Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day—cloneboy

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I often wonder how the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations can be so ignorant about guns.

Then I find myself thankful that they are because it makes their arguments so much easier to refute.

cloneboy
June 17, 2011
[Well… most of the time they don’t really have an argument. They just demand that “something be done”. But their ignorance of the subject matter does make the task of slapping them down easier. I think their ignorance is willful. They literally don’t think it matters. They just “know”. They believe things and claim their opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s. This is not true but many of them are lacking the ability to determine truth from falsity so they don’t really understand when we attempt to correct their process errors. Furthermore they don’t care that they don’t know how to determine truth from falsity. This results in us having to live on the same planet but in essentially different universes.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ted Nugent

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Does anybody not know that the most dangerous place in the world is a gun-free zone?

Ted Nugent
May 2, 2011
We must turn up the heat against ‘America hating’ Obama and the gun control lobby, says Ted Nugent
[I will admit there are some places that could be considered “gun-free zones” that are safe compared to some places where guns are allowed. But if you are talking statistical means rather than overlapping tails of particular bell curves then Nugent’s presumption is correct. And the answer is most people, including most anti-gun politicians know this. The reason the politicians continue to be anti-gun vary but none of the answers are acceptable in a free society.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Jefferson

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I ask the acceptance, by your son, of a keep-sake from me. It is an article of the tackle of a gun-man, offering the convenience of carrying the powder & shot together. I presume he is a gun-man, as I am sure he ought to be, and every American who wishes to protect his farm from the ravages of quadrupeds & his country from those of biped invaders.

Thomas Jefferson
August 15, 1816
Letter to Payne Todd.
[Every American ought to be a gun-man.

Update that to include women and it’s “case closed”.—Joe]

Nice view

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I was dreading working in downtown Seattle but the nice office with a view at least partially makes up for it.

Puget Sound is in the distance on the left:

WP_000076Web_20110615

While doing the orientation in California earlier this week I found some other things out about the company that pleased me too. It would appear they very strongly encourage innovation and the particular focus for my MSEE (communication theory) is a better match that what I first thought it would be. Plus they are looking to leverage my experience at Microsoft rather than expect me to retrain for Linux as I had feared.

One of the first things I did after getting my computer up and running was search for, find, and add myself to the company email list for the gun club. Nice!

Also a guy just down the hall from me has several targets on his desk with bullet holes in them. I haven’t talked to him yet but I expect I will before the week is over.

Any gun collectors interested in this pair?

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I’m not into collecting guns but maybe someone else out there is. Even if I were into collecting guns the sales price on these wouldn’t pass the wife test. And even worse—they don’t even shoot!

I do admire the mechanics though. That is very impressive.

Via email from K.W.

Quote of the day—Dennis R. King

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If government is the solution; Then it is highly probable that government created the problem in the first place.

Dennis R. King
2004
[Dennis is my cousin. Until yesterday it probably had been close to 20 years since I had seen him. He had framed this and put it on the wall of his home. I thought it qualified as QOTD material. Living in California with all the examples to chose from he talked at length about how messed up the government is. Frequently the rants extended to the Federal Government and Washington State government where his brother lives. I had a very pleasant visit.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Cork Graham

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Firearms are only as good or evil, or as decisive, as the one brandishing them. Yet, every week, federal, state, and city lawmakers and politicians propose a Rubik’s cube of laws diminishing the Second Amendment–laws impinge on the God-given right and responsibility of every human to self-preservation.

It’s our responsibility to remember the purity and simplicity of The Constitution. That it’s a document intended for eons based on simple truths, and though can be added to, cannot, must never, be modified to meet the whims and agendas of political fancy.

To do so is not only counter to the vision of the founders of the United States of America, it also risks our sliding further down the slope of corruption and elitism that infests the governments of Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Cork Graham
June 14, 2011
Third Culture Kid Learns Respect for the Second Amendment
Cork Graham is a former CIA paramilitary operations officer and combat photographer, who wrote the international best-selling Vietnam prison/treasure hunt memoir The Bamboo Chest.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Just say no to vaginal rejuvenation

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This creeps me out. But then I’m adverse to rubber breasts, tattoos, body piercings, and most other cosmetic body modifications. Sure, I’m okay with reconstructive surgery to repair damage due to trauma or disease but that’s not what is going on here.

The only surgical body modifications in an otherwise healthy adult for enhancing sexual enjoyment I’m comfortable with are sterilizations. But “your body and your choice” overrides my preferences.

