The View From North Central Idaho

My son Alex is part of a high school school trap shooting team.  They had a match this morning near Rosalia, Washington, which was attented by several high school teams from around the region.  Trap is quite popular in Eastern WA, as this is one of the best places in the country for pheasant and quail hunting, to say nothing of the excellent duck and goose hunting opportunities.  From the shooting lines today, we saw several hundred geese in the air.

Above; No, it isn't a crime scene or a network news story.  It depicts a fun event in which kids use guns and sharpen their skills on aerial targets, and so, by definition, it isn't "news".  The parking lot was packed with similar vehicles, open, loaded with guns and ammo.  Most people don't bother to lock their vehicles, me included.

Above; an appropriately named school district.

Above; Alex in full target-busting mode.  That's a decent hit-- lots of small fragments.  If you hit one full-on, it disappears in a cloud of dust.  Scoring is the same either way.  If you break a little piece off the target, it's a hit, same as a "duster".

A great time was had by all.  Everyone was super nice.  There were decent facilities for those who wanted to stay warm and there was free coffee and decent food at very reasonable prices.  This locally operated club range was equipped with four trap houses, meaning 20 kids can be on the shooting line at one time.

I'd guess there were about 80 shooters attending and about 150 to 200 people there in total-- Guns and ammo lying about everywhere, much like you'd find skis and poles sitting out on stands in front of a ski lodge.  Now if we were to take anything the anti gun-rights loons say with a shred of seriousness, we'd assume that all these kids would end up turning on each other in a bloddy shootout, as the stresses of competition became too much for them to handle, or something.  In fact, everyone was relaxed and friendly.  I will point out that, unlike a typical football game, there are no paramedics on standby at these events.  There would be no point in it.

Alex broke 26 of 50 targets, which isn't bad, but a really good shooter would have hit 50 of 50.  Today there was some gusting wind, so even a really good shooter might have missed one or two because the targets were jumping around a bit in the wind.  If you've ever thrown a Frisbee in the wind you what know what I mean.  These clay targets fly a lot like little Frisbees.

This summer, I talked to security experts on both sides of the political spectrum, and had several conversations with Chertoff, in an effort to answer the following question: Is DHS achieving its mission of making us safer? My reluctant conclusion is that, although Chertoff has performed impressively in an impossible job, the department is hard to justify with any rational analysis of costs and benefits. On the contrary, it's arguably one of the most expensive marketing ventures in political history--an enterprise that seeks to make us feel safer instead of actually making us safer. The best argument for DHS is that the illusion of safety may itself provide tangible psychological and economic benefits: If people feel less afraid, they may be more likely to fly on planes. But even if conceived on these terms--as a more-than-$40-billion-dollar-a-year pacifier--the department is hard to defend, since there's no good evidence that it has, in fact, calmed Americans down rather than making us more nervous.

Jeffery Rosen
December 24, 2008
Man-Made Disaster--Six years on, the Department of Homeland Security is still a catastrophe.
[$40 Billion a year pacifer? Yup. That sounds about right for government work.

H/T to Bruce Schneier.--Joe]

Sarah Brady
January, 2008
NRA ATTACKS BRADY MEMBERS IN NEW COURT PAPERS
[I find this interesting for a number of reasons.

1. I was only able to find this in one location on the net. I tried several different search engines and only one page has this information. Apparently it's an email sent to Brady donors. I thought I was on the Brady email list but perhaps those lists get purged of people that don't donate money occasionally.
2. I think it's great the NRA is attacking the Brady Campaign on their "grass roots" credentials. To the best of my knowledge they don't have a membership list, only a donor list.
3. They think concealed handguns put the public at risk and it appears they may be forced to show the data that proves that. Just One Question may have to be answered in court!

--Joe]

Ry sent me an email telling me about $99 1 TByte hard drives:

Don't know if you're in the market to upgrade (I'm not), but NewEgg is selling 1tb sata drives for $99 with free shipping.

this is the item:

 

use discount code: EMCABCKFC

Interesting. My first hard drive was a 10 MByte which I purchased in 1984. And the 1 TByte drives have been out for two years now.

Assuming the rate of data density increases at a constant rate we can compute when we will have drives of even more more mind boggling capacity.

10 TByte drives should be available in 4.6 years.
100 TByte drives should be available in 9.2 years.
1 PByte drives should be available in 13.8 years.
1 EByte drives should be available in 27.8 years.
1 ZByte drives should be available in 41.4 years.
1 YByte drives should be available in 55.2 years.

Of course using all the data is going to take a lot of computing horsepower. Like maybe a supercomputer.

I have just the thing for you...

Sign up NOW (the deadline is January 31st) to have a chance at receiving:

• A Cray CX1 desk-side supercomputer
• One of 10 Premium MSDN Visual Studio Professional subscriptions
• One of 10 Xbox 360 consoles

Yeah, it's old news. But I'm liking it on my computer at work so I'm about to install it at home. Get it here.

Someone with more money than they know what to do with is considering how to "solve the gun problem" in Milwaukee. I would have thought he could just take his gun to a good gunsmith or, since he has so much money, just buy a new gun. But that isn't what he has in mind:

His initial plan was to attack the problem at the source. Zilber wanted to target an infamous gun shop in the Milwaukee area with a pretty shocking record of being a place where too many legally purchased handguns eventually ended up in the hands of the bad guys.

So many of its guns fell into wrong hands, the place is more like a public nuisance than a legitimate business.

"I figured that if I bought the place and shut it down, that might eliminate the problem," said Zilber. But he realized that wasn't a viable solution; somebody would likely just open up another gun shop to serve the customers.

If it took more than a fraction of a second to come to this conclusion the clock speed on his CPU must be running way below 4.77 MHz (the original IBM PC clock rate). That the journalist even bothered to write it down shows his CPU is similarly handicapped. Further confirmation of this was another couple of paragraphs into the article:

Zilber chuckled when I mentioned comedian Chris Rock, who once said the key to gun control was making all guns free but charging an exorbitant amount - as high as $5,000 - for a single bullet.

That might make people think twice about firing a gun.

"That's pretty good," said Zilber. He didn't dismiss it out of hand. "You could buy an ammunition company and do it that way."

Sometimes, it takes bold thinking to pull off the impossible.

First off, he got the Chris Rock quote completely wrong. The point of Rock's comment was that if each bullet cost $5000 then you would be surround by people wanting to steal them. So if you fired the gun there wouldn't be innocent people that were shot.

Second, the buying of an ammunition company and shutting it down doesn't different from doing the same thing to a gun shop--which he already dismissed as an ineffective idea.

I can't figure these guys out. The only conclusion I can come up with is these people have some sort of mental problems.

Economics has been on a lot of people's minds recently. Microsoft had a lay-off last week--the first ever that was motivated by external economics. I know two other gun bloggers that also dodged "the axe" in the last couple of months. I've had people approach me wanting information on buying guns and bulk food in a similar manner as I did just before Y2K. Federal interest rates are effectively zero. That has never happened before in my lifetime. Another economic indicator that we are in unusual circumstances is the money supply, or as Kevin put it, It's Official: You May Now Panic. When you look at that graph note that the doubling of the money supply in the last year (yes that difficult to see spike is real, not just an artifact of the graphic) is unprecedented in the last 100 years. I attended a speech (if you want to call it that) by economist Paul Krugman yesterday--the auditorium was packed. The first hundred people or so received a free copy of his new book -- The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008. It's so new it is copyright 2009 and had to come directly from the printer. I have a copy in my hands now.

This blog post is mostly to capture my notes from listening to Krugman yesterday. I'm formulating a big blog post in my mind and hope to post it this weekend.

If in italics below it means it was a direct quotes (as best as I could capture).

• Not as bad as the 30s--yet.
• It is as bad as the early 80s.
• This isn't your fathers recession. This is your grandfathers recession.
• All of the 1st world is falling at approximately the same rate.
• The problem with the stimulus bill is that it isn't big enough.
• A trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money. A twist on Dirksen's quote which got a laugh.
• I'm not feeling panicky but uneasy.
• I thought I was intellectually prepared.
• It's a whole lot harder to head off a second great depression than we thought.
• The trouble with a big tax cut is that they aren't spent. Tax cuts are a very bad tool for this type of problem. See also this blog post by Krugman.
• Tax cuts made permanent won't work because we can't afford them.
• We should seize troubled assets, clean them up, and then sell them. Just take the hit. "We" meaning the U.S. government.
• There are no safe options. He was responding to a comment from someone about the risks of massive government spending--which Krugman is advocating. He is of the opinion that the stimulus package should be twice the size as the one proposed and passed yesterday.
• The thing I'm most worried about is Kindelberg's law: When given two options we will pursue both half-heartedly. I must have the spelling wrong on "Kindelberg". I can't find any such "law" on the net.

I've read the introduction and the first chapter of his new book. He says socialism is dead and it's obvious to everyone except a few extremists who have their heads in the sand. But in his talk yesterday he said that "universal health care" would be a good thing to spend some of the two trillion in government spending he is proposing. His attitude was that "universal health care" was obviously a good thing. You could tell from his tone and the words he used that it wasn't even open to debate with him. I have to wonder if maybe he is one of the extremists he was talking about in his book. See also Phil's post from day before yesterday.

This isn't your father's recession. This is your grandfather's recession.

