Since at least 1950, every single one of Europe’s public mass shootings has occurred in a place where general citizens are banned from carrying guns. In America, there have been only four exceptions to that rule.
John R. Lott
November 16, 2016
It’s already too late for gun control to work
[And what can we learn from this?—Joe]
Via the Huffington Post article What Does The NRA Want? (And What To Do About It):
Following the massacre of first graders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre infamously said that the lesson to be learned was: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” That phrase perfectly captures a core premise of Trumpism: that the nation is neatly divided into “good guys” (who have been forgotten by the elites controlling our government) and “bad guys” (Muslims, undocumented immigrants and “the others” who have been allowed to threaten the safety and well-being of the “good guys”). LaPierre’s slogan likely will animate the entirety of the NRA’s Trump Administration agenda.
This is “a core premise of ‘Trumpism’”? Really? It’s implied the good guys are difficult to distinguish from the bad guys and the bad guys are based upon immigration status, religion, etc. But it is extremely clear from the context LaPierre identified the bad guy as the one murdering the children and their teachers. The good guys would have been anyone in a position to take a clean shot at the bad guy.
The rest of the article has similar distortions and half-truths. It is very skillfully worded so as to be almost true but extremely misleading so as to put gun owners and the NRA in a bad light. As I was reading the article I wondered, “Who is this person?”
It all made sense once I saw the author’s name. It is Half-Truth Henigan. I thought he had moved on. Oh, well…
One more interesting observation is that if Henigan thinks distinguishing good guys versus bad guys is difficult he must have a much different set of the people he associates with than I do. I suppose it makes sense since he is almost for certain a Democrat. And, after all, Democrats prison inmates outnumber inmates of all other political persuasion combined by a factor of two to one.
Via a tweet from Dana Loesch who said, “Classy people. This is why you lost.”
This is what they think of you.
President-elect Trump has better coverage than Verizon. Can you hear us now?
Kambree Kawahine Koa
Tweeted on November 9, 2016
[Via email from Paul Koning.
The way the cell phone providers measure coverage is in terms of “pops” (the population of people who live where they have cell phone service from that carrier). So, technically, if you are measuring the “pops” in the red (Trump carried counties) the fact that large population centers did not vote for Trump probably means Verizon “pops” exceed Trump “pops”. But still it is a message the Democrat party heard. I’m not sure they understood it correctly and I’m not sure they will figure it out and respond appropriately, but they certainly did hear it.—Joe]
@towerclimber37 @NRA You mean learning how to distort it so we can become ammosexuals with paranoia issues and erectile problems?
HAM @trollbouncer
Tweeted on February 13, 2016
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Papa Guns @towercliber37.
This was in response to Papa Guns tweeting, “…the truth is that kids like you have a long way to go to learn about the constitution.”—Joe]
America has not seen so many butthurt white people since the Republican Party forced the Democrats to free their slaves.
Ulick Varange @ParacleteFTW
Tweeted on November 16, 2016
[There are many variations of this but I liked this one the best and Varange was the first I found to have said it this way.—Joe]
“I got a gun, three fifty seven, ain’t afraid to teach a lesson. Son, I don’t want to use my weapon but if I need a one I got a gun.”
By Amanda McCarthy.
Nice. Very nice.
Via Justin J Lehmiller.
Thought provoking:
The too long didn’t listen version: Free markets are best.
I used to know a woman who once had a job as an intern with NATO doing intelligence work into human trafficking. She insisted prostitution should remain illegal because it was too difficult to determine if woman in a brothel were there by choice or under threat of violence. This didn’t seem quite like the proper solution to me but I didn’t have a good response. Now I do.
Watch the video and learn for yourself.
If the streets had filled with — often rioting — protesters denouncing Obama’s legitimacy right after the election in 2008, he wouldn’t have said a thing. And if George W. Bush had refused to denounce them, the press wouldn’t have soft-pedaled it at all. . .
But I’m sure Trump’s fine with it, as it’s just helping build his mandate. If they keep this up for four years, he’ll be re-elected in a landslide.
Glenn Reynolds
November 18, 2016
THE HILL: Obama won’t call off anti-Trump protesters.
[What the protesters don’t get is that Trump won, in part, because of their childish behavior. The left is mostly composed of condescending, insulting, hypersensitive, bullies. Trump was willing to stand up to them and put them in their place. Trump may be a bit of a bully himself, but he didn’t put up with the leftist crap and that was refreshing to a lot of people. If the leftist bullies are still whining when the next election comes around Trump can use the same tactics to win again.
The political currency of the left is violence and the threat of violence. It’s in their nature and it’s long past time for the good people of this country to put them in their proper place.—Joe]
While I’ve never considered myself much of a right winger, being more of a libertarian bent, I have found myself increasingly pushed and marginalized by the “enlightened and progressive” amongst you into the same camp with all sorts of deplorables, regardless of where they lived and what they called themselves. Nationalists, alt righters, anarchists, constitutionalists and so on and so forth all made for strange bedfellows but an effective team. Working on the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend we have all found common ground. We have you to thank for that. By pushing, badgering, harassing, marginalizing and insulting us on a regular basis you created something new. And it crushed you at the ballot box.
