The View From North Central Idaho

It's an Onion video but those that remember the hatchet job done by the media and anti-gun bigots against Winchester "Black Talons" about 10 years ago will find this only slightly more outrageous:

Manufacturer Recalls Hollow Point Bullets That Fail To Explode Inside Targets

Thanks to hunter006 for the email tip.

Unless you are in an usual occupation (combat military, high risk police, illegal drug dealer) the odds are generally pretty low to have someone shooting at you. It's just certain occupations that are at serious risk of getting shot at.

What never occurred to me was that U.S. presidents get shot at a lot. Sure, I know, the Secret Service aren't there just to keep the groupies away. But what are the actual odds of someone trying to shoot a U.S. president?

They are better than I realized:

1. Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed on April 14, 1865.
2. James A. Garfield was shot and killed on July 2, 1881.
3. William McKinley was shot and killed on Sept. 6, 1901.
4. John F. Kennedy was shot and killed on Nov 22, 1963.
5. Ronald Reagan was shot and severely wounded on March 31, 1981.
6. Andrew Jackson was shot at in the Capitol building on January 30, 1835, but avoided injury.
7. Theodore Roosevelt was shot in 1912 while campaigning for president.
8. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shot at on February 15, 1933, in Miami, Florida, just three weeks before his inauguration.
9. Assassins attempted to shoot and kill Harry Truman on November 1, 1950 but were stopped in a gunfight outside the Blair House.
10. Not one, but two, disturbed individuals attempted to shoot and kill Gerald Ford during his brief time as president.

That's four dead and 10 attempts. Since there have been 44 Presidents the odds are 4/44 or 9% of being shot and killed and 10/44 or 23% chance of being shot at. Of course that assumes the odds are constant through all time--which is a very poor assumption. But still it makes me think that's got to be one of the riskiest jobs we have in this country. Taken as a whole, as opposed to just those in the "boots on the ground" infantry, I'll bet being in the U.S. military today is a safer job.

Far too often when I write about the ATF it is because they said something stupid or did something illegal. But here is an article that mentions an ATF spokesman saying something that I agree with. I had to read the entire article twice to make sure all the law enforcement types were saying all the right things. And apparently there are people in the media willing to not spin it to fit their agenda. Reading between the lines a little bit it appears the writer and/or editor might have had the usual agenda but law enforcement didn't play along:

"Guns never start out illegal," said Earl Woodham, a spokesman with the ATF. "A human being makes it illegal. A gun has never killed anybody without assistance."

Woodham said "wannabe tough guys" illegally acquire guns in a variety of ways, ranging from burglary, to pilfering at a friend or family member's house, to black market purchases. "Most times they will get them from someone they know," he added.

"For a juvenile, if your goal is to get a gun, they are probably pleased with any gun they can get," Woodham said. "A gun is a desirable gun if it will fit in your hand."

I'm still of the opinion that ATF (and E) should be a convenience store but if we ever get to the point where we are prosecuting those working as regulators of a specific enumerated right a fair prosecutor should take evidence such as the above when deciding whether to press charges or not.

Yes, this is within my range of operations but I didn't make the device:

An Army Ordnance disposal team destroyed a homemade explosive device Friday morning along a busy on-ramp to U.S. Highway 12 just north of Yakima.

The device was described as a plastic beverage bottle with shotgun-shell powder inside. The bottle was wrapped with electrical tape and a metal chain.

While I'm sure with enough shotgun shell powder such a device would be "interesting" Boomerite is much cheaper per unit of fun.

And if you are going to play with things that go boom don't put metal near the explosives. The rule we use is that we don't put anything between the explosives and your body that a surgeon or the medical examiner might have to remove from your body.

I know that all of you as conscientious citizens want to protect our people. We need to band together and demand that the government protect us. We must demand that all chairs, even couches and sofas, are required to have safety belts, and that everyone be required to use them. If someone is caught not using their safety belt they should be required to pay a $1000 fine and with a three strike rule attached that on your third strike not wearing a safety belts that the perpetrator goes to jail. Repeated offenders should be taken to jail, because by not wearing their seatbelts they are endangering themselves, and as a community it is our responsibility to protect and care for each other.

Kimberly Frederick
We Must Protect Our Citizens
March 13, 2009
[Daughter Kim got an A on this piece of satire. I read the notes the prof wrote on the paper so I know he knew it was satire. I'm a little bit afraid some dimwit in government (but I repeat myself) will take the idea and run with it as a campaign issue. But I figure that if I put it up on the web with it clearly labeled as satire then we have a chance of embarrassing whoever might try something like that.--Joe]

I just got back from the theater.

Son James loaned me the book in early January (I think). Then nearly every time he saw me he would tell me how many weeks and days I had left to finish the book before the movie came out. I finished the book last night so we went to see the movie tonight. It was the second viewing for James.

I was a little disappointed in the book. "What's the big deal about?", summed up my opinion. Okay, yeah, there are some good characters and the twist at the end is interesting. But it's not that good.

The movie was awesome. It wouldn't have been quite so awesome if James hadn't insisted I read the book first. The attention to book details in the movie was incredible. And it's the type of story that doesn't quite make sense until you go through it a second time knowing that many of the little details have a lot of significance.

Perhaps there is a physical principal involved: information spreads at the speed of light, while ignorance is instantaneous at all points in the known universe.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[Of course. Ignorance is the default state so it doesn't really need to "spread". But giving Orlov some slack there does appear to be a very strong tendency for people to cling to their ignorance despite the availability of information.--Joe]

Boomershoot 2009 is now less than four weeks away.

Last weekend (five weeks from the event) I visited the site and found there was still lots of snow but it was melting fast. Comparing the pictures from five weeks prior last year and last weekend things looked pretty close to the same:

The difference was that it was up to 54F during the afternoon last weekend and there was a lot of runoff with culverts overflowing and the creek near flood stage:

This is the culvert I installed a few years ago.

The culvert here is running full and the excess is running over the entrance to the field.

The creek is at near maximum capacity.

In the morning I walked to the Taj Mahal figuring I wouldn't need snowshoes because the snow by the road was only about ankle deep. As I got onto the north slope near the trees at the Taj the snow was over knee deep and because it was so warm my feet went all the way through it to the ground. It was a lot of work and in the afternoon I put on my snowshoes before walking in.

But it turns out I was trading one type of work for another. Because the top layer of snow as essentially slush it would push right through the webbing of the snowshoes and ride on the top of them.

I had what felt like 10 pounds of weight (probably more like five) above and beyond the snowshoes that I had to lift with each step.

Before reporting all this I decided I would wait a week and see if the warm weather continued. It was possible that by this weekend the snow would be, essentially, all gone.

It didn't work out that way.

Monday it never got above 28F.

On Tuesday I received a Winter Storm Watch for Boomershoot country:

Here is a current Winter Storm Watch for Boomershoot (Lenore, ID) until 10:00pm, Wed Mar 25 2009, from your local National Weather Service office.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MISSOULA MT
318 AM MDT TUE MAR 24 2009

...EARLY SPRING SNOW STORM TO IMPACT THE NORTHERN ROCKIES LATE TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT...

.A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO MOVE SOUTH FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA INTO THE NORTHERN ROCKIES THIS EVENING THROUGH WEDNESDAY EVENING. HEAVY MOUNTAIN SNOW IS POSSIBLE ACROSS NORTHWEST AND WEST CENTRAL MONTANA AS WELL AS CENTRAL IDAHO. SURFACE WINDS WILL BECOME NORTHERLY AS THE SYSTEM PASSES. THIS COULD PROVIDE GOOD UPSLOPE LIFT AND POSSIBLE MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW ACCUMULATIONS TO THE CAMAS PRAIRIE AREA IN NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO BY LATE WEDNESDAY.

OROFINO/GRANGEVILLE REGION-LOWER HELLS CANYON/SALMON RIVER REGION- 218 AM PDT TUE MAR 24 2009 ...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM THIS EVENING THROUGH WEDNESDAY EVENING... MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW ALONG WITH GUSTY WINDS ARE POSSIBLE WITH THIS STORM. 8 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW ARE POSSIBLE ON THE CAMAS PRAIRIE...AS WELL AS THE THE WHITE BIRD GRADE AND GREER GRADES.

Notice that it says "through Wednesday Evening"? Wednesday morning I had received several more updates with the last saying:

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 AM PDT THURSDAY ABOVE 2500 FEET...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MISSOULA HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW ABOVE 2500 FEET...WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 AM PDT THURSDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 12 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE ON THE CAMAS PRAIRIE...AS WELL AS THE WHITE BIRD AND GREER GRADES. THE HEAVIEST SNOW IS EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING...BUT INCREASING WESTERLY WINDS THIS MORNING WILL CAUSE BLOWING SNOW AND REDUCED VISIBILITIES AT TIMES.

Notice it says "above 2500 feet"? Boomershoot is at 3000 feet.

Thursday it warmed up again into the mid 40s.

Friday the storm warnings started coming in again with four to eight inches of snow predicted. Saturday, as I was having my snow tires removed and the summer tires put on, the snow storm hit Moscow (my home, 40 miles west of Boomershoot and 400 feet lower in elevation). This morning we had 3.5 inches of snow in Moscow and it was still snowing.

Although I didn't visit the site this weekend I'm nearly certain we have more snow this year at four weeks out than we did last year at five weeks out. And, if you remember, last year we had a white Boomershoot.

The extended forecast for this week is for the low to be 37F on Tuesday the highs in the 50s through Monday. So the new snow and some of the old could be gone by this time next week. But I don't trust weather forecasts more than about three days out.

It could be you will need snowshoes for Boomershoot 2009. I don't even have enough for my own staff. You will have to bring your own.

Caleb says he would sell off body parts to acquire the Browning 1917 I posted about the other day.