Paul Krugman
January 29, 2009
Speaking to the Microsoft Political Action Committee in Redmond, Washington.
[I attended this presentation and I'll have more on his talk later. He is also an active blogger -- The Conscience of a Liberal.--Joe]

Via Ry I discovered a much needed proposed change to Washington State law. Currently it is legal to purchase and possess a firearm noise suppressor but it is illegal to use it. To use it you must go to less repressive state such as Idaho or Oregon. This bill would make it legal to use the suppressor.

I have no idea if it has a chance of passing but I strongly support it. If you live in WA contact your representatives and let them know you support it too.

I think it's time people took liberty seriously.

Alan Gura
Lead attorney in District of Columbia v. Heller
June 2008 interview with Nick Gillespie of reason.tv.
[Based on the results of the most recent election I have to conclude people have not taken liberty seriously and furthermore it may be that we have past the time where it will be possible to convince people to take liberty seriously. Appearances are that most people believe government is the solution to the problems created by government. That's very scary stuff.--Joe]

I just had a cancellation for Position 43 for Boomershoot 2009.

Due to a minor bug in my software for on-line entries after moving to a new hosting provider I won't be making the position available for at least a day or so. I'll post something here when the site is ready for accepting new entries.

If guns are an extension of a man's penis, does that mean that men who support gun control secretly want to have vaginas?

Crotalus
January 23, 4:24 PM
In the comments to For the children...
[I had planned to never knowingly use the same QOTD as any other blogger within a month of them. Because this is such a good quote and such a good refutation of that tired attempt to derail a factual debate I am making an exception. H/T to SayUncle and Firehand.--Joe]

Drivers licenses (some exception apply, see comments), marriages, and divorces are recognized in all fifty states. Concealed carry licenses should be recognized as well. Full Faith and Credit, right? It isn't that way in practice and it just one more example of the extensive bigotry (and here) against gun owners.

This isn't the first time someone has tried to do something about it but it is nice to see another effort made:

Saying Americans need a "fighting chance" to confront outlaws in a violent society, U.S. Rep Cliff Stearns has gone on the offensive to promote his bill to allow concealed-weapons permit-holders to cross state lines without fear of having their constitutional rights curtailed by another state's laws.

With President Obama being opposed to gun ownership even in the home, let alone in public, and all the anti-gun people in positions of leadership in the house the chances of this even making it out of committee let alone being passed are zero. But it might be useful to get the congress critters to show their colors in time for the next election.

I believe I have an answer to Joe's "Just one Question".

As Joe states;

There are three possible answers to this question.

1. "I don't know." In which case my response is, "Come back to the debate when you can answer 'Yes' or 'No'."
2. "No." In which case my response is, "Then you should be advocating the repeal of ALL gun control laws and I don't want to hear a single anti-freedom word from you on this topic again."
3. "Yes and here is my demonstration."

My answer is; "Yes and here is my demonstration."

In response to Clinton era attacks on gun rights, I and many other Americans decided to buy our first guns, or to get back into shooting after a long hiatus.  Gun dealers often credited Clinton (and his administration) for being "salesman of the year" for several years running.  The atmosphere at gun shows was very energetic, and the NRA's membership got a large bump as people got guns and got involved in pro second amendment activism.  The NRA and other groups also started pushing harder for gun handling safety as it became clear that our right to keep and bear arms was seriously threatened.  This all falls under what we'll call "backlash".

The backlash against actual gun restriction resulted in more gun owners, more participation in shooting activities, more participation in pro 2A activism, more emphasis on safety and sefl defense, and many more states passing "shall issue" concealed carry laws.

More armed citizens, more of them carrying concealed, and more emphasis on safety and home security, and presto-- violent crime has been going down in the areas where gun ownership has increased, and gun accidents have been on the decline for years, even with the increased gun ownership.

Hence, I submit that, due to public backlash, the average person has indeed been made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons.

The twist lies in the fact that guns weren't simply banned except in a few small pockets in the U.S..  The question pertains to "restrictions" and not to full prohibition.  In those places where all guns were effectively outlawed, crime continued to rampage, but in places where we could still legally get and keep guns we became safer.  Semi-auto rifles and carbines (the so-called "assault weapons") were purchased in the largest numbers too, because those were the ones most threatened (my first gun purchase ever was a Glock 20 with a 15 round magazine, because I knew the magazine restriction was coming.  I then bought several more 15 round magazines "while I still could").  I maintain that the very large increase in interest in AR-15s and AKs, et al ("Evil Black Rifles" or EBRs) is in part due to the Clinton era restrictions.

Today, the Clinton era concerns are back.  The Obama groupies are wanting to pass more gun restrictions, and as a result, people are buying up guns, "while we still can".  Most pointedly, they're buying up semi-auto rifles and carbines, semi-auto pistols, full capacity magazines and folding or collapsible stocks, as those are all in the most threatened category.  We can only hope for more change in the form of backlash.  Do your part to make America even safer; encourage your friends and neighbors to get their first guns, join the NRA, and become active "while they still can".

At a meeting this morning we were discussing a possible name for a new product. It was suggested that since we already have SkyDrive and SkyMarket (with rumors of SkyLine and SkyBox), maybe we should name the project SkyNet. The consensus was there were probably names less threatening to the warm and fuzzies.

Details of the test, with pictures, are here. Ry stopped by the house yesterday and I got to handle the test target and we talked and speculated about the details of the test results. The next time I go back to Idaho I think I will borrow his target and do the same test with 30-06 AP.

Mexican Carry and David Young's On Second Opinion have both been added to my RSS feed reader.

Welcome to the gun blogger community!

Sebastian points out the deception in regards to the lead shot ban proposal in Washington state. Mexican Carry gives us details, sarcasm, and what is probably the real reason.

At least five of the eight state declarations of rights were specifically, in the words of the state constitutions themselves, part of their state constitutions. An obvious error of this type from such a large assemblage of professional academic historians is unacceptable in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. The nature of this error is not just an embarrassment for the historians. It brings into serious question the factual basis of the historians' Heller amicus brief supporting Washington DC's gun control laws because it indicates that these historians are not overly familiar with the relevant period sources their assertions relate to.

David E. Young
January 25, 2009
The Root Cause of Never-ending Second Amendment Dispute
[The errors the anti-gun people bring to the debate are so numerous and so persistent despite being corrected numerous times I find it difficult to believe they are innocent mistakes or even willful ignorance. In many cases I'm certain it's deliberate deception. And in some cases it's an admitted deception on their part.--Joe]

Properly read, the Second Amendment prevents unreasonable federal encroachment on the ability of the States to maintain, arm, and call forth their militias. It does not handicap the States’ exercise of their police powers to regulate dangerous instrumentalities, including firearms, to fulfill their equally central role of protecting the lives, liberty, and property of their citizens.

Jeffrey A. Lamken
January 2008
Brief supporting petitioners of amici curiae American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Ceasefire NJ, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Clifton Kirkpatrick in his capacity as the stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Educational Fund to stop Gun Violence, Freedom States Alliance, American Jewish Congress, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Gray Panthers, Gunfreekids.org, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, Illinoisvictims.org, Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence, Jenna Foundation for Nonviolence, inc., Karla Zimmerman Memorial Foundation, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Council of Jewish Women, New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, DC Statehood Green Party, North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Education Fund, Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, Renée Olumbuni Rondeau Peace Foundation, Root (Reaching Out to Others Together) Inc., Union for Reform Judaism, Virginia Center for Public Safety, Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, and certain individual victims and families of victims of gun violence.
[Wrong. You lose. First clue--people have rights. States have powers. The words say, "...the right of the people..." Words have meanings and in a document as important the constitution of a nation each of those words were debated and very carefully chosen by very smart people who said exactly what they wanted to say. The first clue for people reading Lamken that he was full of it should be that you don't protect the liberty of a citizen by taking a liberty away.--Joe]

This is probably safe for work but it's on the edge.

Yes, my blog was down from about noon on Thursday until early this morning. My hosting provider had (and still has some) problems with a couple of their DNS servers. I really need to move to another provider.

It also affected boomershoot.org, joehuffman.org, lewistonpistol.org, lcwildlife.org, scottfamilyplace.org, jameshs.org, kimhs.org, xeniajoy.com, and email to recipients at those domains. If you didn't get a response from email to people at those domains you might want to try sending the email again. The sites in italics above are still experiencing problems so you might wait another few hours before retrying on them.

Sorry about that.

In the future people are welcome to use one of my alternate email addresses such as JoeH AT[please no spam] modernballistics.com which is through another provider.

Update: The domains are coming are slowing coming back online. I'm removing the italics as I verify they are working again.

Update2: I've moved xeniajoy.com to the new provider and boomershoot.org and boomershoot.com are in the process. Please don't send email to the boomershoot address for about 24 hours (8:00 AM January 26 PST) as I work out any bugs that might show up and the new IP addresses filter through the Internet.

Update3: Grrr... the new provider had been working fine for months with ModernBallistics.com and WhenProphecyFails.info. Now it is down after I moved XeniaJoy.com and all the Boomershoot sites over.

I'm not an editor but I play one on the Internet.

From the Washington Post:

Officials said the report reflected Obama's desire for greater transparency in the bill-writing process, as he sought to fully map out what he plans to do with the $825 trillion package.

Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers-- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.

Edward Abbey
[And what institution is more hierchical than the U.S. government?--Joe]

Leave it up to New Yorkers to defeat those who support the constitution and elect those who seek to destroy it.

