Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—Molly Ivins

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I used to enjoy taunting my gun-nut friends about their psycho-sexual hang-ups – always in a spirit of good cheer, you understand. But letting the noisy minority in the National Rifle Association force us to allow this carnage to continue is just plain insane.

I do think gun nuts have a power hang-up. I don’t know what is missing in their psyches that they need to feel they have to have the power to kill. But no sane society would allow this to continue.

Ban the damn things. Ban them all.

You want protection? Get a dog.

Molly Ivins
Columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 15, 1993
Taking A Stab At Our Infatuation With Guns
[She also says, “As a civil libertarian, I of course support the Second Amendment.”

Note that this is someone who lives in Fort Worth Texas in 1993. Those were very, very dark days for gun owners.

I could spend several paragraphs picking apart the quote above but I really don’t have the time or interest. I just want to address one point.

If you “get a dog” for your protection keep in mind that it has a mind of it’s own. It isn’t under your full control. A gun does not have a mind of it’s own. You can lock up the gun in a safe and leave it there when you are at work without worrying it will get cranky and bite the neighbor kid that is poking a stick at it if you left it in your yard. When you decide your life is in immediate danger of termination or permanent injury you can pull the trigger and be nearly certain your persuasive forces have been significantly increased when the dog could be thinking of begging for a treat.

If your dog is a weapon big and determined enough to pull down a large attacker do you really want that weapon to have a brain with that much independence, and that much less judgment controlling it’s actions?

If Ivins has evaluated the judgment of dogs versus her own and decided in favor of the dog I’m certainly not going to dispute her conclusion on the basis of the evidence I have seen so far. But she has no business making a similar decision for me or anyone else.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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You simply have to love Piers Morgan. Trying to have a rational conversation with him about guns is like filming a recruiting commercial for the gun rights movement.

Alan Gottlieb
Founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation
October 16, 2013
PIERS MORGAN ‘DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS,’ SAYS GOTTLIEB
[This was in response to what happened here:

In this video Piers calls Alan “stupid”. Alan has a degree in nuclear engineering. Piers “studied journalism”. I have spent hours talking to Alan and he’s very smart. I haven’t talked with Piers but my bet is that Alan is a lot smarter than Piers.

Further evidence of this is that this is the first time I have known someone to find a use for Piers. Piers makes a good recruiting tool.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Anshel Sag

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Having the ability replicate the human nervous system and some of their thought processes is a good thing to have, but I just hope that there are some very strict checks and balances within these systems. You know, to prevent a Skynet-like event where the robots become self aware and start to realize that the world is a better place without us. It’s a crazy thought, sure, but giving computers the ability to think and feel like humans is also a bit crazy too.

Anshel Sag
October 11, 2013
Qualcomm Takes Us One Step Closer to Skynet with Zeroth Neural Processing Chip*
[The propagation time of human nerves and synapses are many orders of magnitude slower than the electronic analogs because, contrary to the common misunderstanding, biological signals are transmitted via a chemical chain reaction not electrical signals. Electrical signals propagate at nearly the speed of light. IIRC it’s roughly 1 mSec per foot versus 1 nSec per foot. That’s one million times faster.

Imagine being engaged in physical combat with someone that has a OODA loop that is a million times faster than yours. The Terminator/Skynet universe of Hollywood may give you hope that wouldn’t be the reality of it. In that universe the machines were slow to observe and make decisions. In reality their actions would be, for all intents and purposes, instantaneous. If they were to use projectile weapons the compensation for all the environmental conditions, target direction and velocity, and all possible target responses would be calculated and if needed multiple projectiles would be launched to cover the responses.

At work, today, I’m working on something that writes computer code. Given a simple description in a few dozen lines it writes thousands of lines of code that compile and run without error. It completes the task almost before you can lift your finger from the “Enter” key. This same code would take a human many hours, if not days, to write.

Imagine a world with the industrial capacity of machines that not only build machines but can design them as well. There would be automated tools that build better tools and machines without human interaction. And those tools and machines could build better tools and machines than themselves.

It could be utopia. Or it could be a Terminator universe where the battle against an individual human is over in milliseconds and the battle for the entire planet is over in hours.

Sleep well.—Joe]

* See also Qualcomm Zeroth Processors official: mimicking human brain computing

Quote of the day—aallison

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There is no possible necessity for a private citizen the need a reloadable semi-automatic weapon.

aallison
October 11, 2013
Comment to Brown misfires on gun control legislation.
[Such ignorance is absolutely staggering.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Roby Egan

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It must be that eclectic thing

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The other day Barb was helping me unpack my stuff at the new clock tower. She was out of sight for a while then came back, walked up to me and said, “You have 242 shirts.”

