The View From North Central Idaho

The First Amendment is about how we govern ourselves -- not about how we titillate ourselves sexually.

Robert Bork
An interview on ABC's This Week, June 25, 1989
[I was reminded of this by Sebastian's post Talk About a Dodged Bullet.--Joe]

The other day Jed said, "I’d like to raid Joe’s quotations database."

I just got around to extracting the politics related stuff. There is lots of personal stuff in the master collection that some people would rather I didn't make public. The politics related things are here. It includes things that aren't really quotes such as political jokes. And because I have traded collections with other people some of the stuff does not necessarily represent my political leanings.

It's very simple. The authorities have no way of controlling criminals. So they control the law abiding 'cause we are an easy target.

You Tube
England Gun Ban Update @ 2:14 into the video.
[Via Uncle. There is lots of other good stuff in that video. Show this video to anyone that claims the U.K. gun ban is some sort of ideal the U.S. should strive for.--Joe]

Under Civil Rights groups they support they list Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. I'm almost surprised the don't list the KKK too. I'm certain one could make a better case that the KKK supports civil rights (of whites) more than the Brady Bunch supports civil rights for anyone. The Brady Bunch is like the KKK in a lot of ways.

Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost 5,000 dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollar, we wouldn't have any innocent bystander.

Chris Rock
[I love sick humor.--Joe]

Last December I made two posts about how busy I was at work:

• Running on empty
• Running on empty makes the news

About 10 days ago while I was in Louisville our Corporate VP held a meeting for all the people under him. I missed out on the big meeting but I've watched part of the video of it since then. One of the topics at the meeting was awards for various people. My officemate, Sapna, mentioned in one the previous posts, our PM, our test/system integration guy and I got one of the awards. Here is a screen capture from that video:

I told Barb about this and she thought it was pretty cool... until I told her what we had done. We designed/wrote/tested some of the website code that puts ads on mobile phones (like what you see here depending on what country you are in) for our mobile websites.

Barb's response was basically "ads are evil". But ads are the reason so much of the Internet is "free" just like most television programs and radio. For example Hotmail requires dozens of servers with massive amounts of storage and bandwidth. Ads pay for those resources. There haven't been many ads on a lot of mobile phones for various reasons but that is changing and my little team (above) helped change that.

I find the diversity of our team interesting. Sapna is from India and on Monday participated in a folk-life event at the Seattle Center attended by some large number of people. She and about a dozen others put on several dances from India. I showed up and took a bunch of pictures. At 5' 3" and 110 pounds she doesn't look like a software geek: 

Taqi is from Pakistan (don't India and Pakistan lob expolsives and high speed pieces of metal at each other on a regular basis? Odd--they get alone so well here.) and when he visits "home" I sometimes ask him about what "training camps" he spent time in. He takes it quite well and tells me stories from his time, years ago, in the military--which he makes of point of telling me was the secular military. He is about to finish his master's degree from the U of W in physics.

Zane is of Asian descent and a Canadian citizen who loves to play basketball. Snowboarding is also up there on his list of things to do.

All of them are great people and I'm proud to work with them. However, I'm sometimes intimidated here at Microsoft. If you open your mouth about something you should know what you are talking about because I suspect the average I.Q. in our section of the building is probably about 150. Damn, these guys are smart.

The first and only thing that comes to mind is mental problems when I read something like The Racist Origins Of the Second Amendment. Pure projection. The truth is gun control has racist origins. Here is just a small sample of the evidence:

• The Racist Roots of Gun Control
• The Racist Origins of US Gun Control
• (JPFO Booklets) Gun Control is Racist!

Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.

John F. Kennedy
[And the brilliance of a black hole*, the integrity of a sociopath, and the morals of an alley cat.--Joe]

We cannot have freedom, we cannot have safety as long as these types of weapons are on our streets.

Michael Nutter
Philadelphia Mayor
May 27, 2008
Mayor Nutter takes gun control fight to Harrisburg
[Nutter is refering to "assault weapons". What Nutter doesn't understand or, just as likely fully understands but thinks we won't, is that if the government is allowed to restrict these firearms the people will have neither freedom nor safety. Just ask some of the worlds other beneficiaries of gun control. Gun control has never delivered the promises made to the common person, only to the tyrants.--Joe]

Thomas Sowell hits another one out of the park.  I'd heard about his recent article from R. Limbaugh. Here's a snippet:

Senator McCain is the only one in the race that has a pro-gun record of any kind. I think the mouthing of a pro-Second Amendment stance by Senators Clinton and Obama and pandering to gun owners is an embarrassment and I don't believe it will work.

Wayne LaPierre
May 13, 2008
Q & A with the NRA's executive vice president--Gun-rights lobby to meet in Louisville this week
[The problem is that it doesn't have to work with all gun owners. It just has to work with enough gun owners to win the election.--Joe]

Most people in the U.S. would offer you a shiny aluminum foil hat if you were to claim our knife rights are in danger. I know even the most enthusiastic supporters of gun control I have talked to express extreme skepticism when I have brought up the regulations on knives in the U.K. "That's just silly", they say. Yup. It is silly. But it's also true. Today's QOTD was just one hint of what is going on in the U.K.

And even if you are up to speed on the sad state of affairs in the U.K. one may reasonably claim we don't need to worry about that in this country because the ninnies who would take away our knives must first take away our guns. That claim sounds reasonable but is it?

While at the NRA convention I stopped by a booth with an intriguing banner:

I barely spoke to them as I took a picture of their banner, picked up a business card, and hurried on. But I knew at the time it was going to be a blog post.

Visiting their website I discovered a link to this WSJ article: Deadly pocketknives become a $1 billion business. It's every bit as one sided and Chicken Little like as any Brady Campaign media release.

So what about someone who claims we don't need to worry about knives when we are at least holding our own in the trenches on the gun rights front? My response is, "They are flanking us." What is going to be your response when some hysterical activist or legislator says, "We already outlaw tactical knives why can't we get rid of the guns as well?"

So, beyond the obvious commercial airplanes and John McCain public appearances, where are our defensive knives currently restricted? You know that switchblade knives are outlawed in many jurisdictions and the public opinion on them is roughly equivalent to that of machine guns. That battle is essentially lost. I don't know for certain on the "assault weapon" analog--the locking blade, one handed opening knives, but the WSJ article linked to above reports that Atlanta prohibits people from carrying pocket knives in public with blades longer than two inches. Yet, according to the article this isn't restrictive enough. Knife Rights could do those of us who carry defensive knives and pro-freedom activists a big service by compiling a list of political jurisdictions that are hostile to people even defending themselves using even a knife.

Another thing Knife Rights could do is work for preemption at the state level to remove the patchwork of laws that might trip of a visitor to some city that has no idea Chicken Little clones have taken over the city council. It would also be nice to see some D.C. versus Heller like cases involving knives and citing either/both state and federal constitutional protections for the right to keep and bear arms.

Here is what the Knife Rights Foundation [501(c)(3)] and Knife Rights [501(c)(4)] organizations have as their mission statements:

Knife Rights Foundation is dedicated to:

1. Encouraging safe and responsible use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach;
2. Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about the history of knives and edged tools;
3. Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about knife and edged tool related laws and regulations

Knife Rights is dedicated to:

1. Providing knife and edged tool owners an effective voice to influence public policy and to oppose efforts to restrict the right to own, use and carry knives and edged tools;
2. Encouraging safe, responsible and lawful use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach, enhancing positive perceptions of knives and edged tools and their owners and users;
3. Encouraging the marketing of knives and edged tools in a responsible manner conducive to the organization's goals;
4. Cooperating with advocacy organizations having complimentary interests and goals;
5. Providing knife and edged tool owners with services that they will find valuable in order to build membership to enable success in our primary objectives.

