While you guys are off stroking your shafts dreaming of some armed rebellion in the downfall of society and you get to be Rambo, the rest of us are moving on with civilization.
DintMentalFloss @DintMentalFloss
Tweeted on July 29, 2019
[I give this an “honorable mention” for an another Markley’s Law Monday because they didn’t mention penis size.
In addition to resorting to childish insults they overlook the fact that The Gun Is Civilization.—Joe].
Swat’em! They’re dead. Now come and arrest me. My defense? I was protecting my children and 500 innocent children & their families. Threaten my kids?! There will be YUGE consequences for open carry. We will ensure it!
Jim Poland @JimPolandcom
Tweeted on August 8, 2019
[This can and should be used at his trial.—Joe]
You think you’ve seen a massacre? Just wait until you surrender your guns to the Government!
Morgan Chambers @Morgxn2001
Tweeted on August 5, 2019
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Via Matthew Bracken @ Matt_Bracken:
The abuse of psychiatry was legendary:
See also Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.
Expect little difference if implemented here. What is going to be the default decision of a judge or psychologist? Risk letting a potential mass shooter keep their guns or risk an nonviolent person losing their guns?
If we can’t ban the damn things, then why don’t we raise the purchasing age to like 40?
Initech
August 7, 2019
Comment to Heading to El Paso, Trump nixes assault weapons ban
[I still sometimes find it odd that people have no concept of following the law of the land. “…shall not be infringed…” seems so clear and yet someone imagines it means the infringement of a specific enumerated right doesn’t really count if the person is not yet 40 years old.
Keep this in mind when people demand the age for purchase of any gun be raised to 21. The slippery slope is there. If this is allowed then what rationale can there be to resist raising the age to 30, 40, or 90?—Joe]
I’ve been reading email and websites which claim there is a new movie coming out in which rich elites hunt “deplorables”/Trump supporters. From watching the trailers it’s not clear this is the actual theme. It’s possible The Hunt is a politically neutral take-off of the short story “The Most Dangerous Game”. But that doesn’t match what The Hollywood Reporter and The Epoch Times claim:
The movie, “The Hunt,” from Universal Pictures, shows people hunting down “deplorables,” a term failed presidential contender Hillary Clinton used to describe supporters of Trump during the 2016 campaign.
Did anyone see what our [expletive]-in-chief just did?” one character asks others early in the movie, reported the Hollywood Reporter. “At least The Hunt’s coming up. Nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables.”
According to the Reporter, the movie’s script features blue-state characters choosing to hunt red-state characters who expressed pro-life positions or were deemed racist.
Here are the trailers I have been able to find. You decide:
Items PV3 and PV4 from the CCES involve justifying violence by the inparty to
advance political goals. Terrorism, in other words. PV3 asks about violence today. PV4 asks
for responses if the outparty wins the 2020 presidential election, a hypothetical but realistic
scenario given recent alternation in party control of the presidency. Nine percent of
Republicans and Democrats say that, in general, violence is at least occasionally acceptable. However, when imagining an electoral loss in 2020, larger percentages of both parties
approve of the use of violence – though this increase is greater for Democrats (18 percent
approve) than Republicans (13 percent approve).
Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason
2019
Lethal Mass Partisanship: Prevalence, Correlates, & Electoral Contingencies
[H/T to J.D. Tuccille.
The questions PV1 –> PV4 were as follows:
Political Violence
PV1
When, if ever, is it OK for [Own party] to send threatening and intimidating messages to [Opposing party] leaders?
PV2
When, if ever, is it OK for an ordinary [Own party] in the public to harass an ordinary [Opposing party] on the Internet, in a way that makes the target feel unsafe4?
PV3
How much do you feel it is justified for [Own party] to use violence in advancing their political goals these days?
PV4
What if [Opposing party] win the 2020 presidential election? How much do you feel violence would be justified then?
4 “Unsafe” was replaced with “frightened” in the Nielsen survey.
I’m surprised by two things in this study.
That nearly one out of six Democrats and one out eight Republicans think violence is justified if the other party wins the presidency in 2020 I’m seriously hoping for a Libertarian win (yeah, right, only if the Democrats and Republicans kill each other off at some extremely drastic rate prior to the election) and planning on avoiding what probably will be “hot spots”.
With that high of percentage of violent people available to surround themselves with people are going to find the courage to “take action”. Regardless of who wins, the 2020 election could just be the spark that ignites CWII.—Joe]
Last Sunday, after hiking the Mount Rainier Skyline Trail the day before, we hiked the Naches Peak Loop Trail. It was a much easier hike, and while very pleasant, was no comparison in the Skyline Trail. Any other day it would have been an incredible hike. But after the Skyline Trail experience it was merely great.
