Author Archives: Joe

Quote of the day–Alan Gura

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I think it’s time people took liberty seriously.


Alan Gura
Lead attorney in District of Columbia v. Heller
June 2008 interview with Nick Gillespie of reason.tv.
[Based on the results of the most recent election I have to conclude people have not taken liberty seriously and furthermore it may be that we have past the time where it will be possible to convince people to take liberty seriously. Appearances are that most people believe government is the solution to the problems created by government. That’s very scary stuff.–Joe]

Another Boomershoot position available soon

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I just had a cancellation for Position 43 for Boomershoot 2009.


Due to a minor bug in my software for on-line entries after moving to a new hosting provider I won’t be making the position available for at least a day or so. I’ll post something here when the site is ready for accepting new entries.

Quote of the day–Crotalus

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If guns are an extension of a man’s penis, does that mean that men who support gun control secretly want to have vaginas?


Crotalus
January 23, 4:24 PM
In the comments to For the children…
[I had planned to never knowingly use the same QOTD as any other blogger within a month of them. Because this is such a good quote and such a good refutation of that tired attempt to derail a factual debate I am making an exception. H/T to SayUncle and Firehand.–Joe]

It’s the thought that counts

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Drivers licenses (some exception apply, see comments), marriages, and divorces are recognized in all fifty states. Concealed carry licenses should be recognized as well. Full Faith and Credit, right? It isn’t that way in practice and it just one more example of the extensive bigotry (and here) against gun owners.

 

This isn’t the first time someone has tried to do something about it but it is nice to see another effort made:

 

Saying Americans need a “fighting chance” to confront outlaws in a violent society, U.S. Rep Cliff Stearns has gone on the offensive to promote his bill to allow concealed-weapons permit-holders to cross state lines without fear of having their constitutional rights curtailed by another state’s laws.

 

With President Obama being opposed to gun ownership even in the home, let alone in public, and all the anti-gun people in positions of leadership in the house the chances of this even making it out of committee let alone being passed are zero. But it might be useful to get the congress critters to show their colors in time for the next election.

Terminator talk

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At a meeting this morning we were discussing a possible name for a new product. It was suggested that since we already have SkyDrive and SkyMarket (with rumors of SkyLine and SkyBox), maybe we should name the project SkyNet. The consensus was there were probably names less threatening to the warm and fuzzies.

Pentration test of .50 BMG AP

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Details of the test, with pictures, are here. Ry stopped by the house yesterday and I got to handle the test target and we talked and speculated about the details of the test results. The next time I go back to Idaho I think I will borrow his target and do the same test with 30-06 AP.

New gun bloggers

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Mexican Carry and David Young’s On Second Opinion have both been added to my RSS feed reader.


Welcome to the gun blogger community!

I didn’t know I was in condor country

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Sebastian points out the deception in regards to the lead shot ban proposal in Washington state. Mexican Carry gives us details, sarcasm, and what is probably the real reason.

Quote of the day–David E. Young

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At least five of the eight state declarations of rights were specifically, in the words of the state constitutions themselves, part of their state constitutions. An obvious error of this type from such a large assemblage of professional academic historians is unacceptable in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. The nature of this error is not just an embarrassment for the historians. It brings into serious question the factual basis of the historians’ Heller amicus brief supporting Washington DC’s gun control laws because it indicates that these historians are not overly familiar with the relevant period sources their assertions relate to.


David E. Young
January 25, 2009
The Root Cause of Never-ending Second Amendment Dispute
[The errors the anti-gun people bring to the debate are so numerous and so persistent despite being corrected numerous times I find it difficult to believe they are innocent mistakes or even willful ignorance. In many cases I’m certain it’s deliberate deception. And in some cases it’s an admitted deception on their part.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Jeffrey A. Lamken

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Properly read, the Second Amendment prevents unreasonable federal encroachment on the ability of the States to maintain, arm, and call forth their militias. It does not handicap the States’ exercise of their police powers to regulate dangerous instrumentalities, including firearms, to fulfill their equally central role of protecting the lives, liberty, and property of their citizens.