Michael Gaddy
Buy, Buy, Buy
January 5, 2008
[As pointed out by Clayton, Jeff, SayUncle, and Sebastian, this is not always true so -1 point for Gaddy. He still gets a 99% on his essay.--Joe]

First I would like to draw your attention to SayUncles post that we have an extraordinary number of news stories about Obama's inauguration. I would like to further point out the following:

There were one or more songs written just for this inauguration. There were "Inauguration Cupcakes" in my company cafeteria!

It was a "religious experience" for a lot of people. Of course they overlook that "Barack Hussein Obama" can be rewritten as "Barack Hussei Nobama" which is obviously a synonym for "666".

I think I need to buy more ammo and explosives.

Microsoft announced layoffs this morning. I haven't been into work yet but my email account still works and from reading email from upper management my division is one of the areas that will continue to receive "strong support".

While we opposed the Court's decision to overrule 70 years of precedent and over 200 years of Second Amendment history, gun violence prevention advocates praised Section III of Justice Antonin Scalia's decision to find a wide variety of gun control regulations "presumptively lawful" under the Constitution. Such laws include restrictions against carrying concealed weapons, laws against gun possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws against taking guns into "sensitive places" such as schools and government buildings, and laws that restrict "dangerous and unusual" weapons. Indeed, Justice Scalia stated that his list of "presumptively lawful" regulations comprised only examples, and was "not exhaustive."

Paul Helmke
Brady Campaign president
January 21, 2009
OPINION: New Day Dawning for Gun Violence Prevention
[From reading his gloating the only thing the 2A protects in the right to keep a firearm in your home for self-defense. Concealed carry elimination is clearly one of his goals. Registration is almost for certain is one of his goals. And if I squint just a little as I read his article I can even see the desire to limit people to owning just one gun.

Molôn Labé, Paul, Molôn Labé.--Joe]

Via reader Roger I became aware we have this proposal to make a change in the archery hunting regulations:

WAC 232-12-054  Archery requirements--Archery special use
permits.  (1) Rules pertaining to all archery:
 (a) It is unlawful for any person to carry or have in his
possession any firearm while in the field archery hunting, during
an archery season specified for that area, except for modern handguns
carried for personal protection.  Modern handguns cannot be used to
hunt big game or dispatch wounded big game during an archery, big
game hunting season.

The underlined portion is the proposed change. It sounds like a good idea to me. Why should you give up your right to defend yourself with a handgun just because you are doing some archery hunting?

Some might ask if I know this guy who is sort of a neighbor of mine:

A 65-year-old Spokane man has been ordered held in custody on federal charges of illegally possessing automatic weapons and illegally storing explosives in a Bellevue commercial storage shed while agents investigate how he came to possess a huge military-grade arsenal that included grenade launchers, machine guns and plastic explosives.

Ronald Struve, heavyset and bearded, appeared in Seattle before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler on Tuesday after being extradited from Spokane, where he was arrested Jan. 7 during a raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

In four searches in Bellevue and Spokane, agents seized 37 machine guns, 12 silencers, two grenade launchers, more than 60 high-explosive grenades, several pounds of military-grade C-4 plastic explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

...

One box contained 54 M406 high-explosive grenade rounds — 40-millimeter shells that can be launched from a shoulder-fired weapon to distances of 300 yards or more, according to military specification.

Its explosion creates a "kill radius" of up to 16 feet from the point of impact and injuries dozens of yards beyond that.

Agents also found several other anti-personnel grenades, including a Korean War-era "Chicom" stick grenade.

In another box, agents found six blocks of C-4 plastic explosives.

Agents counted 32 apparent machine guns, including M-14s, M-16s, and several "Sten guns," a mass-produced submachine gun known for its high rate of fire — upward of 500 rounds per minute.

They also found nine silencers and the parts for several others, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition and various other military hardware.

"All of the military explosive items seized are considered contraband and cannot be possessed by anyone other than the military," Wallace wrote in a search warrant. "The majority of the items seized appeared to be stolen military explosive materials."

Spokane isn't that far away from my home in Moscow and I think I could literally throw a rock from the front door of my office in Redmond and have it land in Bellevue. But this guy has never appeared on my radar of "people of the gun" in the circles I run in.

He shouldn't have been storing the stuff in an ordinary storage unit or be in possession of stolen property. That's just wrong and he should "pay the price" for that. But other than that he's being charged with a victimless crime. Had he purchased those items on the open market (as they should be) and had he stored them in a proper manner all would have been fine.

So, for the most part, all this effort and money being spent on investigation and prosecution is because the government has repressive laws on the books. Sort of like laws against sex toys. Except sex toys aren't constitutionally protected like "arms" are. [Updated with the following sentence.] Except while protected in general by the constitution, sex toys aren't a specifically enumerated constitution right like "arms" are.

The "prosperous" divested after hearing:

"this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."

Speed | 01.20.09 - 4:47 pm |
Speed is quoting President Obama's inauguration speech after noting the stock market crash yesterday.
[I may have this slightly wrong but as Ry told me the other day, "Difficult times are never dull."--Joe]

This is actually old news but I just ran across it reading an old Bruce Schneier post. Here is the story from last September in New Scientist:

Last year, New Scientist revealed that the US Department of Homeland Security is developing a system designed to detect "hostile thoughts" in people walking through border posts, airports and public places. The DHS says recent tests prove it works.

Project Hostile Intent as it was called aimed to help security staff choose who to pull over for a gently probing interview - or more.

Commentators slated the idea that sensors could spot people up to no good from their pulse rate, breathing, skin temperature, or fleeting facial expressions. One likened it to the "pre-crime" units that predict criminal behaviour in the movie Minority Report.

FOXNews has more.

Basically they are doing remote lie detector type measurement without the subject being aware they are being scanned and implying intent from these measurements. Given that lie detectors aren't particularly reliable I don't think this will be very effective either. But still, one has to ask, "At what point does it become an unwarranted search and will the courts care?"

Notice anything wrong with this message?

I recently purchased a mini-14 scout mount and the rear U - shaped mounting bracket which secures the mount to the barrel seems to have the threads on one side either cut crooked or damaged.  Is it possible to get another bracket and screws?

Thank you,

Neil

 

Neil (last name)

(e-mail address at Earthlink dot com)

 

No man can bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.

Thomas Jefferson
[I wonder what Jefferson would have said about someone who, essentially, had no reputation going into the Presidency.--Joe]

I updated my Brady Campaign Score for state gun laws correlations. Previously I used FBI UCR data from 2005 with Brady Scores from 2007. My present results use only 2007 data and added correlations for the total violent crime rate, murder, and rape. The spreadsheet is here but the interesting part is as follows:

Remember:

The correlation coefficient always takes a value between -1 and 1, with 1 or -1 indicating perfect correlation (all points would lie along a straight line in this case). A positive correlation indicates a positive association between the variables (increasing values in one variable correspond to increasing values in the other variable), while a negative correlation indicates a negative association between the variables (increasing values is one variable correspond to decreasing values in the other variable). A correlation value close to 0 indicates no association between the variables.

For the most part there is no correlation between Brady Scores and the crime data. The exceptions are there does appear to be a moderate association between good Brady Scores and a decrease in rape and slight increase in the chances that if someone is murdered they will be murdered with a knife in Brady approved states.

The rape data point is a mystery to me. Most men have enough of a physical advantage on the average woman that having "easy access" to a gun would not seem to be an important part of forcing a female victim to comply. If "easy access" to guns were to enable any crime I would think it would be murder or even violent crime in general. But that does not seem to be the case.

Also of interest is that the FBI has footnotes explaining that Illinois didn't supply much data and that for some unexplained reason Florida was not included in Table 20.

Any speculation, other than random coincidence, on why there is a negative correlation between good Brady Scores and rape rates?

THE PEOPLE: The people is a beast of muddy brain that knows not its own strength.

Tommaso Campanella
[This could relate to many things in the present day. I'm thinking of what the people did a couple months ago and of which everyone will soon learn the unintended consequences of their muddied brain actions.--Joe]

Yesterday Barb and I went on drive. This Thursday Barb has a class in Bellingham so we drove up there ahead of time to make sure she can find it without difficulty during morning traffic. It was a nice day and it was a pleasant drive and we got a chance to talk about a bunch of stuff rather than sitting at our respective desks with our hobbies.

Just prior to leaving we stopped at Joe's Sports, Outdoor, and More (no relation). I was looking for some .45 ACP brass so I can reload for my Gun Blog 45. Midway is out of stock. The shelf with the brass was nearly empty with only a couple bags with some 7mm brass hanging from a hook. The powder and primer shelves were nearly empty as well. Hmmm...

On the way back from Bellingham we stopped at Kesselring Gun Shop in Burlington. The parking lot was FULL. And this is on the same weekend that WAC had their big show in Puyallup! I found a narrow spot to park between a building and a pickup that was parked such that it was blocking a private road. We went inside to find the store was packed. Every aisle was crowded. There was just barely enough room to move between all the people. I found the brass I was looking for at a reasonable price (considering), paid for it and we left.

One has to wonder if we had put that much money and effort into defeating Obama in November would we have succeeded? Being reactive seldom is better than proactive but that just isn't the way human nature works. And the money gun owners are spending on firearms, ammo, and accessories could have gone into the election process and ended up in the hands of mainstream media who are one of our worst enemies and instead of into tools of freedom in our own hands.

In a functioning market, vendors producing superior products would take share from vendors producing inferior products. Today that's simply not possible because the cost of the most effective channel for distribution, shipping as the default browser with new computers, for everyone except the OS vendor is prohibitively high.

