Job opening for zero pay

The Brady Campaign has some job openings. In this bad economy more jobs is a good thing—except they don’t have any money to pay you:

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and its legislative and grassroots affiliate, the Brady Campaign and its dedicated network of Million Mom March Chapters, is the nation’s largest, non-partisan, grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence. We are devoted to creating an America free from gun violence, where all Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in our communities. We have several unpaid summer internship opportunities available:

  • Career Level:

    Student (Undergraduate/Graduate)

  • Pay Range:

    Unpaid

  • Job Function:

    Marketing

  • Job Status:

    Not Listed

  • Industry:

    Nonprofit / Charitable, Advertising / Marketing / PR

Didn’t Obama suggest mandatory “volunteer” work for everyone? Maybe the Brady Campaign is just getting with the program a little early.

I suppose it is fitting. The KKK probably doesn’t pay a lot these days either. You take a job like that because you believe in tearing down others more than enriching yourself.

Quote of the day—Neal Knox

Handgun Control Inc. has long said that the NRA leadership was out of step with the NRA membership. And HCI was right—but in exactly the opposite way from what HCI wanted to believe. For the second straight year the NRA membership has overwhelmingly elected Directors sponsored and promoted by Second Amendment Action, of which I am chairman. Last year, the members elected 11 of our 16 candidates.

This time,  in the results reported to NRA Directors today, Second Amendment Action swept every one of its 17 nominees into the 26 vacant seats on the NRA Board.

The house-cleaning assures that NRA will be taking a tougher stance in the legislative arenas.

Read the NRA election results and weep, Handgun Control, Inc. You’ve got a fight on your hands.

Neal Knox
April 13, 1992
Hardliners Sweep NRA Elections, from The Gun Rights War, pages 351 and 352.
[I love this book.

Nearly 20 years ago HCI had “long said the NRA leadership was out of step” with members. HCI was renamed “The Brady Campaign” in 2001 but they haven’t changed their rhetoric. They still claim the NRA is an extremist organization that does not represent its members. But if you read the blogs and the forums you will find far, far, more people critical of the NRA for not being aggressive enough than you will find those that say the NRA is too aggressive.

HCI or Brady Campaign–it doesn’t matter. They are out of touch with reality and have been for well over 20 years.—Joe]

My Country My Ass

I tend toward the rational rather than emotional way of thinking. However I realize that isn’t the case for everyone. And I realize music is means by which people express their emotions and influence others to feel similar emotions. The peace songs of the 1960’s were very influential in changing the attitudes and  politics of that era.


I received an email from a musician about his song:



I’ll keep this short. I have a project, the goal of which is to use mass media and popular culture to change the psychology of the whole country. Participation is free and easy, but I need to get the word out. Here is the website with all the information
http://mycountrymyass.com


I don’t usually care for country music but I do really like this one. You can listen to it here. The lyrics are:



Now tell me again how this country is the land of the free and the home of the brave
You can’t really believe that what you see now is the reason so many brave men gave
Teacher used to say we had the Bill of Rights
I think they took our rights and sent us the bill
Well I don’t know about you my friend but I think I’ve had my fill
They been walking on me for my whole life I think it’s finally time to draw the line
You can tell old John Cougar Mellencamp he can stick his song where the sun don’t shine
My country my ass- This is not the land I learned about in class
My country my ass- That freedom justice stuff is all in the past
Got a checkpoint up the road ahead better pull out your ID
And your taxes just went up again gotta cough up some more money
Be careful what you’re saying when you’re on the phone you never know who might be listening in
They got cameras watching everywhere you go so they know just where you been
You know you better think about the books you read or your name might go on a list
Don’t take too many pictures now, or they’ll think you’re a terrorist
They’re watching you every time you turn around and they don’t like what they see
You gotta be f*** ing kidding me if you think this country’s free
My country my ass- This is not the land I learned about in class
My country my ass- That freedom justice stuff is all in the past
Well the banks messed up so they took money from us and gave a zillion dollar bonus
And they didn’t give a damn what we had to say I swear to God they think they own us
But when they say “bend over” and you say “yes sir” and then you vote for them again
If you’re the kind of people who fought our wars tell me how’d we ever win?
They been walking on us for far too long and don’t you think it’s time to draw the line?
Why don’t you tell those jerks in Washington to stick their laws where the sun don’t shine
My country my ass- This is not the land I learned about in class
My country my ass- That freedom justice stuff is all in the past
They say America love it or leave it
Well I loved it, and it left me


It’s available on the Zune Marketplace.

