Author Archives: Joe

Boomershoot 2012 prep

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Almost everything went well today. I got the Wi-Fi and micro-cell working. AT&T says the micro-cell is good for about 40’. That wasn’t really going to meet my needs and I talked to the people at the AT&T store and they said it would be much further if there were no obstructions so I took a chance on it. I still had 3 bars 250 feet away which is good enough for what I need it for.

I got my tent set up and all the bedding in place.

I cleaned up the interior of Mecca a bunch. I made room for and moved a bunch of the empty crates we store the targets in to the Mecca to be filled. After being filled they will be transported to the Taj Mahal for storage.

I had hoped to get all that stuff done yesterday so basically I am taking about twice as long as I had planned to get stuff done.

The really important stuff that I need to get done before tomorrow night (other than do my regular job, “work from home” is actually going to be “work from the middle of a field”) is to get the rest of the chemicals from the Taj Mahal moved to Mecca. The weather has been great with clear skies and the today the temperature was in the low 80’s. This was probably close to a record for this day of the year. But there is a 50% chance of rain tomorrow night and I need to get those chemicals moved before the field gets muddy again.

The solar panel has been doing great. It puts out over 100 Watts (rated at 130 W) during the middle of the day and it has more than kept up with the Internet, cell, and computer power needs.

Boomershoot is looking to be good this year. There is some chance of rain but it doesn’t look nearly as bad has it has some years.

Boomershoot 2012 speaker

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As Sarah notes Paul Barrett will be speaking at the Boomershoot dinner next Saturday.

I am very pleased to have Barrett attend. He and his wife are coming all the way from New York City to attend.

You may purchase a copy of his book at the dinner and there will be a book signing after his speech.

You don’t have to be a Boomershoot participant to listen to the speaker. Speaker only tickets are $10 at the door.

Quote of the day—Braden Lynch

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We must fear a government monopoly on firearms. It is a path awash in the blood of millions and anyone who calls for bans on civilian firearms is on the side of evil.

Braden Lynch
April 21, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—Ronald Reagan
[It may be the advocates have the best of intentions but as is well know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Murphy

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Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Murphy
Murphy’s Law
[I’m at Boomershoot  Mecca and things have not gone well for me today. I spent about two hours trying to get a Nanostation 2 to act as a router and get it’s IP address from the ISP. I “bricked” the device mounted on a pole 20 feet in the air. I can probably still recover it by pushing the hardware reset button but that means bring the pole down. The pole has a solar panel and the ISP’s wireless flat panel as well as the Nanostation on it. That isn’t going to be fun. Then I tried using another Nanostation I have at ground level. I was unsuccessful so I finally drove to Moscow (1 hour each way) to get a conventional household router. That worked and I got the AT&T microcell working with one of my phones but not the other. Then just as it was getting dark I started to put up my tent. I didn’t have the poles or the stakes. I have to go back to Moscow again. I’ll return in the morning.

As Barb asks multiple times during Boomershoot, “Are you having fun yet?”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ronald Reagan

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There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism — government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it. When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people’s weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.

Ronald Reagan
Column published in Guns and Ammo (1 September 1975)
[First half via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor, the rest via Wikiquote.

As I have said before, in the 20th Century more people were murdered by their own government than by individual or even gangs of criminals. People willing to give up their arms in the false hope of the government making them more secure from common criminals are missing the big picture. We have far, far, more to fear from an overly powerful government than from common criminals. In other words the hazards of too much freedom are of much less consequence than the hazards of not enough.—Joe]

Progress

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A few years ago I went looking for material related to guns in the workplace and couldn’t find anything except “keep guns out of the workplace”.

