Quote of the day—Sean D. Sorrentino

You heard it here first folks, Peterson Syndrome.

Sean D. Sorrentino
October 13, 2010
Comment to Why ignorant people should never make law
[This was in response to a comment of mine in the same thread about Joan Peterson of the Brady Campaign and her mental defect.—Joe]

500 per year?!

Via Sebastian we have this bit of nonsense:

Justice Department legal adviser Amid Torres told lawmakers during a public hearing last week that the agency would submit amendments to the weapons law to La Fortaleza that reflect the jurisprudence established by the nation’s top court in McDonald vs City of Chicago this summer. In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court cast doubt on handgun bans in the Chicago area, but signaled that some limitations on the U.S. Constitution’s “right to keep and bear arms” could survive legal challenges.

Puerto Rico will have to ease its stringent firearms code in relation to the acquisition and possession of guns for self-defense.

Torres said the measures will include a requirement that shooting ranges keep logs of how much ammunition their members use and cap the number of bullets each client can fire in target practice at 500 per year.

I’ve gone through this many rounds in an hour of practice. There are very few firearms classes that I have taken which used this few of rounds. This is like telling a journalist they may only publish five articles a year.

A specific enumerated right that is limited to, at best, exercise only one weekend per year cannot stand.

I’ve got a better idea. How about governments can repeal as many laws as they want but they can only enact five laws per year?

Quote of the day—Simone Weil

Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.

Simone Weil
[There was once a time, not so long ago, where people could not choose marriage partners where the skin color didn’t match. In most state people still can’t marry if the genders do match. This is not liberty.

The government in many states forbids the use of noise suppressors on firearms but requires their use on cars. This is not liberty either.—Joe]

Dino Rossi for US Senate

Last Wednesday Senate Candidate Dino Rossi came to Microsoft and I went to listen to him talk and answer questions. I thought he did quite well. The Microsoft crowd has a strong tendency to be liberal. And his incumbent opponent has been considered the most liberal in the U.S. Senate. And as Rossi pointed out that when she has admitted socialists and people like Nancy Pelosi for competition in that contest that says a lot about her. The crowd was polite and listened. Almost his entire point was the financial crisis our country is in. His credentials are a degree in business with successful business ventures as proof. Then he took the lead in getting Washington state’s budget balanced several years ago.

When someone asked what he would do about the tax penalty that the questioner and his partner (it was worded such that it was pretty clear they were a homosexual couple) suffer that married couple don’t. Rossi had what seemed to be a satisfactory answer. He said he hadn’t really thought about it but he certainly would if it came up. And that it is rare that he would turn down an opportunity to reduce taxes so the chances are probably good that he would support something like that.

He didn’t mention guns at all. It’s probably just as well—particularly in that venue. He should let others tell that story. Here is an example of what his opponent says about guns. No one has ever accused her of being smart.

Here is what the NRA has to say about Rossi:

Update: I just heard a survey result on the radio. Rossi leads by 1%. In a state where King County (the Seattle area which is very liberal) sometimes reports more votes than registered voters this isn’t a big enough lead. Even in a fair election this margin is in the noise. We need to increase the margin. People will start voting in a few days (everyone votes by mail in Washington State) and the time is now to help Dino Rossi. See also the comment here from Boyd.

Quote of the day—Kevin Baker

I think it might behoove you to get some psychiatric help. Work on your bigotry, your fear of firearms, your self-control issues, and your curious fixation on things penile. Also your hatred of your fellow man. If you don’t, you might end up strapping on a firearm and calling out an 80-year-old a**hole who might blow your penis off with his .45 in self-defense.


Trust me, I know some old guys who can SHOOT.


Kevin Baker
October 11, 2010
Proprietor, http://smallestminority.blogspot.com
[It was almost exactly four years ago in Reno when I articulated my assertion to a collection of bloggers that we needed to change our attitude in regards to our status as gun owners. Kevin was there when I gave my little speech. I didn’t get any disagreement but I’m not sure that many people agreed with me either. I said some things that I think were a little alien to them:



When you post on a gun rights issues, when you write your letter to the editor, your congressman, or your senator you have to have the proper state of mind. Never forget that the anti-gun bigots are the KKK of the 21st Century. Look for opportunities to make that point. Make belonging to the Brady Campaign the equivalent of a membership in the KKK because it’s true.


