The View From North Central Idaho

All updates on Jason are on this blog: http://ltjason.blogspot.com.

This morning I finished cleaning my heavy barreled AR-15 and then cleaned my .300 Win Mag. It was raining but was supposed to stop by midday where I was headed (they were wrong). I packed up my rain gear (a poncho), gun gear, hunting knife, computer, some food, and water. I had to mail some stuff to one of my lawyers and finally got out of town a little after noon. I arrived at the Boomershoot site a little after 13:00. I walked from near the 380 yard line to the Taj Mahal about a quarter mile away taking about 1.5 hours going slowly around the area, nearly twice, in opposite directions. I expected to find a deer in the tall grass or under a tree where I had seen two deer before. Lyle and his son and I had seen three deer about two weeks ago. No such luck today. I got soaking wet from the knees down. I did a little work at the Taj Mahal and dried out a little bit. I didn't warm up any though. After an hour or so I left and as I drove south over the hill toward South Road on Meridian Road I saw two deer. One was stopped looking at me from about 100 yards away. I stopped and watched as the first one ran away and the other just stared at me. It was on land I didn't have permission to hunt on. On the other side of the road was more land I didn't have permission to hunt on. If it crossed the road I couldn't shoot it while it was on the road. It was safe from me for over 400 yards in any direction. I drove on and it ran away as I got closer.

I was cold and damp and was enjoying the warmth of the van. I decided to do some "road hunting." I would drive around for a while and see if I could see anything from the roads on any of the land I had permission to hunt on. I drove slowly north into a field we call "The 120". Nothing. I turned around and slowly drove back out to the main road. I drove east on South Road and then north on Newman Road. I turned west into another field where Lyle, his son, and I waited for dusk and deer to appear before. Last time dusk and then darkness had arrived without any deer.

About 16:00 I parked and set up to wait for dusk and the hoped for deer. An aerial image of the location is here. The top strip of green is trees and brush. Just to the south (down) is my parents land. In the middle of the picture, going north-south, is a strip of grass in a draw. It is called a grass waterway. I had parked my van just south of where the grass waterway bends to the east. Using the van for shelter from the breeze and the rain I setup and waited. I fired up my computer and used the hot air from the fan to dry the ocular lens that had water drops on it. I checked temperature, 46 F, and the barometric indicated altitude--3000 feet above sea level. I put the information into Modern Ballistics and used the laser range finder to get distances to the nearest trees and various landmarks in the grass waterway. I set the scope angle to an indicated 5.75 MOA. Using the 180 grain Federal Power-Shok cartridges for my .300 Win Mag that would give me a zero of 234 yards and a point blank range of 273 yards with a point blank size of 4.8 inches. The nearest trees were about 270 yards. Anything my side of the trees could be hit within 2.4 inches of my point of aim without adjusting for elevation--assuming perfect ammo, gun, and shooter. None of those were perfect but from 200 to 260 yards the point of impact should be +/- 1.4 inches assuming everything is perfect. The deer, almost for certain, would be within that range if it appeared.

At 16:40 my daughter Kim called to discuss snow tires for her car. I chatted for a while then saw two deer walk out of the woods and stroll slowly to the east. I told Kim, "I'm out hunting and I just saw two deer come out of the woods. I want to shoot them now." We said good-bye and I turned my attention to the deer. The deer were together in the center of the grass waterway having just come out of the woods. My laser range finder said I was 255 yards from the lead deer which was broadside to me and a better target. I was aiming just ahead of the shoulder as it was walking into the shot. The gun went off without a conscious thought from me--IPSC does that to you. In IPSC when I'm doing things right I find that as the sights are aligned on the target the gun goes boom without me knowing it was going to happen--even when it's happening three times a second. Just as I pulled the trigger the deer stopped and put it's head down to eat. In the 0.3 seconds the bullet took to reach it's target the deer would have put it's heart into the path of the bullet. But because it was stopped the bullet got it's spine instead of the heart and lungs--we both got lucky. It would be hard to get a cleaner, quicker death than a completely severed spine between it's head and heart. I got an easier job of cleaning the chest cavity and have more eatable meat.

The untouched deer after being shot. Click for a larger image, then click again for still larger.

Another example for doubters of Myth Busters. The deer fell toward the shooter (actually it turned 90 degrees toward me then fell over so the long axis of it's body was aligned with me). You are looking at the exit wound side of the deer. It did not get pushed or knocked down by the bullet impact. It's spine was severed and whatever muscle twitches remained caused it's only motion as it crumpled to the ground.

The other deer jumped and ran a few steps before stopping and looking in my direction. I wondered at first if I had missed and this was the deer I had shot at. I looked closely through the scope and could see the white from the belly of the deer I had shot. It was motionless. I quickly packed up enough to drive to the downed deer. The still standing deer didn't run away until I had started up and was moving toward it.

I parked the van next to the deer and started cutting on it. I then called Doug to tell him and hoped he would volunteer to come help. He did. When he and his son Brad arrived about 10 minutes later it was getting dark and it was still raining. I was doing this for the first time and progress was slow for me before Doug arrived. Doug brought a hatchet that we used to break open the pelvis and the sternum. After tagging it and emptying the body cavity we put it on the tarp in my van and drove back to his place to skin it while hanging up in the machine shed.

I called Kim back after the gutted deer was in the van and on the way to the shed for skinning. She asked if she was still going to get some of the meat. I told her, "Of course". After talking to Kim I called Xenia and told her I would be home a little late because I had got my deer.

In the shed we had artificial lights, a roof over our heads, and equipment to hoist the deer up to chest height for easy skinning. 1.5 hours after I took the shot it was gutted, skinned, and wrapped in a tarp in my van.

I went inside to visit with my parents and clean up a little. I wore plastic gloves and my poncho while working with the deer so I didn't get much blood on me. I just had to clean my knives and a little bit blood from one sleeve of my shirt. Mom fixed me a peanut butter, jelly, and lettuce sandwich and gave me a glass of milk for my supper. I left my parents place at 18:30 and was home, parked in the driveway with the carcass of a white-tailed deer in my van by 19:30. Tomorrow it will go to the meat cutter who will age it, then cut, and wrap the meat.

Interesting coincidences--I have harvested (using Barb's Jeep rather than my rifle) only one other deer before. It also was on Halloween and just seconds prior to downing it I got a call on my cell phone. That time I was on the phone talking to Barb when the deer jumped out in front of me and the impact caused compound fractures in both it's hind legs. I killed it with my pistol and again Doug came to field dress it.

Doug asked me if I got sick to my stomach as I pulled the trigger. He still does sometimes. Other people get very excited and can't shoot worth a darn when a deer gets into their sights. I didn't feel any excitement or sickness--just the recoil of the rifle on my shoulder. There was no particular joy or sadness either. Just another four legged, crop eating pest was dead and I would have some meat to share with my children over the next few months.

More pictures from my first hunting season are here. Tomorrow, after the light is better, I plan to update the photo album with pictures of the entrance and exit wounds.

Update: I took the deer to the meat processor Tuesday morning. While on the scales with head and legs still attached it weighed 79 pounds. The photo album has been updated with pictures of the entrance and exit wounds.

Update2: Information on whitetailed deer. Also of interest is that in Clearwater county, where this deer was harvested, a collision with a deer is the most common form of car accident.

Walter Gaya was one of the Boomershoot Precision Rifle Clinic Instructors in 2004. His best friend Adam, also a Boomershoot instructor, was killed last February in Iraq.  Walter was seriously injured in July.  Now Walter is in the news again.

• Mindless Bit Spew Walter gets the run-around
• Smallest Minority Blogswarm!
• Sondra K a mission
• AR-15

As Barb said, "That stinks.  That's just so wrong."

Please do what you can.

Update: The news is that things seem to be under control now.  Thanks everyone.

It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

Justice Robert H. Jackson

I've put the Lewiston Pistol Club October Steel match results on the web.  I came in second this time.  Much better than in August.  Practice makes a difference.

There are a few pictures there as well.

Sorry for the lack of postings lately.  Here is what I have been doing for the last couple of days that has kept me away from the computer.

Most of the day Thursday I was looking at apartments and roommate situations after having lunch with some friends at Dixie's Barbeque in Bellevue.  It was good to see Mike in good spirits and apparently healthy after his bicyle wreck which resulted in seven broken bones, a punctured lung, and other injuries.

Probably the most interesting potential roommate was the room in the basement of the owner of a house in Bellevue.  This is her business.  A professional matchmaker--who is single.  Another was a travel agent who was having some difficulties because of the hurricane that wiped out a Cancan resort where a big group of his had made reservations for late November.  His comment was "You know not to make reservations during hurricane season, but who would have thought the resort would be closed for two months after the end of the season?"  Then there was the potential roommate that said, "You can hunt all the coyotes you want from the backyard."  I would have had to watch out for:

...one llama, 2 alpaca, 3 angora goats, 1 jacob sheep, 9 indian runner ducks, 2 Cayuga ducks, 1 leonberger dog (who rarely comes inside, his job is guarding the flock/herd) and a personable, ancient cat that lives in the garage.

And those were just the animals outside the house.  I was tempted.  I grew up on a farm and it would have had some similarities to "home".  However the commute to work was a little farther than I really wanted and I turned them down.  I have one more potential roommate to check out on Tuesday when I arrive back in the area.

I finished the visit with the last potential roommate and left the Seattle area for the long drive home at 22:00.  I got into bed with Barb at 02:38.  Barb had Friday off and after she took Xenia to school we celebrated my new job by staying in bed all day.  No time for the computer except for the reaching over the side of the bed for the laptop long enough to post the Quote of the Day while Barb was getting us something to eat from the kitchen.

Yesterday after continuing our celebration in bed until mid morning Barb and I went to Lewiston for a walk along the levees and a visit to Costco.  Barb has been reading a book on Alford Hitchcock and we watched one of his early movies before going to bed early.  Which explains why I woke up early this morning.

One of my tasks for today is to create a blog for Jason's parents and other friends visiting him in Walter Reed to post information in.  That will be easier for them than making lots of phone calls and keeping lists of all the people than need to be on the To: line of the email.  Once I get that set up I'll post a link here too.

I've got lots of other things to do too.  Lots of stuff to take care of before I head back over for my new job.  I'll try to get in a gun related post soon.  The deadline for the latest postal rifle match is coming up soon and I still need to shoot it.  I'm thinking of going hunting, shooting the postal match, and working an the Taj Mahal tomorrow.  The Taj is in good shape now but I need to do inventory, check the battery charging system, and empty all the jugs of water (used for cleaning) before it freezes.  And if I have enough time I'll test some targets using the .223 at long range.

Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ....The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People.

Tench Coxe
Pennsylvania Gazette
Feb. 20, 1788.

Socialize the individual's surplus and you socialize his spirit and creativeness; you cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab of paint to a thousand painters.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
Literature
Up From Liberalism

Family member and full-time California cop Gabriel Suarez, who is gradually working up to his Ace Rating in police actions, contributes the following:

Gun control is a band-aid, feeling good approach to the nation's crime problem. It is easier for politicians to ban something than it is to condemn a murderer to death or a robber to life in prison. In essence, 'gun control' is the coward's way out.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 2, No. 12
27 September 1994

I've been trying to reverse the situation in my mind and look at it from all the different angles I can.  I still just can't imagine doing this sort of thing myself in any sort of situation.  These nutcases are protesting against the war on terrorists at Walter Reed hospital:

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for a Lie" and "Enlist here to die for Halliburton."

The anti-war demonstrators, who obtain their protest permits from the Washington, D.C., police department, position themselves directly in front of the main entrance to the Army Medical Center, which is located in northwest D.C., about five miles from the White House.

