My generation of Canadians grew up believing that, if we were very good or very smart, we would someday graduate from Canada.
Robert Fulford
[Particularily relevant now with the proposed ban on handguns in Canada.–Joe]
Category Archives: Freedom
Fuel depot blast in England
It’s too early to know for certain if it was an accident or if it was terrorism. And even if it was determined to be terrorism there is a good chance that knowledge would be restricted. In any case, it sure was a big explosion (latest news here):
A series of explosions rocked a major oil depot just north of London just before dawn Sunday, injuring 36 people.
Huge balls of fire shot into the sky and the area was filled with clouds of thick, black smoke.
People living nearby have been forced to leave their homes in Hemel Hempstead.
Some residents said they heard a small plane flying overhead just before the first blast. But Hertfordshire police said rumours that the aircraft was involved were unfounded.
Witnesses said there were three explosions at the Buncefield fuel depot. The blasts were heard as far away as the Netherlands.
Some firefighters said that this was the biggest fire they’ve ever tackled.
Thick clouds of smoke were spreading to the southeast and southwest, but were not believed to be toxic.
The oil depot supplies fuel for a large part of southeast England. However, a spokesperwosn for oil giant BP said there would be no problems with fuel shortages.
And if it does happen that it was a terrorist attack the VPC and Brady Bunch should take note that this sort of thing happens even where .50 BMG’s are banned. It’s the people not the guns.
Special Boomershoot pricing for Canadians
Considering recent news from Canada and the real reason for Boomershoot I have decided to give Canadians entering Boomershoot 2006 a rebate of one half the price their entry fee. Payable upon showing their Canadian drivers license or other proof of Canadian citizenship at Boomershoot 2006.
Quote of the day-L. Neil Smith
Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moment’s respite deserve only the end of a rope.
L. Neil Smith
Liberals plan to announce handgun ban
Yahoo News reports:
OTTAWA (CP) – Prime Minister Paul Martin will venture into a violence-plagued area of Toronto on Thursday to announce a sweeping ban on handguns, The Canadian Press has learned.
Martin was scheduled to visit Toronto’s troubled Jane-Finch area to make a “safer communities announcement.” Liberal sources have confirmed the announcement includes an “outright” ban on handguns.
However, there will be exceptions for competitive target shooters, gun collectors and peace officers, a Liberal insider said on condition of anonymity. The source would not explain any more details of the policy proposal.
Handguns are already severely restricted in Canada and a handgun registry has been in force for more than 60 years.
…
Windsor MP Joe Comartin, the New Democratic Party’s justice critic, said the announcement sounds like “smoke and mirrors.”
“Basically, all handguns in Canada are illegal now,” said Comartin. “The only people who get permits are those who are using them for recreational purposes or those who need it for their own personal safety and there’s not a lot of those that are granted.”
He said the announcement sounds like “a political ploy during an election to garner some headlines and make it look like you’re actually doing something when, in fact, what you’re proposing is pretty meaningless.”
…
It remains to be seen how the ban will go over in rural areas, where the issue is more about rifles. Many Prairie rifle owners have never forgiven the Liberals for creating a registry for long guns.
Created 10 years ago, the registry was supposed to cost a mere $2 million. Instead, its cost has ballooned to more than $1 billion.
The Conservatives, who declined comment on the expected handgun ban Wednesday, have called the program a boondoggle and Auditor General Sheila Fraser has sharply criticized the waste and mismanagment that have pervaded the registry.
Gun owners warned at the time that the registry was the first step toward confiscation of their guns. Martin’s announcement may be seen as confirmation of their worst fears.
…
Wendy Cukier, who co-founded the Coalition for Gun Control after the Montreal massacre, said the government has yet to live up to previous promises to ban the AR-15 semi-assault rifle and the Ruger Mini-14, the same weapon used in the Polytechnique shootings.
But she said existing laws limiting the use of rifles and shotguns have been successful.
