Author Archives: Joe

No Correlation

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Quote of the Day

Illinois, with its restrictive gun laws and comparatively low gun ownership of 22 percent, had 414 mass shootings and a per capita rate of 3.6 mass shootings per million people.

Washington, D.C., despite not being a state, was included in the study and the researchers were shocked to find that the district had the highest rate of mass shootings per capita at 10.4 shootings for every one million people. This is despite the fact that the country’s capital has some of the strongest gun control laws in the nation.

For states, Louisiana had the highest rate of mass shootings per capita at 4.3 shootings per million people – less than half the per capita rate in Washington, D.C. despite the lax gun laws and 52 percent gun ownership.

Hawaii and North Dakota had zero mass shootings from 2014 to 2022. They are followed by New Hampshire, Vermont and Wyoming, which all had one each, Idaho with two and Maine with three.

Arsenio Toledo
July 28, 2023
Study proves there is NO CORRELATION between gun control laws and mass shootings

I’ve been saying, essentially, the same thing for almost 20 years. That the politicians don’t care about the facts should be used as evidence at their trials.

Violent Criminals are Their Allies

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Quote of the Day

Zero tolerance doesn’t apply to stopping criminals. The Biden administration reserves that focus for the firearm industry.

Larry Keane
Senior vice president for government and public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation
July 27, 2023
ATF has shut down nearly 2,000 gun stores since the implementation of its new “zero tolerance” policy

This is not news to most of us:

They are just being more blatant about it.

The Phallic Symbol is Unattainable

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Quote of the Day

The phallic symbol is unattainable, yet firearms and, consequently, violence are used to promote white masculinity. Gun advertisements use phallic imagery and language that promotes toxic masculine ideals. Due to the demographics of gun owners, the majority of the consumers of these products are white men. These advertisers know their market well and accurately demonstrated the anxiety white men have in a world where they feel a loss of rights and/or privileges. By using imagery of the phallic symbol, the advertisers have used their consumers’ fears and anxieties in order to sell more firearms, which, in turn, can at least partially demonstrate the white male gun owner’s identity.

Jenna Bergman
August 11, 2021
Firearms and the Phallus: Using Guns to Reclaim Masculinity

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

And it is not just an attempt at a snarky comment on Twitter. This is an article in the Columbia Political Review. It is Columbia University’s undergraduate multi-partisan political magazine with a circulation of about 8,000.

It is such gibberish that I gave serious consideration to the hypothesis it is satire. I have since dismissed that hypothesis.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

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Quote of the Day

Government, almost by definition, DOES restrict our freedoms. Those polled aren’t wrong in the least for seeing it that way. The constant struggle is keeping this necessary evil contained to the minimum required for a functioning society.

Orgs like Everytown are part of a broad spectrum of authoritarian social engineers. They want people to be docile, preferably stuffed into cities, owning nothing, and restricted to a narrow Overton window of acceptable opinions and lifestyles. The Chinese social credit system is their model.

Guns are a threat to this (as is free speech, which is why that is also a target for them). Not even really guns themselves, but the individualist ideas they can awaken simply by accepting the natural right to bear arms. Because once you accept the natural rights framework, the Bloombergian government dystopia they want is unacceptable.

Notice how the very same people who want to ban guns also tend to want social media to censor more speech, want the government to tax everything they declare undesirable, want to punish thought crimes with a widening net of “hate speech” restrictions that shutter the Overton window, and constantly find new things they want banned.

This is also why they insist on federal gun laws. They know Boise or Manchester are doing just fine with minimal gun control laws, which drives them insane. It proves the problem in their violent cities is their own fault, and not due to gun rights. The authoritarians can’t allow such counterexamples to exist.

Control, control, control. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Kostas Moros @MorosKostas
Tweeted on July 28, 2023

House Near Boomershoot With a Stunning View

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I stumbled across this house for sale a few miles from Boomershoot with a really nice view:

image

image

It is a five bedroom, four bath, 4,044 square foot house going for $899,000.

You should know the road to the driveway is “primitive”. Much of it is single lane and it can be very rough.

I would like to see someone culturally similar to my blog readers get this house rather than some communist from California, Oregon, or Washington.

Right Wing Bias of Corporate Media

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The right wing bias of corporate media is nuts.

David Hogg
Tweeted on July 26, 2023

Delusions are often functional. Especially for anti-gunners like Hogg.