Today this one bigot got not only the attention of my blog and several gun forums but the attention of other bloggers in addition to Kevin who explained to this guy that he was being a bigot far better than I did. I would also like to give special attention Linoge for properly pointing out that this particular bigot is another example of Markley’s law.


It all brings a smile to my face.


Update: More bloggers piling on the bigot meme with this guy:



Social pressure and shame is what it is going to take to push the gun control agenda completely off the table and into the dustbin of history. Let’s keep it up.—Joe]

Reasoned Discourse

Via Ry we find more Reasoned Discourse:



They pretty much confirmed my attitudes about gun-toters.
My OS postings rarely get feedback, so I wondered why so many comments showed up in just a day or two.
That’s when Google found this thread:
http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/showthread.php?81683-Blog-post-from-an-AZ-anti
Yikes.
My personal blog is mirrored here at OS, and I don’t allow comments there, so they actually tracked me down here.
It looks like they cruise the web, trying to pick fights.
So I’ve closed the comments here at Open Salon.
It’s sad, but I certainly don’t want to engage with people like them.


“People like them”? If I didn’t know better from that line I would think he was talking about people with different colored skin or homosexuals.


I guess he doesn’t understand the failure of censorship in an Internet world; but then bigots are seldom bright.

Random thought of the day

Whenever some anti-gun advocate says something to the effect that people carrying their personal defensive tools are trying to live out a fantasy and they would never be able to use them in a real situation anyway we should invite them to play a game of laser tag to confirm their claims in regards to a mass shooting situation.

Arm about 10% of the potential victims and then let the anti-gun bad guy see how far they can make it as they try to play “postman” in the mall, schoolroom, or crowded health club. Repeat without the potential victims being armed. Compare the results and then discuss which scenario played out better for the potential victims.

If they refuse to play then tell them they are living a fantasy and are unwilling to gather and process factual data.

10:10 10/10/10

This day is supposed to be some sort of special environmental day. But “no pressure”. They will just blow you up and splatter your body parts all over the room if you don’t go along with their agenda.


As the UK’s Telegraph says, “The environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness.”


I see.


I would like for the environmental movement to know that they aren’t the only ones with explosives. And guns. Don’t forget the guns. And also, I have earth moving equipment. If needed I can bury bodies very, very deep.


So, with that in mind some friends and I went out and did a little practicing.


First we dug up the dirt. This was the first time Barron had driven a bulldozer. Here he porpoises through the dirt but later he was doing fine.





Here is the end result (after I smoothed things out):


IMG_3767Web2010IMG_3765Web2010IMG_3761Web2010


As you can see there is room for lots of bodies should the environmentalist get as aggressive as they are threatening to do. And not only can we dig up the earth to dispose of their bodies but we could use the mounds of dirt over their bodies to use as shooting positions when we release more CO2 into the air when invite lots of people to shoot at explosives.


Here we set off some explosives, releasing CO2 into the air, with guns which also release CO2:





And we smiled as we did it (and don’t fail to notice the big, fuel guzzling, pickup):


WP_000004

Quote of the day–John Philpot Curran

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

John Philpot Curran
Speech upon the Right of Election for Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1790.
[Curran is also credited with “Evil prospers when good men to nothing.” as is Edmund Burke. But the quote cannot be definitely traced to either man.

This also reminds me of the quote which is most frequently attributed to the ACLU, “Liberty is always unfinished business.”

We see the effect of this truism all around us. “The active” are those who believe government is far more than a necessary evil (as I do). They believe it is a tool of good if not the source of all good. Hence they urge it on, run for office, and declare themselves “leaders” instead of public servants.—Joe]

Quote of the day—D.H. Lawrence

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.

D.H. Lawrence
[Some say we are quickly approaching the slave state. Others say we have already arrived.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Daniel Webster

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

Daniel Webster
[And it continues to this day.—Joe]

Just in time for Christmas

It’s a pink pistol from Olympic Arms:


OlypicArmsWhitneyWolverine


The also have pink furniture for your AR (currently on the main page; I couldn’t find the details):


OlympicArmsPinkAR

Helping them blow a fuse

I would just like to point out that the anti-gun bigots get all fired up, sputter, and generally blow a fuse and end up changing the subject when confronted with the most innocent of things. A case in point is this picture (available for sale here):

GirlsJustWannaHaveGuns

It reminds me of the racists who get all bent out of shape if they see a black man holding hands or expressing affection with a white woman.