Among the props used by the protesters are mock caskets, lined up on the sidewalk to represent the death toll in Iraq.

I could be walking past them soon.  I'll maintain my composure but I'll be steaming inside.

Here is some disturbing news:

All U.S. passports will be implanted with remotely readable computer chips starting in October 2006, the Bush administration has announced.

Sweeping new State Department regulations issued Tuesday say that passports issued after that time will have tiny radio frequency ID (RFID) chips that can transmit personal information including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitized photograph of the passport holder. Eventually, the government contemplates adding additional digitized data such as "fingerprints or iris scans."

Over the last year, opposition to the idea of implanting RFID chips in passports has grown amidst worries that identity thieves could snatch personal information out of the air simply by aiming a high-powered antenna at a person or a vehicle carrying a passport. Out of the 2,335 comments on the plan that were received by the State Department this year, 98.5 percent were negative. The objections mostly focused on security and privacy concerns.

...

In regulations published Tuesday, the State Department claims it has addressed privacy concerns. The chipped passports "will not permit 'tracking' of individuals," the department said. "It will only permit governmental authorities to know that an individual has arrived at a port of entry--which governmental authorities already know from presentation of non-electronic passports--with greater assurance that the person who presents the passport is the legitimate holder of the passport."

To address Americans' concerns about ID theft, the Bush administration said the new passports will be outfitted with "antiskimming material" in the front cover to "mitigate" the threat of the information being surreptitiously scanned from afar. It's not clear, though, how well the technique will work against high-powered readers that have been demonstrated to read RFID chips from about 160 feet away.

Sure, shielding the passports is a good idea.  If they weren't made with that built-in the private market would have supplied them. 

The article goes on to discuss some concerns about the security of the encryption and some legal issues but misses one of my big concerns.  The government tries to reassure us that everything is going to be okay because they are making efforts to make sure only they will be able to read the information.  And that they will only read the information at ports of entry.  It's government that is the biggest threat to the individual person.  It's government abuse that I'm worried about.  This technology makes it practical for automated reading, recording, and tracking of the passports.  When the passports were nothing but paper it took a human time to retrieve the information and verify it's validity.  It simply wasn't practical to put a human at the entrance to every government building, every boarding gate for planes and trains, and monitor every banking transaction.  This technology changes that.  And it is likely to creep into more and more of our lives.  Then there will be little reason to not require the same technology on whatever government mandated ID U.S. citizens will have.  The temptation will be just too great.

And of course mandated ID and/or tracking of people violates my Jews in the Attic Test.

From his dad:

Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2005 3:45 PM

Athough it has been a bit of tough weekend, it ends on an up-note. Jason is in his room with Jodi and Dan watching a Bears game (Bears were winning the last time I checked). This afternoon is probably the best he has felt for the last several days and certainly his ability to communicate has greatly improved this afternoon. The swelling in his face has gone down enough so he can now see at of this right eye which is fantastic news.

Tomorrow Jason is schedule for two sets of surgery. The first is a cleaning and treatment of the Buddock, and the second is for this arms. They may close his right arm and it looks like the elbow will be saved. Second, they will place the pins in the left arm.

On Tuesday, they will do the face reconstruction. The surgeon feels like a good job will be done.

I commend Senator Durbin, Congressman John Porter and the rest of our friends in the Congress for introducing this important legislation.  To allow this nation to return to cash-and-carry tragedies is unimaginable.

Sarah Brady
Chair of HCI (now The Brady Campaign)
February 24, 1999
Regarding a proposed federal law for a permanent waiting period for firearms purchases after the temporary waiting period expired when the "instant check" came online.
From http://www.bradycampaign.org/press/release.php?release=164 (as of October 27, 2005)
[This is how the other side works.  Get something through then incrementally "improve" it.  We need to do the same.  -- Joe]

Gun positive coverage in the Washington Post. It must be April Fools Day.  Nope, but it is a gun positive story. Getting women and children involved in the positive use of guns makes a difference in the media perception of firearms.  Getting a third grade girl involved makes a big difference:

Girl, 8, Credited With Year's 1st Bear Kill

2 Rounds Did In the 211-Pound Animal, Third-Grader From Western Md. Says

By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; Page B03

MOUNT NEBO, Md., Oct. 24 -- There's a new hunting legend in the mountains of Western Maryland.

Born to the woods, she's 4 1/2 feet tall and 8 years old, with a shock of light brown hair and a steady trigger finger that put two bullets into a black bear's chest cavity Monday, according to her and her father and granduncle, who were hunting with her. State officials backed the claim by Sierra Stiles and credited her with the first kill of Maryland's second bear season since hunting the animals resumed after a half-century ban.

...

Sierra Stiles,8, put two bullets into a black bear's chest cavity Monday in Western Maryland, according to her and her father and granduncle, who were hunting with her.

Of course there were people complaining about it:

The Humane Society of the United States, which has urged Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to ban bear hunts, expressed concern Monday over the age of the hunter and noted that the first bear killed last year was a young bear.

"Governor Ehrlich is personally responsible for exposing young children and young bears to this cruelty," read the news release.

But even that is a good thing.  It exposes them to even more ridicule.

I'm getting a new job in the Seattle area and won't be moving my wife over from Idaho for about another 1.5 years. Our youngest daughter is still in high school and we don't want to disrupt that. I would like to rent something cheap where I can shower, sleep, fix a few meals and connect to the internet. I typically would only be there four nights a week and go home on weekends.

I would like for the place to be "gun friendly" in that I could carry concealed or open and clean my guns (if there were no other guests at the time) without causing any alarm. Discussion of the recreational use of explosives shouldn't be cause for calling the cops.

I'm 50 years old, a non-smoker, only rarely drink alcohol, and have never used illegal recreational drugs. I would bring my own small refrigerator/freezer. If you don't have a high speed internet connection I would supply a wireless router and all the technical expertise to get that up and running in your home.

I can move in as early as November 2nd or wait until the middle of the month. I'm in the Seattle area now and will be for another day and would like to find something soon.

I just got a call from American Express.  They claim I am past due on a bill.  When I worked at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory I was (nearly) required to have a "Corporate Account" with AMEX.  The last travel I did for PNNL was in April and there were airplane tickets and a hotel room put on the card.  There was also planned travel for the end of May a few days after they suspended me.  I signed travel reports for both those trips and I thought everything was all settled.  Apparently it wasn't.  Perhaps the hotel charged for a room that wasn't canceled or something.  I don't know.  In any case the jerks at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory didn't forward me the statements that came to my former work address.  The account has been turned over to collections. 

For those of you that don't quite understand why I have to pay the bill for a "company card" the way PNNL and AMEX arranged things was for the individual to be responsible for the bill. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory then paid AMEX for the charges which were legitimate company expenses.  Fair enough.  I could take my wife on a company trip, put all the expenses on the card, then pay the portion due to the extra expense of my wife at the end without having to split hotel bills, etc.  It would also put more responsibility on the individual to not abuse the card.  I didn't have a problem with it... until now.

The bottom line is that AMEX now has a valid address for me and will be sending me all the missing statements.  It's my responsibility to pay the bill, try to collect from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and get my credit reports straightened out.  A bad credit report could even affect the job offer I have in hand.  I don't think it would be possible to fully communicate the level of 'annoyance' I have for the jerks at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at this moment.

I brought my favorite rifle and pistol with me to the Seattle area where I am now.  They both need to be cleaned.  Cleaning them will make me feel better.  Wish I had brought my chemistry set and had a place to play with it here.  That would help even more.

If anyone suggests that Iran has just as much right to have nuclear weapons as any other country then point this out to them:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

"The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world," the president told a conference in Tehran on Wednesday, entitled The World without Zionism.

"The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land," he said.

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to Iran's revolutionary leader Ayat Allah Khomeini.

His comments were the first time in years that such a high-ranking Iranian official has called for Israel's eradication, even though such slogans are still regularly used at government
rallies.

...

Ahmadinejad, a veteran of Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards, took office in August after scoring a landslide win in a June presidential election.

His tone represents a major change from that of former president Mohammad Khatami, whose favoured topic was "dialogue among civilisations" and who led an effort to improve Iran's relations with the West.

Hitler wrote about his plans for the Jews.  Ahmadinejad is telling us what his plans are.  Connect the dots.  If you have a better solution than destroying the extremist Islamic culture then let's hear it.  Until then we need to offer discount prices on missles and warplanes to Israel and give booze and porn to Arab Muslims.

It's rare to get pro-gun press coverage on the politics of gun owner rights.  This article from the Gainesville Sun is so refreshing:

WASHINGTON - Ginny Brown-Waite pulled into a parking lot in Chiefland around midnight to rest her drowsy eyes before continuing her drive to a state legislative session in Tallahassee.

She awoke that night in 2000, she said recently, to four or five young men rocking her car and demanding she open up.

"I said, 'No, I've got a gun in the glove compartment,' " recalled Brown-Waite, 62, who was then a state senator and now is a member of Congress. "You'd better leave."

She was bluffing, but the men fled. And Brown-Waite later got a concealed weapon permit after training on a .357 magnum.

The experience helps explain why Brown-Waite, who owns a .38 and a .45, gets riled when the Second Amendment comes up, as it did last week when Congress passed landmark legislation to shield gun manufacturers from lawsuits. After the vote, she lashed out at the "out-of-touch and dwindling minority of Congress" that opposes gun ownership.

Brown-Waite, one of at least three members of the Florida delegation to carry permits, shows that Florida isn't just well armed. The state is a significant player in gun-control debates nationwide.

...

Brown-Waite, a 5-foot-2-inch grandmother, seems the last person to be "packing heat," as she calls it, but she might be when in Florida.

"I have the permit," she said, "and at least one weapon, I guarantee you."

Yeah, the stereotype is she would be "the last person to be packing heat".  But when you think about it you come up with a different answer.  Who is it that most needs a tool to equalize the odds in a violent confrontation?  It's not the young, large, adult male.  It's the weak and the slow. The people most likely to become victims of predators are the ones that should have the training and the tools to defend themselves.  Even though the Gainesville Sun didn't come up with quite the right conclusion they gave everyone enough information they can break through the stereotype on their own.  And that is breaking through still another stereotype--about the MSM.  Thank you Cory Reiss, Gainesville Sun.

Shooting at the head is a tough one.  There's really only two spots you can really do any good with a handgun.  The eyes.  Any higher and even if you do get through the armor you'll only take off the top half of the brain that he never uses anyway.  It will be impressive with lots of blood, but it won't stop him.  You have to take out the lower part of his brain, the monkey portion of his brain.

Greg Hamilton
Self Defense Instructor
Nov. 19, 1995

After months of looking for work I have an offer in hand.  There was a sudden incredible flurry of interest in me in the last two or three weeks after almost nothing for months.  I can't remember how many different phone interviews I did with various companies.  I think it was five--with another one scheduled for tomorrow.  Today I had three in person interviews with one group and they made me an offer--almost on the spot.  It's not quite what I wanted--it's a contract position which they are saying can lead into what I really want.

Last night I left Moscow about 19:30, arrived at Ry's place about 01:00, got settled in by about 02:00, woke up at 05:00, Ry came home from work about 05:30, we talked until about 06:30, I sort of slept until 08:00, I then had interviews from 10:00 until 15:00.  Came back to Ry's place through the traffic and I'm now soooo tired.  I must get some sleep now.

I never give them hell.  I just tell the truth, and they think it is hell.

