Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—Mayors’ Summit on Illegal Guns

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As Mayors, we are duty-bound to do everything in our power to protect our residents, especially our children, from harm and there is no greater threat to public safety than the threat of illegal guns.

Mayors’ Summit on Illegal Guns
April 25, 2006
[Interesting belief they have there. I guess they have never heard of “nuclear war.” Or that in the last century nearly 100 million people were killed by their own governments. But there doesn’t seem to be an organization called “Mayors Against Illegal Governments.”

Or if they want to just address deaths that occur at a fairly steady rate only in the US then how about these from the CDC for 2010:

  • Unintentional falls: 26,009
  • Motor vehicle traffic deaths: 33,687
  • Unintentional poisoning deaths: 33,041

Each of those dwarfs “the threat of illegal guns”. Because even if you include deaths from suicide and legally justified shootings you end up with numbers on the order of 30,000 per year. The number of deaths that are inflicted by people illegally in possession of guns must be lower than the number of firearm homicides per year which is on the order of about 9,000 per year. Hence each of the accidental deaths listed above is greater by about a factor of 3 or greater. Thus these mayors are either deliberately lying, and/or are ignorant of the facts, and/or delusional.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James Porter

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The anti-gun forces tried to win the battle politically and we beat them. So what did they do? They go to the states. They try to push their legislation there. We beat them. So now they’re in the international arena at the U.N., and, with all due respect, we will beat them there as well.

James Porter
NRA President
June 20, 2013
New NRA President: Anti-gun Executive Orders ‘Ill-Advised’
[“Due respect”? There isn’t much response due to them. Don’t commit any crimes against them, be sensitive to those that have lost friends and family members to someone using a gun, and don’t moon them. I think pretty much is the extent of the respect they are due.

However, in the cases of Senators Feinstein and Schumer those guys don’t deserve nearly as much respect as your run of the mill anti-gun person. You can moon them if you want and still be giving them too much respect.—Joe]

Are you a proud gun owner?

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Emily Miller is asking for pictures of ordinary people with their guns. It’s for a book.

NSA data used for blackmail

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If this report is true then I was right (emphasis in the original):

They went after–and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things–they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial. But they went after other ones, too. They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of–heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House–their own people.

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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If Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns are willing to make a martyr of a terror suspect to push their agenda it raises questions about the legitimacy of their campaign to disarm America, one legislative step at a time. Next thing you know, they’ll be calling Osama bin Laden a victim of gun violence, too.

Alan Gottlieb
June 19, 2013
CCRKBA BLASTS BLOOMY BUS CAMPAIGN FOR CALLING BOMBER A ‘GUN VIOLENCE VICTIM’
[Using the legitimate deaths of criminals shot by both police and private citizens to inflate the numbers, to justify advocating more restrictions on gun owners, has been going on for at least 20 years. It probably has been going on “forever”. It’s just that I have only be aware of it for the last 20 years or so.

This tells you both how weak their case is and how morally bankrupt they are.—Joe]

Field Ballistics is available on Windows Phone

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I just received notification that Field Ballistics for Windows Phone has passed the Microsoft certification tests and is now available in the store. It may take a day or two before you can search for it in the store but you can install it now using this link.

Some of the cool features are illustrated with the following screen shots:

ScreenShotMap

The shooter and targets are placed on a map. The program automatically computes the range to the targets. It also automatically computes the direction of the wind relative to the bullet flight path. This means that if the wind is from the west and you are shooting at a target to the south you will get the correction the full value of wind drift. But if you then choose a target directly east (or west) of you the wind correction will be zero. Of course all the trigonometry is done to correct for shooting in all directions.

At the bottom of the screen are two columns. The left column is the ballistics solution to make the shot at the selected target. In the right column is data about the target and the bullet when it arrives at that target. Of particular note is that in the case above the bullet velocity is in red (the theme color of the phone). This means the bullet velocity is below the minimum you have specified in the settings. This is particularly important for Boomershooters because the targets won’t detonate if the bullets are going too slow.

Tapping the ‘S’ or ‘T’ icons at the bottom of the screen moves the center of the map to the shooter or the selected target. The down arrow icon moves the selected target (or the shooter if it was selected) to the location of the phone using the phone GPS. This means that you can set up multiple targets on the map, then the shooter can “run and gun” and get ballistic solutions quickly. By using the GPS to get the current location of the shooter the distances and wind corrections are automatically update for each position the shooter wishes to shoot from.

