Monthly Archives: June 2010

Quote of the day–Caitlin Rosser

Posted on by

One of the most interesting projects I worked on altered my perceptions of the civil rights movement and tested my convictions about nonviolence as an effective form of direct action. The Coalition sought to rebut claims by gun rights activists that gun control is historically racist; and violent, armed action is the method by which African Americans obtained important rights.

While researching the Deacons for Defense and Justice (DDJ), a small movement of men that took up arms to protect their communities in southern states between 1964-1968, I learned what it must have been like to stand up to a violent mob. In this case, that mob was the Ku Klux Klan. During this time, advocates of violence were much more prevalent than I had been taught. Student groups like the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) became much more militant during the 1960s, especially after seeing the terror of the Klan in the south.

Yet I also came to understand that while it may have been necessary for some African Americans to arm themselves to protect the lives of those they loved, it really was nonviolence that gained national attention and helped thrust the civil rights movement ahead.

Caitlin Rosser
June 7, 2010
Former intern for Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
Holding Fire, Finding Peace
[If I’m reading this right she learned the same lesson she would have had I been her mentor instead of someone at an anti-gun organization. Non-violence is the way of everyday life but the ability and willingness to deliver violence in the defense of innocent life under unusual circumstances is what makes it possible to live a life of relatively free of violence.

I have to wonder how successful she was in being able to achieve the coalition’s goal to “rebut the claims by gun rights activists.” I did a search on the CSGV website for her name without getting any hits. One might conclude that means she didn’t come up with the desired answer. She appears to be a smart girl so maybe she figured things out even while interning with a well meaning but extremely misguided organization.

After spending four months with the CSGV she has now been an intern at the U.S. Department of Justice for two months. I wonder if she is an advocate for non-violence there as well. I don’t expect that would go over too well with those that have to make contact with those that regularly prey on the innocent.

One might even imagine that if she continues to learn the lessons that life has to offer at the DOJ she might next get a job, virtually next door, at NRA headquarters. She would fit right in with nearly all the NRA PR people I have met, female, smart, and blond (I said “nearly” — Danielle probably isn’t considered a blond).–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ronald Reagan

Posted on by

Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong.


Ronald Reagan
[This afternoon on my way back to my hidden underground bunker in the Seattle area I listened to A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell.  Kevin gives a more complete review than I would ever consider but one thing in the book jumped out at me that reminded me of this Reagan quote. In the unconstrained vision nations enter into war because of misunderstandings many of which are because one side or both became convinced that their neighbor was preparing to go to war against them. Hence, in the eyes of those who adhere to the unconstrained vision, one of the ways to prevent war is to disarm.


As Kevin points out those of the unconstrained persuasion are as much or more interested in intent than in hard data. Does that remind you of any politicians you know?


In the unconstrained vision the definitions of the most basic words have different meanings from those of a constrained vision viewpoint. Some definitions are not merely different–they are the complete opposite (for example see the video I linked to here). This is why, for them, “freedom” and/or “economic justice” can entail forced redistribution of wealth without a hint of irony.


For them, criminals can be understood and reformed. It was the fault of society/poverty/”economic-injustice” which creates criminals and by fixing those problems and taking away the tools of their trade there will be less (or zero) crime. As an example just last month Paul Helmke said gun violence is one component of the total violence. This, of course, presumes that violent crime committed with firearms is totally independent of other types of violent crime. It assumes there will be no substitution of other weapons if firearms are less available (and with the victims disarmed firearms are less likely to be needed by large predators). In their minds people like Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and Richard Kuklinski (now there was one scary SOB–Ted Bundy was a pussy cat compared to him) apparently would not come into being.


That line of thought brought me to gun control and back to Reagan’s quote. What Reagan said in regards to war also applies to gun ownership and criminals. No violent criminal or political tyrant committed his crimes because his victims were too strong.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Thucydides

Posted on by

The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.


Thucydides
[When I was young I thought of people who entered the military as not smart enough to get a real job. This was based on a very limited sample of my classmates who joined the military. In the last couple of decades I revised my opinion as I met veterans who were incredibly smart and I read books about and by military people who were great thinkers as well as great warriors.