Harry S Truman
1884-1972
33rd President of the United States
Quoted in Look April 3, 1953
[And so it is when we debate gun rights with the anti-freedom bigots. -- Joe]

Ever start to walk into a store and see a sign saying it was a "weapons free zone" or the equivalent thereof?  I have.  And I have gone through the effort to get people to write/protest and get the sign taken down.  It's a lot of work.  Here's another way to perhaps change things.  It's a "business card" you leave with the merchant instead of leaving them your money:

Front

Back

Only $10/100.  I just ordered some.  I wish I had them with me now.  I am going to the Seattle area tonight and would drop one off at Half-Priced Books in Bellevue.

Scratch an intellectual and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk.

Eric Hoffer
First Things, Last Things
1970

They [Clinton's "good job rating" poll results] would probably be higher if he had made a video.

Amanda Matlosz
12/21/98
[Sarcasm about the public opinion after it was revealed President Clinton had been having sex with an intern in the Oval Office and lied about it under oath. -- Joe]

Once upon a time, long, long ago (over 20 years) I had a membership with the ACLU for one year. They still send me letters telling me the sky is falling and I need to send them more money. For at least the last ten years when I get one of those letters I write them a short note saying when they support the Second Amendment as an individual right I will immediately send them a check for $200.00 but until then they will get nothing from me. I use their postage paid return envelope and send it back to them. They haven't changed their way yet and I'm not holding my breath.

To be fair, they have been on the same side as pro-gun people on some issues. And I have been told by one very high ranking pro-gun activist that at least one ACLU lobbyist carried a handgun in her purse illegally while on the job because it was such a dangerous town. Just because the top leadership of the ACLU has made a decision not to support the Second Amendment doesn't mean there aren't a lot of them on our side. My guess is that a big part of the equation is that certain large donors to the ACLU are very anti-gun and being a pro-gun organization would cost them too much money.

See also my previous posts on this topic:

Advice for Democrats
I wonder if the ACLU will be interested
ACLU responds

I updated my web site on the bigotry at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The changes were about the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request I mentioned in this post.  PNNL responded this week saying:

PNNL completed a diligent, thorough search for responsive documents and was unable to find identify or locate any existing records consistent with your request.

As of May of this year those "records" (computer programs actually) did exist.  I created a lot of them.  My co-workers used that code (computer program code) in other projects.  Those computer programs were delivered to numerous customers.  If what they just told me was true then they would have had to rewritten numerous computer programs, tested them, updated all their customers with the new versions, ensured those customers deleted all the old copies, and deleted large portions of their source control archives--all within two months.  Some customers were delivered source code (I did training for one customer on it), those customers would have had to also rewritten their derived works, tested the resultant programs, and deleted their source control archives.   If they were able to do that then which government contract did they charge those efforts to?  I don't believe they did any of that.  I believe PNNL chose to defy FOIA. 

Barb said (paraphrasing), "What did you expect?  They don't care what the law is.  They don't have to follow the rules."  Of course in the practical sense that is true even if technically they do have to follow the law.  I had two different lawyers tell me it looked to them that PNNL employees had committed a felony in the actions they took against me.  Those people, as near as I can determine, still work there.

Public opinion wins wars.

Dwight David Eisenhower
1890-1969
General
34th President of the United States
[This is particular true in the war we are fighting against the anti-freedom bigots on the repressive gun laws in this country. -- Joe]

Yesterday I was invited to be a guest blogger on Second Amendment matters at Conservative Thinking.  With their permission I have decided to not post anything on their blog that I don't post here first.  As I pointed out in my introduction I don't consider myself a "conservative" but on the Second Amendment there isn't likely to be much divergence.  They do have numerous other bloggers that have very worthwhile postings so please do check them out.  I particularly liked these posts:

• The Authority of the Noose
• School Teaching Children To Be Muslim
• Zawahiri-Zarqawi Letter Authenticity Refuted and Defended

According to David Hardy at Arms and the Law quoting Daphne Retter, Congressional Quarterly Staff, CQ Today, October 19, 2005:

"It's not an easy job to get up every day and duke it out with the gun lobby," Michael Barnes, president and CEO of the Brady Campaign and Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said Tuesday, "but it's very important."

Barnes resigned this week.

I have been unable to verify the resignation.  There is nothing I could find on the Brady Campaign nor the Brady Center websites about it.  Still, it is quite plausible.  They have been running up an impressive string of losses in recent years.  The "assault weapon" ban expired without a battle.  The passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms bill (I commented on this yesterday) just bit a big chunk out of their mission statement.  They have lost numerous court cases.  FL passed the law that affirms innocent people can meet force with force and all the Brady bunch could do was whine about it.  And then the press wasn't as sympathetic to them as they would normally expect:

Workers for a gun-control group protesting a new law that they say could put Florida tourists in harm's way got a mixed reaction at Orlando International Airport on Thursday.

At least one visitor admonished workers for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence for what she called a manipulation of the truth.

"It burns me up that they twist stuff around to misinform the public," said Tamryn Hunter, who was catching a flight back to Pittsburgh when she ran into the workers handing out leaflets warning about the law.

The paper even included this picture of Ms. Hunter showing that she isn't someone you would consider the stereotypical NRA member.

We must not let these wins cause us to go into celebration mode and neglect what we really have to do.  We must drive these anti-freedom bigots into political extinction.  As Chris(?) Knox said in a Firearms Coalition Alert email I received last night:

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. The game, God willing, is never over.

From his dad:

Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 6:23 PM

Jason has improved substantially today. He recognizes people and since morning when he was drifting in and out of reality. He can hold a conversation. His pain medications are very high and he still sees figures from movies like star wars but now he realizes that they are not real and I think he is amused by them.

Jason doctors (I have seen dozens of them literally today), say he is making good improvement. Jason insists, by the way, that he is involved in all conversations with medical staff. Tomorrow they are going to clean wounds and hopefully close the right arm. Although there is tremendous variation among patience he may be out patient in two to three weeks. However, he will still live on campus and will be treated everyday. These treatments will go for months.

Jason is thankful to be out of Iraq and is already making plans about what he wants to do when he recovers. I sure that his feels about the future will go up and down but with love and support of family and friends he will recover substantially physically and emotionally.

There was lots of good news today but I am sure there is going to be lots of pain and emotional stress as he recovers.

I am amaze that will all the suffering Jason is going through that he takes the time learn the name of each caregiver, establish a personal link with them and thanks them for helping him. For me this is true hero behavior.

Susan Jason got a cd player from the Red Cross today, it is a cheapy but things get stole here. I have bought him a i-pod with speakers and his friend said he could put cd on the ipod also. He does not have a tape player. I would not buy books or cd on tape. Yet if any of you have some that you like send it to him if you mind not getting it back. For other books let me see what he is interested in.

There have been some phone calls too.  Xenia posted about them.

Those who set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards.

Charles Waddell Chesnutt
The Marrow of Tradition
1901
[Gun control and national ID cards are prime examples. -- Joe]

The house passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms today.  As a libertarian and a 2nd Amendment purist ("What part of shall not be infringed don't you understand?") I'm opposed to the law.  It simply shouldn't be necessary.  These cases should be thrown out of court after the first 30 minutes.  As a pragmatist I support it because things are not working as they should and we apparently need to engage in some dirty fighting rather than remain pure.  As Joe Waldron (see also his comments in this news release) recently stated in an email to the WA-CCW Yahoo group:

We're giving up required provision of a $5 locking device (nothing says you have to use them, nor does it say you can't bring your own device from your previous gun purchase; you give the lock to the dealer, he gives it back to you with the gun) for the most significant tort reform bill in recent history, a bill that will protect gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers from nuisance lawsuits that are killing the industry. These suits are filed with almost no chance of succeeding, but cost the industry millions annually to defend.

The alternative is to hold out for a "pure" bill... and watch it die again this year. And the manufacturers/distributors/dealers will continue to shell out $$$ in legal costs.

It looks like the bill went 90% our way, 10% the other way. Those are pretty good odds/returns to me.

I'm all for winning and getting a little bit dirty rather than losing and staying clean.  Yes, it might have some unintended consequences with the trigger lock and armor piercing ammo provisions in it.  More on that later.  But more important is the favorable impact it has both practically and politically.  As reported by Reuters:

Opponents said they would oppose it in the courts, arguing it violated the U.S. Constitution.

But Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association said he believed the bill's passage would mark a big setback for gun control advocates.

"I think the air is out of the gun control balloon, and I think what popped the balloon is politics and elections," he said. He predicted that several dozen Democrats would join most Republicans in backing the legislation.

I wouldn't say "popped".  It's been leaking out for a couple years now.  It's getting more and more obvious to everyone that the anti-gun crowd is suffering a meltdown.  Of course they have mental problems to support anti-freedom legislation to begin with but can be dealt with another day.  But because the people at large, many of the politicians, and to some extent the mainstream media are recognizing how really whacked out they are we have made huge gains.  Politically we are no longer on the defensive at the Federal level and in most states.  We need to build and maintain momentum against these nut cases.  I've posted on this before:

• Right to murder bill
• When "Ballistic Fingerprinting" fails
• If you find you are riding a dead horse, dismount
• I'm proud of my F+ grade
• Pathetic anti-gun turnout
• Happy day -- end of the 'assault weapon ban'

And just yesterday John Stossel demonstrated they are out of touch with reality quite well in a column on Townhall.com:

What if it were legal in America for adults to carry concealed weapons? I put that question to gun-control advocate Rev. Al Sharpton. His eyes opened wide, and he said, "We'd be living in a state of terror!"

In fact, it was a trick question. Most states now have "right to carry" laws. And their people are not living in a state of terror. Not one of those states reported an upsurge in crime.

But back to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms bill.  It will be signed by President Bush and it will become law within a few days or weeks.  It will save the firearms industry millions of dollars each year.  It might even save your local gun range money in reduced insurance costs.  That money will be in your pocket (you do buy guns and ammo and use them, right?).

There are two downsides of the proposed law; 1) The trigger-lock requirement the Gun Owners of America have been harping on and 2) the armor piercing ammo portion of the law.  The GOA had this to say in a recent pre-written email they wanted people to send to their representatives:

S. 397 takes us dangerously close to mandatory trigger locks, and mandatory trigger locks kill.  Just ask Mary Carpenter, who has had to live with the fact that two of her grandchildren were killed in 2000, because no one in the house could disengage the gun locking device that kept the family from protecting themselves against a pitchfork wielding thug.

Yes.  Mandatory trigger locks are a bad thing.  I have a t-shirt I wear that says Trigger Locks--Rapist Approved (they are closing this item out and only have a few shirts left so buy one now!) but every new gun I have purchased over the counter, as opposed to special ordered, had a locking device with it anyway.  The impact of this law is very nearly zero in cost and behavior for everyone.

The armor piercing ammo portion of the law does not change the definition of the armor piercing ammo which was my big worry.  It's still:

(A) The term “ammunition” means ammunition or cartridge cases, primers, bullets, or propellent powder designed for use in any firearm.

(B) The term “armor piercing ammunition” means—

(i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or
(ii) a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.

(C) The term “armor piercing ammunition” does not include shotgun shot required by Federal or State environmental or game regulations for hunting purposes, a frangible projectile designed for target shooting, a projectile which the Attorney General finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes, or any other projectile or projectile core which the Attorney General finds is intended to be used for industrial purposes, including a charge used in an oil and gas well perforating device.

