The View From North Central Idaho

We hear it said of an ugly guy, "He has a face made for radio".

Woopie Goldberg has performed brilliantly as an actor in television and in movies.  Her personal commentary however, has been nothing you couldn't hear at the espresso and chi tea bar in any local natural foods store any day of the week.  Hence it is no surprise that her radio show is being axed.  I believe she still has a future in acting.  Therein she has talent.

There remains a significant part of society that can't seem to understand how radio is a business (the business of selling advertising) and that in business you must have something to offer that people, you know, want.

Malkin covers it too.

Hint:  If you have no respect for those who made it big in the business, you just might be on the wrong path.  "I'm gonna be just the opposite of that really, ultra successful guy" might not be the best business plan.  Success, one would think, is the best teacher.

And here's a hint just especially for those on the Left:  We've all heard your message every day for our whole lives, as long as we can remember.  You've gotten your message out, and that is your problem.  A lot of people are sick of hearing it because most of it has something to do with how wrong, greedy, stupid, evil, and endangered we are-- the air we breathe is killing us, the food we eat is killing us, oil is killing us, a shortage of oil is killing us, farming is killing us, starvation is killing us, fat is killing us, dieting is killing us, carbs are killing us, disease is killing us, antibiotics, vaccines, and the drug companies are killing us, freedom and prosperity are especially killing us, poverty is killing us, the good economy is killing us but really the economy sucks, terrorists are killing us (but it's our fault) and the war against terrorists is killing us, and everything, absolutely everything, is killing women and children, the elderly and the minorities the hardest-- and how some form of socialism (government-enforced coercion) is the answer to absolutely every problem, real or imagined.

Does that about sum it up?  Who needs to tune into a radio show to hear that when we hear it everywhere else every day?

More-of-the-same day in and day out nagging and finger pointing and blaming America and our Liberty for the world's problems isn't something a lot of people are going to pay money to have broadcast in their name.  But you don't, and won't, get it anyway.

The teacher who let her students name a Teddy Bear Muhammad was convicted and sentenced to 15 days in jail and will be deported. At least she doesn't have to endure the whipping that was on the list of possible punishments. I thought this was pretty extreme but figured it would be a good lesson for those that think we need to "reach common ground" or some such thing with the Muslim extremists. I couldn't have imagined what a lesson this would actually be.

But it turns out the sentence Gillian Gibbons received is considered much too light for the locals. They are demanding her execution:

Thousands of protesters, many brandishing clubs and swords, took to the streets of Sudan’s capital Friday, demanding the execution of a British teacher who let her students name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, was found guilty Thursday of insulting Islam and sentenced to 15 days in jail. She was spared the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.

That angered many in Khartoum, who rallied in Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace. Protesters waved sticks, knives, axes and swords.

“Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” they chanted. “No tolerance, execution!”

Here is a picture of the evil heretic. I hope she gets out alive.

To be fair, there are some Muslims who are responding appropriately:

In Britan -- where Muhammad is now the second most popular name for baby boys -- the reaction had been shock and disbelief, from both non-Muslims and Muslims.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said Sudanese authorities had  “grossly overreacted.”

“Gillian should never have been arrested, let alone charged and convicted of committing a crime,” he said.

But the Sudanese behavior invokes an opposing extreme response in me and others.

Technically I am the domain owner but I have nothing to do with the content here:

Dr. Hall of Fame
Dr. Hall of Shame

I think a good candidate would the neurosurgeon a physical therapist I know worked with several years ago. The nurses and therapists had a nickname they used for this brain surgeon behind his back. They called him The Veg-O-Matic.

Just a little hint on finding a good doctor if you are new in town and don't know anyone. Go to the hospital and ask the nurses. But you have to be a little sneaky about the way you ask the question. If you ask, "Who is a good doctor?" you will get an answer similar to, "They are all good." But if you ask, "Who would you choose as a doctor for yourself/spouse/child/mother-in-law/whoever?" you will get a much more useable answer.

This is not a summit; it's a kangaroo court, and the outcome is as predictable as the verdicts in the Salem witch trials. Nickels and his gun control cronies merely want a showpiece to alarm the public into supporting their extremist agenda, which is not now, and never has been, in the public's best interest.

Alan Gottlieb and Mark Taff
Guest columnists at the Seattle PI
Alan Gottlieb is founder of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation.
Mark Taff is executive director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Nickels' gun summit is all for show
[Via an email from Uncle. See also the background material.

I was seriously considering showing up with my camera and a bunch of handouts of Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution with 18 USC 241 and 242 for attendees as they arrived. Unfortunately I have a appointment with my dentist to get some surgery done on an infected tooth at 8:00 AM that has been waiting a month because there weren't any earlier openings. Then I have a design review at work that I am going to be late for because of the dentist appointment. I just won't be able to attend at an appropriate time. And just after the oral surgery I'm likely to be a bit cranky and of course armed. That wouldn't be the best condition to face the press should they show up.

Does anyone else want to show up with the handouts if I do the printing?--Joe]

The Gun Guys are whining about all the "pandering to the gun extremists" in the CNN YouTube debate last night.

The only whining I would do over it would be that I don't trust Giuliani and Romneny when they say they support an individual RKBA.

But then it occurred to me that I don't know of a single presidental candidate that is even giving the bigots like the Gun Guys and the Brady Bunch a little bit of lip service. That has to be a extremely painful change from ten or twelve years ago.

Count the cats in this picture and win a free cat (check out the comments). Hurry while supplies last!

[But if you get there too late you can have mine.]

I often get frustrated wondering "What are they thinking? Do they actually think? Are they capable of thinking?"

For example, in my mind people are not consistent when they expanded the meaning of the 1^st Amendment to include things that did not exist (such as the Internet) at the time of the writing of the Bill of Rights. Yet those same people intend to negate the 2^nd Amendment by excluding things that didn't exist at the time of it's creation. What's up with that? Are you insane?

This article helps with a certain aspects of those types of questions I have had.

In interpreting the Constitution, judges pay attention to social practices, and not only to judicial precedents. If federal and state governments have long regulated gun use, creating a tradition of such regulation, many judges would be reluctant to invoke the original understanding in order to upset that tradition. Tushnet finds that, since the Civil War, gun regulation has been common--and it has rarely been challenged on constitutional grounds. He concludes that the last century and a half shows a simple pattern: "A substantial body of laws regulating weapons possession and a small number of opinions addressing Second Amendment objections to such laws, with no opinions from appellate courts invalidating any modern regulations, and an apparent lack of interest by the Supreme Court in taking fundamental Second Amendment questions."

[...]

In Tushnet's view, there is an evident conflict between the original understanding and the legal arguments based on judicial precedents and social practices. He urges that in the face of such conflicts, the original understanding tends to yield. In the context of free speech, for example, we have gone far beyond the original understanding, protecting commercial advertising and even political dissent in ways that would have astonished the founding generation. Tushnet thinks that if we reject originalism, we will probably conclude, on the basis of social practices and judicial decisions, that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right.

This gives me a model to conclude they aren't entirely insane. It does sort of make sense. I worry about the Supreme Court in the D.C. v. Heller case considering the impact on all the people that deserve to be locked up but prosecutors only charged them with gun violations because it was so much easier than proving they had committed some violent crime. If the Court comes strikes down the D.C. law there will be lots of people in jail appealing their convictions. The disruption to society could be significant. The historical aspect of the laws and our society have to be somewhere in the minds of the justices.

But translating the logic above to an analogous situation will make my take on this clear:

In the deep south during the last century there was a long history of social practices, judicial precedents, and traditions of regulation of people of color. Therefore it is entirely appropriate during the 1960's the courts should have rejected the original intent of the 13^th Amendment and allowed whatever law the states and cities thought were "common-sense" for their situation.

Not!

There is only one correct way to handle this. If a government entity wants to implement a law that violates some original intent of the Constitution there is a proper way to go about that. They can amend the constitution to allow non-original intent. Anything else is a rationalization, an extremely serious threat to our enumerated powers form of government, and death to freedom.

I had no idea such a thing would be possible from a blow that isn't hard enough to break bones:

Hunter Troxel was hunting with his father, Craig, on Monday in some woods near their home in Harpster in southern Wyandot County when the boy fired his shotgun at a deer and missed, said Wyandot County Sheriff Michael Hetzel.

[...]

The blow from the shotgun hit him at a certain time during the electrical sequence that causes the heart to beat, disrupting the nerve impulses and stopping his heart, Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis said. His office examined the boy's body Tuesday.

The sheriff said it was possible the boy was not holding his gun properly and that's why it hit him where it did. "He was just a small young man, only 12 years old," Hetzel said.

This type of death is relatively rare, and it isn't completely clear why some blows to the chest stop the heart and others don't, Lewis said.

"It really was a tragic, freak accident," he said. "It's a terrible quirk of fate that you get hit at that particular moment in time."

That was a stupid thing to try. Still, it's sad when someone goes to jail for a victimless crime:

A Nevada man was charged with attempting to smuggle in parts of a World War II-era submachine gun by hiding them inside a Porsche he was importing from Germany to the Port of Long Beach, authorities said Wednesday.

Peter Scharf, 43, of Henderson, Nev. was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles Tuesday after being charged with smuggling and importing a machine gun without a license, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.

There's some serious talk going on about increasing the oppression of gun owners in Europe:

Against the backdrop of deadly school shootings in Finland and Germany, European Union legislators Thursday overwhelmingly backed tough new gun control rules they said they hoped would prevent Europe from becoming a gun-friendly culture like the United States.

Under the new rules, hammered out in 18 months of negotiations between the European Parliament, national governments and gun advocates, individuals age 18 and over will be able to buy and own a firearm, provided they are not deemed a threat to public safety. Individuals under 18 will only be able to obtain a gun for hunting or target shooting under the supervision of a licensed adult.

To plug holes in the current system, in which the registration of guns is not consistent across the 27-member bloc, each member state will be obliged to set up a computerized database of firearms, including details about their model, caliber, serial number and the names and addresses of both the seller and the buyer. The data must be kept by authorities for at least 20 years.

European legislators of all political stripes said the new rules were essential to prevent Europe from embracing the gun culture of the United States, where the right to bear arms is written in the constitution.

"We in Europe have a different culture than in the United States and we do not consider the freedom to buys weapons a human right," said Gisela Kallenbach, a German member of the European Parliament from the Green group, who helped draft the proposed law. "All European cows are registered Europe-wide, so why not guns, if it can save lives? Civil liberties can be sacrificed if we can prevent people from being killed."

How appropriate. A German who wants to sacrifice civil liberties to prevent people from being killed. That was done once before by the Germans in 1938:

§1
Jews (§5 of the First Regulations of the German Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935, Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 1333) are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons.  Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.

The only question is, which lives will they be saving? In 1938 it was the Nazi lives that would be saved by sacrificing the civil liberties of the Jews.

When someone takes a weapon from you it's an exceedingly rare circumstance that your safety will be increased. It's someone else's safety that might be increased.

What's the problem with registration? Registration is a problem because those records were used by the Nazis to find all the Jews with firearms and experience with firearms. Firearms registration fails my Jews in the Attic Test. Firearms registration enables scenes like this:

The European Union doesn't want to be a "gun-friendly culture", instead they want to be tyrant-friendly culture. How many tens of millions of people must be murdered before they learn their lesson?

My QOTD and commentary got some attention from Sebastian at Snow Flakes in Hell. Sebastian also posted a comment on Miller's blog with a link to my posting. That apparently got Miller to stop by for a visit:

[Update: I was wrong. It was someone else from New Jersey. Thanks to Sebastain for pointing out my error. I was able to verify Sebastian is correct. I didn't think there were any progun people left in that state.]

[Update2:  I have deleted part of the orginal message at the request of the real visitor.]

Also of possible interest is it's not the first time Miller came for a visit. Notice the referrals? He came to visit me from each of the following pro-gun blogs:

• http://www.progunprogressive.com/
• http://www.saysuncle.com/
• http://blog.robballen.com/
• http://daysofourtrailers.blogspot.com/

Did you see where he visited boomershoot.org after reading about Ted Nugent's "threat against Hillary and Obama"? And he specifically searched for my comments about him: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Joe+Huffman%27s+comment%3A&btnG=Google+Search.

And that's just what I can determine from my little outpost in an obscure corner of the Internet. Imagine what the total extent of his efforts on the topic must be. I find it difficult to believe him when in response to the Supreme Court granting cert in D.C. v. Heller, "For me, the announcement was a Ho Hum moment."