“And your point is?”, I asked. No verbal reply. There was some body language but it was indecipherable to me. Okay. Whatever. Her Match.com profile did say she was eclectic* so maybe this was an example of this. I thought maybe she just liked to keep count of things like that. She has a great head for numbers. So I asked, “Did you include the ones in the dirty clothes? And I think there are some I left at your place.”

She had not included those and a couple of days later she reported, “You have over 250 shirts.” Again I asked, “And your point is?” Again I got silence and that indecipherable body language.

I thought about it a while and thought maybe she was trying to say I had too many shirts. So I went into my closet and looked. Nope. I still have room for more:

WP_20131010_004

Today she told me she was going to count my gloves.

It must be that eclectic thing again.

Update: Okay. To cut down on the comments and private email telling me to “watch it!” or “run away!” keep in mind that 90% of this post was intended to be a joke. Barb laughed at it as much as I did. I deliberately withheld a lot of context and dialog to make it funny. There are no “lies” in it but there is a great deal of deception in it for dramatic and humor effect.

Thanks for all the concern but I really think people should “chill” just a little.

* Originally it had said, “eccentric” but her daughter suggested “eclectic” instead and so it was changed before I saw it.

Quote of the day—Carl Stevenson

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We should have a very long memory of whom in power abuses us and who followed the order to do the abuse.

Perhaps if tyrants’ heads (and also their enablers) were still routinely mounted on sticks alongside the highway, for both a punishment and a reminder of their misdeeds, we wouldn’t have to endure such foolish people as them and the evil they set upon us.

Carl Stevenson
October 11, 2013
Comment to Park Service Milgram Failure.
[It would take a rather long and difficult research project to verify but my hypothesis is that the tyrants have mounted more heads along the roads “for both a punishment and a reminder” than the oppressed have mounted of the tyrants, their underlings, and their enablers.

Regardless of the truth or falsity of my hypothesis I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. If the tyrants mounted most of the heads then that would remind people of the hazards of letting tyrants gain power. If the victims mounted the most heads then that remind tyrants the hazards of their occupation.

I have been thinking about this sort of thing recently. The outrage of the victims that comes from extended oppression can lead to excessive killing and even genocide. Oppressors everywhere should be aware of this before they chose such a career path.

Think of the French Revolution or the genocide in Rwanda. To a certain extent “they had it coming” but I think society is better served when killing, even of evil tyrants, is done parsimoniously in a deliberate and carefully reasoned manner rather than en masse.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Frederick Douglas

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The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

Frederick Douglas
From here.
[In Great Thoughts by George Seldes a portion of this quote was attributed to a March 30, 1849 letter to Gerrit Smith. But I found that letter in the papers of Douglass and it says nothing even related. I have been unable to find the original date and context of this quote even though portions of it are widely quoted.

I especially like the sentence “Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get.” One could make the claim that the entire basis for the Second Amendment is to increase the cost for oppression. It may be that it cannot fully prevent it but it can dramatically increase the cost. And those that would oppress us, even if they may be able to succeed, must be forced to pay a cost. If they do not pay then there is no limit to the oppression they will inflict.

The Colorado Senators who lost their seats in the recall elections because of their oppressive gun control laws and arrogance is a lesson to those who believe oppression is cost free. If they win a battle then make them pay a heavy price.

H/T to Carl Stevenson for his comment which included part of this quote.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Matthew Willington

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Matthew Willington (@MD_Willington)
Tweeted on October 10, 2013 in reference to this post about liberals getting special privileges from the D.C. police.
[Almost for certain Matthew was referring to this line in Animal Farm:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Animal farm is one of the few books I have read more than once. It is a really, really good book and a fairly quick read.

In the past few days I’ve been listening to the book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto*, thinking about conversations I have had with Marxists, and our current government situation. It appears, and Mikee independently posted the same conclusion, the “liberals” (communists) in our government act as if and work toward the condition of there being no limits on the power of government. The Bill of Rights is considered “loopholes” that citizens “hide behind”. The listening in on our telephone calls, the storing of all our Internet traffic, the tracking of all our vehicles, the tracking of our cell phones, the abuse of the IRS, the search and seizure of property, the requirements of financial disclosure, and much, much more is strong evidence they want there to be nothing to “hide behind”. They are working toward a society where there are no limits to what the state knows about you and what it can do to achieve the ends of those in power.

