Category Archives: Current News

This is about stuff in the mass media that generally has a short interest life span. Speculation about an election outcome a few days before the election is an example.

This will be interesting

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Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger:

Scientists announced Thursday that, after decades of effort, they have succeeded in detecting gravitational waves from the violent merging of two black holes in deep space. The detection was hailed as a triumph for a controversial, exquisitely crafted, billion-dollar physics experiment and as confirmation of a key prediction of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

It will also inaugurate a new era of astronomy in which gravitational waves are tools for studying the most mysterious and exotic objects in the universe, scientists declared at a euphoric news briefing at the National Press Club in Washington.

…

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves. We did it!” declared David Reitze, the executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), drawing applause from an  audience that included many of the luminaries of the physics world. The briefing was watched around the world by physicists who have long waited for such a detection.

I’m hoping this will lead to the development of “warp drive”.

The science is settled

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Report: Criminologists, Economists Find Benefits to Gun Ownership:

Economists and criminologists have very different approaches to research and different political views, but they both generally find benefits from gun ownership,” Lott told Townhall in an email. “Economists, on the whole, were much more likely than criminologists to believe that there are benefits from gun ownership.  By a factor of 12-to-1, economists believe that permitted concealed handguns reduce rather than increase murder rates.  Despite their differences, still criminologists also believe this by a factor of just 2-to-1.”

Perhaps surveys such as this will help Americans take a level-headed approach to gun control in the future.

No. It won’t help Americans take a level-headed approach to gun control. This is because anti-gun people have never been “level-headed”. If they had the capacity to be level-headed they wouldn’t have been anti-gun to begin with and they wouldn’t have to lie to gain traction.

We must continue to fight them culturally and politically until they become as irrelevant as the KKK which they so closely resemble.

Quote of the day—United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

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We reject the State’s argument that the Second Amendment does not apply to detachable magazines because magazines are not firearms—that is, detachable magazines do not constitute “bearable” arms that are expressly protected by the Second Amendment. See U.S. Const. amend. II. By Maryland’s logic, the government can circumvent Heller, which established that the State cannot ban handguns kept in the home for self-defense, simply by prohibiting possession of individual components of a handgun, such as the firing pin. But of course, without the ability to actually fire a gun, citizens cannot effectively exercise the right to bear arms. See Jackson v. City of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 967 (9th Cir. 2014) (“The Second Amendment protects ‘arms,’ ‘weapons,’ and ‘firearms’; it does not explicitly protect ammunition. Nevertheless, without bullets, the right to bear arms would be meaningless.”). In our view, “the right to possess firearms for protection implies a corresponding right” to possess component parts necessary to make the firearms operable.

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
February 4, 2016
No. 14-1945; STEPHEN V. KOLBE et al. v. State of Maryland
[It’s nice to find a court that agrees with us and is making clear what we gun rights activists all know to be true and essential.

This answers the ignorant high school kid I quoted yesterday.—Joe]

Strict scrutiny in MD by the 4th on the 2nd

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The 4th Circuit Court ruled on an assault weapon ban in Maryland. They said, in part:

Strict scrutiny, then, is the appropriate level of scrutiny to apply to the ban of semi- automatic rifles and magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

…..

“In our view, Maryland law implicates the core protection of the Second Amendment—“the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008), and we are compelled by Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), as well as our own precedent in the wake of these decisions, to conclude that the burden is substantial and strict scrutiny is the applicable standard of review for Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment claim. Thus, the panel vacates the district court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment claims and remands for the district court to apply strict scrutiny.“

It was a 2-1 majority. To put it technically, “Suck on that one, anti-rights cultists!”

Ahem. That is to say, “I’d count that as a potentially important win.”