Times have changed. Now we have classes for HR weighing both sides of the issue:

Deciding whether to ban guns in the work place is an incredibly controversial and potentially polarizing issue between employers and employees, and between ‘pro- gun rights’ versus ‘pro-gun restrictions’ advocates. But it is a decision which cannot be avoided: an employer may face potential risks if it decides to ban guns, and it may face potential risks if it decides to not ban guns. The issue is complicated by constant changes in gun laws and restrictions throughout the United States. You will learn about the latest legal developments which impact this controversy. This live audio conference shall also provide you with a strategy for making the most informed decision, in light of the law and their circumstances.

Quote of the day—Sarah Connor

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Some good things came out of that fiery inferno: By the end of the day, April 19, 1993, I was a recovering liberal, ready to bear arms.

Sarah Connor
April 19, 2012
Comment to April 19, 1993: Where were you when Waco burned?
[I have a similar story but it started a little bit earlier.

I had bought my first gun in December of 1992. It was just an SKS but it was a beginning. This was in large part because of the helplessness I felt at Ruby Ridge a few months earlier. It went down just a few miles from my home at the time and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have a firearm of any type and I had zero training.

Just the siege at Waco confirmed I was going down the necessary path. I didn’t have to wait for the outrage of the burning. The only doubts I had were whether I had started my journey soon enough and if I had enough money and time to complete it in time. In May of 1995 I got a contracting job at Microsoft that paid a lot of money and gave me easy access to high quality training and a nearby indoor range.

I was shooting USPSA matches in early 1995. I shot in a lot of steel plate and pistol league matches from 1995 through 1999. I went to my first dynamite shoot in May of 1996. I bought my STI Eagle in late 1997. I went to the USPSA Area 1 Championship in June of 1998. I won the Intermountain Tactical Rifle Championship in July of 1998. The first Boomershoot was in October of 1998. I took a class in long range precision rifle shooting in early 1999. Hundreds of people have participated in Boomershoot. They acquired the equipment and skills to hit one minute of angle targets out to 700 yards.

I and hundreds, if not thousands, are ready. It was Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban that motivated us. But what the really means is that almost for certain our equipment and skills will not be required for that method of last resort.—Joe]

Defensive gun use

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I’m glad the statute of limitations has expired on this Defensive Gun Use in Chicago.

No shots fired nor was a gun even brandished. But it qualifies as a DGU in my book. It enabled a bystander to have the confidence to get involved.

Quote of the day—Cynthia Kounaris

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There is no anti-gun group with enough money to defeat the pro-gun money. There is a lack of will and desire to confront this issue in the state and federal government and no strong anti-gun leadership from either party. The only way left to fight the gun industry is through the voices (and votes) of the American people.

Cynthia Kounaris
April 17, 2012
Guns Help People Kill People
[And the American people have spoken. NRA membership is at or near an all-time high. The NRA annual meeting this year set a new attendance record. And 68% of the American people have a favorable view of the NRA.

Ms. Kounaris, the problem for you is that there aren’t enough people on your side of the issue. And the reason you don’t have many people is in a large part because gun control advocates can’t answer Just One Question. The anti-gun groups don’t even have a way to join on their websites. They have no real membership in the sense of the pro-gun groups. It’s time to educate yourself and join one or more of the winning teams.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Honus

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Anybody openly carrying a gun into Starbucks (or anywhere else) to “make a point” or “exercise a right” is inherently unqualified to carry a weapon. This is a fundamentally improper use of a firearm.
 
Like your dick, you only take out your gun if you are prepared to use it. You don’t openly carry it into a coffee bar to scare the liberals. This identifies you as a cheap tin can that shouldn’t be allowed near anything as powerful as a Model 29 or to use the other common penis substitute, a Porsche Turbo Carrera.

Honus
March 4, 2010
Comment to Open Thread: Penis Substitutes At the Ready!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Perhaps we should replace congress

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As much as I detest people that think it is legitimate to make laws based on majority rule when it should be a matter of principle it is reassuring when the majority aligns itself with principles:

Most Americans support the right to use deadly force to protect themselves – even in public places – and have a favorable view of the National Rifle Association, the main gun-lobby group, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
The online survey showed that 68 percent, or two out of three respondents, had a favorable opinion of the NRA, which starts its annual convention in St. Louis, Missouri, on Friday.

