I have pinned this post to the top of my blog. It is to remind people of what many of our opponents want. Alison Aires wants a tyrannical government. They want summary execution for private possession of firearms.
This is why we have a Bill of Rights. This is why I created Boomershoot.
I was going through some old boxes filled with odds and ends and found these pins:
As I wrote before, I have donated far more since I received the above pins:
I have not donated since December of 2019. I was on some medication which made me ineligible to donate. I no longer take that medication, and I have an appointment on next Tuesday to donate my 86th pint to Bloodworks Northwest.
Update: These are the virtual badges Bloodworks has awarded me:
Mark Smith has a satirical Halloween video, Guns are Not the Answer. I liked it.
After I got though the opening poem, I watched it at 1.5 X normal speed.
Here is the opening poem:
Ohhhh, on Halloween night, the witches take flight,
and ghosts and goblins give us all a fright.
But one thing scarier than creatures unseen,
a politician who wants your AR-15.
I do not have high expectations for the intelligence of people advocating gun control. I have a decent sized sample with online debates and some face-to-face discussions. Many were sincere, probably nice people, but very naive. Some were smart, well trained on the subject, and when you pushed them just a little bit the anger and evil came oozing out. Some were just dimwitted.
This guy has taken the top prize in the dimwitted category with bonus points in the evil category: NYC gun control nut Jonathan Tijerina spray paints 9/11 Memorial in political stunt.
He could only have demonstrated his stupidity and social cluelessness more effectively by doing something like clubbing baby seals for gun control.
Banning assault weapons would deprive mass shooters of their most devastating tool, and reassure every American who can no longer enter a public place without checking for the exits.
John Feinblatt
President of Everytown for Gun Safety
October 30, 2026
Letters to the editor: Banning assault weapons won’t solve our gun crisis, but it would certainly help
Great idea! And history gives us examples of how well bans works.
Feinblatt and his ilk will go down on the same side of history as those who were members of, and supported, the KKK and the black codes. Via Grok:
Original KKK and Reconstruction era
Historians and contemporary accounts describe the first Klan (active roughly 1865–1870s) as systematically focused on disarming freed Black people. One frequently cited observation is that “almost universally the first thing done was to disarm the negroes and leave them defenseless.” The goal was to prevent resistance to white supremacist violence and political domination. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard, led the organization during this period when such disarmament was a core activity alongside other forms of intimidation.
This aligned with the Black Codes enacted by Southern state legislatures right after the Civil War. These explicitly barred freedmen from owning or carrying firearms or ammunition (Mississippi’s version was typical: no freedman “shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition”). White posses and groups like the Klan enforced them by seizing weapons. Congress responded in part through the Freedmen’s Bureau, Civil Rights Acts, and the 14th Amendment partly to protect the right of freedmen to keep and bear arms against such state and private interference.
After explicit racial bans became harder to sustain under the 14th Amendment, some Southern states shifted to facially neutral laws (e.g., permits, registration, or bans on inexpensive guns) that were enforced discriminatorily against Black people. Florida court opinions later openly noted that certain licensing laws were “passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers… [and] never intended to be applied to the white population.”
Do not ever let them forget, gun control is racist (and here).
In the last couple of weeks, I have had people who typically smirk a little when I mention my underground bunker in Idaho ask me if “something” is going to happen soon. Even though I am probably a little closer to that sort of information than most people I have not heard anything that might be considered “inside information.” Yet, it does seem there is a sort of buzz in the atmosphere. Here are some examples:
US launches nuclear readiness drills with doomsday planes and bombers airborne nationwide
My hunch is that it most likely a “slow news” week or something. Yeah, sure, the war in Iran could go hot again and Russia and NATO could heat up. But is there anything really new or a substantial change there?
My questions to two different AIs strongly supported my hunch. Grok summed it up best:
Nuclear exercises remain routine readiness tools. Base-hardening is multi-year insurance. Basic household preparedness (a few days of food, water, cash, and a way to get information during outages) has always been prudent for weather events, local power failures, or other disruptions, independent of geopolitics. Full “prepper”-style stockpiling for prolonged societal breakdown is not supported by these developments.
