Monthly Archives: June 2007

Pistols of Boomershoot

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One of the most frequent questions I get about Boomershoot is, paraphrased, “Do I have enough gun for the job?” In almost all cases the answer is yes. If you have a centerfire rifle, shooting a rifle cartridge (.357 or .44 magnum rifles don’t have a chance), with a scope then there are very few modern rifles that don’t have a reasonable chance of claiming a few boomers. In fact there are some pistols that have been successfully used on the closer targets. Here is a picture of three pistols successfully used at Boomershoot 2007.

And while I’m on the topic of Boomershoot–this weekend I should have some news to release about Boomershoot 2008. I shared it with a couple people yesterday and they expressed “great joy”. There are only 14 long range positions left for the April of 2008 event. Sign up soon if you want to participate.

Communism victims memorial

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We now have a memorial to the millions of victims of communism:

President Bush, attending Tuesday’s dedication of a memorial to an estimated 100 million victims of communist regimes, compared the fight against radical Islam to the Cold War battle against totalitarian communism.

…

The ceremony was held on the 20th anniversary of President Reagan’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, in which he implored Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Two years later, the wall fell.

The Victims of Communism Memorial is a bronze Goddess of Democracy statue. It is a replica of a replica – a reproduction of the papier-mache statue that Chinese students modeled on the Statue of Liberty and carried into Tiananmen Square during pro-democracy protests in 1989.

What amazes me is that there are still people in this country who are advocates for such a murderous and failed economic/political system. A survivor of Russian communism when asked what he thought of “trying to do it right this time” said something to the effect of, “There are 100 million corpses from the previous efforts. Do you want to donate your body to the next attempt?” That was a pretty good verbal response. Numerous non-verbal responses come to mind as well but such hand signals can cause you to be talked about.

What timing!

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Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is managed by Battelle. It was these people that wrongfully, and feloniously, terminated my employment there just over two years ago. Apparently they had an issue with me exercising my First Amendment rights in advocating for the right to keep and bear arms. I am now in the middle of a lawsuit against these bigots. Increasing their vulnerability is Battelle’s contract to manage the lab is about to expire:

The future for about one-tenth of the Department of Energy lab is in limbo as the federal government looks for a way to call for bids on operating the lab.

At issue are $65 million to $80 million in private contract work out of PNNL’s overall annual $750 million budget. $52 million to $60 million of that private work would be lost if the Department of Energy decides not to allow private work under a new lab operations contract. The rest could be converted to government research projects.

Battelle spokesman Greg Koller said “significant job losses at PNNL, probably in the 300 to 400 range” are possible if the private work is not somehow preserved in DOE’s call for competitive bids.

Battelle has operated the lab under contract with DOE for 42 years. But DOE officials announced in January 2006 that there would be a competitive bid for running the lab after Battelle’s current contract expires at the end of September.

That they have a problem with people exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights and see fit to keep felons on their payroll might be a point of interest for certain people as a new contract is being considered.

Quote of the day–Robyn Ringler

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If banning guns in the inner cities is not keeping guns out of the hands of 12, 13, and 14 year old children, then we need to think of another way.

Robyn Ringler
June 11, 2007
Enough Dead Kids Today, Yesterday, the Day Before—It’s Time For a Change
[Agreed. Can we now get rid of these silly bans? If you read her entire post you will discover she only wants to prevent young teenagers and children from having unsupervised access to guns not prohibit their exposure under all circumstances. I don’t really have a problem with that. But what Ms. Ringler hasn’t yet realized is that she needs to answer Just One Question before she proceeds to the conclusion that there exists any restrictions on firearms that might reduce crime.

You are making progress Robyn. Keep thinking and questioning the conventional wisdom and we might yet have you attending one of my NRA Basic Personal Protection classes.–Joe]

Boomershoot 2008 almost full

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There are only two .50 caliber positions and 13 regular positions still available. Overall the long range shooting event is 80% full. General entry has been open for only nine days and it’s still 321 days until Boomershoot 2008.

If I wasn’t doing this to further gun rights instead making money I would have raised the price. I still might have to do that when I get in my next shipment of ammonium nitrate. I still have enough for 2008 and 2009 but I can no longer just visit the local farm supply warehouse and have them fill up the back of the truck with fertilizer at $0.15 per pound. It appears I’m going to have to pay the premium for the explosive grade material. I’m working on avoiding that but I’ll have to just wait and see.

I’ll give her some credit

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For an anti-gun person she is remarkably fair, and even friendly, to hunters in this post.

Thank you Robyn.

The only nit I have to pick is that she apparently didn’t notice that a .50 caliber firearm was used in a legitimate activity and it didn’t result in an instantaneous kill.