“Overall gun death and injury in Canada is way down,” Cukier said. “Where we’ve actually seen a slight increase is in murders with handguns and so clearly our existing laws are not addressing the handgun problem and something is needed.”
…
“It’s going to accomplish nothing,” said Wayne Fields of LaSalle, Ont., president of the Law-Abiding Registered Firearms Association. “There’s already all types of legislation and illegal use of handguns is out of control.”
Quick correction, it should be Law-Abiding Unregistered Firearms Association.
I’ve commented on Cukier before (and here, and here). I’m certain she is not ignorant on this issue, I think James has her pegged, and she is deliberately misleading when she says “gun death and injury in Canada is way down”. That’s not the issue. The issue is what is the total crime rate? As you restrict weapons the population at large is made less safe because criminals have a safer working environment. You have reduced the total cost to being a criminal. A criminal can be successful simply by being large, strong, or armed with a simpler and/or cheaper weapon. If you could magically eliminate all firearms from the planet you could set the firearm death rate to zero but the total murder rate could climb. There is Just One Question at issue here and Cukier dodges it.
And of course assurances by the anti-freedom bigots that a gun registry won’t be used for confiscation are worthless. That is the only thing it is good for.
Funniest AR-15 post ever
I don’t read much of AR15.com–mostly just when I see hits coming in on Boomershoot.org from it. Today this link was posted on an public folder at work. Some of the AR-15.com crowd claim it’s the funniest post ever. It could be–it’s very good. But you probably have to be a moderately well trained gun person to get the totality of the humor.
Aside from the humor there are some important lessons to be learned from the pictures and the comments. I’ll leave those lessons unstated so that it is less likely inappropriate people learn them.
Tools that create a calming effect
I ran across the following comment today. As I am a great fan of understatement as well as sick humor I just had to share:
History will show that being nuked repeatedly has great calming influence on the “We should rule the world because it’s our divine right” types.
Sort of like Greg Hamilton’s “Universal Hand Signal” for “lie down” as applied to individuals.
Another naming contest
Samantha Burns is looking for PC alternatives for the names of various types of terrorists. The moonbats don’t like being called animal-rights terrorists, ecoterrorist, etc. Any idea? I’ll have to think about it some but I think it’s a worthy endeavor.
Quote of the day–James Huffman-Scott
People may be ignorant, yes. But it is a willful ignorance. They don’t want the truth. No matter how many times I explain they are wrong, no matter how much evidence I give them they don’t care. Their belief makes them feel good and that’s good enough for them.
And this understanding of people’s willful ignorance leads directly to my lack of faith in humanity. I don’t trust people to fix the political system, I don’t trust people to see religion for what it is, I don’t trust people to see the truth that is in front of them, and I don’t trust people to be smart. People don’t want to question their beliefs, they’re happy being ignorant and it doesn’t matter how much I argue with them they won’t change. Therefore they are not worth my time. The majority of mankind doesn’t care for truth and so I don’t care for them.
James Huffman-Scott
Speech for Comm 101
2001
From https://www.joehuffman.org/misc/LifeChange.htm
Perhaps I’m easily amused
As long time readers will know I watch my log files pretty close. In the last month or two I have had occasion to be amused at some of the things I found. For example I found the U.S. Justice Department doing a Google search for {“sheriff’s office” “clearwater county” idaho}. I sent an email to the sheriff with the details. In addition to just being a neighborly thing to do, Boomershoot is held in Clearwater County and I like staying on the good side of the people in the office.
I found another search by the IRS for {nancy amos}. I don’t know if they were looking for the same Nancy that is my sister-in-law, but I was amused to send her an email telling her that it was.
