Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—Bob Cesca

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Men, whether intentional or not, tend to confuse their guns for their penises. The bigger the gun/penis, the more masculine they are. Guns have become penis extensions, if not penis substitutes, and the phallic similarities are obvious.

…

The masculine equivalence of guns and gun ownership needs to be phased out, which is to say manhood and firearms must be divorced from each other if we’re going to get beyond the deadly gun culture. Guns should eventually be regarded as nothing more than a tool — stripped of mystique and Freudian symbolism — for people who need to hunt their own food or to defend themselves in law-enforcement or military situations. Nothing more.

Bob Cesca
January 29, 2013
A Gun Won’t Make Your Penis Larger
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

I find it very telling that Cesca considers self-defense valid for law-enforcement and the military but not for private citizens. I saw a movie like that once. It was called Schindler’s List*.

*I didn’t come up with this quip. I forget exactly where I first heard it but the earliest reference I can find on the net is here. That is not where I first heard it.—Joe]

Boomershoot history

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I just completed writing, by request, an overview of the history of Boomershoot. It probably will appear in a magazine next month. If it is accepted I’ll let you know which magazine.

In the process of doing that I reviewed a lot of pictures and watched the Boomershoot history video I made in early 2005. It’s about 30 minutes long but it brought back a lot of memories and I’m pretty pleased with it.

The magazine article could not include all the pictures, video, and nearly as much detail. So if you are really interested in the history of Boomershoot watch the video as well as read the article when it comes out next month.

Not an epic fail

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Last week on Facebook Larry Correia corrected those people that think shooting a .50 BMG from the shoulder will knock them on down. As he says it really isn’t that bad. In terms of recoil it’s about like shooting a 12 gauge shotgun.

I was going through my old Boomershoot pictures and found a picture of me shooting one from the shoulder at Boomershoot 2000 so I thought I would share:

OffhandBarrettCorrected

It’s so heavy that it’s tough to support it. The arm of my support hand was against my body for additional steadiness. No. I did not fall down. I don’t think I even had to take a step back to catch my balance.

Quote of the day—Mike Hope

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That’s exactly what we want to go after. We don’t know who’s buying the gun.

Mike Hope
Washington state representative of Lake Stevens.
February 9, 2013
Washington state nears deal on gun background checks
[Hope is also a Seattle police officer and said the above in regards to:

Hope, a Seattle police officer, said the private transactions are occurring all the time and are attractive for criminals who can avoid a background check. He noted that when his employer recently held a gun buyback program, some people were on the streets buying weapons from people who were waiting in line.

I was at that gun “buyback”. I was attempting to buy some of those guns. And he is saying I was “exactly what we want to go after”. That is good to know Mr. Hope. That may be used as evidence at your trial.

See also my post on background checks and on background checks that would be acceptable to us but not to them. That’s odd you say? Why why wouldn’t they want a universal background check they could get easily passed into law? It’s because don’t really want background checks. They want registration and confiscation.

H/T to:

—Joe]

They don’t want background checks

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Via email from Joe Waldron of Gun Owners Action League of WA, February 1, 2013:

Let there be no doubt in your mind, HB 1588, and similar bills to be offered at the federal level, are after one thing only: gun registration.  If they want to debate registration, by all means do so.  But call it what it is.  Don’t try to sell it under a false flag, and one that is likely to gain widespread support even among gun owners.  There ARE ways to conduct background checks WITHOUT the record-keeping.  We showed them that in Olympia twice in the past decade.  They rejected it, and admitted that what they wanted was the “audit trail” — the paperwork.

“Audit trail”. Yeah. Got it.

That is what they said about the NICS checks records when they were supposed to be destroyed after a person had successfully passed. They didn’t destroy the records as required by law. They kept them “for audit purposes”.

Attorney General Janet Reno even once said the system was unable to delete the records. Then they, with much howling, consented to 90 day retention of the records. In 2001, under a new administration, the DOJ changed the retention to “less than one day”. In reviewing the impact this would have the GAO reported (pages 1 and 2):

According to the NICS regulations, information on allowed firearms sales is used only for purposes related to ensuring the proper operation of the system or conducting audits of the use of the system.

Then on page 4:

NICS officials told us, however, that the FBI would not lose any routine audit capabilities under the proposed policy for next-day destruction of records.