Gun madness again

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As implied by my last post about the overloading of the NICS system I have been noticing how crowded the indoor ranges are around here. A couple weeks ago, about 2:00 PM, on a Saturday, I was stopped at the local range to practice before a match. The parking lot was full. And it’s not a small parking lot:

WCA

Every place you see parking lines, or cars, and on the street in front of the building had parked cars. I drove by the front door and looking into the lobby to see it was packed. I just drove on home.

Recently I’ve been visiting the range at lunch time and while I don’t have a problem finding a parking spot the range has been crowded. The only time it hasn’t been crowded recently was when I went to a different range (because I was in the area anyway) and it was during a Seahawks game. I was far from the only shooter in the place but it wasn’t packed.

Another item of interest is that I ordered a holster and magazine pouches from Kramer Leather yesterday. They quoted me a delivery time of seven to nine weeks.

My speculation is that it’s the threat of more gun control that has people hitting the range and the gun stores in mass again.

NICS denial overload implications

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I wanted to post something about this last night but it was dinner and video night with my daughter so I decided to do it tonight. Then Sebastian made nearly all the points I wanted to make.

The one issue I want to elaborate on further is:

The surge of criminal background checks required of new gun purchasers has been so unrelenting in recent months that the FBI had been forced to temporarily halt the processing of thousands of appeals from prospective buyers whose firearm purchase attempts have been denied.

Since October, the bureau’s entire cadre of appeal examiners— about 70 analysts — was redeployed here to help keep pace with waves of incoming background investigations that continued through December when a record 3.3 million firearm sales were processed.

This shows us there is a loophole in the system an (redundancy alert) unscrupulous, anti-gun administration could deny the majority of the people in this country their right to purchase new firearms. If they can ignore the appeals of denials then it would seem that instead of actually doing a proper background check and giving a pass or fail response they could just say, “Fail” to everyone. Then they just ignore their appeals.

It would seem to me this loophole needs to be fixed. Best case is to just eliminate NICS and if states want background check for firearm purchases they can put “Firearm exclusions” on drivers licenses and state ID cards. And if it is impractical to eliminate NCIS the law should require the FBI/DOJ/whoever respond appropriately to the appeals within 10 days or else the denial is automatically overturned.

Quote of the day—Connecticut Carry

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The home invasion, which was carried out on August 6, 2012, in Sharon Connecticut found the victim’s mother zip-tied with her son Luke dead from multiple gunshot wounds pleading with the dispatcher for police and an ambulance for ten minutes. At approximately 6 minutes into the call, she exclaims that ‘she doesn’t have a gun and couldn’t defend herself’ in an audible display of despair.

Politicians who are protected by armed security details like Governor Malloy, the Connecticut General Assembly and Connecticut’s Federal Representatives and Senators continually tell the public that this kind of thing doesn’t happen. That people do not need firearms to defend themselves, and worse, they create infringements on the right to armed self-defense for the citizens in Connecticut.

Connecticut Carry
January 7, 2016
Press Release: When Seconds Count the Police Are Ten Minutes Away
[These politicians need to be prosecuted.—Joe]

It’s not an open loop system

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In control systems and electronic amplifiers engineers design things to be self correcting. Think of the simple control system for the heating system in your home. You set the thermostat to a particular temperature and it will turn the heat on it if gets too cool and off when it reaches the desired temperature. This is a closed loop system. There is a sensor which provides information about the current status of the system and this information is used to control the heat source and keep the temperature within acceptable limits. The system has a feedback loop from the output (the room temperature) back to the input (the heat supply).

Without such a feedback loop it would be very difficult to maintain a system at a stable temperature. When the outside temperature changed the inside temperature would change too. If someone left a window open the interior temperature would change.