(7) for any person to manufacture or import armor piercing ammunition, except that this paragraph shall not apply to—

(A) the manufacture or importation of such ammunition for the use of the United States or any department or agency thereof or any State or any department, agency, or political subdivision thereof;
(B) the manufacture of such ammunition for the purpose of exportation; and
(C) any manufacture or importation for the purposes of testing or experimentation authorized by the Attorney General;

(8) for any manufacturer or importer to sell or deliver armor piercing ammunition, except that this paragraph shall not apply to—

(A) the sale or delivery by a manufacturer or importer of such ammunition for use of the United States or any department or agency thereof or any State or any department, agency, or political subdivision thereof;
(B) the sale or delivery by a manufacturer or importer of such ammunition for the purpose of exportation;
(C) the sale or delivery by a manufacturer or importer of such ammunition for the purposes of testing or experimenting authorized by the Attorney General;

Becomes:

(7) for any person to manufacture or import armor piercing ammunition, unless--

(A) the manufacture of such ammunition is for the use of the United States, any department or agency of the United States, any State, or any department, agency, or political subdivision of a State;
(B) the manufacture of such ammunition is for the purpose of exportation; or
(C) the manufacture or importation of such ammunition is for the purpose of testing or experimentation and has been authorized by the Attorney General;

(8) for any manufacturer or importer to sell or deliver armor piercing ammunition, unless such sale or delivery--

(A) is for the use of the United States, any department or agency of the United States, any State, or any department, agency, or political subdivision of a State;
(B) is for the purpose of exportation; or
(C) is for the purpose of testing or experimentation and has been authorized by the Attorney General;

So what is happening, in Joe's model of the political world, is that the good guys are throwing a couple bones to the politicians that need to appease some anti-freedom people "back home".  Those politicians can say, "I voted for the safety of our children by mandating trigger locks and against armor piercing ammo."  It's just a couple of old dried bones.  Let them have their bones until after the next election.  We get some real meat out of this law.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.

The second way of life is based upon the will of the minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

Harry S Truman
Message to Congress
Later known as Truman Doctrine
March 12, 1947

Hint to criminals using computers--don't.  The following is just the tip of the iceburg.  From Bruce Schneier:

Many color laser printers embed secret information in every page they print, basically to identify you by. Here, the EFF has cracked the code of the Xerox DocuColor series of printers.

Update: For those of you who didn't really get what I was hinting on the first pass here it is spelled out for you:

Schoen said that the existence of the encoded information could be a threat to people who live in repressive governments or those who have a legitimate need for privacy. It reminds him, he said, of a program the Soviet Union once had in place to record sample typewriter printouts in hopes of tracking the origins of underground, self-published literature.

From his Dad:

Tuesday, October 18, 2005 

Jason’s wounds were cleaned in preparation for his trip.  According to the Doctor his flesh looks healthy. 

He arrived in the U.S. about 7:00 PM.  Dan was able to see him.  Dan said that he did not look as bad as he expected.  He is stable and heavily sedated.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

I just talk with Jason’s nurse.  She said that he is stable and able to follow simple commands.  He seems to be aware of his surrounding.  Jodi should arrive in D.C. this morning.  The Army is arranging for Katy, Lisa and my flights out.  I should fly out this afternoon.  Jason will go into surgery today to close his wounds. 

I may have trouble communicating regularly once I leave for D.C. 

Thank you all for nice emails and phone call.  We appreciate your support.

• Cap
• Charge
• Junk Gun
• Nipple
• Percussion Arm
• Powder Charge
• Saturday Night Special
• Shot (updated to include information about various shot sizes)
• Shotshell
• Wad

The program shall include procurement, transportation, storage, and distribution of safety notification and emergency change of address cards...

Executive Order 11490, Part 6, Post Office Department, SECTION 601, Functions
October 28, 1969
Plans for the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.

National Ammo Day is only a month away and some people are talking about putting a twist on it this year.  The plan is for everyone to buy the same brand at the same time of day at WalMart.  I agree it has some amusement value.  Winchester white-box or Remington value-packs in your favorite caliber at 15:30 Central time on November 19th.

I updated the gun dictionary web page on Boomershoot.org again:

• Cocked, Full
• Cocked, Half
• Cylinder
• Double
• Ejector
• Extractor
• Forend

From the Tri-City Herald: Suit alleges lab, Battelle sabotaged software:

A consultant for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has sued the lab and Battelle Memorial Institute, alleging they sabotaged a software program he was supposed to market, then stole his ideas on how to write a better product to peddle on their own.

[name deleted by request] claims the lab contacted him in 2001 to find potential buyers for PalmFon software.

...

[deleted name] in his 49-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Richland, alleges the software was defective from the start or made nonfunctional later so his company wouldn't be able to sell it.

His lawsuit also claims employees at Battelle Memorial Institute, which runs the lab, realized after 9/11 that they had a hot item that could make millions of dollars for the nonprofit institute without having to go through a middle-man such as [deleted name] and his company, [deleted] Inc.

...

[deleted name] alleges that when the lab couldn't get him to release his rights to the software, they gave him a final product that wouldn't work. He says PNNL then began developing its own version of a parallel program that would compete with what he was trying to deliver.

I have no inside knowledge of the validity of the claims.  I just know PNNL allowed some employees to commit felonies against me and get away with it--so far.

In Star Trek IV there is made mention of transparent aluminum.  Very cool idea, huh?  Well... science and engineering have nearly caught up with that science fiction material.  It's aluminum oxynitride that the US Air Force is testing for transparent armor:

ALON^tm is a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles, said. 1st Lt. Joseph La Monica, transparent armor sub-direction lead

"The substance itself is light years ahead of glass," he said, adding that it offers "higher performance and lighter weight."

Traditional transparent armor is thick layers of bonded glass. The new armor combines the transparent ALON^tm piece as a strike plate, a middle section of glass and a polymer backing. Each layer is visibly thinner than the traditional layers.

ALON^tm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor, said the lieutenant.

In a June 2004demonstration, an ALON^tm test pieces held up to both a .30 caliber Russian M-44 sniper rifle and a .50 caliber Browning Sniper Rifle with armor piercing bullets. While the bullets pierced the glass samples, the armor withstood the impact with no penetration.

In extensive testing, ALON^tm has performed well against multiple hits of .30 caliber armor piercing rounds -- typical of anti-aircraft fire, Lieutenant La Monica said. Ttests focusing on multiple hits from .50 caliber rounds and improvised explosive devices are in the works.

Thanks to Ry for the email on the topic.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

Eric Hoffer
Section 75, The True Believer

Analog Kid at Random Nuclear Strikes has been posting some outstanding quotes from Ayn Rand's book Man’s Rights.  I don't have this book.  I should get it.  Read the quotes and see what you think:

• Criminals are a small minority
• If one wishes to advocate a free society
• Code of ethics
• The subordination of society
• A “Right” is a moral principle

Update: As Analog Kid points out in the comments section--it's not a book.  It's an essary in one of her books.  Also he has posted another Ayn Rand quote.

Ry put up two videos of gun related episodes of Myth Busters.  They come up with the correct conclusion on the bullet impact effects--which was nice to see.  The bullets into the gas tank demonstrated what really happens but then they engage in some conjecture that is unfounded.  And as Ry points out they have no clue as to how tracers actually work.

The abolition of the caliphate, then, accomplished precisely the opposite of what Ataturk hoped it would: it gave the adherents of political Islam a cause around which to rally, recruit, and mobilize. In essence, it gave birth to the crisis that engulfs the world today. It is likely that a destruction of the Ka’aba or the Al-Aqsa Mosque would have the same effect: it would become source of spirit, not of dispirit. The jihadists would have yet another injury to add to their litany of grievances, which up to now have so effectively confused American leftists into thinking that the West is at fault in this present conflict. But the grievances always shift; the only constant is the jihad imperative. Let us not give that imperative even greater energy in the modern world by supplying such pretexts needlessly.

Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com July 28, 2005

From his Dad:

Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2005 9:02 PM

At 5:00 PM I had an opportunity for a long talk with Jason’s nurse and then I had an opportunity to talk with the surgeon who had assessed his condition and cleaned his wounds.  The good news is that although Jason is heavily sedated he is communicating through nods to the nurse’s questions.  However, because he is heavily sedated he will remember nothing about his treatments and travels until they reduce the drug dosages. Nurse and Doctor assess him as stable, good blood pressure, heart rate is good, temperature is normal, there are no internal injuries and he has movement in all of his extremities. 

The negative news is that he is on a ventilator (which the nurse says is normal for someone heavily injured).  The Doctor said that there are three main injury areas.  First, they amputate his arm below the elbow but if there is not enough soft tissue for a prosthesis they will be forced to amputate his arm above the elbow.  They want to keep the elbow if at all possible.  Second, some bones in his face seem to be crushed and it may require facial surgery.  Although Jason has facial swelling and maybe some broken facial bones, according to the nurse the facial injury does not seem to be too bad, i.e., ears, nose, eyes, mouth and hair all intact. A specialist in this area will examine Jason tomorrow.  Third major injury is to his both sides of his buttock.  This injury required surgery in Iraq and will require more surgery.  However, wound should heal.    The only thing that seem worrisome to the nurse was that they still needed to give him blood which she immediate assured me was normal for extensive injuries.

I ask the Doctor directly about Jason’s overall condition and what kind of recovery that could be expected.  He said that main concerns now were blood clots and infection but the Doctor said he is very unlikely to die.  Second, that Jason could have a full recover but it will require one or two years of surgery and physical therapy. 

Jason will be surgery tomorrow and we will have more information about his condition about noon central time.  He if remains stable the Doctor intends to have him flown to Walter Reed hospital on Tuesday.   They may keep Jason sedated until he arrives at Walter Reed.   Katy, Lisa and I will meet Jason at Walter Reed later this week.   If Jason stays at Walter Reed more then 30 days that will become his home military base.  Once he is recovered enough to leave Walter Reed, Jason will go before the medical review board they will decide the extent of his disability and he will be referred to medical care at his home address for any further treatments (i.e., right now that is XXXX).

I will keep you posted.  Katy and I have appreciated the notes and calls of support.

From my brother (Jason is the son of my wife's brother, Brad is my brother's son):

Brad has had a picture of Dad's combine you took many years ago with Jason in it. That picture was on our wall in the trailer, but has been on Brad's wall since we moved into the house. The kids only know Jason as the boy in that picture.

Too bad handguns are banned in the UK.  It looks like they need a new Pink Pistols chapter there:

The killers of a man who was beaten to death in an "abhorrent and shocking" homophobic attack are likely to strike again, police warned yesterday.

Jody Dobrowski, 24, a bar manager from south-east London was chased and brutally beaten by his killers who shouted homophobic abuse while they kicked and punched him in a wooded park area in Clapham Common, south London.

Mr Dobrowski, who was found late on Friday night by passers-by was taken to hospital shortly after midnight where he died on Saturday from severe head, neck and face injuries. He is believed to have been gay although he had not formally told some family members. It is thought his attackers chased him shouting insults before cornering him and overpowering him - despite the fact that he was six foot four tall. Metropolitan Police investigators believe the two male suspects may have struck before and are "likely to strike again".

...

A few weeks ago there were reports of an attempted garrotting in the same area.

Lyle and I took his son out hunting white-tailed deer on Friday.  Lyle didn't carry a rifle just helped his son to have an enjoyable experience.  We first explored the area where I had seen two deer burst out from under a tree a couple weeks ago.  Lyle and his son saw two (and maybe a third) deer as they ran away from us after we had walked past them in the grass.  I took them out in the woods behind my parents house and Lyle spotted another which we watched run through the brush and up the hill out of sight.  After lunch we scouted out an area where a grass waterway joined an 80 acre patch of woods.  The grass was still green and probably good food.  The timber and field areas have very little food left in them this time of year.  I heard then saw one deer jump up and run deeper into the woods.  We expected the deer would come out of the woods later that evening to feed and we could be waiting for them.  We saw lots of tracks and were quite hopeful of our prospects there.  We went back over near the Boomershoot site and Lyle walked through a small patch of trees and brush where I had seen lots of tracks a few days early.  His son and I sat a 125 yards away waiting for something to come our way.  There was nothing there.  We went back to original patch of a few acres next to the Taj Mahal where Lyle and his son had seen the deer earlier in the day.  His son and I waited at one end of the patch of brush, grass, trees, and ferns while Lyle went to the top end and walked down trying scare any deer toward us.  It worked--a deer burst into the open and ran within about 10 feet of his son.  I was another 40 feet away and managed to get my scope on the deer by about the time it was 100 yards away.  It was on "full afterburner" and bounded out of sight in just a few seconds.

