Category Archives: Freedom

Due process? Who needs it?

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H. R. 2159 would allow the U.S. Attorney General deny people an ATF license for firearms or explosives without due process:

The Attorney General may deny a license application if the Attorney General determines that the applicant (including any responsible person) is known (or appropriately suspected) to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing material support thereof, and the Attorney General has a reasonable belief that the applicant may use a firearm in connection with terrorism.’.

“Appropriately suspected”? Yeah, right. Like I donated money to his bosses opponent in the last election? Or he read Why Boomershoot?

Surely it there must be some sort of hearing and you are given a chance to see or respond to the evidence they used to arrive at the decision, right?

by striking ‘The Attorney General may, after notice and opportunity for hearing, revoke’ and insert ‘(2)’;
…
(1) in the 1st sentence of paragraph (1), by inserting ‘, except that if the denial or revocation is pursuant to subsection (d)(1)(H) or (e)(3), then any information on which the Attorney General relied for this determination may be withheld from the petitioner if the Attorney General determines that disclosure of the information would likely compromise national security’ before the period;
…
‘(b) In any case in which the Attorney General has denied the transfer of a firearm to a prospective transferee pursuant to section 922A or has made a determination regarding a firearm permit applicant pursuant to section 922B, an action challenging the determination may be brought against the United States. The petition must be filed not later than 60 days after the petitioner has received actual notice of the Attorney General’s determination made pursuant to section 922A or 922B. The court shall sustain the Attorney General’s determination on a showing by the United States by a preponderance of evidence that the Attorney General’s determination satisfied the requirements of section 922A or 922B. To make this showing, the United States may submit, and the court may rely on, summaries or redacted versions of documents containing information the disclosure of which the Attorney General has determined would likely compromise national security. On request of the petitioner or the court’s own motion, the court may review the full, undisclosed documents ex parte and in camera. The court shall determine whether the summaries or redacted versions, as the case may be, are fair and accurate representations of the underlying documents. The court shall not consider the full, undisclosed documents in deciding whether the Attorney General’s determination satisfies the requirements of section 922A or 922B.’.

No crime need be committed. The AG just has to have a bad feeling about you and you don’t get to see or respond to the evidence being used against you.

What Henry Kissinger said comes to mind.

Paintball and laser tag are next

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You can be pretty sure no one has been killed or injured with a gun used for laser tag and permanent injuries with paintball guns are exceedingly rare. But that isn’t really relevant is it? It’s the thought that counts:



The Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrat Party agreed on Tuesday evening to reforms to Germany’s gun laws, which include a controversial ban on war games like paintball or laser-tag.


…


The draft law would also bar youths under the age of 18 from shooting high-caliber firearms at target practice.


…


The plan also contains provisions to impose hefty fines on the operators of war games like paintball, a game in which players use air-guns to shoot paint-filled ammunition at opponents. Lawmakers say the sport “simulates killing” and should be outlawed.

Quote of the day–Ben Franklin

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God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country.


Ben Franklin
[Unfortunately just the opposite has happened. Anywhere I may set my foot on this planet is oppressed and there is no place that I can say I want to live with this system of government. Now that Cheerios are being considered a drug (and here) will the fields in which we raise the oats for them be treated like fields of opium poppies?–Joe]

I have to laugh

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Socialism. It’s made of FAIL:



The state budget deficit has nearly doubled in the past two months, climbing past $15 billion, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger disclosed Monday.


The sober news comes a week before a May 19 statewide vote on a set of ballot budget-related measures that, if defeated, would push the deficit past $21 billion, Schwarzenegger warned in a letter to legislative leaders.


It was Socialism that brought about the collapse of the U.S.S.R. It will be socialism that brings about the collapse of the California government. And I’ll not be surprised if it brings down the U.S. government as well.


And as painful as it will be to most people I’ll still laugh because I’m not above saying “I told you so.” And I’ll have all the food, clean water, and the guns and ammo to defend it while the socialist “intellectuals” are unable to find a way to dispose of their own waste in a sanitary manner let alone find water or food fit for consumption. They can tell me, again, how important, how right, how justified they are in their cities as they cry themselves to sleep with an empty stomach, in their own filth, in the dark.

I wish

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Full disclosure and disclaimer time. I work for Microsoft. The following opinion is my personal opinion and does not represent, to the best of my knowledge, the opinion of anyone in MS management.


The EU is about to fine Intel:



Microsoft and Intel are taking it on the chin in Europe these days. On Wednesday, the EU is expected to bring down a heavy fine on Intel for its myriad anticompetitive activities at the expense of AMD. The Wall Street Journal reports it will be one of the biggest fines in the EU’s history.


The anticompetetition commissioner can fine Intel as much as 10 percent of its annual revenue. That would be a $3.8 billion fine based on 2008 revenue, more than triple the $1.16 billion charged to Microsoft for noncompliance in the EU’s long-running antitrust action against Redmond.


One has to wonder what percentage of the EU income is based on fines and what percentage is based on taxes. But most of all I wonder how long the EU would last without Intel and Microsoft products. I’m sure Intel and Microsoft could do without the EU a lot better than the EU could do without Microsoft and Intel.


I just wish Microsoft and Intel had the gumption and the means to demonstrate that to those commies.

Quote of the day–Lewis Mumford

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The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.


Lewis Mumford
[It seems to me that most people don’t really realize what government is. Some people think of government as a replacement for god(s). Some people think of it as a replacement for parents. These people are wrong and, if they weren’t allowed to vote, their delusions would be mostly harmless. But they enable the ever growing power and danger of governments. I just wish everyone didn’t have to suffer through the lessons of what government really is when so many of us have been trying to explain it, to deaf ears, for so long. But it appears the lesson is coming whether we already knew it or not. I just hope this lesson sticks this time.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Traction Control

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As the “Right Wing” is now being singled out by the Janet Nepolitano’s DHS as “extremists” and taxation is inevitably being prepared to bankrupt generations to come, perhaps we should realize that War has already been declared on American Values, Heritage, Birthright and Prosperity.


I say we prepare to designate households, then neighborhoods, towns, cities, counties, States, Regions and eventually the whole country as “Hell No” zones.  Starting with the refusal to pay ANY TAXES, and showing up en masse to prevent the lawyers from enforcing any individual seizure of private property in a self-proclaimed “Hell No“ zone.


Rolling back every law enacted since the Constitution was ratified would be a good start, too.


I hereby declare ALL Taxes are against my consent.  And pledge to defend any other household to declare itself a “Hell No” zone. 


Beginning with mine.


ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!


Traction Control
May 2, 2009
Democracy Overrun in Pakistan. In the US? Hell No!
[I admit to getting a warm pleasant feeling from the thought. But most of my taxes are paid without my control via payroll deductions and as part of the purchase price as in sales and gas taxes. It will take people “unplugging from the grid” to even to begin to accomplish this on a wide scale. That doesn’t mean I might not support others that can establish a “Hell No” zone but I’m not sure how much that would help.–Joe]

Socialism isn’t creeping

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Sometimes I will read about “creeping socialism”. No one with a room temperature IQ, half functional news sources, and at least one foot outside the nearest mental hospital can avoid the conclusion socialism is in high gear and about to shift into overdrive at full throttle. GM, Chrysler, and the banking industry in this country are already being crushed by the socialists. Our path leads to Venezuela:




Venezuelan soldiers at an event presided over by President Hugo Chávez on Friday celebrating the seizure of contractors’ assets.


President Hugo Chávez asserted greater control over the country’s energy industry on Friday by seizing the assets of some foreign and domestic oil contractors while his government grapples with a sharp decline in oil revenue and mounting debts.


…


Venezuela, which relies on oil for about 93 percent of its export earnings, has not paid some of the oil contractors since late last year, according to filings by companies like Williams Companies, based in Tulsa, Okla., which said last month that it did not expect to receive $241 million it was owed here. Petróleos de Venezuela had been seeking a reduction of about 40 percent in its overall debt to the companies, which is estimated by industry analysts to be about $10 billion.


Our “people will never again be anyone’s slave,” Mr. Chávez said Friday.


Industry representatives in the oil-producing state of Zulia said uniformed soldiers had begun occupying oil installations on Thursday, shortly before the National Assembly approved a measure allowing the takeovers. The move deepens Mr. Chávez’s control of the oil industry, following the imposition of higher royalties on foreign oil companies, raids on their offices by tax authorities and the nationalization of large oil-producing projects in recent years.


“…never again be anyone’s slave”? Really? What do you call it when someone claiming superiority over you takes the results of your work for their own use without compensation? It seems pretty clear to me the oil contractors are being treated like slaves. And as things continue to deteriorate both in Venezuela and the U.S. expect more and more slaves to be created.


I’d ask my cousin who used to work in the Venezuela oil industry what he thought of the situation but I can’t. He died while in Venezuela a while back under suspicious circumstances.

Quote of the day–Dmitry Orlov

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I’ve covered what I think are basics, based on what I saw work and what I think might work reasonably well here. I assume that a lot of you are thinking that this is all quite far into the future, if in fact it ever gets that bad. You should certainly feel free to think that way. The danger there is that you will miss the opportunity to adapt to the new reality ahead of time, and then you will get trapped. As I see it, there is a choice to be made: you can accept the failure of the system now and change your course accordingly, or you can decide that you must try to stay the course, and then you will probably have to accept your own individual failure later.


Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[Is society collapsing? I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that we haven’t had so many banks and major companies failing anytime in my lifetime. I know there are very, very few things governments can do better than the free market. I know government “solutions” are almost always worse than the original problem. And I know that our government has expanded and plans to expand into more areas than any other time in my life. I’ve not personally seen society collapse but it seems to me this is likely to be what it appears like in the early stages.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Saul Cornell

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Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea recasts the gun debate by showing its importance to the future of democracy and the modern regulatory state. Until now, gun rights advocates had effectively co-opted the language of liberty and democracy and made it their own. This book is an important first step in demonstrating how reasonable gun control is essential to the survival of democracy and ordered liberty.


Saul Cornell
Ohio State University
From the publishers web site.
[Ahhh, yes. We’ve heard this party slogan before only with slightly different wording: Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength.–Joe]

Bill Whittle vs. John Stewart; A Knockout in One Punch

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There are many recurring themes among the left.  Then there are mantras for every leftist, but one that gets passed around, modified, recycled and reused a lot is the “America is evil for having actually used the A-bomb” meme.  The jihadists have been using that one, as have socialist and communist governments around the world, for years.  At least someone agrees with John Stewart besides a few pimple-faced high school students watching Comedy Central on their parents’ TVs. 


Whittle does a wonderful job of refuting this blatant ignorance.  “Ooh! Ouch!”


Watch the whole thing.  Whittle didn’t even have to mention what the Japanese did in China.


I almost feel sorry for Stewart.  Almost, but then I have to think that surely he knew all this stuff beforehand, and was just playing out a shtick on his show.  That would be giving him the benefit of the doubt I suppose.  Maybe he really is that vacuous.


The left however will be clinging to this worn-out meme for generations to come, no matter how many times it’s proven wrong.  As they say; there’s sucker born every minute.

Quote of the day–Milton Friedman

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The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.


Milton Friedman
[The socialist would disagree of course. But that is because they always imagine that “good people” will be in government. But that kind of concentration of money and power inevitably attracts “the worst people” with the predictable results of Stalin, Castro, etc. with them and their cronies satisfying their greedy desires not to mention the substandard lifestyle of their subjects and all the torture and executions of their political enemies. As in most cases the socialists only see the possible good in their world view and not the costs.


Once I demanded that an admitted communist give me the measurement of “fair” that he used just so we could be clear on what he was talking about. He refused. It boiled down to “he knew it when he saw it”. Apparently he wanted to be the ultimate judge of “fairness” because what he thought was “fair” was completely different than mine. That is how they gain power. They say vague things that most people can agree with such as “fairness”, “justice”, etc. I think it is fair that I keep my results of my work but they think it is fair that I share half of my income with them.


Ask them how they measure “fairness” or “justice”, if they can’t express it in numbers then it’s just unsubstantiated opinion.–Joe]

Boomershoot 2009 raffle proceeds

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The following should be self-explanatory.


 


From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 10:50 AM
To: ‘wounded@soldiersangels.org’
Cc: ‘Chuck Ziegenfuss’; ‘Barb Scott’; ‘Jason Scott’
Subject: Boomershoot 2009 raffle proceeds.


 


Boomershoot (http://www.boomershoot.org) is an annual long range precision rifle event held in North Central Idaho. Each year soldiers from Fort Lewis attend and for two days prior to the main event help teach Boomershoot participants the science and art of accurate long range shooting. Some of those soldiers later went on to Iraq and Afghanistan and were injured and some were killed.


 


In October of 2007 my wife and I met Chuck Ziengenfuss at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno. He told us of his injuries and how Soldiers’ Angels helped him. It turns out that it was the second time my wife had met Chuck. She had also met at Walter Reed when she was visiting our nephew Jason Scott who was wounded in Iraq and also benefited from your help.


 


At Boomershoot this year we held a raffle with the intent that half of the proceeds would go to raffle participants and the other half going to Project Valour-IT. After the event someone quietly came up to me and gave me three $100 bills to give to you.


 


Below are the reference number and other information from my bank that is mailing you a check of the proceeds. If it does not arrive as expected please let me know.


 

















Send On


Amount

Expected Delivery

Reference #

Payee


04/29/2009

$1,385.00

05/06/2009

DBRBS7UH

Soldiers’ Angels


 


 


-joe-


—–


https://blog.joehuffman.org/


http://www.boomershoot.org/


http://www.modernballistics.com/


 

Quote of the day–Soldiers’ Angels

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May No Soldier Go Unloved.


Slogan of Soldier’s Angels
[See my next post for more context. And yes, this is an exact duplicate of my post this time last year.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Alan Gura, Robert A. Levy, Clark M. Neilly

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Cooley agreed, explaining that the Second Amendment “is significant as having been reserved by the people as a possible and necessary resort for the protection of self-government against usurpation, and against any attempt on the part of those who may for the time be in possession of State authority or resources to set aside the constitution and substitute their own rule for that of the people.” Thomas Cooley, The Abnegation of Self-Government, 12 PRINCETON REV. 209, 213-14 (1883). The individual use of Second-Amendment-protected arms to check despotism, “far from being revolutionary, would be in strict accord with popular right and duty.” Id.

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed–where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Alan Gura
Robert A. Levy
Clark M. Neily III
February 24, 2008
RESPONDENT’S BRIEF On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit.
[In part, Boomershoot is about being prepared to exercise this part of the constitution.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Chuck

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My message to my troops is if you see any Jews on the streets of Berlin, we’ll put them on the ground, take their property away and then decide whether they have a right to it. Maybe I’ll end up with a protest of Rabbis. In the meantime, I’ve got serious orthodoxy with access to Talmuds. It’s irresponsible to send a message to them that if they just study it openly no one can bother them.


Chuck
In the comments to Quote of the day–Ed Flynn
[Very nice twist to Ed’s words. It put Flynn’s words in the proper perspective for others to see it for what it was–using the force of law in a bigoted attack on gun owners.–Joe]

We Get it, Already

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This is an open letter to all the talk show hosts, pundits, party hacks, cheaters, scumbags, sick twisted freaks (you know who you are) and pro-freedom bloggers.  We could spend the rest of our lives cataloging the outrageous behavior of nasty, America-hating, ignorant, self-loathing, cultist, freedom-hating, anti-human, leftist politicians including Progressive Republicans.  We know they’re bad, OK?  If there are three or four people who still don’t get it, that’s all right.


I’d rather try to figure out how we’re going to get some principled Americans nominated so we’re not always forced to choose between bad and worse– between more socialism slower, and more socialism faster.  This last national election was a real puker.  The Republican Party is, at the moment, just as lost, dumbfounded, selfish and clueless as ever.  They’re a herd of does, staring blankly into the headlights of an on-coming truck, and the worst part of it is; they don’t even suspect that they’re clueless.  They in the Republican leadership think they have some really clever answers, which amount to more of what got us into this mess.  I recently heard it described as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  That fits very well.  The Republicans have some really super great, super ultra smart ideas for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  No really, listen…  (all the while we have this simple, proven model for success, and it’s being ignored.)