The approval rating for Congress is currently running about 12%. I claim this is in a large part because they have no principles, only policy positions which change about as often as their dirty laundry that keeps showing up in public.

This leads me to believe the appropriate thing to do is replace congress with the Board of Directors and senior members of the NRA.

I did not know that

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With the strict gun control implemented in Mexico I did not realize the Mexican Constitution has a right to bear arms clause:

The inhabitants of the United Mexican States have a right to arms in their homes, for security and legitimate defense, with the exception of arms prohibited by federal law and those reserved for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard. Federal law will determine the cases, conditions, requirements and places in which the carrying of arms will be authorized to the inhabitants.

I would be willing to bet the Brady Campaign would almost be willing to accept a “guaranteed” right “protected” thusly. The VPC wouldn’t of course. But giving the Brady Campaign a reason to disband would be appealing.

But I’m inclined to go with the “shall not be infringed” version and have the Brady Campaign disband because we have accomplished all our goals in the U.S. and have moved on to protecting the right of people to keep and bear arms in other countries.

Quote of the day—George Bernard Shaw

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Martyrdom’ is the only way a person can become famous without ability.

George Bernard Shaw
[I wonder who he was talking about. Colin Goddard of the Brady Campaign comes to mind but the timeline doesn’t quite work.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mitt Romney

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We need a president who will stand up for the rights of hunters and sportsmen, and those seeking to protect their homes and their families. President Obama has not. I will. And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

This president is moving us away from our Founders’ vision. Instead of limited government, he’s leading us toward limited freedom and limited opportunity.

Mitt Romney
April 13, 2012
Romney touts support for gun rights at NRA

romney-AP120413035813_244x183

Photo credit: AP Photo/Michael Conroy
[Since Romney is a politician and his lips were moving I question how firmly, if at all, he believes what he says and whether he will remain true to these campaign promises. But he is saying some of the words gun owners and freedom lovers want to hear.

I want to hear that he is going to do more than play defense (“defend the rights”). I would prefer that he say something along the lines of what Newt said a short while later to the NRA (H/T to Bitter). We should be expanding the scope of the right to keep and bear arms to the rest of the world via the UN. That means a strong offense, not just defense.

For those of you who question the validity of that last sentence by Romney please see my QOTD-Barack Obama from October 28, 2008 with further info from Kevin.—Joe]

Blogging will be very light for a while

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I know I haven’t been blogging much recently. Lots of stuff going on. Tonight things came to a head.

Most of the details are going to remain private but about 6:00 PM this evening wife Barbara was served with papers at our Moscow Idaho home saying I wanted a legal separation. I stayed in the Seattle area this weekend.

About 6:20 she drove off in the Jeep I bought her for Christmas in 2010. The police and family looked for her but didn’t find her until she had totaled the vehicle and then tried to swim the Clearwater river at night. The water was probably just barely above freezing.

The police pulled her out and she is currently in the emergency room in Lewiston. Physically she is fine but will be held for 72 hours for mental observation.

Comments are closed.

Boomershoot hotel reservations

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Ry reports his room reservation he made last May at the Best Western in Orofino for Boomershoot 2012 was cancelled exactly 90 days later.

If you think you have a reservation there please check to make sure everything is still in order.

If you have lost your reservation there may be other places in town that still have rooms available. Here is a list of places with phone numbers where you can look.

Quote of the day—Sebastian

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There’s no politician in the world that wants to write off the votes of 5 to 6 million Americans out of the gate.

Sebastian
April 10, 2012
The Dreams of Bloomberg
[I’m reminded of something Chris Cox (NRA top lobbyist) said, “They don’t fear me. They fear you.”—Joe]

Why TSA explosives detection is pointless

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If the TSA were to scan for Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer (AN) they would get a very high percentage of travelers testing positive as this guy did:

An 82-year-old farmer from Brush got quite the surprise Thursday when he was briefly detained by Fort Collins-Loveland airport security after his suitcase tested positive for the chemicals used to make bombs.