It turns out he probably could just sell a kidney and keep the lung and piece of his liver and still have some change left over after purchasing it. I inquired as to the price and got this reply:

$6000 and it comes with a ton of extras: This is a Colt 1928 variation with safety; flash hider only 635 built and in this variation the right side plate was build with a much stronger design. We had the weapon changed to 8mm due to cheaper and more readily available. Only a few were built in semi auto we’ve seen them go for between $6000-$8000 without as many extras. Pictures are available upon request.

Tripod is a colt the 1928 version with Colt brass logo on rear leg. (These sell for $1000-$1200)

(7) 250 round cloth belts

Condenser hose and condenser can

(2) Oak 250 rds ammo boxes

1918 Browning loader w/ 8mm conversion with transit box. (these sell for $1000)

Custom 2 piece Mahogany transit chest on a removable roller base. One box holds weapon and the other all other parts

Two manuals

3000 rds of 8 MM

We don't need to bend the truth, make up facts, and just paint things with rhetoric. There are facts, figures and numbers we can rely on (without twisting them) and make reasonable, rational decisions. As a gun toting liberal, I pride myself on using my mind to understand issues. The anti-gun crowd simply refuse to look at all the information available, which is purely and utterly overwhelming in favor of conceal carry laws. That is not progressive thought, and it's not liberal. It's shamefully anti-science.

BlackPR
March 25, 11:02 PM
In the comments to A bulletproof bottom line
[Or, to distill it even further and put the onus on them, you can ask Just One Question.--Joe]

Breaking shit sounds easy, but it's not. It's actually pretty hard. The reason being because there are people just as smart as me, if not smarter, designing this specifically so it doesn't break.

hunter006
March 27, 2009
My job as a SDET
[hunter006 is a co-worker of mine. We are, in a sense, on opposite teams. It's an interesting relationship. I give the other team full access to every detail of the design and implementation. All the documents, all the source code, all the threat models then at any time completely and honestly answer any questions they might have about the system including things like, "Where do you think the greatest weakness are?" And "How would you go about breaking this?" Any success they have means more work and possibly poor performance reviews for me.

On the other hand, if I do my job right they will work their butts off, not find anything worse than typos in the documentation, and have their boss constantly screaming at them because they haven't found any bugs. If they haven't found any bugs then they aren't doing their job, right?

Large bug counts, if found by you, are good on performance reviews. Large numbers of bugs assigned to you are bad. Currently I have one bug assigned to me. It's about a year old and I'm pretty sure someone else fixed it a long time ago when they were working on something related. I just haven't gotten around to verifying and closing it out or assigning it to him. Son James recently told me in his group the average is about 70 bugs assigned to each developer. He has about half that.

I just got new tester assigned to my portion of my current project. She's a sweet young thing and I had a meeting with her earlier this week to explain the design and suggest ways to test it. I didn't show her the proof I have been writing software since before she was born. I'll save that for later when she is putting in long hours and still not finding enough bugs to keep her boss off her back.--Joe]

The story from Missouri has been out for some time.  I want to say I'm glad the report was distributed, because it shows us the bigoted, upside-down views a lot of people have, and that they're eager to act on them.  We knew it already, but we now have a better idea of what to expect.

The people you need to look out for are the several Left-wing groups.  It's been a long-standing MO of theirs to accuse their opposition of doing what they themselves are already doing, or what they're planning.

Jim: If Barney Frank could reach into my pocket he would take everything in my wallet and...
Sean: If Barney Frank could reach into your pocket that isn't all he would grab.

Sean Flynn
March 26, 2009
During a conversation about economics and politics.
[I had lunch with Jim, Sean, and Steve yesterday. It was great. Jim and Sean, always fantastic with their wit and insight, were in top form.--Joe]

From a letter to the editor in the Washington Post:

Mr. Cox took the usual NRA rhetoric to a new level with his suggestion that the "right" to own a gun is more important than the right to vote. Our founding fathers and all of those who worked so hard over the years to ensure the promise of freedom and equality for all citizens would find Mr. Cox's claim to be contrary to everything this country stands for.

Uh... The writer, LASLO BOYD, is totally clueless about our voting history.

Now that we are all socialists now our legislators have dropped all pretenses of being something other than the Central Committee. Via reader Rob I discovered the Senate reviewing how college football picks No. 1.

Enumerated powers? What's that?

I received an email from a Boomershooter saying the 1917 Browning (here, the bottom picture in this post and picture 12 here) he had at Boomershoot 2008 "is up for sale at Cabelas gun library here in Post Falls. Boy it’s a magnet to pull people in!"

Post Falls is in north Idaho near Spokane Washington in case you are interested.

Update: Due to popular request I inquired about the price and got this reply.

I took my daughter to her middle school (6th, 7th & 8th grade) science fair last night.  She did an experiment to determine whether dog saliva has more or fewer germs than human saliva.  You guessed it-- humans' mouths carry more germs.

There were the usual baking soda volcanoes, rotting food experiments, egg-in-the-bottle demonstrations and such.  I also counted four terminal ballistics demonstrations.  Kids took several calibers out to the field and tested them on bricks, cinder blocks, fir timbers, drywall, phonebooks, and one even used a pistol-rated Kevlar vest.  All had the results anyone familiar with guns would expect-- common centerfire rifle rounds pretty much overwhelm any of these targets, while some pistol rounds can be stopped by some of them.

One kid had assumed that a .30-30 would penetrate a hard target better than a .25-06, simply because of the bigger, heavier bullet.  He of course found out otherwise.

While there were no firearms brought into the school, there were several spend bullets, targets showing depth of penetration, and several cartridges were displayed including .50 BMG tracer and a training (inert) round for a 3-inch naval (ship's) gun.

Nice work, kids!

Sorry-- no pictures (has anyone seen a rather nice, new pocket Olympus camera lying on the ground between Moscow, ID and Garfield, WA?).

Insanity:

Ammunition magazines with a capacity of 10 rounds or more — the kind that Oakland parolee Lovelle Mixon used to kill two of four police officers — would fall under a stricter tracking system under legislation proposed Wednesday by two East Bay lawmakers.

Law enforcement officials currently have few tools to keep the dangerous ammunition devices out of the hands of criminals, said Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, the author of the bill.

"This horrible tragedy will pinpoint for us some of the holes in our gun laws," said Hancock, a member of the Senate Public Safety Committee. "There are a number of lessons from this, and I'm prepared to learn them all. We may need to have a hearing on the status of gun control. I'm very committed to looking at this."

...

At a time like this, it's important to find out what's not working," said Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland, a co-author of the legislation. "This could be the beginning of a new era of urban conflict. It's an important warning sign to prepare ourselves for future conflicts that could expose officers and our community to extreme dangers. It's very sobering. We have a clear responsibility to start taking action."

It didn't work. They realize it's not working. So they want to do it again.

That's insanity. The following, from the same article, is a blatant lie:

U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., has also said that Congress needs to reopen the debate on the assault weapon ban, which President George W. Bush allowed to lapse.

President George W. Bush said he would sign an extension of the AWB but it was never put on his desk for a signature.

Typical. One set of laws for us and no laws for them.

Not only do police officers (and a district attorney) buy machine guns for person use from the police department but the police department is fighting the Freedom of Information Act requests:

The court case is the result of a Freedom of Information Law request filed by the Times Union more than three years ago. The city denied the newspaper's request. Last year a state judge ordered the documents released yet allowed the city to redact the names of officers from the records. The newspaper appealed.

In its initial denial, the city said the release of the records could endanger the lives of officers because the guns were used to fight crime.

However, more than a year later in August 2007 the Times Union reported the guns were purchased illegally by officers for personal use, at tax-exempt prices, and that they had never been used for official duties.

The city subsequently changed its court argument to say the documents should not be released because they were ''personnel'' files and therefore exempt from disclosure under a state law that shields police officers employee files from public disclosure. The Albany Police Officers Union joined the case at that point and has cited the fact officers may have engaged in illegal behavior to buttress their argument that the documents are therefore personnel records.

Still, no officer has been fired, disciplined or passed over for a promotion as a result of being implicated in the scandal, according to several departmental sources. Also, the city, in its legal papers, said officers cannot be held accountable for misconduct that is more than a year old.

"Cannot be held accountable for misconduct that is more than a year old?" So they just have to make sure the bodies of all the women with babies in their arms they shoot with the machine guns aren't found for at least a year?

The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of trolls.

Father Robert F. Capon
[Yeah, things are pretty messed up.--Joe]

The ironically named "Freedom State Alliance" has this to say:

With over 30,000 gun deaths in the U.S. each year -- including the 4 police officers shot and killed in Oakland, California on March 21st -- an appropriate response to this carnage should be bold and comprehensive policies to prevent further homicides, suicides and unintentional injuries.

...

Meanwhile, little is being done to address the elephant in the room: the 280 million guns already in circulation and how to reduce this staggering number. Although there are some good gun laws in place, thanks in large part to the tireless efforts of gun violence prevention advocates and survivors, there has been little success in addressing the sheer volume of guns.

...

Japan is a good case in point as to why fewer guns make a difference. With a population of 128 million people, it is estimated that Japan has fewer than 400,000 legally owned guns resulting in a total of 22 gun murders in 2007 according to Japan's National Police Agency.

The United States on the other hand has a population of 306 million, 280 million guns and over 12,000 gun homicides each year. Even if, for arguments sake, we were to more than double Japan's population to match the U.S. population, that would leave Japan with just over 50 gun homicides compared to America's over 12,000 gun murders. It's shameful.

America needs to decide what kind of country it wants to be. Do we want to be a nation willing to be bullied by an extremist lobby and misguided in our way of thinking about our nation's gun problem?

I find it very telling the one-man show at the "Freedom State Alliance" (FSA) refers to "the extremist lobby" which is composed of several million members of the NRA, hundreds of thousands with SAF and CCRKBA. And 10 of millions of people that are members at local gun clubs and ranges. I probably have more people attend Boomershoot each year than the "Freedom State Alliance" can count as members.

I find it very telling that the FSA looks at only the GUN related homicides in Japan and not the total homicide and suicide rates which paint a very different picture when compared to the U.S.