We made up a batch of explosives and put them in some clay pigeons to test the feasibility of Boomer Clays.  I shot them with the highest velocity shotgun ammo with the largest pellets I could find from about 15 yards away.  It did nothing but spread reactive target mix in the plowed field.  We shot the same type of target with Stinger .22LR from 15 yards away.  It went boom.  Next we tried American Eagle .22LR (fairly low velocity) ammo, again from 15 yards away.  It failed to go boom.  I didn't realize it but my previous, successful, tests with this ammo were from slightly closer.  We switched back to the high velocity Stinger and everything went boom on the first hit.  I don't know if the mix was slightly different or if it was just because of slightly decreased velocity of the .22 that the mix failed to detonate with the slower ammo and the shotgun.  But it didn't really matter which.  If the mix was different it meant we couldn't produce it reliably.  And in addition the shotgun test were with a very long barrel at very close range.  Optimal conditions for detonation with zero success.  Real life shooting would be far less likely to produce results.  If we want to do shotgun boomers it's going to have to be Plan B.  We cleaned up our mixing equipment and went back to the grass waterway/woods junction to lay in ambush for Bambi.

We got into position at 17:38 about 125 yards from the far edge of the grass waterway.  We waited and waited as motionless and as quiet as we could until 18:30--the last legal minute of hunting for the day.  Nothing.  We packed up and drove back to Moscow.  Between Troy and Kendrick we saw two more deer alongside the road as we went by at 55 MPH.  We saw seven and possibly eight deer during the day but with zero chance of getting a decent shot at one of them.  More opportunities will present themselves and we have until December to connect.

My brother, Doug, wrote up a very detailed story on the arrest of David Pruss.  Doug contributed a fair amount to the search for and eventual arrest of this vandal who caused over $100,000 in damage.  I should have posted this over a week ago but kept forgetting.

pruss.doc (303.5 KB)

Here is what the Sherrif had to say about the story:

Doug, I took the article home and read it when it was quiet and thought it was excellent. You brought out a side that most law enforcement officers don't think about or if they do they don't speak about it. It's the day to day issues that they face in a situation like this. We are trained to write reports but we leave out the human side of things. Yes we are some what like robots. I gave a copy to our prosecutors and I will get their permission for you to print this as soom as possible.

See also my previous postings:

• More articles on David Pruss
• They caught him
• We already got the hole dug

For the first time ever the truth laid bear Blogosphere ecosystem rating for this blog has nosed up into the mammal section.  It is, as of this minute, an Adorable Little Rodent after spending mouths bouncing around in the Flappy-Birds/Slithering-Reptiles region.

Friday was my birthday.  Xenia posted something really nice about it.  We didn't celebrate it until yesterday because Kim and her boyfriend were coming from Coeur d'Alene for part of the weekend.  Xenia took some pictures but missed out on the cake and ice cream with the rest of us because Kim had car troubles and was a couple hours late getting her.  That forced a schedule change that caused a conflict for Xenia.  And of course by that time we had received news of Jason being injured.  I was and am still rather depressed about it.  We didn't really celebrate my birthday as much as go through the motions.

I did like what Xenia's history teacher had to say about my birthday, "Just tell him it's an awesome caliber."

Thanks to everyone that has said kind words both in the comments and in private email.  Here is pretty much everything I know about what has happened and what the status is.  Xenia has posted a little bit about things too.

I was looking at a picture of him on Friday.  It was a picture of him when he was about seven or eight years old riding in a combine harvesting wheat with my Dad on the farm with the Boomershoot site in the background.  My Dad suggested I show the picture to my friend Lyle who was having lunch with me at my parents house.  It was at almost exactly at the same time as when he was injuried.  Whenever I look at pictures of him now I look at his right arm and hand.  The arm and hand he no longer has.

This might be about the incident:

There were no effective attacks against Task Force Liberty forces since last evening when two IED attacks damaged one Humvee and wounded seven Soldiers who received non-life threatening injuries.

From his father, typos and all.  I have obscured some information that shouldn't be of particular insterest to anyone but immediately family:

Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2005 5:42 PM

Friday, October 14

A bomb exploded near or under Jason’s humvee causing sever injuries while he was on duty on Friday, Oct. 14, 2005.  Other members of this unit were hurt or killed.

Friday, October 14, 2005

I received a call from the Army about 11:00 PM 8 hours after the incident.  I was told he was critical condition; his right arm below the elbow had been amputated, he had laceration on right side of his face; he had abdomen and back injuries.  He has been placed in a medical coma.  I verified that the call was for real (Jason had warned us about hoaxes) and called Katy.   Army casualty center is in Washington, D.C. and they are our link to Jason (1.888.331.XXXX).  They have been very helpful and caring but there seems to be limited information coming out of the Army trauma center in Balad, Iraq were Jason was sent after the explosion.    

I was told that the Army would provide a flight to either Germany or to the trauma center in the U.S for Katy, me and Lisa.  They advise waiting tell Jason arrives in the U.S. because his stay in Germany seemed to be uncertain as to the length (4 to 7 days) and we are not sure of his condition.   

Saturday, October 15, 2005

I was told that Jason was entering surgery for his back at 12:30 AM; I later found out it was for the buttocks.  He was out of surgery at approximately 9:00 AM.  It was unclear if he was in surgery all of this time or what the extent of the injuries was. 

I was told that they were flying him to Army trauma center in Landstuhl, Germany this evening.  It is a 10 hour trip and he should arrive Sunday morning.  This is good sign because he is in stable enough condition to be moved.  Hopefully we will be able to arrange a phone call once he arrives.  I am suppose to get a prognosis report when leaves Iraq / Kuwait (approximately 7:00 PM).  Unfortunately, I just learned that the prognosis report will not be available for several more hours 

Barb referred me to co-worker (Shane XXXX – 509.332.XXXX) who had recently spent 15 months working as a physical therapist in U.S. Military Hospital in Germany.  He was able to give me a better perspective of what the recovery process would be like and how Jason would be treated by the Army.  First, the Army pushes the wounded soldiers to get up and become active as soon as possible, even during their short stay in Germany they are immediately placed in physical therapy?  They are typically reassessed and additional surgery is performed as necessary.  Wounded solders are sent directly to a military hospital or trauma center depending on their injuries.  I was told by the Army that Jason will more than likely go to D.C (i.e. Walter Reed) or Huston (Brooks).  Shane says the care at these facilities is very good and they try keep them there as long as necessary.   Once the immediate surgeries and other treatments are completed, Jason will probably be assigned to his base at Ft. Steward and have therapy there, additional surgeries as necessary and counseling.  He will work at the base if is able.  Jason will be given 30 day medical leave(s) to come home and he will receive treatment as necessary while he is here.

Sent: Sun 10/16/2005 8:12 AM

I was on the phone early this morning trying to determine what Jason’s status was.  They had very little information because he is still in transit.  Jason is scheduled to land in Germany at 4:45 PM (German time) today which is just an hour from now Central Time.  They said that it will be several hours before he is processed into the hospital and evaluated.  He will be at Landstuhl Medial Center at least until Wednesday and possibly until Saturday (Those are the days that the two weekly flights are made to the U.S.). The average stay in Landstuhl is 5-6 days during which time they evaluate Jason, clean is bandages, perform any immediate surgery, and get him ready to travel to the U.S.   

I think Jason was in a medical induced coma for the trip to Germany.  I don’t know if they will keep him in the coma.  He is currently list VSI (Very Serious Injury) which is civilian equivalent of critical condition.   

Jason’s Aunt Judy and Uncle Stan are planning to visit him while he is in Germany.  Landstuhl is about five hour drive from Brussels where they live.

I am hoping to get a more complete report on the seriousness of Jason’s injuries once they do the evaluation in Germany.  I have not had any success getting the medical report from Iraq.

Update: Another weird coincident thing... When Lyle, his son, and I were eating lunch with my parents, probably just before the bomb went off that caused Jason's injuries, we were talking about my great Uncle who lost his hand in an explosion over 80 years ago.

It's old news, from October 7th, but the topic has been on my mind for the last few days.  From World Net Daily:

Bin Laden has been amassing nuclear weapons and materials since 1992, when he was in the Sudan. This was substantiated by the testimony of al-Qaida officials in federal court during the hearings of "The U.S. v. Osama bin Laden."

When he returned to Afghanistan, bin Laden purchased tactical nuclear weapons from the Chechen Mafia. News of the sale was confirmed by Saudi, Israeli, British, Saudi and Russian intelligence and reported in The Times of London, the Jerusalem Report, Al Watan al-Arabi, Muslim Magazine, Al-Majallah (London's Saudi weekly) and by the BBC.

In 1997, bin Laden made additional small nuclear weapons from materials bought not only from the Chechens but also black market sources in Russia, China, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine.

In 1998, he purchased large quantities of highly enriched uranium from Simeon Mogilevich, a Ukrainian arms dealer. For one delivery of fifteen kilos of uranium-236, Mogilevich was paid $70 million. Bin Laden also purchased several bars of enriched uranium-138 from Ibrahim Abd, an Egyptian arms dealer and several Congolese opposition soldiers.

...

The seven cities targeted by al-Qaida for nuclear destruction are New York, Washington D.C., Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Chicago.

...almost twenty-one hundred American aircraft were to be found over central and eastern Germany around the middle of that day.  For the German population on the ground, it must have seemed that the sky was black with machines that meant them harm.

...

The entire First Division would deliver 678.3 tons of HE ("general purpose") bombs and 400 tons of incendiaries.

Frederick Taylor
From his book: Dresden, Tuesday, February 13, 1945
Chapter 23: Ash Wednesday

Your city will be obliterated unless your government surrenders.

Leaflets dropped on Hiroshima
August 5, 1945

An unexpected phone call after 10:00 PM is a bad omen.  This one was no exception.

My nephew in Iraq had a bomb explode under his Humvee.  He is in critical condition.  His right arm has been amputated below the elbow.  He has lacerations on his face.  They are evaluating injuries to his back and abdomen.

I know what I am about to write is an emotional response.  It's not what I think we should do, it's what I feel we should do.  I'll be more rational in a few days.

Nuke Mecca, nuke Medina, nuke every "holy" city on that continent and fill the craters with pig manure.  Osama is in the mountains of Afghanistan?  Make those mountains into glass lined sub sea-level valleys in Afghanistan.  Islam is hereby banished from our planet, our solar system, and our galaxy.  All paper copies of the Qur'an shall be put into pig manure, shredded, then used to fertilize fields in Israel.  All digital copies and their backups shall be deleted, the media reduced to at least it's molecular components if not transmuted into different elements.  If anyone so much as mentions a word related to Islam they shall be dropped, naked, into the middle of a pig sewage lagoon.  If they can swim out fine.  If not then no great loss.

Man is constantly struggling with moral issues.  Those who claim to know the most about these issues are nearly always the ones who know the least.

Doug Huffman
[Nearly all government "help" falls into this category.  Gun control, health care, welfare, etc.  People try to make a "moral" case out of it and mess up the results. -- Joe]

I've been neglecting to report the results for September.  I didn't a get into the winner category but I did get a "Super Trooper Award" for my entry.

The October match is called Black Death.  Analog Kid says, "Yeah, you’re hating me already, right?"  In my case, the answer is no.  I kind of like what I see there.  It probably helps that I see a way to "game the stage" in a big way.  I'll shoot it straight as well as gaming it and confess after the deadline for entries is over.