Large numbers of false positives mean they have to hand examine large numbers of people. This will require far more manpower and increase the frustration with the TSA. If they don’t scan for AN then they leave a huge gaping hole in their security. Yes, AN needs something else with it to detonate. Boomerite, for example, uses Potassium Chlorate (PC) and Ethylene Glycol (EG). Scanning for either of these isn’t going to accomplish anything. PC is one of the main ingredients in matches. EG is the common automobile anti-freeze. False positives are us.

Scanning for all three, AN, PC, and EG would detect Boomerite but there isn’t anything particularly magic about those three. AN with any number of things will explode. Here is just a partial list of things I have used:

  • Aluminum powder
  • Diesel
  • Model racing fuel
  • Powdered milk
  • Powdered sugar
  • Wheat flour
  • Propylene Glycol
  • Nitromethane
  • Acetone (nail polish remover)
  • Methanol (wood alcohol)
  • Naphthalene (moth balls)

Basically anything that will burn will enable detonation of AN. So unless TSA is willing to detain and hand search every passenger that walked through their recently fertilized lawn and then ate a powdered sugar donut on the way to security there is no point in scanning for AN. Plus this assumes that a real threat would not be able to seal and clean up their explosives device and themselves sufficiently that they couldn’t get their chemical profile below the detection threshold.

Since explosives detection is pointless and they do not hand examine every passenger TSA is really nothing but A Security Theater.

RFID shielded wallet

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The NRA is selling a wallet which shields your RFID cards from being scanned.

I’m a little torn as to whether I want to get one or not. It’s very convenient to just swipe my wallet over the the scanner when I get on the bus to go to work. If I had the shielded wallet I would have to take the card out to scan it.

On the other hand Ry recently demonstrated an app for an Android phone that could scan that same card and get my public transportation history for the last 10 days.

Quote of the day—Don B. Kates Jr.

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The argument that an armed citizenry cannot hope to overthrow a modern military machine flies directly in the face of the history of partisan guerilla and civil wars in the twentieth century. To make this argument (which is invariably supported, if at all, by reference only to the American military experience in non-revolutionary struggles like the two World Wars), one must indulge in the assumption that a handgun-armed citizenry will eschew guerrilla tactics in favor of throwing themselves headlong under the tracks of advancing tanks. Far from proving invincible, in the vast majority of cases in this century in which they have confronted popular insurgencies, modern armies have been unable to suppress the insurgents. This is why the British no longer rule in Israel and Ireland, the French in Indo-China, Algeria and Madagascar, the Portugese in Angola, the whites in Rhodesia, or General Somoza, General Battista, or the Shah in Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran respectively–not to mention the examples of the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It is, of course, quite irrelevant for present purposes whether each of the struggles just mentioned is or was justified or whether the people benefitted therefrom. However one may appraise those victories, the fact remains that they were achieved against regimes equipped with all the military technology which, it is asserted, inevitably dooms popular revolt.

Perhaps more important, in a free country like our own, the issue is not really overthrowing a tyranny but deterring its institution in the first place. To persuade his officers and men to support a coup, a potential military despot must convince them that his rule will succeed where our current civilian leadership and policies are failing. In a country whose widely divergent citizenry possesses upwards of 160 million firearms, however, the most likely outcome of usurpation (no matter how initially successful) is not benevolent dictatorship, but prolonged, internecine civil war.

Don B. Kates Jr.
Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment
Michigan Law Review 82 (1983): 204-273.
[Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.

This is along the same lines as what Lyle described as the Plausible Threat.

It’s worth noting that the estimate of 160 million firearms in the U.S. was in 1983. The estimate is nearly double that now.—Joe]