Posted in Sex

Plaxico teaming with the Brady Campaign

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Isn’t extraordinarily odd that Plaxico would team up with the Brady Campaign? There are two basic reasons I have to conclude this:

  1. If he had a class in basic gun safety while in grade school like I did (I think it was in the 5th grade) he would have known to have used a holster. The Brady Campaign would (and do with the Eddy Eagle program) scream bloody murder if schools were to teach gun safety of any type.
  2. He went to prison after violating repressive (and probably unconstitutional) laws against carrying a firearm in public. Had these laws not been in existence he might not have gone to jail (there might still be legitimate laws against reckless endangerment or discharging a firearm inside the city limits, etc.). The Brady Campaign supports these laws.

I find this very much like a person of color married to a Caucasian getting a divorce and supporting a white separatist group after getting beat up by members of the KKK for their choice of marriage partners.

Could he have “made a deal with the devil” to get paroled early?

Quote of the day—Candice Hoeppner

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The long-gun registry is a massive Liberal policy failure and it needs to end. It makes no sense to force law-abiding individuals with firearms’ licences to register their long guns. It makes no sense to believe the registry will prevent a gun crime taking place.

Candice Hoeppner
Conservative MP
June 10, 2011
Gun registry Time to scrap it
[The problem is that liberals don’t judge their policies by the facts. They judge them by their intentions. It is as if intentions are all that matter. The “war on poverty” intended to improve the lives of the of the least “fortunate” in society but created many more “poverty stricken” people than it “lifted up”. Gun control was intended to prevent and/or fight violent crime but it enables more violent criminals to work in victim disarmament zones.

Because of their insistent on only considering intent and not results they report numbers that only reflect their views. One of the most blatant is their reporting of the “success” of the Brady Act requiring background checks. They report the total number of people prevented from purchasing a firearm. They do not report the number of people denied a firearm who should have been allowed. They do not report that violent crime rates did not improve as a result of the background checks.

As I have said before, they are either unwilling or unable to distinguish between their hypothesis and their conclusions. If Canada is able to undo the much hated long gun registry via the political process it will be something of a miracle. Outside of the U.S. it is extremely rare for repressive gun laws to be repealed without violence.—Joe]

He knows he is engaged in deception

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Jim Kessler words things so carefully that it is clear he knows the subject matter well enough to tell the truth if he wanted to:

Since 1993, we’ve had two rules for gun sales. If you buy a gun at a store, you must submit to a criminal background check. If you buy a gun from an individual at a gun show, you are exempted from the background check.

…

There is a very simple solution to this problem: Require gun sales at gun shows to follow the same rules as gun sales at gun stores.

Kessler is Senior Vice President for Policy at Third Way. It is clear his policy is to deceive the public. Gun sales at gun shows do follow the same rules as gun sales at gun stores. If you buy a gun from an individual at a gun store (or gun show, or any other place) the Feds exempt you from a background check. So why the deception? The only reason I can come up with is that the truth yields results contrary to his desired outcome. Such people should acquaint themselves with 18 USC 241. They are treading a very fine line…

Decisions, decisions

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I have an encounter with TSA this afternoon and am trying to decide which shirt to wear. The finalists have the following written on them [thoughts in brackets]:



  1. Microsoft Gun Club—Point and Click Technology [gentle prod]
  2. Exercise your freedom with rifles and explosives—Boomershoot Staff [sort of in your face about them violating basic human rights and I let them know I have the ability to realize their worst nightmare]
  3. Quality control supervisor—Mustang Ranch [While they are feeling me up I can tell them, “You are doing it wrong and I should know, I’m a professional.”]

What say ye?


Update @13:15 PDT: I had already put on the Boomershoot shirt before I made this post. I was ready to swap it out if the reactions in the comments made a good case for a different one. But it was unanimous for the Boomershoot shirt so I wore it.


I made it through the security theater without a second glance. I even used by Idaho concealed weapons permit when asked for my “government ID”.

Quote of the day—fabian_solutions

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History is on the side of progress, on the side of socialism.

fabian_solutions
June 12, 2011
Comment to American Way: Sarah Palin email frenzy backfires on her media antagonists.
[I think someone needs their anti-psychotic drugs adjusted.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Since the Violence Policy Center says:

Civilian semiautomatic assault weapons incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly. They are arguably more deadly than military versions, because most experts agree that semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and thus more lethal—than automatic fire.