Where we could be

Had we lost the war against our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms we could be facing this:

GetALifeBinThatKnife

Via email from Ben who simply said, “Fucking brits.” and gave me this URL.

Quote of the day—Handgun Control Inc.

Commonsense, and the growing number of intentional and unintentional shootings involving licensees, dictate that more guns on the street put everyone at risk. But the gun lobby consistently advocates for CCW systems that do not require safety training and do not allow for local law enforcement to evaluate CCW license applicants. Time and time again we hear about a tense situation that becomes deadly with the introduction of a gun. If citizens are to be allowed to carry concealed firearms, every community deserves the best laws to protect public safety. Anything less is potentially a deadly mistake.

Handgun Control Inc.
December 18, 1997
Year-End Report on U.S. Concealed Weapons Laws
[And yet, as they lost more and more battles over concealed carry laws the crime rate didn’t go up in those states. I guess their “commonsense” must have been broken. Because the commonsense of the gun owners, the NRA, the SAF, and all the other pro-gun rights organizations said crime rates wouldn’t go up. And they were right.

HCI renamed itself to be “The Brady Campaign” in 2001. Was that to hide from their legacy of errors?

Odd how that worked out–increasing freedom did no harm. Let’s make it trend in all areas of our lives.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Steve Ballmer

I kiss the ground you walk on.


Steve Ballmer
September 10, 2010
Windows Phone 7 Ship Party
IMG_2845Web2010IMG_2848Web2010IMG_2852Web2010
[Click the pictures to see a higher resolution version.


He also said his trademark, “I love this company.” at the top of his lungs:


IMG_2833Web2010


He also talked about how important Window Phone 7 is to the company and how much he appreciated all the hard work and how much he really loves his Windows Phone 7 phone.


It is a really nice phone. I took three of them to the Boomershoot site this weekend and did some tests. With one of them I was able to pick up a Wi-Fi signal from an ordinary Linksys router from 1090 meters away. The other two were picking up signal from over 600 meters away. Try that with your iPhone.—Joe]

We didn’t lose everything therefore we are winners!

It must really suck to be on the Brady Campaign team. I didn’t read it word for word but from my quick scan of the Brady Campaign’s 2009 Annual Report it appears they want their supporters to believe that if they didn’t lose every battle they fought in that they are winners.


They can just keep thinking that way all the way into oblivion.

Quote of the day–Xenia

I can’t count. I am an artist.

Daughter Xenia
September 5, 2010
[That explains a lot! Not just about Xenia, but about Hollywood, New York City, and the even the world in general.

Son James also reported, from the same time frame as the above quote, that, “Xenia is a funny drunk.”

The Xenia quote came to me via an text message from daughter Kim who definitely can count. Kim is getting nearly straight A’s while obtaining her accounting degree.—Joe]

A little extreme

Via email from Ben we have this guy wanting to fire the police and rely on the Second Amendment for our protection from criminals.

I understand the sentiment and it would eliminate the problem of people being prosecuted for victimless “crimes”. But I want an option other than going in “guns blazing” when an employee embezzles money or someone writes a bad check or runs a stop sign.

NRA-ILA volunteer kick-off meetings

If you are a Washington State resident and NRA member please consider attending one of these events and helping win the battle for freedom (via email):

This November will be ground zero for the enemies of freedom trying to turn the tide against our gun rights in the Evergreen State, serving as a launching pad for their national gun ban crusade.  Our opponents will be pulling out all the stops as the mid-term election nears, so it is more important than ever that we block their campaign against the Second Amendment.
 
To ensure we are prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities we will face this election season, NRA-ILA is hosting a free volunteer kick-off meeting on September 9, 2010 in Tacoma and a second event September 10th in Olympia!

Event 1:

Thursday, September 9th
7:00 p.m.
Pacific Lutheran University
University Center
12180 Park Avenue S.
Tacoma, WA 98447-0001
(317) 445-9332
FREE PARKING!!!

Event 2:

Friday, September 10th
7:00 p.m.
Evergreen Sportsmen’s Club
12736 Marksman Road SW
Olympia, WA 98512-9200
(360) 357-9080

Each of these events is an opportunity to get involved, and is open to any NRA Member!  Please invite your friends and family that belong to NRA so they can attend these great events and help us win the fight in November!  I’ve attached copies of the invites to this email so you can forward them on to your friends!