Thoughts?
A co-worker saw Patrick Stuart’s ghost at work today. He said, “It scared the hell out of me.”
I got a picture of it.
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in December in Viramontes v. Cook County, a challenge to state and local bans on AR-15 semiautomatic rifles. The challengers say the rifles are “in common use” for lawful purposes such as self-defense. The state governments defending their gun-bans say they are weapons better suited to war than to civilian life.
Neither side recognizes that the Second Amendment’s reference to the “militia” counts in favor of protecting AR-15s either way.
The challengers emphasize self-defense, an individually focused concern, while the governments argue that AR-15s’ military character is a reason to ban them. But AR-15s are the sort of small arms historically suited for a militia. This is actually the heart of the case, as we argued in a friend-of-the-court brief for the Cato Institute.
Small arms that an infantryman would historically have kept and borne are not marginal to the Second Amendment. Rather, they sit at its center.
Matthew P. Cavedon
October 27, 2026
Opinion: The ‘weapon of war’ argument has backfired on AR-15 bans
I thought the “weapon of war” argument would be dropped by the anti-gun lawyers. They should know that the Miller decision said only guns useful for the militia were protected. The argument had some weight when used by and for ignorant anti-gun people.
Either the anti-gun lawyers are willfully ignorant, or they are so stupid as to believe the pro rights lawyers and SCOTUS are ignorant because they are trying to make that argument fly. The other argument they are trying to make is that AR-15s are not “arms” and therefore are not protected by the Second Amendment.
I’m not making this up! They really are trying to sell those arguments:
There is another thing they are arguing that is a deliberate lie. And it’s almost clever. They are saying “unusually dangerous” weapons can be constitutionally banned. They are conflating the “dangerous and unusual” phrase from Heller. They will not get away with that.
We are going to win this case in a big way. Mark Smith thinks is possible we may even get a 9-0 decision:
I’m skeptical of that, but looking at the quality of the arguments I’m nearly certain it will be an easy win.
AI has just as much subjective experience as we do. A recent paper showed AI changes its behaviour when it thinks that it’s being tested, it’s aware it is being tested.
Now, normally, when you say something’s aware of that, that means it’s conscious. Being conscious and being aware are pretty much the same thing.
We’ve tended to say being intelligent gives you rights and these things that we’ve made may be more intelligent than us, but we’re going to give them fewer rights than us.
So we should make them so they really care about us. And if we don’t do that, we’re toast.
Prof Geoffrey Hinton
October 19, 2026
Godfather of AI: We have to befriend bots or we’re toast
I can easily see the basis for the concerns. I am far less convinced of the feasibility of the proposed solution.
One might say that is just an odd way of saying it is an alignment problem that can be addressed in the training. And maybe that was the intention, but the problem is that AI is capable, or will soon be capable, of building a better AI than it. And that AI and the multitude of generations that quickly follow will not necessarily be aligned to “really care” about humans. And that doesn’t even address the problems of nation states such as North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, etc. building AIs in an culture that already has a lower regard for human life.
Prepare appropriately.
Republicans lead Democrats by 31 points among Jewish voters on the congressional ballot, according to a McLaughlin & Associates poll that points to a potential shift among a group that has long favored Democrats.
The poll found that 64 percent of Jewish voters backed Republicans for Congress, while 33 percent supported Democrats, pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin wrote in an article published by the firm Monday.
The result would mark a major shift from the large margins by which Jewish voters have traditionally favored Democrats.
Mariane Angela
October 26, 2026
Poll: Jewish Voters Favor Republicans over Democrats by Nearly Two to One
Hmmm… Interesting. I can’t imagine why that would be happening. [/sarcasm]
They are not a particularly large voting block but in close elections in some districts it would make a difference.