I find it very telling that FSA uses the number 30,000 dead. Because that includes legally justified defensive shootings by police officers and private citizens! In order to get the numbers up FSA uses praiseworthy uses of firearms--then they spin it to be something negative.

I find it very telling the FSA laments the number of people exercising a specific enumerated right. What would the the response of the general public if the KKK were whining about the number of blacks running around free and unregulated instead of being slaves?

What this tells me is the FSA is a bigoted organization that must spin and deceive in their attempts to get traction on the destruction of a critical portion of our Bill of Rights.

It's kind of sad irony when the head of the EU is criticizing the socialist schemes in the US.

James Huffman-Scott
March 25, 2009
Regarding EU chief: U.S. economic plans ‘a way to hell’
Via IM.
[There is no way I can add anything meaningful to that.--Joe]

Interesting perspective on the shooting of the police officers in Oakland:

This time, instead of the Gaza Strip in the Middle East, we’re talking about the MacArthur Strip in East Oakland. Instead of the occupation force of the Israelis in Palestine or the Americans in Iraq or Afghanistan, the low income Black communities in America are dealing with the police, FBI, ATF and DEA, to name a few. Instead of a suicide bomber or a sniper holed up in a building, Lovelle turned out to be a suicide sniper who used a gun instead of a bomb to take out enemies of the community.

I wonder how tolerant of that sort of attitude the MSM would be if it were some "gun-nut" or religious group who holed up and shot it out with the police.

I take that back. I don't need to wonder. I remember the MSM treatment of Ruby Ridge and Waco. And in the case of Ruby Ridge the DOJ agreed with the "gun-nuts"--the FBI was way out of line.

Last month at Tam's place people were commenting things we had which were old. It was sort of "back when I was a young'n..." story telling time.

I visited my parents last Saturday and picked up my contribution to the discussion:

I brought it in to work today and asked my office mate if she knew what it was.

Her eyes got big and she said, "Oh my! Is this a punched card? I have never seen one of these before!"

I told her that it was more than that. "This", I told her, "Is proof I was writing software before you were born."

I took Engr 131 fall semester 1973 at the University of Idaho. Punched cards is a tough way to program a computer. There is no back space or delete and retype. There is no "white out". If you make a mistake on a card you get to type a new one (there were rare exceptions but that is beyond the scope of this discussion).

We would leave our card deck on a table in the hall and come back three DAYS later to read the print-out result of the submission to the IBM 360. Usually it was something like ten pages of paper that boiled down to something like "Syntax error on card five, column 17." Or "Program error. Core dump follows."

The next year using a line editor on a teletype that looked like an IBM Selectric typewriter with a box of paper in back was such a thrill. You could get the compile and run results in a minute or two instead of days. And "editing" was just AWESOME compared to punching cards.

In the early 80's I started programming on a CRT. It was still a line editor but listing lines 120-140 only took a couple of silent seconds instead of 30 seconds of clattering with the teletype. I started hearing rumors of something called a "visual editor" about the time son James was born in '84. I couldn't imagine what the fuss was about. "Visual editor?" What is that about? How much better than Edline could an editor be? I didn't bother to check it out for several months.

Even then I would tell people about programming the microprocessor system I had build on a plug-board. I had typed in hand assembled hex codes into a PROM programmer. Then I plugging the PROM into a socket and powered up the system trying to debug it from the deciphering the way the LEDs blinked. Now that was a tough way to program.

We all know about the mass destruction of guns in Australia but the oppression didn't stop there and it doesn't generally make the news here. My Australian friend emailed these tidbits to me:

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=131675

Tracks where you go, measuring your speed between two points.

Emphasis on the tracks where you go part.

And:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25229239-5014239,00.html

AUSTRALIA'S third largest internet service provider (ISP) has pulled out of the Government's web filtering trials, saying the plan is "no longer just about stopping child porn".

The Government's plan involves a nation-wide filter that stops "unwanted material" from appearing on Australian user's computer screens.

iiNet says the ambiguity of "unwanted material" is what caused it to pull out of the trials.

Ambiguity of “unwanted material”? Like Tiananmen square? Between the speed cameras and this, I’m not so sure I would be happy living there anymore…

Update: Comment spam is coming in at the rate of about one every two minutes. I'm turning off comments to this post. If you want to post a comment send it via email to me (blog AT JoeHuffman DOT org) with the name you want associated with it and I'll post it for you.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

Dorothy Parker
When asked to use the word "horticulture" in a sentence.
[Sebastian's post from yesterday reminded me of this. I laugh every time I hear that classic truism because I immediately think of Parker's twist on it. And it is rare that I am in the sort of company where I can explain why I am laughing.--Joe]

I just posted a comment to this article. My comment was:

I have just one question (http://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/12/15/JustOneQuestion.aspx) for you:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

The website response was:

This discussion is moderated. Your post will be displayed when a moderator has reviewed it.

I wonder if it will really will be displayed.

Via Ry I found some great articles on explosives:

• Water Acts As Catalyst In Explosives
• Explosives At The Microscopic Scale Produce Shocking Results
• High Powered New Explosive Developed

There are more but I have to get ready for work.

Nicely done:

Via email from daughter Xenia.

Let me just tell you, Congressional/Executive Branch Scumbag, Esq., if you do this… if you take this turn… I won’t even think twice. I will move my firm to Switzerland, or to London before the year is out. Those employees who do not follow me, I will have to fire. The corporate taxes I pay will no longer be yours. Instead, they will go to something useful, like a nice tunnel through a mountain for high speed trains that actually work. Further, I will dedicate a substantial portion of my personal time, effort and capital to frustrating your every attempt to collect personal taxes on me thereafter- given your draconian anti-expatriation laws. But that’s not all. My job is to make money for my clients, in whatever way I can. I will short your flagging financial firms mercilessly and remorselessly. I will buy QGRI puts to bet against any firm that took bailout money. I will buy credit default swaps on every firm you put your greasy paws on, because I know your fingerprints are laced with poison. For every boneheaded centralist move you make, I will be there, profiting from your lunacy. I will never again take a client who pays taxes in the United States. I will not permit any capital or profit to be diverted to any such. I will do this because in the same way you believe it your divine right to punish “greed,” I consider it my duty to punish the stupidity and arrogance that is central planning, and because I believe in economic freedom. I will divert as many of your resources to my new home and its relative economic freedoms as I can. I will promote free markets in this way, and I will never look back. You will have made it clear that you are my enemy, and I do not forget such declarations.

I take no pleasure in this fight. I did not ask for it. I only asked for liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Deny me these at your peril. In the end, I can only hope I'm not alone.

Austrian
March 22, 2009
Wait a second... you want to blame ME for the financial crisis?
Via Ry.
[It seems to me there are hundreds or thousands of ways one can legally declare war against the enemies of freedom. Look around and find yours.--Joe]

The Supreme Court in Heller struck a balance between the right of individuals to protect themselves and the right of individuals to be protected. If we so limit gun control as to favor individuals to protect themselves, but then disadvantage the right of individuals to be protected by the police, what will we have gained for the public good?

Phil Mendelson
An at-large member of the D.C. Council and chairman of the council's Committee on Public Safety & the Judiciary.
D.C. Vote: This Is About Safety, Not the 2^nd Amendment
March 22, 2009
[People don't have a right to be protected by the police. Nowhere in the constitution, the law, or in court rules can you find such a "right". Just the opposite in fact. The courts have ruled the police have no duty to protect individuals. This is just the worst of the lies in this article. Read the rest and be sure to take your blood pressure meds first--Joe]

I replaced most of the Wi-Fi gear at the Boomershoot site and things appear to be working well. There have been no drop outs.

We have full signal strength on my laptop at the intersection of the creek and the road. All places that I have tested have higher signal strength than before I need to get my signal strength mapping software out here and remap the area.

Lots of snow still but it got up to 54F this afternoon and it's still 44F at 1740. The snow is melting fast. That means there is lots of water in the low areas.

Abandon all hopes of utopia - there are people involved.

Clayton Cramer
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/clayton_cramer/
[Dystopia, on the other hand, is well within our grasp and I fear we are approaching it at warp speed.--Joe]

It's just a law. Rulers don't need to obey the law. Just their subjects.

Never mind they aren't rulers. They are public servants. And when they don't obey the law it becomes obvious they wish to change the relationship between servant and master.

Had the troops put on a reflective vest over their civilian clothes and directed traffic as civilians I wouldn't have a problem with it. But they didn't do that.

It sounds like some officers are taking it seriously but don't expect most government officials to care in the slightest. They might need those troops for controlling the serfs someday.

The bigger the appropriations bill, the shorter the debate.

Senator James Abourezk
[The Senator left office over 30 years ago but it appears to me his observation has withstood the test of time.--Joe]

So that’s what we have now. The ship is on the rocks, water is rising, and the captain is shouting "Full steam ahead! We are sailing to Afghanistan!" Do you listen to Ahab up on the bridge, or do you desert your post in the engine room and go help deploy the lifeboats? If you thought that the previous episode of uncontrolled debt expansion, globalized Ponzi schemes, and economic hollowing-out was silly, then I predict that you will find this next episode of feckless grasping at macroeconomic straws even sillier. Except that it won’t be funny: what is crashing now is our life support system: all the systems and institutions that are keeping us alive. And so I don’t recommend passively standing around and watching the show - unless you happen to have a death wish.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[I don't know whether to believe we are really in a life or death situation but I suppose it is possible. What I am fairly confident of is that the current administration doesn't have a clue as to what to do. They may think they have a clue but it's all "hope and change" and almost zero knowledge.--Joe]

"Fine" can be a relative word. A prime example is this case:

"For being hit in the face with a shotgun, he's doing fine," said Tennant.

I reported on this incident yesterday but the latest news report has a lot more details.

I"m glad the injuries aren't serious and that the perps were arrested quickly and without incident.