And the Supreme Court says that guns in common use, such as the “assault weapons” demonized by the VPC, are constitutionally protected and cannot be banned then it follows that the VPC cannot have a logical objection to the full legalization of fully automatic firearms. Full autos are “less deadly” than the semi-autos, which are protected, so any substitution of full autos for semi-autos in the marketplace should be embraced by the VPC, right?

Quote of the day—Sarah Brady

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Michael Barnes’ stature and experience with important national and international political issues made him the inevitable choice to lead Handgun Control and the Center at this critical time. As we work towards the next generation of sensible gun laws, we need a leader with vision, with understanding and with the courage to take on the gun lobby. Michael Barnes is that leader, and I am overjoyed to welcome him to our crusade.

Sarah Brady
February 3, 2000
HANDGUN CONTROL, CENTER TO PREVENT HANDGUN VIOLENCE NAME FORMER CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL BARNES NEW CEO
[And how is that crusade working out for you Ms. Brady? And what would that “next generation of sensible gun laws” be?

I know what the pro-gun people were working on in 2000. We were working on advancing shall-issue concealed carry laws. We are almost done with that and now we are working on our “next generation of sensible gun laws”—Constitutional Carry.

My advice to the Brady Campaign is to give it up. The Constitution is on our side, the courts are on our side, and the people are on our side. Handgun Control Inc. is dead and no matter what you rename it the organization belongs in the disgraceful anti-freedom dustbin of history like the KKK, the Communist Workers Party, and American Nazi Party.—Joe]

Guns and Coffee

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I don’t even drink the stuff but I like this:

29566fedwaystarbucks_guns

Hypocrisy and failure

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As the NRA says, the Brady Campaign will say anything at anytime to get what they want:

Yesterday, however, the Brady Campaign spoke with a new enthusiasm for “states [and cities’] rights,” demanding that Congress “Let D.C. residents govern themselves,” while complaining “Every year we see members of Congress interfering with the fundamental American principle of self-government.” This nonsense follows the group’s opposition to limiting state and local power over the right to keep and bear arms through the Supreme Court’s McDonald v. Chicago decision last year.

The Brady Campaign should stop their hypocrisy and phony arguments. The notion that the group believes in the Tenth Amendment is laughable. Everyone knows that the group believes in restricting the right to keep and bear arms any way it can, with federal gun control, state gun control, local gun control, by executive regulation, by court decisions, by lawsuits designed to bankrupt gun manufacturers, and by any other means it can think of. Trying to cast itself as a defender of our country’s federal system, it only discredits itself even more than usual.

Is it that they have crap for brains or do they think everyone else is afflicted?

In other news their YouTube videos viewing statistics are telling:

  • Beau Bridges Presents the Lifetime Achievement Award to Jim & Sarah Brady: Added 1 day ago, 6 views
  • Sarah Brady at the 2011 Brady Center Gala in Washington, DC, Added 2 days ago, 10 views
  • Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi Pays Tribute to the Work of Jim and Sarah Brady, Added 3 days ago, 31 views
  • President Clinton remarks on Jim and Sarah Brady, Added 1 week ago, 86 views

Compare that to my video, Planting the Seeds for Gun Owner Rights in India , added 2 days ago with 124 views.

When some third tier, part time gun blogger in the middle of Idaho throws together a crude video of some people going shooting and gets 10 times the attention than a D.C. based organization with the ear of movie stars, the Speaker of the House, and a former U.S. president it’s a sure thing that Paul Helmke isn’t earning his 250K/year salary. They should just fold up shop or break out the Tequila while we maintain a suicide watch.

Rearden Metal Bracelet

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If there were a woman close to me that had read the book I would seriously consider buying this bracelet for them.

In other news Atlas Shrugged Part II is scheduled to be out in the fall of 2012.

Something to keep in mind

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I did not know that:

Police said a hotel worker found the guns inside a trash can around 9 a.m. and alerted police. Both guns had one round in the chamber and two in the clip.

Police called the ATF, who ran the serial number. According to the ATF and FBI, the way the gun was loaded is consistent with a professional hit.

My hypothesis is the “ATF and FBI” either didn’t say that or are just making random stuff up.

Quote of the day—Erica Goldberg

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Although some government officials may wish otherwise, protected speech is called “protected” for a reason. The courts will safeguard it at the financial peril of those who violate the Constitution. Parody cannot be criminalized, and those who create parody cannot be treated as criminals.

Erica Goldberg
June 7, 2011
Court Holds Prosecutor Personally Liable for Unconstitutional Search of Student Who Created a Parody Newsletter
[H/T Say Uncle.

Someday we need to leverage this ruling or others like it into legal action against those that violate our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]