For some reason reading this made me think of present day Bush Derangement Syndrome:

Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at President Ford in a bizarre assassination attempt just 17 days after a disciple of Charles Manson tried to kill Ford, was paroled Monday after 32 years behind bars.

Moore, 77, was released from the federal prison in Dublin, east of San Francisco, where she had been serving a life sentence, the Bureau of Prisons said.

[...]

In recent interviews, Moore said she regretted her actions, saying she was blinded by her radical political views and convinced that the government had declared war on the left.

"I was functioning, I think, purely on adrenaline and not thinking clearly. I have often said that I had put blinders on and I was only listening to what I wanted to hear," she said a year ago in an interview with KGO-TV.

[...]

Moore was born Sara Jane Kahn in Charleston, W.Va. She acted in high school plays and dreamed of being a film actress.

In the 1970s, Moore began working for People in Need, a free food program established by millionaire Randolph Hearst in exchange for the return for his daughter Patty, who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974.

Moore soon became involved with radical leftists, ex-convicts and other members of San Francisco's counterculture.

[...]

"I was going to go down anyway," she said in a 1982 interview with the San Jose Mercury News. "If the government was going to kill me, I was going to make some kind of statement."

From my Sitemeter it appears someone is looking for a good time on New Years Eve:

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Sorry, we won't be having that type of party at our place tonight. It will be spent with our kids, Barb's sister, and her family. And when I say that, keep in mind this is Idaho, not West Virginia or some such place.

We all jump on the ATF etc. when they screw up and use the Brady Bunch talking points. But here is one case where it appears one of the agents got things right:

According to Peter Forcelli, a supervisory special agent with ATF, most of the arms were assault weapons such as AK-47s and AR-15s.

Whether Bentley will face charges for the weapons will be based on such factors as whether the guns were bought before or after Bentley's conviction or if they were stolen, Forcelli said.

"You can own automatic weapons. There are certain things you can do to legally own them," Forcelli said. "We have yet to determine if he's done any of that or not."

ATF laboratory personnel will conduct firing tests on the seized weapons to determine if any are fully automatic.

It is still unclear what Bentley was planning to do with weapons, whether he was a collector or had something else in mind because of his "propensity for violence," Forcelli said.

"There are people who have large collections of weapons that are 100 hundred percent legit," Forcelli said. "We're still determining if these were."

The person in question was serving two years probation for a December 2006 felony endangerment conviction and had 75 guns in a storage locker. Given that it seems to me Special Agent Forcelli was giving the guy every benefit of the doubt. He also correctly reports the guns could be legal under U.S. law.

Thank you agent Forcelli.

I'm still of the opinion that the ATF should not exist but given that it does exist I'm a lot more tolerant of the individuals that work there when they have a clue as to what they are doing. My personal experience with ATF personnel has been good and I'm inclined to believe the bad cases are relatively rare. Should we ever get to the time and place in gun rights activism where we are prosecuting law enforcement personnel for crimes under 18 USC 242 prior behavior should play a significant part in their sentence.

Yesterday my daughters, my son-in-law, and I went out to the Boomershoot site and built a snowman.

It's a 34 43 Mbyte .WMV file. Don't even think about it unless you have a high speed connection.

Crank the volume up. There are some subtle sounds.

Update: I just updated the video. There were some very significant changes. The slow parts were sped up, the interesting parts were slowed down and a lot more detail added.

Some technical details: Five gallons of gasoline, ten pounds of Boomerite, and one shot from an AR-15 chambered in .223.

Update2: One of the reasons to make this video was for America's Funniest Home Videos who requested people make videos of building then destroying a snowmen in "creative" ways. Reading the fine print for the submission I discovered I must take the video off the web when I submit it. I'm giving everyone until Midnight January 2^nd to view it. Then it's coming down. Sorry about that.

Update3: I've removed the link to the video. Send me an email if you want to view a private copy.

Full auto, recoilless, 12 gauge shotgun.

It has 20 and 32 round magazines available. I especially like the new ammo. Does Wal-Mart have the HE rounds in stock yet?

The other full auto that I would be interested in is this one.