Since he showed such an interest in my blog I paid him a little visit and left a comment in response to another pro-gun commenter, CavTrooper, who said we didn't have any legal recourse against people publishing anti-gun propaganda:

Posted by JoeHuffman on 11/29/07 at 8:53PM

Actually we do have legal recourse. Miller and his ilk are engaged in a conspiracy against civil rights. Check out 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242 for government employees acting under "the color of law".

No actual harm need to have occurred. Just that they conspired to oppress, threaten, or intimidate us with unconstitutional laws. It's no different than if they conspired to pass laws prohibiting people with dark colored skin from being outdoors during the night (Miller's idealogical cousins might claim it's a "reasonable restriction" because it's too easy for dark skinned people to commit crimes in the dark).

We are a long way from getting Federal Prosecutors from enforcing 18 USC 241/242 in these cases but it took a long time for the KKK to be prosecuted also. Getting the Supreme court to explicitly state it is an individual right is the first step to seeing these bigots brought up on the felony charges they deserve. One step at a time...

Thanks for stopping by Bryan. Come back anytime. And don't be shy about visiting in real life either. Boomershoot is a real blast.

But, first, a little background - for those of you who have more to do with your time than memorize old, obsolete and unused Constitutional dicta - the 2nd Amendment reads: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As I said, Ho Hum. How seriously must I (or anyone, for that matter) take a sentence so overwhelmingly categorical, yet which has never been used to overturn any gun regulation, ordinance or law in the 200-plus years since it was adopted?

Bryan Miller
November 29, 2007
Supremes take on 2nd Amendment - Yawn
[It's overwhelmingly categorical and never been used to overturn a law since it was adopted, therefore we shouldn't take it seriously and can enact laws that violate it without concern to the constitutionality of the law. Interesting logic. So, Mr. Miller, do you advocate treating the 13^th amendment in the same way?

Section. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

If so then I claim you, Bryan Miller, as my slave. Maybe then you will suddenly recognize the utility of the 2^nd Amendment. Or maybe since the 13^th amendment is only 142 years old it's too recent to discard. If it needs to be 200-plus years old before we can start ignoring it then I'll let my great-grandchildren know that your descendants gave up their 13^th Amendment rights on your say so. As my descendants, with guns, take possession I'm sure your descendants will "thank" you for giving up your 2^nd Amendment rights earlier. The point is that just because a law hasn't been overturned recently the constitutional provision against such laws is obsolete.

And, Mr. Miller, it's obvious you haven't read this book which demonstrates the Supreme Court has upheld the legal tradition and historical record of private gun ownership, self defense, and armed self defense, since the country began.

My take on Miller's "yawn" response is that is the best spin he can put on what he thinks is impending doom.--Joe]

Once again, Walter E. Williams finds a way to articulate an idea with roughly ten thousand times the clarity I or most anyone else could muster.  I'm sure most of you read Walter's column regularly (what red-blooded, thinking American doesn't?) but this one deserves special attention.

Government allocation of resources enhances the potential for human conflict, while market allocation reduces it.

True of course, but he explains the how and why of it.  It should be a primer course in every elementary school, but then, it's a piece favoring a free market in education:

For a public school system, teaching free market principles would be suicide, wouldn't it?

Uncle sent me a link to this story:

Preventing gun crimes will be the focus of a summit Monday that is expected to draw dozens of police officers and civic leaders from around the state to Seattle.

Mayor Greg Nickels, along with Harborview Medical Center's Injury and Research Prevention Center, is hosting the conference in an effort to draw up better strategies to reduce violent crime and stop criminals from obtaining firearms.

It's expected to draw about 150 people, including police, prosecutors, church leaders and school officials. During the one-day conference at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center, they'll hear from experts who will share how efforts elsewhere have worked.

The thought crossed my mind that it would be interesting to attend but there wasn't information on how to sign up. But after reading the next paragraph I realized it wouldn't be good for my blood pressure (links added by me): 

The Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit that advocates for more restrictive gun-control laws, provided grant money to pay for the conference.

Other speakers include: Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of California-Davis; Police Chief Scott Knight of Chaska, Minn., who is chairman of the International Association of Chiefs of Police firearms committee; and Nina Vinik, legal director for the Legal Community Against Violence.

Still, it might be interesting to attend for a little while. But then I read the comments to the article and discovered all I needed to know:

Posted by Dave Workman at 11/28/07 7:33 a.m.

I was advised that my name came up early in this discussion, so it seems only right to clarify some things for TerryP (thank you for your kind remarks) and others.

Gun rights advocates were deliberately not invited to this event, which is "Invitation Only."

I certainly was not invited to participate. But there is more to this: I'm a member of the working press, senior editor of 'GUN WEEK' a national-circulation firearms newspaper and it is rather disappointing that Gun Week was not invited to cover this event for its readers.

Mark Taff, executive director of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, had been extended an invitation by a local state senator, but that invitation was apparently nixed by someone in the Mayor's office.

They have no interest in hearing anything other than their predetermined agenda. This isn't a "conference", it's a conspiracy against rights and they should be arrested and be given a fair trial.

BulletFootage-5000.wmv (3.27 MB)

I wish I had a camera that would take video like that of my boomers.

That watermelon is pretty cool though.

[Thanks to Joe D.]

Where there are grazers there will be predators. They said that on Discovery last night in a documentary on undersea micro environments. I think it applies to human society as well.

Lyle Keeney
November 26, 2007
In the comments.
[Yup. There probably are some thresholds due to family and tribal type bonds but as soon as you get a large enough population of "not us" available as prey the predators materialize. I don't think the anti-gun bigots grasp that concept. It appears that they believe it's the availability of weapons not the availability of prey that "creates" the predators.--Joe]

Via Bruce.

All in the name of the War on a Noun:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Firefighters in major cities are being trained to take on a new role as lookouts for terrorism, raising concerns of eroding their standing as American icons and infringing on people's privacy.

Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel don't need warrants to access hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, putting them in a position to spot behavior that could indicate terrorist activity or planning.

[...]

When going to private residences, for example, they are told to be alert for a person who is hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States; unusual chemicals or other materials that seem out of place; ammunition, firearms or weapons boxes; surveillance equipment; still and video cameras; night-vision goggles; maps, photos, blueprints; police manuals, training manuals, flight manuals; and little or no furniture other than a bed or mattress.

Still and video cameras? Photos? Maps? Discontent with the United States?

I would get so many "hits" it would peg their meters even before they got to the guns, ammunition, and explosives.

Moscow is reputed to be the most liberal city in the entire state of Idaho. Half the town population are students attending the University of Idaho. Add in the socialist professors who think they are the anointed and you end up with some very liberal politics. For the most part it isn't a problem because there isn't all that much damage the city government can do when the state politics are so conservative. However Mayor Nancy Chaney feels she needs to do something about all those guns:

MOSCOW (AP) - Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney wants all cities in Idaho to be able to restrict guns in city facilities.

She has asked Representative Shirley Ringo, a Democrat from Moscow, to introduce legislation that will give Idaho cities the ability to ban guns in their facilities.

Chaney has been looking at ways to restrict guns in Moscow facilities since a May shooting rampage in the city left four dead and three wounded. Among the dead was Moscow police officer Lee Newbill. He was the first Moscow police officer killed in the line of duty.

Chaney says some area residents and city employees are concerned about their safety during public meetings. She says she's not looking for a citywide gun ban, but for the city to be able to restrict weapons in such places as city hall.

The attorney general last September told Moscow officials that cities in Idaho don't have legal authority to enforce gun bans in their facilities.

We feel we need to do something too. What I have heard so far is tough to report on a family friendly blog but after you filter out all the obscenities you are left with the word "impeach".

Via reader Rob:

Montclair State Unveils Mandatory 'School Phone'

Students Must Carry And Pay For GPS-Based Cell Device

MONTCLAIR, N.J. (CBS) ―

College students at Montclair State University are all talking about a new requirement that will require students to have a cell phone.

CBS 2 HD has learned more on this required feature that is forcing students to dig into their wallets.

At Montclair State, there is no excuse for being out of touch.

"'School Phone' I use for campus e-mail, different things like that," freshman Angela Vuocolo said.

That's right.

First-year student Vuocolo said 'School Phone' -- as in a Sprint-operated cell phone -- is now mandatory for all students. It's the first program of its kind in the country.

The cost: $420 a year for a base plan which is bundled into the tuition bill.

It includes just 50 peak voice minutes a month, but unlimited text messaging to any carrier, unlimited campus-based data usage, and student activated emergency GPS tracking.

"What it does is allow students to have an extra pair or group of people watching over them when they're going from one location to another," Montclair Police Department Chief Paul Cell said.

The positive impact is already being felt across campus.

"It makes me feel comfortable," MSU freshman Ricky Bodtmann said. "I guess if people want to feel safe."

As Rob pointed out, "It makes them FEEL safer. I’m thinking that the phone won’t stop a bullet."

And it won't do much good against a knife or superior strength either. If safety were the goal that $420/year would be better spent on a gun, ammunition, and some range time. But this is New Jersey where, "When it comes to firearms, the citizen acts at his own peril."

I believe that forced charity is no charity at all, and forced virtue cannot claim credit for itself anymore than a eunuch can claim credit for chastity.

Marko
this i believe.
November 21, 2007
[Via Tam. It's a great post and covers numerous important topics. I think son James will appreciate it greatly.--Joe]

Guns are already illegal so now they are about to make them even more illegal:

TOKYO, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Japan's parliament on Monday passed legislation strengthening gun control following a spate of shootings by gangsters, including the assassination of a city mayor in April and the recent murder of a hospital patient in a case of mistaken identity.

The revision of the firearms control law is the first since 1995, and imposes heavier punishments for gun crimes committed by members of organised crime gangs.

After the new law takes effect, which is expected by the end of the year, possessing a gun as part of organised crime syndicate will result in a sentence of one to 15 years in prison or a fine of up to 5 million yen ($46,100). The current provision is for a prison sentence of one to 10 years.

Under the revision, possessing more than one gun would become a crime, and would carry a prison term of between one and 15 years.

Just One Question.

I doubt that many teenagers will be able to convince their parents of this but it could make for some very interesting dinner time talk:

Early sex may not lead where we think it does.

Teens who start having sex at an early age may be less likely to engage in delinquent behavior in early adulthood than teens who wait until they are older to have sex, a new U.S. study finds.

The conclusion contradicts the widely held belief that early sexual activity is associated with later drug use, criminality, antisocial behavior and emotional problems.

We got a very surprising finding, particularly that early sex seems to forecast less antisocial behavior a few years later, rather than more," said lead researcher Kathryn Paige Harden, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia.

"There is a cultural assumption in the United States that if teens have sex early, it is somehow bad for their psychological health. But we actually found that teens who had sex earlier seem to have better relationships later. Now we want to find out why," she said.

"Our hypothesis as a result of this finding is that teens who become involved in intimate romantic relationships early are having sex early and more often but that those intimate relationships might later protect them from becoming involved in delinquent acts."

So many variations of such a discussion between parent and teenager are going through my mind that I couldn't possibly unscramble them.

We must win or else life under such a regime will not be worth living:

KHARTOUM, Sudan - A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan, accused of insulting Islam's Prophet by letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad, her school said on Monday.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where the Liverpool woman was being held.

Teachers at Unity High School in central Khartoum said Gibbons, 54, made an innocent mistake and simply let her pupils choose their favorite name for the toy as part of a school project.

Police arrested Gibbons on Sunday at her home inside the school premises, said Unity director Robert Boulos, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's Ministry of Education.

Boulos said she had since been charged with "blasphemy," an offense he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.

[...]

Gibbons, who joined Unity in August, asked a girl to bring in her teddy bear to help the second grade class focus, said Boulos.

The teacher then asked the class to name the toy. "They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Mohammed. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name." Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad.

Since things are "stable" (no change in the situation) this is not news (but the second year of on-going coverage of the Aruba rape case got tons of play last night and this morning, and the History Channel has been busy talking about Sasquatch and the Bermuda Triangle).  Why report that Muslims are burning and looting in response to an accident?

Malkin has some details.

Le Parisien reports that they burned down a Peugeot dealership, sacked a train station and shops, tore up a McDonald’s, stole the day’s receipts and attacked customers, smashed and burned cars, and are still going strong.