I wish them success not just because its the right thing to do but because they are defending my flank on the gun rights issue.

...the only solution is to try to drive knives from society. Already, stop-and-search squads have been put on the streets of London in a version of the contentious old "sus" laws. This, at least, is something practical that can be attempted: there is no good reason to carry blades.

Mark Lawson
May 16 2008
Weapons we can't handle
[This is the path the anti-gun people want us to take. This is the future if the anti-gun bigots are allowed to succeed.--Joe]

I'd like to think Mr. Bachman made a visit:

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I have been wondering about this for a while and even asked a few people what was, if anything, going on. It turns out the case has been resolved. Not to my satisfaction but good enough. I would have preferred the ATF be disbanded and the guilty be given life sentences and sent to the prison labor lead mines to help reduce the cost of ammunition--but then I'm a perfectionist in cases like this.

Here is the best story on it I have found so far:

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is dumping the "Always Think Forfeiture" motto it's used for more than a decade to help combat crime.

U.S. Rep. Bill Sali, R-Idaho, and others complained that multipurpose tools engraved with the slogan could be seen as encouragement to seize property, including guns, of law-abiding citizens.

The pocket tools were to be given to federal, state and local law-enforcement agents participating in the agency's asset forfeiture training programs, as a reminder of one way to disrupt or dismantle criminal organizations.

None of the engraved tools, stored in the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., have so far been distributed. And now they won't be, at least until the engravings have been removed.

The agency will no longer use the slogan on materials given out during its training programs, said Robert Browning, chief of ATF public affairs in Washington, D.C., adding it was never intended to undermine lawful gun rights.

Sali had said that the ATF "through its engraved motto, sends a message that these rights are secondary to the government's apparent goal to 'always' seek forfeit of private property."

The tools also included the words "ATF - Asset Forfeiture."

Update: In the comments Jed points out the Idaho Stateman article. I have to agree it's better because of this:

That changed March 19, when a blogger looking at ATF contracts on a government-purchasing database found an order for 2,000 Leatherman tool-kits engraved with the slogan.

The blogger wrote about it on www.freedomsight.net, and the issue took on a life of its own in the blogosphere. Gun owners and private property rights activists seized on the phrase as a sign that the agency was biased toward law-abiding gun owners.

As I said before, Jed did good. Real good.

David has posted a bunch of pictures of and relating to Boomershoot:

• Me at Boomer Cleanup
• Dave the GM Guy at Boomer Cleanup
• Dave the GM Guy Cleaning Up Boomers
• Boomershoot Cleanup, Flight 1
• Joe’s Burn Marks
• View of the Fire from the Bench
• Aftermath of the Toilet Shoot
• Boomershoot Pics Below

At the NRA convention last week I told several bloggers I was contemplating having a special Boomershoot for gun bloggers*. I have had time to think about this quite a bit more.

The following is tentative so if you have suggestions let me know before I finalize it in the next week or so.

Boomershoot 2009 is currently scheduled for Sunday April 26^th with Friday and Saturday the 24^th and 25^th being the Precision Rifle Clinic. Nearly all of the gun bloggers who have never attended Boomershoot I have talked to expressed concern their long range rifle skills were deficient so I think participating in at least one day of the clinic is a good idea for them. Partially for this reason I have decided combining the gun blogger event with Boomershoot 2009 is a good idea.

What I think is one of the more interesting part of the event is the making of the targets prior to the event. We have repeatedly invited the mainstream media to observe and/or participate and only once had them accept. I'm guessing gun bloggers will be more inclined to take me up on this invitation. Hence I have decided to make Thursday April 23^rd 2009 Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day. On this day gun bloggers will be given media credentials and a special behind the scenes tour of and participation in Boomershoot 2009. If the individuals involved want to actually mix explosives and package the targets they will need to fill out some paperwork at least a couple months in advance. This paperwork will be submitted to the ATF and if the ATF approves it these individuals will be allowed to actually make explosives and reactive targets. If individuals do not wish to submit the paperwork then they will still be allowed to observe target manufacturing and participate in all the other activities.

Other activities planned for Gun Blogger Day will include discussions of explosive chemistry, alternate materials for explosives, target detonation theory, fireball target construction, the history and future of Boomershoot, Boomershoot safety, Why Boomershoot, "entertainingly close" detonation of targets by the participants and almost any other safe and legal activity related to guns and explosives the participants can think of.

Do you want to blow something up? Toilets, laptop computers, and hard disk drives are just some of the things we have subjected to "Idaho Hardware Testing". If you have something you want subjected to Boomerite let me know and we'll figure out how to make it happen safely. The only catch is that you need to clean up (or pay for) the mess afterward.

Gun bloggers who are attending Boomershoot for the first time will also get free admission to the main event on Sunday April 26^th.

I haven't looked at it much but the ATF trace data for 2007 is available here for those that have the time and the interest.

An article by Joseph P. Tartaro (who I saw at the NRA Convention but didn't talk to) spells out what many of us have suspected. Bloomberg is an ignorant anti-gun bigot and beyond that is willfully ignorant:

NSSF noted that perhaps the mayor’s insults stems from his self-professed ignorance of our nation’s firearms laws and regulations, business practices of firearms retailers and the duties of the ATF. “I don’t know what the law is and what procedures are,” responded the mayor to a deposition question on illegally purchased firearms, NSSF quoted him. “I have no knowledge of what appropriate safeguards are for a dealer to comply with the law or what standard practices are in the arms business,” they quoted him.

In the same deposition Mr. Bloomberg admitted he did not know that ATF conducted inspections of firearms retailers. “I didn’t even know they had inspections,” the bewildered mayor offered and Bloomberg also noted that he did not know what a Federal Firearms Transaction Record, commonly known as a Form 4473 was or a NICS background check.

I would prefer the Feds ended up in jail and reimbursing Red's for all expenses but I can't complain a whole lot if this goes down as described:

An Idaho gun shop that went to federal court to keep the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from stripping it of its gun license has reached a tentative settlement with the government.

Attorneys on both sides told U.S. District Court Judge Mikel H. Williams on Wednesday that they had likely agreed on how to end the case.

Mark Geston, an attorney representing Terry and Ryan Horsley of Red's Trading Post, said he could not yet release details, but said the proposal would allow the Twin Falls gun shop to continue operating.

"I think everybody's reached a cooperative and constructive agreement," Geston said Thursday. "The judge said to have it finalized in 10 days and we'll just do our best to do that. The agreement allows Red's Trading Post to continue as a gun shop in Twin Falls."

I tried to check out Ryan's blog but Blogger reports:

Sorry, the blog at redstradingpost.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.

This is entirely speculation on my part but my guess is pulling the blog down is part of the settlement. Stepping even further into baseless speculation one could say it's a sad day when you have to give up your 1^st Amendment rights to exercise your 2^nd Amendment rights.

I sincerely believe . . . that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Thomas Jefferson
Letter May 28, 1816 to senator John Taylor
[I haven't investigated enough to say for certain but I suspect the "spending money to paid by posterity" is a significant part of why the politicians don't do anything about illegal immigration. A rapidly expanding tax base (via both individual and corporate taxes enabled by cheap labor) is one way they can avoid a financial collapse. Hence Jefferson's observation may be true in the general case but avoidable in some cases if the government is "creative" in the financing. But it may be that the dangers of massive illegal immigration are just as harmful as a standing army or a large debt.--Joe]

My web site about my "adventure" with Battelle's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently yielded contact with another victim of theirs.

I often thought it odd they would treat me so poorly with my expertise with explosives and firearms. Why not ease me out rather than treat me crap and not even allow me to defend myself against the allegations? Internal email and testimony during my lawsuit after I was fired revealed there were people on the inside that were quite concerned about that too. They had one or more meetings on how they might deal with "getting sniped at from 800 yards away".

