The only thing a gun is good for is taking it out of the hand of the idiot owner and knocking some sense into him/her.
askwhynot
April 14, 2011 at 12:32PM
Comment to Ohio Senate passes bill allowing concealed weapons in bars and restaurants.
[Such a narrow mind in so many ways.—Joe]
Yesterday I received an email from Josh Horwitz at Coalition to Stop Gun Violence:
Recognize VA Tech Anniversary by Saying “NO GUNS ON CAMPUS!”
As many of you know, April 16 will mark the fourth anniversary of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. This weekend will be a time for survivors to remember their lost loved ones and pay tribute to their lives, and for America to reflect on the causes and meaning behind this horrific tragedy.
While the Virginia Tech families have emerged as some of the strongest proponents of tougher gun control laws, the gun lobby has exploited the massacre to push extreme legislation that would force colleges and universities to allowing the carrying of loaded firearms on their campuses. Such NRA-drafted bills are now being considered in 18 different states.
Today, Friday, April 15, the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus is recognizing the fourth anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings by conducting a National Call-In Day.
Please call your governor today and ask him/her to oppose guns on campus legislation in your state. If you are in a state with no pending guns on campus legislation, please call and ask your governor to oppose any future attempts to force colleges and universities to allows guns on campus. To find the phone number for your governor, just click here.
Thank you in advance for participating in this important action. If we are to build a safer future for our children, keeping guns out of the classroom is a must.
What Horwitz doesn’t say is that Virginia Tech had rules against guns on campus and it didn’t stop the shooter. There were also laws against murder which didn’t stop the shooter either. The only thing that would have stopped the shooter was another person with a gun. This was, in fact, the response of the police dispatch when they got the call about an active shooter on campus. They sent people with guns to confront the shooter. But they took a few minutes to arrive and of course they were much too late to stop the carnage.
Yet Horwitz want to “build a safer future” by ensuring that all campuses have the same policy in place that enable the shooter at Virginia Tech to be “successful”. Had Virginia Tech not had such a policy and the shooting took place it would almost make sense (there would still have been the law against murder in force) for his call to action. But that wasn’t the case. He is advocating for the proliferation of a policy proven to fail and uses an instance of failure as a reason for a call to action. Huh?
I shouldn’t be surprised. Again (and again just today!) the anti-gun people demonstrate they have nothing but crap for brains.
Recently I’ve been very busy with work and Boomershoot 2011 prep. Here is a partial list of the Boomershoot stuff I have done in the last week:
This weekend I’m going to add some code to my Boomershoot management software to send email to people that have signed up for spectator announcements, order more staff t-shirts, compute the number of targets to be made, allocate targets to various target areas, and print the badges.
It seems like there was some other stuff too, but that is most of it. Ten days from now it gets really busy as many of those items and others are prepared for being reduced to their molecular components in rapidly expanding clouds of water vapor and CO2 amid yells of joy.
If you made it through all that boring stuff above here is a reward; Barron has been posting Boomershoot pictures every day on his blog:
With the good guys marching down the field like this it is understandable that Brady Center Senior Attorney Daniel Vice (what a wonderful name for a gun banner, it ranks right up there with anti-gun researcher professor Bogus ) would have been living in a cave for the last three years. But surely even from the deepest, darkest, rat infested hole that Mr. Vice could have found he would have heard about the McDonald case before he spoke to the local radio station:
Vice says more than 350 lawsuits have been filed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v Heller in 2008 that the Second Amendment allows an individual to possess a gun in his or her home for self-defense.
Vice says none of the previous suits has been successful because courts don’t want guns going to dangerous people.
Of course it could be that it was not through ignorance but willful misrepresentation that particular bit of untruth was uttered. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time people with the Brady’s lied about something.
The claim of the advocates that banning these 19 types of “assault weapons” will reduce the crime rate is laughable. (The term itself is priceless: What are all the other guns in America’s home arsenal? Encounter weapons? Crime-enabling devices?) Dozens of other weapons, the functional equivalent of these “assault weapons,” were left off the list and are perfect substitutes for anyone bent on mayhem.
…
In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea, though for reasons its proponents dare not enunciate.
Charles Krauthammer
April 5, 1996
Disarm the Citizenry. But not yet
Originally in The Washington Post on April 5 1996. The above link is in the Seattle Times from April 8, 1996.
[See also another QOTD extracted from this article.—Joe]
Paraphrasing just a little…
Joe: So what is the Tea Party protest sign you were talking about with James and Xenia?
Barb: Xenia is going to carry one that says, “Refresh the tree of liberty.”
Joe: That’s a little over the top. I wouldn’t carry one like that.
Barb: It was John’s idea.
Joe: Xenia’s a big girl and can make her own decisions. That she is a young woman and John is in the military helps some.
Barb: I wonder what sign they will make for me.
Joe: Probably it will be something like, “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”
Here is a picture of son James and daughter Xenia at the protest in Olympia Washington today:
Inflation is taxation without legislation.
Milton Friedman
[I was reminded of this by David and it being April 15th.—Joe]
The Brady Campaign has a new video and web site about “assault clips” (yes, I put the “nofollow” tag on that link). In addition to the obvious ignorant use of the words “assault” and “clip” the shooter has a very poor grip on the gun. His left thumb is in danger of needing a bandage and/or stitches. And his left index finger is doing nothing.
Furthermore the narrator and text of the website talk of 32 shots in 16 seconds. But I only count 16 (or maybe 17) shots in 4 seconds. And of course the claim is that “A magazine that allows a gun to fire 32 rounds in 16 seconds is only good for one thing. Killing a lot of people–fast.” Is totally bogus.