Don't they have a protection of gun rights in France? (I'm trying to imagine something like this happening in Idaho, going on for over a year, and I just can't do it)

Yup.  Things are normal in France, so we can concentrate on important stuff like space-alien abductions, haunted houses, Princess Diana, and the Loch Ness monster.

Have "the times changed" in the last few decades? Or has this sort of thing being going on for a long, long time? If it has changed, why did it? Was it the independence of women having greater earning power? Or was it social acceptance of female sexuality? Something to do with the availability of birth control and/or good health beyond menopause? How would one design a study to answer those questions?

Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists:

MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64.

They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls."

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.

Allie and Bethan -- who both declined to give their full names -- said they planned to spend a whole month touring Kenya's palm-fringed beaches.

[...]

"It's not love, obviously. I didn't come here looking for a husband," Bethan said over a pounding beat from the speakers.

"It's a social arrangement. I buy him a nice shirt and we go out for dinner. For as long as he stays with me he doesn't pay for anything, and I get what I want -- a good time. How is that different from a man buying a young girl dinner?"

Yeah, I know, the "hard figures are difficult to come by" phrase made me laugh too.

There are big differences between me and Sen. Obama on healthcare. I have a healthcare plan that covers every single American. He does not. I have a healthcare plan that will leave no American out. He, by his own admission, leaves at least 15 million people out.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
November 25, 2007
Clinton, Obama dial up the healthcare heat
[And there is a big difference between both of their plans and what the U.S. Constitution says. The Constitution does not give the Federal Government the authority to engage in this kind of activity. That both senators are advocating unconstitutional action is proof neither of them are fit to be on the public payroll in any capacity. That includes dog catcher and "sanitation worker". But the reality is that Henry Kissinger wasn't just speaking about the administration he was working for. It applies to nearly all politicians.--Joe]

If you were just the least bit selective in your data collection you could great really paranoid about big government. Check out this story (via email from Tony) Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police and attack dogs stand guard. And Local 2 Investigates Police Secrecy Behind Unmanned Aircraft Test.

Instead of paranoid, I think we should be "very skeptical", "keep your powder dry", and keep your training up to date.

If for some reason it ever becomes necessary to take down one of those planes do it while it is on the ground. If it's already in the air then take out the communication gear on the ground.

I've often said the socialists think of the common person more as cattle to be dehorned, vaccinated, milked, and slaughtered than as people. The "central committee" or the "enlightened leaders" need to keep watch and do what is best for the common good. The right of the individual is unimportant next to the right of society as a whole. It's time give up on these outmoded ideas and work for good of the collective. Those that resist are outlaws or insane and society is completely justified sending them to the work and reeducation camps. It's for the good of society.

Yeah, right. And that is Why Boomershoot.

Update: This post is starting to get legs. The vaccination story above is obviously bordering near hysterical. I figured there was a grain of truth in it and the whole forced vaccination concept bothers me. Here are some more dispassionate versions of the same story:

• One Maryland county takes tough tack on vaccinations (Christian Science Monitor)
• Maryland Parents Told to Have Children Immunized (New York Times)
• Md. Schools Get Tough on Vaccinations (Associated Press)
• Prince George's Co. parents brought to court over vaccines (Baltimore Sun)

Most of the articles just barely, at best, mention the protesters. The Christian Science Monitor has the best coverage of that angle:

But protesters outside the courthouse say that the summons to the courthouse amounted to a campaign of intimidation, and that parents weren't adequately informed of their rights as parents or possible risks to their children.

"I think it's offensive that the government would forcibly vaccinate kids. Individual rights are a good thing, and when you're dealing with health issues, informed consent is an important value," says Donna Hurlack, a Virginia gynecologist protesting outside the courthouse.

"There was a feeling of intimidation. Children were basically put in that building, lined up and given vaccines without any information given to parents about how to monitor their children for adverse vaccination reactions," says Barbara Loe Fisher, president and cofounder of the National Vaccine Information Center, which advocates for more parental rights in immunization.

None mention the police and dogs but I found one picture that confirms that angle (from the Associated Press article above):

My best take on it is that the facts reported in the original article I linked to were probably correct. Yes, the spin on it was extreme but his point is valid. It was a forced vaccination. People were threatened with jail (point of a gun) if they didn't comply. They were being treated a lot like cattle.

We have our great role model out there in the NRA. They know how to do their job and mobilize people.

Phil Goldsmith
November 25, 2007
Why gun control has no shot--Governor's effort to pass new restrictions runs into organized and effective opposition, as usual
President of CeaseFire PA
[In that spirit they should take us up on offers to go to the range together, learn how and why we socialize over guns, and why we oppose victim disarmament laws. They could join the NRA, read the magazines, participate in competitions, attend the annual meeting, Friends of the NRA dinners, and become firearms instructors. They could learn a lot from us.

Some of the most basic things they lack are a way to even join their organization let alone any benefits if someone were to join. And what existing events can they connect with people that might want to join? They have a lot of disadvantages compared to our side. We should fully exploit our advantages. These bigots need to be politically exterminated.--Joe]

If it keeps your daughter safe who cares about the color?

Oleg Volk
November 23, 2007
[And, of course, you know there is an Oleg Volk picture associated with this so click on the link above. Via Roberta.--Joe]

If you are into the battle reenactment scene Ozark Pyrotechnics, Inc. now has wireless Cannon Hit Simulation kits for sale.

This might be the way to realize one of my Boomershoot fantasies. That is where I mock the people unable to connect with targets using their rifles by pulling my iron sighted pistol from it's holster and while standing popping off targets at 375 yards away.

Of course it's not the modern day socialist view of the Pilgrims, but it's not the totally capitalist version as told by Stossel either. Amateur historian Clayton tells gives us the details.

For Thanksgiving I usually make something with lentils since we grow them on the farm and few people do much cooking with lentils. Yesterday, about an hour before we planned to leave for the farm I still hadn't started making anything (yes, I'm who Xenia inherited he procrastination from). I pulled the The Pea & Lentil Cookbook from the cupboard and started looking through it. "Oh, that looks interesting", I thought when I saw the lentil cookies. "Interesting" was to be a word used in conjunction with my cookies many times during the day. I thought we had all the ingredients and started work. It turns out we didn't have enough of everything and I improvised along the way.

Word traveled fast through the house and James came in to look and express his scorn, "Lentil cookies? Have you tried this before?" "No", I replied. As he walked off he said, "I'll be impressed if you pull it off." At the end of the day he came up with my QOTD for today.

Lentil and Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 7 dozen, approximately 3 cookies per serving
Lentils lend a rich, nutty flavor and cakelike softness to this classic cookie

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1 cup sugar
4 teaspoons vanilla
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups lentil purée (purée instructions below)
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

• Preheat oven to 375^o F.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Add vanilla and eggs; beat until smooth. Cream lentil purée into butter mixture
• In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture and blend lightly. Gently blend in oatmeal, chocolate chips, and nuts, just until evenly mixed.
• Chill dough until ready for handling. Drop dough in rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 5 minutes; turn pan and bake another 5 minutes, or until cookies are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.

Lentil Purée

Add 2 cups water per cup of lentils. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer. Simmer 10 to 20 minutes for decorticated (skinned) lentils, 35 to 40 minutes for whole lentils. Add more water if cooking time is extended due to high altitude, hard water, or prolonged storage prior to cooking. Stir a few times. Cook lentils until they are very soft but just short of falling apart. Which cooking is complete remove from heat and let cool slightly but do not drain. In small batches purée the lentils with a sieve, food mill, blender, food processor, or potato masher. Purée should be the consistency of canned pumpkin. Add water to thin if necessary.

It turns out I only had 1 cups of brown sugar. I topped it off with white sugar and pour some molasses over it until I figured it was "brown enough". I didn't see the walnuts in the cupboard and crushed some pecans with the potato masher. We only had four cups of oatmeal and I topped it off with Raisin Bran. We only had about 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips and I figured the raisins in the Raisin Bran would be a good enough substitute.

I put the mixture in the freezer while I took a shower and we headed off to the farm.

As I was putting them on the cookies for baking people came in and asked what I was making. The response was universal, "Interesting":

Putting the cookies on baking sheets as Aunt Alice expresses her "interest". Photo by Xenia Joy.

I baked the cookies for the suggested ten minutes and wasn't happy with them. Even 12 minutes didn't seem like quite enough time but they tasted very good. Everyone, even our food snob son James, liked them.

Yesterday we went to my parents place to gorge ourselves. Xenia and I took some pictures. She posted some of hers here. Mine are below (except as noted). And yes, I'll tell you about the lentil cookies eventually.

Everyone says Barb and I are "cute" in this picture. Cute? Photo by Xenia Joy.

Son James who is featured in my QOTD today.

Daughter Xenia.

Xenia framed in frosted tree branches.

My brother's shooting bench.

A neighbors Black Angus cow and Xenia.

Barb and Xenia reflected in the eye of a cow. Photo by Xenia Joy.

Xenia and I. Photo by Xenia Joy.

So, it's not just impressive you pulled it off. It was a f****ing miracle.

James Huffman-Scott
November 22, 2007
[Our son James after learning that not only did I try out a new recipe for cookies on Thanksgiving for our extended family I improvised with numerous ingredients and they still turned out quite good. Everyone, when I told them what I was making said, "Interesting" which of course actually means "I can't imagine anyone eating something like that unless stomach cancer has already eliminated any concern about their stomach rotting." I'll share both the original and modified recipe soon.--Joe]

Remember when Xenia dressed up as Dorothy for Halloween? Here is the making of my Dorothy:

When I watched this video (via Dooce) I thought of it as a lesson on the concept of Monopoly of Force. Lions are the "King of the Jungle", right? Don't they represent government? The buffalo are the numerous "armed citizens". The crocs must be criminals since they hide under the water like that and then disappear again when their opportunity slips away.

Yeah, I'm not normal.

Not only should the president order the execution of the turkeys, he should kill both gobblers himself. With his bare hands, while wearing a loin cloth. He should then rise, his body glistening with sweat and blood, and take a bite out of its head and display it proudly to the American people.

SayUncle
November 22, 2005
My Platform
[While I strongly agree with the sentiment, and wouldn't even mind the loincloth angle, I would be disappointed if he broke up a sweat or got blood on himself killing a turkey with his bare hands. In fact because the whole point of this it so show how manly he is to our enemies I'm thinking it should be a hog instead of a turkey. In which case if it was only bare hands I'd betting on the hog. So, I'd let him wimp out and him use a knife and/or a club. Now let the sweat and the blood glisten and our enemies cower.--Joe]

Probably not safe for work. Funny video of couple learning about an "alternate lifestyle".

Q: Mr. LaPierre claimed membership of the NRA was about 3.5 million. What is the combined membership of the Brady Center, particularly after joining forces with the Million Mom March?

A: We're a lot smaller, unfortunately. We're working to grow, we're about a half million. We've started a new effort through the Internet to expand our outreach and we're now up to over a quarter million new people, who are not members, but have logged on to sign, for example, our petition in support of renewing the federal ban on assault weapons. The NRA likes to brag about its millions of members and our information is that it has dwindled significantly. They were over four million about four, five years ago, they used the Clinton administration as a real boogeyman to build up their membership, but The New York Times and others have indicated that their finances have suffered significantly recently and their membership is probably more like 2.5 million, but that's still a lot.

But there are 90 million gun owners in the United States. Only 3.5 million want the insurance and magazines and the various things you get for joining the NRA. When you look on our side and who supports us, for example, in the fight to renew the assault weapons ban, we've got over 300 organizations in the United States working with us: teachers, nurses, doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, religious organizations, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP. I'll put our supporters in this cause up against the NRA any day of the week. We represent far, far more Americans, and the polling is very clear on that.

Michael D. Barnes
President, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
June 23, 2004
AN ASSAULT ON OUR SAFETY: GUN POLICY IN AMERICA
[It's interesting to me that he quickly changes the subject when asked how many members they have. Did you notice that when he talks about NRA membership he jumps from four million to 2.5 million to 3.5 million. And if you want to talk finances the numbers I have show the NRA non-profit divisions solidly in the black and the Brady non-profit division running deficits. And the NRA Special Contribution Fund, Whittington Center alone has greater donations than the Brady non-profit (2005 numbers). If you look at the NRA Foundation numbers you will see their income is increasing and is nearly six times the Brady income which is falling. Add in all the donated money from other pro-gun organizations like The Second Amendment Foundation and you will find the Brady Bunch, by far the largest collection of anti-gun bigots, has income numbers on the order of one tenth that of the good guys. Barnes is just blowing smoke.