Abortion Simile

Hmmm.  I wonder what would happen if you'd remove liberals from their life support system of government grants and welfare programs.  Do you think they could make it?  If it's proven they could not, would it be OK to abort them from society?

Rachel R. Alexander
Microsoft's Left vs. Right Discussion alias
Tuesday, April 04, 1995 11:02AM

This guy is wearing a fanny pack and a jacket with the URL of his website (ICarry.org) on it.  He asks to speak to someone about school policy at Rock Valley College in Rockford Illinois.  He is arrested for:

DISORDERLY CONDUCT: in that Shawn (SIC) Kranish knowingly did an act in such an unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb Janna L. Shwaiko and provoke a breach of peace to wit Shawn (SIC) Kranish walked into the Presidents (SIC) office and requested from Shwaiko a meeting with the President. Kranish was wearing a blue jacket with the words "I Carry" on the front of the jacket and he was also wearing a black nylon pouch or handgun holster. Shwaiko believed Kranish to be carrying a gun and it alarmed her in violation of 720 ILCS 5/26-1(a) of the Illinois Compiled Statutes.

Officer Edward Crumb, #167
Complainant

It must be they so terrified of freedom they have to arrest someone that just wants to talking about it.  Details are on the Concealed Carry, Inc. blog.  The thought that comes to my mind is, "Can I get someone arrested because I think they might not be carrying a gun in a dangerous area?"  After all, not being able to defend yourself in a dangerous area is sort of like leaving food out in the open in grizzly bear country.  It attracts dangerous animals that are a threat to everyone.  And if you read the story you find out this poor kid was searched without a warrant.

I'm tempted to send Kranish a Boomershoot T-shirt or hat but wearing it in public would probably warrant an arrest for terrorism in the police state where he lives.

Stage: 4    EL SUPREMEO(REV)
Place Name                  No. Class Division    Pts  Pen Time   Hit Fact Stg Pts  Stg %
    1 Tomasie, Squire         4   A   Open         58   0   5.21  11.1324  60.0000 100.00%
    2 Huffman, Joe           13   A   Limited      56   0   6.55   8.5496  46.0796  76.80%
    3 Rhea, Dale             19   A   Limited      56   0   6.72   8.3333  44.9138  74.86%
    4 Polen, Sue              1   A   Open         46   0   6.41   7.1763  38.6779  64.46%
    5 Galanti, Michael        7   A   Limited      44   0   6.29   6.9952  37.7018  62.84%
    6 Andersson, Magnus       5   A   Limited      54   0   7.74   6.9767  37.6021  62.67%
    7 Larson, John            6   A   Open         45  10   5.14   6.8093  36.6999  61.17%
    8 Kettells, Tom           2   A   Revolver     60   0   9.30   6.4516  34.7720  57.95%
  Tie Sellers, David          8   A   Open         46   0   7.13   6.4516  34.7720  57.95%
   10 Kudo, Ken              16   A   Open         46   0   7.16   6.4246  34.6265  57.71%
   11 Lee, Yong              17   A   Open         50   0   8.56   5.8411  31.4816  52.47%
   12 Flynn, Sean            14   A   Limited      52   0   9.73   5.3443  28.8040  48.01%
   13 Titilah, Scott         18   A   Limited 10   58   0  11.69   4.9615  26.7409  44.57%
   14 Young, Jeff             3   A   Limited      42   0   9.77   4.2989  23.1697  38.62%
   15 Mayne, Willie           9   A   Limited      60   0  14.23   4.2164  22.7250  37.88%
   16 Rhea, Alice            21   A   Limited      60   0  14.61   4.1068  22.1343  36.89%
   17 Masse, Patrick         15   A   Production   56   0  15.13   3.7013  19.9488  33.25%
   18 Yip, Raymond           20   A   Limited      50   0  14.39   3.4746  18.7270  31.21%
   19 Coyne, Sandy           11   A   Production   50   0  16.19   3.0883  16.6449  27.74%
   20 Owen, Michael          10   A   Limited 10   37  10  10.04   2.6892  14.4939  24.16%
   21 Eliasen, Jeff          12   A   Open         38   0  17.37   2.1877  11.7910  19.65%

With the exception of the mayor of Birmingham, AL (who last month suggested citizens of Birmingham arm themselves with guns), I am not aware of ANY official or agency that recommends resistance to criminal attack, despite the fact that federal statistical data (from the Bureau of Justice Statistics) overwhelmingly shows that armed defense (with firearms at the top of the "armed" list) offers the lowest risk of injury to the innocent victim.

The "system" is in the business of creating and perpetuating sheeple. Sheeple are dependent on the state/system.

Joe Waldron
10/11/2005 11:44 AM
Email to the Yahoo group WA-CCW

Over 100,000 Turks were smuggled into the UK by just one gang:

Eight suspected leaders of a people-trafficking gang thought to have smuggled up to 100,000 Turkish people into Britain were arrested by police yesterday in a series of early morning raids. Detectives described the gang as the most prolific people smuggling network they had encountered.

Other large smuggling operations that have been shutdown include:

• The Snakeheads, a group of Chinese criminals, is one of the most notorious people-smuggling gangs in the world. Jing Ping Chen, better known as Little Sister Ping, was jailed in 2003, and is thought to have been responsible for smuggling between 150,000 and 175,000 people earning about £12m.
• In May, a man and woman involved in smuggling people out of India to work at fish-and-chip shops in Shropshire were jailed. Charan Singh, 48, above, was sentenced to 15 months after he was found driving an immigrant. Bakshinder Chatha, 35, helped an illegal immigrant get a national insurance number and was sentenced to nine months.
• In May 2004, a gang which made thousands of pounds by offering a "club class" service to hundreds of illegal immigrants they brought into the Midlands was jailed. The ringleaders were sentenced to five years. Immigrants from India sold land and belongings to raise fees up to £11,000 to be smuggled through ferry ports before being dropped at their chosen destination as part of a "door-to-door" service. They were "fed and watered" and transported in people carriers by the West Midlands-based gang who were caught in a joint British and French operation codenamed Gular. Most of the gang were arrested in June 2003 after police swooped on vehicles carrying 14 illegal immigrants in a lay-by near Canterbury in Kent.

Yeah, 100K is small compared to what we have but the population of England is only about 50 million and that is from just one source.  The population of the United States is estimated to be nearly 300 million now.

This brings up an interesting thought.  If a single gang can smuggle in over 100K people (who require air, water, food, and waste removal during their transit) just think how easy it would be to smuggle in 10 to 20 times that many firearms (roughly the same mass) into the country. The only limiting factor on the number of firearms in the UK is the number of willing buyers with the money.  Once again restrictions on firearm access only disarms the victims.

These are mostly in response to Michael L.'s input:

• Can
• COM
• Dot
• Flash Suppressor
• Grooves
• Group
• Lands
• Minute Of Angle (changes)
• Parallax
• Red-Dot
• Reticle
• Rifling
• Trajectory
• Wind Doping

I still have numerous entries to add from Lyle at UltiMAK.com.

From Britain:

NHS WARDS, departments and even entire hospitals may be forced to close under the latest health reforms designed to extend patient choice, the Government is warned today.

In a damning report, the Audit Commission says the new funding method, where money follows the patient, is destabilising the NHS and fuelling the current financial crisis.

Instead of increasing choice it could have the opposite effect, with services going to the wall unless the payment system is radically reformed, says the commission. It also cautions that critical services essential to support emergency admissions could close down in some hospitals because of the failure to attract patient referrals.

The system of “payment by results” was brought in by the Government for foundation trusts in 2004-05 to improve choice and efficiency in the NHS and is now being extended to all trusts. Commission insiders gave warning that if foundation trusts, the top- performing hospitals, were finding the system difficult to operate it would create turbulence when extended nationwide.

Under the system hospitals charge a fixed price for an operation, which is agreed nationally, and claim the money back according to the number of patients treated.

Efficient, well-managed hospitals are expected to make a profit from the set price, which includes the costs of equipment and staff overheads. But weaker, inefficient hospitals risk exceeding the “tariff” and falling further into debt.

...

The NHS is already facing a £254 million deficit, despite record funding

A survey by the BMA last month found 385 of the 530 primary care, acute, mental health and community NHS trusts in England had deficits totalling £2.4 billion

The Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust has a deficit of £30 million

St George’s Healthcare Trust in London is losing 60 beds, trying to reduce a £24.5million overspend

I love the way they spin the situation, "patient choice is damaging hospitals."  It's as if the patients should see to the well being of the hospitals rather than the other way around.

Although they probably are not as rigid as the laws of physics and certainly not as well known there are basic laws of economics the advocates of socialized medicine think they can violate without consequences.  They are wrong and/or ignorant.  They are now paying the price of their delusions and/or ignorance.

I've heard some absolutely atrocious stories about New Jersey police before.  Some were so far out that I was more than a little skeptical even if the teller had an excellent reputation for honesty and claimed first hand experience.  All that doubt has now been erased:

Clocked at 95 MPH in the 65 MPH zone, the convoy of about a dozen vehicles was asked to pull over by Augusta County, Virginia Sheriff's Deputy Michael Roane. Six of the New Jersey police sped away without stopping.

"We're not above the law," Roane said in an interview with WHSV-TV. "We have to obey the speed limits. We cannot run emergency equipment when there's no emergency."

In what was described as an initially hostile stop, Roane politely asked the New Jersey officers to turn off their lights and slow down. The Passaic officers claimed that returning from helping with Hurricane Katrina rescue duties gave them the right to speed.

"We just had guys down there for the last 14 days... helping our brothers in blue," Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale said in a recorded telephone call to Roane after the incident. "You know what? You need to get off of that highway, pal, and wake up and learn what law enforcement is all about -- supporting each other."

"It's a disgrace," Speziale said of Roane's conduct. "If you think that that's not a disgrace, you should take the badge off your shirt and throw it in the garbage."

It is unlikely that ordinary motorists returning from equally hazardous volunteer rescue efforts would receive the same courtesy. Under Virginia law, it is illegal to operate emergency lights when there is no emergency. Moreover, driving 80 MPH on any highway is considered reckless driving and carries a sentence of 12 months in jail, a $2500 fine, a six-month license suspension and possible car confiscation (VA code § 46.2-862).

And from TheNewspaper.com

Other police officials agree with Speziale that police should be exempt from the laws binding other citizens.

See also:

• N.J. police object to stop of 95-mph convoy
• Virginia Officer Stops "Speeding & Reckless Convoy of N.J. Officers
• New Jersey officers fume after I-81 stop of Katrina relief

And yet some people will tell you we don't need an individual right to keep and bear arms.  When the private citizen is disarmed the police, and government in general, develop an attitude that is unacceptable in a free society.  New Jersey is a prime example of this.

Had I, with the data currently available to me, been the sheriff in Virginia I would have put them all in jail and put out a warrant for arrest of their chief and attempted to extradite him for aiding and abetting.

Update: Another report indicates the rogue cops did more than just speed and ignore the local police:

For nearly 200 miles, New York and New Jersey police also wreaked havoc from morning until night by forcing motorists from their lanes as well as by tying up traffic.

I-81 motorcyclist Dick Graham recalls a speeding New Jersey caravan that remained in his sights only for seconds during a morning ride north of Roanoke.

“I look in my mirror and, good God and low and behold, the horizon was red” with police lights, said the Fishersville resident and chief executive officer of Augusta Medical Center.

...

“I had my cruiser going 70 [mph], and they just blew right past us,” Graham said. “It was just a whole snake of them. It looked like a NASCAR race where they draft each other” bumper to bumper.