Yours in Liberty,

Caleb N Giddings
Campaign Field Representative
National Rifle Association
317-445-9332

Unless something urgent comes up at work I plan to attend the event tonight. If you want to attend register by sending an email to caleb@gunnutsmedia.com. Here are the invites for the Tacoma and Olympia events.

Dino Rossi for U.S. Senate

Via email from the Apex Of the Triangle of Death:

NRA Endorses Dino Rossi for US Senate – http://www.nrapvf.org/news/Read.aspx?ID=14214&T=1
And of course NRA Washington’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/NRA-Washington-2010/121733577876147?ref=sgm

Now just a bit of background information.

  • Rossi lost the 2004 election for Washington State Governor after King County (Seattle and surrounding areas) waited until all the other counties had reported their results during the second hand recount then kept finding “lost ballots” and, according to a friend of mine, ended up reporting more total votes than there were registered voters in the county.
  • Rossi is A-rated by the NRA.
  • His opponent, Patty Murray, is F-rated by all gun groups.

Even though she has never seen a gun rights infringement she didn’t like she doesn’t mention it on her website. I wonder if she is ashamed of her involvement with those unconstitutional infringements. Or is like some other Democrats who would rather not let it be known of  their involvement in the KKK but still support the agenda?

Get involved and help get rid of the bum.

Quote of the day—Neal Knox

Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Bob Kukla, in an extremely courageous act, confirmed that the independence of ILA, and its effectiveness in fighting repressive gun legislation had been threatened by the Management Committee, composed of the three top officers. As proof, Kukla played an openly recorded tape of the February 26 Management Committee meeting in which he was criticized for ILA’s opposition to Smith & Wesson’s proposal for national handgun licensing, and ILA’s opposition to the National Education Association’s anti-handgun position. Kukla’s evidence convinced the neutral members of the seriousness of the problems within NRA; although relatively few members in the meeting had known of the Federation’s reform program, they supported it overwhelmingly.

Neal Knox
July 1977
From The Gun Rights War, page 311.
[I have often heard of “The Cincinnati Revolution” within the NRA but had never gotten any details. The Gun Rights War has several articles by Neal Knox about the revolt. Wow! No wonder there was a revolt.

Smith & Wesson proposed national handgun licensing? Was there a boycott then? Or was the first boycott in early 2000 when they tried to force all dealers and distributors to abide by a “code of conduct”? The “code of conduct” would have required all sales at gun shows to go through a background check, prohibited dealers and distributors from selling “assault weapons” or standard capacity magazines, and numerous other backdoor Second Amendment infringements. Gun owners decided then and there that Smith & Wesson must die and we almost did it too. Why wasn’t it well publicized that the Smith & Wesson betrayal was nothing new and had sided with the anti-gun people 23 years earlier?

If there was a boycott in 1977 Smith & Wesson apparently had forgotten about it. Let’s hope all gun manufactures learned their lesson in 2000 and we don’t have to repeat it. We need to be fighting the enemies of freedom rather than our own.—Joe]

Our weekend

On Saturday morning Barb and I had breakfast with our kids and their SOs. James doesn’t like his picture being taken but we managed to get a few without his his outstretched middle finger being too obvious.

IMG_1979Web2010Clockwise from the left, Joe, Barb, Xenia, John, Caleb, Kim, Kelsey, James.

And yes, we finished up the bacon before leaving.

The kids all went to PAX but Barb and I continued on to our slasher flick cabin and then we went for a hike in the woods. In the pictures below the bridge and large tree (a Douglas Fir) were here.

IMG_2001Web2010Barb wore her Boomershoot shirt and I wore a Blackwater shirt and hat. No comments or stares from anyone we saw.

IMG_2022Web2010IMG_2024Web2010Notice that I’m packing in the park? No hippies ran away in terror and no trail rage incidents broke out into gunfire.

IMG_2034Web2010It was peaceful and nice.

Quote of the day—Zsuzsanna Legradi

I don’t want to see guns. No one should have guns. It is bad enough that people have knives.


Zsuzsanna Legradi
September 5, 2010
A 42-year-old gardener.
New York Times article: Altered Movie Poster Puts the Spotlight on a San Francisco Agency’s Gun Ban
[I wonder if the New York Times would have printed that if it had been “I don’t want to see queers holding hands…” or “I don’t want to see ni**ers touching a white woman…”


And what would have been the response if someone had actually said made such a bigoted comment about homosexuals in San Francisco? Would they still have a job (or a home!) the following day?


Another thought that occurred to me is that SAF should be selling those posters. I don’t see them in their merchandise list. I’ll send Alan an email about it.


