The First Amendment is about how we govern ourselves — not about how we titillate ourselves sexually.
Robert Bork
An interview on ABC’s This Week, June 25, 1989
[I was reminded of this by Sebastian’s post Talk About a Dodged Bullet.–Joe]
Monthly Archives: May 2008
All you had to do was ask
The other day Jed said, “I’d like to raid Joe’s quotations database.”
I just got around to extracting the politics related stuff. There is lots of personal stuff in the master collection that some people would rather I didn’t make public. The politics related things are here. It includes things that aren’t really quotes such as political jokes. And because I have traded collections with other people some of the stuff does not necessarily represent my political leanings.
Quote of the day–You Tube
It’s very simple. The authorities have no way of controlling criminals. So they control the law abiding ’cause we are an easy target.
You Tube
England Gun Ban Update @ 2:14 into the video.
[Via Uncle. There is lots of other good stuff in that video. Show this video to anyone that claims the U.K. gun ban is some sort of ideal the U.S. should strive for.–Joe]
I wonder if the irony escapes them
Under Civil Rights groups they support they list Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. I’m almost surprised the don’t list the KKK too. I’m certain one could make a better case that the KKK supports civil rights (of whites) more than the Brady Bunch supports civil rights for anyone. The Brady Bunch is like the KKK in a lot of ways.
Quote of the day–Chris Rock
Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost 5,000 dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollar, we wouldn’t have any innocent bystander.
Chris Rock
[I love sick humor.–Joe]
Random stuff from work
Last December I made two posts about how busy I was at work:
About 10 days ago while I was in Louisville our Corporate VP held a meeting for all the people under him. I missed out on the big meeting but I’ve watched part of the video of it since then. One of the topics at the meeting was awards for various people. My officemate, Sapna, mentioned in one the previous posts, our PM, our test/system integration guy and I got one of the awards. Here is a screen capture from that video:
I told Barb about this and she thought it was pretty cool… until I told her what we had done. We designed/wrote/tested some of the website code that puts ads on mobile phones (like what you see here depending on what country you are in) for our mobile websites.
Barb’s response was basically “ads are evil”. But ads are the reason so much of the Internet is “free” just like most television programs and radio. For example Hotmail requires dozens of servers with massive amounts of storage and bandwidth. Ads pay for those resources. There haven’t been many ads on a lot of mobile phones for various reasons but that is changing and my little team (above) helped change that.
I find the diversity of our team interesting. Sapna is from India and on Monday participated in a folk-life event at the Seattle Center attended by some large number of people. She and about a dozen others put on several dances from India. I showed up and took a bunch of pictures. At 5′ 3″ and 110 pounds she doesn’t look like a software geek:
Taqi is from Pakistan (don’t India and Pakistan lob expolsives and high speed pieces of metal at each other on a regular basis? Odd–they get alone so well here.) and when he visits “home” I sometimes ask him about what “training camps” he spent time in. He takes it quite well and tells me stories from his time, years ago, in the military–which he makes of point of telling me was the secular military. He is about to finish his master’s degree from the U of W in physics.
Zane is of Asian descent and a Canadian citizen who loves to play basketball. Snowboarding is also up there on his list of things to do.
All of them are great people and I’m proud to work with them. However, I’m sometimes intimidated here at Microsoft. If you open your mouth about something you should know what you are talking about because I suspect the average I.Q. in our section of the building is probably about 150. Damn, these guys are smart.
Mental problems
The first and only thing that comes to mind is mental problems when I read something like The Racist Origins Of the Second Amendment. Pure projection. The truth is gun control has racist origins. Here is just a small sample of the evidence:
Quote of the day–John F. Kennedy
Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
John F. Kennedy
[And the brilliance of a black hole*, the integrity of a sociopath, and the morals of an alley cat.–Joe]
* Yes, I’m aware of Hawking Radiation and speculation about it’s existence is on par with my observations of intelligence in D.C.
Quote of the day–Michael Nutter
We cannot have freedom, we cannot have safety as long as these types of weapons are on our streets.