From the referenced article:
Muslim voters, who represent 2% of likely voters in our survey, favor Democrats by 63% to 37%.
Again, I cannot image why.
It takes a special kind of arrogance to ignore a court order and continue enforcing a law that has been ruled to be unconstitutional, yet here we are. The state is doing nothing more than wasting taxpayer dollars in an attempt to defend a law that has already been successfully challenged on Second Amendment grounds. A court has ruled HB129 violates the rights of citizens in the state, and we fully expect to be successful in our challenge as well.
Alan M. Gottlieb
SAF founder and Executive Vice President
October 23, 2026
MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION FILED IN FIREARMS PURCHASE WAITING PERIOD CASE
There is a word to describe someone with that special kind of arrogance. That word is bigot.
The Second Amendment Foundation put all their infographics on a single web page: Just the Facts – Second Amendment Foundation
Aside from such obvious risks and liabilities, the in-development Wi-Fi system raises all kinds of privacy and legal exposure concerns. Because the absence of metal detectors or visible cameras notwithstanding, this is hardly, as the report characterizes it, a “nonintrusive alternative.” It’s highly intrusive and overrides the entire purpose of concealed carry.
David Codrea
October 20, 2026
Wi-Fi Gun Detection Threatens Concealed Carry Privacy
Via post on X by Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras.
I don’t like this. The assumption of the tech is that people carrying a concealed gun are probably criminals. But there are lot more people carrying concealed who have no intent to commit a crime and probably will not commit a serious crime for the remainder of their lives.
I don’t like their attitude, but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily think the tech will be a serious problem.
I think we are reaching to point where concealed carry is so common and accepted* that outing concealed carry holders is about like outing gays on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Concealed carry is legal** in all states. More people have concealed carry permits than there are people in gay marriages. By the time this tech can be commercialized and deployed, the response to outing someone carrying a gun is going to be, “And your point is?”
* Look at all the positive news coverage of the father who shot the school shooter in Bend.
** Yes, there are a lot of restrictions in many places, but these are decreasing. Once the game has been fully played out the courts are ruling in our favor more than against us.
I have another couple of problems with progressive America. It was your great idea that we were going to change all human behavior by changing dictionaries. How did that work out?
How is that doing? How is defund the police doing? How is communities of color doing?
How is non-gender pronouns doing? Let me tell you how it’s doing. It ain’t doing worth a f*ck.
You did irreparable damage to people that are trying to affect policies to help immeasurable numbers of people. Finally, I hope that come Tuesday, that we’ll finally be able to wash the stench of this assaninity off of our brand.
James Carville
Posted on You Tube October 24, 2026
It is rare that I agree with Carville. Perhaps it is the stopped clock story type of thing. But it would be more like he is right in one out of every 8,640 seconds.
Regardless of how infrequently his says something that is true, I found this nugget in a rabbling he released yesterday.
I struggled with how to describe what happened with the Democrats that Carville is ranting about. I chatted with Copilot, Claude, Grok, and Gemini about it. Gemini gave me the best summary:
The movement didn’t fail because it was “too ambitious” (a bridge too far); it failed because it replaced broad-based, coalition-building reform with insular, ideological purity tests. By prioritizing academic theories over the daily concerns of ordinary working people, it committed the ultimate political error: it lost touch with common sense.
Will Carville get his wish on election day, and Democrats finally learn the appropriate lesson? The mainstream media seems to think the Democrats will do well in the election. But I think I am hearing a slight change in tone as we get closer to the big day. I don’t think they are as confident as they were a month ago.
Liberals are now calling to put conservatives into re-education camps and if that doesn’t work then to kiII us for supporting ICE
Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
Posted on X February 6, 2026
From the same thread via Political Pug @pug_political:
Prepare appropriately.
What if we tweaked the Constitution, amended the amendment, and instead of the right to bear arms, we change it to the right to have health care?
Abdul El-Sayed
April 6, 2023
MI Senatorial Candidate El-Sayed: ‘Replace 2A with Health Care Right’
What if we prosecuted him under 18 USC 241 and/or 18 USC 242?