Thanks to Joe D. on the Lewiston Pistol Club discussion list for the pointer.

Ry has the details. In case the name isn't familar to you read this.

Last Wednesday Bush signed into law a new restriction on our freedom which does nothing but create another bureaucracy. The Los Angles Times has a pretty good write up on it but the tone is "the Feds should have done more":

Ammonium nitrate regulated -- sort of

The fertilizer can be used in explosives. Some in law enforcement and counter-terrorism wanted much tighter controls than Congress passed.

More than 12 years after Timothy J. McVeigh used ammonium nitrate fertilizer to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building, Congress quietly passed legislation this month to regulate sales of the explosive.

But the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007, part of an appropriations measure signed Wednesday by President Bush, falls far short of the strict law that some in the counter-terrorism community and federal law enforcement were hoping for.

[...]

Outside groups are asking for tougher action. "Congress simply didn't understand what it was doing," said Peter Stockton, senior investigator for one of the groups, the Project on Government Oversight, which is a watchdog on national security issues.

"Maybe they thought doing something was better than nothing."

The text of the actual law is here. Assuming I'm reading the version of the bill that was actually signed there is an exemption for people with an explosives license (me). The biggest impact I see to most readers of this blog is that if you want to buy Target Master Exploding Targets or Tannerite maybe you should do it now. Both of those products use ammonium nitrate as their primary ingredient.

This law also affects farmers in a big way.

Under the new law you will be required to register with "Homeland Security" before you can manufacture, sell, or buy, AN. The seller will be required to maintain records. If anyone violates these new regulations they can be fined up to $50,000 per violation.

There will be regulations implemented which will provide "guidance" on storage and sales which of course will do nothing but harass the innocent. Just like the regulations on firearms do nothing the terrorists that want to do evil will steal their materials or use a strawman. Or if they are suicide bombers they will just go through the registration process and buy it just like legitimate users. It's not that difficult to manufacture either. The chemical formula is NH₄NO₃. The elements to manufacture it can all be obtained from the air. Try regulating those precursor chemicals.

Like Stockton, above, I think they just wanted to "do something". And as I pointed out in my QOTD today even "experts" (I hesitate to call anyone who works for the government an expert on anything other than government) don't think it does anything for security. It's nothing but more security theater for the masses.

The bill really does not guarantee anything for the security of the citizens of the United States.

Bill Albright
December 2007
Ammonium nitrate regulated -- sort of
A Defense Department consultant who spent his career at the ATF.
[Albright is correct in what he says but my impression is that he believes there should be more regulation. More on this stupid law in my next post.--Joe]

Poor guy. Assuming it wasn't stolen, if he had just let me store it everything would have turned out so much better:

Authorities raid barn filled with military-grade explosives

SUFFOLK, Va. - Authorities are questioning an ex-Navy SEAL this evening after a raid that officials say turned up enough military-grade explosives to damage an entire Suffolk neighborhood.

Suffolk fire and rescue spokesman Jim Judkins says police secured a warrant yesterday and raided a barn on Ferry Point Road after receiving a tip.

Police have been joined investigating the barn by FBI and ATF agents, and the Virginia State Police this evening.

The unidentified former SEAL is in custody and is cooperating with authorities.

Judkins didn't specify just how much explosive material was in the barn.

But he says it was enough to do damage to houses about one-third of a mile in any direction.

You can be sure the barn wasn't "filled". Based on the information I have he probably had about 1000 pounds of high explosives. Most explosives are within a factor of two of the density of water so you could put that much explosives in a car that is capable of holding five large men. It wouldn't have filled the barn. I wish I knew where it was on Ferry Point Road. If it was actually greater than 320 feet of the road or 800 feet of inhabited building (halve that if it was in the woods out of sight of the buildings or road) then the distances were acceptable according to ATF regulations. But it doesn't sound like he had an appropriate storage magazine for the materials. [heavy sigh]

The truth is, regardless of how many pointy tools and shampoo bottles we confiscate, there shall remain an unlimited number of ways to smuggle dangerous items onto a plane. The precise shape, form and substance of those items is irrelevant. We are not fighting materials, we are fighting the imagination and cleverness of the would-be saboteur.