I bring this talk of membership numbers up because others have been talking about it.--Joe]

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear D.C. v. Heller The Brady Bunch said:

The Supreme Court’s decision in this case will be extremely significant - the most important decision on guns in nearly 70 years and maybe the most important ever regarding the Second Amendment.

On that point I think they are right. If we win we will be on the offense in a much bigger way than ever before. If we lose we will be on the defense with a handicap we have never before experienced.

The Gun Guys said:

Clearly, if laser guns that could kill someone from a thousand yards away were to come on the market (and they will), it would not be in the interest of protecting our law enforcement officials and citizens to allow such firearms to be sold to civilians. So, there is no absolute right to manufacture, sell and own any type of gun that the NRA and the gun industry claims to be a firearm protected under the Second Amendment. That is a dangerous and legally unsound notion, given that the courts have allowed gun control in the United States for as long as the laws have been in existence.

Perhaps he isn't aware of my Spud Gun which "could kill someone from a thousand yards away" and that it is nothing more than a finely tuned hunting rifle (Remington 700).

He goes on to say:

It should be noted that within the gun control movement there was vigorous debate about whether or not to appeal the D.C. ruling. This is because, as it stands now, the striking down of the D.C. law is only applicable within the D.C. circuit.

The decision that the Supreme Court will render will affect the entire country – and it may be that there is a desire to stir up a political hornet’s nest on the issue during an election year, hoping that it will favor the Republicans.

I said back in March that if they were smart they would not appeal. But the roller coaster has just left the loading area and we are all going on an exciting ride with a good probability that someone is going to get thrown out before it stops next spring. The election year angle just adds more twists and turns (opportunities and risks).

Then the VPC says the D.C. ban is saving lives because D.C. has fewer suicides. It could be the numbers are bogus. For example if someone wanted to commit suicide they might just find a drug dealer and try to take his product from him. It would be ruled a murder and not a suicide. Still, I find this amusing. The VPC wants to protect us from ourselves but we are not allowed to protect ourselves from others. The first thing that comes to mind is--I wonder if they practice what they preach. If someone were in the middle of trying to commit suicide would they insist they stop then offer to do it for them because that would be more consistent with their philosophy?

And second, does this relate in some way to the apparent celebration of victim-hood by many liberals? They would rather have victims who have no control over their lives than people that take (the ultimate) control over their lives?

Rather than preparing to prosecute anti-gun politicians and organizations someone at the DOJ just visited my blog:

Domain Name		usdoj.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address		149.101.1.# (US Dept of Justice)
ISP		US Dept of Justice
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  Maryland City  :  Potomac Lat/Long  :  39.023, -77.1993 (Map) Distance  :  2,059 miles
Language		English (United States) en-us
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Out Click
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Visit Number		212,525

I wonder if they were really looking for the vagina cake. The thumbnail they clicked on here should have made it clear what they were going to end up with when they came to visit.

Find it here. The email I received from Ashley Varner (NRA public affairs) seemed to be shouting (yes, this was the font size in the original email):

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear First

Second Amendment Case Since 1939

I interpret this to mean she was happy about it.

The U.S. Supreme Court just announced their decision to take the D.C. v. Heller case. The question they will be answering is:

Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?

This is the most fundamental difference we have over the Second Amendment with the anti-gun bigots. They claim the Second Amendment guarantees state governments the "right" (governments don't have rights, they have enumerated powers) to possess arms. Assuming any significant attention is given to original intent (this may be a big assumption) then it is difficult for me to imagine this will go against us.

This is good, this is very good. Now to answer Uncle and Pro-Gun Progress's question. If we get the answer we want we start attacking the next most egregious laws such as those in Chicago, New York City, and New Jersey. We must be careful to attack them in the proper order to make sure we have a solid foundation to build upon as we get to questions like, "Does the individual have a right to carry a weapon on school grounds?" If we attack the "grey area" questions first they might be decided against us and the foundation gets built on the wrong side of freedom. Ultimately I want to see the DOJ prosecuting anti-gun politicians and organizations under 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242. But that, if it ever happens, will be a long time from now. But still, it should be our goal.

The NRA is the equivalent of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. If they don't deal with the NRA, they will find out the hard way who the equivalents to Malcolm X are in the pro-rights movement.

Kristopher Barrett
November 19, 2007
[From the comments of this post. He was educating Michael D. Barnes, President of The Brady Bunch, who claimed the NRA was extreme.--Joe]

I sometimes wish I could output snark like this:

The report follows recent news that screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed 75% of the fake bombs that investigators tried to smuggle onto planes during tests two years ago. The excuse from TSA officials: The tests were difficult and designed to trip up screeners. Whereas Al Qaeda will doubtless hide its bombs in brightly marked packages.

But then I would probably want to use it for occasions that would jeopardize my job and marriage.

Clever trick--hacking a soda machine. But they qualify for an Insufficiently Myelinated Award for posting their faces along with their criminal acts.

[Via Bruce.]

We just had to do it.  There was no choice, really.  This had been building for a long time and finally, we made the trip (I say pilgrimage) north to the new Cabela's store in Post Falls, Idaho.  Calling the new store a mere "store" would be like, well, like calling Cabela's a mere store.  It's much more than that.  It's bigger and nicer than some whole shopping malls.  There is a space as large as our warehouse dedicated to displaying stuffed big game animals, including a moose standing in water (with live fish).  There is another fish tank as large as our two offices here combined, and the list goes on.

The parking lot is bigger than any of the several county fairgrounds lots I've seen, and they actually are building a freeway to the place (OK, it's really just a four lane road with a center lane).

While most gun dealers keep all the guns behind the counter, cabled together, this place had racks of the less expensive ones out in the isles where we could handle them.  They all have trigger locks, but are otherwise treated no different than hammers or screwdriver sets (except for the form 4473 requirement, et al).  Yes, this is Idaho, where we're not all afraid of our shadows, so this sort of thing works nicely.  The ammo section alone is much like a small market in its own right-- Row upon row of boxed ammo, out where you can open a box and actually see what you're buying.  They have several types of loading presses represented, assembled, where you can test the feel of them, and a whole isle of loading data books.

They were busy, but they had just the right amount of salespeople (available when you needed them, but they didn't get in your face, though I have to tell you guys-- you COULD have sold me the Blue Ridge flintlock I was fondling if you'd pushed it just a tad-- I was teetering).  There were signs posted in the covered entrance: Something like, "If you brought guns in for trade, check them in with a salesman.  No loaded guns, but loaded concealed carry is OK."  These are my people.

What struck me over and over was that here is a business catering to what some might call "guy stuff" (guns, hunting, fishing, camo clothing and outdoor gear of every description) and they are not relegated to a shamed, forsaken corner of society.  They are big and beautiful, they have their brand name on much of the merchandise, and they are doing very well.  That sort of puts the lie to the whole "politically correct" set of policies adopted by lesser retailers, which really only amount to surrender of principle.

Cabela's hasn’t surrendered.  The camo clothing section alone (remember the anti camo clothing movement of the Clinton years?) was larger than most whole stores.  There was the regular gun section, including hunting rifles, shotguns, eeeeevil black rifles, and the nicest selection of black powder firearms I've yet seen in one place.  Then there was the "Firearms Museum"-- a store within a store where you can purchase fine handmade shotguns, double rifles, rare and antique firearms.  I witnessed some haggling over a nice double, going for well into the five figures range.  There is an indoor audio-animatronics shooting gallery and a big-screen video shooting gallery.  I wasn’t terribly impressed, but they were there, damn it, and that is good.  The in-store restaurant served us ostrich and bison club sandwiches.  Mine was good, not spectacular, but good, and it was ostrich!

There was for sure a disproportionately high percentage of beautiful women in the place.  I don't mean the help, though that could be said of some of them too, I mean the customers.  You fellas who are being "chickified" by the NAGS out there (National Association of Gals); are you taking heed?  You know who you are; you're the pale, low-talking, fervently average, obstinately moderate men who smell like women and avoid controversy-- the ones who clam up and won't talk to me directly for fear or revealing yourselves as angry, irrational leftists.  Most “Real Men” (even some of the gay ones I know) are attracted to “guy stuff” and so are most “Real Women”.  That makes perfect sense, don’t you know.

Business people and politicians; take note also.  Quality sells, and the experience sells.  Where people stick to their principles (assuming they ever had any to which they might stick) they often succeed wonderfully, flying in the faces of the nay-sayers.  Cabela’s isn’t going to be winning friends among PETA, or among the pants shitting anti gun movement, but those people never really mattered anyway.

And yes, we bought some stuff there, and I think I know where I’m getting my first, early-American style, flintlock rifle.

Now if only Cabela’s would put in a “Tires and Lingerie” section…

Today is the day (happy birthday to Kim du Toit) to buy some ammo and I just heard it on the radio news because the Seattle PI mentioned it:

Seattle resident Chris Pierce had left Butch's Gun Shop on Sunday and was heading for the countryside in North Bend to fire rounds when he heard about National Ammo Day.

"I think it's a great idea. It sends the message that firearms aren't going away," he said. "You can't take out one part of the Constitution without ruining all of it."

The thought of Monday as National Ammo Day, a period dedicated to buying bullets to support the Second Amendment, might send shivers down the backs of some Seattle residents.

But they are careful to get other opinions on the topic:

While many gun owners are preparing to part with their cash, a Washington CeaseFire spokeswoman said the day should have a different emphasis.

"As we approach Thanksgiving, we would better benefit from responsible firearms owners reminding the public of the importance of safe firearm storage," group executive director Kristen Comer said.

"The safest place for firearms ... is locked and out of reach of children and others who might otherwise place themselves in danger."

She said she believes responsible gun owners are not in jeopardy of losing access to firearms and bullets.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Seattle said his agency has no position on National Ammo Day.

And you just know what question was asked and the mindset behind it that prompted this response:

To mark it, Taff plans to buy 100 rounds and fire them at a Bellevue range.

While Monday marks the sixth annual National Ammo Day, Taff heard about it only recently.

He was not concerned that criminals would use the day to clear ammunition shelves and then commit robberies.

Someone in Iran is looking for information on liquid explosives:

Domain Name		(Unknown)
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We were probably a little more honest with our kids about Santa than most parents. We had to explicitly tell them to "keep the secret" from some of their cousins. Thus we avoided little unplanned revelations like this (thanks to Rob for forwarding it to me).

But our girls did somehow manage to find the contents of the top shelf in the work room with both volumes of The Kinsey Report and other books that had more photos that words. Which reminds me. I think there is still room on that shelf for this book.

We had the first snow of fall in Moscow, Idaho yesterday. I left about 13:20 to try getting over the pass to my hardened, underground bunker near Seattle before dark. It snowed or rained on me the whole way. The road had a little slush on the pass but I never had any problems although I saw a couple accidents where people made unplanned excursions from I-90.

Xenia took some pictures near our Moscow home but only posted one so I stole this one from her computer because I like it better:

You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.

Samantha Carter
A character in Stargate SG-1
Played by Amanda Tapping
[James and I just finished watching this series on DVD. It was good. Very good. We're sorry it's over. The ending could have been a little bit better. James was probably a little more disappointed than I. I thought it left things such that you could imagine how all the unresolved things would probably be figured out and that was okay. But James was a bit annoyed saying that it wasn't that much different than the ending of any other episode. I figure it gives them possibilities for the movies.--Joe]

In August of 2006 Barb and I spent a week in Missouri and Kansas. I'd spent a little time in that area of the country on business 20 years ago but Barb hadn't been there before. In addition to taking in the local claims to fame we expected to do some of the usual things we do in the northwest--hike in the wood. We were disappointed in that regard.

The part of Kansas we were in, essentially, didn't have any woods and we didn't even look for a place to hike. Missouri was a little better but from our perspective it was very odd. There just weren't any trails to speak of. And the ones we found were just "blah". We did do a little bit of hiking and thought we understood part of the reason people didn't do much hiking.

1. The humidity made it uncomfortable.
2. It just wasn't that interesting compared to what we were used to.
3. It's flat. The highest altitude in Missiouri is 1772 ft and the lowest is 230 ft for a difference of only 1542 ft over the entire state.