...

The News Virginian, through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, obtained transcripts of five 911 calls to Virginia State Police dispatchers.

One call shows that the convoy broke up by the time it neared Augusta County. A splinter group continued to force motorists off the road while passing through the Raphine stretch of I-81, though.

Said one caller at 10:25 a.m.: “Coming northbound 81. Should be at the 204 [mile marker] now. There are three New Jersey sheriffs’ offices vehicles … and apparently they’re using their emergency equipment to get people to move out of their way.”

The next call logged by State Police came from the Augusta County 911 center, which apparently also had tracked the convoy via I-81 motorists.

“Did you get the BOL [Be On the Lookout] for three New Jersey police cars running lights and sirens on the interstate?” an Augusta County dispatcher asked.

“Yes, we did,” replied a State Police dispatcher.

...

Though the caravan extended for 80 cars, one state trooper reported, some motorists complained of smaller groups of New York police that refused to yield the right of way to traffic for nearly 100 miles.

Said one caller: “There are four New York police cars running side-by-side with flashers on. … They are not letting traffic go by, going approximately 50 to 55 mph.”

New York police also hogged the road to the point of forcing others cars out of the way.

“The four New York police vehicles … just cut me off,” the driver said. “They have the right lane blocked and won’t let anyone around them.”

The dispatcher taking this called listed the caller as “very upset.”

Emergency calls seem to trace this convoy for roughly 88 miles. One call comes at 11:07 p.m. from a tractor-trailer driver warning of the resulting traffic jam crawling through Blacksburg at 30 mph.

“Yes … I’m driving an 18-wheeler here on Interstate 81 going north at Exit 130,” the tractor-trailer driver said.  “Um, we’ve just about had several wrecks here because of New York State Police and I guess New Jersey police vehicles are blocking both lanes and letting nobody pass.”

Cops, as group, don't get that out of control where the people they serve exercise their right to keep and bear arms.

The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.

Frederick Bastiat

I spent the morning hunting a patch of scrub land probably 5 acres in size.  I had seen two deer there 10 days ago.  When I approached the area where they had bedded down earlier I could smell a very strong animal smell.  Similar to the smell of a blanket a dog has been sleeping on.  There was nothing there though.  I saw lots of tracks in the freshly plowed field next to the scub land but there was nothing to shoot at.  To optimize my chances today I should of stayed around until dusk at another location where they come out of the woods to feed on some green grass but I had things I had to do at home and came home early.  I'll be going back Friday and possibly Thursday. 

I got some stuff done at the Taj Mahal though--preparing for Boomershoot 2006.

Today is the first day of hunting season and the first time I go hunting.  I would have left much earlier but I had to take Xenia to school.

I'll be working on the Taj Mahal during the middle of the day.  And perhaps preparing some of the pictures from the rock blasting I did yesterday.  The rock was MUCH bigger than anyone thought and we weren't able to do much with it.  But we did make some big booms and broke some pieces off of it.  Details later.

I want to build on the The Quote of the Day for today a bit.  I suspect more than just an avoidance of truth.  It's has to do with data selection and basic assumptions.  To the best of my knowledge there isn't an Air America radio station within my reception range here in North Central Idaho.  While I was in the Seattle area last week I spent several hours listening to it.  I concluded they have a completely different set of assumptions about the world, and perhaps reality, that are currently inaccessible to me.  "Bush is evil and stupid" seemed to be a basic tenet.  "The war in Iraq is wrong, we must leave as soon as possible" was another.  Another basic assumption appears to be "control things not people".

No evidence presented or examples given.  Just building on those assumptions.  In another example I just read an editorial which had these two paragraphs:

I don't mind that Bush is not a man of great intellect. I do mind that he effectively has taken the American public down to his simplistic level. Too many people buy a faulty link between Sept. 11 and Iraq. Too many people think that winning in Iraq will have any impact on the security of Americans at home.

...

At present the danger is from al-Qaida. That can change. The Unibomber was not driven by religious fervor, nor was Timothy McVeigh. The war on terror should focus on access to the tools of terrorism. That would require stringent controls on the sale of materials that can end up in bombs. That would require monitoring who purchases those materials. Wouldn't it make more sense to monitor those individuals rather than people with Middle Eastern surnames who borrow books from libraries? Books are not incendiary devices.

In the first paragraph no data is given to lead one to believe Bush is "not a man of great intellect" or that he works on a simplistic level. if you wanted to ignore all the funding of terrorism that Saddam engaged in you still don't have to have a link between 9-11 and Iraq to think converting a repressive dictatorship into a representative democracy is the right thing to do.  And what about drawing all the Muslim extremists to a common location to do battle with our troops rather than in our shopping malls, subways, and sports stadiums?  What about providing a "shining beacon"?  What about destroying the extremist Muslim culture?  Don't these guys get it?  Or is it they don't want to get it?  It seems to me that he is the one working at a very simplistic level.

In the second paragraph he isn't even consistent with himself.  Information is a tool of terrorism.  Doing research on the layout of a city subway, the construction details of a skyscraper, or how to make explosives and poisons from household materials is just as important to the terrorist as the physical materials.  I'll grant him that we shouldn't be monitoring people's reading materials.  But nether should we require stringent controls on steel nails, fingernail polish remover, and hair bleach which can be made into a bomb.  This guy complains Bush is simplistic and and he is totally clueless about bomb building as practiced in the mid-east.  He mentioned McVeigh and doesn't realize that the raw ingredients to make ammonium nitrate, the main ingredient McVeigh used, are all in the air we breath and our electrical outlets.  Try putting "stringent controls" on that!

I can only conclude that these people live in a different reality.  A simplistic, ignorant reality where Muslim extremists don't want to kill you if you don't convert to Islam.  A reality where Mommy (as opposed to Big Brother) government can put childproof locks on the "kitchen cupboards" so the "children" don't hurt themselves or others.  The reality is that to retain the freedoms we desire we must seek out and imprison or kill the individuals that desire to harm us.  The only tools of terrorism that restrictions upon make any sense reside between the ears of the terrorists.  It is those tools that must be physically controlled or destroyed.  And although I initially had many doubts about going into Iraq, even in hindsight, I think it was the best course of action.

So what of the liberals and Air America's basic assumptions?  Are they simply projecting their simplistic limitations onto their "enemies"?  Perhaps that's part of it.  But I think it goes beyond that.  There appears to be more and more evidence that since Muslim terrorists want to destroy capitalism they must be on the side of righteousness.  The "liberals" are in so many ways nothing but haters of capitalism.  I believe they are thinking in terms of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."  Never mind that the enemy of your enemy would have you giving up music, praying to Mecca multiple times per day, and killing homosexuals.  It appears to me it is more important to them that Republican control of government be destroyed than our freedom be retained.  Not that Republicans are any great friend of freedom.  I too utilize the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" rationalization. Bush is the enemy of Muslim extremists who would kill me if they could because I will not adhere to their belief system.  I will not convert.  The only available alternatives I see are a genocide of hundreds of millions or something very similar to what Bush is implementing.  I'm going with the Bush solution.  Air America and their ilk fall into the category of "the enemy of my friend is my enemy."  I rejoice at the news of their failures and scandals.

Watching the unfolding political debate, it occurs to me that liberals feel the same way about truth that Dracula feels about sunlight.

Paul Kirchner
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 3, No. 5
31 March 1995

As I said a few days ago, probably mid-afternoon today, I will be making little rocks out a big rock again.  You are welcome to show up at the range and help out or just spectate.

The UK Times Online uses the headline Leap in life expectancy brings a scare for pension forecasters.  But it's the socialists that really need to be scared:

ACTUARIES admitted yesterday that they were scared to predict firmly how long humans would live in the future, after releasing new figures showing that survival rates improved by more than 30 per cent in just eight years.

Figures from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI), part of the actuarial profession, showed that the mortality rate for men aged 65 in 2002 was 29 per cent better than in 1994, while life expectancy for women improved 33 per cent in the same period.

...

There is also concern over the growing cost of public sector pensions, which has doubled to £500 billion in just over ten years. Sir Digby Jones, the Director-General of the CBI, this week warned the Labour Party conference that “little has been done to address public sector provision in the face of people living longer and healthier lives”.

A socialist society of the future is going to be faced with some hard choices.  As health care technology improves people live longer and it seems the costs invariable increase as well.  This is a double whammy for the socialist.  They will be increasing unable to provide for both pensions and the health care of the elderly at the expense of the working class.  As I have pointed out in previous posts a common solution to the inevitable fixed budget is to ration health care.  In effect what this does is decrease the quality and the length of life for the people that are more deserving of a longer and better life--the people that contributed the most to society by being productive.  Faced with that penalty productive people have less incentive to be productive.  This decreased incentive results is less productivity and society as a whole suffers.  The more socialistic a society the less productive it becomes and the less able it is to compete in a global market.  As our human life expectancy improves socialism faces it's death.

Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.

Albert Einstein
[This is one of the major claims of F. A. Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom.  I have no reason to doubt it and this "invariable rule" is a major factor in my opposition to socialism. -- Joe]

I went to the SVRC action pistol match today.  I had a few misses toward the end but nothing that was a disaster.  The weather and the people were great.  I'll get the results in a week or so.

I finally got to Wade's yesterday and spent some quality time with my pistol and paper.  After emptying about three or four magazines full (16 to 18 rounds per magazine) things started to flow more like they are supposed to.  The gun would "just go off" when the sights were aligned properly.  The bullseye, even at 30 feet away, would erode away with shots spaced less than a second apart.  I probably sent 300 or 400 rounds downrange and I felt much, much better about my shooting when I was done.

Today it's off to SVRC for a match and visiting with friends.

Jeff at Alphecca reports about an article in the Detroit Free Press:

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- A plaque honoring the right to bear arms would be placed near the state Capitol under legislation approved Wednesday by the state House.

The House voted 108-0 to send the Senate a bill that would require the Michigan Capitol Park Commission to place the plaque near the Capitol or in the adjacent mall area. The plaque would be installed once enough private money is collected for a foundation to which it could be attached.

What really tickles me about this is that they are backing the anti-freedom people into a corner.  What are they going to do when confronted with a vote on this?  Vote against it?  Flat out admit to the public they don't support the constitution they took an oath to support?  Then later support legislation that is anti-freedom even though they voted for a monument supporting that freedom?  Their only viable option appears to be to not vote and/or use some sort of weasel words to say the celebrated freedom doesn't mean what everyone else thinks it means.

We read a notice from Canada to the effect that "The purpose of anti-gun legislation is to establish criminal supremacy over the citizen by awarding the goblins the status of being the sole armed caste of the population." The publisher has gone on to state that the time has come to ask ourselves what is behind all this.

Well, we know what motivates the hoplophobe. He simply envies the man who can cope where he, the hoplophobe, cannot. A skilled, armed man lives on a plane of security and contentment different from that of others. This is not egalitarian! The man who cannot cut it, envies, fears and sometimes hates the man who can. This is all very clear, it is just a pity that so many people choose to hide their perfidious motivation behind what they claim to be "crime control."

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 5, No. 1
January 1997

I had some time to think about reactive targets recently and I know of another material to use rather than the increasing difficult to obtain ammonium nitrate.  The good news is that I know it will detonate with handgun fire and shotguns.  I've done it with handguns before.  I did some pricing yesterday and it appears it would cost about the same as the current solution.  It also would not have the problem of spontaneous combustion at some later date.  The bad news is that it is much more bulky to obtain the same boom (the energy density of the material is much lower).  It also does not generate much of a visual effect.  It's just a loud noise accompanied by the sudden going away of things from the places where they were before.