Others have things to say on this topic as well.

You CAN Survive a Nuke Attack

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You CAN survive a nuke attack … but you MUST make an effort to learn what to do! By learning about potential threats, we are all better prepared to know how to react if something happens.

Janet Liebsch
February 27, 2022
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM NUCLEAR FALLOUT (TIPS ABOUT RADIATION, BUILDING AN EXPEDIENT SHELTER AND MORE)

The almost offhand post the other day about a Geiger counter had so many comments that I thought I would do a little more research on the topic.

The linked article above is pretty good stuff. It gives you the basics of the various types of threats such as initial blast and radiation, fallout radiation, and types of radiation (alpha, beta, gamma). Then it goes into types of shelters including how to make an expedient shelter.

If you are thinking of building an underground bunker then these have more detailed information:

The bottom line is:

To survive a nuclear blast, you would need to be at least 3 feet deep underground. Also, you need to be at least 36 inches of concrete or tightly-packed dirt to shield you from the blast radius.

There are other options to dirt and concrete, but in most cases those would be the cheapest.

To figure out the blast radius for the targets nearest to your bunker read Are You Living in a Nuclear Death Zone? Find Out with the U.S. Nuclear Target Map and use this nuke map.

The article also includes this image of the supposed Primary target locations for Soviet nuclear strikes during 1980s:

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I am more than a bit skeptical because, while I can understand Boomershoot being a primary target, Boomershoot didn’t even exist until 1998.

Orwellian

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Quote of the Day

The revenue officers we represent will continue to efficiently and effectively carry out their mission of helping taxpayers meet their lawful tax obligations through other means of communication,

Tony Reardon
National president of the National Treasury Employees Union
July 24, 2023
IRS halts most unannounced visits to taxpayers, citing safety concerns

This has to be the most Orwellian thing I have read outside of an Orwell book.

Via Stephanie who said:

“Knocking on someone’s door today is a different scenario than it was 10 or 15 years ago, and there have been significant reports from IRS employees where they have felt unsafe,” he said.

—

I say it’s a step in the right direction. Thieves should always feel unsafe.

SkyNet Smiles

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This is getting creepy:

Scientists Are Frighteningly Close to Achieving Synthetic Biological Intelligence

  • A group of researchers have already grown brain cells on silicon chips and then taught them to perform tasks.

  • This merging of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology opens a new realm of continual machine learning.

  • A $600,000 AUD Australian national intelligence grant continues to the research into the “cyborg computing chips.”

Lab-grown synthetic brain cells can already learn tasks. Now, the same team that brought us 800,000 Pong-playing brain cells living in a dish has received $600,000 AUD from Australia’s National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grants Program to further push these lab-grown brain cells embedded onto silicon chips into the world of machine learning.

This entire project “merges the fields of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology to create programmable biological computing platforms,” Adeel Razi, associate professor at Monash University’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, says in a news release. “This new technology capability in future may eventually surpass the performance of existing, purely silicon-based hardware.”

I feel like there is some sort of moral boundary being breached. But it is hard to articulate exactly what is wrong.

A Good Start

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Quote of the Day

Suing the ATF is our love language.

Gun Owners of America @GunOwners
Tweeted on July 21, 2023

I am a little lukewarm on this. I would say, it is my like language. Prosecuting and convicting them? That is my love language.

Tyranny of the Minority

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Tyranny of the minority: Liberal law profs urge Biden to defy the courts and the public

“I shall resist any illegal federal court order.”

When “the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution is egregiously wrong,” the president should refuse to follow it.

Those two statements were made roughly 60 years apart. The first is from segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D). The second was made by two liberal professors this month.

In one of the most chilling developments in our history, the left has come to embrace the authoritarian language and logic of segregationists in calling for defiance and radical measures against the Supreme Court.

In a recent open letter, Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet and San Francisco State University political scientist Aaron Belkin called upon President Joe Biden to defy rulings of the Supreme Court that he considers “mistaken” in the name of “popular constitutionalism.” Thus, in light of the court’s bar on the use of race in college admissions, they argue that Biden should just continue to follow his own constitutional interpretation.

We live in interesting times.

Prepare appropriately.

Catch-22 for Gun Owner Rights

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The Supreme Court granted cert in this case, and it is worrisome. (1) Mr. Rahimi is quite a violent person; (2) if there is any prohibited person category that is likely to fail “text, history, and tradition” standards, it is the one for those subject to civil DV restraining orders. So this is the acid test for Bruen and its standards.