What many people don’t consciously realize is that the greater the value of some the greater security it much have to protect it. If you leave a penny on the sidewalk there is a good chance that if it is in a puddle of water it will still be there if you come back for it the next day. If you put $1000 in plain view in your locked car near that same sidewalk it is likely to be gone by morning.

The 20 year old beater car needs less security than the new Mercedes. The piggy bank of a child needs less security than an ATM. The ATM needs less security than Fort Knox. The financial information at your accountants office requires less security than the computer system that contains the financial information of an entire nation. The personal information in the medical records of your doctors office needs less security than the computer system that contains the personal information of an entire nation.

Government power is something of great value to those that control it and extraordinary measures must be used to secure against abuse. The enumerated powers, the multiple branches of government, the reservation of powers for the states and the people, and the Bill of Rights, were all intended to secure government power from abuse.

It is extraordinarily clear government power is expanding without the bounds intended and is being abused with the abusers suffering no consequences. The IRS, Fast and Furious, and NSA, scandals are just the tip of the icebergs. We are in a positive feedback loop. The more power government gets the greater the attraction to those that abuse it. Those that abuse it want more power and less controls. The Marxists who want more government power and claim, “We just need the right people in control” either do not understand the issues involved and/or are the very people who should not be in control.

Scary times are here now and far more scary times are ahead. Read Animal Farm and 1984 as they were intended to be read. They are warning of the dangers of government power. They are not instructions manuals.—Joe]

* I’m annoyed by his claim there can be no morality without belief in god(s) but other than the religious parts it’s a good book so far.

Quote of the day—Emily Miller

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The police stonewalling and cover-up are so that the public doesn’t find out that Chief Lanier enforces laws differently in the District, depending on whether you are a powerful liberal who opposes Second Amendment rights, like Mr. Gregory and Mrs. Feinstein, or an average American.

Emily Miller
October 9, 2013
MILLER: Smoking gun exposed- D.C. police covers up giving Feinstein illegal ‘assault weapons’
[Why can’t this be considered a violation of the constitution via liberals being granted titles of nobility with special privileges?

The only other way I can see to look at this is that the liberals are saying the law does not apply in the “game” they are playing. I don’t think they really want to go there because a lot of people who normally play the rule also consider it fair play to play by the rules of their opponents. And if there are no rules, well, then there are no rules.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Luke Chitwood

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Whether or not Barack Obama actually has plans to personally invade the homes of America’s 100 million gun owners and forcibly remove their firearms is irrelevant. The NRA has achieved great success in making this event seem possible to the Americans who fear it the most. The NRA has perfected the use of slippery-slope arguments and doomsday predictions to activate a passionate, idealistic, and focused base.

Luke Chitwood
October 8, 2013
Here’s How the NRA is So Freakishly Effective in the Gun Control Debate
[Chitwood has a problem with the truth. This is just one of many examples in the article. Obama would never personally do this and the NRA would never suggest he might. And as usual, if someone starts out with false data and assumptions whatever follows is almost certain to be in error.

What Chitwood apparently doesn’t understand is that NRA members drive the NRA rather than the NRA driving it’s members. People join the NRA to, among other things, encourage them to protect gun owner rights. I know a few people that have quit or refused to join the NRA but all of them did this because the NRA compromised or were to soft of supporters of gun owner rights. Not that they were too “extreme”.

The NRA is a grassroots organization. Our opponents cannot seem to understand that. Their model appears to be that the NRA recruits members and turns them into some sort of mindless minion that does the bidding of the evil NRA overlord. As is usual, anytime an anti-gun person says something you can be fairly certain it’s crazy talk.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dan Gross

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Common sense is not an intense emotion.

Dan Gross
President, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
October 4, 2013
Almost a year after Newtown, does anyone care about gun control anymore?
[Gross’s problem goes much deeper than this.

Directly addressing, but still a surface issue in the big picture, is that “common sense” is frequently totally wrong. It’s just common sense that the earth is flat, mixing a cup of alcohol with a cup of water will give you two cups of the mixture, and the government fixing the rental price of apartments will result in affordable housing. Each of those are provably wrong along with the “common sense” claim that increased gun restrictions result with decreased violent crime.

The much deeper problem Gross has is that his organization has a systemic problem with lying. The most recent I have seen was just this morning. They claim they have “nearly one million members and supporters”. In 2010 they had a mailing list of about 50,000. And even those 50,000 are inflated because they include people who sent them email to tell them they have errors on their webpage. Deception is an integral part of their organization. “Common sense” is a house of cards in a windstorm when your view of common sense is nothing but deception and lies.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Daniel Murphy

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I propose the federal government put several plastic surgeons on the payroll and offer free unlimited penis enlargement in exchange for giving up these rediculous (sic) weapons.