On October 28^th of this year we, after spending most of the day in bed, went for a hike toward Wallace Falls near Gold Bar Washington. We got off much too late and had to turn around before we reached the falls so we could get back to the car before dark. We were pleased with what we saw and decided to try it again and get an earlier start. On November 11^th we started our hike a little after 10:00 AM and made it all the way to the upper falls.

We were leaning against the rail taking in the beauty of the upper falls and I said, "You know we aren't in Missouri don't you?" Barb laughed and knew exactly what I was talking about even though it had been over a year since we had been in Missouri.

A few days later I told our son James about it, including the background about our time in Kansas and Missouri. He responded with something his friend Tucker had said numerous times, "Kansas is flatter than a pancake--they've done tests."

Here are a few pictures to show you what I'm talking about. It's definitely not Missouri.

The NRA is extreme. Their positions on gun policy are, as the police chief of Los Angeles William Bratton has said, "Sheer lunacy." It is only a matter of time before the NRA either adjusts to the real world or loses its power. A modern democratic society has the right to self-defense and that's exactly why the battle for sensible gun laws will ultimately be won by the reasonable voices in our society. We have the right to defend ourselves against madmen with assault weapons. We have the right to defend ourselves against unrestricted gun sales to criminals or terrorists. And we're eventually going to win those rights.

Michael D. Barnes
June 23, 2004
President, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
AN ASSAULT ON OUR SAFETY: GUN POLICY IN AMERICA
 
[Interesting twist of the definition of 'rights'. "And we're going to obtain the 'power'" would be the more appropriate words to use in this context. But that would bring about the defeat of his argument. And of course never once does he hint he has an appropriate answer to Just One Question.--Joe]

Where else?

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms.

First they get people used to the police searching around in their homes without a warrant. Then when they refuse it will be probable cause for a search warrant.

[Via an email from Jason.]

How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.

This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

Bruce Schneier
May 19, 2006
The Value of Privacy
[I don't think very many people really get this. They make the trade of essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety and don't realize they will end up with neither (yes, I'm corrupting Franklin's quote a bit).--Joe]

Breasts are getting larger in the U.K. Stores are introducing J-cup bras for the first time.

Not that I need a bra or anything.

And I prefer women to not wear bras, or even clothes for that matter. But I thought someone might find it interesting. Some guys are into the big breast thing. Even if I were I don't think it is worth going to a repressive state like the U.K. for those sort of thrills.

We've known about the gun-show loophole for a long time now. It still hasn't been closed. Maybe someone can make some progress on the restaurant loophole:

America has a problem with unlicensed restaurant operators. Week after week, millions of these scofflaws cook elaborate meals without any official authorization, or even an inspection by a government health agency. The problem grows particularly acute at Thanksgiving, when some unlicensed chefs prepare meals for a dozen or more people. The result? Every year countless Americans are sickened by salmonella, campylobacter, and other food-borne bacteria. You might know the cooks as Mom and Dad, or Grandma and Grandpa, or Uncle Mike and Aunt Karen. But don't let their down-home manner fool you. It's time to close the regulatory loophole that lets these scofflaws dodge the rules of restaurant safety.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But that's precisely the approach being taken by gun-control advocates who want to close what they call the "gun-show loophole." Opponents of gun rights use that expression to describe the occasional sales of firearms between private citizens -- whom they call "unlicensed dealers" and "unlicensed vendors." (Eeek!)

As the author points out, it's really all about closing the Second Amendment loophole.

Nice. The TSA is a joke. Kip Hawley is the head of the TSA. He says airport security is good. Investigators do what I have been saying could be done. Hawley tries to put a spin on it in front of congress and gets slapped down:

Investigators used public information to make a liquid bomb consisting of a detonator and a liquid explosive. They made a firebomb using two common products.

To absolute silence in the hearing room, the investigators screened video footage showing tests of their homemade bombs. One clip showed the device exploding inside a car -- metal flying, glass shattering, car doors buckling open and a voice, off camera, saying, "Oh!"

The investigators then designed ways to sneak the components past screeners.

The airports tested were kept classified.

The GAO recommended improvements in personnel, processes and technology; more aggressive pat-downs; and possible restrictions on carry-on luggage.

"Current policies allowing substantial carry-on luggage and related items through TSA checkpoints" increase the risk of a terrorist bringing an improvised explosive device or improvised incendiary device onto a plane, the report said.

Hawley downplayed the tests, arguing first that the components did not get on the plane. "It did get on the plane," countered Gregory Kutz of the GAO.

Hawley then contended that the components the GAO smuggled were not the ones used in the video footage. The GAO's Cooney corrected him.

Hawley also noted that GAO investigators did not smuggle a complete bomb past the checkpoint. Cooney, seated beside him, said: "We could simply have gone into the lavatory and constructed it there."

They don't arrive at the proper conclusion but they are getting the proper data--which is a start.

I always have a quotation for everything -- it saves original thinking.

Dorothy L. Sayers

I and nearly everyone else with more than two brain cells to rub together should have learned our lesson. But we fall for it again and again.

Remember when I another blogger or two raised a big stink about the Priciple Deputy Director of the National Intellence said we need to refine privacy? Well... the reporter apparently thought he could read the guys mind or something. Here is the actual speech.

Bruce Schneier took it the same we did at first but followed up with a link the next day to the actual speech--which is how I got straightened out.

The reporter got it wrong. And we believed it because it was what we wanted to hear. We want to hear how dangerous the government is. We latched on to that sloppy (I'm giving her, Pamela Hess, the benefit of the doubt) reporting and ran with it. Shame on us.

The critical passage is here:

Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity; and it’s an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture. The Long Ranger wore a mask but Tonto didn’t seem to need one even though he did the dirty work for free. You’d think he would probably need one even more. But in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity – or the appearance of anonymity – is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Anonymity results from a lack of identifying features. Nowadays, when so much correlated data is collected and available – and I’m just talking about profiles on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube here – the set of identifiable features has grown beyond where most of us can comprehend. We need to move beyond the construct that equates anonymity with privacy and focus more on how we can protect essential privacy in this interconnected environment. Protecting anonymity isn’t a fight that can be won. Anyone that’s typed in their name on Google understands that. Instead, privacy, I would offer, is a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured. And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change.

I think people here, at least people close to my age, recognize that those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs. And so, it’s not for us to inflict one size fits all. It’s a need to have it be adjustable to the needs of local societies as they evolve in our country. Eventually, we can only hope that people’s perceptions – in Hollywood and elsewhere – will catch up.

I'm not saying everything he said is 100% okay with me. But I will say that I no longer think Mr. Kerr deserves the one-way ticket I had suggested before.

If you thought your secrets were safe with Hushmail you were wrong:

Hushmail, a longtime provider of encrypted web-based email, markets itself by saying that "not even a Hushmail employee with access to our servers can read your encrypted e-mail, since each message is uniquely encoded before it leaves your computer."

But it turns out that statement seems not to apply to individuals targeted by government agencies that are able to convince a Canadian court to serve a court order on the company.

There are methods to communicate securely (guaranteed at the theoretical level) provided your attacker never gets physical access to your computer or someone doesn't hand over the encryption keys. It's just that it's very, very inconvenient to do so. There are some intermediate difficulty of use methods which are secure as long as your attacker doesn't have millions to spend on cracking your messages. I have been wanting to implement that for a long time but always seem to find something more important to do.

One of my main reasons for not working on the problem is that I can't guarantee "no physical access" to my computer. So it's just doesn't have much point. That is probably always going to be the weak link. I don't have any secrets on my computer or in my communication that need to be kept that secure but its sort of like owning firearms that certain people in government don't want you to have and reading banned books. "You don't want me to have it? Then that means I must have it."

You just have to wonder what they want a Saiga 12 gauge for. Is it Aliens? Or maybe a Predator? My bet is it's for replicators. A shotgun worked quite well on those bugs.

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KING 5 has their video of Boomershoot up on the web now. It's a slightly different edit than the one I have up.

Kevin points us at a slide-show on the "wisdom" of government having a monopoly of force. It's good. Very good.

I'm not sure it will have the impact on "the other side" that we would want it to. They will just say, "We just need to have good people in government." But I think it is useful for us to have a comeback to when someone says something like, "The government must have a monopoly on force". You can't just let that stand. I'm sure that to many people once stated it's "a no brainer" at first glance. "Of course they should. It just makes sense!" You need to be able to shove something in their face:

From of a poster I purchased from JPFO.

Then you say, "NO! This is the reason why governments should never have a monopoly on force." It's easy to come up with a body count of 60 million people in the last century that were killed by they own government. And this is the reason our government was not given a monopoly on force in the constitution.

They may not buy your argument but at least they won't be able to accuse you of, "loving guns more than life", or some such stupid thing.

Before gun control, about 800 Canadians were killed annually by firearms. After gun control, about 800 are killed annually by firearms. Simply put, gun control does not save lives. At the same time, about 2,500 die annually due to falls. Yes, the simple ladder kills more Canadians than firearms, but you don't see politicians clamouring to register ladders.

This information was obtained from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Ironically, this office in Ottawa is across the hall from the gun control bureau. If Ottawa's actions were based on a sincere desire to save human life, then the $2 billion could have been better spent on safety training and health care -- but unfortunately safety training and health care isn't as glamorous as gun control.

Based on this, I must therefore conclude that politicians' support for gun control is not based on a desire to save human life, but instead a cynical platform to obtain votes to stay in office.

Jay Dumas
Prince George
Thursday, 15 November 2007, 01:00 PST
Gun control shot down
[Another person answers Just One Question and comes up with the expected answer.--Joe]

Via Uncle.

Maybe this is proof I'm a gun nut but when I read this:

Under the DMV's plan, motorists will only be able to object to a ticket by email or letter where city employees can ignore or reject letters in bulk without affected motorists having any realistic recourse.

The first thought that went through my mind was, "168 grain Match Kings can reject city employees without any realistic recourse."

The second thought was, "It's no wonder Washington D.C. insists on retaining it's ban on firearms."

[The title of this post is shameless stolen from Sebastian. It's far better than anything I would have come up with. A significant part of the rest of this post is from a comment I left on his blog.]

We all have different backgrounds and hence different viewpoints on the past and the probable future. At least one person disagrees with me. Good. I'd like to be wrong on this. Maybe Chris and Melody will show up at Boomershoot 2008 (hint, hint) and convince me I am wrong.

Some weren't really aware because they were too young or because they simply didn't have the interest in some of the things that had a profound impact on me. When the standoff at Ruby Ridge occurred I lived only about twenty miles away. Being that close you learned of things and felt emotions others more distant wouldn't have a clue about. Although I grew up with guns around I didn't do much shooting and when the Ruby Ridge incident occurred in August of 1992 I didn't even own a gun.

A lot of things went through my mind during those 10 days. Probably the most profound thought was my complete inability to help the Weavers even if I had the courage and the determination. I didn't own a gun and I didn't have the training required to accomplish anything more than get myself arrested or killed.

The dark days of the Clinton administration began shortly thereafter and everyone knew what would happen to gun ownership under Clinton. I bought my first gun and became a gun-rights activist. Then in February of 1993 the events in Waco Texas began to unfold.

In September of 1994 the "assault weapon ban" went into effect. And even before it was enacted there was "Brady II" waiting in the wings. The anti-gun bigots were absolutely crowing about their victories and those they expected to follow. Those were very, very dark days. Barb will tell you how depressed and angry I was. I wasn't very pleasant to be around and it wasn't her fault.

What those dark days did for me was give me a lot of motivation to think about things. Both Ruby Ridge and Waco events were about guns. The ATF ("one of the best and most respected federal law enforcement agencies") manufactured the circumstances to entrap innocent people and resulted in the deaths of dozens of innocent men, women, and children. No government employee even lost their job over it. They lied to numerous judges and the worst that happened was U.S. taxpayers had to pay fines and settle a lawsuit.