For the most part the trails were wide and flat. There were a few narrow and rugged spots but nothing that caused us real concern. The views were wonderful. In places the wildflower were so plentiful the air was filled with their scent even as you walked by.
At the bottom of this news article is a poll about banning “assault weapons”. After the “assault weapon” question it asks another two or three questions and then gives the results of the poll questions. I would like to suggest you give them your opinion on “Would you support a ban on assault rifles in the United States?”
Currently they report 76% respond “yes” to the question.
Can gun-owners be faulted in believing when a liberal man marries a liberal woman, it’s a same-sex marriage?
Yitzhak Goldstein
July 22, 2019
Henny Penny Builds A “Safe” Gun
[While probably not strictly true it’s certainly directionally true.—Joe]
You are “the depraved evil” we need to eradicate.
Reza Aslan @rezaaslan
Tweeted on August 4, 2019
[This was in response to this tweet:
We need to come together, America.
Finger-pointing, name-calling & screaming with your keyboards is easy, yet…
It solves not a single problem, saves not a single life.
Working as one to understand depraved evil & to eradicate hate is everyone’s duty. Unity.
Let’s do this.
Kellyanne Conway @KellyannePolls
August 4, 2019
What’s even more telling about the way this person thinks is this response when someone points out Aslan is “calling for the murder of @KellyannePolls”:
I understand why a gun freak would read this as threatening violence. It’s how you all think.
How can someone not conclude that someone calling for the eradication of another person or group of people is not a threat of violence? Ever read a speech given by a genocidal tyrant? That is exactly the type of language they use.
The answer is that to the political left even physical violence committed by them is considered “free speech” while insults against the political left are considered “violent rhetoric”.
Adults need to stand up and put these type of people in their place. Don’t buy his books, don’t take his classes, and use him as an example of present day people advocating for geocide.—Joe]
Barb and I have visited Mount Rainier several times. There have been others but here are the ones I have blogged about:
Over the weekend we went again. This time Barb reserved a campsite (reservation required and they are booked six months in advance) so we would be closer to the Skyline Trail Loop and could get an early start and find parking. We still had to park about a half mile away from the trail head.
She has been wanting to go on this hike for years but it never seemed to work out. We took the upper loop and probably were within 2 miles of Camp Muir.
The weather was stunning. The air was clear, the temperature was pleasant, and there was no wind. The views were stunning.
Yet another lifelong member of the micro penis club chimes in. With yet another totally lame & stupid comment. 
Paul Quinn @PQuinn2007
Tweeted on July 18, 2019
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
H/T to The Original SPQR in 3D @SPQRzilla.
The best response as of the time of creating this post was from s a hinchcliffe @SAHinchcliffe. She said:
Yet another misogynist exposes his Pro-Rape, Pro-Domestic Violence support
I have nothing to add to that.—Joe]
The grand fallacy of the political left is that decisions are better made by third parties who pay no price for being wrong. Much of the 20th century has been taken up proving how tragically mistaken that theory is, all around the world. But those who want to be the third-party decision-makers remain undaunted.
Thomas Sowell
March 6, 1999
THOMAS SOWELL: Back again – random thoughts
[This is true in economics, personal ethics, self-defense choices, and all but a few special cases mostly covered by the enumerated powers given to the U.S. government in the constitution.
At this point I’m convinced it’s only a fallacy or mistaken belief on the part of the useful and professional idiots. Those who are smart enough to rise and retain political power have to know the truth.
Evidence for making the case for the 21st century will be little different from the 20th is Venezuela.—Joe]
Disgusting anti-government violent rhetoric from Cherokee Guns in North Carolina. Threats against members of Congress, particularly minority members are and it is driven by the president’s racial rhetoric This is dangerous!!!
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
July 2019
Gun shop billboard mocks “the Squad,” calling four congresswomen “idiots
[This is the “Disgusting anti-government violent rhetoric”:
There is nothing “anti-government”,“violent”, or a threat in this.
It’s to be expected. Anti-gun people lie all the time. It’s part of their culture.—Joe]
I find present day politics fascinating and scary. For example:
Bloomberg @business tweeted:
An emerging trend in this debate: Kamala Harris very clearly only wants to debate Joe Biden. Every time she’s been challenged by a lower-polling candidate, she takes it back to Biden
In response Ellen Pompeo @EllenPompeo tweeted:
Because she’s overconfident and believes he is her only competition
This was one of the responses:
Let me be very clear this was racist
The consensus appears to agree with the racist declaration despite the fact it is extremely clear there is no racism.
This is political correctness run amok.