But I think there is a large segment of our society that does make a great distinction between scholars and warriors and thinks people who join the military are dullards.


I have yet to be convinced that the supposed scholars of our nation are not both cowards and fools.–Joe]

‘Get the Hell Out of Palestine’…

Posted on by

…says Helen Thomas to the Jews in Israel.


Doug Powers posted it.  I’m amplifying it.  Watch the video.  Helen Thomas is one of the most revered journalists in all of Leftopia.  She’s been in the front row at Whitehouse press conferences since the Grant administration, and she’ll be there, just as revered, at the next one.


Let’s see; it’s been nearly 10 years since I began linking the motivations and goals of the jihadists with those of the American and European left.  In examining the various “peace talks” between Israel and Hamas, et al, brokered by American presidents, keep that in mind.

Quote of the day–Steve Chapman

Posted on by

Gun control supporters fear that if the Supreme Court invalidates local handgun bans, the consequences will be nothing but bad. That would be easier to believe if the laws had ever done any good.

Steve Chapman
March 4, 2010
Chicago’s pointless handgun ban–City gun ordinances proved to be a failure
[Gun control supporters fear potentialities. Rational people evaluate actualities.

I’ve quoted Chapman here before too. It’s nice to see someone on a Chicago newspaper editorial board support our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.–Joe]

A potentiality is not an actuality

Posted on by

Yesterday I posted a quote from someone opposed to open (and I would imagine any type of) carry. He was responding to someone else in the comments to a newspaper article:

“How many open carry citizens have committed crimes with their weapons?
Answer – none”.

You are incorrect. Open carry laws make it easy for psychos to tote
around LOADED weapons, which are responsible for a lot of the crime and gun
deaths each year. The law may be designed for the “law abiding” citizen, but if
you think only “law abiding” citizens utilize the law you are an idiot.

It is my belief that we are so frequently exposed to irrational and nonsensical thinking and behaviors that we frequently cannot see it for what it is. We accept it as normal and attempt to confront them on their own territory using their own “rules”. This is like mud wrestling with a pig. They are going to be an extremely slippery opponent, you are unlikely to win, and even if you do there is no hope of any dignity or great reward.

I didn’t notice that I had ignored this guy’s subterfuge until sometime after I had posted it and rather than update the post I decided to see if anyone else noticed and pointed it out in the comments. About a 1000 people have seen that quote here and no one has said anything about what the guy did. I doubt that he himself realized what he did. It is what these people do naturally. Their thinking process is so messed up that it just comes out.

The two points that need to be made are:

  1. The responder changed the question. The question was, “How many open carry citizens have committed crimes with their weapons?” The responder changes this to, the implied, “Does the ability to openly carry enable crime?”
  2. A potential to do harm is not the same as actually doing harm. In nearly every instance of a push for greater gun control (and, if you think about it some, nearly all government programs) those advocating more government control focus almost entirely on the potential harm if action is not taken and the potential good if the action is taken. Actual harm and actual benefits appear to be (and in many cases I’m sure it is deliberately) ignored.

This second point is very important. A potentiality is not an actuality.*

For the most part when we debate against gun control (or socialism for that matter) we use actual facts. We accuse them of using emotionalism but it goes deeper than that. They frequently argue about “what could happen”. When they do this there is almost no limit to what conclusions will be reached.

They end up arguing that .50 caliber “sniper rifles” can bring airplanes down out of the sky. To the best of my knowledge there has never been a case of a semi-auto or bolt action .50 caliber rifle taking down an airplane. Potentiality versus actuality.

They end up arguing criminals will buy guns at gun shows with “no questions asked”. Criminals obtain their firearms at gun shows less than 1% of the time. Potentiality versus actuality.

They end up arguing if you carry a gun it can be taken away from you and used against you. Defending ones-self with a gun results in less injury to the defender than any other course of action. Potentiality versus actuality.

They end up arguing that if there were strict, “common sense” gun laws in place crime would go down. At the very best the facts show heavy restrictions on private citizen access to firearms is not positively correlated with an increase in crime. Potentiality versus actuality.

