A family member recently returned from Bolivia informs us that Bolivian gun laws may be the best in the world. There are none, and Bolivia gets by with a serious law against murder. Funny that no one in Britain or America has thought of that so far!
Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 4, No. 9
August 1996
Does this guy Kane think we are idiots? Rhetorical question alert–Or is he an idiot? From the Washington Post:
“I’m committed to not violating the Second Amendment or infringing upon the gun rights of law-abiding citizens,” Kaine, the lieutenant governor, said to a handful of supporters and local reporters who were on hand to watch him shoot. “I’m committed to protecting that constitutional right to hunt and fish. . . . I value the traditions that Virginians value.”
Who, in their right mind, believes that while guaranteeing our rights to free speech, freedom of religion, due process, a speedy trial by a jury of our peers, etc. etc. the writers of the Bill of Rights were guaranteeing the people the right to “hunt and fish” with the Second Amendment? (I think it was Rolf that pointed out that particular argument to me.) As if they were anticipating a similar absurd claim the founding fathers wrote, “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State…” as part of that guaranteed right. As someone else once said, “It ain’t about duck hunting.” If you still don’t get it, here is a clue.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
Speech of January 7, 1790
Considering the source–probably not (according to Jihad Watch). But it makes for interesting reading:
Los Angeles, Alta California – August 23, 2005 – (ACN) The USA mainstream media is “filtering” the news coming out of Iraq. It is not reporting on certain items deemed by the Pentagon to be detrimental to the morale of US troops or their families back home. Conspicuously absent are any reports on “Juba”, a sniper who has been terrorizing US soldiers in Baghdad for months. Juba is the name given by US forces to a superbly trained insurgent sniper who has already killed at least 19 GI’s including four US Marine snipers in one day.
As if our mainstream media would ever hold back any demoralizing news coming out of Iraq.
No US soldier has ever seen Juba. They only hear one distinctive shot from a Tabuk sniper rifle (An Iraqi sniper rifle based on the Soviet Kalashnikov but fitted with a long barrel and a muzzle brake. It uses the 7.62mm Kalashnikov cartridge) and the next thing they see is another GI slumping down dead. The hit is usually to the head but Juba also aims at gaps in the GI’s body armor. He has been known to hit his mark from 300 yards which is the length of three football fields. Juba takes only one shot and then disappears.
If I knew a sniper was after me I can’t think of a single center-fire rifle cartridge I would rather he used. Accuracy and power are both pathetic with this round.
US troops who scramble to find Juba soon after he has struck find only his trademark that consists of a single 7.62mm Kalashnikov cartridge casing with a handwritten note. The note, in Arabic, says, “What has been taken in blood cannot be regained except by blood”. The note is signed, “The Baghdad Sniper”.
Juba is now a mythic hero to the Iraqi resistance. Word on the streets of Baghdad, from those who know Juba, is that his rifle is running out of space to add more “notches” that signify US occupation soldiers he has killed. Juba is now training an “elite” insurgent sniper squad that will target personnel coming in and out from Baghdad’s Green Zone.
He’s running out of room for notches? I thought he had only killed 19 GI’s. What does he cut his notches with? An out of control chain saw?
A particular worrisome development for USA based warmongers is a CIA intelligence report that says that a superbly trained Islamic sniper squad is on its way to the USA. According to the report, the Al-Ikhwan Al-Moslemoon (Muslim Brotherhood)is preparing to send a highly trained sniper squad to the USA that will target, at first, the lower and middle level leadership of the Islamophobic organizations that cater to the Zionists. This, we presume, includes the lackeys of the Zionists on radio and television. A few weeks ago, these puppets of Israel added insult to injury when they went on a vile tirade in support of the “toilet flushers” of the Holy Koran at Guantanamo. Many of these radio talk jockeys are not Jews but they act as mouthpieces for their employers who are. One of these virulent pundits for the Zionists said over the airwaves, “US soldiers at Guantanamo should have used the pages of the Koran to wipe their asses!”
And how did they come across a CIA intelligence report? Yeah, right. And all the major media outlets are owned or managed by Jews? If that were so then I would expect the major theme MSM would be much greater support for war in Iraq and against Muslims instead of weeks of haranguing of GI’s for minor offenses in the prison where Muslims are held.
If a “superbly trained Islamic sniper squad” does show up it might have the benefit of increasing the number of private citizen carrying firearms for protection. And if they put a decent bounty on their scalps firearms instructors will see marked increase in their class sizes. Would we lose some people? Almost for certain the answer is yes, but their kill ratio would be much better with suicide bombers at the loss of unskilled button pushers instead of “superbly trained” snipers.
This editorial in the Seattle PI is surprisingly good. I would have expected something in the PI to be more of the nature of “Give the government more money and power so it can protect us better.” It’s not that way at all. In fact he points out a change in passenger attitudes is a major deterrent to future hijackings:
A repetition of 9/11-style attacks became less likely, not because of increased airport security, but because of a change in passengers’ responses to airline hijackings.