There wasn't any new material for me in this essay but it was a great collection and presentation of the problem: Dismantling the Killer Elite.

Via Sebastian I discovered something General Wesley Clark said:

If people want machine guns, let them join the military. We got em! But for public and personal use, absolutely not.

That is eerily close to something else said by a national leader a few decades ago:

If any citizen wants to possess arms, let him join the Party.

Adolf Hitler

That isn't the only instance either. See also the Council of People's Commissars a few decades before Hitler.

You can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps.

Yesterday afternoon, DoD additionally confirmed the lifting of the suspension to pro-Second Amendment United States Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who sent the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) a joint letter vigorously opposing the suspension, on the grounds that it had "an impact on small businesses who sell reloaded ammunition utilizing these fired casings, and upon individual gun owners who purchase spent military brass at considerable cost savings for their personal use."

...

DLA also put to rest various theories and rumors that were circulated on the internet, concerning the reason for the suspension. As DLA explained to Senators Baucus and Tester, and to NRA-ILA, DoD officials responsible for the demilitarization of military property temporarily halted the release of the cartridge cases last week, pending review of a policy change issued last year by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which, in the interest of national security, halted the sale of items within a broad category of government property including, but not limited to, surplus small arms cartridge cases.

Chris Cox
March 18, 2009
Military Surplus Cartridge Case Issue Resolved
[I was working on a post comparing the destruction of the brass to destroying used books that were being sold to underfunded schools in black neighborhoods. But I procrastinated long enough to avoid the appearance of jumping on the Obama conspiracy train.

Appearances are not always what they seem.--Joe]

When in Moscow I buy my gas there:

Pullman police arrested a 20-year-old man overnight for allegedly shooting another man in the face.

...

Pullman Police and the Moscow Police Department worked together to find Lawrence, who was arrested at a Tesoro gas station in Moscow a half hour after the shooting.

Just because they are across the state line from each other doesn't mean they don't have excellent cooperation. My understanding is the Washington State University Police (in Pullman), Whitman County (Washington), and Latah County (Idaho) police also work closely with the Pullman and Moscow city police. I've met a few of them, shoot with some of them and occasionally some of the sniper teams attend Boomershoot. All of seem to be good guys. Perhaps a little grumpy when one of their fellow officers gets shot (pictures here) however.

It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to arrive at the same conclusion as Mr. Brunson:

Dugger was treated at the hospital after one of the bullets police say he was slamming with a hammer exploded, blowing shrapnel into his leg.

"If you get hit with something hot and fast and out of control, it's going to possibly cause a problem," said Travis Brunson, owner of Chiquita Guns.

The event was reportedly witnessed by several children belonging to Dugger's roommate, who was already under investigation by the Department of Children and Families for inadequate supervision of the children.

"Anyone nearby could have certainly been hit by it. It's such a monumentally stupid idea," Brunson said.

Posit; We know our government is out of control.  We know the U.S. and many of the state constitutions are being willfully violated.  We know that more people need to be made aware of the scope of the problem.  What then?  What do we actually do about it?  I've been talking to you all here, I attended one of the "We Surround Them" meetings, plus I've talked with friends and acquaintances for years about it.  It's not a partisan issue-- it's pandemic.  We tried the Republican Party.  We handed them both houses of Congress and the Whitehouse at the same time, but clearly they are not, and have not been, at all serious about reducing the size and scope of government and restoring lost liberties.

If we were to try the (barely) successful model of the 1770s, we'd be storming government offices right now, tarring and feathering politicians, etc.  I don't think that's necessary at this stage, however.  Not just yet.  We have tools that were not available to the American colonists.  We have the legal process at our immediate disposal on our own soil.  Here is one example;

Former State Sen. Vincent Fumo was convicted of all 137 counts against him today as his marathon federal corruption trial ended in a stunning victory for prosecutors.

We can talk to our neighbors, local business owners, law enforcement, legal scholars and prosecutors.  Nearly every locale in America has a target rich environment for criminal prosecutions of politicians who are blatantly over-stepping their authority, intimidating innocent people, and attempting to pass laws in violation of our constitution.  Cases and jurisdictions need to be carefully examined, but there are rich pickings all across America right now.

If there is an epidemic of such cases, some of those in office will start to get the point.  If they don't get the point after that or if the courts fail in their duty, we'll have to start buying tar.

Last Thursday I reported the ATF responded well to my request for clearance for Boomershoot staff and gun bloggers to handle explosives at Boomershoot 2009. I have a quick update which is also positive.

The three people that had their clearances "Pending" on Thursday were all cleared by Friday.

Yesterday one of the people noticed there was a typo on his address in the clearance paperwork. I sent the ATF an email this morning informing them of the error and requesting clearances for two more people. About two hours later I received the following email:

Good morning Mr. Huffman –

I have made the correction for Mr. XXXXX and ask for a corrected print of his Letter of Clearance with the correct address. I will also get the 2 possessors added to your license.

Nice. And I sent him an email thanking him for his quick service too.

ATF still should be a convenience store instead of a regulatory agency and they still should get their wrist slapped (and others should be hanged) for some of the crap they pull. But just because someone has ATF on their business card doesn't necessarily mean they are Gestapo.

Eric Boehlert goes on a rampage about gun control and cites some references to support his position:

After a mentally ill student, Seung-Hui Cho, had made a mockery of Virginia's gun laws by falsifying his gun-store background check and killing 32 people with the guns he purchased illegally, CNN presented a debate in which an activist arguing that the United States needed to relax its gun-control laws was given equal time to an activist who urged that the country tighten its gun laws. The pro-gun advocate, who represented a radical minority in America, was put on the same footing as the gun-control advocate, whose views reflected the clear plurality of Americans, who have consistently called for stricter gun laws. That's how CNN chose to frame the debate in the immediate wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.

...

Left unreported in that kind of gun coverage is the fact that relaxing gun laws in the United States represents a radical, out-there idea that's supported by just a tiny fraction of Americans. Not even gun owners in America want to make the laws less restrictive. (Just 15 percent back the idea.)

What I find interesting is the first reference he cites says this:

Just about 4 in 10 Americans are dissatisfied with gun laws in the country, while half are satisfied.

The pressure to make gun laws stricter appears to be mitigated. Just slightly more than half of Americans support making laws covering firearms sales more strict, at its lowest point since 2002.

More than two in three Americans oppose the government completely outlawing the right to possess a handgun.

Nearly 6 in 10 of Americans now say the government should enforce current gun laws more strictly rather than passing new laws. This percentage is up this year, similar to levels previously measured in 2002.

The public has grown slightly more likely to say that having a gun in the home makes it a safer, rather than a less safe, place to be. The opposite was true previously from 2000 to 2004.

This has a completely different tone than Boehlert's rant. Boehlert had to really stretch to use it has justification for his conclusions.

In the use of his second reference he overlooks the fact that just 51% of the public thinks the laws should be made more strict versus 47% (2% have no opinion). And that 4 point difference is down from 14 points in the previous year and down from 60 points a few years before that! The trend is definitely in our favor.

And what does this guy think the "other side" of those in favor of more restrictive gun laws would be? Apparently he is of the opinion the two sides are "more gun control" and "no more gun control for a while". This is like trying to work out a compromise with your would-be rapist by asking him to wear a condom.

I'm of the opinion even the "pro-gun" position mentioned is not really "the other side". A public opinion poll, which didn't even ask the right question to find out how many people are on "the other side", can't possibly define it. I've explained the middle ground before and so won't do so again here. But suffice it to say Boehlert should be thrilled "the other side" chosen was as close to his viewpoint as it was. Had it really been "the other side" he would have had an aneurysm.

Mike contacted David Barna, chief of Public Affairs for the National Park Service.

He says the lead ban doesn't apply to visitors. Just the people who work at the park.

I'm with Mike. It's still troubling.

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without.

Interest charges not only eat up a household budge, awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.

Lazarus Long
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, page 30.
"The Notebooks..." was extracted from Robert A. Heinlein's book Time Enough for Love in which Long is the main character.
[Although this advice was intended for marriages between humans in a common household, probably including group marriages, it seems to me it applies to much larger groups as well. I'm thinking of our city, state, and Federal governments.--Joe]

The ATF started really harassing the model rocketry folks a few years back. Today they got their wrists slapped:

District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton for the District of Columbia today issued an order finding in favor of the Tripoli Rocketry Association and National Association of Rocketry vs. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The decision followed a status hearing this past Friday in Washington.

Walton’s order granted a summary judgment motion in favor of the plaintiffs TRA and NAR, denied the summary judgment motion of BATFE, and vacated the classification of Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant (APCP) as an explosive.

...

The parties came before the Court on March 13, 2009, for a hearing on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment. Upon consideration of the parties’ written submissions, the administrative record presented to the Court, the applicable legal authority, the oral arguments presented by the parties, and for the reasons expressed by the Court at the hearing on the motion, the Court finds that the agency’s decision does not satisfy the standard for evaluating agency rulemaking because it was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Specifically, the defendant did not adequately explain why it came to the decision it did in light of contrary evidence in the administrative record submitted by the plaintiffs, which tended to show that APCP can burn at a rate lower than that which the defendant designated as the threshold, and “which, if true, . . . would require a change in [the] proposed rule.’” La. Fed. Land Bank Ass’n, FLCA v. Farm Credit Admin., 336 F.3d 1075, 1080 (D.C. Cir. 2003); see D&F Afonso Realty Trust v. Garvey, 216 F.3d 1191, 1195 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (quoting Public Citizen, Inc. v. F.A.A., 988 F.2d 186, 197 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (”‘[t]he requirement that agency action not be arbitrary or capricious includes a requirement that the agency adequately explain its result . . . .’”). Here, the agency’s shortcoming was its failure to articulate any rationale for finding that the relevant and significant evidence in the record that conflicted with its position was unpersuasive, which it seemingly out-of-hand dismissed merely because it was contrary to the agency’s ultimate conclusion.