Eye hurt

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Xenia’s graduation and party were on Friday night. Friday morning a little before 8:00 I took her to the ceremony practice and then I went straight on to the “Doc in a box” to have my eye looked at. It was red and painful. I got a prescription for some antibiotics but things kept getting worse and worse. I called the doc back about 15:30 and he referred me to a ophthalmologist. He gave me a prescription for a wider spectrum antibiotic and by the time Xenia’s graduation was over my eye was feeling much better. Here is a picture after it was feeling better:

The more pleasant pictures from her graduation are here.

Update: Thanks for all the email suggestions that it might have been something other than a bacteria infection. The new antibiotics worked great. As of this evening nearly all the red is gone and my vision is very near normal again.

“Real ID” gets some road blocks

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I’ve been saying “Real ID” is a bad idea for a long time. It’s good to see some state legislatures are coming on board with that conclusion as well:

Defying Uncle Sam, four states have passed laws refusing to comply with federal rules to make state-issued driver’s licenses more secure, casting further doubt on the future of the 2005 Real ID Act.

Although it is rare for states to reject an act of Congress, New Hampshire and Oklahoma in May joined Montana and Washington state in passing statutes this year refusing to go along with Real ID. The refusals mean those states’ driver’s licenses eventually won’t be accepted as official identification when boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings.

In addition, the Idaho Legislature purposely left out any money to comply with the act. The Georgia Legislature passed a law giving Gov. Sonny Perdue authority to ignore the measure, but he is hoping the federal government will make the act more affordable, said his spokesman, Bert Brantley.

Quote of the day–Diane Holt

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“Legal” doesn’t necessarily mean “good” — or “right” — or “reasonable”. Do you really just base your actions on what is and isn’t _legal_? Do you really just hand over all your decision-making power to the government?”

Diane Holt

Quote of the day–Mark Steyn

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In Gaza, Islamic Jihad is planning to send waves of female suicide bombers into action against the Zionist Entity. Asked by an Israeli reporter whether self-detonating ladies enjoy the same 72-virgin deal as the lads, an Arab scholar said no, but that the gals will be served in Paradise by “dwarfs.” Snow White got seven dwarfs, but it’s unclear whether Blow White will get the full 72: Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, etc., all the way down to Incendiary, Non-Alcoholic and Anti-Zionist.

Mark Steyn
May 27, 2007
So much news, so little sense
[I’ve always wondered about the rewards for the Islamic female. So now we know.–Joe]

I don’t like the sound of this

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Democrats, NRA make deal on new gun rules:

WASHINGTON — Senior Democrats have reached agreement with the National Rifle Association on what could be the first federal gun-control legislation since 1994, a measure to significantly strengthen the national system that checks the backgrounds of gun buyers.

The sensitive talks began in April, days after a mentally ill student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University. The shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, had been judicially ordered to submit to a psychiatric evaluation, which should have disqualified him from buying handguns. But the state of Virginia never forwarded that information to the federal National Instant Check System, and the massacre exposed a loophole in the 13-year-old background-check program.

Under the agreement, participating states would be given monetary enticements for the first time to keep the federal background database up to date, as well as penalties for failing to comply.

To sign on to the deal, the powerful gun lobby won significant concessions from Democratic negotiators. Individuals with minor infractions in their pasts could petition their states to have their names removed from the federal database, and about 83,000 military veterans, put into the system by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2000 for alleged mental health reasons, would have a chance to clean their records.

The federal government would be permanently barred from charging gun buyers or sellers a fee for their background checks. In addition, faulty records such as duplicative names or expunged convictions would have to be scrubbed from the database.

“The NRA worked diligently with the concerns of gun owners and law enforcement in mind to make a … system that’s better for gun owners and better for law enforcement,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who led the talks.

First: If someone is so dangerous they can’t be trusted with a gun then I don’t think they can be trusted with a can of gasoline and a book of matches either. Either they can be trusted in public or they should be locked up.

Second: Making the least agreeable portions of the infringement on our rights more palatable just means it will be more difficult to justify getting rid of it entirely later on.

Third: The longer this infringement stays in place the more accepting of it people are. The ban on new machine gun sales is so well accepted that most people believe they are banned entirely. Today it would be really tough to repeal the ban on machine guns and day by day it’s getting more difficult for people to even consider repealing the Brady Act.

Fourth: The Brady/FBI database and reporting system is so close to a database of all gun owners and their guns that it is a hazard to the health of our freedom. Which has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peal anyway.

All that said, borrowing from a great book I just listened to recently, Survival of the Sickest, “Why would you take a pill that will kill you 40 years from now?” The answer is, “Because it will keep me from dying tomorrow.” And so it is with this agreement.

Quote of the day–Sandy Froman

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They keep the truth from being taught in public schools, and they even write books laden with falsehoods in a dishonest attempt to rewrite history.