Today I ran across something far more amusing. Someone, at the IRS, did a search for Ayn Rand quotes:
| Domain Name | irs.gov ? (United States Government) | ||||||||||||||||
| IP Address | 152.216.7.# (INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE)
152.216.7.5
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| ISP | INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE | ||||||||||||||||
| Location |
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| Language | English (United States) en-us |
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| Operating System | Microsoft WinXP | ||||||||||||||||
| Browser | Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) |
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| Javascript | version 1.3 | ||||||||||||||||
| Monitor |
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| Time of Visit | Dec 5 2005 9:54:12 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Last Page View | Dec 5 2005 9:54:12 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Length | 0 seconds | ||||||||||||||||
| Page Views | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| Referring URL | http://www.google.co…en&lr=&start=50&sa=N | ||||||||||||||||
| Search Engine | google.com | ||||||||||||||||
| Search Words | quotations from ayn rand books | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | http://blog.joehuffm…Ayn Rand Quotes.aspx | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Exit Page | http://blog.joehuffm…Ayn Rand Quotes.aspx | ||||||||||||||||
| Time Zone | UTC-5:00 EST – Eastern Standard EDT – Eastern Daylight Saving Time |
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| Visitor’s Time | Dec 5 2005 12:54:12 pm | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Number | 51,048 |
The irony of the IRS being interested in what Ayn Rand has to say is quite delicious.
Anti Islamic extremist web sites
Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Thomas Jefferson
[We failed.–Joe]
Boomershoot t-shirt slogan
It’s time for me to create the next Boomershoot t-shirt (and mugs, hats, thongs, etc.). If you have a slogan you think would especially appropriate let me know and if I use it I’ll give you a free shirt, mug, whatever with that slogan on it.
Send your entry to slogan@boomershoot.org. Enter as many times as you like. I will be the final judge on what is used. All whiners complaining about not winning will receive an ammonium nitrate prill as a consolation prize if they show up at Boomershoot 2006 to claim it (valued at $250/ton–one prill weighs approximately 1 grain). Boomershoot helpers, friends and family members are all welcome to submit entries. Deadline is December 15, 2005. Here are previous years slogans:
- 2001–THE BIG BANG!
- 2002–Guns. Explosives. I was there.
- 2003–Project Fireball 2003
- 2004–A ton of explosives. Fun beyond measure.
- 2005–Exercise your freedom with guns and explosives.
Update: The slogans proposed so far. I don’t want people entering duplicates:
- BANG — BOOM — COOL!
- A practical alternative to a wholesome day at work. [I think I would change this to “A wholesome alternative to a practical day at work.”–Joe]
- A magical land full of rifles and explosives.
- Good marksmanship has EXPLOSIVE rewards!
- WHOO-WEE! That blowed up REAL GOOD! [obscure SCTV reference]
- Take your shot from the Grassy Knoll. [get all sorts of Google traffic from JFK theorists.]
- The smell of cordite. The sound of thunder.
- Heads up! Here comes the anvil!
- Prometheus suffered so you could do stuff like this. Don’t be ungrateful.
- Welcome to Joe’s World!
- Freedom smells like gunpowder
- Feinstein’s worst nightmare: Families. Guns. Fun.
- Sight alignment, trigger squeeze, holy shit!
- Guns, Explosives, and the Pursuit of Happiness
- Blow Shiite up
- Famous
potatoesexplosives - Reach Out And Blow Something Up
- This is my target. There are many like it. But this one explodes! [based on the Rifleman’s Creed]
- Peace Through Superior Marksmanship [I think I would change this to “Freedom Through Superior Marksmanship”–Joe]
- The blood of the enemy!
- Vini. Vidi. Boom. [I came. I saw. I blew stuff up.]
- Don’t know Jesus??? I’ll make ya Holey !!! Braaappp….
- Peace, Love, Explosives and Guns.
- Got boom?
- Got kaboom?
- If you don’t get it, then never mind.
- Life, liberty, and the pursuit of kaboom…
- I shit you not – we shoot bombs. [Hint to others. We NEVER use the ‘B’ word at Boomershoot.–Joe]
- We shoot bombs. [Ditto the previous comment.]