Asa Dotzler
Mozilla's director of community development
January 17, 2009
competition is good (see also EU: Microsoft 'shields' IE from competition -- Web too important to let one company dominate browser market, says Opera CEO)
[Taking this quote out of context is a bit unfair and he does address some of the issues I have concerns about. But the bottom line is there is much more to the story. "Superior products", in his mind, is defined differently than the market has defined it. And unless there is government inference (or other application of force in the market place) then the "superior product" has, in fact, dominated the marketplace. The (relatively) free market has defined "superior product" in such a way that ease of distribution has played a major factor. In order words Microsoft is competing in the distribution channel and the market has spoken and said, "The Microsoft distribution channel is better."

That Microsoft exploited their superior distribution channel and the customers responded favorably to this offering is not justification for some government thugs (the EU) to declare MS a law breaker and demand fines or that they offer free access of that distribution channel to their competition. Those competitors need to build their own distribution channel and compete in that market. Until they successfully do that they have a big hole in their offering because the distribution channel is part of the feature set.

Microsoft management will, almost for certain, be more "responsible to the stockholders" than I would. If it were up to me I would be strongly inclined to tell the EU they can write their own damn software. MS would refuse to allow any of their software be used in any EU country until the EU thugs making these decisions are all in prison or selling pencils and apples on the street corners to see what the free market is really all about.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but I am not in a position of management and my opinion in no way reflects that of my employer.--Joe]

The Brady Law is still working to block handgun sales to convicted felons, domestic abusers, the mentally ill and other prohibited purchasers, according to a report released today by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 1997 alone, 69,000 people who were prohibited by law from buying handguns were denied access to these lethal weapons due to background checks. In the four years since the Brady Law was implemented, an estimated 242,000 ineligible purchasers have been stopped from buying handguns.

Sarah Brady
June 21, 1998
Sarah Brady Statement on Justice Dept. Report on Brady Law Success
[I find it exceedingly telling that the Brady's measure their success in terms of the number of people denied the purchase of a firearm. I contend the only valid measurement of the success of a restriction on firearms is whether the average person is made safer by that restriction. In other words the Brady measure ignores safety and celebrates the blocking of people from exercising a specific enumerated civil right.--Joe]

When it comes to turning off lights around the house, my wife is a nag (not as a member of the National Association of Gals, but one who incessantly nitpicks on her own).  "You're wasting electricity" she will say, approximately thirty eight thousand times per day (give or take).  Similarly, the political nags (not NAGs) are ordering us to use CF lights instead of the tungsten filament jobs, saying we're destroying the very planet with our light bulbs.

If we cast aside all arguments about rights and liberty (and if we have a chance to toy with other people as a means of boosting our self esteem, why wouldn't we?) there is the issue of home heating during the cooler months.  I gathered my family together, and explained this to them in terms anyone can understand;

If you have a 100 Watt light going full time inside a heated living space, that's 100 fewer Watts, on average, that the home heating system has to put out. You have shifted 100 Watts of your energy use from the heater to the light bulb.  Your total usage is exactly the same.  Same goes if you leave the refrigerator open a little longer, or the television on all night.  If you're heating that space anyway, it makes no significant difference.

Say I have a 10 KW electric furnace.  I could hook up 100 light bulbs, each rated at 100 Watts, through a relay to my thermostat (assuming I had the proper wiring) thereby taking all the heating load off the furnace and placing it on the light bulbs.  Will my heating bill change?  Maybe, and maybe not.  It would depend on the distribution of the lights within the house, the quality of the insulation on my furnace duct work in the cold space under the house, and a few other minor variables.  Maybe I'd save a few pennies, and maybe I'd loose a few pennies.  If you have a gas furnace the situation is still the same-- you're just trading back and forth between gas and electricity, but your total energy usage is going to be about the same.

The situation is completely different in the summer of course.  The waste heat from your TV, fridge, etc., is of no use to you.  If you're running an air conditioner, anything else in your house that produces heat is causing the AC to work harder.

In both cases, insulation, windows, door seals, and the structure's orientation and exposure to the sun will overwhelm the other issues.

So we can stop nitpicking each other.

David has the details on what he declares a Win For Our Side!

A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Montana and that remains within the borders of Montana is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce. It is declared by the legislature that those items have not traveled in interstate commerce. This section applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured in Montana from basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state. Generic and insignificant parts that have other manufacturing or consumer product applications are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition, and their importation into Montana and incorporation into a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured in Montana does not subject the firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition to federal regulation. It is declared by the legislature that basic materials, such as unmachined steel and unshaped wood, are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition and are not subject to congressional authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition under interstate commerce as if they were actually firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition. The authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce in basic materials does not include authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition made in Montana from those materials. Firearms accessories that are imported into Montana from another state and that are subject to federal regulation as being in interstate commerce do not subject a firearm to federal regulation under interstate commerce because they are attached to or used in conjunction with a firearm in Montana.

2009 Montana Legislature
HOUSE BILL NO. 246
[I also like the part where it directs the Montana attorney general to "defend in full" any "Montana citizen whom the government of the United States attempts to prosecute" for violation of federal law concerning a firearm manufactured and retained within Montana. It also provides this protection for firearms with bores up to 1.5 inches (38.1mm) in diameter.--Joe]

Recently there has been some crowing about North Dakota having only two murders in 2008 (and neither were committed with a gun):

• Gun Murders and Gun Laws
• But guns cause murder!
• Via SayUncle: Congratulations to North Dakota; Brady Campaign? Not so much.
• VPC: Epic Fail
• Despite Being A Top Gun-Owning State, North Dakota Recorded Exactly Two Murders In 2008

And of course North Dakota has a very poor score as far as the Brady Campaign is concerned.

While the claims made above are true this isn't the whole story. It's an example of cherry picking the data and is very risky if you are a scientist.

Using the FBI Uniform Crime Report (2005) and the Brady Campaign Scores on the states (2007) I came up with some interesting information. Starting with the FBI data I added the Brady Scores and added some additional rows and columns. The result is here*.

The bottom line is that the assuming someone is murdered then correlation between the Brady Score and a particular method of murder are as follows:

• Weapon:Correlation
• Firearm:0.009
• Knife:0.215
• Weapon other than firearm (including knives):-0.014
• Hands, fists, feet, etc. (including being pushed):-0.180 0.007

Correlation is a number between -1.0 and 1.0, inclusive. What the above numbers mean is that a good Brady score does not mean there is a reduction in the the percentage of murders committed with firearms. It may mean there is a slight increase in the percentage of murders committed with knives and a decrease in the percentage of unarmed murders in Brady favored states. Another interesting set of data would be to compare the total violent crime rate to Brady Scores. I have done that in the past with the result of discovering there was essentially no correlation. Perhaps I'll have time to look at that this weekend sometime.

Update: As noted in the comments I made a mistake on one of the formulas in the spreadsheet. This only affected the correlation of the "Hands, fists, feet, etc." murders with the Brady Score. Instead of there being a slight negative correlation there is instead essentially zero correlation with Brady Scores. I have updated the spreadsheet accordingly.

This dramatic decrease in gun violence debunks the gun lobby's myth that gun control doesn't work.  Common sense laws can and have worked. The gun lobby claims that 'an armed society is a polite society', when, in fact, the opposite is true. These reports show that fewer guns on our streets means less crime and less violence.

While we are grateful for this news, we know that more can and must be done. We have eliminated a number of sources for crime guns but loopholes still exist which allow criminals to ‘lie and buy.’ We need to institute a national one-gun-a-month law to reduce gun trafficking to criminals even further. We need to close the gun show loophole which allows so-called ‘private collectors’ at gun shows to sell their wares to anyone without doing a criminal background check.

Sarah Brady
Chair of Handgun Control, Inc
January 4, 1999
YEAR-END CRIME STATISTICS SHOW GUN LAWS WORK, SAYS SARAH BRADY
[Note the year--1999. Also my next post will be of interest to supporters of this claim of hers.--Joe]

Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 37.3, the American Bar Association ("ABA"), as amicus curiae, respectfully submits that the decision of the divided panel of the D.C. Circuit should be reversed, because the decision improperly rejected the long and consistent line of precedent on which this Nation has built its entire matrix of gun regulation.

William H. Neukom
January 11, 2008
President American Bar Association
Brief of the American Bar Association as amicus curiae supporting petitioners.
[Similar things could have been said about passage of the 13^th Amendment or any number of things such as allowing women to vote and laws against using birth control. Hence his justification for rejecting the individual rights viewpoint of the D.C. Circuit carries no weight.

But, assuming his characterization of the nations gun laws is true, then one should reasonable expect the "entire matrix of gun regulation" to collapse under the Heller decision. I wish that were true. I think it's possible but unlikely. We will have to play our game very, very, well in order to even approximate this.

Based on these two items which Neukum apparently got wrong I must conclude that Neukom doesn't know what he is talking about and his opinion, in general, should be severely discounted.--Joe]

[T]he NCVS [National Crime Victimization Survey] and researchers have concluded that women who offer no resistance are 2.5 times more likely to be seriously injured than women who resist their attackers with a gun. While the overall injury rate for both men and women was 30.2%, only 12.8% of those using a firearm for self-protection were injured. Subjective data from the 1994 NCVS reveals that 65 percent of victims felt that self-defense improved their situation, while only 9 percent thought that fighting back caused them greater harm.

M. Carol Bambery
Brief of amicae curiae 126 women state legislators and academics in support of respondent.
[John Fogh said it a little more succinctly with, 'Nothing says, "Please don't rape me." like multiple jacketed hollowpoints.' But some people prefer to see the details.--Joe]

Porn is not meant to be educational. It's meant to be amusement.

Nina Hartley (NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!)
Via Jenny Block who has been twittering about the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo live from Las Vega.

I have to wonder if we started dropping these devices from airplanes by the millions into certain mid-Eastern countries if we couldn't eradicate radical Islam within a generation:

One end of the canister-type devices sized to fit easily in one's lap is made of soft 'Haptic' synthetic material akin to that used for nipples of baby bottles.

The faux-flesh wall is slotted to allow the insertion of a body part of a man's choosing.

RealTouch devices connect to computers with USB cables and synchronise with adult movies streamed online so the inner workings replicate what a fellow might be feeling were he to be the man in the film.

'You watch the action on a screen and a signal is sent to the box to simulate what is happening,' Mr Drysdale said.

Rich men in some Islamic countries have many wives unbalancing the normal male/female ratio of approximately 50/50. Sex outside of marriage is forbidden. And women who defy (or are even suspected of defying) this are severally punished. Hence significant numbers of young men have no good sexual outlet. Their religion promises those that die in Jihad go to heaven with 72 virgins for eternity. This is a powerful motivator for many men of warrior age to seek battle. If we could significantly reduce or eliminate this motivation there would be less violent conflict with these radicals.

We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.

Henry David Thoreau
Walden Chapter 11. Higher Laws
[Thanks to Shyam who suggested I read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan who used this quote in his book. I just finished the book about 90 minutes ago. It's a good book. Perhaps a bit slow and wordy but opinion that might be because I grew up on a farm and have hunted and gathered food as well. A lot of the material covered was already fairly well known to me.

If we could but get the teaching of gun safety and shooting in our schools for all children to learn as they learn to drive automobiles we would be able to win the battle for gun rights. But then if it were taught in the schools that would mean we had already won. So we much teach the children ourselves outside the schools. Still it's not an impossible task. The improved communication channel of the Internet favor the educated rather than the ignorant and no matter how repressive the anti-gun bigots it's hard for them to repress our speech, or accomplishments, or recreation, and our way of life without revealing themselves for who they are. They are timid creatures afraid of confronting reality and willing to use the iron hand of government to crush the imaginary demons they manufacture in their narrow little minds from ordinary people who happen to own a gun.--Joe]

This is bizarre, but it's New Jersey so what do you expect? The guns were legally owned but in a plea bargain the owner paid a small fine and the guns were confiscated:

Goldstein was arrested in March after Northfield police searched his Mount Vernon Avenue home after receiving a report of suspicious objects in his basement. The objects turned out to be old hand grenades and some fuses, but the discovery of a 9mm Uzi submachine gun and what police believed to be the sawed-off shotgun led to Goldstein's arrest and extradition from Pennsylvania.

Possession of an assault weapon is a third-degree crime in New Jersey, carrying a sentence of as much as five years in prison.

Attorney Amy Weintrob said Goldstein's Uzi was purchased and registered with the state in 1989 - one year before state law changed to criminalize Uzis as assault weapons.

"The registration was on file with the state of New Jersey," Weintrob said, "and the Prosecutor's Office verified the information, and therefore possession of the Uzi was not illegal."

Housel said Goldstein did voluntarily register the Uzi under its old classification as a rifle in 1989, but after the law changed in 1990 there was a "grace period for (some) individuals who met certain criteria" to register their Uzis under the new classification as an assault weapon. Goldstein's Uzi was never registered as an assault weapon, Housel said.

"Relying on less-than-complete information from the NRA," Housel said, "(Goldstein) thought the prior registration was legitimate. Looking at whether there was criminal intent, it's reasonable that he could have believed the Uzi was registered. The decision by (Assistant Prosecutor David) Ruffenach to do the plea agreement the way he did was a reasonable one."

Regarding the shotgun, Weintrob said that she and an investigator went to the Northfield Police Department to measure the gun in front of officers. The result, she said, was that the gun was measured at 26.5 inches long, while to be legally considered "sawed-off" it had to be less than 26 inches long overall and less than 18 inches from breech to muzzle.

"That's when they realized it was legal," Weintrob said of the Northfield police, who she said were the lead investigators on the case. "The prosecutors realized they couldn't proceed on that charge."

...

Goldstein ended up pleading guilty to two amended charges of disorderly conduct resulting in a combined fine of $127. The weapons are in the custody of the Northfield police and could be either destroyed or sold, James said.

"It's a good resolution for everybody," Weintrob said. "Mr. Goldstein will never have those weapons again."

Emphasis on that last line is mine. It's good for everybody that Goldstein will never have those (legal) weapons again? Goldstein's attorney, Amy Weintrob, as well as all the people representing the government in this case are bigots.

I received an email from Para USA a few minutes ago. They are preparing for SHOT Show and will be distributing a new catalog at the show. The page 34 of the catalog looks like this:

You can download the 2009 Para USA catalog off their website at this link http://www.para-usa.com/new/product_catalog.php.

You might have noticed the video link on the image to a web page and video of the gun blogger event. Yeah, it doesn't work for me either.

Scott found a user interface bug. That is fixed now. There was a bug in the "Delete All Data" link that I found and fixed as well.

I have also created a new topic tag for this blog "Ballistics". I still have to add this tag to old posts but I should get that done sometime today.

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.

Edward Abbey
[I would present some specific examples but I think the generics of "government" and "central committee" should be sufficient inspiration for you to generate your own lists.--Joe]

I added another feature to Modern Ballistics for the Field. It now gives you the approximate maximum range for your bullet under the given environmental conditions.

My primary route to and from Idaho from my hardened underground bunker in the Seattle area is via I-90 which goes over Snoqualmie Pass. The pass has been closed since, I think, Tuesday evening. My alternate route over the Cascades is via Stevens and then Blewett Passes. Currently Stevens is open but Blewett is closed.

And as Phil pointed out yesterday I can't go south to Portland and then up the Columbia because of flooding on I-5. Plus it adds about four hours to my trip which makes it impractical for a weekend visit to Idaho.

Crews are supposedly working around the clock to clear Snoqualmie pass and repair the flooding damage to I-90 in the vicinity of the pass. I may be able to get over by Friday night but I won't know until at least mid-morning.

For those of you that have a personal interest because you or a friend need to get over Snoqualmie on a regular basis I've created a tiny URL for the text based version (best for cell phone browsers) that is easy to remember http://www.tinyurl.com/snoqpass.

Update: Snoqualmie Pass is now (15:30 Friday) open in both directions. Other than some flooding and missing sections of a few roads near home in Idaho, which shouldn't really be a problem, things look like a "Go". Follow my Twitters this evening if you find yourself so bored with your own life that you think mine is more interesting than yours.

The long-standing Sci-Fi prophecy of intelligent machines rising up to enslave and destroy the human race has disappeared from modern culture.

As far as I can tell, this coincided with the release of MS-DOS.

Dom De Vitto
January 28, 2008 12:42 PM
Comment to Ethics of Autonomous Military Robots
[I was reminded of this after reading Phelps comment to this post of mine.--Joe]

I would like to think Howard Nemerov will have better luck with this than the NRA, GOA, and others do:

I am building a national network to ensure the survival of our civil right of self-defense. Our mission is to contact our congressional representatives at least once a month with a short fact-bite explaining why this civil right is so vital to the preservation of all other rights, as well as the survival of our nation as the international torch-bearer of Liberty.

Initially, we will create and support a minimum of 20,000 activists in each state. One million people contacting their representatives each month will make even the most rabid anti-rights advocate hesitate, because they know that each of you represents an even larger number of votes, and getting re-elected is the goal of most representatives: of the 435 seats in Congress in 2008, 400 incumbents were running for re-election (92% of all available seats).

You will receive a sample talking point each month, or you can say whatever you think will make the best point with your representative.

I tried doing something on a much, much smaller scale and was very disappointed. I had about 15 people on an email list that were "very committed" to the gun rights issue and agreed to help influence the Washington State legislature on the gun issue. I sent out about a half dozen different requests for them to contact their representatives over the course of about a year. I later asked them in person if they had responded as I had requested. There were only about 10 TOTAL contacts that resulted from my requests.

My conclusion was liberty minded people are not easily herded like sheep. That they value their liberty may also mean they will not be easily persuaded to do as someone else asks.

As others have said, it's like herding cats.

Hence, my conclusion is that Mr. Nemerov had better have some trick up his sleeve that many others have failed to figure out and/or execute successfully on.

An ATF agent gets arrested for murder and apparently the DOJ starts burning the midnight oil over it. Local time for this Google search by them was nearly 12:30 AM:

Domain Name		usdoj.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address		149.101.1.# (US Dept of Justice)
ISP		US Dept of Justice
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.9097, -77.0231 (Map) Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; DOJ3jx7bf; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution  :  1024 x 768 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Jan 8 2009 9:27:55 pm
Last Page View		Jan 8 2009 9:29:10 pm
Visit Length		1 minute 15 seconds
Page Views		2
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...rk january 7%2C 2008
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		atf agent arrested william clark january 7, 2008
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffm...astItIsAnArrest.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Jan 9 2009 12:27:55 am
Visit Number		416,532

I also received a similar search hit this morning.

It's nice to know they care about what I think. But what I really wish is they would just go get legimate jobs instead of spending taxpayer money to infringe our rights.

To my way of thinking nearly all ATF agents should be arrested for violation of 18 USC 242. But I don't expect that to happen for at least another, like, million years or so. But there is one less ATF agent in the field today which has to be a good thing:

A U.S. federal agent has been charged with second-degree murder in the alleged 2008 shooting of his neighbor in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Justice officials say they arrested Agent William Clark with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He also was charged with involuntary manslaughter and using a dangerous weapon during a violent crime.

Languages are strongly typed in an effort to find programming errors at compile time, not, as some would believe, to cause compile errors at programming time.

From CodingConventions.doc for the Windows Mobile code base
January 2008
[I ran across this today at work and had to share. I know probably only a handful of my readers will get it but I thought it was so funny. Yeah, I'm a geek.--Joe]

Robb claimed Someone is getting an early start on "Weirdest Search Term for 2009" (see also the followup posts Whale tits and Oh, like I wasn't expecting THIS to happen)

This afternoon I submitted my entry (a search phrase one of my visitors used to find my blog) to him via email:

Robb's response?

From: Robb Allen 
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 5:25 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: Someone is getting an early start on "Weirdest Search Term for 2009"

 

You win...

Yeah. I'm competitive like that. Just ask Barb.

Update: Also note that the perv was using an iPhone instead of something Windows based. I always sort of wonder about those type of people.

To help increase the general level of understanding in the world;

Two more entries:  "Hate" and "Poor".

Doesn't the language of the Left make just a little more sense now?

Update;  "Proof".

I normally enjoy listening to the Michael Medved radio show.  A couple of months ago, he was arguing with a conservative  caller.  The caller was tired of the Republicans "compromising" and "reaching across the aisle", rather than  standing up for the basic principles of this country.  The caller suggested (rightly in my opinion) that it's time to get the  RINO bums out of the party.

Medved was incredulous; "How do you grow the party by making it smaller?"  He was absolutely convinced that getting rid of the left-wing Republicans was a sure path to defeat.

Hence the problem.

Hence the defeat in the last election.

I say you can in fact grow the party by making it smaller.  If the Republican leadership would grow a pair, define what it means to be a Republican (and what it doesn't mean) millions of Americans would have a real alternative to the Democrats.  We'd finally have a reason to vote.

I say you could get rid of nearly every Republican in Congress tomorrow, thereby "making the party smaller" by a couple hundred, and in so doing grow the party by millions of new, enthusiastic voters if there were some real Americans to take their place in the Republican Party.

Two landslides, Mr. Medved.  It can't be repeated enough.  Reagan won two landslides.  Two landslides, and the people (Reagan Democrats included) were chanting, "Four more years!"  He didn't do it by showing how Leftist he could be.  He did it by simply explaining the American principles and by sticking to them.  He didn't do it by appeasing the media pundits.  He did it by laughing at them, and correcting them.  He did it by taking a stand on real principles as a leader.  He wasn't born into it-- he learned his way into it.  There is a lot of learning to do today.

I have not heard one Republican talk like Reagan (for more than a sentence or two) since Reagan.  I'm not talking about Reagan's style-- it was his understanding and love of this country's founding principles.  Apparently some people want us to think it was his slick style.  I never though he was that slick.  I just think he was one of very few people who understood, and that it was his understanding of the basic principles that gave him the ability to articulate them.  That cannot be faked.  We'll know.  Republicans try to fake it all the time.  Look at Schwarzenegger talk out of both sides of his mouth- and he doesn't even know he's doing it.  It's just a shtick for him.  Fake.  This fakery has come to define the Republican Party.  The Democrats at least are consistent in their adherence to socialist theories and their willingness to fight to get them implemented.  Republicans have no such consistency. 

Fakes.

I submit that the American voters are starving for someone, even just one man or one woman, who can demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles and a willingness to fight for them.

Fighting for this country's principles means defeating the Left (leftist Democrats and leftist Republicans) not "reaching out" to them.  Let them reach out to us.  Let the lefties prove their willingness to cut programs, to reduce others, to meaningfully cut taxes and lift restrictions on industry and trade.  Let that be the new measure of "bipartisanship", of "compromise", of "pragmatism" and all that rot.  Let the Democrats run a conservative candidate as "the one who can win" because he/she "reaches across the aisle".

Until I see this new Republican leader, I'm not donating and I am not voting Republican.  Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me thrice.  At some point back there I got bored.  We tried that with the two Bushes, and they, predictably, tried to outdo FDR on socialist spending.  We tried it on Dole and we tried it again with McLame.  Time and again we've been told that the "perfect candidate just isn't here" with us, and that we should bite the bullet and vote for this or that confused, deer-in-the-headlights, apologetic, stumbling, fumbling, frightened, self-contradictory mush-mouth-- the one who proclaims the virtues of a free market in the first half of a sentence, and declares a new entitlement program in the second half of the same sentence.  That sort of garbage is giving conservatism a very, very bad name.  If that's the best we have to offer, we've already lost.  I'm done with these RINOs.

They've made the party smaller (by my one vote at least).  They can continue doing what they're doing (trying to co-opt Democrat, i.e. socialist, policies) or they can get rid of the poison-pills, the dead-weight RINOs, and adopt the warrior spirit, once and for all declare war on socialism, laugh at the journalists (Reagan was quite good at that) uphold the virtues of capitalism (and mean it for once) and grow the party by millions.

And I can hear it all right now; "Lyle, don't you understand how much we have to lose?  Don't you understand what you're saying?  We can't just hand it all over to the Democrats!"

We're ceding ground to the Left no matter who's in office.  Lately it's been a choice between more socialism, faster, and more socialism, slower.  It's a choice between two arsonists-- one who will burn down your house a little at a time, and another who will burn it all down at once.  Do I really care?  Maybe in the latter scenario I'll be quicker to call the fire department.  Frog-in-the-pot theory says faster is better, given those two choices alone.

We may continue blaming the third party voters, keep voting for those "lesser of two evil" Republicans, never again hold the Republicans accountable for their astonishingly lame actions, and things will never change-- we'll get more of the sad sack of crap we've been getting.  Or we can demand some real principles and some real fight from the Republican leadership.  Those are our two choices.

Update Jan 08/09;  Regarding comments, I find this article quite relevant to the issue.

While Barack Obama has been urging citizens not to stock up on weapons because they mistrust him, other anti-gunners are a tad more candid, seeing in the new administration an opportunity to disarm Americans. The Brady Campaign, the day after the election, was demanding the adoption of what it duplicitously calls "common sense gun laws." Similarly, John Rosenthal, co-founder of Stop Handgun Violence, gleefully wrote in the Boston Globe: "With the historic election of Barack Obama, the nation finally has an opportunity to enact sensible national gun control policy."

Not so. We already have such a "policy." It is called the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

William P. Hoar
January 7, 2008
Skepticism About Second Amendment Support
[There have been lots of people that have used various versions of that last paragraph but that doesn't diminish the correctness or the effectiveness of it.--Joe]

We now have a comprehensive explanation of the use of "Fascist" in Leftspeak, and we can't forget "Selfishness".

I know I'm missing a lot of commonly mangled terms, but I'll add more as I think of them.  Ah yes-- "Hate"!  I'll have to get "Hate" in there soon.

(All entries are subject to change without notice.  Void where prohibited.  No purchase necessary.  Opinions expressed on this or any other site do in some way reflect someone's opinions, thoughts, views, or perceptions, though we're not willing to own up to anything we say.  The State of California has determined that certain views and expressions may cause cancer in laboratory rats.  Consult your doctor.  Keep out of reach of children.  Choking hazard.  For external use only.  To avoid electrical shock, it is best not to use this product.  Consult your operator's manual.  Always wear eye and hearing protection.  Vapor harmful.  Not for use by pregnant women or women who may become pregnant.  Hide your head in the sand.  Fear your neighbors.  NOT approved by Underwriter's Laboratories.  Avoid sharp objects.  Stay in bed.  Not for use when consuming alcohol.  Do not operate heavy machinery.  Ever.  Don't sue us.  Caution; hot beverages, when poured in the lap, may cause pain.  Guaranteed for the life of the product.  Call the Ad Counsel for more information.)

If there is a coming offensive against gun owners Alan Korwin has some of the likely details of their war plans. There is some scary stuff in there:

Under the proposal, the U.S. Attorney General can add any “semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General.” Note that Obama’s pick for this office (Eric Holder, confirmation hearing set for Jan. 15) wrote a brief in the Heller case supporting the position that you have no right to have a working firearm in your own home.

In making this determination, the bill says, “there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any federal law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.”

In plain English this means that ANY firearm ever obtained by federal officers or the military is not suitable for the public.

..

If these near-total bans aren’t enough, the most dangerous part may be the phrase “pistol grip” because: “The term ‘pistol grip’ means a grip, a thumbhole stock, or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.” In other words, any semi-auto long gun with a grip (that’s ALL semi-auto long guns) would be banned under the existing proposal. It’s not clear what they hope to achieve by deceptively banning guns with grips instead of just calling to ban the guns -- even an idjit can tell it’s the same thing.

I didn’t cover here all the magazine bans, transfer bans, dealer record-keeping and centralized reporting, and a host of nuisance details -- there will be time enough for that when the new lists are released soon: “As soon as President-elect Obama is inaugurated and the 111th Congress is sworn in,” according to Ms. Brady. Congress is set to be sworn in on Jan. 6, Inauguration Day is Jan. 20.

If they really are making war plans to engage us then we need to make our plans and prepare as well. I'm still debating what to work on first.

I could just be parnoid but this search for Mothers Against Violence In America founder Pam Eakes (I last met and did battle with her nine years ago) by someone in the U.S. House of Representatives could be someone looking for support in a coming offensive:

Domain Name		house.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address		143.231.249.# (Information Systems, U.S. House of Representatives)
ISP		Information Systems, U.S. House of Representatives
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.9097, -77.0231 (Map) Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Internet Explorer 7.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30)
Javascript		version 1.3
Monitor		Resolution  :  1280 x 1024 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Jan 6 2009 5:49:37 am
Last Page View		Jan 6 2009 5:49:37 am
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...ence pam eakes email
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		mavia mothers against violence pam eakes email
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/default,month,2006-06.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/default,month,2006-06.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Jan 6 2009 8:49:37 am
Visit Number		414,892

Politicians, and government in general, are world economic meddlers and obstacles. They interfere with business, slow its progress, regulate its advances, tax its earnings and generally make it harder for business to thrive, saddling it with red tape, trade barriers, obstacles to entry, and eating out its substance.

Alan Korwin
December 2, 2008
Politicians Aren't Businessmen
[Very few people will understand this once Obama has been crowned. Unless his $775 Billion stimulus plan is about cutting taxes by billions rather than spending billions he is going to fail to improve the economy. Most people believe more rather than less government is the solution to their problems. If Obama says it even if it is all lies and jest people hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.--Joe]

Americans are purchasing firearms and ammunition in record numbers, not because they believe 2009 will offer unusually good duck hunting, but because they fear the fallout from the coming economic storm and the state’s reaction to that fallout.

Michael Gaddy
Buy, Buy, Buy
January 5, 2008
[H/T to Say Uncle for the pointer. There will be more QOTDs from this piece over the next few weeks and months.--Joe]

Today (Sunday) was a beautiful sunny day, and with the drifted snow glistening like it was covered with diamonds, it was far too beautiful to stay inside.  I took Alex to the Peterson Range near Moscow, Idaho for some fresh air.

The driveway up to the shooting bays was blocked with a large snow berm.  We could have spent some time with a shovel to clear the berm, but even then I'd need chains on all fours to have any chance of driving in.  Too much bother.  Much easier to don the snowshoes and walk in.

Now this is a nice exercise in itself.  If you have your rig right there at the shooting bay, it means you can lay everything out-- your shooting bag, all your ammo, gun cases, everything, even working right off your tailgate.  When you're hiking in, you bring what you can carry.  In this case it meant leaving the range bag, most of the ammo and some of the gun cases behind.  Not a problem.  I had my .45 in in my pocket and a CZ-52 pistol in a flap holster with two mags, plus a three-mag AR pouch on by belt.  One 20 rounder in the AR and another 30 round magazine that fit in my breast pocket.  Four 15 round mags for the M1 Carbine on one belt, plus a 50 round box of Carbine ammo in another coat pocket.  With water bottles (you lose a lot of water just breathing in these conditions, so always bring water) targets and a stapler, wearing our eyes and ears, we were off for a nice afternoon of leisurely hiking and shooting in the sunshine.

Strangely, we were the only ones at the range today.

The weather could not have been better.  At around 20 degrees F, the snow doesn't melt too much on your clothing and you stay nice and dry.  Plus when you're hoofing around the range with a load, on snowshoes, you don't overheat, and it's not so cold that your lungs are stressed.  Perfect.

Here we're testing out the steel pistol targets.  No problem, except that some trespasser had gone in and shot holes in the steel with a centerfire rifle (all members know never to do anything so stupid and inconsiderate);

Since everything around us is covered in anywhere from several inches to several feet of snow, loading the mags required a little different technique.  Holding the ammo box and the magazine in one hand, I'm stuffing the rounds in with the other.  Everything stays out of the snow.  For the rifles we brought enough pre-loaded magazines;

Here I'm sighting in the M1 Carbine.  This gun had failed on the last outing, due to a gas piston nut that had worked its way completely out of the gas block.  I am amazed that the thing never self-destructed.  Nice going on the design, W.W. II era guys!  The gas nut is supposed to be staked in place, but this more recently manufactured IAI carbine never had the nut staked.  It took many thousands of rounds of UltiMAK product testing before the gas nut finally worked its way out.  After that I had disassembled the rifle completely including a full takedown of the bolt, removed the optic and the optic mount, repaired the damaged gas nut threads and trued up the gas piston, then reinstalled the nut with Locktite (another accepted method) installed a new optic mount (to test a new lot) and reinstalled the Holosight.  After all that, the Carbine shot to POA with no adjustments at 20 yards, and then at 100.  I didn't see any need to change the settings on this old Holosight.  No malfunctions;

If you happen to own a .30 Carbine, let it be known that the exposed lead at the base of regular FMJ bullets does partially melt, it atomizes when liquefied and it finds its way into the gas block, depositing in there, slowly reducing the volume inside the gas chamber and eventually preventing the piston from traveling all the way forward.  It forms a very hard dross that is a royal bitch to clean out.  That's one reason why I want to try the Speer hollowpoints-- they have a full copper base.  You may find similar deposits inside the AR-15 bolt carrier, back behind the bolt, which is why you need to clean it thoroughly.

Alex and I each got photos of each other with brass in the air (here's the trick; press the shutter button part way own, into the "here's the exact exposure I want" setting. The instant you hear the report, press the shutter button all the way-- you get instantaneous shots that way.  Works nearly every time);

We had a brass catcher on the AR (a good idea when shooting in the snow) but no one seems to make one for the Carbine.  The brass comes out hot and melts the snow when it hits, so when you pick up the cases they're encrusted in ice.  Yes, a brass catcher would be much better out here today. I wanted to bring home every .30 Carbine case because I'm going to load up a batch of hollowpoints for function testing.

All in all it was a great time.

My Modern Ballistics for the Field software is essentially completed (as long as there are a fair number of people using it software is never done). And I'm debating with myself as to whether I should start work on a Leftspeak to English conversion website or if I should work on some explosives modeling software.

The Leftspeak project would be easy and fun and only take a few days in my spare time. The explosives modeling software will probably take months but be far more useful.

Any votes?

David has announced:

I plan to have a Boomershoot Picture of the Day every day in 2009, so check back for more!

Here are his first submissions:

• January 1
• January 2
• January 3
• January 4

If you can't figure out a way to attend you can at least drive yourself mad with desire.

If I recall correctly predictions are that if this blows with the same sort of destruction as in previous eruptions all life within about 300 miles is likely to be killed. Areas as far away as Kansas, depending on the wind direction and duration, will get up to 10 feet of ash falling from the sky.

I've fixed all the fixable bugs in my cell phone/PDA web based exterior ballistics program I announced last November and put it at it's permanent home at http://field.modernballistics.com/.

Enjoy and let me know if you run across any bugs not mentioned on the Known Bugs page. Suggestions for improvements are also welcome. Send them to "JoeH AT modernballistics.com".

Robb posted about being irked that he can't legally carry his firearm into a Post Office. He can carry at the hospital, shopping malls, his kids soccer games and virtually all public places. What is so special about a Post Office that he is disallowed from carrying their? Of course the answer is there is nothing special about the Post Office that should be grounds for disallowing the carrying defensive tools while picking up your mail. Just as prohibiting blacks from public swimming pools and using the same water fountains as others had no basis other than the bigotry of those making the rules. Still, spending time in a Federal prison isn't my favorite way of standing by my principles.

That said I had looked into the guns in Post Offices before and had heard others talk of the law being somewhat ambigous. With that background I was going to point out to Robb that according to 18 USC 930, which I'm fairly certain is what I have seen posted on Post Office doors, there are exemptions to the part about fines and imprisonment for "whoever knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility". These exemptions are never posted on the wall of the post office:

(d) Subsection (a) shall not apply to—

(1) the lawful performance of official duties by an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof, who is authorized by law to engage in or supervise the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution of any violation of law;

(2) the possession of a firearm or other dangerous weapon by a Federal official or a member of the Armed Forces if such possession is authorized by law; or

(3) the lawful carrying of firearms or other dangerous weapons in a Federal facility incident to hunting or other lawful purposes.

Notice the last three words of (d)(3), "other lawful purpose". Self defense--isn't that a lawful purpose?

But as I was doing my research on the topic, just to make sure, I ran across this post from a lawyer which says that 18 USC 930 isn't the controlling law. 39 USC 410 says (emphasis added):

(a) Except as provided by subsection (b) of this section, and except as otherwise provided in this title or insofar as such laws remain in force as rules or regulations of the Postal Service, no Federal law dealing with public or Federal contracts, property, works, officers, employees, budgets, or funds, including the provisions of chapters 5 and 7 of title 5, shall apply to the exercise of the powers of the Postal Service.

(b) The following provisions shall apply to the Postal Service:

(1) section 552 (public information), section 552a (records about individuals), section 552b (open meetings), section 3102 (employment of personal assistants for blind, deaf, or otherwise handicapped employees), section 3110 (restrictions on employment of relatives), section 3333 and chapters 72 (antidiscrimination; right to petition Congress) and 73 (suitability, security, and conduct of employees), section 5520 (withholding city income or employment taxes), and section 5532 (!1) (dual pay) of title 5, except that no regulation issued under such chapters or section shall apply to the Postal Service unless expressly made applicable;

In the Postal rules I found that bringing a firearm onto the property is a rule violation but apparently it is not a felony:

  (l) Weapons and explosives. No person while on postal property may carry firearms, other dangerous or deadly weapons, or explosives, either openly or concealed, or store the same on postal property, except for official purposes.