Jeffrey A. Lamken
January 2008
Brief supporting petitioners of amici curiae American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Ceasefire NJ, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Clifton Kirkpatrick in his capacity as the stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Educational Fund to stop Gun Violence, Freedom States Alliance, American Jewish Congress, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Gray Panthers, Gunfreekids.org, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, Illinoisvictims.org, Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence, Jenna Foundation for Nonviolence, inc., Karla Zimmerman Memorial Foundation, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Council of Jewish Women, New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, DC Statehood Green Party, North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Education Fund, Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, Renée Olumbuni Rondeau Peace Foundation, Root (Reaching Out to Others Together) Inc., Union for Reform Judaism, Virginia Center for Public Safety, Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, and certain individual victims and families of victims of gun violence.
[Wrong. You lose. First clue–people have rights. States have powers. The words say, “…the right of the people…” Words have meanings and in a document as important the constitution of a nation each of those words were debated and very carefully chosen by very smart people who said exactly what they wanted to say. The first clue for people reading Lamken that he was full of it should be that you don’t protect the liberty of a citizen by taking a liberty away.–Joe]

A gentle reminder

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This is probably safe for work but it’s on the edge.

Posted in Sex

Blog troubles again

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Yes, my blog was down from about noon on Thursday until early this morning. My hosting provider had (and still has some) problems with a couple of their DNS servers. I really need to move to another provider.


It also affected boomershoot.org, joehuffman.org, lewistonpistol.org, lcwildlife.org, scottfamilyplace.org, jameshs.org, kimhs.org, xeniajoy.com, and email to recipients at those domains. If you didn’t get a response from email to people at those domains you might want to try sending the email again. The sites in italics above are still experiencing problems so you might wait another few hours before retrying on them.


Sorry about that.


In the future people are welcome to use one of my alternate email addresses such as JoeH AT[please no spam] modernballistics.com which is through another provider.


Update: The domains are coming are slowing coming back online. I’m removing the italics as I verify they are working again.


Update2: I’ve moved xeniajoy.com to the new provider and boomershoot.org and boomershoot.com are in the process. Please don’t send email to the boomershoot address for about 24 hours (8:00 AM January 26 PST) as I work out any bugs that might show up and the new IP addresses filter through the Internet.


Update3: Grrr… the new provider had been working fine for months with ModernBallistics.com and WhenProphecyFails.info. Now it is down after I moved XeniaJoy.com and all the Boomershoot sites over.

I hope this is a typo

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I’m not an editor but I play one on the Internet.


From the Washington Post:



Officials said the report reflected Obama’s desire for greater transparency in the bill-writing process, as he sought to fully map out what he plans to do with the $825 trillion package.

Quote of the day–Edward Abbey

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Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers– obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.


Edward Abbey
[And what institution is more hierchical than the U.S. government?–Joe]

Quote of the day–Michael Gaddy

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Leave it up to New Yorkers to defeat those who support the constitution and elect those who seek to destroy it.


Michael Gaddy
Buy, Buy, Buy
January 5, 2008
[As pointed out by Clayton, Jeff, SayUncle, and Sebastian, this is not always true so -1 point for Gaddy. He still gets a 99% on his essay.–Joe]

The anti-Christ

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First I would like to draw your attention to SayUncles post that we have an extraordinary number of news stories about Obama’s inauguration. I would like to further point out the following:


There were one or more songs written just for this inauguration. There were “Inauguration Cupcakes” in my company cafeteria!


It was a “religious experience” for a lot of people. Of course they overlook that “Barack Hussein Obama” can be rewritten as “Barack Hussei Nobama” which is obviously a synonym for “666”.


I think I need to buy more ammo and explosives.

I’m fine

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Microsoft announced layoffs this morning. I haven’t been into work yet but my email account still works and from reading email from upper management my division is one of the areas that will continue to receive “strong support”.