I may do some experiments to see if it could be modified to provide more visual effects and how we might be able to store and distribute it to the target area.  Ry says, "It's an inspired solution."  I'm not so sure.  I did my first experiments with this in my childhood and then again a few years ago.  I rejected it because of the MUCH larger target size.  The only thing I came up with that made me reconsider it was that I could change the aspect ratio and give the target a greater depth to compensate for the lower density while still making it a challenging for the long range rifle shooters.  Not exactly "inspired" thinking.

Also Ry and I came up with some shotgun target scenarios.  There has always been a great deal of interest in this sort of target.  I'm certain we have a solution for that now.  It's just a matter of creating the launcher for the unconventional targets.  There has also been some interest in a handgun Boomershoot.  This new material should work very well for that application.  I'd want the targets to be at least 25 yards away and supported above the ground to avoid turning gravel and other small objects into projectiles.

It's being reported that the bomber wanted to buy ammonium nitrate:

Joel tried to purchase ammonium nitrate at a feed store late last week.

...

FEED STORE MANAGER TALKS TO REPORTERS ABOUT HINRICHS VIDEO HERE

Domestic manufacture of ammonium nitrate was halted earlier this year. It is going to be much less of an issue in future events of this sort. The price for it is is going to much higher than other forms of fertilizer that perform the same function in the field. Anyone that asks for it is going to be immediately identifying themselves as a non-typical user. The ATF and the fertilizer industry have been working together to reduce the chances that someone is going to misuse it. And as others of have noted the use of the alternative TATP will result in more Darwin awards and fewer innocents being injuried.

This is not to say I'm happy about the availablity of AN decreasing. I'm of the opinion that the misuse of the AN could and should have been prevented through less drastic means other than discontinuing the manufacture of the product. That our stadium bomber was asked what he was going to use it for and was unable to give a straight answer, which put the store manager on alert, proves the less drastic solution worked in this case.

From the Times Online in Britain:

Yvonne Watts, 74, had been promised a reduced waiting time for treatment from a year to three to four months under the NHS. But she was in such pain from severe arthritis that she spent almost £4,000 on surgery in France.

What do you expect when your health care provider has a fixed budget rather than being market driven?  Why can't they learn the lessons from the Soviet Union and nearly every other socialist country where there were long lines and waits for toilet paper, shoes, bread, and almost everything?  Government monopolies create shortages.  Sure government can make things more equal, but only more equal in poverty and misery.

And besides that typical socialized medicine schemes fail my Jews in the Attic Test.

Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.

Hermann Goering (1893-1946)
German Nazi leader, air marshal.
Alleged radio broadcast, Summer 1936, on the Four-Year Plan.
[As by the design of the U.S. Constitution power is safest when it is in the hands of the people, not the government. -- Joe]

Much to my surprise the Gun Dictionary page on the Boomershoot web site is one of the most popular web pages on the site (thanks to Stephanie Sailor for suggesting this page).  Even the USPSA has linked to the page on their information for the press page (from the same page they also link to my Gun Myths and Truth page).  Because of that I frequently get requests for the definition of a firearm related term.  Just today I received a request for the definition of ACP, as in .45 ACP.  I updated the page with this definition and a few others.  In the past week or two I have added the following words:

• ACP
• Autoloader
• Automatic
• Arsenal
• Compound
• Regulate (as in regulation of barrel convergence)
• Regulate (as in a well regulated militia)

If you have suggestions for other terms let me know.  Feel free to supply your own definition and save me a little bit of work.

I've written about this before.  Jeff at Alphecca posted another example:

Leaving a Nashville courtroom yesterday morning, two Metro police officers were greeted by their peers and supporters with handshakes and hugs. A judge had just ruled they were not guilty of illegally taking guns into a downtown nightclub last year.

Personally, I think that they have such a law is wrong.  Idaho doesn't have a law against taking guns into places where alcohol is being served and doesn't have the type of problems the anti-freedom bigots would whine about if they knew about it.  You can't legally be intoxicated while carrying a concealed weapon and I don't have a problem with that.  Driving and/or shooting while drunk is a bit on the reckless side of things.  It's not consistent with a big 'L' Libertarian philosophy but I'm not going to get all bent out of shape over that.  I think it is a fair compromise.

An employee of the nightclub noticed that one of the officers was carrying a gun and asked him to leave. Police were called when the officers refused.

...

"There was no authorization for them to be there, nor did supervisors have any knowledge of them being there," police spokesman Don Aaron said.

It's a dangerous path to go down.  If the police (and other government workers) don't obey the law on minor stuff it becomes more and more likely they won't obey the law on major stuff.  The mindset becomes one of the laws are for keeping "them" in line.  The government workers are the elite for whom the laws were not really intended.  I've spoken to many liberals and who have a similar elitist mindset.  They want restrictions on firearms for the "average" person.  The police are the side of the elite who need to be protected from the common person that might want to hurt them.  They just don't seem to get it that more people have been murdered by their own government than by the "common criminals."  Government workers should be held to a higher standard of behavior than the non-government employee, not lower.  And the Second Amendment is our last ditch means of enforcing that ethical behavior on an out of control "the law doesn't apply to us" elitist government.

The IPSC match results are posted now.  I knew I didn't do great but it was worse than I thought.  I didn't realize what was going on until about half way through the last stage when I was having problems hitting some steel targets.  I wasn't doing proper trigger preparation.  I had lots of penalities from misses which hurt badly.  More actual time on the range is required. 

I'm attending another match this Saturday at SVRC. I'm hoping to spend some practice time at Wade's later today.

Just because you are tolerated doesn't mean we're glad you came.

Bill Hall
Lewiston Morning Tribune
February 4, 1998
In reference to the neo-Nazi's and other 'hate-groups' that have moved to Idaho.

After four days in storage (more than required for a typical Boomershoot event) the mix looked like this (click on a picture to get a high resolution version):

All looks good.  There was only the slightest hint of clumping.

I used the dead tree to hold the 7"x7" target while doing sensitivity tests. This was after four days of storage. Multiple hits of a .22LR with a target velocity ~1170 fps failed to detonate it. .22LR with a velocity of ~1500 fps detonated it on the first shot. At the time of mixing 1170 fps would reliably detonate it.  The top of the tree was moved rearward and caught by the live tree.

I put four reactive targets on top of four IPSC targets to make it easier to find the targets at 700 yards away.  I also hoped to be able to do my own long distance spotting by moving forward to the targets and see bullet holes in the IPSC targets.  I was not able to do this. There were no bullet holes to be found after firing one shot at each target from 700 yards away.

It was typical Boomershoot weather--wet. I wrapped the targets in plastic to keep them from getting water logged.

I was unable to hit them at 700 yards with my .223 without a spotter. I moved them to 380 yards to test sensitivity to at least get some hits with the AR-15.

The 50 grain VMAX bullets, with an estimated target velocity of 1970 fps, were successful in detonating the targets. I had not anticipated all the plastic scraps. I will return to pick them up. I ran out of time and had to leave.

I have video of the target detonations which I hope to get digitized sometime this week.  In the scope I saw a bright red flash as the targets disassembled in a cloud of smoke but I don't know if it showed up in the video.

I did not have enough time to do the last test--Boomer Clays.  I did get various types of high velocity shotgun ammo that at least has a chance of working.  Those tests will have to be another day.  Perhaps this Sunday if the range work and rock blasting goes quickly.

Ry created a Wikipedia entry for Boomershoot and I touched it up a bit.  If have additional information you think should be included or have corrections go ahead and add it or send it to me.  If you do change it please send me an email so I can check it out.

I added the Lewiston Morning Tribune article on the 2005 precision rifle clinic and the KING 5 Evening Magazine video to the News Coverage page on Boomershoot.org.

Test results from yesterday will be posted soon.

We need to reduce government to just the functions authorized in the Constitution. Then, if you believe that makes the federal government too big or too little, you can work to amend the Constitution to make it more to your liking. But the first step is to establish limits, so that we no longer have unlimited government that the politicians can use for anything they want.

Harry Browne
March 1998
Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996

The weather isn't great (cold and cloudy) but it's better than yesterday.  And I'm out of town for the rest of the week and I really need to get this done so I'm headed to the Boomershoot site in a few minutes.

A few tests need to be done.

1. Was the latest mix stable over time?  It's been four days in storage.  Did it get hyper sensitive?  Did it go dead?
2. If it still detonates with a .22 LR at reasonable ranges I'm putting it out at 700 yards and trying to detonate it with a .223.  The weather report says winds from 0 to 1 MPH so I have a chance.  I put a different scope on my most accurate AR-15 so that shouldn't be an issue.
3. Boomer Clays.  I bought a box of clays and several different boxes of high velocity shotgun shells.  I'm going to load up the underside of some clay targets with "Joe's Special Recipe" and see if they can be detonated at a reasonable range.  Reasonable being far enough away that we don't get our outer layers of clothes and/or body parts shredded by pieces of clay pigeons.

If the results are interesting enough I'll post pictures and perhaps video later this week.

Oh, I probably will be blasting a rock at the local gun range on Work Day this coming Sunday.  If you are in the area show up to help make it a better range and then watch me make small rocks out of a big rock and explosives.

See also:

Twenty pounds of HE versus a rock 
Rocks and explosives video
Little rocks from big rocks and explosives

I believe a self-righteous liberal Democrat with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell's Angel with an attitude.

Ted Nugent

Some people say that I have no heart. I am here tonight to tell you that I do have a heart. I have the heart of a liberal.... It's in a jar on my desk.

Sen. Phil Gramm
1992 Lincoln Dinner at the Middlesex Club in Waltham, Massachusetts

[Something very similar is also attributed to Colorado Sen. John Andrews.  -- Joe]

I'm about to head off to the range for a special IPSC match (they call it "Action Pistol" to be more PC).  I think we are going to have five classifier stages.  I reloaded lots of ammo and have been dry firing quite a bit recently.  I got lots of sleep last night and after a shower and breakfast I'm ready to go.  I may "crash and burn", but I'm as well prepared as I have been in a long time.

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

Edmund Burke
(1729-97)
Irish philosopher, statesman.

I completed the Distance is your friend class of the Looter Shooter rifle postal match today.  This was inspired by the events following hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  I wasn't able to conjure up a hurricane here in north central Idaho but we did have rain, wind, and a flood watch:

URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED

FLOOD WATCH

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MISSOULA MT

224 AM MDT SAT OCT 1 2005

CLEARWATER-LINCOLN-MINERAL-SANDERS-

124 AM PDT SAT OCT 1 2005 /224 AM MDT SAT OCT 1 2005/

...FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON FOR

PORTIONS OF EXTREME WESTERN MONTANA AND NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MISSOULA HAS ISSUED A FLOOD WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF EXTREME WESTERN MONTANA AND NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO THROUGH 6 PM MDT / 5 PM PDT/ THIS AFTERNOON.

A VIGOROUS UPPER LEVEL SYSTEM...WITH AN ABUNDANT SOURCE OF TROPICAL MOISTURE...WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE OVER THE WATCH AREA THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON. ADDITIONAL RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF UP TO 2 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE IN THE AFFECTED AREAS. THE OCCASIONALLY HEAVY RAINFALL IS EXPECTED TO CREATE CONDITIONS THAT ARE FAVORABLE FOR THE FLOODING OF SMALL STREAMS AND DEBRIS FLOWS.

THOSE LIVING IN AREAS PRONE TO FLOODING SHOULD BE PREPARED TO TAKE ACTION SHOULD FLOODING DEVELOP.

If I didn't participate in any event or join any group unless they did things just like me, I wouldn't be able to do anything with anyone else.

If you want to be a good shooter, shoot. Shoot all you can, under all circumstances. Shoot every kind of gun in every kind of competition.

Greg Hamilton
11/11/2001
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