Thus, what most people fail to grasp is that the nuts and bolts of keeping terrorists away from planes is not really the job of airport security at all. Rather, it’s the job of government agencies and law enforcement. It’s not very glamorous, but the grunt work of hunting down terrorists takes place far off stage, relying on the diligent work of cops, spies and intelligence officers. Air crimes need to be stopped at the planning stages. By the time a terrorist gets to the airport, chances are it’s too late.

Patrick Smith
December 28, 2007
The Airport Security Follies
[As near as I can tell the only people that argue for the continued existence or claim effectiveness of the TSA are the people of the TSA. It's not that the people of the TSA are necessarily stupid or incompetent, its that it is an unsolvable problem. It's time we considered alternatives.--Joe]

As reported earlier (and here and here) H.R. 4900 makes some reforms in the ATF regulations and Federal firearms laws. The text of the bill is now available on-line here. It's all NRA-ILA said it was and more. Alas, it doesn't do anything of interest to me in terms of explosives, but I'm very happy with what it does in regards to firearms.

The following item was reported by NRA-ILA but was lacking in detail and should be of interest to a great number of people.

SEC. 210. CLARIFICATIONS RELATING TO MANUFACTURING OF FIREARMS.

(a) Clarification of Definition of Manufacturing- Section 921(a)(10) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: `The term `manufacturing' shall not include repairing firearms, making or fitting special barrels, stocks, trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms.'.

(b) Clarification of Definition of Dealer- Section 921(a)(11)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking `or trigger mechanisms to firearms' and inserting `trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms'.

Striking, adding, and inserting in the original as described in the bill we end up with:

(10) The term "manufacturer" means any person engaged in the business of manufacturing firearms or ammunition for purposes of sale or distribution; and the term "licensed manufacturer" means any such person licensed under the provisions of this chapter. The term `manufacturing' shall not include repairing firearms, making or fitting special barrels, stocks, trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms.

(11) The term "dealer" means (A) any person engaged in the business of selling firearms at wholesale or retail, (B) any person engaged in the business of repairing firearms or of making or fitting special barrels, stocks, trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms, or (C) any person who is a pawnbroker. The term "licensed dealer" means any dealer who is licensed under the provisions of this chapter.

Hence gunsmiths need to have a dealers license but not a manufactures license. This is an improvement. But on the downside it means that you need to be careful if you charge a friend for helping him mount a scope on his hunting rifle or give her AR-15 a pink paint job. Conceivable you could be considered to be "in the business" and need a dealers license. This is not the case under current law as I understand it (I am not a lawyer!).

I have to wonder why the Feds should have any interest at all in "engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms". I think the entire section (B) should be removed but if that is impractical then at least the engraving and appearance should be removed.

Assuming we win the Heller case then if some bigot claims the functions of the ATF in regards to firearms and explosives are reasonable restrictions then shouldn't we be justified in demanding for the creation of a government agency devoted to the "reasonable restrictions" of speech and religion?

I have this friend whose little brother is a vegetarian except for hamburgers and tacos. I'm that way except with Pandas.

Xenia Huffman-Scott
December 22, 2007
[If I explained it then it wouldn't be nearly as funny.--Joe]

Just a few of the stories that came out this year.

From Sitemeter, "can a fingerprint be recovered from a fired shell casing"? My guess is yes, at least under some circumstances. DNA from the oils left behind should be possible too.

The more interesting question is, "Who's asking?" Is it someone on the criminal side or on the law enforcement side?

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I don't know if was the reporter or the ATF agent. But it was probably one of them that has a decimal point out of place or has much more valuable AKs that I have ever heard of:

Agents said Thursday they found the 42 weapons in a storage locker about 10 days ago. There guns were worth $250,000 in all: Belgian-made "FN" handguns, semiautomatic AK rifles and other pistols. They also found four olive boxes loaded with 50-caliber bullets—ammunition that's big enough to take out an airplane.