Michael Nutter
Philadelphia Mayor
May 27, 2008
Mayor Nutter takes gun control fight to Harrisburg
[Nutter is refering to “assault weapons”. What Nutter doesn’t understand or, just as likely fully understands but thinks we won’t, is that if the government is allowed to restrict these firearms the people will have neither freedom nor safety. Just ask some of the worlds other beneficiaries of gun control. Gun control has never delivered the promises made to the common person, only to the tyrants.–Joe]
Mascot Politics
Thomas Sowell hits another one out of the park. I’d heard about his recent article from R. Limbaugh. Here’s a snippet:
For people on the left, however, blacks are trophies or mascots, and must therefore be put on display. Nowhere is that more true than in politics. Nor do conservatives who were in the civil rights marches in the South, back when that was dangerous, make that a big deal.
The problem with being a mascot is that you are a symbol of someone else’s significance or virtue. The actual well-being of a mascot is not the point.
Quote of the day–Wayne LaPierre
Senator McCain is the only one in the race that has a pro-gun record of any kind. I think the mouthing of a pro-Second Amendment stance by Senators Clinton and Obama and pandering to gun owners is an embarrassment and I don’t believe it will work.
Wayne LaPierre
May 13, 2008
Q & A with the NRA’s executive vice president–Gun-rights lobby to meet in Louisville this week
[The problem is that it doesn’t have to work with all gun owners. It just has to work with enough gun owners to win the election.–Joe]
Knife Rights
Most people in the U.S. would offer you a shiny aluminum foil hat if you were to claim our knife rights are in danger. I know even the most enthusiastic supporters of gun control I have talked to express extreme skepticism when I have brought up the regulations on knives in the U.K. “That’s just silly”, they say. Yup. It is silly. But it’s also true. Today’s QOTD was just one hint of what is going on in the U.K.
And even if you are up to speed on the sad state of affairs in the U.K. one may reasonably claim we don’t need to worry about that in this country because the ninnies who would take away our knives must first take away our guns. That claim sounds reasonable but is it?
While at the NRA convention I stopped by a booth with an intriguing banner:
I barely spoke to them as I took a picture of their banner, picked up a business card, and hurried on. But I knew at the time it was going to be a blog post.
Visiting their website I discovered a link to this WSJ article: Deadly pocketknives become a $1 billion business. It’s every bit as one sided and Chicken Little like as any Brady Campaign media release.
So what about someone who claims we don’t need to worry about knives when we are at least holding our own in the trenches on the gun rights front? My response is, “They are flanking us.” What is going to be your response when some hysterical activist or legislator says, “We already outlaw tactical knives why can’t we get rid of the guns as well?”
So, beyond the obvious commercial airplanes and John McCain public appearances, where are our defensive knives currently restricted? You know that switchblade knives are outlawed in many jurisdictions and the public opinion on them is roughly equivalent to that of machine guns. That battle is essentially lost. I don’t know for certain on the “assault weapon” analog–the locking blade, one handed opening knives, but the WSJ article linked to above reports that Atlanta prohibits people from carrying pocket knives in public with blades longer than two inches. Yet, according to the article this isn’t restrictive enough. Knife Rights could do those of us who carry defensive knives and pro-freedom activists a big service by compiling a list of political jurisdictions that are hostile to people even defending themselves using even a knife.
Another thing Knife Rights could do is work for preemption at the state level to remove the patchwork of laws that might trip of a visitor to some city that has no idea Chicken Little clones have taken over the city council. It would also be nice to see some D.C. versus Heller like cases involving knives and citing either/both state and federal constitutional protections for the right to keep and bear arms.