ScreenShotTargets

You can add as many targets as you wish* and give them user friendly names. If you tap the “Measure” button you can use the phone camera and accelerometer to determine the incline to the target from your current location.

ScreenShotIncline

This is the incline measurement screen using the camera. You put the crosshairs on the target and tap “Done” to capture the incline of the phone for this target. You can also zoom in or out and refocus the camera.

[Please note this is only to illustrate the incline measurement feature, not to advocate shooting in cities.]

ScreenShotConditions

The automatic weather conditions are obtained from the current location of the shooter. This doesn’t mean the physical location of the phone. You can position the shooter in another state and the nearest weather station to the designated shooter location will be used. When you define your own conditions you can even use the phone GPS to capture your altitude.

ScreenShotCartridges

Black Hills and Federal match ammo are predefined. Add as many of your own cartridges* as you desire.

ScreenShotRifles

Some predefined rifles are included but you can add as many of your own rifles* as desired.

ScreenShotHelp

There are pages and pages of easily accessible help on the phone.

*The trial version only allows one target and one each of user defined conditions, cartridges, and rifles.

Quote of the day—irish189

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If this is what passes for winning in Washington these days, I have no idea what losing looks like anymore.

irish189
June 18, 2013
Comment to White House Officials Say They Are Winning Gun Control Debate, Will Again Push For New Laws
Obama-Biden
[I love that picture of V.P. Biden. Pouting like a three year-old characterizes the situation quite well.—Joe]

Brad Huffman obituary

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Brad Huffman was my nephew.

From the Lewiston Morning Tribune:

BradObit

Our hearts were broken when our son, Bradley Ray Huffman, died in his sleep June 14, 2013, of natural causes. An autopsy is under way. He was born Nov. 21, 1990, in Lewiston, to Doug and Julie (Seeley) Huffman and two older sisters, Amy and Lisa. Brad grew up on the family farm in Cavendish, helping with the farm work from the time he could walk.

Brad attended Cavendish Elementary School before going to Orofino for junior high and high school. He won the OJHS geography bee in both seventh and eighth grades and participated in the state geography bee both years. He also won the District 171 spelling bee in eighth grade and competed in the regional spelling bee in Lewiston. He ran track for six years and qualified for state in the 800 meter three times. Brad was also involved in 4-H throughout his school years. He took several advanced placement classes in high school and graduated as a valedictorian of Orofino High School in 2009.

Bradley attended the University of Idaho and majored in plant science while working for the university wheat breeding program. He graduated in December 2012 and took a job in U of I mustard and canola breeding, although he was still involved with the wheat breeding team.

Brad enjoyed farming, gardening, photography, hunting and fishing. He returned to the family farm most weekends and enjoyed going for long walks with his dog, Kanobi.

He is survived by his parents at the family home; sister Amy (Nathan) Faragher and nephew Jared Faragher of Orem, Utah; and sister Lisa Huffman of Kent, Wash. He is also survived by his paternal grandfather, Lowell Huffman of Cavendish; his maternal grandmother, Shirley Seeley of Orofino; and many aunts, uncles and cousins. His paternal grandmother Ellen Huffman and his maternal grandfather Bud Seeley preceded him in death.

There will be a service at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Best Western – Lodge at River’s Edge in Orofino, followed by a luncheon.

Memorial donations may be made to the Cavendish Elementary PTA, 455 Middle Road, Lenore, ID 83541; or the Orofino High School Track Program, 300 Dunlap Road, Orofino, ID 83544.

Pine Hills Funeral Chapel and Crematory is in care of arrangements.

Gun cartoon of the day

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Via Ms. Magazine‘s ‘My Month with a Gun’ Story Shooting Blanks?

lo

Nice snark but almost for certain this is mischaracterizing Yewman. She has a set of beliefs that are demonstrably wrong but I haven’t seen any evidence this is one of them.

Quote of the day—Sebastian

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I don’t want to face being driven from my home by the likes of Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. No more two Americas. This has to end. We need to stop these people and ruthlessly crush them.