Seven years ago, Emory University historian Michael Bellesiles published a book purportedly proving there were few guns and gun owners in early America. The book garnered Columbia University’s coveted Bancroft Prize. Two years later, primarily due to the efforts of a brilliant young research historian, Clayton Cramer, who had studied that period in history extensively, the book was revealed to be a total fraud, full of lies and fabrications. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory University and, for the first time in history, Columbia University rescinded the Bancroft Prize.

Every American who values his or her constitutional rights should know something about these frauds that gun control advocates perpetrate so we can be watchful and teach the truth to our young ones.

Sandy Froman

June 7, 2007
The history of gun control, part 1
Sandy Froman is immediate past president of the National Rifle Association of America and a longtime member of the NRA board of directors.
A practicing attorney in Tucson, Ariz., Froman is an international speaker on the right to keep and bear arms and an advocate for federal judges who will interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning.

Man on rampage kills 9 (with a machete)

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Damned good thing none of the victims had firearms, ’cause, you know, violence is never the answer and it only begets more violence:

The man then barged into a neighbor’s house, where he stabbed and hacked to death a 37-year-old pregnant woman and her three daughters and two sons, aged 1 to 9.

All I want to know is; who sold him the machete, how much money did he make on the sale, and is he proud of it?  How is it that a madman can so easily get hold of such a deadly instrument?  Why are iron and carbon made so widely available when we know things like this are going to happen as a result?  What are the Filipino legislators going to do about this?  What do the Filipino cutlery manufacturers have to say for themselves and their irresponsible production of such deadly products?

 

There is one word missing in all the descriptions of the victims, which bears notice:  “Unarmed”.  Add the correction and it makes more sense: 

“The man then barged into a neighbor’s gun free house, where he stabbed and hacked to death the unarmed 37-year-old…”

 

Here’s a news headline you’ll never see:  “Machete-wielding madman kills eight concealed pistol carriers.”

 

But some of our Great and Compassionate Leaders would prefer several dead innocent women and children to one dead criminal, shot by his intended victim.

Irony at the CDC

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Some “progressive” activist is complaining that the CDC has becoming politicized:

In 1995 there was a vibrant public health effort in the area of gun injuries. Then the newly elected Republican Congress applied the pressure of the gun lobby. Suddenly the half dozen or so states funded by CDC to do fire arm injury surveillance were defunded. Zeroed out. Shortly thereafter all CDC funded prevention and injury programs had to agree that there would be no activities, direct or indirect, related to gun control. Health department people we have spoken to reported that a profound chill settled over injury programs regarding gun injuries, like homicides from guns. Intense pressure was applied to the head of the CDC injury control program and he and some of his experts on the public health aspects of firearm injury were threatened with investigations over possible entanglement with gun control advocates. Now extreme care is taken in how data is reported or recommendations made in the area of gun injuries.

Never mind that those “studies” were some of the most egregious examples of sloppy science I have ever seen. The “studies” were implemented to generate political justification for infringing our constitutionally guaranteed rights. Those studies were just as repugnant as a “public health effort” in the area of gays/blacks/Jews with entanglements with the KKK. Taxpayer (my) money was being spent to justify taking my guns away from me. And this bigot gets bent out of shape because they have to be more careful in their science?

The CDC was engaged in highly political activities, they are told to stop, and this person whines, “…politics has become an increasingly important part of CDC world.”

Where, in the Constitution, is the Federal Government granted the power to create the CDC to begin with? The CDC in it’s entirety, is a political creation of the socialist scum of this country. For this “progressive” to be whining about the defunding of a small portion of the CDC engaged in an illegal conspiracy (see 18 USC 241 and 242) is beyond ironic. It’s effrontery.

Bigoted Brits

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An off-duty policeman observes a young woman with a gun shooting at people out the passenger window as her accomplice drives along M62. The officer reports it and soon the pair is pulled over with the help of other officers with four jeeps, two vans full of dogs, and helicopters. Being hopelessly outnumbered and out gunned the pair surrender without a fight. They spent several hours in a jail cell before the police let them go because they determined the pair only had the one gun which was a toy. Read the rest of the story here. A picture of the young women, and their guns, who had just been to a “Cowboys and Indians” party is below:

I wonder what the response would have been had they been in possession of a bow and arrow and dressed as North American Indians.

Had it been in Idaho had they been stopped they would have been asked to put the toy away. It’s spring time and we don’t want to scare away the dimwitted California tourists. In the fall you can bring out the real guns for hunting season and scare them all you want just by putting it in the rifle rack on the back window of your pickup.

I’m sure the UK residents feel safer now. It’s good to know all that tax money is being put to good use.

Wow!

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Via Say Uncle who viewed it at The Bitch Girls.

Question: Handgun ownership; A right or a privilege? Answer: Privilege.

But he considers a college education, access to the internet, and health care as rights. How did he manage to get through law school?