- Get a big BANG for your buck.
Quote of the day–Robert Heinlein
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded–here and there, now and then–are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.”
Robert Heinlein
[This, in a nutshell, is the problem with socialism in all it’s forms.–Joe]
Complaining about freedom
The Canadian Shooting Sports Association invited Glen Caroline, director of the NRA’s grassroots division, to be a keynote speaker and is give a seminar. Wendy Cukier (I wrote about her before) and other anti-freedom advocates are all bent out of shape about it. They apparently have a problem with freedom of association and freedom of speech as well as freedom to keep and bear arms. From The Star:
U.S. gun lobbyist here to `counsel’
Canadian shooting group enlists NRA Official denies interfering with election
Nice. The paper doesn’t say the NRA is interfering in the election–they just plant that thought by saying the Canadian shooting group denies it. Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, and Mother Therese would have denied being mass murderers too.
Dec. 3, 2005. 01:00 AM
BETSY POWELL
CRIME REPORTER
A crime reporter! How appropriate for a political story.
…
But Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, said she’s astonished by the blatancy of the NRA’s involvement because the group’s influence in jurisdictions outside the United States, while well known to people who monitor gun control issues, is not as familiar to the public at large.
“I don’t think the average Canadian understands how powerful the gun lobby is,” in opposing attempts to block tightening of gun control legislation and bans on handgun sales, the Ryerson professor said.
“It is ironic because it’s three days before the anniversary of the Montreal massacre, it’s in Toronto where most people are currently preoccupied with trying to prevent gun violence.”
The NRA has a well-established tradition of “interfering” in other countries, Alun Howard, of the International Action Network on Small Arms, said yesterday by phone from London, England. “We’ve seen them working in Central America … their arguments have appeared in England and Australia, so it’s certainly a worrying trend that the NRA has gone global.”
Most recently, the NRA’s influence was credited — or blamed, depending on your viewpoint — with influencing the outcome of Brazil’s national referendum in October on a proposal to ban the sale of guns.
In a country with one of the world’s highest firearm murder rates, the proposal was soundly rejected.
NRA public affairs director Andrew Arulanandam said yesterday that the organization is only too happy to provide “counsel” to organizations in other countries to help ensure that “gun rights” prevail around the world, adding “we’re really heartened with what happened in Brazil.”
The NRA was approached because members belonging to the association share its underlying mantra: that gun control laws don’t work, criminals don’t obey the law, and the only people affected by gun control are law-abiding citizens, Whitmore said.
I just “love” that a “crime reporter” wrote the story, not a political reporter. And that the reporter describes as a mantra (mystic incantation) the verifiable fact “gun control laws don’t work, criminals don’t obey the law, and the only people affected by gun control are law-abiding citizens.”
After we are done in Iraq we need to liberate Canada from the bigots like this ‘reporter’.
Quote of the day–JJ Johnson
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we have this discussion with you folks about 223 years ago? I’d have thought that having the road between Lexington and Concord fertilized with dead Redcoats answered that question back then.
…
If my ancestors would have been armed, they wouldn’t have been slaves.
JJ Johnson
Black American gun-owner
Answering the poll question “Should America ban the handgun?”
BBC News — March 1998
A step in the right direction
Of course I didn’t expect they would go all the way in one step. I’m actually surprised they would even go in the right direction. But they are making progress and everyone benefits:
TSA Would Allow Sharp Objects on Airliners
Screeners to Focus More on Bombs
A new plan by the Transportation Security Administration would allow airline passengers to bring scissors and other sharp objects in their carry-on bags because the items no longer pose the greatest threat to airline security, according to sources familiar with the plans.
In a series of briefings this week, TSA Director Edmund S. “Kip” Hawley told aviation industry leaders that he plans to announce changes at airport security checkpoints that would allow scissors less than four inches long and tools, such as screwdrivers, less than seven inches long, according to people familiar with the TSA’s plans. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the TSA intends to make the plans public Friday.