I used to wonder how it was possible things could get so messed up in the USSR and Nazi Germany that they could execute people for speaking what most people knew to be the truth. Now I see the virulent roots of this growing in our country.
When those who insist they should have the power to control other people get most of what they want they don’t stop. They find more things and people they must control. In many people it appears hunger for power is never sated. Read The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One). Even when such people have the power to murder others on any imagined slight, and no matter how many they murder, the hunger cannot be satisfied.
Insist they obey the constitution. Vote them out, put adults in charge, and have a backup plan.
See also a previous post on this same topic.
the sad reality of the encryption debate is that after 30 years it is finally over: dead at the hands of Facebook. If the company’s new on-device content moderation succeeds it will usher in the end of consumer end-to-end encryption and create a framework for governments to outsource their mass surveillance directly to social media companies, completely bypassing encryption.
In the end, encryption’s days are numbered and the world has Facebook to thank.
Kalev Leetaru
July 26, 2019
The Encryption Debate Is Over – Dead At The Hands Of Facebook
[Via email from Chet who referred me to Slashdot, which linked to Bruce Schneier, who linked to the article quoted above.
The article says WhatsApp will be, or perhaps already has been, compromised by Facebook. Moving to Signal is probably warranted but that is no guarantee of security. Furthermore, I think blaming Facebook for this is a little unfair.
Back when I was working for Pacific Northwest National Labs I suggested the government could add code to whatever O/S a particular set of terrorists were fond of using and then “upgrade” their phone to send duplicate copies of messages, phone calls, and even record conversations when the phone was believed to be “asleep”. To the best of my knowledge the suggestion went nowhere. But that doesn’t mean I was just very late to the game and there was no need to tell me it had already been done.
Similar things can be done to your Windows and/or Apple devices. You upgrade your computers and other communications devices all the time to guard against security vulnerabilities. But how do you know you aren’t also installing a custom version of the O/S dictated to Apple, Google, and/or Microsoft, by government spies?
If you want communication security you will need to make sure your O/S is secure as well as the applications and the channels it transmits over. It’s not an easy thing to ensure.—Joe]
Overarching, and across the world, is the fight over globalism. I’ve said in the end globalism will win, because it’s being driven by technological change at its root. The struggle isn’t whether we have transnational systems where the nation state plays a less important role: that will happen. The struggle is whether globalism will be a democratic movement that is controlled by the people for the people’s benefit, or whether it will be a aristocratic movement that benefits the transnational aristocrats. It’s been set up as the latter, and the people are, across the globe, calling foul.
The struggle over the RKBA is downstream of that fight, but what we’re seeing I think fits in the overall struggle. It’s a theme repeated throughout history that aristocrats do not like their subjects being armed. So it was practically inevitable that when the people started asserting themselves against this cultivated global order, the counter-reaction was the aristocracy returning to their traditional fears and anxieties about armed peasants. That anxiety is acting itself out among the pool of Democratic candidates.
Sebastian
July 31, 2019
What Money Can Buy
[He has a valid point.
The counter point is that 100 million people with 300+ million guns and billions of rounds of ammo can make themselves heard and respected…if they have the will to do so.—Joe]
Seattle has admitted socialists on the city council and a terrible homeless problem which they insist on making worse. They are now reaping the benefits. The most recent is businesses leaving town:
Many Seattle businesses have petitioned the city regarding threats to both employee and customer safety. Now, one of the Puget Sound region’s most notable fast food chains — Dick’s Drive -In — is voicing those same concerns.
“The public safety situation that we’re in right now in Seattle is unacceptable,” Dick’s Drive-In President Jasmine Donovan told KTTH’s Saul Spady.
They already drove all the gun stores out of town. And, if they could, they would prohibit concealed carry. It is easy to conclude they are deliberately trying to destroy the city by making it impossible to defend yourself and inviting criminals to a specially prepared feeding ground..
Via Kevin.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ powerful campaign arm, has just abruptly purged half a dozen staffers. Why? Because they are white.
It appears that no one had anything against these particular staffers … except for the color of their skin. Although roughly half the committee’s full-time staff (13 of 27) were nonwhite, this was not enough for some Democratic members of Congress. They complained DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois had brought in too many white staffers when she won the position. And they put enough pressure on her that she sacrificed her loyal staffers to the god of diversity.
Slate says they resigned instead of being fired. So does The Hill. But they could have been given “an offer they couldn’t refuse” so it would give the DCCC a way to avoid legal action.
The Blaze has an interesting take on it.
That we have a major political party purging people from jobs because of the color of their skin forebodes some very interesting times ahead. That the people being discriminated against are the majority population is even more interesting. It would seem, long term, that will not end well for the minority engaged in racist discrimination.