Sebastian
June 18, 2013
40 Round PMAGs
[This is what is required and, at least on the gun issue, there is a reasonable chance of success (for some values of “success”).

The bigger problem is that repression is much more than just guns. Currently it includes soft drinks, light bulbs, collecting rain water, how many gallons flushing your toilet requires. In another year it could include restrictions on owning gold and/or silver, TSA groping at train stations, and rationing of health care.

Although I’m a pretty optimistic person I’m essentially convinced (the Obama Care ruling on health care was the last straw) we are getting out of this without tremendous pain. The question is how to optimize the chances for my immediate family in the various scenarios.

I have have ancestors that go back to pre-revolutionary war (Barb L. even has Mayflower ancestors) and most steadily moved west in as the country opened up. They escaped the big cities with the corruption and repression associated with them. There isn’t much further we can move. Maybe Alaska could offer some respite but Alaska has to import a lot of goods which means they can’t really be self-supporting in many cases.

I fear collapse with the associated risk of a rise of a dictator is possible. Or would such a collapse follow the USSR model where the individual states regain power as the Feds go broke? Or would the Feds confiscate the wealth in such a way that it destroys the infrastructure as it goes down?

There are far too many “columns on the spreadsheet” to predict. I think what needs to be done is write up the plausible scenarios and plans for dealing with them. Prepping with food storage, “bug out locations”, and low level medical training until the economy recovers? Learn blacksmithing and soap making, acquire draft horses and horse powered farm implements and prepare for a return to technological world similar to 1900? What’s common to most scenarios? What’s likely and what is implausible?

The looters are destroying the country and, really, the world. The only question I see is how much will be left when they are stopped. The answer hinges on whether it is because they ran out of things and places to loot or is it because the producers finally stood up to them and said, “No. Stop. No further. Looters will be shot.”—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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I have QOTD posts for Markley’s Law scheduled into 2014 so I’m not hurting for Markley’s Law Monday material. I received a pointer to this cartoon via “someone adverse to email” and decided to post it in a more timely manner.

Found here:

ClassicPenisEnvy

Heavy sigh. With a clean canvas and with virtually only space restrictions on what they can say the best they can come up to attack gun owners is to invoke Markley’s Law? That’s pathetic.

Thoughts on Heidi Yewman

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This started out to be a comment in response to ubu52 who said:

Since this is only part one of a four part series, how do any of you know she didn’t get training?

The response grew and the links increased to the point I decided it really should be a post on it’s own.

At the time of the writing of the post being discussed she had no training. Perhaps she attended a class this last weekend and just hasn’t made a post about it yet. We’ll see what she says in her next post.

She is playing a very risky game. She is in “danger” of having her beliefs shattered. It is my guess that she had a set of beliefs totally at odds with reality.

In effect she was challenged by Wayne LaPierre:

Wayne LaPierre, told the country, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I wondered what would it be like to be that good guy with a gun? What would it be like to get that gun, live with that gun, be out and about with that gun. Finally, what happens when you don’t want that gun any more?

I decided to find out.

There are at least three ways to interpret this.

  1. She is doing this to further proselytize about the hazards of private gun ownership from a position of “greater expertise”.
  2. She is sincere in her claims and really wants to understand more about gun ownership and what it is like to carry a gun.
  3. She has doubts about her beliefs and is doing this to confirm, or possibly refute, them.

The first post, in what is planned as a four part series, clearly fits interpretation 1. That she is so certain she will not want the gun after a month is very telling of her predisposition.

But read the first page of this website. She was (and probably still is) firmly committed to a set of beliefs and has relevance to action (condition 1 from the website). She has taken actions that are difficult to undo. These include being on the board of directors for the Brady Campaign and writing a book advocating more restrictions on gun ownership (condition 2). Her beliefs are almost certainly sufficiently specific and refutable by real world evidence that given sufficient contact with the reality of gun owners and gun ownership condition 3 will be met.

There are at least two paths for the future of Yewman’s relationship with gun politics. We have some control over which path is taken. Conditions 4 and 5 from the website hold the key to which path she will take.

Condition 4 states that undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief. Condition 5 states that if she has strong social support for her faulty beliefs, even in spite of and in fact because of, the disproving evidence then she will increase her anti-gun activities.

