Monthly Archives: January 2011

Help Heller Holler Harder

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Oleg Volk is trying;



I am trying to help Dick Heller with raising funds for more legal mischief in DC.


I may be a good idea to assist Heller in piling on, as you are able.  The more the anti rights bigots, cowards, liars and charlatans in Washington have to contend with, the better.  They are getting desperate now, seeing their Big Chance slipping away after so many generations of careful plotting and planning to spoil this great experiment that is America.  The more these kinds of straight-up contests (the Heller kind) are made public, the more the forces of evil lose their control, and they know it.  They are afraid, and they will do some very stupid things as a result.


See; right here– This is why the beast hates the internet and lusts for control of it.

Quote of the day—Exodus

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Meredith strikes me as the kind of person who reads dystopian novels as though they were instruction manuals.

I mean… that’s some serious “keep you up at night scary” reprogramming she’s advocating.

Exodus
January 28, 2011
Comment to Quote of the day—Meredith.
[Yup.

I think it is because they don’t have any sense of history or they believe the big lie that “if only the right people were in charge”. They just don’t understand that, in the most simplistic terms, all power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely and that every class is unfit to govern.—Joe]

‘My Gunsmith Says…’

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I’ve put off saying this for about ten years, but it’s gotten to be too much.  “Sorry” to you good gunsmiths.  I know you’re out there.  I’d say that you know who you are, and I’m sure you do, but the problem is; the bad ones also think they’re the good ones.  They’re super good, even.  That’s always the way it works.  I began to realize this some time in the 1970s when I was in the early stages of my career as a musical instrument mechanic with an alternate career as a live sound mixer (“technician” or “engineer”, respectively, for those who feel it needs to sound exciting and hard to reach).


The really smart sound engineers could quote you all the specs of every piece of gear they had.  They could recite from memory the center frequencies of all 31 bands of a graphic equalizer, for example.  After they had everything all set up and the system response tweaked using the pink noise generator with the front-of-house EQs, monitor EQs and active crossovers, when the performance actually started (which is when the real job of actually making it all sound good actually begins) they’d turn around satisfied, sit down, and have a sandwich and a little chat about sweet nothings.  Man, those guys were really smart, and they often made sure everyone around them understood that they were smart.  Why, they went to college, and stuff, don’t you know?


It seems we get an inordinate proportion of failed or stalled UltiMAK mount installations, an inordinate number of misunderstandings of how the system works, from, you guessed it– gunsmiths.


Apparently, they know and understand far too much to be bothered with reading and following the instructions.  Even when they contact me about this or that perceived problem, they are too smart to accept my explanations.  They, you see, understand mechanics better than the person who designed the system, built the first prototypes using hand tools and common power tools in a musical instrument shop, did the majority of testing, wrote most of the patent claims, and used the system for over ten years.  They tell me all the reasons why it can’t possibly, ever work, why my hands-on experience is wrong, why the experience of over ten thousand users of a single model is all wrong, and how I’m being a dumb jerk for suggesting they might just go ahead and follow the simple instructions to the letter anyway and then see how it goes.


Since an inordinate number of damaged mounts have come from such gunsmiths also (again, because they are smarter and more experienced) I have to wonder how many of them go on to become politicians, city administrators, professors, or left wing community organizers.  There is an uncanny set of parallels.

The Smart People Should be Running Everything

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That’s the assertion of all leftists (communists, socialists, Fascists, Nazis, the KKK, Progressives, or whatever it is they prefer to be called this week).  Here’s one of the super duper smart people (Chuck Schumer) discussing the horrible things (naturally) that will ensue if the socialists don’t get their way, and the Three Branches of Government that all have to get along.  Rather than imbed the video, I link to Schumer’s comment here, to show that Reasoned DiscourseTM has broken out on YouTube (at the time of the this post, comments are turned off there).


To summarize the ultrasmart senator’s comments; our creditors want us to go farther in debt, and the three branches of government are the House, Senate, and the President.  Oh; and we have to “…pay the debt ceiling…”  Well it’s good to know that the smart people are in charge of ordering us around.  I’d hate to be pushed around by a fool.


This, says I, is why we can’t allow the smart people the power to make our decisions for us.  Don’t tell anyone (it may be too uncomfortable for some of the sensitive types) but some people are so stupid that they actually believe they’re smarter than most everyone else.  What is it that’s said of those who have such problems– that they’re usually the last to know?


I suppose New Yorkers like Schumer because he brings them lots of booty.  Or they think he does.