I hope this is but one of many more to come in regards to both firearms and explosives. It's long past time they were told in no uncertain terms they must obey the law.

Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge.

Erwin Knoll
[Although I have observed this for myself on many occasions it was Kevin's post from yesterday which most recently reminded me of this.--Joe]

This Saturday, the 14th, my son's school trap shooting team hosted a trap meet.  Hosting means we show up at 07:30 instead of 09:00.  We shoveled snow while others set up the kitchen and got the coffee started, loaded the traps with targets, etc.  It also means we stay after to clean and pack things up.

Below; Our next door neighbor, Laura, busts a target.  She hadn't fired a shotgun in her life until just this winter when I helped out by hand-throwing targets for her.  Saturday she held her own quite well.  You can tell she's using a 20 gauge automatic, can't you?

Below; Your average Eastern Washington high school kids in their natural setting.

Below; Alex pops one off.  He hit 28 of 50 this time out.

Below; Robert Cray wrote a song about this. (I know those buildings look pretty close for being downrange of a shooting club.  It's the camera lens-- I'm ~30 yards behind the shooter using a long lens.  Those buildings are over 350 yards away.  The 7 1/2 shot pellets are gently raining down at that distance.

Below; One of the school vehicles in the parking lot.  Reach for the stars-- learn to shoot well.

This was the first time I'd watched an "Annie Oakley".  It looks really fun.  All the participants line up side-by-side at the farthest "handicap" line (farthest from the trap house from which the targets are launched).  They worked in groups of three.  The first shooter on the left calls for a target.  "Pull!"  If that shooter makes a hit, the next shooter to the right calls for a target.  If the one who called, "Pull!" misses, the shooter to the right takes a shot.  If that one is a hit, the primary shooter (the caller) is eliminated from the game.  If the second shooter misses, a third shooter takes a shot.  If that shot is a hit, the first two shooters are eliminated. If one shooter makes a hit, but the next shooter in that group of three fires anyway, that shooter, and anyone in that group who fired and missed, is eliminated.  This goes on, in groups of three, with each shooter on the line taking a chance on being the first of three, over and over until there's one shooter left, who of course wins the game.  I understand there is big money in some of these games, but this being a school event I think the big prize was ten dollars-- almost enough to cover half the day's ammo cost for the winner.

I got the following email this morning. My response follows:

From: tjif tjaf
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 10:36 AM
To: joeh@boomershoot.org
Subject: need help

 

Hi

 

 

Do you know a way to blow up a house just enough so nobody can live in anymore.

I mean the exploision must be big enough so it creates a hole or crack in the wall.

 

Why? whell nobody is living in it for now but it is located in a extraordinary forest with
som very rare birds and they dont like the be disturbed. so now is the chance to get rid

of this builing before somebody buys it and want to live in it. i thought to put a propane tank
in the bassement but i don't know if it is enough or even explodes.

 

 

thanks

 

---

Uw e-mailcontact koos voor Hotmail en profiteert van een enorme opslagruimte! Maak ook een gratis Hotmail-account aan

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 1:47 PM
To: 'tjif tjaf'
Subject: RE: need help

 

I haven’t worked with propane tanks much. Maybe someone on the Belgium Explosive Ordinance team would know the answer.

 

I don’t have any contacts in Belgium but I have put some of my contacts in the U.S. (Susan and Crystal with the ATF) on the Bcc: line in hopes they know how to contact them for you.

 

-joe-

-----

Girls only. Guns are allowed though.

I posted about this guy once before. This probably will be the last time. This is just down the road from where I work. I have driven by there many times. Apparently a lot of the items were stolen:

A 65-year-old Spokane man pleaded guilty Thursday to having an arsenal of illegal military weapons and explosives in a Bellevue storage unit.

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Ronald Struve in January after his cache of weapons -- which included dozens of machine guns and blocks of C-4 plastic explosives -- was discovered by a man who bought at auction the contents of the storage unit at 12863 Northup Way after the unit's rent went unpaid, according to a criminal complaint.

...

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Woods declined to say what motive Struve had for collecting the weapons other than to note that Struve had said "he might have to use it some day."

Under terms of a plea agreement, Struve faces a sentence of 63 to 78 months in a federal prison.

Those among us who are afraid to be free will surrender their guns, their families, and their freedom to tyranny. Do not place your freedom or trust in their hands or depend on them to cover your six.

Michael Gaddy
January 5, 2008
Buy, Buy, Buy
[This reminds me of something Samuel Adams said.--Joe]

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

Milton Friedman
[It's true. But the people running the "system" refuse to see it that way.--Joe]

About a month ago when I posted about how stupid one anti-gun bigot was some people wondered if maybe it was a rhetorical question or a clever tactic.

There is more evidence to indicate that some of them really are that stupid:

The Tennessee legislation is about loaded long guns inside of motor vehicles. The Alabama shooter was driving around in a motor vehicle with loaded long guns (plus a handgun). In addition to the five relatives he killed, he killed five innocent bystanders -- three of whom were going about their business on the sides of public streets. The shooter shot and killed them from his vehicle. If the guns had not been loaded, he would have had to stop and load them. There is a slight chance that three people might have noticed what he was doing and had time to flee -- or as Rep. Fincher suggests, shoot him before he shot anyone else.

Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign again demonstrates he just doesn't get it or again thinks he can fool most people. Yesterday he blogged about something the NRA said:

...Wayne LaPierre was over the top.

He explained to all of us in America that "the guys with the guns make the rules."

Most of us believe that in a democracy, the voters make the rules.

And how is it do you think you maintain your right to vote Paul? You apparently want to overlook The Battle of Athens for example. And then there are the little things like how German Jews, Russian farmers, and millions of others who lost their ability to vote and live in the past few decades when they didn't hold on to their guns.

Soap box, ballot box, jury box, and as a last resort the cartridge box.

When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the money is.

Robespierr
[I'm pretty sure this was not the Robespierr. It's just some random quote I picked up a decade or more ago probably from a Usenet group or something that I thought was appropriate for today's economic situation.--Joe]

A week ago today I whined about the ATF being technically challenged as I was trying to get clearance for the Boomershoot staff (and some bloggers) to handle explosives.

Last night I got a call from daughter Kim saying I got a letter from them. "Open it up!" I said. She did and told me that all of the people I requested clearance on, except for three, were approved. Those three are pending and are allowed to handle explosives until I am told otherwise.

I am flabbergasted. That was awesome "service".

While I am of the opinion the ATF should be a convenience store rather than a regulatory agency I must admit they did their job well and without causing me pain once they actually got the paperwork in hand.

Thanks guys.

Last May Boomershoot donated two positions to the Friends of the NRA in King County (Seattle area). They thought they were going to have their dinner/auction before the end of April 2009 but that didn’t happen. The dinner/auction is now scheduled to be in May which is after the event. So they have put the two positions up for bid on eBay. Those positions are #41 in the main area and #51 on the berm.

You can see the view from the Main and Berm areas here:

http://entry.boomershoot.org/#Main
http://entry.boomershoot.org/#Berm

The entire proceeds go to Friends of the NRA to fund Youth Shooting programs and any amount above the fair market value ($150 for one person, $250 for two, $300 for three) is tax deductible.

Hurry, the auction ends in six and a half days.

The District and its supporters also err in extolling the supposed virtues of a world without guns, and condemning the vices of a world without gun regulations. In doing so, they set up a false set of choices. A world without guns is not an option, because hundreds of millions of guns are already in private hands and readily available across either the Virginia or Maryland borders; and even if all handguns in America magically vanished, criminals could still illegally saw off shotguns and rifles to produce concealable weapons that would be more lethal than most handguns. Thus, the District can only hope to dry up the supply of handguns for the law abiding, while criminal access to handguns remains virtually unlimited. It is against this real-world backdrop, and not against that of a utopian gun-free world, that the District’s position must be assessed.

Richard K. Willard
D.C. versus Heller
Brief Amicus Curiae Of The Heartland Institute in support of respondent
[In light of the renewed calls for more gun control after the shootings in Alabama and Germany I thought this was appropriate.--Joe]

I've always thought there are some events that shouldn't get National TV coverage.

Jim Scoutten
March 7, 2009
Producer and host of Shooting USA
Boomershoot coverage?
H/T to Ry (via email as well as his blog), followed by Kevin (email and blog), Say Uncle, Robb (email and blog), Phil, and Sebastian.
[I am a little insulted. Boomershoot got positive coverage from Newsweek, KING 5 Evening Magazine (Seattle television show), Outside Magazine, and numerous other media outlets (that list is just a partial listing). If he doesn't think we are appropriate for national TV coverage he is mistaken. We can and have handled national media before and done quite well.

It just so happens another national TV show is planning to attend this year anyway. I also got a request for permission from a participant doing a video with smaller audience. Boomershoot should be well represented in the media this year. The gun blogger list of participants alone is impressive.

Like I said, I'm a little insulted but Scoutten is missing out more than Boomershoot by his decision.

Thanks for all the support guys but I don't really think it's necessary to do a Zumbo on him. He's not saying Boomershoot should be banned or anything. He just doesn't think it is something he wants to present to the public.

In his followup comment he says he doesn't want put anything "on TV that could alarm the anti-gunners". I disagree. I am of the opinion that alarming them over Boomershoot then making fools of them is the more appropriate tactic (ask me sometime in private how we have baited them but they failed to take the bait). But if he doesn't want to do that I don't see a reason to attack him over that judgment call.--Joe]

Sometimes, as with the "one gun a month" schemes, it is a little difficult to see the sneaky way the anti-gun owner bigots try to get universal gun registration. But with this one they only barely lower the profile:

Local Law "A" for 2009 would tightly regulate "in the interests of public safety" all ammunition sold in Albany County. Not just ammo for handguns, which already is closely monitored by state law, but all rifle and shotgun ammunition as well. Hunting and target shooting ammo, basically. Anyone buying rounds or shells, even .22s, would have to show identification, declare the gun and have its serial number registered with the ammo seller. The buyer would have to state his intent of use, and could be refused the purchase. The ammo seller, at the same time, would be required to keep records for 10 years.