"These are, quite frankly, weapons of war," ATF special agent Tom Mangan said as he picked up an assault rifle and examined it.

"The type of fire power you're seeing here is on the increase," he said. "You're seeing sophisticated weapons, military weapons, assault type weapons, assault pistols, very expensive pistols."

ATF officials said gun runners typically gather large caches of weapons anonymously through "straw" purchases. They might give someone $100 to go into a gun show or a Wal-Mart and buy a few rifles at a time. They might buy guns over the Internet.

Any idea what an "olive box" is? Ignoring that--the 42 weapons figures out to nearly $6,000 per firearm. Could it be someone was that sloppy with the numbers? Or was it something else? If it were just the numbers I would give someone a pass for making a careless mistake. But the ATF agent is exaggerating with the other stuff too. It makes me suspicious. Mr. Mangan sure gets his name in the news frequently.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

Milton Friedman
[Liberals/"progressives" take note. I want to scream this in their faces, I want to pound it into their heads with a clue by four, but I know it wouldn't matter. They just don't seem to get it.--Joe]

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator.  By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work.

Adolf Hitler
Speech before the Reichstag, 1936.
[Tam's post from yesterday reminded me of this. Uncle made part of her post his QOTD. Read both posts and the comments.--Joe]

The fact that it is legal does not make it moral. Jim Crow was legal, but it was not moral. Denying women the right to vote was legal, but it was not moral. Denying workers the right to organize was legal, but not moral.

Rev. Jesse Jackson
President of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
July 12, 2007
Anti-gun activists building momentum
[This is from the same article as the QOTD from yesterday where Father Michael Pfleger used this same theme to push for more restrictions on gun owners. Another thing that strikes me about this line of thinking is that they are comparing the lack of restrictions on firearms to excessive restrictions on people in years past. They are whining about excessive freedom yet invoking memories of repression. Do they even have a glimpse of the irony? I sometimes think they are incredibly stupid to use such crude attempts at emotional trickery. But I keep hearing the voice of Sean Flynn telling me otherwise.--Joe]

Update: More pictures from Xenia.

Christmas Eve Barb told me the toilet needed to be fixed. I told her the part she thought was broken still had some life in it:

But men who wish to remain married know better than to argue so I replaced it anyway.

We first went to my parents place to have dinner with them and my brothers. We then opened presents with them. Here is a picture of our gathering:

We then returned to our place and opened more presents. Among other things I received three great t-shirts and a high quality pistol case.

The third t-shirt I received says, "There are very few personal problems that can't be solved with a suitable application of high explosives."

Another awesome item was the scrapbook of Boomershoot (and other things) that Barb and Xenia made for me.

I got Barb an iPod Nano, a Bluetooth headset for her cell phone, and the items in this package which she refused to show to anyone else:

James and Xenia got some shirts too:

(I have no idea what this means.)

Xenia also learned a lesson in rattling the cage of wild animals:

Our princess Kimberly got a load of stuff but seemed to like the tools for the kitchen the best. The Christmas decoration below will come in handy next year.

Caleb got a black Boomershoot M-65 field jacket like mine but also seemed to like the Hickory Farms smoked cheese that he ate like it was a sandwich:

Merry Christmas from the entire Huffman-Scott clan.

James wanted his sister Kim to make him a costume for a gaming convention he goes to every year in August. This was the character (Siegfried):

Kim wanted to give him the sword for Christmas and wanted some help with it. What follow are some pictures of it's construction--which isn't complete yet.

Caleb, myself, and Dad are doing some tweaking of the design I had come up with.
Photo by Kim.

I'm implementing the grip Dad had suggested (it worked well).
Photo by Kim.

Caleb inspects part of the blade.
Photo by Kim.

The handle and the piece that attach to the blade.
Photo by Kim.

Cutting the handle to the proper length.
Photo by Kim.

Kim had never seen an arc welder in use before. Dad is welding the blade to the grip attachment.
Photo by Caleb.

Caleb, myself, and Dad work on the attachment. The new tractor tires I told you about are in the background.
Photo by Kim.

