Author Archives: Joe

What are His Intentions?

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He’s shown us that his solution to gun violence is give more people guns.

Wes Moore
Maryland Governor
January 9, 2023
Another Trump Presidency Would Lead to Gun Control Rollback, Maryland Governor Says

He says that like it is a bad thing. And, to a tiny extent, I agree with him. The government, in ordinary times, shouldn’t be giving guns away. It is a waste of tax payer money. If there is a surplus or there are obsolete firearms to dispose of they should be sold to the highest bidders.

In general one of the solutions to violent crime is the arming of the victims. Governor Moore wants the disarming of the victims. With a strong positive correlation between gun control and genocide and zero or negative correlation with violent crime reduction, one has to wonder about Governor Moore’s intentions. Is he just wanting to create a safe working environment for the street criminals? Or does he intend to go wholesale with a government demonstration of mass shootings?

In any case, prepare and respond appropriately.

They Wish it Were a Privilege

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NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. A new section is added to chapter 82.12 RCW to read as follows:

(1) A use tax is levied on every person in this state for the privilege of using ammunition as a consumer at the rate of 11 percent of the selling price.

HOUSE BILL 2238
State of Washington
January 9, 2024

Via an post on X to me from Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras.

Just because they say it is a privilege does not make it a privilege.

This is clearly unconstitutional. Which, of course, makes it all the more attractive to the anti-freedom gang.

I look forward to their trials.

Shutting down the FBI & ATF

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I’ll shut down the FBI & ATF and here’s one more reason why. A voter in Iowa recently reminded me of the story of Ruby Ridge & the Weaver family. In 1992, Randy Weaver sold a sawed-off shotgun to a federal informant & was then surrounded at his cabin for refusing to appear in court. First they killed his dog, then they shot & killed his son, *14-year-old* Samuel Weaver. His wife, Vicki, also was shot & killed by an FBI sniper while holding their 10-month-old daughter inside their house. Weaver was later acquitted & awarded a $3mm settlement by the DOJ. Another classic case of entrapment & a disproportionate, politicized abuse of federal police power. I will *shut down* toxic 3-letter agencies like the FBI & ATF that are beyond the point of incremental “reform,” using my Constitutional authority as U.S. President to do it.

Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
Posted on X January 9, 2024

I would vote for that.

A Sign of Deconsolidating Democracy

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When each side starts talking about the other as a threat to democracy — whatever the reality is — that’s a sign of a democracy that’s deconsolidating.

Daniel Ziblatt
January 7, 2024
A government professor at Harvard University and co-author of the book How Democracies Die
One attack, two interpretations: Biden and Trump both make the Jan. 6 riot a political rallying cry | Kansas City Star

Reading the book description on Amazon indicates it is a far from objective book. It was released in January of 2019 and appears to be aimed squarely at former President Trump:.

The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.

I just want to move into my bunker in Idaho, stock and grow food, reload ammo, and practice long range shooting.

No Theory of Mind

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You dare accuse me of fake bravado when you’re going to Walmart with your big gun strapped to your leg trying to fool everyone that if you have a big gun you must have a big dick. Boy are they going to be disappointed.

…

I’m going to take your silence as confirmation of a small penis.

Two Cent Tony @TonyLeighton8
Posted on X March 29, 2023

It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!

It is truly amazing the deficiency in theory of mind these people have. Many primates and even ravens could do better than this guy.

Bullets Versus Cell Phones

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Via an email from Jacob at Widener’s Reloading & Shooting Supply.

Mythbusting: Cell Phone Stop A Bullet? – Wideners Shooting, Hunting & Gun Blog

There’s a brutal difference between fact and fiction. The things we see in the entertainment industry may look cool on screen but have no basis in reality. For example, in Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Richard Hannay’s (Robert Donat) life is saved when a hymnal in his pocket stops an assassin’s bullet. This popular trope has been used and reused many times over the years with a variety of objects all conveniently being able to stop a bullet.

Unfortunately, in the real world, we’ve all seen reports of shootings occurring in public locations. Many of which have been designated as “gun-free zones.” Fortunately for some, nearby objects and personal effects have prevented bullets from impacting their intended target. One of the personal items commonly reported on in these situations is the cell phone.

Will a cell phone stop a bullet? The team here at Widener’s decided to test this myth, take a look at what we discovered below.

Short answer, “No. You are still going to get hurt or killed after the bullet, even .22 LR goes through your cell phone.”

It was, as always, fun to see the video of bullets blasting through stuff.

Everytown Bogus Research

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One of the signals this is bogus research is the way Everytown graded Washington State, where the Citizens Committee is headquartered. Washington is position ninth on the list, and is described as ‘making progress.’ The state has adopted increasingly restrictive gun laws in recent years, and the number of homicides has more than doubled since 2014, according to FBI data and statistics from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. Seattle just set a new homicide record in 2023. If that’s what Everytown calls ‘making progress,’ we would be better off going back to living in caves.