My latest contact who joined the club of being fired unjustly with any opportunity to defend themselves against allegations of wrongdoing by Battelle has expertise with botulinum toxin, ricin, Yersinia pestis, as well as all of the major chemical warfare agents, such as mustard gas, Sarin and VX.

I've been quietly telling people that I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary arranges for Obama to be "physically unable to accept the nomination". Everything I have read about her indicates she is that evil.

I therefore am not at all surprised she said this:

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said.

Update: I was listening to some talk radio station and a caller suggested instead of the Bobby Kennedy assassination example she should have used the example of Vince Foster being found dead in a park. For some of you that might not "get it" the predominate conspiracy theory surrounding Foster's death is that Hillary arranged his "suicide".

It has also been suggested that Hillary said what she said as a message to her more fanatical supporters of something they could do to ensure she gets the nomination.

In response to Joe's earlier post (a very good one, Joe, by the way) I piled on a bit more:

Mr. Bachman,

Your stance, tone and alarmist tactics remind me somewhat of the Temperance Movement of the early 20^th century.  Invariably, the results of such crusades are in the long run vastly more destructive than the perceived “problems” they attempt to solve.

If you truly want to help improve general safety and quality of life, might I suggest you look into the principles of liberty upon which this country was built, and begin championing them?  You may find it a much more enjoyable (and profitable) pursuit.

Sincerely,

Lyle...

While at the NRA Convention there were numerous times when someone say, "I once made about post about that." Most of the time others would say, "Yeah! I remember that." Occasionally someone would say, "I must have missed that. Could you bring me up to speed?"

This is for those times when people missed one of my posts.

For Kevin, Sebastian, and Bitter on Sunday night when we were talking about powdered sugar and coffee creamer in regards to A Security Theater. Check out the video link.

Photo below by Rob Allen (see this post of his for more pictures from Friday evening) which was taken within a few minutes of the discussion:

Left front and going clockwise: Jeff, Kevin, Joe, Say Uncle.

We were talking about endangered species and I mentioned the post I made about Habitat destruction leads to extinction. That got a laugh. But then we nearly fell out of our booth laughing as Kevin described it as deforestation.

Update: Late last Friday, the night we are not to blog about, someone who shall remain nameless mentioned a problem with insomnia. This same someone at a different time acknowledged reading about Dr. Joe's cure for everything. But they apparently didn't make the connection that their insomnia was a prime candidate for a treatment with Dr. Joe's cure. I was tempted to make the connection for them but thought it would be inappropriate "to go there" in the given circumstances.

I could vote for Hillary, despite her awfulness, for the simple reason that while she’s vile, she’s perfectly willing to throw aside any and all principles. That is usually a bad thing, but if America were attacked while she was President, she’d be so personally offended that whoever it was had the gall to attack while she was President that she’d toss aside all the touchy-feely “it takes a village” crap and nuke them back to the stone age.

Ian Hamet
May 14, 2008
Cynicism (not especially upbeat)
[H/T to Kevin for the pointer.

I can see his point and agree for about 30 seconds before the emotional glow fades and rational thought returns. The first Clinton regime was bad enough with Hillary being buffered by Bill. To have Hillary yanking directly on the reins of power would be just too painful.--Joe]

This article, from the headline:

Relaxation on gun control, unlicensed sales contribute to gun violence in Oakland

to the last section:

'Every day I hear gun shots'

Fourteen-year-old C.J. described that paranoia, and sometimes the lack of it, in an interview. The West Oakland youth has come to live with the sound of gunshots.

"Every day, I hear gun shots — well, not every day, but most days of the week," C.J. said. "When we play, we hear gunshots. If they get closer and closer, then we run inside."

One night when he and his brother were walking home from a party at a cousin's house on Eighth Street, "the guns started going off and we ran," he said. "Everybody was screaming and running. I was just running different ways trying not to get hurt. I jumped into someone's back yard and waited."

When the gunfire stopped, he went looking for his brother and found him waiting inside someone's house.

Still, C.J. said he does not expect to get shot. He said it is usually people arguing who shoot at each other, and he avoids arguments.

C.J. said this with conviction, having accepted that gunfire is a part of daily life and figured out a way to avoid it. He lost his father to gunfire in Oakland a decade ago and seems to have thought carefully about how to avoid that fate.

"They keep going back and forth killing each other," he said. "It's not scary to me because I'm not in those arguments."

It is nothing but falsehoods, speculation, misleading information, and anecdotes designed to alarm and frighten.

This wasn't written by journalists. This was written by people that should be on the Brady Campaign payroll.

On Saturday night (Sunday morning), at the NRA Convention, I stayed up until 3:00 AM socializing and blogging. I arrived at the Press Room a few minutes before 9:00 the next morning and found I was the first one there for the meeting with Paul Helinkski of Guns America. Wimps. Even the NRA staff hadn't arrived to unlock the door early after being late the day before. If it hadn't been for the wheelbarrow full of cash I received on arrival I would have been a little bit annoyed with the NRA for dropping the ball in this regard two days in a row.

About 9:00 other bloggers and press people showed up to wait. Bitter had no explanation:

More people showed up--and waited:

Then Helinkski showed up and waited with the rest of us:

Finally, about 15 or 20 minutes late, the NRA staff (names withheld to protect the guilty) showed up, let us in, and we all sat down to listen to Helinkski:

He gave us his background and while interesting from a technical aspect most of my readers aren't going to care about that. What probably is interesting is what he had to say about the future of gun sales on the Internet.

Helinkski is of the opinion that gun are a very unique product that cannot be sold like other products. The required FFL for shipment and NICS checks for most sales is the reason. That "speed bump" could be smoothed out by "dealers" that do not stock firearms but simply do the transfers and charge $20 or $30. But, according to Helinkski, this would be the very bad for gun owners. Sure we could get guns a few dollars cheaper if we did our purchases that way but having the gun store down the street on the corner is more important that those few dollars. The public visibility is important and having the customer service locally available is important.

So what is the future of Internet gun sales? Helinkski has an innovative web product that addresses that. Check out GunsAmerica.com. His website allows dealers to post their inventory on the web and the customers to comparison shop. You can search for guns within X miles of your zip code and then if the dealer makes a sale because you found what you liked on the website Helinkski makes a flat fee on the deal. You still have to visit the dealer and purchase the gun face-to-face but what Guns America has done is make the comparison shopping much easier.

I can't find an online version to link to so I'm just posting the email version I received from the Citizens Committe for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The short version is what Uncle said, "Ald. Richard Mell...like you and me only better."

CCRKBA SAYS CHICAGO ALDERMAN SHOULD SUFFER LIKE OTHER GUN OWNERS

BELLEVUE, WA – Chicago Alderman Richard Mell ought to be prosecuted like any other negligent gun owner for failing to re-register his firearms under an ordinance he helped pass, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“I don’t care if anti-gun Mayor Richard Daley supports giving Mell a break, and it doesn’t matter that Mell is the father-in-law of Gov. Rod Blagojevich,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “For years, the draconian ordinance supported by Mell and enforced by Daley has terrorized Chicago gun owners. It’s time for Mell to face his own music, and it’s time for Daley to just shut up.”

Mell has proposed an amendment to the existing law that would allow gun registration to re-open for a month, giving him amnesty. Mell and Daley are claiming that this is for other gun owners in the city as well who may have let their registrations lapse.

“For years, the Daley Administration has engaged in goon squad demagoguery against gun owners,” Gottlieb observed, “but now all of a sudden, just because Alderman Mell finds himself on the wrong side of a law he supported, he and Daley want to do Chicago gun owners a favor. This magnanimity is a flimsy sham, and law-abiding firearm owners all over Illinois should be outraged.