She admits she didn’t know what it feels like or means to own and carry a gun but she surely had some preconceived idea or she would not advocate against gun ownership. I believe those beliefs can only flourish in those that are ignorant, malicious, or mentally defective.

From reading her writings (this is not the first work of hers I have read) I’m nearly certain she is not mentally defective (on the other hand Joan Peterson clearly is). I also believe she has the best of intentions. She is not in the same category as those that advocated for gun control so people of color could not defend themselves from the KKK.

I believe ignorance is her only defect. But ignorant beliefs, absent mental defect, do not long survive contact with reality unless there is extensive social support for those beliefs.The more contact she has with the reality of gun owners and gun ownership the greater the chance she will have sympathy for our culture and the more likely she recognize the flaws in the gun control culture. The very fact that she is censuring sincere helpful comments must raise the intensity of her cognitive dissonance.

If we wish to divert her path to one which is not hostile to gun ownership then we should be doing two things. The first is we should give her undeniable disconfirmatory evidence that her beliefs are faulty. The second is we need to give her an alternate source of social support rather than her ignorant, malicious, and mentally defective fellow travelers. If we can do that then the chances are very high that she will discard the erroneous beliefs. If we don’t then she will be an even stronger advocate for restrictions on gun ownership.

Are we up for the task? Or will we blow it by attacking her every misstep and error thus confirming beliefs that gun owners are belligerent, rude, and angry people that cannot be trusted with sharp objects let alone guns?

Quote of the day—Don B. Kates

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I’m much less effective than I might otherwise be because instinctively I distrust emotional argument and rely on evidence and reason. Which is to say, I am BORING.

Don B. Kates
May 21, 2013
Shutting Up Anti-Gun Hysterics
[It is irrational to expect people to be rational.—Joe]

Field Ballistics failed certification testing

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This afternoon I received an email from Microsoft telling me my new phone app failed the certification testing.

There were two errors. In the first case I didn’t have a clue I was violating the policy. In the second case I was careless. Both are easily fixed.

Test failure 1:

Test: Content that is offensive in any country/region to which your app is targeted is not allowed. Content may be considered offensive in certain countries/regions because of local laws or cultural norms. Examples of potentially offensive content in certain countries/regions include, but are not limited to, the following:

Group 1: China
Prohibited Sexual Content
Disputed territory or region references
Providing or enabling access to content or services that are illegal under applicable local law

Comments: Result: Fail
Your application uses the Bing Maps Silverlight Control for Windows Phone. Bing Maps is not supported for Group 1 countries at this time. You may resubmit your application and deselect the Group 1 countries.

Test failure 2:

Test: Screenshots must only contain app graphics, and must not include any emulator chrome, frame rate counters or debug information.

Comments: The application screenshots contain frame rate counters and debug information.

Three out of the eight screenshots had the frame rate counters and debug information in them. I knew better and just wasn’t paying close enough attention in my rush to get the app submitted.

It will take 30 minutes or so to fix it and resubmit. I’ll get to that sometime tonight after visiting my son and his family.

Invitation to Heidi Yewman

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Heidi Yewman is a board member of the Brady Campaign and the author of a book about “the impact of gun violence”, Beyond the Bullet. She recently bought a 9mm Glock and is carrying it daily now.

You can be pretty certain the intent is not benign in regards to the gun culture but I left a comment on her blog post welcoming her to the world of gun ownership. The comment is currently awaiting moderation so to protect against “Reasoned Discourse” I’m posting here as well:

Heidi, I’d like to welcome to the world of gun ownership. I’m sorry it’s so stressful for you. It doesn’t have to be. The culture you are familiar with regards gun ownership as dangerous and to a certain extent evil. Those of us in the gun culture know better.

Although I know your intention is to destroy our culture I want to thank you for visiting and would like to make the visit as pleasant as possible. Knowledge is good thing but can be hard to come by. This is especially true if your background has a strong bias.

I know good gun people not too far from where you live and even consider myself within range to welcome you and show you around. Let me know if you are interested in meeting our ambassadors. If your objective is to understand our culture then let us show you around and make your visit as safe and pleasant as possible.

Update: There are several other comments with timestamps after my comment that have made it through moderation now. Combined with other people reporting the same thing in the comments here we can now safely conclude the following:

Heidi Yewman, Brady Campaign Board Member, does not want free speech. And when she has the power she will enforce restrictions on it.

