Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—Emily Miller

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There is no reason for the government to prevent, much less prosecute, a former member of law enforcement from buying a gun for his law-abiding uncle. The Supreme Court should overturn the appeals court, but more importantly, make clear that the government has no right to intervene in private gun transfers between honest American citizens.

The ultimate purpose of the Second Amendment, the prevention of tyranny, depends on the government not having a registry or knowing who is armed.

Emily Miller
January 22, 2014
MILLER: Supreme Court ruling on Abramski could limit Obama’s radical, gun-control aims
[The only thing I would change about the above quote is that it should have been, “the government has no power to intervene”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Will Burns

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I think the law can be rewritten to allow residents to determine whether they want these businesses in their neighborhoods.

Will Burns
Member of the Chicago Board of Alderman
January 22, 2014
Chicago Officials Say New Gun Control Law Can Be Crafted
[And do they also think they can also write a law that allows residents to determine whether they want a Jewish/Muslim/Christian place of worship in their neighborhood? These officials need to be interviewed by the police instead of the media. Then they should be prosecuted.—Joe]

What happened to Colin Goddard?

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Colin Goddard, the Brady Campaign expert at getting shot, used to get a lot of media attention. But not anymore. I couldn’t find any connection between Goddard and the Brady Campaign since April 2013.

In fact it appears the Brady Campaign has had a complete regime change. These are all new faces to me since Dan Gross took the job as president.

They don’t have a very large staff and to replace that many people in that short of time means that, essentially, they flushed all their institutional memory. Which I suppose makes sense. It’s a good idea to change a losing strategy. But it’s a better idea to shut down an obsolete business rather than to continue dumping money into it.

A million dollar gun control contest

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When I read this I was really annoyed:

Smart Tech Foundation, a new San Francisco gun violence prevention organization backed by tech investor Ron Conway, will start taking applications on Jan. 28 for a $1 million contest to identify devices for preventing gun-related injuries and deaths.

In particular, Smart Tech is focused on access control technologies that can reliably prevent unauthorized use of guns and ammunition.

…

Smart Tech was founded in 2013 in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre of children and teachers the prior year in Newtown, Conn.

Why didn’t he offer $1 million for ideas to make our children safer? By limiting his acceptable solution set to only those things that place limits on firearms he is showing his prejudice. It rules out things like firearms instruction for teachers and building designs that inhibit mass shootings.

After reading a part of his website I’m slightly less annoyed. It’s not quite as bad as I thought it was, but it still has lots of room for improvement:

SmartTechFoundation

On the gun side of things the solutions being suggested will never be retrofitted on hundreds of millions of existing firearms even if they are found to be feasible in new production guns. And I have my doubts that any biometric solution will be practical, ever. The hurdles to a biometric solution are very high and numerous. And they are all bypassed with 3-D printers and/or someone with access to hand tools in their garage.

On the brain health side of things short of mandatory examinations of a large segment of the population it’s not going to work no matter how accurate your examination is. And that gets into some troubling civil rights territory.

It will be interesting to watch and see what comes out of this. My guess is nothing anywhere nearly worth $1,000,000.

Quote of the day—Chris W. Cox

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The louder Bloomberg shouts his nonsensical rhetoric, the fewer remain willing to listen.

Chris W. Cox
December 2013
Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun Bus Tour Travels a Road To Nowhere
[Bloomberg’s slogans are moderately effective but his objectives and his illegal mayors cannot stand up to examination. It’s time to prosecute them.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Almost everyone knows that leaving the refrigerator door open in the summer doesn’t, on the whole, make your house cooler. But did you know that in the winter you could use your freezer to make ice, store it in the ice-house for summer use, and make more ice you would be using the refrigerator as a heat pump and warm the house? This would make more efficient use of the electricity for heating than if you used that same electricity to heat your home directly with an electric furnace or baseboard electric heat. Part of the heat comes from the electricity used to run the freezer and the rest of the heat comes from the water you put in the freezer. You remove heat from the water, causing it to freeze, put the heat into the air, which raises the temperature of the air.

Plus, when you use the ice you stored in the winter the next summer you save on your summer electric bill as well.

Yeah, I know. What a geek. That what you get when read the blog of someone who thought their thermodynamics class was fun.

Gumming up the works

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In reference to Obamacare President Obama said:

A lot of Republicans seem to believe that if they can gum up the works and make this law fail, they’ll somehow be sticking it to me.

What advocates for Obamacare and statists in general don’t seem to understand is that you cannot expect anything but people attempting to “gum up the works” under these situations. Anytime there exists a desired product or service and willing buyers those products and services will naturally, without any coercion, be exchanged for money or barter from the buyers.

Government is coercion. It is applying force. The “force of law” is a common phrase for a reason. Laws and government in some circumstances can help. It’s difficult to argue that using the force of government to enforce contracts entered into by willing parties is anything other than “a good thing”.