“It is equally outrageous that Mell is blaming this lapse on an aide,” he added. “How stupid is that? Mell knows that gun owners are personally responsible for re-registering their firearms, and over the years, the city has shown no mercy for others who have failed to comply with the law. This guy shouldn’t be on the city council, he ought to be in an unemployment line, and even more than that, he ought to be facing charges in court for possession of unregistered guns inside the city.

“The sad fact is,” Gottlieb concluded, “that this proposed amnesty amendment would never be on the table if it weren’t designed specifically to help Alderman Mell. That anyone else might benefit is an accident, and both Mell and Daley know it. Other gun owners should be allowed to re-register, but Mell should lose on this sweetheart deal. Perhaps then he will fully understand just how insidious Chicago’s gun laws really are, and he will lead the fight to abolish them.”

I just sent the following email to the guy on the video about online explosives. 

 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 9:47 PM
To: John Bachman (john.bachman@wsbtv.com); 'talk2us@wsbtv.com'
Subject: Please discontinue using my video.

 

Today I was informed of your video about the availability of online explosives (http://www.wsbtv.com/video/16266872/index.html). The last video clip you used from web sources was taken by me of my daughter Kim. You did not obtain permission to use that and I am requesting that you immediately stop using it.

 

In addition to the unauthorized use of my material you strongly imply we are using Tannerite or some other explosive available via online sources. This is false. The material used is of my own manufacture. I have a license issued by the ATF to manufacture high explosives and my daughter Kim is authorized by the ATF to handle explosives. To use her likeness and my product in your biased and even bigoted attack on a legal product used in a legal manner is exceedingly offensive to me and thousands of other people.

 

I can’t imagine what you were thinking. Would you show video of people using guns to legally hunt, shoot tin cans, or put holes in paper targets and then contact your congress because you were worried someone might use their guns to commit a terrorist act? Or how about showing someone having a glass of wine with dinner or drinking a beer in their backyard? Would you demand the government do something about this because of your concerns about drunk driving?

 

When I was growing up my family was able to, and did, buy dynamite, blasting caps, at the local hardware store with no special license or transportation requirements. We paid for it, picked it up out back, put in it in the trunk of the car and drove home with it.  That the average person can still acquire explosives easily, legally, and safely is a testament to what a great country we have. It shows that not only the government is subservient to its citizens but that its citizens are responsible and can be trusted.

 

If you had demonstrated these explosives were used in thousands of crimes each year I might think you had reason to be concerned. But you did not do this. You could have used that same product and those same video to show what a great country we have. You could have shown what unique freedoms we have and how those freedoms are not being abused and I would have gladly given you permission to use my video. Seattle King 5 Evening Magazine did that with this video: http://www.boomershoot.org/2005/KING5.wmv. But you didn’t do that. You merely demonstrated you are a Puritan--afraid that someone, someplace, is having fun.

 

 

Joe Huffman
Boomershoot Event Director

Today I received notice from the Second Amendment Foundation that registration is now open for the Gun Rights Policy Conference September 26, 27, and 28th.

I have attended GRPC twice before and was very impressed. If you are into the political/academic side of the 2^nd Amendment then you will benefit a great deal from attending.

Some anti-fun maroon stuck together a video to demonize recreational explosives. Joe’s daughter, Kim, appears in the last quarter of the segment. Too bad the anti-fun maroon is a TV station in Atlanta.

Ry Jones
May 22, 2008
Kim is Famous
[It looks like I have some work to do after I get off work tonight.--Joe]

Last Friday night Michael Baine hosted a social event for us bloggers. Todd Jarrett reported that 10 bloggers would get training from him at Blackwater and then take home a Paraordinance gun at the end of the training. Bitter has some details.

I spent probably 15 minutes talking with Jarrett and he got really interested in Boomershoot and told me he wanted to blow up a car. He wants to be able to shoot bullets into it and have it lift about four feet off the ground. I gave him my card and told him I thought I could do that. He seemed interested in exploring that further. Cool!

Before I pay over $10 for a gallon of gas I will drill through a polar bears head. -- I would feel bad. But I would do it.

Glenn Beck
NRA Annual Convention
Keynote speech
May 17, 2008
[He also pointed out that polar bears have been dramatically increasing in numbers recently. I think he should have said "hugger" instead of "head", but that's just me.--Joe]

Several of the bloggers, myself included, in attendance at the NRA Convention were looking forward to meeting the Empress of Snark^tm. She and Roberta flew in on their broomstick Saturday and left again before most of us got a chance to meet them. Tamera was persuaded to visit again on Sunday and some waited in the pressroom for quite some time. When she finally arrived we went in search of food:

Left to right are Bill, Mike W., Denise, Tamara, and Rick.

Tamara checking out her taco cone.

I'm almost always surprised when I meet someone in person who I had some non face-to-face contact. I expected Tamara to have a big smile on her face almost all the time as she laughed at the world around her and she would let rip with one snarky comment after another. Instead she was reserved and seemed to be pushing herself to overcome shyness. But maybe that was just her restraining herself from decking one or more of her groupies.

Regardless she was very tolerant of all the attention people gave her and to the best of my knowledge she didn't have to even brandish her knife.

Update: In response to a comment from Chuck--She has eyebrows. It's just that her light red hair is difficult to distingush from her pink skin.

See?

One of the sessions at the NRA conventions I attended was "It's Not The Critic Who Counts". It was a good session and I'll post more about it another time.

What was embarrassing at the time was some 9/11 Truther who heckled Ollie North. I thought North handled him well during the session and I figured that would be the end of it.

But after the session the guy came up and harassed him some more. I was busy talking to someone else and didn't pay much attention.

A couple hours later while a bunch of us were eating lunch Rick noticed someone being marched out the door by a squad of men in blue. Here is our lunch gathering:

Rick and I went outside to check it out. The guy in handcuffs (you can't see the cuffs in this picture) up against the wall was the Truther.

According to my sources he didn't stop with harassing North he continued on with Ted Nugent and maybe even some others. The powers that be finally got tired of it. They yanked his pass and escorted him out of the building.

Despite thousands of people walking around carrying guns and even drinking while armed the only shooting I saw was the air gun stuff going on at the convention hall. Rick from Traction Control challenged Kevin and I to a little friendly shooting. The targets are below.

I cheated. Something Greg Hamilton of Insights teaches his students--the goal is to win. In a gun fight winning is the only thing that matters. Playing fair is for losers.

Rick and Kevin shot first and reported the gun was shooting low and right. So I aimed high and left. I scored a 49 and won.

We have a long, hard road ahead of us. I feel more comfortable knowing you all will be there by my side as we battle the forces of stupidity and take comfort in the knowledge that each of you will do everything they can to retain our rights as citizens of the free world. And, if God forbid it all goes south, at least we have Joe Huffman on our side.

Rob Allen
May 20, 2008 in an email he sent to bloggers he met at the NRA convention.
[Rob is Sharp as a Marble, but for some reason he wasn't the only person that has been saying things like that about me. I would like to think it was because of my target from the friendly little air-gun competition we had. But there were hints that wasn't it. It was before that and/or in a completely different context Kevin said the same thing and numerous others that said the same or something similar. Bitter, for example, said she would never look at powdered sugar the same way again. I appreciate all the nice things people are saying but aren't you just moving me to the top of some list I really don't want to be on?--Joe]

I injured my leg at Boomershoot which was over three weeks ago. It didn't hurt that much at the time but it started swelling a few days later. While in Louisville I did a lot of standing and walking. And Thursday through Sunday nights I got four, three, four, and five hours of sleep. By Sunday afternoon my leg was swollen up tight as a balloon. I went back to the motel and laid on the floor with my feet on the bed to reduce the pressure.

Today I called the doctor shortly after my plane landed and made an appointment. She looked at it and sent me to get a Doppler study done. There are no clots and the blood flow from my groin to my ankle is just fine. They found a hematoma just below the knee which is the problem. I'm to elevate the leg more, apply heat and compression for a few days and see if that helps.