Keep your eyes and ears open and your brain working. Don’t let them get away with arguing potentialities. Make them argue actualities. A potentiality is not an actuality.

*The title for for this blog post comes from Susan K. (Cherry Tree–Susan will know) who, about 25 years ago, used this phrase to emphasis a point in a debate I had with her. This post was inspired by the book I’m currently listening to, The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. Susan was a huge fan of hers although I didn’t hear that exact phrase in the book (so far anyway) similar wordings and phrases caused me to remember the debate I had with Susan. It turns out, that if you do a web search for that phrase you will find that Ayn Rand did in fact use it–but in a totally different context.

Nervous Cops Make Me Nervous

Posted on by

I got pulled over today for having studded tires.  No big deal there.  I’ve been meaning to change them out, but it seems I always had something else to occupy my attention.  Besides; it wasn’t but a few weeks ago I needed them up in the mountains.  We had snow right here in mid May too.


Strangely, the cop asks me if I have any guns in the vehicle.  This has never happened to me before in Idaho, and only once in Washington, in all my nearly 40 years of driving, even though I usually have a bandolier of .30-30 ammo hanging on the headrest for all the world to see.


“Well, yeah.  Certainly.”


“Where are they.”


“Let’s see.  I have to think about this.  There’s an AR in the back seat, a 9 mm pistol in the back seat, and one on my hip.  For which I have a permit” I added.  (I’d forgotten about the Mark II auto pistol in its soft case on the front seat)  That’s about the minimum.  I usually have more guns with me, because sometimes I like to go shooting after work.


“Oh,  alright” he says.  Now, I would have been glad to show him the permit, but he didn’t ask.  He just walked back to his cruiser.  I figured he didn’t much care and would rather proceed checking my record and writing up the ticket.  Wrong!  Fail!


He was back there forEVER.  I’ve never had a stop take half this long.  Eventually a second cruiser shows up, and the second cop gets out and has a LONG conversation with the first one.  I’m really beginning to wonder what they could possibly be discussing.  Who do they think I am?  What do they think I’ve done?  WFT?  I have no record, my driving record is pristine.  Man, studs in June must be one hell of a big deal!


By now I can feel the adrenaline coming on, ’cause both cops are approaching my pickup, one on either side, cautiously, like they are afraid I’m going to start shooting any second, or like they’re getting ready to make an arrest of an “armed suspect”.  I’m half expecting to see a SWAT van tear around the corner at this point, they way they’re acting.


Understand that this whole time I was nothing but peaches and cream, putting forth my most polite and straight-forward mannerism, and keeping my hands on the wheel or in full view every second.


Turns out they “had a hard time finding [my] carry permit” in my home town in Washington.  Several years ago, the rules were changed such that you now must apply for your permit, and any renewals, in your home town police dept., and apparently they had a hard time getting hold of my local guys, or my local guys had a hard time keeping their records straight.  I don’t know which, but several of these fellows need a little talkin’ to.


For one thing, if I were a real threat, would I have declared the pistol on my hip?  I think not.  Yet these guys never did relax.  Not even after everything was cleared up.  They were polite and all, but wow– very nervous, and it seemed the more I tried to be all polite and accommodating and chatty, the more nervous they got.  The first guy is the only one I spoke with, and he acted plenty nice and all.  No complaint there.


For another thing; really, if you are so risk averse that you have to call for backup because I have guns just like most people around here, maybe you should be in another line of work.  I know it’s tough, but that requires a certain personality and the understanding that sometimes shit happens and that you’re willing to accept the risks.  We all do that for example every time we get behind the wheel.  Lots of people we know have been is serious vehicle accidents, but we’re not at DefCon One all the time, like these two cops were today.  For another; my family name is something of a local institution here in Moscow.  We’ve had a downtown business here, right next door to the cop shop, since 1990, and in this town since 1978.  Our ads have been on the radio here every day.  For years.  My name is the name of the business.  This is a small town.  If you’re afraid of me you must be afraid of your own shadow.  Besides, if you REALLY believe in the second amendment, you wouldn’t be worried about whether I have a permit to exercise my rights, except as a formality or an afterthought.