Registration of guns and gun owners over the years has cost people billions of dollars (two billion in Canada alone in the last decade or so) and about 100 million innocent lives (in genocides from Africa to the Ukraine). The number of crimes solved through the use of gun and gun owner registries is asymptotically close to zero.

In Canada if you ask the gun grabbers how many crimes the police have solved through the use of the gun registry they will subtly change the subject and say, "The registry is used thousands of times each day." or some such thing. Yes, the registry get a thousands of hits each day by the police. But it just part of a standard query on a person. That doesn't mean it provided any useful data. And it certainly doesn't mean it helped solve a crime. John Lott spoke at the 2000 Gun Rights Policy Conference and told us that in Hawaii the police estimate they spend 50,000 hours per year of police time involved in registration efforts. Most of which is paperwork. Yet when you talk to the police they can't identify even one crime where this has helped. Guns are virtually never left at that crime scene. It's not in my notes but I recall Lott telling us that when pressed hard enough Canada can support the claim that there was one crime solved through the use the registry which has been, in one form or another, in use for decades.

So if a gun registration scheme has literally only a one in a million (or less) chance of solving a crime what do you think the real reason the gun grabbers keep pushing for registration? I can only think of four possible reasons:

1. They are ignorant
2. They are stupid
3. They are insane
4. They want to confiscate the guns

In regard to #1, they have been told again and again. Any ignorance on their part is incredibly willful.

In regards to #2, if they are smart enough to count votes they are smart enough to count crimes solved. It is not because they are that stupid.

In regards to #3, this might be true in some cases. They are so blinded by grief over the loss of a loved one that they are not thinking rationally. But this is not the case for the vast majority of gun grabbers.

In regards to #4, this is the only answer I can come up with that makes any sense. Those that want to register firearms and/or their owners so they can enable the elimination of gun ownership.

Molôn Labé.

From a reader submitted editorial:

But in Iowa, when a gun discussion was brought up, it referred to hunting and those scraggly guys wearing the camouflage and driving the rusted Ford pickup. Instead of hearing about which person got shot over the weekend, I was hearing something along the lines of “Boy, I ‘m going to gut that coon I shot on Sunday and hang it up in the garage!”

Great stereotype you got there buddy. Did you learn all about the validity of stereotypes while you were attending Klan orientation?

The Brady Campaign is a U.S. organization that supports both gun control and gun owners' rights.

Can anyone name just one gun control law the Brady Campaign opposed? Does the KKK support both n****r control and civil rights? How can this person think that is even possible?

If Obama is able to pass stricter gun laws, hunters will suffer and be at an uproar. If Obama doesn't change anything in regards to gun control, those grieving mothers and communities will be screaming in his ear, asking why he hasn't done anything about it.

The classic bolt action deer rifle and shotguns used for bird hunting are the furthest down on Obama's list and as a class of guns are probably the least used in crimes. I don't expect Obama will even hint at restricting them. Rifle ammo, maybe. But not the firearms.

Such ignorance! Why aren't they embarrassed to have their words seen or heard in public?

Maritime experts were given a rare glimpse of the underlying capabilities of the Chinese navy on Sunday, when crewmen involved in a stand-off with a US surveillance ship in the South China Sea revealed the fleet's previously hidden firepower.

The exposure came as the American vessel USNS Impeccable was attempting to defend itself against what the Pentagon claimed was co-ordinated harassment and aggression from five Chinese ships. Being unarmed, the Impeccable turned its fire water hoses against two of the Chinese vessels that had come within 50 feet in a threatening posture.

Then, the Pentagon records in the admirably restrained language of international diplomacy, "the Chinese crew members disrobed to their underwear and continued closing to within 25 feet."

In the annals of great naval battles, the contretemps may not rank alongside Trafalgar or Jutland. But it must be a contender for this year's award for naked aggression.

Ed Pilkington
March 10, 2009
In New York, The Guardian
Stand-off shows Chinese navy's secret tactics
[I just hope the sailors on the Impeccable got lots of pictures of all that "previously hidden firepower". I'm sure there is a market for that somewhere outside of the Pentagon. Maybe some magazines would be interested.--Joe]

Ry and I visited the Boomershoot site on Saturday. I checked the power supply and verified the batteries were fully charged and the inverters were working. The Wi-Fi was working just fine too but the last time I was there it wasn't working so I plan to replace some of the components the next time I go out there.

Ry and I both took pictures of the snow. I had not tried a Photosythn before and I thought this would be kinda neat to try. So I took hundreds of pictures. The first attempt failed and the second attempt is here. I learned quite a bit from the effort and will try some more later on but the result is still pretty interesting.

Ry has his take on the snow.

I think it's still a little early to tell. We are seven weeks from the event. I needed snow shoes to make it out the Taj Mahal but the deepest snow I could find at the shooting line near the berm was only about 17 inches deep.

We have more snow now at seven week out that last year at six weeks and five weeks out. We also had snow on the ground for the actual event too. After I visit next time we will have a better comparison to previous years.

Do we really need a gun-fashion police? I just want to be able to exercise my Second Amendment rights without interference from the District government.

Tracy Ambeau Hanson
March 9, 2009
SAF CHALLENGES D.C. HANDGUN BAN SCHEME

[The above picture is from David. See also more on the lawsuit story from David. I find it incredible amusing SAF found a woman of color as the plaintiff in a case about discrimination against a gun that is the wrong color. How much more blatant can the discrimination be before people start realizing the people attempting to infringe our right to keep and bear arms are bigots?

Thank you Ms. Hanson, SAF, and Calguns Foundation.

SAF is getting monthly, tax deductible, donations from my paycheck with matching donations from Microsoft. What are you doing to help?-Joe]

A fellow gun blogger who said it wasn't that good a match to his blog sent me this link.

Fortunetelling has always been an inseparable part of the history of mankind. People always wanted to look in their own future and unravel the mystery of the human character. Fortune-tellers use a variety of things for their activities: cards, dice, coins, wax, salt and many other tools.

Sternomancy is a divination practice which involves the reading of markings on the area of the human body from the breast to the belly. This way of fortunetelling can be used to unveil the character of a woman by reading the shape of her breasts. Sternomancy was used in fortunetelling in the 18th century in Spain. Nowadays, sexologists say that the bosom of a woman identifies her character even more than Zodiac signs do.

People usually compare the shape of women’s breasts with fruit, berries and even vegetables.

As I read the opening paragraphs I considered a career change. Fortune telling by examination of women's breast and nipples? If there's money to be made then sign me up! But as I read further I discovered there wasn't any advocacy of physical contact with the subject matter. If it's only looking then I don't see it as that big of a gain over the free porn available on the 'net. And besides I have a suspicion that Barb would frown on my new career choice. I once considered becoming a lawyer and she said she would divorce me if I sank that low. Although I'm pretty sure fortune telling via the examination of women's breast wouldn't be ranked as low as being a lawyer I'm pretty sure I'd have to suffer through some icy stares every once in a while.

Here is the key insight: you might think that when collapse happens, nothing works. That’s just not the case. The old ways of doing things don’t work any more, the old assumptions are all invalidated, conventional goals and measures of success become irrelevant. But a different set of goals, techniques, and measures of success can be brought to bear immediately, and the sooner the better.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[On Saturday my Dad, my brother Doug, Ry, and I were all sitting around talking about the hazards and opportunities our current economic situation. Doug pointed out that five or ten years from now will be able to see all kinds of opportunities that are available to us right now if we only could see them. I don't think anyone disagreed with him. But none of had any real clues as to what those opportunities are.--Joe]

My definition of social justice: those who refuse to work deserve to go hungry.

Clayton Cramer
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/clayton_cramer/
[It seems to me that this definition of social justice will soon becoming the norm.--Joe]

I have no idea what they are expecting to find with "coeurdalene idaho lesbians solar system" but I'm pretty sure they didn't find it here.

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It's a long story but I deleted the list of Gun Bloggers planning to attend Boomershoot 2009.

I have reconstructed the list as best I could and sent an email to those people. If you are a gun blogger planning to atttend Boomershoot 2009 and did not get an email please let me know and I'll add you to my list.

I'm still a long way from going up a clock tower with a scoped rifle and a sack lunch.

Tamara K.
February 22, 2009
Blah
[I thought this would be appropriate after my frustrations with the ATF yesterday.--Joe]

I've expounded at length about the problems with National ID Cards and how it fails my Jews In The Attic Test. I haven't heard much about such cards recently. There is the defacto National ID Cards in the form of Real ID but with all the states applying for extensions and some declaring intent to not comply with it I have not been concerned about it.

But could it be that now we have the socialists in power their cohorts in academia are softening us up for a police state with a National ID card? Emphasis is mine in this quote:

This book chapter for "Lessons from the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society" (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) - a forthcoming comparative examination of approaches to the regulation of anonymity edited by Ian Kerr - discusses the sources of hostility to National ID Cards in common law countries. It traces that hostility in the United States to a romantic vision of free movement and in England to an equally romantic vision of the 'rights of Englishmen'.

"Romantic vision of free movement"?

If National ID cards become a reality in this country I'll be doing a lot more "free movement" of objects at supersonic velocities that will be very unromantic.

Although Boomershoot has an ATF approved explosive handler in Memphis she didn't blow up this car with someone in it today.

The following started as my comment at Say Uncle, but I decided it needed its own post.  It's in response to the now age-old maneuver of calling for more enforcement of existing anti-gun laws rather than passing more, and considering ourselves clever negotiators.  It doesn't matter who said it recently.  It's been said for many years;

"...should enforce existing laws rather than propose additional laws they said could infringe on Second Amendment rights."