I'm pretty comfortable right now except I'm still short on sleep. Thanks to everybody for asking how I'm doing.

I had said I wouldn't blog about Friday night but since it has been widely reported elsewhere that Say Uncle has teeth like little vaginas I would like to make something very clear. The next morning when Uncle said he had a headache I did not offer Dr. Joe's cure for everything.

Uncle and his hotel roommate Rob Allen had already pegged out my squeam-o-meter when they started talking about "the lube".

We like lawyers, crooks, and crack dealers better than Washington!

Glenn Beck
NRA Annual Convention
Keynote speech
May 17, 2008
[After pointing out the President and Congress have approval ratings that are some of the lowest ever.--Joe]

It comes down to Larry, Curly, and Moe?

Glenn Beck
NRA Annual Convention
Keynote speech
May 17, 2008
[He was referring to the remaining three viable candidates for president in 2008.

He showed us his cummerbund decorated with a skull and crossbones, said he was going plunder, rape, and pillage this evening. He did not disappoint.

After McCain had given a speech here the previous day with lots of favorable things said by the NRA. The Three Stooges reference above was just one of many negatives toward the Republican candidate. Across the table from me Bitter Bitch covered her mouth with her hands and her eyes bugged out as Beck ragged on McCain as well as the Democrats who "sold their soul to Karl Marx".

I have more great quotes from Beck (and some pictures) but right now I have to get ready for dinner and then prepare for a 7:00 AM flight tomorrow.--Joe]

I had dinner with 5000 people tonight. I only had a chance to talk to a few at my talk and the people in the next table over. But it included Bill and Denise. I have corresponded a bit and had some comments from them occasionally. It was nice to finally met them.

I met and talked with Caleb and his wife for a quite a while before dinner. Very nice but I think I have a preference for my daughter and her Caleb but then I suppose there is a possibility of bias.

Afterward we went to some bar that was running the music at about 20 decibels above what you need hearing protection for in an industrial environment for continuous exposure. We found an empty room in the back and asked that it be ours. The staff agreed and we went in and ordered drinks. I only ordered the one orange juice because they said it was free and I didn't think that was quite right. Others ordered beers that cost $8.00 each and other stuff that they wanted to check your credit card limits before they would bring it. We asked they turn the sound off in our room and the sound level dropped to where we could talk if we only yelled a little bit. After about 15 minutes I realized we are humans and humans adapt the environment to themselves and don't have to adapt to the environment. I shut the doors to the room and everyone cheered. I credited the two engineering degrees for enabling me to figure that one out.

Squeaky Wheel wasn't quite as entertaining as she was last night but then she probably will be capable of remembering most of tonight. I promised not to blog about last night and she agreed not to post the video either. Kevin and Squeaky did a blog a little bit about last night (I didn't realize I was scaring anyone, honest!) but the best parts will only be available on a need to know basis.

Speaking of Squeaky, she is famous now. She was misquoted by the LA Times.

Everyone was bummed that Tamara and Roberta only connected with a few bloggers today. Tamara should be back tomorrow and some people are hanging around a little longer just to make sure they get a chance to met her. I'm hoping Tamara can roll Roberta up in carpet and throw her in the trunk or something so we can met her too.

Another great day except everyone wimped out by 1:00 AM. It was 2:30 before we broke up the last two nights. You would think that with the practice we got with three and four hours of sleep the two previous nights they would be able to tolerate staying up until at least 3:00 this morning. But for some strange reason the non-engineers didn't seem to think the practice helped them.

So, it's now just about 3:00 local time. I'll show them in the morning!

Just a couple hours ago I was showing Say Uncle what a high proportion of my referrals were coming from him via his link to me. Uncle's referrals just became noise.

My blog just got an Instalanche via this post (my post was A time machine and scoped rifle ) by Glenn Reynolds (thank you Mr. Reynolds):

Update: At the dinner tonight (Glenn Beck was awesome!) I bragged to Kevin that I had an Instalanche. He said, "Yeah, I know. Ask me how I know." I replied, "They visited you after visiting me?" "Yup." I just looked at his sitemeter. Over 20% of Kevins hits were from referrals from my post on the time machine and a scoped rifle.

 More numbers for most of the day:

I stopped by at the Second Amendment Foundation booth today and talked to Alan Gottlieb and Joe Waldron. It was really nice to catch up on things. One of Alan's daughters is essentially the same age as James (and they actually met once) and we talked kids, Microsoft matching donations for 501(C)(3)s, and other stuff for a while. Then he said they were looking for people for the Bellevue Washington office.

They need someone technical (in the web site programming sense) who knows the gun issue, is smart, and wouldn't mind working for a non-profit organization (read that as lower than industry standard compensation). Other duties would involve organizing and putting on the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (if you are a gun rights activist you should attend this if you can). I'd love to do this but I'm too much in love with the money at Microsoft to consider it. Alan suggested that it's a job for someone that is retired. It used to be there were a lot of Microsoft people that retired in their mid and late 20's but with the stock flat for the last 10 years that doesn't happen anymore.

No Osama
No Obama
No Chelsea's Mamma

Bumper Sticker
[Seen on a bumper sticker outside my motel.--Joe]

Some of the gun bloggers I've talked to since I got here:

Rob Allen, Sebastian, Say Uncle

Sailor Curt, Thirdpower

Dave Hardy and on the right David E. Young

Bitter

Trying to get the woman in your life interested in guns? Maybe this will get her attention. It's very pretty and shiny:

1193 Mounted stones, 90 Carats, Estimated Value: $360,950.

Wife Barbara doesn't wear jewelry so I can't imagine she would like all those stones but I think daughters Kim and Xenia would each like one (hint to their husband and boyfriend--you would get on my "good side" with a gift like this).

They don't fear me. They fear you.

Chris Cox
NRA-ILA Executive Director
9:32 AM May 16, 2008
[Regarding talking to politicians and what motivates them. It is the voters and the activists, not the lobbist themselves that have the power to influence politicians.--Joe]

Our main goal is to destroy gun control. We are an organization that believes we have the moral authority to point out to the rest of the world the evils that have come from gun control and how humanity has suffered because of gun-control schemes.

...

We’re not interested in compromise. We are only interested in the destruction of something we consider to be a very evil and deadly policy known as gun control.

Aaron Zelman
May 15, 2008
No Compromise Against Gun Control
[The goal must be to drive anti-gun bigots into complete and total political destruction. Too many people have died to let these people have their way any longer.--Joe]

My bags are almost all packed and I'm scheduled to arrive in Louisville tomorrow night. The Second Amendment Blog Bash and the NRA Annual Meeting are the attraction. Blogging may be lighter than usual. I tend to stay up way late into the night/morning talking to people.

Other bloggers that I have meet who will be attending include Kevin, Say Uncle, Sebastian, and USCitizen. That would almost make it worth the trip. The other 40 or so bloggers I haven't met will make it more than worthwhile. Then there are the 65,000 other people that are expected to show up. It should be quite a party.

What interests me is not just the pleasure of meeting thousands of other like minded people but knowing that the Brady Bunch, the VPC, and all the other bigot organizations would have trouble getting as many people together on an annual basis as I do for Boomershoot. Isn't that odd?

The NRA can get tens of thousands of people annually and how many does the "Million Mom March" muster every year? Why isn't the voting on legislation and legislators just as lopsided? We have some tremendous advantages because we have something besides hate binding us together. We have our love of freedom, our interests in firearms, and all the activities that go into that. Their goals are the destruction of a culture that enables them to exist in freedom, peace, and security. It's as if they are, in essence, suicidal. With such mental problems I guess it isn't a surprise their numbers are small and that unless they are collecting a paycheck from their efforts they usually soon lose focus and drift away. That's good for our side but it seems odd they wield as much power as they do. It must be the appeal of simple solutions to complex and/or unsolvable problems.