If people were going to "come to the rescue" of innocents under attack by the government it would have happened at either Ruby Ridge or Waco. The innocents held out for more than enough time for people from anywhere in the country to travel and at least increase the casualties of the perpetrators. In Northern Idaho it was late August in sparsely populated woods and mountains. Spending a few nights in the woods approaching your targets and getting away would have been a relative simple challenge. No significant adverse weather conditions and lots of cover and concealment. In Waco the open terrain would have made an approach and departure significantly more difficult but the siege went on for 51 days. Someone could have gotten a bomb in there or a mortar within range and remotely fired upon the perpetrators during that time had they really wanted to. Yet no one did. There were some idiots who tried to drive in the back way to Ruby Ridge that got arrested. But they approached the problem in such a stupid manner that they had no real chance of accomplishing anything. There was zero serious resistance offered from the outside.

In both those cases the only casualties the forces of evil suffered were during the initial attack. And when it was all over the dead and wounded of the innocents outnumber those of the aggressors by at least a factor of four to one.

So, here was two very clear opportunities for gun owners to "show their stuff" over abuses by the Feds over "the gun issue". Both Idaho and Texas are very strong pro-gun states. And what was on the report card at the end of the lesson? All 80 million gun owners in the United States got a zero. Not a single shot fired by anyone other than the direct participants.

I don't know what I would have done in August of '92 if I had the equipment and training I have now. But with what I know now about how other gun owners "responded" it would have been a significant inhibitor on any actions I might have considered. Alone there is no point in going up against several hundred armed and trained men with helicopters, armored personal carriers, and excellent communication gear. If there were a half dozen or so of you then maybe you could pick off a few from the perimeter and get away with it.

Lots of people claim they will start fighting when they come to take their guns. "When they start going door-to-door that's when some really bad shit is going to hit the fan!" Oh yeah? Maybe you missed out on what happened after Katrina left town.

So where does that leave us? Interesting question. The conditions that will cause even a small fraction of gun owners to come to the aid of other gun owners under direct physical attack have not been determined. But we do know that lying to judges to get search warrants, entrapment, giving the victims wrong court dates, then charging them for failure to show up for the real court dates, shooting dogs, children, and mothers with a baby in their arms aren't sufficient. We also know what happened (or rather what didn't happen) in Australia and the U.K. when guns were confiscated. And do you have any idea what the kill ratio was between the Jews and the German Police Battalions that sweep through eastern Europe? For the one battalion that was well documented which I read about it was 16,000 to one. And that one casualty inflicted on the Germans wasn't by one of the Jews about to be led off to a trench to be shot in the back of the neck. If anyone has sufficient motivation you would think it would be them. But instead that causality was inflicted by a couple of Polish partisan snipers.

What that means is the conditions for actually using our firearms in active resistance against "our own people" must be exceptional extreme.

What I think happens is that it is very easy to postpone the outwardly visible actions of resistance. People will resist in their minds and in their fantasies and convince themselves they have accomplished something. I believe this is a nearly universal trait. It may sound like I'm picking on Sebastian here but only because he made himself an easy target and I'm pretty sure he knows I don't have any ill will toward him.

What Sebastian said was:

I’ll be honest with you all, I’d probably not turn in the ammunition first, as I have no desire to fight for a lost cause against a law that’s not really enforceable.   Show me real opposition, and I might join, but aside from that, I plaster an off the books AR up in my wall with a “Break Wall In Event of a Emergency” note in my head, and keep a few thousand rounds of ammunition.

I responded in the comments to his post was the following (with a few minor edits):

As long as we have private sales, and to a certain extent even if we don’t, a year or two after you filled out your 4473 a firearm may be considered “off the books”. “Oh, that one? I didn’t care for it and sold it via an note I put up on the bulletin board at the gun shop.” Or, “I loved that gun but I lost it in a boating accident last summer.” But mere possession of a firearm isn’t the critical item.

What will become difficult is to practice and receive formal training. You should be putting several hundred rounds down-range each month just for maintenance. If it becomes illegal to own then range availability as well as (black market) ammo prices will make practice nearly impossible.

Without the practice then you really won’t know if that 75 yard shot at the guard beside “the cattle car filled with Jews” will mean the release of the victims or your death. A 400 yard shot? Forget it. With practice you know what you are capable of (at GBR-2007 do you think I would have started off-hand shooting at the 400 yard plate had I not thought I would be able to make at least a few hits?). With this knowledge you can have the confidence to make plans and execute them.

It is my understanding that the “gardens of eastern Europe were well oiled” because of all the guns buried there. Even as tyrants of eastern Europe rose to power, people were dragged off in the middle of the night, and while the gulags killed their 10s of thousands those guns stayed buried in their well oiled graves.

To me, burying your guns is little different than turning them over. It’s only a victory in your mind. You must use them or you have lost them.

A further thing to think about is that it is exceedingly rare when the defender wins a war. As long as one side can choose the terms of all the engagements they are nearly certain to win in the long run. If you think holding on to your gun for another generation is a win then fine, you stand a fair chance of “winning” as long as you don’t tell any one about your guns and the high tech scanners in the patrol cars and helicopters overlook them as they go by. But really it just means your loss will go unnoticed and unremarkable.

If we loose at the SC it was for “all the marbles”.

One can argue that even if we completely lose the case realistically we aren't any worse off than we were before the ruling. After all, what protection did the Second Amendment give us in the last 70 years? How many laws were overturned because of it? We have been in the midst of a running battle for decades thinking we had the Second Amendment to back us up "if things got really bad". But really, how many battles has it won for us? How many times has it stepped up to the plate and even got a hit? Until Hellar it has struck out every single time it came to bat. In a rational world to have the Second Amendment end up not being worth the piece of paper it is written on wouldn't make much difference to us.

But this isn't a rational world we live in. The Second Amendment is something we believe in. We want to believe it and we do believe it and it makes a difference in how we fight. It makes a difference in how our opponents fight too. It's another hurdle they have to get over or around. They risk exposing themselves as liars and shuckers every time they try to explain "collective rights".

Without the Second Amendment as an individual right we have two realistic choices:

1. Sometime soon we start shooting.
2. We fight a political delaying action that lasts for a decade or two.

I don't have any hope the first one will occur or that it would be successful if it did happen. And ultimately we will lose via the second option.

I stand by my original agreement with Kevin's claim, This One's for All the Marbles. Anything else is only a victory of the mind.

While we truly feel badly for the law abiding citizens of California, we feel it is necessary to take a stand against irresponsible legislation designed solely to inhibit the American citizen’s right to keep arms. We are fierce proponents of the Second Amendment, and it is our hope that other manufacturers will follow our lead. It is time for the gun industry as a whole to take a stand against the insanity of the antigunners. We simply believe that some things are more important than profit.

STI International
Cessation of California Firearm Sales
[Via Uncle, Bitter, Sebastian, and Ninth Stage. It makes me proud that I own an STI gun. It's on my hip, as is normal when I'm allowed to carry, as I write this. It is my carry gun and it is my competition gun. Thank you STI.--Joe]

Just a gentle reminder that everything you say on the Internet is read by big brother. Case in point: my post comparing ATF agents to Special Olympics participants got the attention of the DOJ:

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Uncle points us to this article:

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

[...]

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

Side note: I heard of such a device from a friend in 2000.

I've gotten into debates with people that insisted we just needed "appropriate regulations with regards to the collection and use of personal information". I expect Kerr, at best, would claim regulation should be in place and would protect us from the harm that might come from government abuse. That people can believe such outrageous fantasies is so mind boggling to me that I have difficulty articulating my case through my anger.

Let me put this as simply and calmly as I can. If the government has access to information that can be abused, no matter what "regulations" are in place, it will be abused. Just two quick examples; 1) Census data, supposedly "sealed" for 72 years was used by the FBI to track down "enemy aliens and foreign nationals who might be dangerous". People of Japanese, Italian, and German descent were put in internment camps based on "sealed" information. 2) Brady records were required to be destroyed if the gun buyer passed the NCIS check. They weren't. They were kept for at least a year "for audit purposes". I told one gun rights leader that I thought the gun rights community should make it an issue to make sure these records were destroyed. He told me that it wasn't that important because even if they existed they couldn't be used in a court of law because they were "legally destroyed" even if they weren't physically destroyed. After 9-11 those records were used to find "terrorist suspects" that might own guns. People who bought guns were found and their homes searched because those records existed. Gun owners screamed bloody-murder and the gun grabbers insisted it was entirely appropriate that the law be ignored.

A few days ago I finished listening to the book IBM and the Holocaust. Read that book and you'll give strong consideration to being on a back-packing trip deep in the woods when the next census is done. Information is power, tremendous power. When the German "Police Battalions" moved in behind the army to "maintain order" they had lists of every Jew in the area. You couldn't say you didn't have any children because they knew from the census a few months or years before that you did have them. They had birth and death records, they knew who lived in which house in which town. And they were able to murder "vermin" by the millions because they had those lists.

For Kerr to say we should "redefine privacy" is an even more inflammatory statement to me than some gun grabbing politician saying they want all the guns turned in. Even if I don't have my guns I have a chance of hiding my "Jews in the Attic". But if I can't buy them food or obtain medical care for them anonymously they are toast (sick pun intended).

I have yet to hear someone give me, despite my insistence they "put something on the table" to discuss, concrete examples of regulations they think would protect people from government abuse of such data. No one has ever done so. It's always been, "those are details that need to be worked out". I suspect Mr. Kerr is no different. In practical terms there are no regulations that will ever exist that would be adequate.

From a purely hypothetical view point I would be willing to compromise on a set of regulations that probably would be adequate but would violate several articles of the Bill of Rights and probably inspire new rights to be articulated in further amendments to our constitution. I'd explain here but you really don't want to know how creative I am in defending this essential piece of liberty.

Hence, since there will be no practical regulations that will protect such data collections we must not allow such data to be gathered in the first place. And the data that is gathered must be of suspect quality. You and I, as liberty and freedom loving people, have a duty to withhold and corrupt as much of this data as we can. And Mr. Kerr should get a one-way ticket on a fence rail, naked, tarred, and feathered, to North Korea, Cuba, or some other police state. [See my follow up post.]

Update: I forgot to mention another important (because I was there and heard it with my own ears) example. While working for the government laboratory PNNL I had fellow "scientist" (he had a degree in computer science and was working in "cyber security" but was unable to write a computer program) Newton Brown tell another co-worker and I, "See this badge?  This means the law doesn't apply to us." That is the mindset of some of those in government. And for all practical purposes Newton is correct.

Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that “speech, or . . . the press” also means the Internet...and that “persons, houses, papers, and effects” also means public telephone booths....When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases - or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we're none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; its using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

The able judges of the panel majority are usually very sympathetic to individual rights, but they have succumbed to the temptation to pick and choose. Had they brought the same generous approach to the Second Amendment that they routinely bring to the First, Fourth and selected portions of the Fifth, they would have had no trouble finding an individual right to bear arms.

Judge Alex Kozinski
Silveira v. Lockyer
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
[Via Kevin.--Joe]

There is lots of chatter on the expected news tomorrow:

• This One's for All the Marbles (by Kevin, a very good article)
• What if? (Uncle)
• What If We Lose? (Sebastian)
• What If We Lose? (Armed Canadian)

I agree with those that say, in essence, the U.S. Supreme Court cannot be counted to rule in any rational fashion. They will rule however they want to rule without regard to original intent. Oh, they will find something someplace to hang their decision on but they will have no qualms about putting on the blinders and steadfastly ignore data that disagree with how they want to rule.

At the end of the day (figuratively speaking, literally it will be next spring), the question is what will people do if we are ruled against. Uncle says, "Then, giddy up." Armed Canadian says he would expect the NRA to engage in its biggest fund raising drive in history. Sebastian says it will motivate people in the short term and then the RKBA will gently fade away.

One alternative is a constitution convention as discussed in the comments to Kevin's post. Yeah, right. Our country completely and totally abandoned the enumerated powers model of the constitution during the Roosevelt administration. There wasn't enough outrage then to do a constitutional convention and the loss of just one amendment that is only exercised by something like 40% of the population won't meet the bar.

Going back to the revolutionary war we find that only about one third of the population were in favor of revolt against the tyrant King George. Another one third was opposed and one third were uncommitted. So, based on that model a case could be made that enough outraged gun owners might be able to pull off an illegal action of some sort.

I'd like to imagine there would be some sort Unintended Consequences revolt to the decision but from talking to many gun owners I know that won't happen. I know of three different FFL holders that were outspoken defenders of the RKBA and told of how if they ever gave up their FFL they would have a "mysterious fire" and all the 4473s would be tragically lost. When it came down to it, all of them turned them over to the ATF with only a mild whimper. Another person was exceedingly outspoken about how strongly they believed in their right to free speech and the RKBA. It wasn't even government action, merely pressure from potential investors and employers that convinced them to take their blog offline.