The only conclusion one can draw is that Everytown is far more interested in restricting the rights of honest citizens than it is in reducing violent crime or taking violent criminals off the street.

Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
January 5, 2024
CCRKBA SAYS EVERYTOWN CLAIM THAT STRICT GUN LAWS SAVE LIVES IS BOGUS | Citizens Committee For The Right To Keep And Bear Arms

This claim is assessed as True.

The big tell in almost antigun organizations claims is when they refer to “Gun Violence” statistics and completely ignore criminal violence committed by thugs using other types of weapons and unarmed violence..

“Gun violence” includes justified shootings in self defense by police and/or private citizens, and people who committed or attempted suicide with a gun. And, most importantly, it ignores sky high violence rates against people unable to defend themselves by exercising their specific enumerate right to keep and bear arms.

One could ask, as I have done many times, if the shift was intentional or negligent. I have never received a straight answer. This tells me it is intentional.

These people are deliberate liars. Respond and prepare appropriately.

Lying By Omission

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Man who made billions out of death and killing dies at the age of 94 (msn.com)

It is unknown exactly how many people have died as a result of Glock handguns.

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The first mass shooting believed to involve a Glock handgun was in 1991 when George Jo Hennard shot 24 people and injured 27. He fired two guns, including a Glock 17, at diners in Luby’s Cafeteria, Killeen, Texas.

…

This list is exhausting, but not exhaustive.

It is very telling that no mention was made of the millions of innocent lives saved using handguns with the name Glock on the slide.

No Words

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I don’t have any words beyond via Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras

Just Enforce the Existing Laws

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‘Your husband or your guns’ (jpfo.org)

Florida’s powerful preemption statute prohibits any state, county, city or other public entity from regulating firearms by “enacting or causing to be enforced any local ordinance or administrative rule or regulation” that regulates arms. Only the state legislature has such regulatory authority, the statute mandates. Any public official who violates the preemption statute can face removal from office and up to $5,000 in fines, which the statute requires them to pay personally.

As the agency head and chief administrative officer, Charlotte County Sheriff Prummell is personally responsible for any illegal rules or policies that violate preemption. Sheriff Prummell did not respond to calls or emails seeking an interview for this story.

This is not the first time Prummell has been accused of violating the civil rights of his constituents.

In 2019, it was learned his office had been compiling an illegal registry of gun owners by using a pawn shop database, which is a felony. Florida state law prohibits any government agency from “knowingly and willfully keep or cause to be kept any list, record, or registry of privately owned firearms or any list, record, or registry of the owners of those firearms.” The database Prummell’s deputies created contained the names of people who pawned guns and a description of the firearms, which included their serial numbers.

At the time, neither State Attorney Fox nor Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody chose to prosecute or even investigate these allegations.

This doesn’t even bring the federal laws 18 USC 241 and 242 into play. These crimes would stop very rapidly if they would just enforce the existing laws.

MN Gun Owners Caucus @mnguncaucus

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A horribly written law that would make criminals out of careful, law-abiding citizens is not a solution to the tremendous problem we face with gun violence and firearm accidents. Publicly supported and funded, age-appropriate firearm safety education ought to be a part of it.

Brad Johnson
Anoka County Attorney
Letter to state representative Jaime Becker-Finn.

Via MN Gun Owners Caucus @mnguncaucus on April 3, 2023.

We must recognize we have allies in government.

It wasn’t too long ago that I read a book about the resistance to Nazi’s in Italy. A young woman got a job as a maid and nanny to a Nazi officer and his wife. She was also a spy who obtained information which was smuggled to the allies which was used to save countless lives. As the Nazis were retreating out of Italy local “patriots” rounded up the Nazis and collaborates they could find and killed them without trials. The young woman was among them.

Rats Leaving the Burning Ship?

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NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre is resigning.

For a more toxic views see:

From the Wall Street Journal article:

LaPierre and the NRA have said the group has embarked on a major “course correction” by terminating certain vendors, promoting a whistleblower to its top financial job and eliminating virtually all related-party transactions with board members. Since the New York investigation began, LaPierre has repaid the NRA nearly $1 million for some of the private-jet flights, gifts and other “excess benefits” he received, legal filings show.

It is probably was far short of the compensation he and many others should have given but it is worth something. Perhaps the organization can rebuild itself with a better focus on the important principles.

Via text from Mike B.:

Rats leaving the burning ship?