Daniel Murphy
April 3, 2013
Comment to Debunking the Conservative Myth on “Assault Rifles”.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

H/T to Phil who sent me an email with the link.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gerry Spence

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The police, as in every police state, would simply level their charges and lead the defendant to his blind-folded stance before the firing squad. During Randy Weaver’s trial, an agony for him that he endured for nearly three months, I found the minions of the law—the special agents of the FBI—to be men who proved themselves not only fully capable, but also utterly willing to manufacture evidence, to conceal crucial evidence and even change the rules that governed life and death if, in the prosecution of the accused, it seemed expedient to do so.

Gerry Spence
From Freedom To Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America
First St Martin’s Griffin Edition: May 1996
[The 1990’s were exceedingly dark days for gun owners. The shooting of Randy Weaver’s son and wife by Federal agents and then the trial of Weaver and Harris could be considered the turning point. The egregious behavior and arrogance of the Feds enraged gun owners and inspired thousands, if not millions, of people who had never owned guns to purchase them. The Weaver shooting took place less than 20 miles from where I lived at the time and I was among those that became a gun owner shortly thereafter.

This blog, Boomershoot, and a great number of significant events in my life were the result of what happened at Ruby Ridge.

That was over 20 years ago and many of the freedom activists I know don’t remember the events or that it even occurred. And many that do probably don’t understand the significance of that event in today’s fight for freedom. The Federal government learned some important lessons as a result of that incident and the response of the American people. The “militia movement” was part of that response and it was a real wake up call to the Feds.

But I’m not sure it was the lesson we wanted the Feds to learn. My impression is they learned it was too risky to begin using naked force to subjugate the people. They did not reverse course.

They grudgingly accepted we have at least some narrowly defined right to keep and bear arms but attacked our economic base, our privacy, and regulate the minutia of nearly every activity. The “assault weapon” bans, TSA and Obamacare are just the most obvious infringements of our freedom.

There are probably 10s of thousands of regulations which by themselves would be laughable and easily dismissed if it weren’t for the fact they are each tiny links in huge and heavy chains that enslave us through the daily sapping of our time and money to avoid committing numerous crimes each day. Ultimately these laws can, and probably will, be used to create the police state Spence warns us of. And it will all occur with firing only the occasional, and almost entirely ignored, shots.—Joe]

I think I understand now

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As I was unpacking at my new clock tower* Barb L. encouraged me to throw out old clothes. She told me, “A general rule is that if you haven’t worn it in over a year it’s time to let it go.”

I went to the closet and pulled out a sweatshirt. I told her, “I use a different rule than you. I bought this 40 years ago last month and I haven’t worn it in at least 20 years. I don’t plan on throwing it away.” She seemed to understand the new rule and there were no further discussions about it.

But then a while later she told me, “Okay. I’m going to take a picture of all your hats, gloves, and t-shirts. Then I’m going to post them on your blog and tell everyone to not give you any more.” “Why?”, I asked. She gave me a look that seemed like she was about to burst into some incredible snark but was exercising extraordinary restraint and said nothing. Women. You are supposed to “communicate” with them then they don’t talk even when you ask them questions. Whatever.

That was a couple days ago. Today I finished unpacking all my clothes and was thinking about what she had said. I decided I might be able to figure out what she was talking about if I spread the items out and took the picture myself. Here is a picture of some of my hats:

IMG_8731Cropped

I think I understand now. She wants to be the one to give me new hats so I can express genuine pleasure at getting a new one rather than a duplicate of existing one.

* The view from the Clock Tower at my “neighbors” over two miles away through a 6X scope looks something like this:

IMG_8733CroppedAdjusted

Quote of the day—Kathy Jackson

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The reason so many self-defense people believe it’s okay to shoot an attacker, after you add up the cold equations and come to the inevitable conclusion that someone is about to die, isn’t because we have flexible moral compasses. Nor do we study criminal violence because we secretly feel fascinated by evil. Not at all! The reason we accept using deadly force to defend the innocent is because we believe it’s actively good to save innocent lives, including your own. The reason we study past criminal events and try to understand how they happened is because we want to know how to save the lives of innocent people during future criminal events. The reason we learn the physical skills of self-defense is because we want to protect the lives of people we love. The key for each of these things is in the goal: saving innocent life.