Update: I got an answer from Alan:



There will be posters for sale at GRPC with the proceeds going to the Calguns Foundation.


Another reason to attend GRPC 2010.—Joe]

Let them beat the dead horses by themselves

There are some anti-gun people out there that apparently think they are writing a brief that will win the Heller decision. As near as I can tell they don’t realize that decision came down over 26 months ago.


There are some anti-gun people out there that apparently think they can pull the same scam they pulled back in 1994 about “assault weapons” again. As near as I can tell they don’t realize so many millions of those “Evil Black Rifles” have been sold in the past few years that even if Congress didn’t know the topic was only a few milligrams short of being full-scale chain reaction that they would qualify as guns in “common use” and protected by the Heller decision.


There are some anti-gun people out there that apparently think they can claim blood will run in the streets if people are “allowed” to exercise their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. As near as I can tell they don’t realize there are so many states with millions of concealed licenses and so many states that have allowed open carry for, like, forever, with the greatest blood flow in the “gun free” zones that we crush that argument almost before their electrons reach the far end of the Internet.


There are some anti-gun people out there that apparently think claiming children are dying by the dozen each day they can gain sympathy for their cause. As near as I can tell they don’t realize we long ago caught on to their definition of “children” which includes “young people” up to the age of 25—most of whom are shot while involved in criminal activities and many are even legal, justified, shootings by the police and private citizens.


There are some anti-gun people out there that are apparently so stupid they don’t know how to distinguish truth from falsity and are apparently unable to accept that zero, or even negative, correlation conclusively demonstrates their premise is false. As near as I can tell they don’t realize most people recognize them as fools and charlatans within minutes.


I realize it is sometimes very difficult but it is a waste of time to argue with them. They are no different than those that wave the Confederate flag and claim, “The South will rise again!” They no different than the “Truthers.” They are no different than those that want to relive some critical point of WW II and have the Germans come out on top and complete the “Final Solution”. They are no different than those that cry and whine, “God damn, God damn, what is this God damn country coming to that the niggers have got guns, the niggers are armed and the police can’t even arrest them!


Let them beat their dead horses by themselves. They are irrelevant to both the present and the future. Spend your time on the real front rather than on conquered and fully occupied territory.


If you will notice the Brady Campaign has fully abandoned the “collective right” view of the Second Amendment. While they still toss out small trial balloons of “blood in the street” and occasionally throw in an “assault weapon” reference they are spending most of their time and energy on things they have some hope of winning or at least stalling. They are spending their time on things like the “gun show loophole” or stopping legislation that would reduce ATF abuses.


While framed in the classic manner the “gun show” issue is probably a loser too. But Mayor Bloomberg and his “illegal guns” sound bite is good enough to be plausible to the causal observer and might gain some traction.


If you enjoy doing the politics thing then call, write, and visit your elected officials and/or help the NRA-PVC every election season.


If you enjoy teaching people to shoot then get your NRA certification and issue certificates to your students who successfully complete your classes. If you enjoy competition get out there and make a good showing. Then let your friends, neighbors, and the local newspapers know about the monthly match results.


If you have construction skills and time then help a local non-profit range improve their shooting facilities.


If you have more money than time and energy then donate to the Second Amendment Foundation, Calguns, Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, or some other gun rights organization you align yourself with.


If you enjoy arguing and pointing out the fallacies of the anti-gun bigots then take on the biggest baddest dogs the other side has to offer—The Brady Campaign and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Sure, as dogs go, the Brady’s are the equivalent of a whimpering, freshly neutered, toy poodle. But they are the best the other side has. Read their media releases and follow their Twitter feed to keep up on where they think they can gain some traction and take them on in whatever arena they present themselves.


Whatever you do, remember there are a couple names for those that continue attempting the ride the dead horse they are beating. They are called “losers” and “crazy”. The same names may also apply to those that spend more than a few minutes trying to engage them.

Think twice before you mess with Alan and Alan

As I pointed out before Alan Gottlieb of SAF is daring San Francisco to take down his posters.

The bigots are having second thoughts about their opposition to both the First and Second Amendments:

A Supreme Court decision could alter what riders here see in ads on city buses and trains and in transit shelters.

Pro-gun images, which are banned under an ad policy of the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency, showed up recently on posters for a conference for the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun rights group based in Washington.

When Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, read that Wahlberg and Ferrell had been stripped of their weapons, he had 16 posters printed to promote the group’s gun rights policy conference, scheduled to be held here. To his surprise, the posters were installed last week in what a news release called “something of a coup.”