And now we're at a point, politically, where there are three candidates running who have a realistic shot at the Presidency, and I wouldn't urinate on any of them if their hair was on fire.

Where the hell is the space colony they promised me when I was a child, watching men leave bootprints and tire tracks in the lunar dust? Where is my new frontier, my place to go to so that I may live free?

Kevin Baker
That's 35 in Dog Years
[That's me on a "down" day.--Joe]

I think she must have been swapped at birth with someone else's child.

Barb and I wouldn't have a child that received her lowest grade in math! We meet each other in algebra class and each took four years of math in high school followed by I can't remember how many math classes in college.

<heavy sigh>

I suppose we have to keep her now.

Update: This just in--a picture of Xenia and I are in this article about an Ohio dad jailed after daughter fails to get GED. We are the picture on the far right of the row of pictures.

Laws against the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither disposed nor inclined toward violence.

Thomas Jefferson
Quoting Cesaro Beccari.

Transfers data wirelessly at 2.88 MBytes per second. It also doubles as a gun effective against squirrels, vegans, clowns, hippies, street urchins, hooligans, carpetbaggers & scalawags. Don't try it with the girl scout though. She shoots back.

H/T to Kevin I. of the Lewiston Pistol Club.

This is from Chicago so it's not a big surprise they could find someone who thinks like this:

Rabbi Harold Kudan of nearby Temple Am Shalom went on record as challenging aggressive leaflets the gun lobby circulated a month after the shootings that claimed, "If Jews had been armed they could have fought the Nazis."

"If Jews had guns in Nazi Germany, no one would have survived. It would have been an excuse for Nazis to kill with even greater abandon," he told the assemblage, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The Nazis didn't stop killing because they finished the job they set out to do. They were stopped because men with guns, tanks, ships, and planes forcibly stopped them. Had the Jews been able and willing to put up some resistance, particularly in Eastern Europe in response to the police battalions, it would have significantly delayed the implementation of the Final Solution.

With a stated goal of ridding Europe of Jews entirely it seems unlikely the Nazis could have been motivated further. What would have the goal been had they had "even greater abandon"? Kill them twice?

...the recent signs of violent times occasion an opportunity for broadening our collective sense of what ''rights'' should be in terms of our social consciousness. Our political and judicial discourse would benefit from moving beyond a purely libertarian view of rights, which emphasizes freedom from governmental coercion or constraint, to incorporate also a dignitarian view of rights, which promotes freedom for the good of each other and for society as a whole.

Thomas F. Dailey
May 11, 2008
Let's think carefully about gun 'rights,' society
["Freedom for the good of each other and for society as a whole?" Hasn't this already been tried a few times by others? And the body count from these efforts just keeps growing. There are only individual rights. Collective "rights" are more properly called powers.--Joe]

What would you do if you were given a time machine and a scoped rifle? Or would you want a scoped rifle to go with the time machine?

In the science fiction short story The Return of William Proxmire Proxmire doesn't want a scoped rifle--he wants a syringe full of antibiotics and he is "gunning" for Robert Heinlein. I loved this story. It articulates the fantasy of changing history via what Niven claims, perhaps rightly so, the common fantasy assassinating some horrendously evil person before they had a chance to do their evil. It put the twist on that fantasy that perhaps you could change history in remarkably good ways by doing some small act of good as well.

Barb and I have been watching The Nazis: A Warning from History. This presentation casts doubts on my fantasy of going back in time to assassinate Hitler. And it makes me a little more sympathetic to all the people I read about in Plotting Hitler's Death: The Story of German Resistance who had the opportunity but then failed to follow through because they didn't have all their plans in order about what to do after Hitler was dead. Some of them spent months debating what type of government (a parliament? A representative democracy? Or perhaps even install a King?) would they put in place after they had successfully killed Hitler. My frustration with them boiled down to "just kill the SOB and worry about the details later". But perhaps it wasn't so simple.

In the The Nazis they claim Hitler wasn't the dictator with a finely detailed plan we, or at least I, thought he was. Hitler had the broad goals of expanding the geographical territory and economic power of the "Germanic people". Yes, many people blamed the Jews for the poor outcome of Germany in WWI and Jews as a scapegoat were a useful tool to motivate people. But in many ways Hitler was very lazy and let his subordinates do pretty much whatever they wanted. He had obtained great power through his gift of rhetoric and ambitious people sought access to that power. These power seekers put great effort into trying to please him. Hitler didn't command them to commit all the great atrocities. They devised and implemented them in an attempt to please him and obtain still more wealth and power. If they furthered the broad goals of more territory and power for the Germans then Hitler did not interfere and they obtained the resources to further their work.

The above is background for the questions posed in the first two sentences of this post. If you could change history with a little nudge (what is one bullet into the brain of Gefreiter Hitler during the middle of WWI in the big scheme of things?) what would that nudge be?

Books such as Because They Hate, Hatred's Kingdom, Preachers of Hate, The Truth About Muhammad, and Infidel put Muhammad on my list. And because Barb and I just finished Genghis Khan he would get some "special attention". Both of these butchers could perhaps be better "nudged" with something other than "a scoped rifle".

The introduction of the principles of scientific inquire and a little schooling might have changed Muhammad into something much more compatible with civilized society. And certainly the Arabs had the talent and even a strong tendency for pursuing science instead of superstition. Could the education of the illiterate Mohammad have made the desired difference?

And what of Genghis Khan? Was the poisoning of his father by a neighboring tribe, the resulting dissolution his tribe and him being hunted and marked for death as the eldest son of the dead tribal leader the motivation for his climb to power? Could his father have been warned about the poison and the results in the following decades been much different?

But the books Free to Choose, Freedomnomics, The Big Three in Economics and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal have influenced me the most. I am inclined to go with the "scoped rifle" approach for dealing with Rousseau, Marx, Hegel, and Engels. These were brilliant men of ideas and persuasion that influenced and enabled Hitler, Stalin, and scores of other brutal dictators to kill hundreds of millions of people and enslave billions more right up through the present day. Perhaps this graphic from Kevin will make it more clear as to why these people are at the top of my list:

Political tags--such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, conservative, and so forth--are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

Lazarus Long
A character in Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
From Page 47 in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
[This correct division of political philosophy explains why so many people are dissatisfied with the current set of political candidates for U.S. President. In essence all the candidates are on the same side of the aisle.

My reason for using this quote today will become more apparent after reading my next post.--Joe]

From the Brady Bunch we discover the Brady Campaign Director To Be Honored By Rev. Jesse Jackson And RainbowPUSH Coalition:

Jennifer Bishop, Program Director for Victims and Survivors at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, will be honored by Reverend Jesse Jackson’s RainbowPUSH Coalition this Mother’s Day weekend. 

The organization is recognizing several women whose work has furthered peace, justice, and civil rights around the world with the “Odds Breakers and Dream Makers” award. 

“We’re very proud that Jennifer’s work on behalf of the victims of gun violence is being recognized by Rev. Jackson and the RainbowPUSH Coalition,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign.  “This award appropriately recognizes Jennifer, but also serves to inspire the countless volunteers around our country who are fighting for sensible gun laws to keep all Americans and their families safe.”

“Eighteen years ago my sister, her husband, and their unborn child were murdered.  Every day, this nation loses 80 people to gun violence, eight of them children,” Bishop said. “I am so grateful to our great allies at RainbowPUSH who work every day at the community level to try to prevent such tragedies.”

summary of the Brady Campaign’s recent activities in Illinois is available at
http://www.bradycampaign.org/illinois/.