Here is what the Knife Rights Foundation [501(c)(3)] and Knife Rights [501(c)(4)] organizations have as their mission statements:
Knife Rights Foundation is dedicated to:
- Encouraging safe and responsible use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach;
- Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about the history of knives and edged tools;
- Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about knife and edged tool related laws and regulations
Knife Rights is dedicated to:
- Providing knife and edged tool owners an effective voice to influence public policy and to oppose efforts to restrict the right to own, use and carry knives and edged tools;
- Encouraging safe, responsible and lawful use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach, enhancing positive perceptions of knives and edged tools and their owners and users;
- Encouraging the marketing of knives and edged tools in a responsible manner conducive to the organization’s goals;
- Cooperating with advocacy organizations having complimentary interests and goals;
- Providing knife and edged tool owners with services that they will find valuable in order to build membership to enable success in our primary objectives.
I wish them success not just because its the right thing to do but because they are defending my flank on the gun rights issue.
Quote of the day–Mark Lawson
…the only solution is to try to drive knives from society. Already, stop-and-search squads have been put on the streets of London in a version of the contentious old “sus” laws. This, at least, is something practical that can be attempted: there is no good reason to carry blades.
Mark Lawson
May 16 2008
Weapons we can’t handle
[This is the path the anti-gun people want us to take. This is the future if the anti-gun bigots are allowed to succeed.–Joe]
Busybody Bachman bops by
I’d like to think Mr. Bachman made a visit:
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Always Think Forfeiture resolution
I have been wondering about this for a while and even asked a few people what was, if anything, going on. It turns out the case has been resolved. Not to my satisfaction but good enough. I would have preferred the ATF be disbanded and the guilty be given life sentences and sent to the prison labor lead mines to help reduce the cost of ammunition–but then I’m a perfectionist in cases like this.
Here is the best story on it I have found so far:
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is dumping the “Always Think Forfeiture” motto it’s used for more than a decade to help combat crime.
U.S. Rep. Bill Sali, R-Idaho, and others complained that multipurpose tools engraved with the slogan could be seen as encouragement to seize property, including guns, of law-abiding citizens.
The pocket tools were to be given to federal, state and local law-enforcement agents participating in the agency’s asset forfeiture training programs, as a reminder of one way to disrupt or dismantle criminal organizations.
None of the engraved tools, stored in the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., have so far been distributed. And now they won’t be, at least until the engravings have been removed.
The agency will no longer use the slogan on materials given out during its training programs, said Robert Browning, chief of ATF public affairs in Washington, D.C., adding it was never intended to undermine lawful gun rights.
Sali had said that the ATF “through its engraved motto, sends a message that these rights are secondary to the government’s apparent goal to ‘always’ seek forfeit of private property.”
The tools also included the words “ATF – Asset Forfeiture.”
Update: In the comments Jed points out the Idaho Stateman article. I have to agree it’s better because of this:
That changed March 19, when a blogger looking at ATF contracts on a government-purchasing database found an order for 2,000 Leatherman tool-kits engraved with the slogan.
The blogger wrote about it on www.freedomsight.net, and the issue took on a life of its own in the blogosphere. Gun owners and private property rights activists seized on the phrase as a sign that the agency was biased toward law-abiding gun owners.
As I said before, Jed did good. Real good.
Random Nuclear Strikes Boomershoot pictures
David has posted a bunch of pictures of and relating to Boomershoot:
Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day
At the NRA convention last week I told several bloggers I was contemplating having a special Boomershoot for gun bloggers*. I have had time to think about this quite a bit more.
The following is tentative so if you have suggestions let me know before I finalize it in the next week or so.
Boomershoot 2009 is currently scheduled for Sunday April 26th with Friday and Saturday the 24th and 25th being the Precision Rifle Clinic. Nearly all of the gun bloggers who have never attended Boomershoot I have talked to expressed concern their long range rifle skills were deficient so I think participating in at least one day of the clinic is a good idea for them. Partially for this reason I have decided combining the gun blogger event with Boomershoot 2009 is a good idea.