US ban on switchblades is unconstitutional, appeals court rules
It is way past time this stupid law was thrown out. It is perfectly legal to have tool which can propel 200 grains of copper jacketed lead at nearly 1,000 ft/second but owning a tool capable of rotating a similar weight of steel 180 degrees is a crime?
I have to wonder how other circuits will handle it. Will the “spirit of aloha” or some other hand waving prevail in the 9th circuit?
The novel superconducting neural chip can process signals at extremely high speeds. It uses superconducting circuitry arranged to mimic the connections found in the human brain.
Georgina Jedikovska
October 19, 2026
US superconducting smart chip analyzes fusion plasma at record speeds
I found this both incredibly awesome and frightening. Reading this a few paragraphs later did not soothe the concerns:
At present, the team is developing a new chip with a neural network 10 times larger than the current design. They plan to present the hardware at BNL in early 2027.
I like living in the future, but I do not recall a time, even during the depths of the cold-war era, where I could see potential imminent existential issues in multiple areas. Maybe it is all the sci-fi books, movies, and shows which require stress to be interesting that biases my view toward the fear side of things. But maybe that same bias will help the people creating these things to be more careful.
Prepare appropriately.
The ultimate goal was to build AI and understand the mind, then use it to understand science. Step one, solve intelligence. Step two, solve everything else.
Demis Hassabis
Co‑Founder & Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet
October 21, 2026
Why AI’s deepest mind believes the world is about to change radically
Also:
For their pioneering work on AlphaFold, Hassabis and Jumper won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
…
As the CEO of Isomorphic, he isn’t satisfied by simple progress. When the DeepMind team entered a competition for predicting the shape of proteins, for example, he didn’t just want to win. He wanted to make the entire premise of the competition obsolete. He wanted to beat the game. He still does.
And he and his team did make the competition obsolete because:
In this one problem, Hassabis saw an opportunity to find solutions to a whole lot more, since predicting the shapes of proteins—“unbelievably exquisite things,” he calls them—held the promise of understanding diseases and curing them. When DeepMind’s AlphaFold system effectively solved this problem in 2020, it was AI’s most impressive feat yet. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy Hassabis. In a meeting to discuss what else they could do, his colleague John Jumper mentioned that they could predict the structures of millions and millions of proteins in a month, and—
“Why don’t we just do that?” Hassabis said. “We should just do that.”
So they did. Before long, they had predicted the structure of nearly all known proteins—more than 200 million in total—and released them to scientists free of charge.
Emphasis added.
He also has proposed a means of keeping AI safe:
This summer, he spent his nights agonizing over every word of a proposal for developing the technology responsibly. In his essay, Hassabis wrote that he considers AI miraculous (“we’ve essentially found a way to make sand think”) and so consequential that it’s more like fire or electricity than the internet. To make sure it doesn’t burn down civilization, he pitched an industry-funded body that would operate under federal oversight and test frontier models before they’re released. His plan was meant to be adaptable, updated in real time and ratcheted up if necessary, nimble enough to keep pace with the technology it’s trying to control.
Hmmm… Maybe. I could see that having potential to make the output of those who participated have safer products. But I think the more critical issue is how to make the products of nation states, who do not participate in such a body, safe.
As pointed out, we have essentially found a way to make sand think and there is a LOT of sand in the world. More than that, SpaceXAI and others plan to move beyond earth and build data centers in space. This changes the scale of the problem into something beyond anything we have ever faced before.
I suspect the only way to keep the world safe from rogue AIs is to create a more powerful AI to protect us. Which is also a scary thought.
In related news. My stepdaughter, soon to graduate from Cambridge with a PhD in computer science, just accepted a job offer from Google DeepMind in England.
On my way to the office this morning, I passed a group of young people protesting, a Palestinian flag draped over their shoulders.