What’s the problem with these people? Oh yeah, I remember now. They are bigots.

The media isn’t all hostile to guns

I’m almost parroting what Kevin said but it’s important to know that you can get good media coverage of guns and gun owners if you have a good story to tell and present yourself well.

Mr. Completely demonstrates how it is done on the Seattle television station, KING.

A few years ago the same station did a great job with Boomershoot.

Quote of the day—Ludwig Boerne

The difference between Liberty and liberties is as great as between God and gods.

Ludwig Boerne
Fragmente and Aphorismen (1840)
[From The Great Thoughts (link is to the 2nd Edition, mine is the 1st Edition–1985)

I think this captures why “they” don’t get it when we say, “We don’t have Liberty.” “They” look as us funny and tell us, “You have lots of liberties.”—Joe]

Random thought of the day

Anyone who tries to tell me about the virtues of things being “natural” had better be wearing their birthday suit if they don’t want to be mocked. 

Quote of the day—Ray Ash

how funny, two $6k rifles, two $2k rifles, $1k ammo, $1.5k worth of travel expenses going to the boomershoot, a week off work, lost $800 in winnemucca on the way up . . so about $500.00 worth of targets ??? . . i’ll get back to you and let you know how many we can make out of a sheet . . and those are my expenses, there are four of us in my truck…

Ray Ash
Via email on October 4, 2010
[Ray offered to make some steel targets for Boomershoot at no charge and asked how many I wanted. I said:

Free wouldn’t be right.

An equal quantity of Pepper Poppers and Mini-Poppers coming to a total of ~$500.

He thought what I said was funny. He could be right about that even though I didn’t intend it to be.—Joe]

Only Tamara could capture it so well

Wow!

That really does capture it:

All this is, is a text-adventure first-person-shooter. Zork meets Counterstrike.

Quote of the day—Wikipedia, Shaped charge

Most of the jet formed moves at hypersonic speed. The tip moves at 7 to 14 km/s, the jet tail at a lower velocity (1 to 3 km/s), and the slug at a still lower velocity (less than 1 km/s). The exact velocities are dependent on the charge’s configuration and confinement, explosive type, materials used, and the explosive-initiation mode. At typical velocities, the penetration process generates such enormous pressures that it may be considered hydrodynamic; to a good approximation, the jet and armor may be treated as incompressible fluids, with their material strengths ignored.

Wikipedia, Shaped charge
Emphasis added.
Found while Wikiwandering from a link at Roberta’s.
[“… may be treated as incompressible fluids, with their material strengths ignored”! That statement makes me light-headed and weak at the knees. The “7 to 14 km/s” doesn’t hurt either.

7 km/s is about 23,000 feet per second. Your .220 Swift is considered a very zippy cartridge but it only gives you about 4,100 feet per second at the muzzle. Hence a shaped charge gives you velocities 5 to 10 times that of a .220 Swift at the muzzle. This is considered high-hypersonic to re-entry speeds.

I have books on computer simulation of shaped charges. I really need to write the software then do some field testing. Supposedly it is pretty easy to punch through three feet of reinforced concrete. I have some large rocks out in the middle of some fields I’d like to experiment with.—Joe]

Windows Phone 7

According to USA Today Windows Phone 7 is launching on October 11:

It’s about to be put up or shut up time for Microsoft in mobile. On October 11, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets CEO Ralph de la Vega will be conducting a New York City press conference to spill the beans on the widely anticipated Windows Phone 7 smartphones.

I’m looking forward to being able to buy my own Windows Phone 7. The engineering development hardware I’ve been carrying around for the last year always seems to have something wrong with it that “will be fixed before it’s released”. Some had great sound and camera but poor Wi-Fi reception. Others had great Wi-Fi but poor GPS reception. It was good enough for development but now I’m ready for the real thing.

I know some people that need a new phone for Christmas too. It’ll be awesome.


Full disclosure: I work for Microsoft on the Windows Phone 7 project.