…
The TSA’s internal studies show that carry-on-item screeners spend half of their screening time searching for cigarette lighters, a recently banned item, and that they open 1 out of every 4 bags to remove a pair of scissors, according to sources briefed by the agency. Officials believe that other security measures now in place, such as hardened cockpit doors, would prevent a terrorist from commandeering an aircraft with box cutters or scissors.
What’s interesting to me is that they concluded the same thing as I did–explosives is the real threat and the most attention should be given to that. We should do the research, as I outlined, and go wherever the results take us. One step at a time if necessary, but we need to do it.
It’s interesting they dropped the plan for putting more air marshals in the air because it’s too costly. Check out my research outline for lower cost alternatives to achieve similar protection capabilities.
Quote of the day–Jeff Cooper
Despite the best efforts of the hoplophobes, the U.S. remains way ahead of most other jurisdictions in the matter of firearms freedom. Recently an English jeweler, whose shop had been raided twenty times in twenty years, repelled borders by seizing the firearm of one of the bandits who broke into his shop. With the captured firearm he shot both of the bandits, though not fatally.
This was in England, and, of course, he was immediately in a great deal of trouble. He was fined 2,000 pounds for “illegal use of a firearm,” 100 more for possession of ammunition which was related to another weapon, plus 1,050 more pounds for prosecution costs. This whole affair is costing the jeweler over $6,000 in American money, plus his attorney’s fee.
Just how this sort of idiocy is justified in the eyes of the British courts is unclear, but though we find a lot of domestic jurisprudence pretty bad, such things can get worse.
Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 3, No. 12
October 1995
[This idiocy is easily justified in the eyes of the British–if they subscribe to the cattle philosophy of human governance. See? It all makes sense now.–Joe]
It’s sad when they are delusional
One of the peace activists recently kidnapped by the Islamic extremists was written about in tomorrows Washingon Post. It’s so sad to read the words he wrote before going to Iraq and what his friends here are saying now:
As Tom Fox headed toward the end of his first week in captivity in Iraq, friends said the 54-year-old musician and peace activist was well aware of the dangers he faced in the war-ravaged country.
He was so realistic, in fact, that he devised a written plan he distributed to friends and co-workers that they should follow if he were taken hostage. Don’t pay ransom for his return, he wrote in an October 2004 e-mail, and reject the use of violence in trying to win his freedom. Don’t “vilify” the abductors, he said, but instead “try to understand the motives of their actions.”
…
“We are very worried about our four friends,” Christian Peacemaker Teams said in a statement on its Web site yesterday. “We fear that whoever is holding them has made a mistake. [They] are four men who came to Iraq to work for peace and explain their opposition to the occupation. They are not spies.”
…
At the service in McLean, where Fox’s e-mail from 2004 was read aloud, his friends reminisced about his ideals. One woman said that just before Fox left for Iraq, he told her, “Too many are willing to die for war and too few are willing to die for peace.”
“Try to understand the motives of their actions”? The motives are, “You are not Muslim or you are not the right flavor of Muslim. You must convert or die.” “Explaining your opposition to the occupation” isn’t going to yield the desired results.
And who has ever said they were willing to die for war? I’ve heard or read about people willing to die for country, freedom, honor, family, way of life, and a lot of other things but I’ve never heard it said they were willing to die for war.
These people are living in an alternate reality. It’s sad their introduction to reality will likely be in the form of a box full of sand covered body parts. Don’t expect it will convert many of them. They are prime canditates for When Prophecy Fails mention.
On Sheep, Sheepdogs and Wolves
I have often used the analogy in personal conversation, teaching self-defense classes, and sometimes alluded to it on this blog (here, here, here, and here). But Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.) spells it out better on this page than anyone else I have seen.
Thanks to someone at work for pointing this page out to me.