The main part of the blade is made of two pieces of 16 gauge steel. These had to be clamped down on the edges and then welded.
Photo by Kim.

Near the tip we used a wood spacer to make the blade thicker along the centerline.
Photo by Kim.

Here I'm using my cousin Allen's MIG welder on the blade edges.
Photo by Kim.

Smoothing off the edges where the tip will attach.
Photo by Kim.

Caleb and Kim clamping the tip in place prior to welding.
Photo by Joe.

The tip is welded on one side. Kim is turning it over so I can weld the other side.
Photo by Joe.

Me welding.
Photo by Caleb.

All the metal assembly is done and it's "usable".
Photo by Kim.

Kim is pleased.
Photo by Joe.

Caleb thinks is it pretty cool too.
Photo by Joe.

James thinks it is awesome. Now if he can just figure out how he can get it back to the Seattle area.
Photo by Xenia.

Kim and Caleb still have some work to do on it. It needs to be buffed (it will take on a mirror like finish), coated, the grip wrapped in leather, and minor other tweaks.

It is surprisingly stiff. When smoothing out the welds with his grinder Caleb said he supported it on opposite ends and used it as a bench. And that it was strong enough to sit on.

If you have the muscle for it this would be quite the "assault weapon". It never needs to be reloaded and if it had an sharp edge it would be as deadly as any ordinary firearm.

Slavery was legal, it wasn’t moral. Apartheid was legal, it wasn’t moral. We have to have the understanding that laws have to be changed if they are wrong.

Father Michael Pfleger
Pastor of the Faith Community of Saint Sabina Church
July 12, 2007
Anti-gun activists building momentum
[This is so ironic. He invokes memories of repressive racist laws while demanding repressive laws which had racist origins in the U.S. But what do you expect? Many anti-gun bigots have mental problems.--Joe]

I shot in a steel match yesterday. Results are here. I'm improving. I'm only 10 seconds down from the winner. On "Smoke & Hope" I cut almost two seconds off of my September time. And the weather conditions were a little more challenging than in September. The pictures are below. Again I need to point out that a lot of the Seattle area ranges stop their outdoor matches in the winter. But this isn't Seattle. This is Idaho. The Seattle area shooters are wimps.

Mike claimed he had a little trouble with the contrast between the white targets and the backstop.

Notice the snow build up on the bill of Rogers hat?

Mike brought tamales!

The scorekeeper stayed under cover when it was snowing.

USA Today has an online poll for the question: "Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?". I'm annoyed with the question. The questions presumes facts not in evidence. The Bill of Rights does not give or grant any rights. It guarantees certain rights. In the case of the Second Amendment this has clearly been articulated in U.S. v. Cruikshank:

The right there specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed...

In any case, even with no really acceptable answer to such a misleading question the results are encouraging. The bigots are getting punished pretty badly.

[Thanks to Hal for the email.]

Ry reports on a Seattle area incident.

James and I went to see the movie on Saturday night. This was apparently at about the same time as Kevin and his wife. James thought it was really good. I thought it was very well done but came away feeling not quite right about it. I couldn't put it in words for James or Barb but if you take what Kevin said and multiply it by about 0.8 you get pretty close.

Our playgrounds have become battlegrounds. Our streets have become cemeteries. Our schools have become places to mourn the ones we’ve lost. I’m sick and tired of seeing our young people gunned down.

Think about that. At a time when we’re spending $275 million a day on a war overseas, we’re neglecting the war that’s being fought in our own streets.

We also have to recognize that part of the reason that guns are so deadly in our society and in our communities in particular is because we’ve got young men standing on the streets without anything else better to do than gangbang. We need to express our collective anger through collective action.

Barack Obama
Aug 5, 2007
Obama delivers message tough on guns
[I "like" the part about collective action. I think it's very telling.--Joe]

I consider one additional magazine as minimum standard gear.

As to the likelihood of needed it….

John Holschen
December 12, 2007
Insights Training Center List
John is an instructor at Insights.

An armed society is an at-risk society.