Gun Laws are an Unmitigated Disaster

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Gun laws in the United States are an unmitigated disaster. The amount of asinine minutiae that can send you straight to jail is downright embarrassing, and it requires a conscious effort to believe we’re in this situation because of incompetence rather than malice. All this to say: I’ve made a genuine effort to work on this project without running afoul of any state or federal gun laws, like Tom Frickin’ Cruise navigating a hallway of laser tripwires.

Evan @ Cottage Arms
Posted in 2022

Meet Shirley: The .22LR built for the year 2022 from Cottage Arms on Vimeo.

The Point of Government

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Because the point of government is to create social trust. I started this talk by explaining the importance of trust in society, and how interpersonal trust doesn’t scale to larger groups. That other, impersonal kind of trust—social trust, reliability and predictability—is what governments create.

To the extent a government improves the overall trust in society, it succeeds. And to the extent a government doesn’t, it fails.

But they have to. We need government to constrain the behavior of corporations and the AIs they build, deploy, and control. Government needs to enforce both predictability and reliability.

That’s how we can create the social trust that society needs to thrive.

Bruce Schneier
December 4, 2023
AI and Trust

Via a message from Stephanie.

Schneier raises my hackles. It seems to me, that far too often he concludes more government is the solution to problems he imagines. What would he have us do when it is extraordinarily clear that the government is less trustworthy than any corporation or AI?

I’m far more inclined align myself with:

The end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom: For in all the states of created beings capable of Laws, where there is no law, there is no Freedom.

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Chains are but an ill wearing, how much Care soever hath been taken to file and polish them.

John Locke
Two Treatises of Government

Explicitly and from a source far more important, just governments are created to protect the rights of individuals:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

To the extent that a government does not align itself with this goal is the extent to which it is unjust and illegitimate.

Only 1% Registered their Guns

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Even though Illinois lawmakers passed a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, Monday was the deadline for those who already owned assault weapons before the ban to register them.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed the statewide ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines on Jan. 10, 2023. The measure gave those who owned and purchased weapons before the law was enacted time to register.

CBS 2’s Darius Johnson had the latest on where the controversial measure stood with the new year.

As of last week, only 15,000 people completed the disclosures, according to Illinois State Police. There are nearly 2.5 million firearm owner’s IDs in the state.

Darius Johnson
January 1, 2023
Monday was deadline for Illinois owners of assault weapons prior to ban to register their guns

That is about 1.48 million people in defiance of the unconstitutional law.It is good to know 99% of people know better than to register their guns.

Rather than registering guns there should be registering of people actively attempting to deny people their civil rights. It would speed up the enforcement of 18 USC 241 and 242.

Soulless Monster With a Small Penis

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For the love of God! WHY would you do something so irresponsible as to fire that kind of death machine?! How many children had to die that day?? And you BRAG about it on social media?! You’re a monster. There’s just no other word for it; a soulless monster. …oh, and small penis.

Lee Cooper (@LeeCoop74504586)
Posted on X on March 1, 2023

Referring, of course, to an AR-15.

I think I detect a note of sarcasm.

Gun Owners Should Only Shop at Night

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Spotted: Big men with tiny dicks seen shopping with assault rifles in broad daylight.

Jon Cooper @joncoopertweets
Posted on X March 27, 2023

It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!

It sounds like he is saying gun owners should wait until after dark before shopping to avoid the only time of day fearful people like Jon have enough courage to go shopping.

I say shop whenever it is convenient and if people like Jon are too afraid to come out and buy food the conflict will end in a relatively short time.

Experts

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The thing that changed recently is our growing understanding that we’ve all been duped by “experts” multiple times on multiple topics. It isn’t a “one side is bad” problem.

Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays)
Tweeted on March 13, 2022

Of all the ways to determine truth from falsity, total relance upon experts is one of the worst. This particularly true if it is a government expert.

Political Affiliation of People Moving to Idaho

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With all the people moving to Idaho (“Idaho has been one of the top five fastest growing states in the nation since 2016.”) the question comes up, “Are they bringing their failed politics with them from California and other failed states?”

The Idaho Secretary of State has some data to shed some light on the topic. The short answer is that Idaho has 58% Republicans, 28% unaffiliated, and 13% Democrats. The incoming mixture is 65% Republican, 21% unaffiliated, and 12% Democrats. So, that says the incoming people is make the state “redder”.

But that is not the whole story:

Californians have been programmed in a way that they think they’re conservative, but then they move to a place like Eagle, Idaho, and they start asking for the same things that the government was providing them in California,

See also what Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times has to say.

And for my county of Clearwater:

image

There are only 8,734 people in the entire county. Hence, over 7.5% have moved there recently.

Kids Into the Woodchipper

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This is what they think of you:

image

His X posts are protected. His IMDb profile is not 

Prepare appropriately.