On the other hand, a next-day destruction policy would adversely affect
certain nonroutine audits of the system. Specifically, under current DOJ
policy, if a law enforcement agency has information that indicates that an individual is prohibited from purchasing firearms under federal law, the agency may request that the FBI check whether the name appears in NICS records of allowed transfers. If the FBI finds a record showing an allowed transfer to a “prohibited person” (e.g., a transfer to an alien who is illegally or unlawfully in the United States), that record indicates a potential violation of law, and the FBI may disclose the record to the appropriate law enforcement entity. These audits of the accuracy of responses given by NICS, and the additional (secondary) benefit of assisting law enforcement investigations, generally would not be possible under a next-day destruction policy.

In the GAO’s own document the FBI was admitting they were using the records in ways that were not authorized by law. Yet no one went to jail.

Eventually, they claim, regulations were implemented that required the records be destroyed within 24 hours. But why should we trust them? They were using the records illegally before and no one was punished. What is the incentive to keep them from violating the law again? They cannot be trusted.

In California and New York where guns were registered gun owners were told, with great sincerity, “No one is trying to take your guns.” In New York, several years ago, they did confiscate registered guns. In California they are attempting to pass laws that will confiscate registered guns.

The government in general, and anti-gun people in particular, cannot be trusted. Do not ever give them a means, no matter how indirect, to register your guns, your books, your religion, or your sexual preferences. It’s none of their business. And all have been used in other times and other places to imprison and/or murder people by the 10s of thousands and even millions.

If you allow it there is an unacceptably high chance it will not end well.

Quote of the day—sporks

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gun owners have no place in the democratic party. they’re good people, yes, but they must get rid of their guns.

sporks
December 21, 2012
Comment to How to Ban Guns: A step by step, long term process
[Sounds like a plan sporks. Let me know how your project turns out with the Democrats in Alabama, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming.—Joe]

Experiment goals

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As nearly everyone already knows there is an experiment in progress in southern California. I would like to share the design of the experiment and the questions I hope to answer.*

Why a new experiment was required:

After Columbine law enforcement had to reevaluate how they responded to this new situation. Their training was for a “hostage situation” and they handled it as such. Of course this was completely the wrong response. They didn’t even have a name for the type of event. It is now called “an active shooter” and the tactics and training have been modified to respond in a much better fashion. The D.C. snipers comes close but those two were of below average intelligence and had only a moderate amount of military training between the two of them, no law enforcement training, no knowledge of how law enforcement would respond, attacked random private citizens, and attempted to extort money which resulted in important clues being left behind.

This too will be something almost completely new to the police. No known data can be confidently extrapolated to this new situation.

Subject selection:

I wanted the subject to be a black lesbian with a strong affinity for leftist politicians. This would deflect the knee jerk “angry right-wing white male” response from the gun hostile media and politicians. But finding one in possession of a variety of firearms, the skills to use them, plus a law enforcement and military background proved too difficult on the tight schedule. The substitution of a black male was considered adequate.

Experiment location:

The location of the experiment was chosen as California because of the large geographical area with repressive guns laws. A multi-jurisdictional response is expected to yield a more confused and less effective response by law enforcement. A minimal set of variables were desired in the initial experiment.

New York and New Jersey were also considered but were rejected for the following reasons:

  1. Smaller geographical area for the subject to take advantage of.
  2. The higher population density makes detection and reporting of movement by the public more likely.
  3. Higher population density increases the risk to innocent private citizens.
  4. If the experiment could have been run as original scheduled in May, when I have time after Boomershoot but before the hot summer months, NY and NJ still might have still have been given serious consideration but the frenzy of anti-gun legislation in December and January pushed the schedule ahead. The winter climate of NY and NJ this time of year would have put the subject at an disadvantage.

The Los Angles police department also is one of the largest, outside of New York City, in a repressive gun law environment. This gives us important data on the effectiveness of extensive hardware and well developed command and control.

The existence of the repressive gun laws was important to demonstrate that the laws are useless or at least any effect they have still leaves the subject with sufficient opportunities.

Plus my parents honeymooned in the Big Bear Lake area and I have always wanted to visit.

Questions to be answered:

  1. Just how much damage is likely by a relatively smart and sane, well-trained, well-armed individual?
  2. How do the police handle being the hunted instead of the hunters?
  3. Do the police have any training for this situation?
  4. Does law enforcement even have even have a name for this type of situation?
  5. What changes in training will result?
  6. With the police spending significant resources on one subject what are the effects in other areas in their jurisdiction?
  7. Does the general crime rate increase during the time the subject is active?
  8. Do the targeted law enforcement departments quit their jobs or otherwise decrease the effectiveness of the police force when subject to increased stress?
  9. Do the politicians and/or media advocate for new laws to prevent events from happening again?
  10. If new laws are advocated what are those laws?