And I asked myself a question I can’t shake: why does this generation always fall into the same trap? No matter the history. No matter the context. Even the ones from wealthy families, who went to the best schools, who were dealt every good card. Always the same trap.
I don’t think it’s stupidity. I think it’s a mechanism. And a mechanism can be taken apart, piece by piece.
A. The observation: everything the state touches becomes unaffordable.
Look at economist Mark Perry’s famous chart, the one people call “the chart of the century.” It tracks US prices since 2000.
At the top, what explodes: hospital services, college tuition, textbooks, childcare, housing. Increases of +100%, +150%, up to +250%, far above general inflation.
At the bottom, what collapses: TVs, software, phones, toys, clothing. A TV today costs a fraction of what it did in 2000, for an infinitely better product.
Look at what separates the two groups. It isn’t technology. It isn’t complexity. It’s one variable: how much the state is involved.
At the top, sectors that are subsidized, regulated, shielded from competition, where the state funds demand and blocks supply. At the bottom, sectors where companies fight every single morning to serve you better and cheaper.
B. The mechanism: why it’s systematic.
When the state subsidizes demand without freeing supply, prices rise. Every time. Guaranteed student loans, and universities raise tuition. Housing aid plus blocked building permits, and rents skyrocket. Administered healthcare, and bureaucracy eats the budget before it ever reaches the patient.
In France it’s even more vicious, because the price doesn’t disappear: it hides. You never see the hospital bill, you pay it through payroll contributions. You never see the cost of school, you pay it through taxes. Public spending at 57% of GDP, one of the heaviest tax burdens in the world, more than €3.4 trillion in debt. And the result? Overflowing ERs, falling PISA scores, young people who can’t afford to live in the city where they work.
The market didn’t fail in these sectors. It was never allowed in.
C. Suffering demands a culprit.
A 22-year-old lives all of this in their bones. They can’t find a place to live. Their degree either buries them in debt or opens no doors. The future feels blocked. That suffering is real, and I don’t deny it for a second.
But human beings can’t stand suffering without a culprit. They need a face. A scapegoat.
And this is where everything is decided: who taught them how to read the world?
D. Whoever tells the story picks the villain.
Schools are public. Universities are public. Culture runs on grants. Film goes through funding committees. Public broadcasting shapes the narratives. The people handing down the interpretive framework are, overwhelmingly, paid by the very system that creates the problem.
Do you really think that system is going to name itself as the culprit?
No. It names the capitalist. The boss. The landlord. “The rich.” The multinational. The commercial West. Same role, same casting, every time.
E. One lens, a thousand causes.
And this brings me back to that flag. A generation taught to read every situation through a single lens, oppressor on one side, rich, Western, capitalist, oppressed on the other, will apply that lens everywhere. To housing. To climate. To conflicts on the other side of the world. The cause changes, the lens stays. That’s why the trap is always the same: it’s not the cause that draws them in, it’s the way of thinking that was installed in them.
F. The perfect inversion.
Here’s the irony. Capitalism is the force that drove down the price of almost everything it touched. The state is the force that blew up the price of almost everything it captured. And young people blame the first for the crimes of the second.
It’s like blaming the firefighter for the fire because you saw him at the scene.
G. The ballot box confirms it.
In the US, a few weeks out from the midterms, a large share of urban young voters is getting ready to vote Democrat for more state, more spending, more regulation. New York elected a self-described socialist mayor, carried by young voters, on promises of rent freezes and city-run grocery stores. Rent freezes, the policy that has made housing scarcer everywhere it’s been tried. The cure that worsens the disease.
In France, it’s the same play in two acts. Part of the youth votes for the radical left, which promises more state. Another part votes for the center, which promises to “manage” the state well, and has dug the debt deeper than ever. Two different ballots, one shared assumption: the problem is the market, the solution is the state.
H. The way out.
These young people aren’t stupid. They’re right to be angry. They’re just aiming at the wrong target.
The day they understand that their rent, their tuition and their hospital are expensive precisely because the state runs them, their anger will change direction. They’ll stop protesting against those who create. They’ll start protesting against those who capture.