Additional laws "could" infringe?  What; existing laws couldn't infringe on Second Amendment rights?  Not a single one of them?  Next time someone's house is busted into, guns are confiscated and destroyed, lives are turned upside down over a technical violation when no one has harmed or threatened any other person, you'll be perfectly OK with that?  It'd be great, so long as no one bothers you with more laws?  You thought Ruby Ridge was cool, and you want more of the same, so long as it's convenient for you?  You want to keep innocent people in jail over paper-work errors, or over an inch of barrel length or a quarter inch of buttstock?  Would that make you a proud supporter of the second amendment or a sadistic and immoral jackass with anti American tendencies?  You decide.

Lets put this into perspective; "The Justice Department should enforce existing laws against negroes rather than propose additional laws that could infringe on Civil Rights."

That sounds stupid as all hell, doesn't it?  How many people would take that as a pro Civil Rights stance and call for more of it?  Yet we have been conditioned over the years to think that's perfectly acceptable language when discussing second amendment rights.  Any politician says something stupid like that and we think, "Yeah, Baby!  You tell 'em!  That guy's on OUR side, Man!"

Oh, how far we have fallen.

Would we sit idly by and accept a federal department of alcohol, tobacco, negroes and explosives (BATNE)?  Do you like the juxtaposition there?  Lovely, isn't it?  Should anyone sit by and accept such a thing as an inevitability, and proudly claim that as a clever, politically "reasonable" stance?

If you reject the idea that gun restrictions equal crime control, and instead believe (as do I) that gun laws are not only counterproductive to their stated goals and an attack on liberty, but unconstitutional, you don't call for more enforcement of them.  What would be the point in that, unless it's an unprincipled attempt to appear "reasonable" to people who know nothing of the issue and nothing of the constitution's history?  For that matter, what law enforcement officer who has taken an oath to the constitution could in good conscience enforce any gun laws against peaceable citizens?

Are we trying to appeal to the sensibilities of idiots at the expense of our credibility, at the expense of the constitution, at the expense of reason, at the expense of public harmony, and at the expense of liberty?  Yeah; that makes us look like geniuses.  Sure it does.  Or cowards.

It's hypocritical.  It's McCainian (to perhaps coin a new term).  It's relying on ignorance for public support.  It's what Republicans do when they listen to their super-smart advisors.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to clean my guns.  And to "fondle" them.  You know, 'cause I have a small penis or something.

The ATF explosives examiner for Idaho said I could just email the scans of the copies I kept. But after two days of getting neither confirmation or bounced email messages about the "Employee Possessor Questionnaires" (background check paperwork for handling explosives) I was about to call him when he emailed me. He said he hadn't received any emails from me after the first one. I had actually sent him two emails in that time frame. The first had bounced and I presumed it was because the attachment was too large. So I put the 9 Mbyte .ZIP file on the boomershoot.org website (the .ZIP file has now been deleted and my logs indicate only I had attempted to download it) and sent him a link to that. That email did not bounce.

But I noticed something, the email address he used was different than the one I had originally used to contact him. I originally used <something>@atf.gov and the one he responded with was <somethingelse>@usdoj.gov. So I sent the same two emails again. One with the attachment and one with the link. Then a couple hours ago I called him. He hadn't received anything.

We verified the email addresses. The first one (which, on Tuesday, made it through to him) was wrong. The other, which I had done a "reply to" from his email was the correct one. He would not download a file from a website ("We don't do that"). Okay, so I'll try sending a plain text test message from a different email account to his preferred email address. That worked. Okay, now the 9 Mbyte .ZIP file. He's not sure what a .ZIP file is. He knows about .PDF files. .JPG files? Yeah, kinda.

The 9 Mbyte .ZIP bounced. The message:

The original message was received at Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:15:40 -0800

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- "somethingelse@usdoj.gov"

----- Transcript of session follows ----- .. while talking to mailsc20.usdoj.gov

>>> DATA <<< 550 5.7.0 Maximum Attachment Size (12M) Violation

Yeah, my 9 Mbyte .ZIP file exceeded their maximum attachment size restriction of 12 M.

Maybe this is a test to see if I'm calm enough to be trusted with explosives.

I broke the 9 Mbyte file into five .ZIP files the largest being 1.95 Mbytes and sent them as attachments to five plain text emails from my alternate email address to his second email address.

About 15 minutes later he called back. He had received them but it was going to "take a while" to get them from "picture viewer" to the printer. He would start work on that the first thing in the morning.

Apparently I passed the test.

I'm going out to the Boomershoot site this weekend. I think I need to blow something up.

I think it's astonishing, they're ruining the US economy, they're ruining the US government, they're ruining the US central bank and they're ruining the US dollar.

You are watching something in front of our eyes, very historically, which is basically the destruction of New York as a financial center and the destruction of America as the world's most powerful country.

Japan's economic "lost decade" was caused by trying to bail out the banks, and the West risks running out of money if it doesn't let the bad banks fail now.

Systemic risk is going to be the same in 10 months, 5 years or 10 years if the fundamental problem is not solved.

The idea that you have too much debt, too much borrowing and too much consumption and you're going to solve that problem with more debt, more consumption and more borrowing? These people are nuts.

Wall Street and the City of London are going to be "disastrous" for years, like in the 1950s and 1960s, and in 30 years, finance will "dry up and wither away" as we are entering a "long period of hard times."

Power is shifting now from the money shifters, the guys who trade paper and money, to people who produce real goods. What you should do is become a farmer, or start a farming network.

Jim Rogers
March 3, 2009
Jim Rogers: Let AIG Go Bankrupt, Not America
[If true, "real goods" probably involves more than just farm/food products. My guess it will include security, water, shelter, sanitation, communication, and transportation as well. Probably in about that order.--Joe]

In pre-revolutionary times, the British government (some say the King, but England has had a Parliament since after the civil war in the middle 1600s) was trying to control religion and the press.  The practice, in some form or another, was ancient by the time of the American Revolution, as we see the Bishop next to the king and queen on a chessboard.  When the U.S. was formed it was therefore fresh in the minds of the Founders that there should be some strict protection of both religious freedom and freedom of speech.

Why?  Why is it so important that government not be in control of religious practices or of the press?  It's because as we all know, governments invariably grab more and more power for themselves at the expense of liberty.  What better way to help that process along than to control the thinking and the beliefs of the people, and what better way to control the thinking and beliefs of the people than to control religion and the press?

But there is something missing.  If you can't have control of religion and the press, there is something just as powerful as a means of controlling the minds and beliefs of the people.

Education. (I'll also include science, which would be seen as a sub set within education until we see the vast amounts of money poured into government research grants and the like)

It's a pity the Britts weren't trying to establish political and social indoctrination centers disguised as schools, circa 1770.  In that case our first amendment would have been slightly different;

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or respecting the establishment of education, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As it is, your kids are being taught what to believe, not in a Church Of America and not by a U.S. version of Pravda, but in government schools.

(If the kingdoms of Medieval times had used education as it is being used today, maybe we'd see a "College President" or maybe a "Head of Education", or perhaps a "Head of the Teachers' Union" in the same line with the king and queen, the knights, and the rooks on a chessboard)

Alan Gottlieb via CCRKBA says:

“Once again,” he said, “Democrats are revealing themselves as the party of restrictive gun control. If the citizens of Washington, D.C. have a right to full congressional representation, they also have a right to own the firearm of their choice. For Democrats to argue that one right is more important than another – especially after last year’s Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment – they are engaging in world-class hypocrisy.”

...

“Democrats argue that the right to representation is not related to the right to keep and bear arms,” Gottlieb said, “but that’s nonsense. This country was born because our founders were being taxed without representation, and because British troops tried to disarm the citizens. Those issues are just as equal today as they were 230 years ago, and Democrats on Capitol Hill need to understand that.”

I keep wondering how close we are to the taxes and disarmament thresholds of another country being born. The Democrats may also be the party that creates a revolution.

Via Say Uncle news from New York City (emphasis mine):

On Tuesday 03/03/09, at approximately 12:00, members of the NYPD's Firearms Suppression Division executed a search warrant at 864 Jewett Ave., within the confines of the 120 PCT. Upon conclusion of the warrant, a total of 80 firearms had been seized from within the home. One individual was taken into police custody and charged with Criminal Possession of a Weapon.

"Firearms Suppression Division" should be the name of a successful corporate entity and never associated with a police department. Can you imagine the screams of protest, and rightly so, if the NYPD also had a "Faggot Suppression Division" or "Jew Suppression Division"?

Those boys in blue need a serious spanking. 18 USC 242 comes to mind as a good first step.

Via my Sitemeter I discover that the city of Virginia Beach is looking for a minority supplier of ammunition:

Domain Name		vbgov.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address		198.252.245.# (City of Virginia Beach, Virginia)
ISP		City of Virginia Beach, Virginia
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There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Milton Friedman
[One would think that those people who advocated for the "stimulus package" would have heard of this bit of wisdom before. Some will say overlooking Friedman can be blamed on deficiencies in our public school system. Others will claim many of those pushing the stimulus package know exactly what they are doing -- creating a socialist America. I think it is likely they are both correct in their claims.--Joe]

I'd read some of her work in the past and been impressed. Brigid's home on the range - guns and gourmet cooking from a small homestead in the Midwest.  Oleg Volk posted a link to her site recently.  Most of what she writes comes out like poetry.  This was very good;

I am not a tree hugger. Not for me the granola fueled protests to save the spotted owl. Growing up in the mountains of the wilderness, I appreciate a tree in the form of a pile of two by fours as well as in it's original state. I do not think the trees are the home of sentient druid spirits, nor do the trees speak to me; but I am pleased to take shelter under or in their branches, reinforced in the smallness of my form next to their trunks, smiling as the branches separate me from the chatter of the world that echoes outside the woods. There, branches are what conceal me as I wait for my prey, like any animal, participating in the cycle of the food chain. I am an omnivore and those less equipped than I, forget that at their peril. It is the bringing home of sustenance. Bringing home, not a trophy so much as a sign of provision, that those that work and strive will be rewarded with a full belly and warmth.