# # #

As the nation's largest, non-partisan, grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, the Brady Campaign, with its dedicated network of Million Mom March Chapters, works to enact and enforce sensible gun laws, regulations and public policies. The Brady Campaign is devoted to creating an America free from gun violence, where all Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in our communities.

Recognizing women whose work has furthered civil rights? Wow! How can they say that and not be ashamed to the point of suicide? What if the last sentence describing the Brady Bunch mission statement said:

The Brady Campaign is devoted to creating an America free from black violence, where all Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in our communities.

As I have said before, "Never forget that the anti-gun bigots are the KKK of the 21st Century. Look for opportunities to make that point. Make belonging to the Brady Campaign the equivalent of a membership in the KKK because it's true."

Someone should start a pool on how long before these guns (and a kit for making your own, paper, AK-47) are banned. After all, it is the U.K.

H/T to John, via Xenia, for the links.

Both the ATF and FBI are banned by the 10^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so it's rare that I can be happy about their actions. But at least some of their time is spent doing things that don't cause innocent people harm. From the WaPo we discover the FBI, ATF Battle for Control Of Cases Cooperation Lags Despite Merger:

In the five years since the FBI and ATF were merged under the Justice Department to coordinate the fight against terrorism, the rival law enforcement agencies have fought each other for control, wasting time and money and causing duplication of effort, according to law enforcement sources and internal documents.

...

At crime scenes, FBI and ATF agents have threatened to arrest one another and battled over jurisdiction and key evidence. The ATF inadvertently bought counterfeit cigarettes from the FBI -- the government selling to the government -- because the agencies are running parallel investigations of tobacco smuggling between Virginia and other states.

There is lots of other good stuff to be found in the article, for example:

Some question whether the ATF can survive. "It just doesn't make sense to have two agencies . . . responding anytime a bomb goes off," one Justice Department official said.

One could claim that if we can get rid of one then we are half-way there. But that isn't the way it really works but I will agree it's a good start.

There were several bloggers not present that made mention of Boomershoot 2008 but here is a list of blog posts and pictures from people who were there:

• Dave Barry and Boomershoot (Ry Jones)
• Personal Injury Theatre 2008 (Ry Jones--Lots of pictures too!) [I still have bruises and swellings that haven't healed.--Joe]
• Toilet video, recut (Ry Jones)
• Boomer Video (Phil @ Random Nuclear Strikes) [If the videos have been pulled and you want to see them let me know and I'll post a link to my copies.--Joe]
• Boomershoot 2008 AAR (Phil @ Random Nuclear Strikes--Pictures!)
• The Rifles of Boomershoot (Phil @ Random Nuclear Strikes--Pictures!)
• Boomershoot Proof of Concept (David @ Random Nuclear Strikes) [Shooting 600+ yard Boomers with pistols!--Joe]
• Why You Want Your Stock to Fit (David @ Random Nuclear Strikes)
• David White Wolf's Photostream (David @ Random Nuclear Strikes) [Not all his Boomershoot 2008 pictures are tagged correctly, go looking for more.--Joe]
• Boomershoot Preview (Xenia Joy--Picture of fire in the air)
• Boomershoot 2008 (Xenia Joy--Lots of pictures from the official Boomershoot photographer)
• Boomershoot (matthew@TriggerFinger--Priceless!)
• Day 1 of the Precision Rifle Clinic (matthew@TriggerFinger)
• Bloggers at Boomershoot (matthew@TriggerFinger)
• Day 2 of the Precision Rifle Clinic (matthew@TriggerFinger)
• Picture of the shooting position (matthew@TriggerFinger)
• The Other Way to Shoot Boomers (matthew@TriggerFinger)
• Road Trip! (Privacy of the Mind)
• Winding Down (Privacy of the Mind)
• Here Comes The Boom (Privacy of the Mind--Picture of muzzle flash from a .50 BMG)
• Home Again, Home Again (Privacy of the Mind--Link to many pictures)
• Boomer Shoot 2008 (Barron Barnett--Lots of good pictures!) [His first blog post ever!--Joe]

Why should democracy rise against bribery?  It is itself a form of wholesale bribery.  In place of a government with a fixed purpose and a visible goal, it sets up a government that is a mere function of the mob's vagaries.  Its security depends wholly upon providing satisfactory bribes for the prehensile minorities that constitute the mob . . . the very head of the state, having no title to his office save that which lies in the popular will, is forced to haggle and bargain like the lowliest office seeker.

H.L. Mencken
[Think about it; Elections are bribery in both directions. The people who seek and win elections are those willing to engage in bribery and are best at it. Do not expect politicians to be honest. The system discriminates against honest politicians. This is just one more reason why our government is (theoretically) and should be limited by strictly enumerated powers.--Joe]

This trial is supposed to be held in a federal court, not a kangaroo court. What’s next, a request that Judge Weinstein not allow defense witnesses or rebuttal? Why not just dispense with the trial altogether and lynch Mr. Wallace from the limb of a tree out in Central Park?

...

Apparently, in Mikey’s world, a fair trial is one in which a defense attorney is muzzled, and the defendant is already guilty until proven innocent. Bloomberg missed his calling. Instead of being mayor of an American city, he should have been the administrator of a gulag.

Alan Gottlieb
Founder of the Second Amendment Foundation
May 9, 2008
Bloomberg outrage: Asks judge to ban 2nd Amendment references!
New York Sun article on the topic.

Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive.

Milton Friedman
[Translating to present day for the weak-minded (Clinton and Obama supporters--I'm talking to you) the same applies to low cost medical care, housing, oil, and gasoline. Columbus wanted to get rich by finding a shorter shipping route for spices and other goods. People seek to make goods and services available at a lower cost because they want to make money for themselves. The allure of "getting rich" is a great motivator and "majority directives" by government take the incentive away from the real goal--providing goods and services at a better value than others. Government directives and incentives motivate the creators of goods and services to please the government not the consumers. This leads to corruption in government, high taxes, and goods and services of lesser quality and greater cost than if the free market were allowed to work.--Joe]

Once the right to keep and bear arms is separated from its long-established tether to a militia purpose, it is unclear what legal standard gun laws would need to survive constitutional challenge. There is little doubt, however, that recognition of a broad private right to be armed will create a new presumption against the constitutionality of gun laws, whereas currently there is a virtually absolute presumption in favor of their constitutionality. Guns would achieve a specially protected constitutional status imposing unique limits on the legislative authority of the elected representatives of the people that would apply to no other dangerous products. Ironically, regulation of guns, the only publicly-available consumer product designed to inflict lethal injury, would be required to meet a higher constitutional standard than regulation of cars, lawnmowers and other dangerous products capable of inflicting lethal injury, but not designed to do so.

Dennis A. Henigan et al
Director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence Legal Action Project
Some time after March of 2007
Second Amendment Fantasy--The Brady Center’s Critique of the Parker v. District of Columbia Decision
Emphasis in the original.
[Henigan et al overlook two important points:

1. Federal regulation of cars, lawnmowers, etc. is prohibited by the 10^th Amendment.
2. Regulation of a products unintended consequences is much different than that for which it is designed.

Ignoring the first point for today and concentrating on the second point a little thought will reveal the regulation Henigan supports is much different than that of cars and lawnmowers.

A regulation requiring a self-propelled lawnmower to turn itself off when the operator releases their hands from the controls would be analogous to something like requiring a gun to tolerate being dropped without discharging. Which, if it were done by a state legislature, I wouldn't pick a constitutional fight over. A regulation which restricted self-propelled lawnmowers to government employees is analogous to the type of restrictions Henigan advocates.

Beyond the above points the 2^nd Amendment specifically protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. So yes, assuming the Heller (formerly Parker) decision goes our way, guns would achieve a specially protected constitutional status imposing unique limits on our government. This was the original intent of the 2^nd Amendment.