Paul Rose, a spokesman for the city transportation agency, said that after the gun group’s posters went up, the city decided to take another look at its policy.

“At this point, we’re not taking any action to remove the ads. We are currently reviewing our advertising policy in light of the recent Supreme Court decision, which may have altered the legal landscape regarding firearm advertising.”

That would be the June 28 decision in McDonald v. Chicago, in which the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the right to bear arms guaranteed under the Second Amendment applies to state and local gun control laws.

The team of Alan Gura (the lead lawyer in McDonald) and Alan Gottlieb are a force to be taken seriously and are taking point on a lot of skirmishes these days.

SAF is a 501 (c) (3) corporation and your donations are tax deductible.

I’m your huckleberry

Barb and I went “out into the wilderness” this weekend. We stayed in a cabin along Highway 20 and then made excursions into the mountains. On Sunday we went here. After driving 10 miles or so off the paved road we were surprised to see so many cars at the trailhead:


IMG_2099Web2010


Of course this meant we saw far more people than we expected on the trail too.


And after a mile or so in there were wooden stairs on the trail:


IMG_2043Web2010


Stairs? Out in the woods? They must have been put there for the people with the California license plates we saw in the parking lot.


Side note: Boomershoot coat, Blackwater hat, Blackhawk gloves, STI patch on the shoulder, STI Eagle in .40 S&W behind the right hip, spare magazine of 18 rounds and a SureFire 6P on the left hip. None of it seemed to scare the hippies.


It was sprinkling a little bit but not enough that we needed rain gear. And despite having more people than we care to see when we are out in the woods we had a nice hike and ate a few huckleberries:


IMG_2082Web2010


IMG_2049Web


IMG_2060Web2010

Quote of the day–Steven Lachman

The current batch of Democrats is not a particularly liberal bunch.

[L]et’s examine what America would look like under the current Republican Party ideology:

Health care reform will be undone. At least 45 million Americans will lack health insurance. According to a Harvard School of Medicine study, the absence of health insurance leads to the deaths of 45,000 Americans a year.

Republicans will eliminate all gun control. We now suffer about 30,000 gun deaths per year.

The current batch of Republican candidates ignores the overall benefit to society of redistributing wealth from the haves to the have-nots through taxes. For Republican politicians, deaths from abortion are unacceptable, but deaths from pollution, gun violence and poverty are just background noise.

Few Republican voters would actually choose to live in the Republican ideological world. Most of them want good schools for all children, safe streets, a clean environment, fair treatment of the disadvantaged and Social Security benefits — all of which require taxes and regulation.

Steven Lachman
September 7, 2010
A GOP-run nation would be barren
[From the first to the last sentence of his opinion I was agape. I found it hard to believe he was serious. He had to be mocking the political left or something, right? Then I read his job title. He is a professor.

Okay then. That explains it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James Huffman-Scott

So you are going on vacation to a slasher flick.

James Huffman-Scott
September 4, 2010
[This was after verifying we were going to a secluded cabin in the woods for the weekend. After I acknowledged it could be expressed that way Kelsey chimed in with “I know what you did last summer.”

The place we went to was here.

Here is a picture of our cabin:IMG_2127Web2010

We heard a few gunshots on our first night which probably was the end of the slasher’s reign of terror. I brought 237 rounds of .40 S&W but didn’t get a chance to use any of it.—Joe]

Inspections by government agents

Under current Federal law the ATF is authorized to inspect Federal Firearm License holders (FFLs), unannounced, up to once per year and to do audits of their records. Every single gun must be accounted for by manufacture, model, and serial number. The FFL will face consequences if some buy wrote “N” and “Y” instead of “Yes” and “No”, they failed to include the county of residence in addition to the city, state and Zip Code, or they used the abbreviation “MINN” instead of spelling out “Minneapolis” in the small box for the city name. The FFL must record the NICS Transaction Number (NTN) on line 21b of the ATF Form 4473 and retain the form for auditing purposes. Form 4473 must be retained for 20 years.


Imagine if we had a Federal Book License holders (FBLs) and similar record keeping requirements. Would the book banners be able to claim such regulations were “common sense” and justified?


Imagine if the IRS were authorized one unannounced inspection and audit, without cause, of every taxpayer per year. Would people tolerate that?


Why is it that the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms can be so heavily regulated when the Second Amendment explicitly says “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”? Is there anyone surprised gun owners are pushing back and winning?