But on the other end of the spectrum when the force of government is used to require people purchase a product they did not want, supply a product below cost, outlaw products desired by the market, or sell only products wanted by only a few then things are different. In these instances, all present with Obamacare, government itself created obstacles to the free exchange of product and money. No one should expect the majority of people to embrace it. If it was something people wanted then they would have willingly done it before being forced to by the government. If the force of government is required before something will happen then government is “gumming up the works” of what people naturally want to do. And one should not be surprised when people expend effort in attempting to avoid or eliminate the obstacles placed in their path by government.

For Obama to complain that people opposing Obamacare are “gumming up the works” should be a defining example of the classic meaning of chutzpah.

Quote of the day—Don Lemon

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Well, first let’s remove the politics and truthfully talk about gun laws, about gun violence.  After the Newtown shooting President Obama commissioned the Center for Disease Control to research gun violence and offer solutions.  And the study was completed this summer and it just might make you rethink your stance, your view, on the issue.  It did for me.

Don Lemon
September 19, 2013
REALITY CHECK: Let’s Talk About Guns
[You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.*—Joe]

*John 8:32

Gun cartoon of the day

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H/T to Weer’d Beard for the email pointing me to the image here.

ComeAndTakeIt

First, there are a lot of people that want to take our guns. Haven’t they ever heard the phrase “assault weapon ban”? Or how about New York’s SAFE act?

Second, invoking Markley’s Law is an automatic fail in the “discussion”.

Third, advocating for background checks to exercise a specific enumerated right is crazy talk.

Only a gun

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Does Lorraine Devon Wilke live on planet Nerf where the bats can break Nerf desks and Nerf windows but not a head?

The student in Roswell might have picked up a bat and smashed a few desks, knocked over some chairs or even broken a few bones. He might have trashed a locker, broken a window or spewed graffiti across a wall. But leaving a child critically wounded with a shot to the face? Only a gun can inflict that result.

Only a gun? Wow!

Wilke goes on to say:

It appears we care more about owning guns than saving ourselves from them. We care more about being able to carry them, defend them, shoot them, and justify the damage caused by them. We care so much about all that, wrapped in arguments of outdated constitutional amendments, that we’ve basically agreed, tacitly or otherwise, that we will live in a society where an irate moviegoer can kill someone for texting, an angry child can destroy a classmate out of anger, and a distraught father can end his life out of despair.

I do not want to live in that kind of society. Do you?

“Outdated constitutional amendments”? She has to have the 2nd Amendment as one of those. I wonder what other specific enumerated rights she thinks is outdated? The rights that would inhibit the confiscation of all firearms in the hands of private citizens?

Ms Wilke, if you don’t want to live in a society that respects our preexisting, specific, enumerated, rights then I suggest you to move to a different society. You won’t be taking my guns and my rights from me during my lifetime in this society.

I have to conclude these type of people have crap for brains.

Quote of the day—Morpho

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I don’t care so much about banning assault rifles as I do about the clip sizes and background checks. These weapons really aren’t the problem. If people want to waste money on these toys, go ahead. They’re fun to shoot for about 1 clip, then boooooooring. They’re a pain to clean and maintain, and the ammo isn’t exactly cheap. But they sure make your wiener feel enhanced, right big boy?

Morpho
February 4, 2013
Comment to Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Quote of the day—J. D. Longstreet

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Mr. Obama, through his words, deeds, and declarations has made it clear that he finds our constitution abhorrent.  It is Obama’s propensity for shrugging off the will of the people and the bonds of the constitution on government that have made him the gun salesman of the year.

J. D. Longstreet
January 17, 2014
Beware the Phrase “Sensible Gun Control Laws,” or Why Obama is The Best Gun Salesman In History
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—New Yorkers Against Gun Violence

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The NY SAFE Act included crucial and widely popular provisions like background checks on all gun purchasers, a prohibition on sales of assault rifles with certain characteristics, a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, and other measures.

New Yorkers Against Gun Violence
January 15, 2014
Groups push for more gun control in NY
[“Widely popular” must have a different meaning in the alternate universe in which these people spend most of their time. In the real world a large number of Law Enforcement is Against NY Safe Act. If even law enforcement is vocal about opposing the law then the law is essentially pointless. Who is going to enforce it?

These people have mental problems.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Barbara Walters

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He made so many promises we thought that he was going to be … the next Messiah.

Barbara Walters
December 18, 2013
Barbara Walters: We Thought Obama Was Going To Be The Next Messiah
[Well there’s your problem!