There were other factors as well. The pesky internet for example. It allowed those of us who could not vote to contribute in other ways. Through memes, leaks and general trolling we cheered and supported our freedom loving brothers and sisters in your country and encouraged them to have heart and stay the course. Of course, our part was small, minisucle really, compared to what our American brothers and sisters had to endure, but you get the picture.
Elections, especially ones mired in icky things like ideology and principle, now cross national boundaries. It sucks I know, but a lack of imagination on your part does not equal or represent a foul on ours. We did nothing illegal or immoral. We simply beat you because, well, we’re smarter than you are.
But not to worry. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to learn from your mistakes. You see, the battle that took place in your polling stations on the 8th of November was just that. A battle. We, the freedom loving peoples of the western world, well, we’re just getting warmed up. To quote the man: “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet“.
So retreat to your safe spaces, grab your adult colouring books and put on a happy face my special snow flakes because regardless of whoever/whatever you are and regardless of what nation it is you reside in, we, the deplorables, are coming for you.
Francis Marion
November 10, 2016
Sorry Snowflake But It’s Not Over…
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Just because someone knows most of the words doesn’t mean they can use them in a complete sentence that makes sense:
If a politician has no idea what they are talking about they have no business making law regarding that subject.
H/T Boyd K.
With a gun, a 100 pound woman can successfully defend her life from a vicious assault by a 170-pound man On the other hand, if she is careless or foolhardy, the gun will more readily manifest and magnify the result of that behavior. Being more effective, it is less forgiving of error, impulse, mindlessness. Yet in one case and the other, the gun has not done good, the gun has not done evil. As a tool it enables a man or woman to do greater good or greater evil. Take it away, and you have reduced man’s capacity to do harm, yes, but you have also reduced man’s capacity to do good. That we entertain serious discussions about eliminating guns, speaks not so much to the “evil” nature of the thing itself – it has not moral nature – or to our revulsion over the harm wrought with it, as it does about our beliefs in our own capacity and willingness to do good, to undertake those actions in service of the good that would require or recommend the use of that tool. We see no good in guns because we have drawn a line through performing those good deeds for which a gun would be necessary or advisable and, what is more chilling, doubt our own capacity to do so. For this reason more than any other, there is no salvation through gun control.
Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 10.
[If I understand what he is saying correctly I think I can extrapolate a bit and make things more clear:
If you believe mankind is so flawed that gun control is necessary to protect us from ourselves then we are so flawed that we will destroy ourselves without guns as well.
Is that the way you read it too?—Joe]
Hillary Clinton did not hit a glass ceiling. She hit a ‘lead’ ceiling. America’s gun owners turned out to vote and made the Second Amendment great again.
At the local and state level, candidates that supported gun rights did very much better than those who supported gun control.
Alan Gottlieb
November 11, 2016
Guns Win Big on Election Day Most anti-gun candidate in modern history loses, NRA spending pays off
[While gun owners dodged the Clinton bullet in the election I don’t know how big of a contribution the gun owner rights issue made. Does anyone have hard numbers?
Email from David W. gives us Guns and the 2016 Election: How Candidates and Initiatives Fared in Every Key Race and How the NRA Paved the Way for President Trump but those don’t give us actual numbers. Actual numbers would probably have to come polling and after this election no one is going to be trusting poll numbers for several years. So, I don’t know the answer. Any ideas?—Joe]
I know many of you are scared of guns, but just think of them like fire extinguishers, but for murderers.
Larry Correia
November 14, 2016
A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership
[In addition to the snark there is a lot of good stuff in there.—Joe]
Yesterday I attended the steel challenge match at the Renton Fish & Game Club.