Therefore a more succinct response to Henigan et al would be, "And your point is?"--Joe]

I almost used this exact paragraph from here as my QOTD but decided to look around some more and save that for some other time. I then saw this exact paragraph while visiting here and again was sorely tempted. As I continued to wander my RSS feeds revealed Sebastian and Kevin eliminated my backups. Either it is a conspiracy against me or great minds think alike. I'm inclined to think the later because Say Uncle has the same complaint as I do.

The following should be self-explanatory.

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 8:55 AM
To: 'soldiersangels@gmail.com'
Cc: 'Chuck Ziegenfuss'; 'Barb Scott'; 'Jason Scott'
Subject: Boomershoot 2008 Raffle proceeds.

Boomershoot (http://www.boomershoot.org) is an annual long range precision rifle event held in North Central Idaho. Each year soldiers from Fort Lewis attend and for two days prior to the main event help teach Boomershoot participants the science and art of accurate long range shooting. Some of those soldiers later went on to Iraq and Afghanistan and were injured and some were killed.

Last October my wife and I met Chuck Ziengenfuss at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno. He told us of his injuries and how Soldiers’ Angels helped him. It turns out that it was the second time my wife had met Chuck. She had also met at Walter Reed when she was visiting our nephew Jason Scott who was wounded in Iraq and benefited from your help.

At Boomershoot this year we held a raffle with the intent that half of the proceeds would go to raffle participants and the other half going to Project Valour-IT. All winners of the raffle proceeds gave the money to me to forward on to you. Two other people quietly came up to me and each gave me three $100 bills to give to you.

Below is the reference number and other information from my bank who is mailing you a check of the entire proceeds. If it does not arrive as expected please let me know.

PENDING PAYMENTS

Regards and thank you,

Joe Huffman
Boomershoot Event Director

May No Soldier Go Unloved.

Slogan of Soldier's Angels
[See my next post for more context.--Joe]

We've got to tighten up our gun laws. I've said before we should have a much tougher background check system, one that's much more effective and make sure there aren't loopholes out there like the gun show loophole.

Barack Obama
April 25, 2008
Laws alone can't stop violence: Obama
Chicago Sun-Times
[I'm probably just bitterly clinging to my guns, but it sure doesn't sound to me like Mr. Obama thinks of the 2^nd Amendment as right. After all, I don't hear him talking about background checks for books and the "book show loophole". There is other stuff in the same article that makes it very, very clear where he stands on the gun issue. I'm going to remain very bitter about him being a public servant instead of behind bars as a felon.--Joe]

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it.

Clarence Darrow
[With the pond scum we have available for choices this November Darrow could have been speaking about 2008 instead of sometime 60 or 70 years ago.--Joe]

Never go to clubs with metal detectors. Sure it feels safe inside. But what about all those niggas waiting outside with guns? They know you ain't got one.

Chris Rock
[The same thing applies with schools and other "gun free zones".--Joe]

I was tagged by The Unforgiving Minute a week ago which was right in the middle of Boomershoot. I'm still recovering and trying to catch up on things so this is a bit late.

The rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123.
3. Find the first five sentences.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

When I read that I was tagged "the nearest book" was over a 1/4 mile away in someone else's house so I decided to use the nearest book to my bed where I do nearly all my book reading these days.

From Explosives Engineering by Paul W. Cooper.

Page 123 is page 5 of "Table 9.1 Heats of Formation of Inorganic Compounds" and is not broken down into sentences. I'm going to page 124 which has some actual sentences on it.

Hydrochloric acid, HCl, will react with sodium hydroxide, NaOH, to form sodium chloride, NaCl, and water, H₂O.

HCl + NaOH --> NaCl + H₂O

Calculating the standard heat of reaction from the standard heats of formation, we have:

ΔH_r⁰ = [ΔH_f⁰(NaCl) + ΔH_f⁰(H₂O)]_products - [ΔH_f⁰(HCl) + ΔH_f⁰(NaOH)]_reactants

I would tag my daughter Xenia Joy and a few other friends but they always ignore me on the meme thing anyway. So if you sort of think you know me and want to participate go right ahead.

Legal theatrics that deflect attention from the failure of Bloomberg’s administration to prevent crime while pursuing an agenda of victim disarmament are all flash and no substance and the people know it. Judging from today’s appeals court ruling, so do the courts.

Alan Gottlieb
April 30, 2008
SAF CHEERS FEDERAL COURT REJECTION OF BLOOMBERG LAWSUIT
[I'm frequently told it is because of a personality "defect" that I expect people to obey the law instead of openly disobey. Even though the 2^nd and 10^th Amendment are so blatantly violated that you would think I would get a clue and not have those expectations of our public servants. Still occasionally those servants who believe themselves to be masters get their wrists slapped and that is a good thing. Not as good as being sent to prison for violation of 18 USC 242 as they should be but it is better than letting them get away with it entirely as is usually the case.--Joe]

Via Scott K. we have this research confirming Dr. Joe's cure for everything:

Researchers from the Cancer Council of Victoria found that men who masturbated more than five times each week were one-third less likely to develop the cancer.

Ignoring the fact that no where in the U.S. Constitution does it allow for the Federal government to do this it's just plain stupid even if it was allowed:

President Bush called on Congress Thursday to approve $770 million to help alleviate dramatically escalating food prices that threaten widespread hunger and increasing social unrest around the world.

In a surprise mid-afternoon appearance at the White House, Bush announced he is asking lawmakers to approve the additional funds for global food aid and development programs. The money is being included in a broader $70 billion Iraq war funding measure for 2009 that the White House sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday.

If it were the case that it was some sort of rare natural disaster at a personal or business, not governmental, level I could see accepting promissory notes in exchange for food or even making gifts of food. The goodwill generated might prove worthwhile. But to feed those that can no longer afford to feed themselves and have no realistic hope of improving their economic situation will only increase the suffering.

A short story will illustrate. The essence is true but I forget the details.

A few years ago a group (I think it was a state wildlife department) decided to feed a small herd of hungry deer searching for food in the snow. There were only a few of them--perhaps 20 or 30. Nearly all the deer made it through the winter when perhaps a five or ten of them would have died had they not been given assistance.

The next winter, at the same location they again fed the deer but this time there were 40 or 50. The wintering area could only support perhaps 15 or 20 deer. If they didn't feed them again then perhaps 20 or 30 would die. If they could not allow for five or ten to die last year then certainly the could not allow 20 or 30 to die this year! A few years later the herd was in the hundreds and not only was it prohibitively expensive to feed them the deer were destroying the plant life of both their winter and summer feeding grounds. That many hooves and mouths became, in essence, a swarm of locusts that stripped the countryside clean.

What should be done now that they realized the folly they had engaged in that first winter? They had reached the point where they would have to feed them even in the summer to avoid the deaths of hundreds and still they would destroy the plant life and endanger other animal species wherever they went. I believe some were trapped and moved to other areas but increasing the bag limits on hunting season thinned the herd down to levels where the environment could support them. Most of those deer they feared would die were killed.

So what do we do about people in some distant land that cannot afford to feed themselves? I don't know exactly but the free market, if it were allowed to work, will find solutions such that most of them will not starve. Someone who is hungry and whose family is hungry will work hard and for long hours. Cheap labor attracts the capitalists. The smart ones in those areas of food shortages, if allowed to do so, will find products and/or services they can export in exchange for food and/or money. And yes, some will die of starvation. The media will show us high resolution color pictures of dying children and say it is the fault of the greedy capitalists. But giving them food without anything in exchange will only mean death is delayed and the magnitude of the tragedy increased.

When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, its called hospitality.

Al Capone
[I'm reminded of this by the apparent suicide of the "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey. How sad that a provider of a desired service is convicted of a victimless crime and ends up dead. The real criminals are those that created and enforced such a law.--Joe]