I have often thought our planet must have one or more feedback loops to maintain it’s temperature at something very close to the same (averaged the entire surface over the entire year) temperature. I knew one feedback loop, which the climate change people seldom, if ever, mention, was that plants are CO2 starved. At our current concentration of about 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere it’s not easy for the plants to absorb and then pull the carbon apart from the oxygen to build plant matter. In fact, at current atmospheric pressures, photosynthesis shuts down at between 150 ppm and 200 ppm. As atmospheric CO2 increases plants grow faster. Faster growing plants mean more energy is absorbed from the sun, reducing atmospheric heating, and more CO2 is absorbed from the air. Hence the green house effect, atmospheric warming, from increased CO2 is counteracted, at least in part, by the feedback mechanism of increased plant growth.

There are other feedback systems as well. One of which only very recently was discovered:

According to a study by the Institute of Catalysis and Environment in Lyon (IRCELYON, CNRS / University Lyon 1) and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), the oceans are producing unexpectedly large quantities of isoprene – a volatile organic compound (VOC) – which is known to have a cooling effect on climate.

Our planet temperature is not an open loop system. If it were then the global warming/cooling climate change people would be right to be concerned. But it is, almost, obviously not. Closed loop systems are much more difficult to upset and are much more stable. We have a closed loop system with many feedback loops. These loops make the system extremely difficult to model but don’t tell me climate is changing until you can explain to me how the inputs to the system have the potential to break the feedback loops which stabilize the temperature.

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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There is no such thing as gun violence.

The left uses the absurd phrase “gun violence” in order to rid our culture of human agency — in other words, of morality. The left denies the notion of good and evil just as it denies IslamoNazi terror, a malignant ideology that is spreading like cancer across the globe.

When two IslamoNazis unleashed terror in San Bernardino, President Obama and the Praetorian media defaulted to their anti-gun obsession, a blizzard of Tourette’s-style rhetoric with no connection to reality. The Democrat party’s solution to the scourge of IslamoNazi terror is to disarm honest citizens. In the fantasyland Democrats inhabit, all they have to do is pass laws and the monsters who terrorize us — IslamoNazis and drug-dealing gangbangers — will vanish.

The real world does not conform to such delusions…

Robert J. Avrech
December 22, 2015
Jew With Gun
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ryan Holiday

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Scientists replicate each other’s experiments in order to prove or disprove their findings. Conversely, journalists replicate one another conclusions and build on top of them—often when they are not correct. The news has always filled with errors, because it is self-referential instead of self-critical. Mistakes don’t occur as isolated incidents but ripple through the news, sometimes with painful consequences.

Ryan Holiday
2013
Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
Quoting, in part, Kathryn Schulz in Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
[I found this particularly insightful.—Joe]

Isn’t that interesting

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From the AP:

One of the guns linked to Islamic militants in the Paris attacks that killed 130 people was exported to the United States in 2013, the head of a Serbian arms factory said Thursday.

Milojko Brzakovic of the Zastava arms factory told The Associated Press that the M92 semi-automatic pistol’s serial number matched one his company delivered to an American online arms dealer in May 2013. It was not clear how the gun got back to Europe.

I find this very interesting. Doesn’t this demonstrate the gun, almost for certain, was smuggled from the U.S. to France? That would seem to be a much bigger challenge than smuggling, say, cigarettes from South Carolina to New York City. Or guns from Virginia to New York City. If France can’t keep guns from being smuggled in from the U.S. then why should the gun grabbers believe guns can’t be smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico, or even Eastern Europe?

If there is a market for an existing product there will be a supplier.

When will they come for the guns?

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Via email Mac asks:

Joe,

If those on the no fly list are to be prohibited from buying guns, what about those they already own?  When will the government come for them?

Good question.

I don’t know the answer. I suspect that is a constitutional infringement the government doesn’t want to cross right now.

Something of a side note is that while researching this I learned there are two lists which I had merged into one in my mind. One is the the “No Fly List”. The other is “Terrorist Watch List.”

From the WSJ:

The National Counterterrorism Center runs a central repository of more than 1 million people called Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE. The TIDE database, which includes about 25,000 Americans as of 2013…

An unclassified subset of the TIDE database is made available to law enforcement as part of the Terrorist Screening Database. That database contains biographical and biometric information about potential terrorists and can be accessed by local, state and federal law enforcement officials who don’t have security clearances. As of 2011, that database was said to contain about 420,000 names, according to the FBI.

The Transportation Security Administration receives an even smaller list of people subject to travel restrictions drawn from the Terrorist Screening Database. In addition to the 16,000 names on the no-fly list in 2011, another 16,000 were on the selectee list. The selectee list doesn’t prevent individuals from flying but subjects them to extra scrutiny.

About 25,000 Americans on the terrorist watch list. According to the US Census Bureau in 2012 there were about 220 million people in the U.S. 21 and over. This means they suspect about one out of 9,000 people of being terrorists. And about one out of every 7,000 people on the lists associated with commercial flight. That isn’t as big a list as what some people have been saying.

The practical problem I see with the government attempting to “come for the guns” which the people on the lists already have is that how do they know which of the people on the list possess guns? If they don’t know which people actually have guns they would have to search their homes and any other place those people might have stored the gun(s). They can’t get a search warrant unless they have probable cause of a crime being committed, a description what it is they are looking for, and where they believe to find the object. “Guns in the home or car or storage unit because they are on this list” probably is going to have the judge frowning at you rather than signing it.

But the issue of blocking sales to people on this list is a different issue because it doesn’t involve the 4th Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is considered by many people to be a second class (if it is recognized at all) right. The 4th Amendment has a process in place which attempts to protect people from having this right infringed.

A comparable process to that proposed to the purchase of a gun being subject to a background check which involves one or more secret government lists would be to subject sales of religious and political books to the same background checks. Of course most people would claim it’s not the same thing at all. My response is, “You are absolutely correct. Ideas are far more dangerous than guns. Haven’t you hear of all the people murdered by those inspired by The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, as well as the The Holy Qur’an and The Holy Bible?”

But to answer Mac’s question I think it will be quite a while before they start collecting those guns already in the hands of people on the lists. But I think it is a great question to ask of those advocating for restricting sales to such people. If they don’t bring up the 4th Amendment issues themselves then you bring them up. And then follow up with the 1st Amendment issues if such a background check were required for reading materials or church attendance.

Psychology of some mass shooters

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I found this very interesting:

An evolutionary psychology explanation for mass shootings

Psychologists Joseph Vandello and Jennifer Bosson have coined the term “precarious manhood” to describe a dilemma that only men seem to face.

In a nutshell, they argue that “manhood” – however an individual male’s culture might define it – is a status that must be continually earned. And one’s self-worth is tied to being perceived as a “real man.”

It’s precarious because it can be easily lost – especially if the man fails to measure up to the relentless challenges that life throws at him, be they tests of physical bravery, or competition with other men for respect and status.

…

Nicolas Henin was a Frenchman who was held hostage by ISIS for ten months. Here’s how he described his young, murderous, Jihadi captors:

They present themselves to the public as superheroes, but away from the camera are a bit pathetic in many ways: street kids drunk on ideology and power. In France we have a saying – stupid and evil. I found them more stupid than evil. That is not to understate the murderous potential of stupidity.

Apparently, a lack of attention from others results in a lack of status, resulting in a lack of access to women. Combined with a young man’s testosterone, it creates a toxic, combustible mix.

Islamic law allows for men to have multiple wives. This contributes to a lack of female access for lower status males and (if you believe this study) a greater inclination for violence.

Of course this doesn’t explain the San Bernardino shooters. But it may explain others and provide another indicator for predicting future violence.

Good plans and crazy psychology

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From MSNBC:

Nobody is talking about gun control in San Bernardino. Here’s why

As a financial aid administrator at a local community college, Melissa Contreras has gone through a number of active-shooter trainings at work. But this shooting hit a little too close to home for her. One of Contereras’ neighbors across the street, a mother to a 22-month toddler, was gunned down in Wednesday’s shooting.