Although further experiments will be required for confirmation, the data will be used to extrapolate the expected outcomes from a small team targeting a police force. Multiple team information is desired but it is not expected to accurately extrapolate from this one experiment.

Applicability to other situations:

I would caution other experimenters to not attempt drawing conclusions from this experiment as to the expected results if it were politicians, the media, a corporation, or other group instead of law enforcement being targeted. The dynamics, mindset, strategy, and tactics of being the target versus protecting a target are different and probably cannot be accurately accounted for without actually running the experiment.

*Yeah, right. If I had the mind control technology to do something like this from 1000 miles away with no contact with the subject I would a be a multi-gazillionaire. Furthermore the entire world would have a free-market economy with free-minds and the political discussions would be over who had the purest principles and which politicians best exemplified the principles expressed by Ayn Rand, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and Robert Higgs.

Quote of the day—JB Williams

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It will be ALL Americans, including their military, against the Marxist anti-Americans destroying America, which means politicians, their lawyers and their leftist minions in the press. I wouldn’t want to be them when they finally succeed in pushing the nation to internal war.

Politicians, their lawyers and their minions in the press are NOT the kind of people that go to war. They are only the kind of people that order other people to war. When “other folks” refuse orders to go to war on their own citizens, their families, their friends, the people issuing those orders will be standing bare naked on the front lines and nobody will be able to save their sorry asses from the wrath of the American people.

JB Williams
February 2013
Is Obama Pushing for a Civil War?
[I have nothing to add that I haven’t already said.—Joe]

Manifesto summary

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Most sites do not have the entire text of the “manifesto” of the former LA Cop on the rampage in California. The part where he praises left-wing politicians and anti-gun policies is missing. It’s almost as if the media don’t want people to know that someone on the left is on a violent rampage. If it were a someone with even a hint of right-wing leanings that would be in the headlines.

I found my version of his manifesto here.

My summary, if you don’t have the time to read it all, is as follows:

He is really pissed off about being fired. His side of the story is that he reported another officer kicked a handcuffed suspect. He claims a video of the suspect confirms his side of the story. A hearing determined he was lying and he was fired over it. There were also confrontations with other officers who used the n-word.

There is a large section outlining how he is going to kill a large number of police officers and their families for the injustice inflicted upon him. The only way he will stop is if the LAPD issues a public apology and says it was wrong to fire him. He calls out a number of people and groups as “high value targets”. He claims private citizens, unrelated to LAPD officers, and law enforcement from other agencies will be safe if they leave him alone. He won’t hunt them as he will the officers and families of the LAPD.

He claims he owns AR-15 carbine(s), Remington precision rifle(s), suppressors, and a .50 BMG. He has military training and scored high in marksmanship both in the military and in the police force.

That was in the first half of the document. The second half is praise for various public figures and his friends. Some of it is of the form “good-bye, sorry to leave, I will miss you”. Almost all the politicians are democrats with anti-gun policies which he praises.

Some selected anti-gun quotes:

  • “All of these small arms are manufactured by Cerberus/Freedom Group. The same company responsible for the Portland mall shooting, Webster , NY, and Sandy Hook massacre.”
  • “Mia Farrow said it best. ‘Gun control is no longer debatable, it’s not a conversation, its a moral mandate.'”
  • “Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB.”

To me it seemed there was a bit of a disconnect between the first part and the second. Perhaps he was in a different mood. It seems as if he was sad and saying good-bye rather than angry and plotting revenge in the earlier part.

Boots on the ground

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As illustrated by the gun cartoon I posted the other day the anti-gun people don’t understand the issue. That is just a sample of one but without much effort you could find hundreds of instances where our opponents insist we value our hobbies/profits over the lives of children or we own guns to compensate for inadequate “sexual equipment”.

They certainly do not understand why we own guns. And they don’t even come close to knowing how we think.

About 10 years ago I was talking to someone from the CIA who managed a group of psychologists. He was explaining how difficult it was for people in the U.S., even in the intelligence community, to understand how our Muslim adversaries thought. He told me, “They think differently than we do. It’s even possible they think differently than we can think.”

It may be that we have the same sort of problem with the anti-gun people and they with us. After all, many of the things they say sounds like crazy talk to us. And they insist what we say is “crazy talk” as well.

They believe that a bunch of uneducated, beer bellied, red necked, slack-jawed, hillbillies wouldn’t stand a chance against the U.S. military if it came down to a confrontation between a tyrannical government and us. But is that claim true?

They are certainly wrong in their assumptions about the demographics of gun ownership and I believe they are wrong about the outcome. And would all, or even most of the military follow orders to fire upon their fellow countrymen? Or would they switch sides and bring their equipment with them? As others have pointed out, “That guy with a S&W .38 leading a popular revolt might actually have air support.”

Furthermore there are approximately 80 million gun owners in the U.S. About 4.25 million of them are members of that “extremist” group known as the NRA. What our opponents don’t, and perhaps can’t, understand is that the reason a good number of the gun owners that don’t belong to the NRA actively reject joining is because 1) The NRA isn’t “extreme” enough for them; and/or 2) They don’t want to be on “that list” if the government ever demanded the NRA membership list.

Any idea how many members of Al Qaeda the U.S. military are fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan? According to intelligence estimates reported by the New York Times in 2010 the answer is “fewer than 500” in Afghanistan and “more than 300” in Pakistan. A 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal put the number in the range of 200 to 1000 with “affiliated fighters or funders” making up thousands or tens of thousands.

How’s that war turning out for the U.S. military? Are they going to wrap that up and come home in the next couple of weeks?

Any idea on the resources Al Qaeda can bring to bear compared the resources several million U.S. gun owners can bring to the fight? I’ll give you just a few clues.

Private citizens typically consumed 10 to 12 billion rounds of ammunition per year. But current domestic production (including that used by the military and law enforcement) is about 1 billion rounds per week and it is being purchased so rapidly it is difficult to find any on the shelves. I know individuals that have nearly 1 million rounds of loaded ammunition and/or components in their possession.

Gun manufactures are running at near maximum capacity and have a backlog of months or even a year or more. During the 1990’s Bill Clinton and Sarah Brady were considered “gun salesmen” of the decade. But, using NICS data as a rough estimate, during 1999 and 2000 private gun sales were roughly 9 million per year. In 2012 it was over 19 million. At least 19 million guns were sold to U.S. private citizens in 2012. For the duration of the time NICS has been keeping background check records from November 30th, 1998 to December 31, 2012 there have been over 160 million checks/gun sales.

Numerous other differences between a fight with Al Qaeda and a fight with U.S. gun owners should be obvious and will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Our adversaries insist we do not stand a chance against a tyrannical government. Aircraft, tanks, and artillery would, they say, make any such fight short and pointless on our part. But it has been a truism of all wars except for the Japan mainland, where U.S. troops were being prepared for an invasion, “boots on the ground” were required to win. And I have talked to enough current and former military people to believe that “heavy equipment” won’t be particularly useful or last long without a lot of ground support and a safe haven from which to maintain and deploy the equipment.

They believe we would and should just turn over our guns without a fight should the government pass a law to do so. I would say their spreadsheets have some errors but I’m nearly certain they don’t think that way. Numbers, and facts in general, are not their area of expertise.

Another thing they believe is only a few people would take up arms against our government. But Bob Owens has a different view:

Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone. This isn’t society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned. This is a society preparing for war.

It is my contention that gun sales above the mean of that during the Bush years represent committed gun owners who didn’t buy the gun just to have it registered and/or taken away a few months or years later. The mean number of NICS checks during the Bush years is a little less than 9 million per year. Hence one may reasonably conclude there have been a minimum of 10 million gun sales made “in preparation for war” during 2012 alone.

That’s a lot of boots, guns, and ammo on the ground on our side. And I didn’t even get into the training our side has. Compare that to the resources the anti-gun people can bring to bear. Yet it appears President Obama may be deliberately trying to start a civil war.

So tell me. Which side is crazy to believe they will come out on top of a violent conflict?

See also The Mathematics of Countering Tyranny.

Quote of the day—Clayton E. Cramer

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I expect smugglers to hide guns inside bales of marijuana. How would Customs find them?

Clayton E. Cramer
Comment to Does ‘Gun Show Loophole’ Actually Result in Gun Crime?–Statistics do not point to criminals using this tactic.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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NRA-Membership-Card_zps0f853d96

Isn’t it interesting that what the artist believes and reality are so divergent?

Or is it the artist knows the truth and is attempting to misinform others?

Ignorance or ill-intent? That is the question.

We are better than this. We are well-informed and well-intentioned.

Xenia is in a museum

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Daughter Xenia sent me a text message this morning with the following picture and text:

XeniaSleepWalker

My art is in the Anchorage museum with the Alaska Positive show!

Here is info about the show. Here is the listing of all the exhibits.

I am very proud.

Random thought of the day

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If the penalty for possession of a normal capacity magazine is greater than or equal to the punishment for murder of a law enforcement officer then what should be the expected outcome when the police attempt to arrest someone with low moral standards (or a highly principled Second Amendment advocate) in possession of such a magazine? Keep in mind that if you are, say, 60 years old, a seven year sentence means your life is essentially destroyed because you will be unemployable and probably with no means of supporting yourself when you are released.

I’m reminded of Lessons of the 20th Century.

Unintended consequences can be surprisingly harsh.

Boomershoot and the Vatican

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Background:

And back to present day for a comment from Katy Zatsick on Facebook:

Barbara, don’t know if you remember when I asked Joe to help me get Pink Smoke? 2005. There is now a movie called “Pink Smoke over the Vatican” which is the herstory of our RC women priest movement (a movement for justice and authority in the most misogynist institution to exist). The Pink Smoke in Chicago is in it! I get to tell the story of how it came to be as I have shown the movie to 3 groups so far and it is scheduled to be shown here in SCC next Sunday! And it all came to be because of the boomer shoot.

If you watch the slide show here long enough you will see a pot of pink smoke. I helped make that happen.

Quote of the day—Robert Higgs

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In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.

Robert Higgs
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Multiple failures

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In December I noticed there was a small amount of snow dusting a table in the back end of the shipping container (aka Boomershoot Mecca) we use for Boomershoot target manufacturing. It had come in through a vent in the ceiling.

The vent is to keep it from getting too hot in the summer time. If the ammonium nitrate gets too hot it will undergo a phase change and change from prills to dust. We require prills for easy detonation.

I figured plugging the vent for the winter shouldn’t be a problem. So I plugged it and didn’t give it a second thought.

I didn’t count on a leak in the roof at the opposite end of the shipping container.

WP_000525Corrected

Even if I had imagined the leak I wouldn’t have thought it through.

What happened was the shipping container got a fair amount of water on the floor near the door. The shipping container gets pretty warm (maybe a 15 F increase above ambient on a windless sunny day) inside. This drove a lot of moisture into the air. The air probably stayed in the 80% to 90% relative humidity because there was no venting with the cool dry air from the outside. When the sun went down the interior temperature dropped and the air became supersaturated with water. It condensed on essentially everything. Not good.

I had thought things through enough when placing the container that I had about four inches of drop between the back end and the door. This meant the water drained toward the door rather than back to the cardboard target boxes and the chemicals. It destroyed one cardboard box that had stuff that was essentially immune to moisture like tie-wraps, wires, and bungee cords. But because of the lack of venting the water was migrating to all interior surfaces as the temperature cycled. All because I had not thought through the consequences of not having a vent in the winter simultaneous with a roof leak.

I think I caught it soon enough that it didn’t do any serious damage. One mixer was acting strange but I think I can fix it.

I fixed the roof leak and removed the plug from the vent. Then I put a tarp over the “drop zone” for the snow that might blow in through the vent.

WP_000527Corrected

I’ll inspect again when Barb L. and I go back for a visit later this month.

Charge imbalance

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WP_000525_2Web2013

The contents of the cottage cheese container is Boomerite surrounding a cardboard tube containing glass frit around a copper bar. The bottom of the cardboard tube makes contact with the bottom of the cottage cheese container.

Take a guess which direction the bar will travel when the Boomerite detonates.

IMG_3965Web2013

If you guessed slightly up and to the right you would be correct. See the red circle in the picture above.

The backstory is that Ry was trying to make a piece of art. It was mostly a failure.

IMG_3979Corrected

Next time it will be a five gallon bucket instead of a three pound cottage cheese container. Oh, and we will be about 250 yards away so Ry won’t have to worry about it coming out of orbit on top of him.

IMG_3977Corrected

A zombie outbreak in Moscow Idaho

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Via email from Mike B. we have a letter from the mayor and city council of Moscow Idaho advocating for a kitchen sink full of gun restrictions including an “assault weapon” ban, magazine restrictions, ballistic fingerprinting, armor piercing ammo ban, explosives ammo ban, recording ammo sales, mandatory safe storage, waiting periods, elimination of private sales, restricting the number of firearms purchased in a given time period, and all guns be sprinkled with fairy dust daily.

It appears the zombie infection broke out far from the front lines. Don’t worry. We know how to handle it.

Gun cartoon of the day

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FeelSafeNow

The only thing demonstrated by this cartoon is the artist does not have a clue about the issue, nomenclature, or the scale of various firearms.