Quote of the day—Linoge

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If there is no proof, it is not “obvious”.

Alternatively, if it is so very “obvious”, present the proof.

Linoge
January 30, 2011
Comment to A problem with diversity
[This was in response to MikeB302000 who was attempting a proof by vigorous assertion. “It’s obvious” or “It’s just common sense” is not proof but some people just don’t get this. In this particular case MikeB302000 admits he doesn’t care about truth or falsity, causation or correlation so it really doesn’t matter what you say, the data you present, or the logic of your proof. All that matters is that you share his delusional view of the world.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tamara K.

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It’s just word salad; you’re not really missing anything. If you want a precis, just take your index finger and bounce it across your lips while making “Blub! Blub! Blub!” noises.

Tamara K.
January 28, 2011
In email when asked by Say Uncle for a short version of what Brady Campaign Board Member Joan Peterson posted.
[Robb Allen had a pretty good synopsis too:

Yeah, ‘word salad’ is as good of a descriptor as any. I can’t make heads nor tails of what she’s trying to say. It’s almost like “My side is losing because people are using legal terms and saying mean things and then there’s … SQUIRREL!!!!”

I sort of wondered if there was alcohol or some other mind alternating drug involved. Other than the normal intoxicating effects of hoplophobia of course.—Joe]

We don’t need no stinking facts

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I sometimes wonder if people who get published in newspapers believe what they write or if they are actually this sloppy with the facts:

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence estimates that each year, 100,000 people in this country are killed by firearms. Spend an hour on the organization’s Web site, and you can watch the day’s total tick unnervingly up.

The writer is confusing injuries with deaths and doesn’t seem to care how many of those were justified, or even praiseworthy, shootings.

Yet recent studies suggest that, far from protecting people who keep them, guns increase the odds that their owners or innocent bystanders will be harmed.

That was pulled out of thin air. Unless “recent” means going back to the discredited 1986 Kellerman study or one of the highly questionable follow on studies.

The U.S. has, far and away, the highest homicide rate of any affluent democracy, and guns are the method of choice.

Historian Jill Lepore notes that in Europe, the annual murder rate is well below 2 per 100,000 people; here it is around five.

This ignores the murder of 10s of millions by their own governments during the 1930s and 1940s. It also ignores the significantly higher gun ownership rate in Switzerland compared to their neighbors while having a murder rate of about 0.7/100K. The same is true of Norway with a murder rate of 0.6/100K.

The murder rates per 100K in some other countries in Europe and nearby (from here) include:

  • Germany: 0.86
  • Spain: 0.9
  • Denmark: 1.01
  • Greece: 1.1
  • Ireland: 1.12
  • Italy: 1.2
  • Poland: 1.2
  • Portugal: 1.2
  • United Kingdom: 1.28
  • Hungary: 1.38
  • France: 1.4
  • Belgium: 1.49
  • Luxembourg: 1.5
  • Czech Republic: 2.0
  • Georgia 7.6
  • Russia 14.9

All of those are greater than Switzerland and Norway so to blame it on gun ownership laws is deceptive at best.

Either the facts are irrelevant to these people or they know they have to lie to have any chance of winning.

Quote of the day—Meredith

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What we need is Gun Rehab. Like every other irrational compulsion it may be modified by Rehabilitation. We need to start a campaign to make Gun Rehab cool. Make TV reality shows out of it. Big TV ad money there. Get Dr. Phil to rehabilitate famous gun owners who would like to give up carrying guns, if they only could. Group discussion to bring to light their compulsion and fears and expose them to the light of day. Follow through and further sessions if necessary. My god, we’ve got to do something! Let’s try that.

We must ask psychologists how therapists learn to change the belief system of a paranoid, defensive, angry, aggressive person who hates authority, must assert independence, and is detached from the suffering of others. ….has maybe a superiority complex…..to make up for feelings of weakness etc? I don’t mean only the gun shooters, No. The right wing Congress! Does this sound like some of our right wing conservative gun nuts? Full of angry, defensive, aggressive statements. Who want to get the government off all our backs. Guns defend American Freedom. No matter how much people suffer?

Let’s try to use therapist’s insights and techniques to understand their mind set and eventually arrive at a way to deal with the right wing in America. They need some kind of treatment, if not individually, then as a cultural group. They are a threat to the country, and that’s not paranoia.

Meredith
January 27, 2011
Comment to Utah’s Gun Appreciation Day.
[As someone else once said (was it Lyle?) something like, “What is it with leftists and psych wards?” If someone doesn’t agree with them they think their opponent must be insane.

If that rant doesn’t make you question the wisdom of requiring psych evaluations for gun ownership your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders. It’s the perfect Catch-22. If you want to own a gun you must be insane and therefore are not fit to own a gun.

Also of interest is that she claims we are paranoid yet says not only gun owners but “the right wing in America” are a threat to the country. One has to wonder if Meredith’s irony meter was overloaded by that comment.—Joe]

Defeating the TSA

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If there isn’t a law or regulation against this there probably will be shortly.

A friend of mine suggested this but I’ll leave his name out of it unless he tells me otherwise.

First you go to your local sex toy store and buy the biggest, most realistic dildo you can find. Before going through security you attach it such that is hangs down your leg in a realistic fashion. You then opt out for backscatter nude pictures. It will pass through the metal detector just fine but if they do a full pat-down they are going to find it.

Now—what are they going to do?

If they let you through because they figure that is just part of your normal “equipment” then you have just demonstrated you can defeat their three ounce rule with your three pounder.

If they insist on a full examination they are going to have to take you all the way down to the bare skin (and silicone rubber). This will take additional time. If large numbers of people do this then it drives the WAY cost up and makes the body scanners almost pointless.

For bonus points (and this was part of my friend’s suggestion) you do this with a bunch of guys going through as a group with tickets to Las Vegas. You volunteer that you are going for a “special ladies event”.

The same sort of approach can be done by the women with fake breasts.

Remember, TSA backwards is A Security Theater.

“Sporting purpose” has to go

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I just finished reading the ATF Study on the Importability of Certain Shotguns. Say Uncle and Sebastian already have posts up so check those out too.

My take away is that the ATF have a tough job in trying to enforce the import restrictions on firearm not suitable for sporting purposes. They struggle with how to define “sporting purpose”. They concluded IPSC and USPSA don’t qualify because those sports didn’t exist when the 1968 Congress passed the law and hence they must have meant the types of sports common at the time. In this case originalism works against us. If you recall the 1998 report (I probably have it around someplace I remember reading it and getting upset at the time) they pointed out that if the “sporting purpose” restriction is to mean anything at all then it must be a rather static definition. If it were not then some sport could be invented such that the restricted gun was particularly well suited for that particular sport and the restriction would have to be lifted. Hence the law would become meaningless.

I understand where they are coming from and once you accept they are tasked with enforcing this stupid law they are probably taking the most rational approach. For this reason I mostly give them a pass on this issue. Our real beef should be with Congress and possibly the courts.

Yes, it seems like the “sporting purpose” requirement should be easy to get thrown out by the courts because the Heller decision said the Second Amendment wasn’t about duck hunting—it was about self-defense and the militia. Hence any firearm that was useful for self-defense and military service (as per the Miller decision as well) would be explicitly protected by the Second Amendment. In the recent study they explicitly call out military purpose shotguns and accessories as being grounds to forbid the importation of them. Just exactly backwards from Miller and Heller. There might also be an “unconstitutionally vague” approach that could be used here too.

But to a large extent taking things to court is like rolling the dice unless you have lots of case law backing you up. In our situation there is probably a lot of case law against us and it will have to be evaluated at a higher level before things go our way. Hence I think the first thing that should be done is to get to Congress to remove the “sporting purpose” language from firearms law. The worst case downside of failure with this approach is things don’t change. In the case of taking things to court the worst case downside is that we get some terrible precedent established that is difficult or impossible to get out from under and it affects far more firearms than those being blocked from importation.

One of the most interesting sections of the study is actually a little off topic.

The following is from page 2 when discussing the background of the sporting purpose language:

This section addresses Congress’ concern that the United States had become a “dumping ground of the castoff surplus military weapons of other nations,” in that it exempted only firearms with a generally recognized sporting purpose.

I read this to mean that congress was trying to protect domestic manufactures from competition by foreign nations. Although I suppose it could also be interpreted as a concern that foreign nations would be able to more easily upgrade their equipment by getting cash for their old gear.

Quote of the day—kaveman

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Whatever this unorganized militia of ours is doing, I think we should keep doing it.

It’s rather comforting to think that something we do in our spare time for no pay, trumps those who do this full-time for 6-figure salaries.