“I have never in all 39 years in my life thought to pick up a gun,” Contreras said. “But now, I want to sign up for a class to learn and train to use one.”

And from the New York Times:

In Wake of Shootings, a Familiar Call to Arms Drives Latest Jump in Weapon Sales

“What if someone comes after me or my family?” said Janet Winkler, a grandmother who was shopping for bullets to fill the revolver inside her purse. “I used to never carry it to Target or to Wal-Mart, but the way things are, after all that’s happened, now I do.”

In the wake of mass shootings in Paris, Colorado Springs and San Bernardino, Calif., Americans are once again arming themselves — stocking up on guns and ammunition, bringing weapons into their daily routines and requesting refresher courses from firing ranges.

Thinking of both self-protection and the threat of new gun laws that could follow the San Bernardino shooting that left 14 people dead on Wednesday, much of the country is rushing toward guns rather than away: Gun shops from Texas to Maine have all recently reported increased gun sales, and in some cases, sheriffs have even urged residents to arm themselves.

It is all part of a weapons boom that has been building for weeks. More Americans had their backgrounds checked while buying guns on Black Friday than on any other day on record, according to F.B.I. statistics, which showed a 5 percent increase over Black Friday last year. In all, 185,345 people had their backgrounds checked on Black Friday alone.

Good people implementing good plans. It should help. There will still be losses on our side but it should reduce the kill ratios.

But what amazes me is the how the anti-gun people conform to the psychology described in the book When Prophecy Fails:

These five conditions specify the circumstances under which increased proselyting would be expected to follow disconfirmation.

The conditions are met and these people follow the psychology.

The majority of the people recognize gun control is a stupid response to the attacks and the anti-gun people respond with increased proselyting. And yet, with all these people believing buying guns, getting trained, and carrying them wherever they can is an appropriate response to terrorist attacks The New York Times thinks it is plausible, appropriate, and politically possible to ban gun ownership of the most popular rifle in America?

As I said yesterday:

The anti-gun people are on a downward slope to oblivion and the NYT editorial is the shrieking as they approach the abyss.

They literally do not know how to think rationally. They have crap for brains. They cannot determine truth and falsity.

Sympathy in this case is difficult

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The French have been working hard for years to show the Muslims that they mean them no harm. THAT, we are told, is how you get along in peace with people of other cultures, and if other people hate you then there must be a good reason; you need to look at yourself and see what you can do to make them stop hating you.

The French have also adopted the idea of massive violations of the right of honest citizens to keep and bear arms. Criminals will have whatever they want, but the honest must be disarmed.

Predictably then, we get this quote after last night’s coordinated jihad attacks in and around Paris. This was from someone at a rock concert;

“We lied down on the floor not to get hurt. It was a huge panic. The terrorists shot at us for 10 to 15 minutes. It was a bloodbath.” (That’s from CNN if you want to look. I’m not linking to them)

If all you can do is lie down and hope, while people around you are being shot, for 10 to 15 minutes, then your tactics suck. Dozens of people died on that scene, like the helpless sheep they worked so hard to become.

They’ve brought this upon themselves, I’m very sorry to say, and it’s difficult to have much sympathy for them. We’ve tried for years to warn them.

The left in the U.S. sees all this and says to themselves; “We totally need more multiculturalism and more gun control.” That attitude, that insanity, is the enemy as much as any jihadist, for it is that attitude that has emboldened the jihadists. They must be laughing their asses off at our stupidity.

Quote of the day—NYT Editorial Board

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Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

NYT Editorial Board
December 4, 2015
End the Gun Epidemic in America
[Peter O suggests:

The NYT just published a front-page editorial (The first since 1920!) Advocating for the banning and confiscating of firearms.

You might just be able to drop the topic finally. 😉

The topic being “Don’t let anyone tell you they want to take your guns.” But that assumes there are enough people reading the New York Times for the word to get around.