…

Making the decision to save an innocent life is not a sin. It’s not a crime. It’s not an evil. It’s an active bit of good you can do in the world, saving an innocent life. And if the job of saving an innocent life is a good thing that may need to be done, it’s not wrong to learn how to do that. It’s not evil to prepare to save an innocent life as well and as safely as you can. It’s not bad to study how to save lives efficiently and competently. It’s not a sin to save a life whole-heartedly, with everything you’ve got. Those are actually all good things.

Kathy Jackson
October 4, 2013
It’s a Good Thing
[Thinking this through is important. The anti-gun people are either incapable or unwilling to do the intellectual effort required. That they attempt to force us to join them in their willful ignorance and/or mental incapacity should be, and is, a crime.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Conor Higgins

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The only way to go is complete, national disarmament. That way there is no chance that criminals could raid government storehouses, or that military weapons could make it to the hands of violent gangs. There would be no chance of corrupt government officials selling firearms to cartels or other organized crime groups. If we do not push complete disarmament by removing guns entirely from the situation and not just from the hands of civilians, then we are simply promoting the disarmament of the American people who would be left without means to defend themselves, while doing nothing about the very people that the 2nd Amendment afford them the right from which to protect themselves.

The only way to ensure that no guns fall into the hands of criminals, and to ensure the safety of Americas civilians, is to make sure that all guns are removed from the equation.

Because if disarmament does not take place on a national, state, and civilian level, and no one has guns, it is not “gun-control” it is “civilian control.” 

Conor Higgins
October 3, 2013
A modest proposal: On gun control
[I read the entire article thinking there was a good chance this guy was serious. Only the last sentence gave me hope he was sane.

In this article he advocates complete disarmament. This includes the police and the military with naïve, half-baked, plans to collect all the guns and rationale for why neither the military nor law enforcement require firearms. I actually had to go looking for other stuff he has written to convince myself this was satire.

There are people out there that naïve and half-baked but Higgins isn’t one of them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield

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The Democratic Party is no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson. It’s the party of King George III. And it doesn’t like the idea of armed peasants, not because an occasional peasants goes on a shooting spree, but because like a certain dead mad king who liked to talk to trees, it believes that government power comes before individual liberty. Like that dead king, it believes that it means this for the benefit of the peasants who will be better off being told what to do.

Daniel Greenfield
September 22, 2013
The Central Planning Solution to Evil
[H/T to Caleb.

I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Matthew May

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I will not submit to a cabal who read George Orwell’s 1984 not as a terrifying warning, but as an instruction manual. Nor will I submit to the dictates of those who attempt to trample the right of free speech of others in the halls of government who are warning us about the looming tyranny. I refer to those sons of liberty who, as Camus wrote, “are not all legitimate or to be admired. Those who applaud it only when it justifies their privileges and shout nothing but censorship when it threatens them are not on our side.”

Matthew May
September 30, 2013
I Will Not Comply
[H/T Tyler Durden.

With the NSA listening to and recording every phone conversation, reading and storing every email message, the post office taking pictures of every envelope, and the government mandating the details of relationships (with insurance companies), police officers told to not wear their uniform and gun onto school campuses (H/T Ry), and people seriously advocating absolutely crazy stuff, how can we not think we are in a Orwellian dystopian universe? The Jews in 1939 Germany couldn’t really believe it was happening. It was crazy to believe people would do the things they were doing. It just couldn’t be real. But it was real. And it’s real now. Believe it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—U.S. Representative Major Owens

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My bill prohibits the importation, exportation, manufacture, sale, purchase, transfer, receipt, possession, or transportation of handguns and handgun ammunition. It establishes a 6-month grace period for the turning in of handguns. It provides many exceptions for gun clubs, hunting clubs, gun collectors, and other people of that kind. It sets a penalty of $5,000 or 5 years in prison for people who violate it.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are way ahead of the Brady bill at this point. I understand this has to be a very carefully crafted rule in order to move forward. It is important to take the first step with the Brady bill. But the American people realize this is already too little, too late. They demand more.

Mr. Speaker, there are many bills that have been introduced by my colleagues which do go further. This bill, H.R. 3232, the Public Health and Safety Act, will solve the problem in the future of the proliferation of handguns. We must go forward and stop the carnage on our streets, and the Brady bill is a very important first step.

U.S. Representative Major Owens, Democrat
November 10, 1993
Congressional Record
[This was during the debate about the Brady Bill. They regarded it as a “first step”. There were plans then, and now, to go much further than merely background checks. The background checks is nothing but a ruse. Background checks to reduce criminal access to guns is crazy talk. It’s real goal is an attempt at backdoor registration. Confiscation is the ultimate goal.—Joe]