If anyone thinks it’s possible to liberate people by increasing government power it’s time to get them checked into the psych ward. Many liberals have mental problems. This is just one more example.—Joe]

Tim and Susan Have Matching Handguns

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Last week I received an email:

Hey Joe,

I realize you probably get a lot of emails, but this one may be unlike what you’re accustomed to. Bear with me and I’ll give you a little background so you can understand why I’m writing.  I work for a Texas-based company that makes rugged leather gear. We started doing product videos on our website about 3 years ago and it morphed into some pretty cool projects. One of those projects was short profiles on our employees. The first one was about a husband and wife who work here and their desire to have matching guns, so in case there were ever a crisis they could swap magazines.  (Smith&Wesson M&P9s) 

Well, it was submitted to Sundance Film Festival and out of the 8,100 short films, it was selected to be one of the 60 entrants. Then YouTube has told us they selected it to be one of the 10 in the running for their special YouTube award. (Crazy, isn’t it?!) Now we want to put the idea of husband/wife gun ownership in front of as many eyes as possible and thought that reaching out to influencers like yourself may be a good approach.

Please let me know if you’re interested. I’d be happy to show you a sneak peek. 

Thanks!

—

Sarah Farver

I thought it was a decent video so I agreed to post it. The “sneak peek” time is over and it is public now:

Quote of the day—Harvey Weinstein

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I don’t think we need guns in this country. And I hate it. I think the NRA is a disaster area.

Harvey Weinstein
January 15, 2014
MILLER: Movie mogul says new Streep film to make NRA ‘wish they weren’t alive’
[H/T to Emily Miller for the Tweet.

From the same article:

Asked if it was going to be a documentary. Mr. Weinstein said no, that it would be a “big movie like a ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.’”

The movie mogul said his vision was to scare people away from firearms and the Second Amendment. He foresees moviegoers to leave thinking, “Gunstocks – I don’t want to be involved in that stuff. It’s going to be like crash and burn.”

Of course it’s not going to be a documentary. Facts would get in the way of his agenda.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brian Nieves

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We continue to see the federal government overreach their rightful bounds, and if we can create a situation where we have some unity among states, then I think it puts us in a better position to make that argument.

Brian Nieves
Missouri State Senator
January 12, 2014
Lawmakers Plot New Strategy for Defying Gun Laws
[Nieves is talking about gun laws and is criticized by people because “state law does not trump Federal law”. But the same tactic is working with marijuana laws. And if enough states support trimming back the power of the Feds then it also means amendments could be made to the U.S. Constitution.

A friend, Jim G., once suggested an extremely minor change would fix a lot of problems. I’m not convinced it would be best change but it wouldn’t take a lot to convince me it would be better than what we have now. He suggested adding a period after the fifth word of the First Amendment.—Joe]

Mugme Street news

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From the Seattle Police blog:

Officers arrested three women for robbery, among other things. On 1/1/14, throughout the evening there were several reports of multiple females walking through the crowds stealing cell phones and jumping people and stealing their cell phones.

One robbery occurred in the 500 block of Broad St just shortly after midnight and another was reported just shortly before 2:00 a.m., at 2nd Ave and Pike St.

A victim from the 2nd and Pike robbery flagged down an officer and advised him that the suspects who had stolen their cell phones were at a nearby bus stop.  Officers contacted and detained the suspects.  Two adult female suspects were later identified as having robbed the victim of her cell phone.

Technically, this is a block away from “Mugme Street” as Barb likes to call it. But still it is turf where I frequent. I can’t help thinking that  discharging few canisters of pepper spray and maybe an occasional drawn handgun at the appropriate times would make a big improvement in the environment.

California carry prediction follow up

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About 10 months ago it was predicted that California will be shall issue in 2014. But it appears that prediction was contingent upon the Supreme Court resolving the split between the circuits on the issue of whether carry outside the home is a protected right or not. The court did not accept the cases presented to them.

But the case in Idaho, which is in the Ninth Circuit and includes California, from the other day which just ruled regulation of carry outside the home is subject to at least intermediate scrutiny and perhaps strict scrutiny. That case could help California residents.

Regardless of how things are going at the Federal level that prediction is getting a little closer to realization:

In a decision released today that forces the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to begin accepting and processing handgun carry license applications, Judge Deirdre Hill said that LASD must “consider the applications of all persons seeking a CCW permit in the first instance without requiring any applicant to first seek a CCW permit with his/her local police chief or city.”

The case, titled Lu v. Baca, was filed in 2012 by California-based gun rights organization The Calguns Foundation and a number of individual plaintiffs seeking to overturn an unlawful LASD policy that functioned as a de facto ban on handgun carry licenses for Los Angeles County residents.

Quote of the day—Rep. Kim Fawcett

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When you use colors or visuals in your marketing materials that are almost identical to the same visuals used to market highly violent video games … you’re indicating that you intend to market to our kids.

Rep. Kim Fawcett
Democrat from Fairfield Connecticut
Newtown Activists Call For Change As Gun Trade Show Opens
January 13, 2014
[I don’t know exactly what “marketing materials” she is talking about but from what I can determine the video games use “visuals” that look like real firearms that were sold many years before the video games were created. Not that firearm manufacturers duplicated video game “visuals”.

I have to conclude Rep. Fawcett is either incredibly ignorant or malicious. And since she voted for the repressive gun laws in Connecticut I’m going with malicious. I look forward to this information being used at her trial.—Joe]