What I think is one of the more interesting part of the event is the making of the targets prior to the event. We have repeatedly invited the mainstream media to observe and/or participate and only once had them accept. I’m guessing gun bloggers will be more inclined to take me up on this invitation. Hence I have decided to make Thursday April 23rd 2009 Boomershoot Gun Blogger Day. On this day gun bloggers will be given media credentials and a special behind the scenes tour of and participation in Boomershoot 2009. If the individuals involved want to actually mix explosives and package the targets they will need to fill out some paperwork at least a couple months in advance. This paperwork will be submitted to the ATF and if the ATF approves it these individuals will be allowed to actually make explosives and reactive targets. If individuals do not wish to submit the paperwork then they will still be allowed to observe target manufacturing and participate in all the other activities.
Other activities planned for Gun Blogger Day will include discussions of explosive chemistry, alternate materials for explosives, target detonation theory, fireball target construction, the history and future of Boomershoot, Boomershoot safety, Why Boomershoot, “entertainingly close” detonation of targets by the participants and almost any other safe and legal activity related to guns and explosives the participants can think of.
Do you want to blow something up? Toilets, laptop computers, and hard disk drives are just some of the things we have subjected to “Idaho Hardware Testing” (also sometimes called an Idaho Stress Test). If you have something you want subjected to Boomerite let me know and we’ll figure out how to make it happen safely. The only catch is that you need to clean up (or pay for) the mess afterward.
Gun bloggers who are attending Boomershoot for the first time will also get free admission to the main event on Sunday April 26th.
* For the purposes of this special offer a gun blogger is defined as someone who has an active blog with frequent posts about gun use or politics. “Active blog” means someone who has made 100 or more posts in the previous year as of April 1, 2009. This definition potentially and intentionally includes the anti gun blogs such as the Gun Guys and the Brady Blog. “Frequent posts about gun use or politics” will be defined at my whim on a case by case basis. Submit your blog to me for inclusion prior to April 1 and I’ll get back to you with my decision within a day or so.
Gun trace data for 2007 is available
I haven’t looked at it much but the ATF trace data for 2007 is available here for those that have the time and the interest.
Bloomberg is an ignorant bigot
An article by Joseph P. Tartaro (who I saw at the NRA Convention but didn’t talk to) spells out what many of us have suspected. Bloomberg is an ignorant anti-gun bigot and beyond that is willfully ignorant:
NSSF noted that perhaps the mayor’s insults stems from his self-professed ignorance of our nation’s firearms laws and regulations, business practices of firearms retailers and the duties of the ATF. “I don’t know what the law is and what procedures are,” responded the mayor to a deposition question on illegally purchased firearms, NSSF quoted him. “I have no knowledge of what appropriate safeguards are for a dealer to comply with the law or what standard practices are in the arms business,” they quoted him.
In the same deposition Mr. Bloomberg admitted he did not know that ATF conducted inspections of firearms retailers. “I didn’t even know they had inspections,” the bewildered mayor offered and Bloomberg also noted that he did not know what a Federal Firearms Transaction Record, commonly known as a Form 4473 was or a NICS background check.
A settlement between Red’s and ATF
I would prefer the Feds ended up in jail and reimbursing Red’s for all expenses but I can’t complain a whole lot if this goes down as described:
An Idaho gun shop that went to federal court to keep the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from stripping it of its gun license has reached a tentative settlement with the government.
Attorneys on both sides told U.S. District Court Judge Mikel H. Williams on Wednesday that they had likely agreed on how to end the case.
Mark Geston, an attorney representing Terry and Ryan Horsley of Red’s Trading Post, said he could not yet release details, but said the proposal would allow the Twin Falls gun shop to continue operating.
“I think everybody’s reached a cooperative and constructive agreement,” Geston said Thursday. “The judge said to have it finalized in 10 days and we’ll just do our best to do that. The agreement allows Red’s Trading Post to continue as a gun shop in Twin Falls.”
I tried to check out Ryan’s blog but Blogger reports:
Sorry, the blog at redstradingpost.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.
This is entirely speculation on my part but my guess is pulling the blog down is part of the settlement. Stepping even further into baseless speculation one could say it’s a sad day when you have to give up your 1st Amendment rights to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights.