Author Archives: Joe

Markley’s law Monday—video

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It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

As Phil said:

That 3 minutes has the highest concentration of stupid I’ve seen in a video in quite a long time. The female co-host has absolutely no idea of what she is saying. I have more knowledge of how perming solution works than she does about firearms and the laws governing firearms. The male cohost Markley’s himself within just a few sentences.

I love it that they keep doing this sort of thing. It demonstrates they are out of “ammunition” in the fight. They are way beyond bringing a knife to a gun fight like they used to. Now they are just spitting at us.

Quote of the day—Mitt Romney

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I believe the next president could indeed have the opportunity to shape the Court for decades to come, and that’s a key reason why the tens of millions of Americans who support the NRA should support my candidacy. My view of the Constitution is straightforward: Its words have meaning. The founders adopted a written constitution for a reason. They intended to limit the powers of government. The job of a judge is to enforce the Constitution’s restraints on government and, where the Constitution does not speak, to leave the governance of the nation to its elected representatives. I believe in the rule of law, and I will appoint wise, experienced and restrained judges who take seriously their oath to discharge their duties impartially in accordance with our Constitution and our laws—not their personal policy preferences.

Mitt Romney
September 11, 2012
NRA’s Chris Cox Goes One On One With Governor Mitt Romney
[If you can ever really be reassured by something a politician says what Romney says in this interview is about as reassuring to gun owners as you can get.—Joe]

Boomershoot article in GunDigest

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I got a call on Friday from someone wanting to interview me for an article in GunDigest about Boomershoot. Cool!

A couple hours later I received an email with a link to the online article.

A quote from the article:

The concept of Boomershoot is simple. First, you shoot a target. Then the target explodes.

Quote of the day—Galen

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Gideon: I thought you said you never hold a grudge.
Galen: Well, I don’t. I have no surviving enemies… at all.

Galen is a Technomage which is a character in the Babylon 5 spinoff Crusade.
[I love this type of humor.—Joe]

Classifier special at Lewiston Pistol Club

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From the Lewiston Pistol Club (Idaho):

Hi all,

We’ll be holding a USPSA classifier special in the top three bays of the BP Memorial Range on Saturday, October 13 from 9 to around 2.  The lower (Cowboy) bay will be available as usual.

The Classifier Special is mostly to the advantage of new USPSA members looking to establish their class (A, B, C, etc.) but is available to anyone who wants to try their skill against well designed, really aggravating pistol stages (lots of no-shoots, small target areas, etc). 

We will shoot five USPSA classifiers over the course of the day.  The classifiers will be chosen to test all three facets of DVC – “Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas” (accuracy, power and speed for those not current on dead languages).  I’ll probably take 200 rounds and bring half home.  Total minimum round count is 64.

In case you’re curious, diagrams for all available classifiers can be seen here: http://www.uspsa.org/uspsa-classifier-list.php

The cost of the special will be $15, all of which goes to the USPSA.  For this event only, re-shooting a classifier will cost $5 per re-shoot. 

Thanks,

John Grimes

LPC Action Director

Barron and I will be there.

Quote of the day—George MacDonald Fraser

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When my views were first published in book form in 2002, I was not surprised that almost all the reviewers were unfavourable. I had expected that my old-fashioned views would get a fairly hostile reception, but the bitterness did astonish me.

I had not realised how offensive the plain truth can be to the politically correct, how enraged they can be by its mere expression, and how deeply they detest the values and standards respected 50 years ago and which dinosaurs like me still believe in, God help us.

George MacDonald Fraser
January 5, 2008
The last testament of Flashman’s creator: How Britain has destroyed itself
H/T Tamara.
[Fraser discovered the same thing pro-rights people have. Liberals appear to be violent by nature.—Joe]

Why are liberals so violent?

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From the comments on BuzzFeed:

Haha. Seriously though, I hope Biden rips off Paul Ryan’s head tonight and shits down his throat. Literally. I mean, that’s just good TV.

Why are liberals so violent?

Oh yeah! Now I remember.

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Sometimes I suspect the TV people of deliberately attempting to inculcate superstition in the viewing public; then I realize they’re quite serious about putting chicken bones through their noses, if less so about the Deep Meaning of it all. That, they leave for the passive, receptive blobs on the other side of the screen and there’s nothing we can do about them.

Roberta X
October 11, 2012
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12;
Or
The Superstitions Of Primitives
[While I have some disagreement about there being “nothing we can do about them” she has a valid point about the superstition of people. The older I get the more evidence I see presented that there is little more than a thin veneer of rationality and civilization over a subset of the human population. The rest has no veneer. You don’t even have to watch the idiot box, as Roberta did, to gather the evidence. I haven’t had an actual powered on television set in my home in at least 10, if not 15, years now yet I have the following examples from other sources:

  • A software engineer that is certain witches can animate a corpse sufficiently that it could be made to “hop down the road to another city for burial” such that the family wouldn’t haven’t pay the higher cost for transportation by conventional means.
  • A PhD mathematician who insisted digital computers were not deterministic. She told me it was a proven fact that if you ran the same program on different computers all solving the same problem they would come up with different answers. I was tempted to point out she was a Mac user but decided her problems went much deeper than that.
  • A senior government scientist who proclaimed he could diagnose injuries and illness by looking at the iris of a person.
  • Racism.
  • Communism.
  • Most anti-gun people.

That doesn’t include any of the people I have seen having an animated conversation with a power pole (in the dark ages before cell phones) or an empty seat on the other side of the bus (no cell phone present and the police were eventually called to remove her from the bus).—Joe]

My dream is coming true

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Via Dave Hardy.

In 2010 The Brady Campaign reported they net assets or fund balances of -$768,643. Yes, they had net negative assets of over three quarters of a million dollars.

Their assets have been in the red since 2008 and my guess is 2011 and 2012 have not been any better for them. Total revenues in 2008 were 4.1 million compared to 2.8 million in 2011. They would do better if they went to the gun ranges and picked up just one piece of discarded brass from each gun owner in the country each year.

It’s no wonder the Brady Campaign put Helmke and his $250K/year salary out to pasture.

My dream is coming true.

Quote of the day—Thomas

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When I go into prepper mode (which I occasionally do), some colleague will say, “Oh. I’ll just come to your house.” After I push back the bile, I usually say something tasteful like, “Bring your daughter.”

Thomas
October 9, 2012
Comment to Guest Post: Four Alternative Stores Of Value
[Similar thoughts have come to my mind as well but I had never found the words to express them so well.

If I put a bunch of effort and money into making life possible for myself and my family in an extreme hardship situation and you just assumed you could mooch off of me if you ever needed to then if such circumstance came about you are going to be surprised at the price you pay for a handful of lentils and cup of clean water.—Joe]

Boomershoot video from ESS

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ESS attended Boomershoot 2012 and spent a lot of time recording video. They released another video, Volume 1 (Volume 5 was released earlier for some reason):



See also the ESS blog post about the Boomershoot videos where they say:



Commemorating our adoption by the shooting sports community and as a fun forward-step in working together with civilian as well as military shooters, ESS is proud to announce the release of its new video series, Boomershoot!


Filmed at the near-legendary, totally-incendiary shooting event in northern Idaho, ESS shooter, U.S. National Rifle Team (Palma Division) member, and “30 Cal Gal” Anette Wachter together with friend Shelley Rae (Western Shooting Journal /gun blogger) were among the many in attendance. In this exclusive video series, Annette and Shelley demonstrate their passion for shooting while having an explosive time, and in doing illustrate quite nicely that ESS eye pro fits women as well as it fits men.


Video installments in this series will show high-powered guns in action, exploding targets, behind-the-scenes footage, and more.


ESS makes good stuff. They gave me a couple pair of their glasses and I use them whenever I need eye protection or even sunglasses.


H/T to Barron.

Quote of the day—Kristophr

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Joe is one of the moderates who would give him the choice of being disarmed.

I, on the other hand, would strip him of his right to vote for not meeting his militia duties. And make him get a permit to NOT carry, and put him in a public database to shame him for his moral cowardice.

And make him pay double sales tax to fund the additional police protection he requires.

Kristophr

October 9, 2012

Comment to Quote of the day—JMMII.

[Kristophr is right. I’ve gotten soft in my old age. In the past I have advocated for the Swiss system where you cannot vote unless you periodical qualify on the rifle range. Assuming someone does not point out a constitutionality problem that I have overlooked I have no serious objections to implementing a system such as advocated by Kristophr.

I’m currently reading Lone Star Planet and expect to get some ideas from the book. Perhaps that will help me regain my edge.

Thank you Kristophr for pointing out how soft I am. I’ll try to maintain a sharper edge in the future.—Joe]

The clock is ticking

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This is basically rehashing what I already said on Twitter but there is some new material.

Saturday morning I got a call from son James. It was to tell me that his wife, Kelsey, is pregnant. I was sort of expecting something “soon” when I made this post but didn’t officially know anything.

As I replied to Barron on Twitter, “Now the clock is ticking.” We have about 10, maybe 15, years to make full auto firearms readily accessible and to drive the Brady Campaign into bankruptcy and/or total politically oblivion.

I think it’s doable. Won’t you help make my dream come true? It’s for the children.

Don’t you just hate it

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Yesterday I reported someone to law enforcement in the country where their email originated from. It might have been entirely innocent but an email out of the blue asking about “assessing the effects of an explosive on people (primary blast effects, in particular), property & environment.” sends up all kinds of warning flags for me.

I hate getting those emails even worse than spam.

Experienced shooter report

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Late last month I went to a USPSA match in Renton. I expected I would be in the situation of not knowing anyone there. And even if I did recognize a face or two I figured the odds of shooting in the same squad as them would be rather low. I was extremely pleased to see Anette and Charles unpacking their gear from their vehicle as I parked. As I was signing up a little later I saw Shelley Rae! We all ended up shooting in the same squad. Also a pleasure was that Lisa Munson was in our squad as well. I didn’t offer her any shooting advice this time.