Here are pictures of the stages (and, it was raining, the mud):
Decelerator
Aim Small, Miss Small
Pendulum
In And Out
I was surprised to see a Hillary 2016 sticker on one of the vehicles at the range but less surprised after I got a little closer:
I came in second with rimfire pistol with iron sights (RFPI):
| RFPI | |||||||||
| Final | Name | USPSA | Class | Division | Time | Stage 1 – Decelerator | Stage 2 – Aim Small, Miss Small | Stage 3 – Pendulum | Stage 4 – In And Out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paczosa, Connor | U | RFPI | 49.68 | 12.88 | 12.11 | 13.17 | 11.52 | |
| 2 | Huffman, Joe | U | RFPI | 67.65 | 15.20 | 14.82 | 19.92 | 17.71 | |
| 3 | Paczosa, Dan | U | RFPI | 68.61 | 13.95 | 12.67 | 22.01 | 19.98 | |
| 4 | Komatsu, Jeff | U | RFPI | 70.18 | 13.90 | 16.19 | 21.55 | 18.54 | |
| 5 | Mortell, Jeff | U | RFPI | 77.37 | 16.01 | 17.55 | 22.26 | 21.55 | |
| 6 | Meboe, Isabelle | U | RFPI | 89.40 | 20.40 | 23.03 | 25.43 | 20.54 | |
| 7 | Gile, Conner | U | RFPI | 109.40 | 22.28 | 25.63 | 30.76 | 30.73 | |
| 8 | Meisner, Matthew | U | RFPI | 118.42 | 23.18 | 27.86 | 29.37 | 38.01 | |
| 9 | Cox, Dan | U | RFPI | 140.14 | 53.99 | 25.32 | 29.15 | 31.68 | |
| 10 | Blaylock, Chris | U | RFPI | 146.01 | 53.83 | 23.64 | 39.38 | 29.16 | |
In iron sighted pistol (ISP) I managed first place:
| ISP | |||||||||
| Final | Name | USPSA | Class | Division | Time | Stage 1 – Decelerator | Stage 2 – Aim Small, Miss Small | Stage 3 – Pendulum | Stage 4 – In And Out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huffman, Joe | U | ISP | 86.65 | 18.91 | 19.81 | 24.38 | 23.55 | |
| 2 | Webb, Ron | U | ISP | 93.86 | 20.12 | 21.98 | 28.06 | 23.70 | |
| 3 | Ellman, J.J. | U | ISP | 159.09 | 27.50 | 46.51 | 49.75 | 35.33 | |
| 4 | (DQ) Dyment, Jim | U | ISP | – | – | – | – | – | |
My guns ran perfect.
My average time per hit with RFPI was 0.846 seconds and with ISP 1.083 seconds. This compares to the 0.6783 seconds and 0.8440 seconds at the match last month at Holmes Harbor Rod & Gun Club. The stages were much harder. Many of the targets were small and fairly distant compared to what we see at Holmes Harbor. This was reflected in the scores of others who frequently shoot at Holmes Harbor as well. For example Steve Mooney in the RFRO division (winner of the division) averaged 0.533 seconds per hit this month compared to 0.4728 last month. In OPN division Jeff Kanter averaged 1.239 seconds per hit this month compared to 0.9911 last month. So, Steve took 1.127 times as long, Jeff took 1.250 times as long, and I took 1.247 times as long with rimfire and 1.283 times as long with centerfire. So I’m pretty sure it was mostly stage design differences which account for the increased times.
Regarding the election Wayne LaPierre says gun owners made this election happen and Our Time Is Now:
I heard this at work last week and thought it was hilariously funny:
Marry for money—earn every penny.
It was attributed as a Yiddish proverb but a quick Internet search failed to confirm that claim. No matter.
Besides the direct interpretation it would seem it applies to other areas as well, such as choosing your career and employers.
At least rewrite it so that #MicroPenisAmmoSexuals can understand it!
Annie Nelson @BioAnnie1
Tweeted on February 12, 2016
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Proud Hunter @Duck_Hunter7.
Nelson was replying to someone who demanded the repeal of the Second Amendment. Apparently they are ignorant of U.S. v Cruikshank which says, “This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.”—Joe]
Kshama Sawant is an admitted Socialist who sits on the Seattle City council.
From the Seattle Times:
The Seattle City Council member, you may recall, spent the last six months protesting not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. Sawant held a rally in Philadelphia — the biggest city in a crucial state — urging people not to vote for Clinton. She called Clinton a warmonger and a tool of Wall Street. She wrote a column in The Nation, the national house organ for the progressive left, urging liberals not to “waste your vote on the corporate agenda” — by which she meant Clinton.
“Progressives should not support Clinton,” she said, calling the election a “false choice between a corporate Democrat and a yet more horrifying Republican.”
What she said about Clinton is probably true but it turns out she seriously miscalculated in trying to bring Hillary down. And so now from the same article:
The other day she led two rallies against Trump’s shocking election. She said she was so horrified at Trump’s “racist agenda” that she was calling for a national protest in Washington, D.C., in January to shut down the inauguration.
“I think it is our moral and political and historic duty to call for peaceful and powerful protest against Trump’s agenda,” she said.
Hmmm…. so didn’t she think this through? She just likes having things to complain about? No matter how things turn out she will never be happy with the results? She has mental issues? All of the above?
My advice is to never compromise with a socialist thinking it will stop their whining. It doesn’t work that way. It only encourages them.
A friend on Facebook took minor issue with the categorization of 3rd Street between Pike and Pine in Seattle as “Mugme Street”. She said, “It is not Mugme street. Just need to know how to carry yourself.” That she acknowledges you “Just need to know how to carry yourself” should be an admission that there is increased risk there but why rely on perception when facts are available? Here are the stats on that area of town for the last month from the Seattle neighborhood crime map:
Within a half block of the area Barb calls Mugme street there were 18 “Crimes Against Persons”. If you use the same measurement on 2nd you get seven. On any other similar area within many blocks you get no more than two.
I rest my case.