It's a nice change from reading about the downfall of our Republic.  She's a prolific writer too, so you're in good shape if you need a lot of distraction.

Because the Senate told them they are going to have to abide by the Second Amendment the D.C. City Council now wants the district to become a state. Do they think that will change things? Just because Alabama and Mississippi are states doesn't mean they can disregard the 13^th Amendment.

At 0526 this morning I got a call from my potassium chlorate supplier. Normally I would be sound asleep or in somewhat more rare cases had not gone to bed yet (I'm a night person). This morning I had been up for several hours and had gone to bed only a minute or two earlier. I have been sick and I have been sleeping for a few hours then read stuff on the web for a while then sleep some more. My sleep schedule is really whacked now.

The supplier wanted to know if I wanted the 142 pounds (see my previous post on the topic) sent ASAP. I had explained it to the other person I had talked to but this woman wanted to make sure. No, that isn't necessary. Sending it all in one shipment would be fine. I've have been dealing with this woman for several years and I get the impression that, well... it sometimes takes several attempts to explain things to her. I think this same "characteristic" caused her to fail to realize there was a significant time difference between her place of employment and that of her customer.

After getting the logistics straightened out she did mention something interesting. The reason the packaging changed is because the previous potassium chlorate I have been purchasing from them came from Spain. That company has gone completely out of the business and the new manufacture is in Sweden. The new manufacture packages it in a different manner. The packaging isn't a big deal but the new manufacture means as soon as I get the material in my hands I need to do tests to make sure Boomerite still works and is safe. In the past when we have changed what we thought were very minor variables the mix would not detonate as easily.

Oh well, it's easy to get volunteers to do help do the tests.

After going back to bed and sleeping for a few hours I got up, checked my email, and found a response to a query I made to the ATF yesterday. It was about why none of the explosive handlers who I sent in the paperwork for last November had heard anything back from the ATF. The response I got (after being forwarded around a bit) told me who I really needed to contact and I sent them an email. I received a call about 90 minutes later and we had a nice chat. The address on the back of the form is incorrect and paperwork sent to that address tends to disappear. He said I could just scan the copies I had kept (hooray for being paranoid about the government messing things up!) and email them to him. He would expedite the processing and there shouldn't be a problem with getting the approvals completed in time for Boomershoot 2009.

It's not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama's invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.

Star Parker
February 9, 2009
Back on Uncle Sam's plantation
[I figure there is about a 60% chance Americans will continue voting to move onto the plantation. The future is grim.--Joe]

Via an email from Gullyborg:

This is hot news here in Oregon and it needs to be spread across the blogosphere:

http://oregonwarvets.typepad.com/owva_blog/2009/02/owva-prepares-to-litigate-against-western-oregon-university.html

My friend Greg runs OWVA. He is committed to providing Maxwell with whatever help he needs to sue the crap out of WOU. But it will take money, so please post about this and encourage readers to contact OWVA to contribute to the Maxwell case.

Basically a retired Marine was legally carrying a pistol while attending Western Oregon University. He was suspended for a year for exercising his rights and "In addition to his unlawful discipline, WOU humiliated the 30 year old, veteran Marine by mandating that he receive psychiatric evaluation and write a ten page paper on civil obedience before his readmission into the university."

The WOU bigots are the ones that need to fired, prosecuted under 18 USC 241, receive a psychiatric evaluation, and write a ten page on respecting civil rights. Help Oregon War Veterans Association make it so.

D.C. may have to give some recognition to the Second Amendment and the Heller decision and what do the anti-gun bigots have to say about it? They think it's "a nightmare":

What should have been a day of celebration last Thursday turned into a nightmare for the District, however, when the Senate approved its version of the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act” S. 160, with an amendment drafted by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

I wonder if they also think recognition of the 13th Amendment was a nightmare as well?

Update: I left the following comment:

And those other states with the "weaker gun laws" have much lower rates of violent crime.

There is Just One Question that needs to be answered:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

The answer is no. Violent crime rates were not improved (unless you cherry pick the data very carefully) in D.C. after the gun ban. And after asking that question for over four years I have yet to get an answer which any anti-gun person would be proud of.

One has to wonder what the real motive of people associated with anti-gun organizations is. We know restrictive laws on firearms don't make people safer so what is it they hope to accomplish?

I can only conclude they are of the same type of mindset that would have screamed the 13th Amendment was going to be a "nightmare" as well. Hence, I am lead to believe the anti-gun organizations of the 21st century are the equivalent of the KKK of the 20th century.

Comments are moderated so "reasoned discourse" will break out in 3, 2, 1, ...

Update2: After five hours the comment has still not appeared.

Update3: After nearly 57 hours the comment has still not appeared but other comments, supporting their position, left after mine have shown up.

The ATF trains dogs to detect explosives. This is obviously useful for bomb searching and post blast investigation. But there are some things I didn't know and don't exactly approve of (emphasis mine):

The ATF explosives detection canine, a graduate of ATF's 10 week explosive detection training program, has been conditioned to detect explosives, explosives residue, and postblast evidence. As a bonus, because of their conditioning to smokeless powder and other explosive fillers, ATF trained explosives detection canines can detect firearms and ammunition hidden in containers and vehicles, on persons and buried underground. With the assistance of support systems such as the National Response Team, Explosives Technology Branch, ATF Laboratories, Certified Explosives Specialists, and the ATF Firearms Branch and Tracing Center, the ATF canine program is producing a viable tool to assist law enforcement with their war on violent crime.

Such a bonus.

With roughly 40% of the population exercising their 2nd Amendment rights the ratio of false positives (innocent people "caught" exercising a specific enumerated right) to true positives (people with criminal intent) is going to be extraordinarily high. Those false positives will be singled out for searches and general harassment. If the dogs were being trained to detect Jews, gays, or some other minority would the government be posting it on their website?

I have a pounding headache and a stuffed up nose but I managed to order 392 pounds of potassium chlorate this morning. Potassium chlorate is one of the main ingredients in Boomerite. It's also the most expensive (in the past it has accounted for almost 65% of the cost) and it's hard to find suppliers who can deliver it in the quantities we need.

Last Thursday I started the process of ordering and ran into some obstacles.

First, they wanted a copy of my ATF type 20 license to manufacture high explosives. The one they had on file had expired. I had expected that and wasn't concerned.

Second, I estimate we have about 100 pounds left over from last year and we need about 350 pounds for Boomershoot 2009. I wanted to order the usual 275 pound drum which would have given me a little bit left over for testing and other things during the year. But my supplier told me they only had 142 pounds on hand. Larger quantities will be available in two to three weeks. Also they changed their packaging and they now only sell in 250 pound increments. And the worst part was the price has doubled since last year. Ouch!

But, if I ordered just the 250 pounds then, at best, I wouldn't have any extra for testing purposes during the year. 500 pounds would be more than enough for Boomershoot 2009 but the expense!

I told them I would think about what I wanted to do, FAX them a copy of the license on Friday, and call them back on Monday (today). Over the weekend it occurred to me--they have 142 pound on hand why not buy that plus a 250 pound package? I called today and they said it works for them so it should be just fine. I'm not looking forward to paying the steep price but getting 392 pounds is better than not having enough with 250 pounds and better than paying for 500 pounds of which half will sit around for year.

The cardboard boxes used for the target containers have arrived and are safely stored away. There are just a very few minor supplies that need to be picked up locally now.

Greg D., an average Joe and friend on the east cost reports: "Funny story (sad really), we have been trying to buy extra .380 here in SC and also in GA and it is non-existent. Everyone who carries is stocking up. But I was in Maryland -- where no one but a friend of the governor can carry, and the shelves were full." According to anonymous economists, this is caused by the law of supply and demand. Knowledgeable insiders report that president Obama is trying to repeal that law.

Alan Korwin
March 2, 2009
Ammunition Scarce Somewheres
[With all due respect to Mr. Korwin I fairly certain president Obama believes he already has repealed almost all economic laws.--Joe]

"That was uplifting." That was what Barb said after I read this to her:

President Barack Obama has set his course for battle with America's powerful interest groups over his ambitious, some say radical, spending blueprint that aims to remodel American society.

Even as he has rammed through emergency economic spending that easily could top $1 trillion, Obama has asked Congress to adopt a budget that is ripe with programs to improve the lot of lower- and middle-income Americans at the expense of the wealthy and the farming and industrial complexes under their control.

...

On the budget plan Obama presented on Thursday, the president said it would help millions of people but only if Congress overcomes stiff resistance from well-financed lobbies.

"I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and video address. "My message to them is this: So am I."

Under the president's proposal, America's wealthiest 5 percent would pay a whopping $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, while most others would get tax cuts. Industries would buy and trade permits to emit heat-trapping gases. Higher-income older people would pay more for government health insurance benefits. Drug companies would receive smaller profits from the government. Banks would play a much smaller role in student loans.

We are living in interesting times.

Sleep well and have a nice day.

The congressman's media release about his letter uses the tired tirade about this being a "no-brainer... requiring no legislative action," to "protect our brave police," and a "market flooded with imported, inexpensive, military-style 'assault' weapons." He fails to note that assault is a type of behavior, not an imported product.

The public is able to get the fine value-priced merchandise as kits, parts imports, reassembled models with some American-made parts, and as curios and relics. Criminals found with the firearms, which even the New York Times has said are bulky and unpopular with street gangs, are subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment -- completely apart from gun type or nation of manufacture.

Part of a larger racist scheme to ban guns for anyone but the rich, it is a new twist on the discredited and now abandoned "Saturday Night Special" schemes (remember those?), and "junk gun" schemes (remember those?) that would outlaw firearms in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, largely populated with people of color, where they really need the guns for self defense and protection against rampant government-sponsored crime from its war on some drugs.

Alan Korwin
March 1, 2009
Affordable Rifle Ban
[When someone says something is a "no-brainer" in relation to gun laws they are usually right. No brains were involved.--Joe]