Kinda a David and Goliath sorta thing except we’re Goliath and we have all the damn rocks.

kaveman
January 25, 2011
Comment to Brady Campaign Response on SOTU Speech
[Political extermination of bigots is very difficult. We still have remnants of the KKK and Nazi skinheads even though their heyday was at least 60 years ago. The heyday of the anti-gun bigots was only about 15 years ago. We are definitely winning but the battle will probably never be over. We need at least two generations and probably three before their hateful culture will no longer be a threat to humanity in our country. As we win here we need to expand the war to free ourselves from other security theater areas such as search and seizure, the war on recreation drugs, ID cards, and attempt to liberate the people of other countries as well. These rights are self-evident and universal.

Keep throwing the rocks.—Joe]

No clue

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Politicians must hold the all records for reaching the greatest depths of stupidity while simultaneously being considered functional members of society. Representative Peter King provides the latest example:

Defying those who assert the right to bear arms at town halls, Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) Wednesday introduced strict new gun-control legislation that would bar people from taking firearms to public events attended by elected federal officials.

The bill would create a 1,000-foot gun-free zone around the event – not just around the lawmakers as King originally proposed…

Does he not realize that people routinely shoot at much smaller targets at much greater distances than 1000 feet? At Boomershoot the closest targets are over 1100 feet away and are only four inches square—much smaller than your average elected federal official. This fact alone makes the proposed law nearly pointless.

Okay, suppose there is no line of sight to the official from greater than 1000 feet. How does King think this law would be enforced? Does he think that a barrier will be erected 1000 feet and everyone would have to pass through metal detectors to get closer? If that is the case then the area would have to be evacuated and swept for firearms prior to the official visit. A 1000 foot radius is a minimum (this is assuming a single point rather than the perimeter of a building for measuring the 1000 feet) of 72 acres that has to be made gun free prior to the event. Add in the surface area of a multistory building and you quickly realize this isn’t practical even if the perimeter of the 1000 foot area could be made secure.

Hence, either enforcement at the perimeter isn’t what King had in mind or he believes that the criminal that would violate the laws and morals against murder will suddenly obey the law against a firearm within 1000 feet of the official. In either case he is totally without a clue or has some other motivation for his proposal.

I’m betting the answer is Representative King has no clue.

I’m the special

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According to B B & Guns I’m the special (guest) tomorrow night.

The topics are security theater and “things that go boom”.

8:00 PM Eastern 5:00 PM Pacific.

Update: Breda has more to say about it. She has a nice way of saying I’m a little bit strange. Jay has thoughts on it as well.

Update2: Alan says I’m subversive and you should listen to me.

Update3: I had a great time. I was a little animated some of the time but that was probably a good thing.

I corrected the claim that I invented the term “Security Theater” in the chat window and intended to do so “on the air” but forgot to. To the best of my knowledge that honor belongs to Bruce Schneier.

There were some links I shared in chat window that probably add a little something if you listen to it as a podcast rather than live. Those were:

Quote of the day—Baldr Odinson

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Would bringing up the issue of gun violence have been “dancing in the blood of victims” as some pro-gun people have written?  If that’s what it takes to call attention to the issue, I’ll do a freakin’ tango in a pool of it!

Baldr Odinson
January 25, 2011
President Obama, Take A Stand Against Gun Violence!
[The facts and the failed efforts of over a century of gun control aren’t sufficient to support your views. So you are willing to take advantage of people at the times when their emotions are running strongest and rational thought is at it’s lowest ebb.

It’s nice to have you admit this.

Thank you Baldr.—Joe]

It used to work but not anymore

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Some people don’t realize this is the age of information. The cost in time and money to look something up is probably less than one millionth of what it was 30 years ago.

The fossils spewing their lies at Coalition to Stop Gun Violence apparently don’t really get it. Michael Beard is the President and claims to have been an anti-rights advocate as far back as the 1960s. What worked then doesn’t work now.

The thing that surprised me is they even provided a link to the newspaper article which disputed their claim rather than supporting it.

Their claim is that a criminal who killed one police officer and wounded another in Seattle in October of 2009 was a “high-profile gun rights advocate”:

Having benefitted from the anonymity of private gun sales, Monfort has also emerged as high-profile gun rights advocate.

If you read the article the only support for this is the article title of “Christopher Monfort, Second Amendment advocate?”

My understanding is that the article titles are frequently not written by the reporter and are intended to get attention with accurate depiction of the article contents being a distant second in priority. This was certainly the case this time. There was no support in the article for the claim the criminal was a gun rights advocate let alone that he had a high profile for anything other than being a cop-killer. But that didn’t stop the folks at the CSGV from making the claim.