...

  (p) Penalties and other law. (1) Alleged violations of these rules and regulations are heard, and the penalties prescribed herein are imposed, either in a Federal district court or by a Federal magistrate in accordance with applicable court rules. Questions regarding such rules should be directed to the regional counsel for the region involved.
(2) Whoever shall be found guilty of violating the rules and regulations in this section while on property under the charge and control of the Postal Service is subject to fine of not more than $50 or imprisonment of not more than 30 days, or both.

Further reading of the rules revealed you give up your Fourth Amendment rights once you set foot on U.S. Postal Property (232.1 (b)):

  (b) Inspection, recording presence. (1) Purses, briefcases, and other containers brought into, while on, or being removed from the property are subject to inspection. However, items brought directly to a postal facility’s customer mailing acceptance area and deposited in the mail are not subject to inspection, except as provided by section 274 of the Administrative Support Manual. A person arrested for violation of this section may be searched incident to that arrest.

I am not a lawyer. You are receiving this legal review for free and my own personal entertainment. It's probably worth every penny you paid for it.

What are the facts? Again and again and again what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the "unguessable verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future, facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

Lazarus Long
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by Robert A. Heinlein pages 16 and 17.
[According to some the Brady Campaign may have a reality awareness moment when pursuing their lawsuit against the changed rule on carry of firearms in National Parks. I would like to think so but I have enough experience in court to know that facts and the truth only play a minor role in the proceedings. Still, the facts are what drive things like my Just One Question and I think it is the proper philosophical principle to demand our opposition adhere to. It is our ace in the hole. Even if they don't play by the rules and cheat at every opportunity it is still our one of our greatest weapons against the forces of darkness and evil.--Joe]

Barb and I just finished watching Valkyrie. It was a good movie. Barb buried her head in my shoulder for a few scenes but it was interesting and to the best of my knowledge historically accurate.

More historical details and information on numerous other plots to kill Hitler can be found in the book Plotting Hitler's Death which I highly recommend.

See also this post for more information on the content of this great book.

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.

Milton Friedman
[As opposed to a government run market where exchanges take place at the point of a gun.--Joe]

I have worked with the mathematics of exterior ballistics for so long that I sometimes forget the general nature of the path of a rifle bullet to it's target is not mind boggling obvious. I was reminded of this by an email I received today:

Need a answer: I was told that when shot a 30 cal. bullet goes up and makes an arc to the target, when held level. What happens, say at 100 yards.?

This email caused me to have a flashback to when I was in grade-school (yes Kris, firearms had been invented by the time I left grade-school).

When I was about the fourth grade a friend of mind, Verl (yeah, kids had strange names back in those days), insisted that the bullet would rise after it left the barrel of a rifle. I didn't believe it and asked how long it took before it when into orbit (or some such thing that pointed out the absurdity of his claim). He didn't know but asked his dad and came back to school and explained it went up for a while then came back down. My knowledge of and ability to articulate the physics of gravity and moving objects was limited and although I was profoundly unsatisfied with this explanation I couldn't refute his assertion that it was true.

Later I made sense of it and eventually I wrote a computer programs that accurately predicts the path of a bullet as it leaves the muzzle. I am now much more capable of articulating the physics and will now attempt do so.

If you were to go to the range and instead of shooting the bullet you were to drop it from your fingers you would correctly expect the bullet to immediately accelerate toward the center of earth and pick up speed at the rate of about 32 feet per second for each second it is in the air until it hit something. It doesn't rise for a while then start falling. If you take a carpenter's level to the range and line up the bore with the level such that the bore was horizontal and fire the gun the bullet will drop, relative to the horizontal, from the instant it leaves the barrel. It does not rise and then fall. It also does not fall at the same rate as a bullet you dropped from your fingers but that is another, much more complicated issue that is beyond the scope of this post.

Because the bullet immediately starts falling as it leaves the barrel in order for the sights to predict the impact point they are not aligned exactly parallel with the bore. They are aligned such that when you view the target they line up where the bullet will actually hit after bullet has dropped by whatever amount on it's travel to the target. If the bore is horizontal the sights are pointed slight down. If the sights are horizontal then the bore will be pointed slightly up. In other words there is an angle between the line of sight and the bore of the gun. I call this angle the "Sight Angle".

As far as I know I am the first to use the phrase "Sight Angle". I use this to simplify the setting of the scope for long distance shooting. Most long range shooting instructors refer to your gun having a "Zero" that depends on the altitude, temperature, bullet velocity, and ballistic coefficient of the bullet. This is wrong. The gun is constant with respect to the environment. The drop of the bullet changes, not the scope setting.

Knowing the distance to the target and the drop the bullet makes when it goes this distance we can compute the proper angle the barrel should be with the horizontal to hit a target that is the same distance above the ground as the muzzle of the barrel. This angle is the proper angle required to have the gun exactly compensate for the drop of the bullet on it's way to the target. This angle is not the sight angle because there is another complication--the height of the sight above (almost always but not necessarily) the bore. For a typical scoped rifle the line of sight through the scope is about 1.5 inches above the center of the bore. I call this the sight height. Using some trigonometry the sight height and proper angles can all be number crunched into a single number that you can dial into your scope such that for any give range and bullet drop you can dial your scope to the proper angle and you have precisely compensated for the drop of the bullet such that where you line the sights up that is where the bullet is going to go (minus bullet inaccuracy, wind drift, and shooter error). This "proper angle" is my Sight Angle. If you know what the environment is and you know the angle of the scope (and its height) relative to the bore you will know where the bullet will hit for any given range.

So, the email asked for what happens at 100 yards. Here are the graphs (generated with Modern Ballistics, which I wrote).

First the drop for a bullet fired with the bore of the gun horizontal. This is for a .308 Winchester shooting Federal match 168 grain bullets at "standard conditions" (59 F, sea level). Yes, I know this graph is confusing. It is not the path of the bullet. This is the distance the bullet has dropped as it traverses from the muzzle to the target. The drop increases the further it travels:

By the time the bullet has traveled 100 yards it has dropped nearly 3 inches. If you point the bore up at a slight angle (4.23 Minutes of Angle to be exact) compared to a scope mounted 1.5 inches above the center of the bore, aim the scope at a target 100 yards the bullet will start out 1.5 inches below the line of sight of the scope. Because the barrel is pointed up slightly as the bullet travels forward it will rise as it travels to the target. The distance from the line of sight through the scope to the bullet at any given range is called the height of the bullet at that range. Hence at the muzzle the height is -1.5 inches. And since the proper angle for a 100 yard zero was dialed into the scope the height at 100 yards will be 0.00 inches as seen in this graph:

So, from the viewpoint of the scope the bullet does rise and then fall. Of particular interest is that there are actually two zeros for this scope setting. There is a "Near Zero" at 49.8 yards and there is the normal or "Far Zero" at 100 yards. At what is called the Midrange, 75.1 yards in this case, the bullet is at its maximum height of 0.2 inches above the line of sight.

So that is the path of the bullet for a 100 yard shot.

It is just my opinion but I don't think shooting at 100 yards is very interesting with a rifle. The errors involved for temperature changes, air pressure, wind drift, and bullet velocity variations just don't stack up enough to amount to much at that kind of range. For a .30 caliber rifle I don't find things particularly interesting until we start shooting targets at 500 yards and beyond. I'm not going to get into all the interesting details because 99.9% of the people will find what I think is fascinating as mind bogglingly boring. But here is a hint of 500 yard shooting. A graph of the height of a bullet, again relative to the line of sight of the scope, for the same rifle and cartridge as above but for a 500 yard target:

I know people who don't understand why anyone would have a gun. They don't have guns, they didn't grow up with them, and they assume people who did must be some sort of primitive barbarians.

Tom Palmer
Page 30, Gun Control On Trial by Brian Doherty
[Just like gays in the 80's Silence = Death. We need to come out of the closet if we want to survive as a free people.--Joe]

Look at their literature. About all they say is 'guns are bad, they kill children and other living things.' Look at their website. It clearly posits gun ownership as a social evil. He can say what he wants; I like Dennis, and I've never had a negative interaction with anybody with his group, but sorry, that's a bunch of crap. His dream is dead; the idea of prohibition is dead. They need to tell their constituents to find something else to do with their lives, go be productive members of society, stop attacking our individual rights.

Alan Gura
From Gun Control On Trial, page 114.
[First off I would like to +1 Gura's experience with the gun grabbers. All of the paid and even volunteer staff of the gun-grabber organizations that I have talked to have been nice people. I believe they were sincere and truly had no wish for anything other than the well-being of innocent people. They may not have been very smart or very well informed but their intentions, however misguided, always seemed to be congruent with mine--the protection of innocent life. They just had a problem with data collection and processing.

But on to my main reason for the quote.

I love the last sentence of Gura's. Gura was referring to the Brady Campaign (and Dennis Henigan) but it could just as well apply to 98% of our politicians. Especially this year--the year of the coronation of the Light Bringer. It's going to be rough times ahead for freedom and individual rights. We don't have enough Alan Gura's and friendly courts to protect us. If only we could enforce a declaration such as Gura's.--Joe]