We need to change that.  You need to change it.  I need to change it.  There isn’t anyone else.  I suppose, since it’s up to us, it will have to be on the local level for most of us, being as we’re not billionaires.  That’s OK.  We can still do what we can do.  A lot of people are jazzed up right now.  They just need somewhere to start.  Well, pick a place, a local issue or a local politician that needs a hand (or a very public spanking) and get to it!


That there are clueless people is not the issue.  There will always be the clueless.  They’ll sit on the sidelines, worrying about who likes them and who doesn’t, trying to figure out where the “center” is so they can position themselves in it and claim superiority for having done so, while someone else does the lifting.  Are you a sitter or a lifter?


I have a bad feeling that things could come to blows before this government is brought under control, and I really don’t want that to happen.  Do you?  This country is far too important in the grand scheme of things.


And with that; I don’t have much more to say on here, other than to repeat myself or talk about the weather and what I did last weekend, unless it’s to tell you what I’m doing on the local level to influence politics.  Now I think I have some calls to make.


(Note that I placed this in nearly every one of Joe’s categories. It’s relevant to everything we do and every opportunity we want for our kids in the future)

Quote of the day–Ed Flynn

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My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we’ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it. Maybe I’ll end up with a protest of cowboys. In the meantime, I’ve got serious offenders with access to handguns. It’s irresponsible to send a message to them that if they just carry it openly no one can bother them.


Ed Flynn
Milwaukee Police Chief
April 21, 2009
Milwaukee chief to officers: Ignore gun memo
[What if some police chief said something like this about black people walking the streets after dark? Or Christians wearing a cross in public? His remaining time on the job would, and rightly so, be measured in minutes. And so it should be in this case. It is his job to enforce the law, not enforce what he would like the law to be.


It’s a good thing I won’t be visiting Wisconsin anytime in the foreseeable future. My response to a police officer committing a felony such as this either against me or in my presence would be “messy” and probably involve compounds containing nitrogen. It would be better if you follow Sebastian’s recommendations.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Maj. John Pitcairn

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Disperse, you rebels — Damn you, throw down your arms and disperse!


Maj. John Pitcairn
Lexington, Massachusetts
April 19, 1775
[When distant rulers attempt to seize the arms of todays free people will it rate a turning point in history or just an incident report in a forgotten police record? You decide.–Joe]

Homeland Security Assessment

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To be completely transparent about the Homeland Security Assessment titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” which I first saw at Kevin’s place. I didn’t see what the big deal was about it. The left has been saying I was a threat to humanity since I purchased my first gun, a SKS, back in December ’93 right after President Clinton (and her husband) were elected. I live in Idaho, so of course I’m considered a sexist, racist, bigot who would get violent now that we have a president who is of (one quarter) African descent. Never mind I would have cheered until I was hoarse if were Condoleezza Rice who had been elected President.


The “assessment” looked perfectly reasonable to me. What’s the big deal? It’s politics as usual. I’ve read enough garbage DHS reports and draft reports and given feedback on reports that never made it to the public that I don’t have any illusions about their ability to think their way out of a paper bag let alone be able to connect with reality.


But some people figured it was a forged document. I looked at it and didn’t see anything which indicate forged to me. Sure, the best lie is one that you want to believe. But the left wants to believe that too. They could just be lying to themselves. [shrug] Whatever. It’s kind of amusing. The irony is a bit funny.


I haven’t been paying all that much attention to what people have been saying about it. I’ve been very busy working on domination of the galaxy and planning to make a couple thousand pounds of explosives and gathering up a couple hundred people with guns for next weekend. Why should I care about what DHS says? It doesn’t really apply to me doesn’t? Surely they couldn’t have been thinking of me when they wrote it.


I did get an email from CCRKBA on the topic which I think is worth sharing. The came out with a news release with a line that made me smile:



“It’s ironic,” Gottlieb concluded, “that President Obama’s friend, William Ayers, is a leftwing terrorist bomber, but nothing in this report suggests monitoring his activities.”