Several years ago one IPSC shooter I know was complaining about the stupid gun laws and how wrong they were. I asked, "So what will you do when your guns are declared illegal and you are told to turn them in? What will you do?" He gave me a confused look and said in a tone that indicated that he thought I was insane to even ask such a stupid question, "I'll turn them over. I'll complain, but I'll turn them over."

Who do you know that has actually followed through on some illegal activity in pursuit of securing liberty for future generations? Okay, if they are smart they won't tell anyone they broke law. So lets reword that a little bit; Who do you suspect may have broken the law in pursuit of securing liberty for future generations? I'll bet you can count them all on the fingers of one hand with several fingers left over.

When talking to one outspoken (in private) gun owner and former Special Forces guy about this he explained that the conditions for revolution is a well known science. IIRC he told me there are five stages to this. Until the people are in stage four there is no point even pushing people in that direction. Our country is, at most, in something like stage 1.5. I tried to push for more, what are the stages? How do you measure them? But he claimed it was too many years ago and he didn't remember.

In the darkest days of the Clinton administration gun rights leaders were privately saying they were merely fighting a delaying action. The war was lost and they were merely fighting on to postpone the inevitable. One evening after attending a public hearing in which the city council discussed destroying confiscated guns rather than "turned them loose on the streets to kill again" (sell them to local gun shops) I found myself alone in the parking lot with a gun rights leader. I asked what about a revolution? What will it take for people to say, "You have gone too far. This cannot be tolerated."? He told me it would never happen. If for no other reason than other countries would not allow us to have a revolution. The U.S. is just too important to the world economy for the other countries to tolerate a civil war. If nothing else they would starve us of critical materials that would shut us down. Embargoes would hurt us so badly that no one would be willing to take the hit in their lifestyles for the sake of their guns and liberty.

The bottom line is that I think Kevin and Sebastian are right. This is for all the marbles. If we lose, then that's it man, game over man, game over.

Update 11/13/2007: Today isn't the day after all. I'm reminded of the Emerson decision that took something like a year and a half to be decided when most cases were decided in a few months.

Last December I got a call from a newspaper wanting to talk about illegal bomb building. I posted about it here. In August Michael Blattner, the college student that got caught with the pipe bomb materials, plead guilty to knowingly and unlawfully possessing firearms at the dorm and at his parents' home. This Thursday Blattner will be sentenced.

From what I can determine about the facts in the case the most Blattner was guilty of was being stupid. Oh, he probably violated several laws here and there but they were all victimless crimes. The type that nearly all gun owners violate all the time without realizing it. Nothing new to report there. Some stupid kid gets his life messed up because the government is overstepping it's constitutional authority--it happens all the time.

What surprised me is this:

Two agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will be honored in Pittsburgh today for their investigation into a former California University of Pennsylvania student accused of possessing pipe bombs.

[...]

ATF agents Matthew Regentin and Ben Cornali will join a handful of law enforcement officers from western Pennsylvania being honored at the 10th Annual Law Enforcement Agency Directors Awards Ceremony.

The men are credited with the arrest of Blattner, 19, who was charged last year in federal court with knowingly and unlawfully possessing firearms at the dorm and at his parents' home following a 10-day investigation.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case by Regentin, police approached Blattner regarding suspected bomb materials on Dec. 5, 2006, at his dorm room in Residence Hall A.

Regentin said that when police - led by ATF agents and the Allegheny County Bomb Squad - searched Blattner's dorm room, they discovered six pipe bombs ranging from 2 to 4 inches long wrapped in black electrical tape.

Additionally, Regentin said police uncovered two journals detailing the making of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including drawings of pipe bombs and two sketches specifically titled "medium pipe bomb" and "planted IED" (Improvised Explosive Device).

If you read the original newspaper article you will see the local hardware store turned the kid in. As near as I can tell the ATF agents merely did a little searching through the kid's places of residence and concluded he broke some law. Yet they are being "honored" for this. Had they done some great detective work, disarmed a bomb about to blow up a school, or successfully taken down a criminal/terrorist gang that had thousands of pounds of explosives with plans to kill people or do extensive property damage I would be in line to congratulate them on a job well done. But to have some poor smuck handed to them on a silver platter then for them to be "honored" tarnishes the meaning of honored.

Maybe there is more to the story and I'm way off base. If so, someone let me know and I'll update my post. But until then I'll just have to conclude the agents were so stupid that this awards ceremony is like a Special Olympics contest where the contestants were so severely handicapped you are amazed they know which direction to run and everyone deserves an award for just showing up.

According to this report a box of .45 ammo on the U.K. black market cost from £2,000 to £3,000 ($4000 to $6000). Talk about opportunities for a profit! That has to to be more lucrative than drugs.

At second thought I think there must have been a mistake made somewhere along the way. They also say a .38 "bullet" cost £0.50 which would translate into about $50 for a box of fifty. Why would .45 ammo cost 100 times that of .38 ammo? Still there is more than adequate markup for someone with a Dillon 1050 to make a lot of money in their basement.

Smith advocates getting rid of Martin Luther King Day and replacing it with John Moses Browning Day. He makes some good points:

For the record, I am opposed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a national holiday in the month of January or, for that matter, any other month. It isn’t that I oppose a national holiday celebrating the legacy of America’s greatest civil rights leader. I just don’t believe that King was our greatest civil rights leader. I believe that distinction belongs to John Browning.

Since John Moses Browning was born on January 23rd, 1855, it will be easy to make the transition from a Martin King to a John Browning national holiday. And it will be educational, too. Many gun owners are unaware that Browning sold 44 guns to Winchester including the Model 94 level action repeater. Guns based on the Model 94 design and chambered in 30-30 have probably killed more deer in North America than any other model before or since.

Few Colt owners have had a chance to shoot the .30 and .50 caliber machine guns or 37-mm aircraft cannon. But all of those lucky enough to own Colts including the .45 Caliber and Woodsman models are benefiting from a basic design coming from the greatest genius the firearms industry has ever known.

Today’s “civil rights” movement has become a disgrace largely because it is based on the idea that people are entitled to things they did not earn through the fruits of their own labor. Instead, people are given things on the basis of what their ancestors suffered – all coming from those who did nothing wrong on the basis of what their ancestors did wrong.

But John Browning was a different kind of man. He refused to take anything he did not earn. He even refused an honorary degree from a university on the basis of that principle. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson could learn a lot from a man who practices what he preaches.

Although it took a lot of courage to attack MLK I'm not sure there was anything to be gained by that except getting a little more attention. That extra attention is likely to be about 90% hostile.

The internationally organized bigots are a little more open about their objectives than are the ones in the U.S.:

All our objectives are predicated on the belief that the interests of public safety demand a reduction in the availability and attractiveness of guns of all kinds.

1. Minimum age of 18 for the ownership, use and possession of all guns. 
2. One certification system for all legal weapons i.e. rifles, shotguns, airguns. 
3. Certification of all deactivated weapons. 
4. Multi-shot rifles and shotguns to be banned. 
5. Practical or Combat shooting or any other shooting practice which involves the simulation of real life situations and/or the use of human shaped targets to be banned.

We recognise the existence of a significant minority interest in shooting for sport, and our proposals are aimed at striking an appropriate balance between the sport-shooting interest and the overriding interest in public safety.

Notice that self-defense is not recognized as a legitimate use of firearms. In fact they call out practice for self-defense to be banned. The most basic human right, the right to defend one's own life, should be forbidden. People that advocate this are not worthy of living in society. They should be be in prison or hung just as the Nazis in Nuremberg. They are participating in crimes against humanity. Our country has laws against conspiracy against rights and if they touch foot on our soil they should be arrested and put on trial.

Guns can provide an intoxicating and almost pornographic attraction to young men who often feel powerless, according to academics in the field.

Chris Summers
November 12, 2007
Who carries guns and why?
BBC News
[The actual report is here. What is interesting to me is the report does not include the words "porn" or "intoxicating" in any form. Apparently Summers is just making stuff up.--Joe]

The TLB ecosystem must be going through some global climate change or something. I doubt my blog will remain a Marauding Marsupial very long:

The Seattle Times has an almost unbiased article on the Heller case and the U.S. Supreme Court. What's really interesting to me is they didn't get any comment from the local anti-gun organization Washington Ceasefire. I haven't paid that much attention to local politics for several years but I remember several years ago when Washington Ceasefire had the local media eating out of their hand. It seemed like it was several times a month when the media would, essentially, print their news releases. And now with big news happening on the gun rights issue the local bigots are not to be heard. Their website shows no real activity since April of this year.

I looked at Ceasefire Foundation of Washington (non-profit branch of Washington Ceasefire) finances and updated my spreadsheet of anti-gun finances but didn't learn a whole lot. Their pattern correlates closely with that of other anti-gun owner organizations. But it hasn't, as of late 2005, gotten into what would appear to be a desperate situation.

I had to read this article twice to figure out what they were actually doing with their grant money. It turns out they are apparently taking a stroll into an alternate reality where good intentions make a difference. In their world view gang members need to be offered "alternatives to their current lifestyle".

I call it wistful thinking but they call it Project Ceasefire:

"Our role in Project CeaseFire is, quite simply, to stop the next shooting," state Attorney General Anne Milgram said, referring to the name of the statewide campaign and its tagline. "And if we do that, we can save lives."

[...]

Friday's news conference, held in the lower level of Plainfield Public Library before more than 100 people, also marked the graduation of eight paid outreach workers who endured 40 hours of training, including nighttime strolls in crime-ridden areas of other cities.

The workers said they will devote their time to consoling families affected by gun violence, offering gang members alternatives to their current lifestyle and promoting safe streets by holding community events such as a proposed midnight barbecue in the city's West End.

The group, led by Angela Piggee, executive director of the Liberty Community Development Corporation, includes: Arlinda Harris, Ethel Wheeler, Eric Spann, George M. Brown Sr., Amy Concepcion, Tawana Fields and Wanda Lyles.

Though Piggee said she received a number of unspeakable responses when she and fellow trainees attempted to talk to gang members in other cities, Piggee said she remained optimistic about the outreach efforts in Plainfield.

I suppose it's possible they figured out a way to get away with it but it sure sounds like entrapment to me:

What they noticed was that the maximum penalty for selling a firearm to a convicted felon was the same as that for being a felon in possession, 10 years in prison. So they enlisted a confidential informer with a felony record to start buying guns from gang members.

Government: If It Ain't Broke, They'll Break It

Larry Elder
November 8, 2007
From the article by that name.
[I really need to write up my "Just One Question" for big government advocates (see also this post and comments). This article will be one of the references.--Joe]

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
[There are times when I'm very discouraged. There are times when it just doesn't seem worth gnawing through your restraints to get up in the morning.--Joe]

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

Archimedes
[From some reason Kevin's project reminded me of this.--Joe]

In spite of a lifetime of indoctrination to the contrary at public schools, some students are figuring out that being in a "gun free zone" can put you at risk.  Here in Moscow, pro rights students at the University of Idaho are making themselves heard.  This comes shortly after our socialist mayor, Nancy Cheney, tried to ban guns in "public places" and was told by the state attorney general to back off.  "Preemption" laws state that a local government may not enact gun laws that are more strict than state law.  Yet hear we have a state-funded institution with a gun free zone policy.  Go figure.

Virginia Tech is also a “no firearms” campus, but that didn’t stop Seung-Hui Cho from killing 32 people there April 16. Baker [one of the student protestors] said he doesn’t believe being able to carry concealed weapons would have prevented the tragedy, but that it would have minimized the number of innocent people killed. He said Cho didn’t obey the “no firearms” signs, and that can happen anywhere when lawful citizens are denied their right to self-defense.

How do you spell, "Duh!"?

“We’re not saying we need a mass arming of students,” ... People are not going through these [permit approval] procedures so they can go out and commit robberies and rape.”

Does anyone else understand that a criminal isn't going to bother getting a carry permit?

Lt. Paul Kwiatkowski, campus division commander for the Moscow Police Department, said while concealed weapons are legal with a permit, the university’s code of conduct is very clear about carrying them on campus and that this policy, if changed, would complicate issues of violence.

Yeah, it would complicate things very much indeed - for the criminal.  Nothing will spoil your day of fun, murdering people, worse than having someone shoot back at you.

“If an individual is carrying a concealed weapon, you shouldn’t see it,” he said. “They like to flash their guns and show everyone they’re carrying a gun.”

Really?  Carry permit holders like to "flash" their guns and "show everyone"?  Got any proof of that, Lieutenant?  I know a bunch of permit holders, and I've never once seen it happen that way.  If I'm not mistaken, Lieutenant, "flashing" you gun around, can even get your permit revoked.  One thing left out of this article is the fact that Idaho requires three hours of training before a carry permit is issued.  My experience is that most people get a lot more training than that, all on their own.  Anyone who cares enough to have done even rudimentary study of this issue will already know that concealed carry permit holders are THE most law-abiding segment of society - more so than police.  Furthermore, (and are you listening, Nancy Cheney?) the rates of innocent bystander injuries, and of improper shootings, are far lower when a concealed permit holder is involved in a confrontation, compared to when a policeman is involved.  Look it up.

If concealed weapons were allowed, Kwiatkowski said, and a shooter came on campus, while concealed weapons carriers could fire back, when police arrived they wouldn’t know who the shooter was.

This is one point that has some shred of legitimacy.  However, we were trained in my "pre-permit" classes to be very aware of this potential problem.  If you're the citizen defender, and you're the one calling the cops, make sure they have your description and that of the perp.  When police arrive, put your gun down if possible, and identify yourself, etc..  Cops:  You people need to have thought of these things, and know what to do ahead of time to protect the innocent.  Our right to protect ourselves does not depend on what you consider to be convenient.  For that matter, should we automatically assume that anyone in a cop uniform is actually a cop?  Mr. murderer can get a cop outfit at the local rental store.  Now he's Deputy Freakin' Dog.  Unfortunately for all of us, criminals don't wear bright orange arm bands or some such, identifying themselves as criminals, either.

While looking for a reference link to my previous post I discovered this:

A famous negative reply to the issue was penned by Karl Marx, The Jewish Question, (Braunschweig, 1843). He asks the question "The German Jews desire emancipation. What kind of emancipation do they desire? Civic, political emancipation." And answers: "The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism." Karl Marx responded to Bruno Bauer's two studies on the Jewish Question focusing on religious differences by seeing a corrupt capitalist nature to be essential to Judaism, and thus preventing its assimilation.

It's all the more interesting because Marx was Jewish by birth. So the father of communism, who was a Jew, claims a corrupt capitalist nature is essential to Judaism. It appears Marx wasn't a practicing Jew but I still find it ironic that he contributed scholarly works On The Jewish Question that contributed to the genocide. 

They haul out the tired mantra of "government intrusion on their rights."

But those are just code words for being selfish and lacking empathy.

Gun Guys
November 8, 2007
Another Child Shot Accidentally as the Gun Lobby Selfishly Refuses to Help Protect Our Kids
[I'll bet you didn't know the Bill of Rights was just code words for being selfish and lacking empathy. I didn't either. Maybe he thinks people with black skin should stay out of white restaurants, whites only swimming pools, and not use drinking fountains intended for whites. Does that mean black skinned people should understand that whites like the Gun Guys shouldn't be exposed to using the same eating utensils that have been in the mouths of blacks. And swimming in the same water? Isn't that real lack of empathy for whites? And I'm sure it was being selfish and a lack of empathy for the Aryans when the Allies went to war with Germany just because they were trying to implement a Final Solution for the Jewish Question in Europe.

It seems to me there are a large number of people that seem to believe, at some level, that Governments can't intrude on rights--that it's a logical impossibility. They seem to think that governments grant rights and hence if the law changes the right no longer exists. The truth of the matter is, of course, that rights exist irrespective of governments and governments can only infringe, guarantee, and/or protect rights. The Gun Guys mindset is but one example.--Joe]

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift
[Governments that forget their true relationship with it's citizens are on their way to enslaving their subjects.--Joe]

I'd like to believe it but I won't until the coffin has been nailed shut, it's been cremated, and the ashes dumped in a pig farm lagoon. Here is the story:

"In discussions I participated in with the Department of Homeland Security, they were asked point blank, 'What will happen to states that don't participate?'" said Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, who was on the call. "The response was, 'Nothing will happen. There will be no penalty. You can still get on a plane.'"

[...]

States began defying the feds, passing laws saying that they had no intention of complying with the REAL ID requirements. The federal government retorted that this was fine, but citizens from those states could not use drivers' licenses to enter federal buildings or board aircraft (which are screened by federal personnel).

In the face of this sort of opposition, DHS extended the deadline for compliance to 2009, and then again to 2013. Now, it could be extended again, and states could get even more time to issue cards for older drivers (apparently less of a security threat).

Whether the new rules are an expedient compromise or a total backpedalling from the goals of REAL ID depends on who you ask. The ACLU, for instance, holds strong views on the matter.

"DHS is essentially whittling Real ID down to nothing—all in the name of denying Real ID is a failure," said ACLU senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani. "Real ID is in its death throes, and any signs of life are just last gasps."

Son-in-law Caleb and I went to an IPSC match on Sunday. It was his first. He came in 13^th out of 19 participants. This is very good for a first time IPSC shooter. I came in third. I had way too many misses to be very happy about my performance though.

I even won one of the stages but I suspect that was mostly because I successfully pulled off a creative way of shooting the stage rather than because my shooting was that much better than everyone else. I know at least one other person messed it up when he tried to do it the same way. I learned from his mistake and was successful.

Update: I'm adding pictures from the match and a little bit about the stage "Which Way".

Caleb and I both did really well on this stage. I won the stage and Caleb came in 4^th. Caleb actually shot it in less time that I did, 12.41 seconds versus 12.71. I had much better hits on it than he did which gave me the win. Master Class shooter Adam shot it in 10.77 seconds but with one miss and poor hits. It was a 15 round (minimum) stage so including the draw, moving into position and from shooting position to shooting position we still averaged more than one aimed shot per second.

Caleb contemplating how to shoot a stage.

Caleb shooting the stage "Which Way".

And no, Caleb wasn't standing on one foot to shoot, he was slowing down as he approached the barrels and shooting at the same time.

Master class shooter Adam shooting a worse score than beginner Caleb while K.W. RO's.

I visualize a "gunextremist" as someone who shows up to the range with a NAA mini in .22 Short and a Phelps revolver in .45-70.

TJH
In comments November 4, 2007, 9:32 PM.
[This is particularly amusing because it was in response to an anti-gun bigot whining about pro freedom people changing the meaning of words and phrases the anti-gun people were using. "Gun control" becomes a slur, etc.--Joe]

Utopia is not one of the available solutions to violence in our society. Only incremental improvements are attainable through repeal of victim disarmament laws and through implementation of effectual, affordable measures. Objective assessment of the risks and benefits of various proposals will assist development of rational and effectual public policy. Hysterical, ineffectual, unconstitutional, and merely symbolic measures only squander time, money, and energy that are better devoted to effectual solutions and realistic goals.

Edgar A. Suter MD
Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review
[Emphasis in the original. I have used this argument (utopia isn't an option) myself in a gun control debate against a communist. They didn't really seem to get it. They wanted to keep trying just as they want to keep trying new variations of Marxism; "All we need is to have the right people in government." I wish I had come back with, "Marxism and gun control was responsible for over 100 million dead last century. Do you want to donate your body to the next attempt at utopia?" --Joe]

These ads are unfair and deceptive because they suggest to the consumer that the purchase of a handgun is an effective means of providing for self- and family-protection without warning the consumer that the introduction of a handgun into the home actually places the home's occupants at an increased risk of death by gun.

Petition on Deceptive Gun Advertising
Filed with FTC by Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Public Health Association, American Association of Suicidology, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions
[[sarcasm] Therefore, one should conclude, people at police stations and gun ranges are at extreme risk of "death by gun". I wonder why the statistics don't show that? [/sarcasm] What the anti-gun people don't want to admit is that in the few "studies" that pretend to support their position correlation does not equal causation. And that most studies do not show the correlation they want to believe exists.--Joe]

Interesting how the other side sees things:

The parallels of how conservatives turned the word "liberal" into a slur, much like gun proponents have turned "gun control" into a detestable concept, is worth considering. Staying on message and repeating it broadly is essential. It's one of the key reasons why gun extremists have been successful in blocking policies to prevent gun violence in most of the country, despite overwhelming public support for "gun control".

There is true political power when a movement can take away your opponents language and turn it against them, denigrate their legitimacy and values, and most importantly question their entire identity. Sounds familiar?

Several gun violence prevention organizations struggle with what to call themselves, and where to align their politics and strategy. What words should we use to identify ourselves: "gun safety", "gun control", "cease-fire", "anti-violence"?

There is strong debate between advocates about whether "gun control" is a losing terminology because it is sounds so negative and turns latent supporters off. But here is the dirty little secret: guns do in fact need to be "controlled".

On "gun safety" the NRA is the undisputed champ with 50,000 certified instructors that teach about 750,000 gun owners per year. How many people do all the anti-gun groups combined teach "gun safety" to? Washington Ceasefire had a student intern type that was going to be doing something along those lines but I never heard from them again after they gave a presentation I went to in about '98 or '99. So my guess is the number hovers right near zero.

In Washington State we took the steam out of Washington Ceasefire public appearances by showing up with Ceasefear (thank you Ray Carter for coming up with that name) signs and shirts (I'm a Ceasefear instructor).

The violence statistics after guns have been heavily restricted or banned put a lie to their claiming to be against violence.

The author above admits "gun control" sounds negative and turns off latent supporters but yet acknowledges that gun control is what they really want. Sort of like "White Supremacist" sounds bad but that in fact is their true objective.

I've got a name for them--they should identify themselves as Bigots for Gun Control.

You can buy your tickets on-line and are $25 each. Support the Fifty Caliber Institute's battle against the forces of evil. Entries close December 20, 2007. Each ticket is used in both drawings (a single ticket could win both prizes):

With a policy that tightly controls guns or bans them altogether, colleges and schools can ensure that the only people carrying guns are their security guards and the police. This is the way it has likely always been, and schools are safer because of it. For maximum safety and security, this is the way it should always be.

Brady Campaign
No Gun Left Behind
May 2007
[Evidence of these policies at work around the world are here and here. Some of the better known:

• Edinboro
• Stockton
• Columbine
• Virgina Tech
• Appalachian School of Law
• Pearl Mississippi
• Jonesboro
• Springfield
• Lancaster County
• Ma'alot (Israel)
• Dawson College (Montreal)
• École Polytechnique (Montreal)
• Dunblane (Scotland)

Maybe they are using a different definition of the word "ensure" than the one I am familiar with. Otherwise what they say makes no sense to me. But more likely they have mental problems and are unable to answer Just One Question.--Joe]

Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

P.J. O'Rourke
[I was reminded of this after my officemate came back from a meeting over in building 33 last week. Hillary was in town trying to buy votes with promises of "rebuilding a strong and prosperous middle class" and gave her sales pitch to people Microsoft. I wasn't aware of the visit until after my officemate came back and gave me a report or I would have attended. If nothing else just to take some pictures.--Joe]

When I read stuff like this:

The gun lobby of course prefers to punish "criminals" who commit crimes or acts of violence, but gun proponents demonstrate no interest in preventing gun violence.

I can't help but think of things like:

• We need to prevent slander by removing everyones vocal cords.
• We need to prevent rape by castrating all men.
• We need to prevent prostitution by putting chastity belts on all women.
• We need to prevent child abuse by banning children.
• We need to prevent bank robberies by taking all the money from banks.
• We need to prevent car accidents by banning all cars.
• And most importantly, we need to prevent gun violence by prosecuting government officials (violation of 18 USC 242) and others (violation of 18 USC 241) that conspire to take our guns.

I believe that the shooting sports (unlike such stylishly sanitized designer pursuits as fly fishing for the 90s) serve as the politically incorrect metaphor for that most unpopular of citizens - the Classical Man (as opposed to the Modern Man). As such, when I am asked by one who fears and loathes firearms, why anyone would find fascination in weapons, my answer is, 'For the same reason that makes you afraid of such things'.

Jack Chleva
Jeff Cooper's Commentaries Vol. 6, No. 3, March 1998
[I didn't buy my first firearm until the Clinton's were elected. I read banned books and I buy banned firearms. I push the envelope because I think it's the required response. I push back because they started the pushing.--Joe]