David Hardy
July 11, 2023
Supreme Court case: US v. Rahimi

I’ve been wondering if SCOTUS would “flinch” on this. If they stick to their guns the anti-gun people will gain a tremendous amount of political capital and really be able to sling their poo at SCOTUS and gun owner activists. If they fold and carve an exception to “text, history, and tradition” for people with a history of domestic violence it will be a significant flaw that will likely be exploited by the courts to justify almost any gun control law.

Surprise Visit From the FBI

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A long time Boomershoot staff member had a surprise visit from the FBI today:

I can’t quote what they said exactly, but it sounded like a normal opening speech. They were standing about six feet back from the door, had their credentials ready to flip open (but at a totally unreadable distance), sad said something like the following, as I peeked my head out while holding the dog back by the collar as she checked them out, too.
Them: “REDACTED <first name, last name>?”
Me: “who’s asking”
Them: “Were with the FBI (flashes ID), and we wanted to ask you a few questions about boomershoot. You are not in trouble or anything, but we are following up some leads on it…”
Me: “Do you have a warrant?”
Them: “no, but-“
Me: “Come back with a warrant.” (close door in their faces and lock it).
 
They walked away, didn’t hear them saying anything. A minute later they drove away.

<shrug>.Probably just another “tip” from some freedom hater.

Usually they just call me.

Overheard

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Last Thursday, Mike B. was in the neighborhood and stopped by for a visit. We were talking about various threats to the social order. He mentioned EMPs were of concern to him. I mentioned another plague, the high crime rates of Seattle and other big cities, nuclear fallout, …
Mike: Kerry (mutual acquaintance and head of a university chemistry department) is the only person I know who owns a Geiger counter.
Joe: [gets up from his chair, opens the cupboard above Mike’s head, pulls out a box, and shows Mike a Geiger counter].
Mike: Okay. Two people.

Anti-gun People, Reality, and Truth

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When we had the assault weapons ban in the 90s, only the guys with the tiniest penises cried about it.

the.effing.librarian @effinglibrarian
Tweeted on May 12, 2023

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

I don’t know anyone that cried about it. But I know lots of people got angry, politically active, and voted the bums out of office. But expecting anti-gun people to be in touch with reality and/or to tell the truth is a very poor assumption.

2023 Carry Optics Nationals-4th Overall

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Son-in-law, John Vlieger:

The Super Safety

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I love it when people drive trucks through the cracks of illegal gun laws:

Via Hoffman Tactical @HoffmanTactical.

Twitter is About To Go Away

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Via Elon Musk:

http://X.com now points to https://twitter.com/.

Interim X logo goes live later today.

Interesting.

Questions:

  • What should we call tweeting? (Also Musk)
  • Will I be able to update all my links to Twitter posts by just changing “twitter.com” to “x.com”.?
  • Does this mean the #TwitterFiles are now the #Xfiles ? (via Colt @coltholomew)

You Know Your Friends By Their Enemies

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That the leftist echo chamber in unison is doing everything it can to discredit the movie, the actor, the man who started the group by rescuing children and the group that rescues children should tell you something. They are over the target and laying down truth bombs right and left. The sound of leftist heads exploding…it’s a beautiful thing.

Sheila Stokes
July 16, 2023
THE SOUND OF LEFTIST HEADS EXPLODING

I have nothing to add.

Unintended Consequences

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The first sentence of this article is totally bogus. So who knows what to make of the following quote:

Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast

James Hansen, one of the early voices on climate, says that measures to mitigate the crisis may now, ironically, be contributing to it. He published a working paper this spring suggesting that a reduction in sulfate aerosol particles—or the air pollution associated with burning coal and the global shipping industry—has contributed to warmer temperatures. That’s because these particles cause water droplets to multiply, which brightens clouds and reflects solar heat away from the planet’s surface. Though the paper has not been peer-reviewed, Hansen predicts that environmentally minded policies to reduce these pollutants will likely cause temperatures to rise by 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

Assuming it is true, I find it amusing that if we do have global warming problems we can blame it on the environmentalists and truthfully insist the cure is to crank up the coal fired power plants.

The problem is we are dealing with an incredible complex, non-linear, system with variables and values we not only don’t know about, but are unknowable, and interact with unknowable effects.