in the home for self-defense."

Steve Chapman
September 30, 2009
The end of the Chicago handgun ban
[This was based on the news that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case that will decide whether the 2nd Amendment applies to states and other political jurisdictions or just the Federal government.

Amazing. Ten years ago I was talking to leaders in the gun rights movement who said that we would completely lose the right to keep and bear arms within ten years with Chicago-like discrimination against gun owners the norm. Now we are poised on the edge of slapping them aside into the dustbin of history along with segregated schools, restrooms, and water fountains.--Joe]

Barb and I had dinner with son James and his girlfriend Kelsey tonight. We managed to get a picture of her and James (neither like pictures taken of themselves). We think they are a pretty cute couple:

Maybe I'm the last to know, but I just found out that the nominal outer diameter of a gauge-numbered machine screw is defined as the gauge number multiplied by .013", plus .060".  The actual diameter is usually two or three thousandths or so under nominal.  I know 'cause we tried it.  And as you are all know doubt aware; once you reach a quarter inch, you're going by fractional inch dimensions instead of gauge.  Wood screws go by their own, as yet mysterious to me, system, probably developed by some guy and his partner making screws by hand 250 years ago.

Who cares?  Well, we have run into problems with what we refer to as "stacking tolerances" in our production-- a threading tap varies slightly (both initially and over time with wear) the anodizing depth varies slightly, and screw dimensions vary slightly even if you stick with one supplier.  If these variations all go in the wrong direction at once, you end up with customers calling you saying the screws are so tight in the mount that some of them are breaking, even though you've been doing everything exactly the same for years and it's always worked nicely.  We started using +.001" and +.002" oversized form taps a few years ago, to make up for the thickness the anodizing adds to the threads, and then some, and the problem went away.  Now at least we can measure screws and know exactly how they vary from "nominal" as opposed to making simply comparative measurements.

This new (to me) tidbit of information is just icing on the cake for you engineers out there, in the unlikely event that you were as ignorant of such things as I was a few minutes ago.  What I still don't understand is why we call a number eight screw a number eight screw instead of a .164" screw.  Too many digits?  But then you'd not have to remember gauge x .013" + .060".

Some of these oddities come down from the past in "organic" ways.  Firearm bullet and bore diameters are a good example.  Who the hell came up with .223, .308 or .452, as opposed to, say .200, .250, .300 .350, etc?  Some of these unlikely numbers, at least in part, come from the days of black powder, wrought iron barrels, soft lead bullets, and the manufacturing tolerances of yore.  The realistic tolerances back then were nowhere near what's possible now, and it resulted in some pretty weird numbers that became standards out of expediency and in response to backward compatibility issues.  I use a .454 ball (that number's still with us) in an 1850s .44 percussion revolver for example, because the oversized ball gets better purchase on the sides of the chamber and on the rifling.  We would now refer to a .454 bullet as caliber 45, though you were shooting it from what was called a .44 caliber pistol back in the 1860s, and the modern 45 cal bullets are .451" and .452".  Modern 44 caliber bullets are .429".  Huh?  I definitely need to learn more about this stuff.  In another .44 percussion revolver I have I use a .457" ball-- you want a ball that's bigger than the cylinder, and a cylinder that's bigger than the barrel groove diameter, so everything gets a sure, tight fit with the soft lead ball.

We still use grains as a unit of measurement, which came from some king somewhere telling us that the official definition of a pound was "seven thousand plump grains of wheat" (what poor saps had to count them, then recount them, and who verified their work?).  Shotgunners use the dram, which converts to the tidy number of 27.34375 grains, or the "dram equivalent", which is a charge of modern smokeless powder that generates about the same energy as that number of drams of black powder.

If we were to start all over and reinvent guns from the beginning today, we'd no doubt end up with simpler units and numbers, but the world doesn't work that way.  Each incremental development is built upon the previous one, and you don't immediately re-tool everyone in the business, make all the old versions unusable, and change all the established experience and data, just for that little increment of improvement.

Still, I keep saying someone needs to reinvent the computer OS (or the very concept of the computer OS-- maybe the very use of the term "OS" is thinking too much inside the box) from the beginning.  There is of course no basis-- no established school of thought or system of evaluation that would warrant such a claim.