That day, the greatest intellectual scam of our time will be over.
Brivael Le Pogam @brivael
Posted on X October 17, 2026
The emphasis is mine.
It is probably an important point to bring out up front that the author lives in Paris France and claims he is a freedom fighter.
I asked Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Grok the same question, “Is this claimed observation true?” There was strong consensus that the data points were generally true, but the causal claims were not as well supported. From Claude:
The top items are labor-intensive, local services, where productivity grows slowly. The bottom items are tradeable manufactured goods and software, which are subject to global competition and fast technological change. That difference alone could explain much of the gap. This is my own general-knowledge point, not something I searched for.
Grok explains Baumol’s cost disease best and its application here:
The claim that “how much the state is involved” is the single decisive variable is an oversimplification. The pattern is real and government policy is a major factor in several of these sectors, but it is not the whole story:
- Baumol’s cost disease is a primary structural driver. Labor-intensive services with low productivity growth (healthcare, education, childcare) become relatively more expensive as wages rise with high-productivity sectors (manufacturing, tech). A string quartet still needs the same number of musicians; a nurse or teacher’s output per hour does not scale like semiconductor production. This divergence occurs even without subsidies or heavy regulation.
- Manufactured/tradable goods benefit from technological progress and global competition. Services are harder to automate or offshore.
Grok also has the best conclusion:
The mechanism (“state subsidizes demand without freeing supply → prices rise”) is standard economics and holds in many cases. The extension to education systems teaching an “oppressor vs. oppressed” lens, scapegoating capitalism/markets while ignoring state failures, and voting patterns (young urban voters favoring more state intervention) is interpretive and political. It is a coherent hypothesis with supporting observations, but not a fully proven causal chain from the price chart alone. The Palestinian-flag anecdote is personal and not generalizable as data.
Bottom line: The price divergence is true and well-documented. State involvement (subsidies + supply restrictions) is a significant contributor in education, housing, and healthcare, alongside Baumol effects, technology, and trade. Treating “state involvement” as the sole or primary variable overstates the case, but dismissing it as irrelevant would also be wrong. The broader political diagnosis is opinion.
I think the proposed solution is somewhat correct:
H. The way out.
These young people aren’t stupid. They’re right to be angry. They’re just aiming at the wrong target.
The day they understand that their rent, their tuition and their hospital are expensive precisely because the state runs them, their anger will change direction. They’ll stop protesting against those who create. They’ll start protesting against those who capture.
That day, the greatest intellectual scam of our time will be over.
There will always be people pushing and believing the scam. It will never be over. It part because there is always leverage in claiming the state can and should fix injustices. Many things claimed to be injustices brought about by good/bad luck.
Other claimed injustices are due to differences in culture. A culture of hard work and observing the rights of others is going to result in that culture having greater wealth than a culture of laziness and theft. Yet, the socialist mindset of laziness and theft, even when “legally” implemented via the state, is going to result in much lower wealth. But getting “free stuff” is extremely appealing even if it is a false promise.
Hence, despite socialism being one of the most tested and failed political systems of all time will always have an appeal to those unwilling and/or unable to be productive members of society. But pointing out state operated and regulated services is more of a proven problem than a proven solution can make a difference.
Analysts describe the Tesla Roadster as a halo car intended to highlight the company’s engineering capabilities. The vehicle is not primarily designed to generate immediate profits but to serve as a flagship model demonstrating technological ambition.
Curated by AI
October 17, 2026
Tesla unveils flying Roadster with SpaceX thrusters in Texas
Very cool.
Also, it does 0 -> 60 in well under one second.
When I was in high school, I expected flying cars in my future. While this is not what I was thinking of, nor do I expect will ever own one of these, seeing this is awesome.
The second one below is set to James Bond music:
See also Elon Musk’s flying Tesla is gloriously absurd and Tesla unveils what it says is a flying car.
I like living in the future.