Quote of the day–Paul Helmke

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While we opposed the Court’s decision to overrule 70 years of precedent and over 200 years of Second Amendment history, gun violence prevention advocates praised Section III of Justice Antonin Scalia’s decision to find a wide variety of gun control regulations “presumptively lawful” under the Constitution. Such laws include restrictions against carrying concealed weapons, laws against gun possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws against taking guns into “sensitive places” such as schools and government buildings, and laws that restrict “dangerous and unusual” weapons. Indeed, Justice Scalia stated that his list of “presumptively lawful” regulations comprised only examples, and was “not exhaustive.”


Paul Helmke
Brady Campaign president
January 21, 2009
OPINION: New Day Dawning for Gun Violence Prevention
[From reading his gloating the only thing the 2A protects in the right to keep a firearm in your home for self-defense. Concealed carry elimination is clearly one of his goals. Registration is almost for certain is one of his goals. And if I squint just a little as I read his article I can even see the desire to limit people to owning just one gun.


Molôn Labé, Paul, Molôn Labé.–Joe]

Comment on hunting regs in Washington state

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Via reader Roger I became aware we have this proposal to make a change in the archery hunting regulations:

WAC 232-12-054  Archery requirements–Archery special use
permits.  (1) Rules pertaining to all archery:
(a) It is unlawful for any person to carry or have in his
possession any firearm while in the field archery hunting, during
an archery season specified for that area, except for modern handguns
carried for personal protection.  Modern handguns cannot be used to
hunt big game or dispatch wounded big game during an archery, big
game hunting season.

The underlined portion is the proposed change. It sounds like a good idea to me. Why should you give up your right to defend yourself with a handgun just because you are doing some archery hunting?

Email your comments to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife here before February 20th, 2009. More details on the commenting process can be found here.

I don’t even recognize his name

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Some might ask if I know this guy who is sort of a neighbor of mine:



A 65-year-old Spokane man has been ordered held in custody on federal charges of illegally possessing automatic weapons and illegally storing explosives in a Bellevue commercial storage shed while agents investigate how he came to possess a huge military-grade arsenal that included grenade launchers, machine guns and plastic explosives.


Ronald Struve, heavyset and bearded, appeared in Seattle before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler on Tuesday after being extradited from Spokane, where he was arrested Jan. 7 during a raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).


In four searches in Bellevue and Spokane, agents seized 37 machine guns, 12 silencers, two grenade launchers, more than 60 high-explosive grenades, several pounds of military-grade C-4 plastic explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition.


…


One box contained 54 M406 high-explosive grenade rounds — 40-millimeter shells that can be launched from a shoulder-fired weapon to distances of 300 yards or more, according to military specification.


Its explosion creates a “kill radius” of up to 16 feet from the point of impact and injuries dozens of yards beyond that.


Agents also found several other anti-personnel grenades, including a Korean War-era “Chicom” stick grenade.


In another box, agents found six blocks of C-4 plastic explosives.


Agents counted 32 apparent machine guns, including M-14s, M-16s, and several “Sten guns,” a mass-produced submachine gun known for its high rate of fire — upward of 500 rounds per minute.


They also found nine silencers and the parts for several others, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition and various other military hardware.


“All of the military explosive items seized are considered contraband and cannot be possessed by anyone other than the military,” Wallace wrote in a search warrant. “The majority of the items seized appeared to be stolen military explosive materials.”


Spokane isn’t that far away from my home in Moscow and I think I could literally throw a rock from the front door of my office in Redmond and have it land in Bellevue. But this guy has never appeared on my radar of “people of the gun” in the circles I run in.


He shouldn’t have been storing the stuff in an ordinary storage unit or be in possession of stolen property. That’s just wrong and he should “pay the price” for that. But other than that he’s being charged with a victimless crime. Had he purchased those items on the open market (as they should be) and had he stored them in a proper manner all would have been fine.


So, for the most part, all this effort and money being spent on investigation and prosecution is because the government has repressive laws on the books. Sort of like laws against sex toys. Except sex toys aren’t constitutionally protected like “arms” are. [Updated with the following sentence.] Except while protected in general by the constitution, sex toys aren’t a specifically enumerated constitution right like “arms” are.