Now I know more what it must be like to be caught “driving while black”.  “Driving while armed” can be much the same, even in Idaho it seems.


Now I don’t want to hear from anyone about how tough the cop job is, or about how many cops get into dangerous situations as fast as lightening.  I know.  Sorry.  You know that when you apply.  There are those who can handle it, those who probably shouldn’t be there, and others who just need a little talkin’ to once in a while, to keep them on track.  These two were just a bit off track, and it Does.  Not.  Help.  Anything.


That being said; I was pulled over by ID State Police a few months ago, for not signaling a lane change, and he was cool as a cucumber.  No ticket.  Just wanted to talk about it and check the equipment.  Huge contrast.

Quote of the day–Dennis Henigan

Posted on by

We are going to vigorously attack the law in courts, … Congress has no power to retroactively deprive people of their rights.


Dennis Henigan
October 21, 2005
Houses Passes Ban on Gun Industry Lawsuits
[One would assume from the words Henigan uses that he would be opposed to the Launtenberg Amendment. Somehow I don’t think he is capable of being that consistent.–Joe]

Quote of the day–GuessWho

Posted on by

“How many open carry citizens have committed crimes with their weapons? Answer – none”.


You are incorrect. Open carry laws make it easy for psychos to tote around LOADED weapons, which are responsible for a lot of the crime and gun deaths each year. The law may be designed for the “law abiding” citizen, but if you think only “law abiding” citizens utilize the law you are an idiot.


Why does someone need to carry around an unloaded weapon anyway? To cure their small man syndrome? To “get chicks”? To make-up for their small endowment?


GuessWho
June 1, 2010
Comment to Ban on ‘open carry’ of guns passes Assembly
[For some reason GuessWho believes “psychos” will not think of concealing LOADED weapons in violation of the law when they go about violating the laws against robbery and murder. Facts, such as nearly all other states allow open and easy to obtain concealed carry licenses, are apparently irrelevant to them so they make dick jokes.


What is this about “Utilize the law”? The same rational would be just as applicable to the First Amendment with the right to worship as you please, associate with you please, and to speak as you please.


GuessWho should be less concerned with the endowment between my legs and more concerned with the endowment between his ears.–Joe]

Trade-offs and goals

Posted on by

If you want to save yourself some time by not read my late night rambling just read three sentences from Say Uncle on this topic.


As an engineer I make a lot of trade-offs. Execution speed and size (assembly language) versus code clarity and development time (high level languages) used to be a big trade-off. Calculating results every time you need them or caching them in RAM is a trade-off (it didn’t use to be that way but today the answer is usually you want to calculate them every time). Do you load everything in RAM for quick access or leave it on disk until you need it? Do you bringing a new hire up to speed or do you do it yourself?


I can whip out some code that will test a hypothesis in a few minutes or an hour and not worry if there is a single comment in it or if it handles a single error condition. To implement that same functionality in a product that literally millions of people will use, sometimes millions of times a day (or even per minute) may take weeks of effort by a team of people. It will involve specifications, design documents, a test plan, manual testing, automated tests, unit tests, code reviews by multiple peers, and alpha/beta testing by thousands or even 10s of thousands of end users. It only takes me a fraction of a second to decide how to proceed when I know the final goal for the task at hand.


Man minutes versus man months of time involved. Two different extremes in the effort involved in implementing, essentially, the same functionality. The difference is in what I was attempting to accomplish.


I’ve been making engineering trade-offs for over 30 years and most of the time it comes pretty easy to me. When my officemate, a very smart person but a fairly new entry into actually producing deliverable code, asks for advice on a trade-off it takes more time for her to ask the question than for me to arrive at the correct answer.