The Brady Campaign
CONCEALED WEAPONS, CONCEALED RISK
[And the numbers to back up this claim are where? And please include the number of people killed by their own government in the last 100 years because they were unarmed. My speculation is they came up with this sound bite to counter the famous Heinlein quote about an armed society.--Joe]

I sent the following letter to our local (Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington) newspaper, The Daily News and to the University of Idaho newspaper, The Idaho Argonaut.  Some background:  Our Moscow, ID mayor, Nancy Chaney, decided that people should not be allowed to carry pistols in public spaces, worried, as she put it, that people might "swoop in and create confusion" in the event of serious trouble.  She later found our about Idaho's preemption law, making it illegal for local governments to limit people's rights any further than state law.  She couldn't accept that, and tried to get state legislators to rewrite state law.  Running into a brick wall, Mayor Chaney and her conspirators have decided to table the issue "indefinitely".  So far so good.  They were held back, but they now need to pay a price for their indiscretions, even if it's only in the form of a letter from a concerned citizen:

Dear Editors,

"Thank You" to all the brave individuals in Moscow and around the state who fought to protect a human right (the right to self defense in public spaces).  As for Mayor Chaney and the others; you have some growing to do.  You could not be more wrong about self defense, concealed carry, or about the good and responsible citizens of the State of Idaho.

I submit that any holder of public office should be glad for our rights, comfortable with them, unafraid, and should always strive to protect those rights, confident in the knowledge that it is the proper thing to do.  Further, that anyone who is at all suspicious or fearful of the rights of the individual should stay out of public office.

As for the argument that since the feds place restrictions on carrying in certain places, it should be OK for local governments:  It’s not OK for the feds either.  Creating a patchwork of varying 2^nd Amendment infringements can do nothing other than ensnare innocent Americans and make the criminals laugh at us.  Who’s going to consult their “rights infringements map” before moving from point A to point B (step in this square and you’re perfectly OK, but step in this other square and presto, you’re a felon)?  You call that law enforcement or public safety?  I call it insane.  It would be laughable if it weren’t so pathological.

Try as you might to conceal it, Mayor Chaney, your distrust for the people of Idaho is obvious and on display.  If you can work past that distrust and begin advocating more, rather than less individual freedom, you may find that you have more friends and more goodwill from Idaho citizens than you can imagine.

I just read another Daily News article, commending 44 people for their brave deeds during a shooting in Moscow last May, for things like "exceptional bravery at immediate risk of serious bodily injury."  That's a good thing-- people who try to save others at their own personal risk are an inspiration to all of us.  One tiny little gripe here:  The one regular citizen (non cop, non firefighter, non EMT, etc.) who also exhibited "exceptional bravery at immediate risk of serious bodily injury" received no mention whatsoever, in spite of his having been shot and seriously injured in the process.  Blundering oversight or personal disdain on the part of the reporter or editor?  Could be either.  It certainly shows no respect.

I've been saying this for years, pointed out the TSA is engaged in illegal acts, they know they are illegal, they are stupid, even idiotic, security is a joke, and then I suggested some tests of better security concepts. Now the Harvard School of Public Health says:

Study: Airport Screening Process Pointless

Airport security lines can annoy passengers, but there is no evidence that they make flying any safer, U.S. researchers reported Thursday.

[...]

"Even without clear evidence of the accuracy of testing, the Transportation Security Administration defended its measures by reporting that more than 13 million prohibited items were intercepted in one year," the researchers added. "Most of these illegal items were lighters."

This is like the Brady Bunch crowing at how effective NICS is because millions of people have been denied the sale of a firearm. Never mind that some of those people were guilty of "crimes" like being in possession of a deck of cards having naked white women on them (the "criminal" was black) and that the Brady act has never been shown to have made the public safer (Just One Question).

"We'd like airport security screening to be of value. As passengers and members of the public we'd like to know the evidence and the reasoning behind these measures," Linos said in a telephone interview.

With $5.6 billion spent globally on airport protection each year, the public should be encouraged to query some screening requirements -- such as forcing passengers to remove their shoes, the researchers said.

"Can you hide anything in your shoes that you cannot hide in your underwear?" they asked.

A TSA spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

The