When allowed the power to do so Mayor Bloomberg didn’t just enforce and advocate strict gun laws. He created laws against “high capacity” soft drinks, and salty foods.

Anti-gun people are not just anti-gun. They are anti-freedom. And far too often they enable or implement genocidal regimes. All in the name of “common sense”, “for the children”, and “preventing gun violence” they are anti-life. Of course people like Yewman don’t realize this. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions but it is still a road to Hell.

Quote of the day—jimmy streich

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#ICouldHaveBeenARepublicanBut – but not trying to compensate for my tiny penis by starting wars or having a big gun

jimmy streich (@streicher187)
Tweeted on February 5, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kevin

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Let’s all sit around the fire and tell Brad stories.

Kevin
June 15, 2013
Referring to my 22 year old nephew, Brad Huffman, who died sometime during the night between Thursday and Friday.
[Last night Brad’s father, my brother Doug, and Brad’s siblings Amy (with her husband Nate and son Jared), Lisa (with boyfriend Kevin), and I sat around a fire in the woods behind the house and told stories about Brad for a long time.

It helped. Thanks Kevin.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gura

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Had the federal government prohibited bookstores from selling books to out-of-state residents, no court would hold that impacted readers lack standing to challenge such a law under the First Amendment. Barring access to the national market for books would directly inflict an injury-in-fact upon consumers. Federal courts are empowered to fully redress that injury. None of this is particularly difficult or controversial.

But substituting “handguns” for “books,” and “Second” for “First” Amendment, sometimes yields different results. The lower court held that criminal prohibitions of retail handgun sales do not directly impact frustrated consumers where the prohibitions are directed at sellers. The sellers’ compliance with the law in refusing to complete a prohibited transaction, and the prohibition’s impact on the market, are, as far as the lower court is concerned, merely the intervening voluntary decisions of third parties.

The decision below contradicts not only decades of firmly established precedent upholding consumer standing to challenge governmental interference in the marketplace. It squarely conflicts with recent Fifth and D.C. circuit decisions upholding consumer standing to challenge various applications of the same federal statute.

Left unchecked, the opinion below threatens to shut the courthouse door on a broad range of legitimate Article III cases and controversies. This Court’s review is warranted.

Alan Gura
May 28, 2013
MICHELLE LANE, AMANDA WELLING, MATTHEW WELLING, AND SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION, INC., v. ERIC HOLDER, JR., et al.,
On Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals
For The Fourth Circuit
[Gun laws in this country are really messed up. This is but one of many, many instances where the Second Amendment is treated like a violently abused person of color that most people want to ignore. People know it’s wrong. People know it’s going on. But almost no one wants to do anything about it and many people try to prevent others from doing the right thing.

This has to stop. Alan Gura and SAF are on the leading edge of bringing the bigots, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century.—Joe]

Messed up

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Yesterday a new Huffman came into the world with the birth of my grandson. I joked on Twitter:

 

Happy times. I was going to Idaho to spend time with my Dad for Father’s Day and share pictures, etc.

I got a call from my brother Doug this morning. His son, Brad, died in his sleep last night. He was 22 years old.

Brad
Brad Huffman with his nephew Jared.

He didn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. No known health issues.

This is really messed up. This isn’t the way things are “supposed” to happen. He just finished college. He had a good job. He was considering taking over the farm when Doug and Gary retired.

As Barb L. pointed out when I talked to her about it, “It’s so terrible, one Huffman enters the world and another leaves.”

Quote of the day—Miss Esther P. Codwalloper

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Only ridiculous and hysterical people oppose gun registration, so far as I’ve seen.

There has been no sound argument against it presented.

Miss Esther P. Codwalloper
Comment to Gun control groups plan to try, try again
June 11, 2013
[I guess Miss Codwalloper hasn’t read the story of The Belgium Corporal. Or perhaps her case of cranial rectum inversion is so advanced she hasn’t heard how the IRS abused it’s powers. And she had to have totally missed out on the failed Canadian gun registry.

Then there is the little case of U.S. v. Haynes where it was ruled unconstitutional that convicted felons could be required to register their firearms.

I have to conclude Codwalloper has nothing but crap for brains.—Joe]