Another example comes from this morning. My boss came into my office and asked, essentially, “Do we ever return an answer of less than ‘X’ for condition ‘B’?” I knew my code didn’t do that directly but there were times when my code got the answer from the server rather than computing it directly and I couldn’t say for certain without checking with the server people. I started to go down that path and explain how the server might come up with a different answer and I barely got started into the fine details when he stopped me. “Let me give you some more context”, he said. The context was he was writing an email with the target audience of upper management who would not care about the fine details. When he asked the question I thought there was some bug that had been reported and he wanted to know if it really was a bug and if so who it should be assigned to. Without knowing what he was trying to accomplish I had made the wrong trade-off. I was giving him more and more detail when he really needed validation of his high level overview.


As a gun lobbying organization the NRA-ILA makes trade-offs too. What they are trying to accomplish is to improve, and in certain worst case scenarios minimize harm to, our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Nearly all other considerations must be given a lower priority.


At the NRA Annual Meetings last month I spent a couple hours talking to a NRA board member. He explained why they had done certain things in the D.C. lawsuit (for the most part I am not at liberty to discuss them) and had avoided the U.S. Supreme Court for decades. The next night (or was it the night after?) I spend time with Alan Gura who had a different view of the NRA contribution to the D.C. lawsuit. It was Gura’s contention that NRA-ILA really knows their stuff in regards to legislation but the same people attempting to handle court battles results in people working out of their area of expertise with less than optimal outcomes. My simple take on the topic was that the NRA was trying to avoid a disastrous loss and Gura was trying to get solid win. They both have our best interests at heart but in certain situations ended up “fighting over the ball” and risked fumbling it for a loss.


I think the people that are upset with the NRA support of Harry Reid don’t really understand the trade-offs involved and what the NRA is trying to accomplish. To best support the members, the gun owning people of this country, they have to play a “chess game” where they can never take back a move, the pieces are clouding in smoke, the playing field is shifting, the rules are only partially known and subject to violation by the individual pieces at any time. Try thinking three or four moves ahead under those conditions and see how well you can do. The NRA plays that game very well. They are experts at it. Sometimes when an expert is at work you will be baffled at the moves they make.


To the simple minded observer if you put a “good conservative” in office you will automatically get support for gun rights, hence you should always give support to “good conservatives”. Even an amateur like me can see far enough ahead to see a problem with that in certain situations. There are trade-offs involved. With a ‘D’ beside his name and lots of seniority Reid has lots of power that someone with an ‘R’ and little (or no) seniority would not have. That is just one trade-off. Another is that in certain jurisdictions a “good conservative” is not electable. The demographics of that district are such that the NRA can curry favor with someone that will be in a position to help us or they can try to defeat them during the election then try to make up with them after the election. Another trade-off is that some people like everything, or most everything, the Democrats offer but support our right to keep and bear arms. To a certain extent I am baffled by both the Republican’s and the Democrats. I really don’t understand (and don’t think they do either) the philosophy behind their politics. My guiding political principles are pro freedom. Each party has something to offer and a lot they want to take away from me in this regard. There are trade-offs in who I vote for.


In the case of Harry Reid an NRA lobbyist said this about him in an email discussion:



I have candidates for office running against pro-gun Dems who expect that NRA is going to endorse them as the pro-gun Republican challenger over the pro-gun Democrat incumbent…and tout all of their other “conservative” positions as proof that they’re the better candidate. They get frustrated with me, but I have to remind them that NRA doesn’t use whether you are pro-Life and small taxes to determine your endorsement or grade — and a large number of our members appreciate that, because they don’t agree with conservatives or Republicans on anything but guns! 😉


Whether they like it or not, Harry Reid has voted with gun owners and NRA 100% and used his position in the Senate to advance gun ownership rights in recent years. The Obama Admin was forced to sign a bill with Guns in Parks because Harry Reid allowed the Amendment. The House is holding up DC voting rights because Harry Reid allowed the DC gun rights amendment to the bill.


If Harry Reid isn’t the Senate Majority Leader, we’d have Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin — think we’re going to get any of those amendments on bills with THEM in charge? No — it’ll be more Lautenberg crap.


In the eyes of an expert political lobbyist the making of the decision about Reid took less time than it took to write the first sentence of the explanation and it’s clear that is the correct answer for gun owners. Those that try to change the NRA support of Reid risk fumbling the ball to the loss of all of us.