In the following video I shot 17 rounds in 7.5 seconds including a magazine reload and a malfunction clearance. I then go on to shoot a total of 36 rounds in 16.02 seconds—still with 10 rounds in my magazines.
If one were to accept the Brady Campaign claim that “a magazine that allows a gun to fire 32 rounds in 16 seconds is only good for one thing” then 10 round magazines must be only good for killing a lot of people fast too. Hence, I must inevitably must conclude one of three things about the magazines in my guns which hold more 10 or more rounds:
The use of Occam’s Razor should reveal the correct answer.
I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.
President Obama
March 30, 2011
Over a barrel? Meet White House gun policy adviser Steve Croley
[This was a comment to Sarah Brady as she remembers it. I don’t know if this was accurately related and a serious comment or a platitude from an expert politician. Certainly Obama has the background to qualify this as extremely serious but actions speak louder than words and from the Brady Campaign viewpoint his actions have been minimal at best.
He and his administration deserves to be watched very, very closely.
H/T to Dave Hardy.—Joe]
America’s foreign policy is like a large friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.
Arnold Toynbee
[Toynbee died in 1975 but I see no recent evidence sufficient to correct that observation.—Joe]
I received this email from BulkAmmo.com yesterday:
Hi there,
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Steve
BulkAmmo.com
I carry this same exact round for my self-defense needs.
This does appear to be a pretty good price so I ordered 500 rounds for my own use.
Shoot as fast as you can hit, but no faster.
John Farnam
[This is attributed to Farnam in a gun email list I subscribe to. I have been unable to verify it but it is consistent with other things I have heard attributed to him.
This is good advice for most gun games and in nearly all instance of self-defense.—Joe]
We are disappointed the legislature focused on this issue when there are bigger issues like assault weapons, and universal background checks at gun shows,
Michael Martin
Washington Ceasefire member
March 29, 2011
State Senate approves use of gun ‘silencers’
[That’s just the way we like for Washington Ceasefire members to be, “Disappointed”.
I wonder what Martin did when he found out Governor Gregoire signed the bill into law today? Sobbing uncontrollably works for me too.—Joe]
At one point after your quote the female judge tries– for about the sixth or seventh time– to remind the city’s attorney that the injury is not the travel to a gun range but the complete ban on their existence, and she states, “The City requires this as a component of ownership but prohibits a citizen from getting that training without leaving the city. How do they even think that’s rational?” She obviously doesn’t speak to gun-grabbers much. Rationality has nothing to do with the argument!
Chiefjaybob
April 10, 2011
Comment to Quote of the day—City of Chicago Attorney.
[Agreed. Those of us on “the front line” for years are used to it but you could tell the judge was getting increasingly frustrated with the guy. And the attorney would repeatedly say things like (paraphrasing) , “We have the power to regulate, such as zoning, so this ban is just a simple exercise of our power to regulate.” This would tick the judge off even more. I think the judge was nearly to the point she would have slapped him and walked off had it been a one-on-one private discussion.
If I had been doing the questioning I would have asked him since the city had the power to regulate and zone did the city also claim the power to ban all mosques, synagogues, and churches within the city? Just as theists regularly attend their place of worship a gun range is where gun owners go to exercise their “religion”.—Joe]
Yeah. I meant to do that.
Not!
Where people are known to gather with guns can be attractive to criminals.
City of Chicago Attorney
April 4, 2011
Starting at about 29:15 in the recording of the oral arguments.
[I couldn’t quite figure out what the attorney’s name was perhaps it was “Feldman”. But that doesn’t matter as much as he represented Chicago and that he and probably others that wrote the Chicago brief had never been to a gun range yet proclaimed they knew enough to justify banning them in the city.
I question the factual basis of the above assertion and even if it were conceded as a fact that would not be sufficient grounds to infringe upon the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Using the same logic as above they could also ban parking lots because they can attract car thieves, grade schools because they can attract child molesters, and banks because they can attract robbers. I view the statement above just as bigoted as saying places where people with dark skin loiter attracts an illegal drug trade hence those kind of people are not allowed to loiter on public streets.
It was very pleasant to hear the attorney get slapped around pretty hard by two of the judges.
H/T to Sebastian and David Hardy.—Joe]
Grinnell said he expected to have to leave his weapon with security officers when he went into the Capitol. But when he told one of the officers that he was carrying a concealed weapon, Grinnell said they simply recorded his concealed-carry permit information and gave him a red sticker to wear, signifying he had a gun.
I would view such a sticker as a sign that says, “Shoot Me First!”
As David Hardy says, “Brady Campaign might as well surrender…”
Just look at the number of views of their YouTube videos. Videos they posted 10 hours ago have received four, six, and nine views. For videos that have been posted for a week they have an average of 107 views.
That isn’t even a “friends and family” viewing rate. Maybe they don’t have any friends, just family.
I’m very concerned about the open carry movement. It seems to be expanding.
Suzanne Verge
Of the Los Angeles chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
April 6, 2011
LA City Council support ban on openly carrying guns
[Open carry as a political protest in California is the social equivalent of a gay pride march in front of Fred Phelps church. The immediate benefits are questionable and you shouldn’t expect to make many friends in the process.
In terms of firearms Suzanne Verge is the equivalent of a minor official in Phelps’ church and as shown above responds in an analogous manner.—Joe]
Robb and Barron have posts on government lists. For some reason the only thing I could think of to add was this quote.