My take on this editorial is this will further reduce their readership. More and more people realize that with the war with our current enemy for people to advocate gun control is an incredibly stupid idea. Even Chris Christie, who governs a state with incredible strict gun laws, called this editorial, “typical liberal claptrap from the New York Times”.

Yesterday Barb and I were at the range with a relatively new shooter and her husband. The check-in counter and gun store was packed with people. I supposedly had the training bay reserved for them but it was packed with a class. The range gave us a smaller bay and we got her shooting much better and far more comfortable with a gun. She is going to get a CPL.

My point is that rational people realize the answer to violent criminals is to respond with immediate protective violence and the best tool for that is a gun. People advocating removing the tools for delivering that immediate protective violence are being ignored and even anti-gun groups and President Obama recognize this:

President Barack Obama made a promise in October to use his bully pulpit to politicize gun control. But he hasn’t followed through — he hasn’t scheduled a single speech on the topic, instead simply reacting to shooting after mass shooting. And he’s stopped pushing for any real legislation with members of Congress.

Obama frequently repeats his promise to do something. But aides say he’s essentially given up on any significant gun control passing during his presidency.

…leaders of the groups grumble. They still get invited to intermittent brainstorming sessions at the White House where they hear talk about securing a legacy with some more moves, and then they wait as nothing real happens.

In a stopped clock is right twice a day type moment Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence President Dan Gross is right when he says:

We have seen over this past week how quickly an important social conversation can really change how we look at an issue.

The conversations I had at work, with friends wanting guns and training, and the packed gun ranges and stores over this past week we do see that, speaking literally, Gross is right. But not in the way he would like to believe. The anti-gun people are on a downward slope to oblivion and the NYT editorial is the shrieking as they approach the abyss.—Joe]

First rocket VTOL?

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This is pretty cool. Via Drudge. With video.

A rocket with landing gear. We saw that in books and SciFi movies all our lives. Never thought it would take this long, but apparently it’s difficult.

Better book yourself a flight. You get four minutes of free-fall, and the best “roller coaster” ride yet. Once they can go orbital it’ll cost more for a ticket I bet.

Bad guys and worse guys, bad news and good news

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To laugh or cry. Hard call. A recent terrorist shooting Paris has some unlikely, er, heros? (it’s transplated, and a little hard to tell if it was the big ISIS shooting or another one at a nearby or related restaurant) It is being reported that when the terrorists entered and started shooting, there were people in the restaurant that rose and returned fire, killing “the two attackers.” So score two for the good guys? Well, ordinary civilians can’t easily carry for self-defense, there. Turns out the concealed-carry guys were Columbia narco-cartel traffickers.

Huh.

Oh, well. Red-on-red fire still counts as a win, yes?

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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The beasts of Islam have declared war against all of Western civilization. And there is no appeasing them. The more you give the more they demand.

And unless the EU stands with Israel against the beasts of Islam, the EU will drown in its own blood.

Robert J. Avrech
November 15, 2015
Paris and The Beasts of Islam
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

You only have to extrapolate a little

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King County contains Seattle and many of the surrounding cities. So this is in deep blue territory. And yet King Co. Sheriff asks off-duty officers to carry guns, extra mags after Paris attacks:

King County Sheriff John Urquhart has instructed off-duty deputies to carry their sidearm with extra magazines, following the deadly Paris attacks.

The violence in Paris prompted the sheriff to request, via a letter to his deputies, that off-duty officers be armed with their service weapons and extra magazines of ammo should a terrorist attack hit the Puget Sound region.

…

The King County Sheriff’s Office has 700 commissioned officers, according to Urquhart. While off-duty deputies were once required to carry their service weapon wherever they went, that is not the case currently.

You only have to extrapolate a little bit to come to the conclusion that the thousands of private citizens with concealed carry permits in the county would dramatically improve the odds of a Paris like attack running into armed resistance in the first few seconds instead of having free rein for several minutes.