Opposing Gun Control

Posted on by

I want to expand on a comment made here, since Joe often says I shouldn’t bury certain things in comments.  I’m never really sure what he means by that, so I can only give it a go;


The citizens have been declared incompetent.  Posing a danger to themselves and others, they cannot be entrusted with their basic rights.  That is, in a nutshell, the entire message of the left, and they call us hateful, racist and divisive.


 


It’s really simple; in their efforts to rob us of our treasure and trample our rights, they have to portray us as evil by way of justification and to rally others to their side.  That’s the whole gig, right there.


 


In opposing them, always keep that in mind.  When you cut right to the chase with the basics, there’s nothing for them to do but express outrage, kicking and screaming, pointing fingers and lying in the hope that we’ll be distracted off-subject, that we’ll embarrass ourselves with a reply in-kind or be intimidated into silence.  Maintain your course and composure, argue principles, and they lose every time.  This takes practice.


 


Remember that this is not about the person, or the people, making the argument.  If this or that person weren’t making the silly assertions, it would be someone else.  “It” will always find a willing accomplice.  You’re not fighting the person or the group of people on the attack.  You’re fighting the urge toward theft and coercive power.  That urge feeds on weakness, and can infect a lot of people.

Bloggers I have met

Posted on by

I updated my list of Bloggers I have met after meeting a bunch of people at the NRA Annual Meeting. I’m just certain that I left one or more people off the list but I can’t think of who it might be. If you find your name isn’t on the list, it should be, and you want it to be please send me an email and I’ll correct my error(s).

Video glasses update

Posted on by

As I mentioned before I broke my new video glasses while taking them off. I considered just gluing them but decided to call and see if I could purchase a replacement part. I called the number in the user manual for Global One Sales & Distribution (814-669-1953) and was told they would ship me the new part but recommended I send them in for repair. The camera is in that part of the frame and there are wires going back to the processor and memory card. The cost, including shipping back to me is $40. I sent them in for repair.


He asked me how I broke them. I told him and he said I was for the fourth person to break them taking the glasses off while the lanyard was attached. They haven’t had other people break them at all. I advise not using the lanyard. What happened to me was that I tried to take them off with one hand holding on to the frame just in front of my left ear. As I pulled them over my head the lanyard caught on my right ear and the glasses were pulled as if it were a wishbone. The lanyard had a large moment arm (engineer speak for “big lever”) and the frame could not handle the force.


There are a few other things of note here. 1) I could not find a website for “Global One Sales & Distribution”; 2) The phone number 814-669-1953 (a Texas area code) is associated with a Self-Storage facility in Pennsylvania which has the same address as that which I was requested to ship the glasses to; 3) These glasses have more features (via a comment from wizardpc) and cost less than $75 (I paid $239 + tax for mine from Afton Arms who had a booth at the NRA meeting).

Quote of the day–Dave Kopel

Posted on by

Petitioners’ prohibitions are now and always have been based on invidious prejudice that the law-abiding citizens of the District are incipient murderers.


David B. Kopel
2008
Brief of The International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA), The International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors (IALEFI), Maryland State Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police, Southern States Police Benevolent Association, 29 Elected California District Attorneys, San Francisco Veteran Police Officers Association, Long Beach Police Officers Association, Texas Police Chiefs Association, Texas Municipal Police Association, New York State Association of Auxiliary Police, Mendocino County, Calif., Sheriff Thomas D. Allman, Oregon State Rep. Andy Olson, National Police Defense Foundation, Law Enforcement Alliance of America, and The Independence Institute as amici curiae in support of respondent. D.C. v. Heller.
[This applies to anyplace, anytime, there are restrictions on the right of ordinary people to keep and bear arms.


Also note that this is a big worded way of saying the anti-gun people are bigots.


I was adding a quote to my database from spending most of the evening listening and talking to Dave Kopel at the NRA Annual Meeting last month (thank you Sebastian and Bitter for arranging it!) when I ran across this one that I had not yet posted. I would post the one I heard directly last month (it is awesome!) but he had been drinking and was probably a little more enthusiastic about freedom than he normally presents himself in public.–Joe]