It has been several years since I shot at Renton and looking at the first stage we shot it all came back to me. These guys design some tough stages! I racked up 190 points in penalties. Most of those were for misses. In one stage I couldn’t find two targets. In another stage I shot 51 points but got 50 points in penalties! In another stage I thought I shot it really well then found out that I had completely overlooked a fault line and shot two targets while faulting. I hadn’t even seen the fault line in the walk-through. The targets weren’t that hard to get but I had done it with a foot completely over the line and got 40 points in penalties. I did manage to come in 6th place in one stage but that was not enough to compensate for all my errors on the other stages. And even on that stage I made a mistake but it only cost me about one second to correct it.

In Limited class I came in 19th out of 30 shooters. That was very disappointing. I need to slow down for complicated stages.

It could have been worse. The first shooter in our squad disqualified himself by breaking the 180 on the first stage within about three seconds of the buzzer going off.

Here are some pictures:

IMG_1278_2012CroppedIMG_1317_2012Cropped
Shelley Rae and Anette correctly shooting the targets I shot with one foot over the fault line.

IMG_1431_2012Cropped
Charles is taking his first step toward a new shooting position.

Examine the following pictures of Lisa Munson carefully. These pictures were taken as fast as my camera would take them in full auto mode.

IMG_1493
Notice the piece of brass falling just below her hands.

IMG_1494
In this picture another piece of brass has just been ejected and is between her slide and sight. Her arms have started to bend and her right leg has started to move.

IMG_1495
In this picture the same piece of brass that was just ejected has fallen to about 1/3 up from the bottom barrel on the left, she has her finger off the trigger, and is well into her movement to the next shooting position.

I wish I could shoot and move like a girl.

Quote of the day—JMMII

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YOU want to force everyone to HAVE to have one–preferably several with extended clips–everywhere they go. Love the avatar–I’m so impressed. What a hero. Use that for “hunting”, do you? Or only as a “substitute”?

JMMII
September 27, 2012
Comment to The NRA Surge: 99 Laws Rolling Back Gun Restrictions. H/T to Sebastian.
This is the avatar being referred to:
avatar32
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Also notice the change in definition of words. “Force” means people deciding for themselves whether to own a firearm and is a bad thing but the use of the power of government to attempt disarming everyone is apparently beneficial.

Another way to look at this is that in a battle of wits with a gun rights activists armed with facts JMMII was coming up short in the “ammunition” department and had to invoke Markley’s Law.—Joe]

New shooter report

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Late last month Max and Barb had watched part of a USPSA match I participated in. I introduced them to Anette and Charles but had not been able get to the range with them for their own trigger time.

Today I took Barb and her son Max to the range. Max had done some shooting before but not a lot. Barb said she might have shot a gun once when she was about 12 years old but couldn’t remember for certain.

WP_000308_2012Corrected
Max’s previous experience showed. This was with the Ruger Mark II from about 10 feet away.

WP_000315_2012CroppedCorrected
This is Barb’s first target. Again with the Ruger Mark II. I would include the picture of her smile but she had her eyes closed.

This was good for a first time shooter. She was having some problems with the follow through and pulling the gun low for a bit and after we got that corrected the group moved up and got a lot tighter.

One of the first things she said after shooting the first target was, “This was more fun that I thought it would be.”

WP_000323_2012Cropped
This is Max with his revolver target. He shot it single action for a couple cylinders then shot it double action. All from about 8 feet away. I was impressed. My little S&W Air-Lite only has a 3″ barrel.

WP_000333_2012CroppedCorrected
This is Barb with her revolver target. All single action. Very nice! Excellent for a new shooter.

We left a little early because the people in the next bay were shooting a .44 Magnum. It was a little unpleasant for us.

As we were driving away for lunch Max invoked Markley’s Law over the guy with the .44 Magnum. I gave them the history of Markley’s Law. They had not heard of it before which isn’t at all surprising. They hadn’t heard of Godwin’s Law either so I briefly brought them up to speed on that as well.

The next planned shooting excursion for Max and Barb is a trip to Idaho for a private Boomershoot party on the 20th of this month.

Quote of the day—Mostly Cajun

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Retire? I will probably get killed in the early battles of the coming revolution.

Mostly Cajun
January 27, 2012
Potpourri
[Via Kevin who posts about the violence in parts of Europe over the economic collapse in progress.

I can relate to this. Although I would like to think things will collapse slowly enough that I can retreat to a “bug out place” and avoid most of the bloodshed or worst case, as someone told me a few years ago, “You and I won’t have to worry about getting into an armed conflict with the government because they will pick up us on the first pass.” I would then hope I get released after the fighting, if any, is over with.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ronald Reagan

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Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

Ronald Reagan
[I’m always perplexed when people insist rights are something granted by the government. I don’t know if I’m just coming across it more or if it really is that I hear this more frequently in the last year or so. In any case it concerns me greatly.—Joe]

Outlier detection

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As Tyler Durden said, “See if you can spot the outlier in the chart below.”

SeptemberChangeNSA20-24

And after doing the seasonal adjustment:

SeptHistorical20-24

If you can detect an outlier then feel free to draw your own conclusions. Those that cannot detect any outliers probably aren’t reading this, aspire to careers as fence posts, and vote for Obama.