It’s time to hang it up guys. It doesn’t work anymore. You may have a full time salary but some guy chilling in his underground bunker with his guns and ammo and a few minutes on his hands can discover and point our your deception before the end of the same day as you posted it.

So far, so good

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I don’t have a TV and can’t remember the last time I actually listened to a speech anyway. I’ll read them but the bandwidth is just so low listening to them that my mind wanders and I’m miles away by the time the next thing of potential interest comes by. So I didn’t listen to President Obama tonight. There was only one thing I was interested in anyway. And that was what the Brady Campaign had to say about it.

Paul Helmke’s words should tell you all you need to know:

President Obama tonight failed to ‘challenge old assumptions’ on the need for, and political possibilities of, reducing the gun violence – which he suggested should be done two weeks ago in Tucson. He failed to recognize the power of our laws to set us on a course to reduce gun violence. We are disappointed, but we’re also determined to continue our efforts to help make our nation safer by pushing to strengthen our gun laws.

We need the president’s support now for changes in our laws to ban large capacity ammunition magazines, to tighten restrictions on who can legally purchase a gun, and to require effective background checks before these guns can be purchased.

It’s a good start.

There are some hints that President Obama may have some bread crumbs for Helmke and friends at a later time. But unless that happens within the next couple of weeks the momentum from the Tucson shooting will have almost completely dissipated.

Assuming Rep. Giffords doesn’t come out of recovery pushing for more gun control this is a huge loss for Brady Campaign. They put a lot of effort into trying to make something of their blood dance and they didn’t even get the time of day from Obama. What does that tell potential donors? It tells them giving them money is just throwing their money away.

It’s time to start looking for a new job Paul. You have piloted your organization into the ground and you might as well bail out before it augers in.

Quote of the day—Ellen Alberding

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If there is a clear path to making some progress, there will be interest from other funders. No funder wants to just throw money at a problem.

Ellen Alberding
Joyce Foundation President
EllenAlberding
January 24, 2011
The Joyce Foundation: the anti-NRA
[Keep that in mind. Every fight is important. Every time they lose a fight with nothing to show for their efforts it not only demoralizes them it dries up their funding.

Even if it is a lost cause and we can’t win drawing the fight out causes them to expend limited resources. Just how limited? From the article, “With $3 million spread over 16 gun-related grants, nearly 10% of its total outlays, the Joyce Foundation spends 10 times more than the next-largest gun-control donor.”

Assuming efficient utilization of that money that is enough to fund the salaries, benefits, office space and equipment for about 30 full-time people. That doesn’t count advertisements, political contributions, travel, etc. Gun owners number in the millions of people. Even if we have to spend $100 to cause them to spend $1 it’s another step closer to victory for us.

Every penny and every minute we cause them to spend weakens them and pushes them that much closer to political oblivion.—Joe]

Unity not divisiveness

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If this pundit is to be believed President Obama’s state of the Union speech will be one of unity not divisiveness. This is great news for gun owners and a slap in the face to the Brady Campaign who has been begging him for some attention.

Of course it could be the pundit considers restrictions on firearms to be non controversial but I’m certain President Obama knows better.

If the pundit is correct about the tone then I believe we are in good shape and Robb is going to be needing to send out few special Sad Panda bears later this week.

BradySuicidePanda

Guns on campus lawsuit

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A lawsuit has been filed in my home town of Moscow Idaho to allow guns on campus. This is particularily interesting to me because of the home town jurisdiction, I have a daughter attending the University, Barb and I lived in “Married Student Housing” owned by the University when we first got married, and I know the judge the case has been assigned to. Judge Stegner is the father of a couple girls my daughters used to be friends with. Our children would sometimes visit each others home for parties, etc.. Judge Stegner was also the judge on the trial when I did jury duty.


There is a website for the case but there isn’t much there yet. The lawsuit claims the ban on firearms in family housing owned by the University violates the Second Amendment. One would think that the Heller decision would make this a relatively easy win but things are never as easy as one would like to think.


I certainly like the idea but it bothers me a great deal that the plaintiff, Aaron Tribble, is doing this PRO SE.


I sent an email to the lawyer that sent me the case asking what he thought the chances of screwing up things from doing this PRO SE were. I’ll try to keep everyone up to date on this action and might even have a chat with Mr. Tribble when I go back to Idaho next weekend.


Update: First error, it should have been filed in Federal Court, not locally. I wondered about that…


It also complicates a few other things that I won’t get into in a public venue.