And he correctly points out how we ended up with 100% loss of our 4th Amendment when we travel on commercial airlines:
How did we get to this abysmal state of affairs? Because even in times of crises — in fact, especially in times of crises — politics plagues government security efforts. Congress and the bureaucracy have to show the nervous public that they are doing something, even if those efforts make little sense. Sixty-five percent of the funds spent on domestic homeland security goes toward aviation security alone, leaving many fewer resources for measures at ports, borders and on mass transit.
The public should demand that the TSA be abolished and airport security be reprivatized. Perhaps it would be a first step toward ending the paranoia that has resulted in excessive emphasis on airport security to the exclusion of everything else.
I only partially agree with his conclusions. Before we reprivatized airport security we should research the alternatives.
…researchers concluded that the total 1992 cost of firearm violence was $112 billion when taking into consideration direct medical costs, lost productivity, and lost quality of life. This study also reported that each of the estimated 4.91 billion bullets sold in 1992 represented $23 in costs due to firearm violence, including $0.60 in medical and emergency services, $7.20 in lost productivity, and $15.10 in pain, suffering, and lost quality of life.
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
From: http://www.gunfree.org/csgv/bsc_eco.htm (as of 11/12/98)
[They neglect to report on the benefits in lives saved, property protected, improved quality of life, and lack of tyrants due to those same 4.91 billion bullets.–Joe]
From World Net Daily:
TEL AVIV – Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and members of various Palestinian terror groups this week decided at a meeting “resistance” against Israel would continue and would be coordinated at the national level until the Jewish state evacuates “all territories,” WND has learned.
Earlier this week, it was reported Qurei held a private conference in Damascus with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. According to media reports, the parties reached an agreement under which the PA would not attempt to disarm the terror groups in spite of recent U.S. and Israeli calls for the groups to be dismantled after the Gaza evacuation.
…
But security sources close to the meeting told WND agreements reached at the conference went one step further – it was concluded the Palestinians would continue to use “resistance” against Israel until the Jewish state leaves “all occupied territories” – code for the destruction of Israel. The resistance, the sources said, is to be coordinated between the Palestinian groups and based on the foundations of Palestinian unity.
…
Afterward, the Battalions held a press conference in which a spokesman stressed his group’s determination to “do whatever it took” to liberate the “rest of our land,” including kidnapping Israelis and committing “resistance attacks.”
How many times do we need to learn this lesson? Their extremist culture must be destroyed. They give us no alternatives but our own destruction.
Update: That didn’t take long:
Driving home fears Palestinian terror groups will use land gained by Israel’s Gaza evacuation to launch rockets deeper inside the Jewish state, two Qassams today were fired at western Negev towns as Israeli troops prepared the Gaza Strip for handover in the next few weeks.
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go around repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence.
Charles A. Beard
American historian
We’ll know the gun-grabbers have been put out of business when you can buy a blister pack of six Glock’s at Costco.
Attributed (but unconfirmed) to Greg Hamilton
We temporarily dodged another attack on our civil liberties in California. From Sacramento:
Attorney General Bill Lockyer has shelved a novel gun-control measure that would have required manufacturers to stamp microscopic serial numbers on all handgun ammunition sold in California.
Sen. Joe Dunn, a Garden Grove Democrat carrying the legislation for the attorney general, said he needed more time to resolve a heated debate over how much the potentially landmark tracking system would cost and who would pay for it.
The bill, SB 357, has passed the Senate and is pending in an Assembly fiscal committee as the Legislature pushes through its final three weeks of this year’s session. The measure may be taken up where it sits next year, the second in the two-year session.
The legislation would require manufacturers to imprint or etch a serial number on the end of each slug or bullet starting in 2009. Boxes of cartridges bearing the same number could then be linked to purchasers with the swipe of a driver’s license at the time of sale.
…
Dunn said he will work during the coming months to resolve fears that his bill could pose a financial burden on some law enforcement personnel who are required to purchase ammunition for training.
“It’s a legitimate question that we will respond to,” Dunn said.
He was less optimistic about bringing manufacturers together with companies that have developed methods to code ammunition. Regardless, he predicted the measure will be delivered to the governor next year.
However, opponents say Lockyer and Dunn have yet to sell the proposal to much of the state’s law enforcement community.
Prominent organizations, such as those representing the state’s district attorneys and police chiefs, have declined to endorse the bill, noted Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, an industry trade group better known as SAAMI.
“I think it’s pretty clear that law enforcement by and large is not supporting this effort,” Keane said.
Manufacturers say the proposal would force expensive changes on a high-volume, low-margin business. Keane and others have warned the required manufacturing modifications would either drive companies out of business or result in steep price increases.
It doesn’t bother them it how much it would cost private citizens or how a black market of out of state or stolen ammo would fill the “market niche”. It only bothers them that it would be a burden to law enforcement. I guess that means they serve the state and not the people. Does the phrase “Police State” ring a bell with anyone?
From Wired News (as pointed out by Schneier):
The British government is preparing to test new high-tech license plates containing microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away.
Officials in the United States say they’ll be closely watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags to make vehicles electronically trackable.
“We definitely have an interest in testing an RFID-tagged license plate,” said Jerry Dike, chairman of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and director of the Vehicle Titles and Registration Division of the Texas Department of Transportation.
…
Proponents argue that making such RFID tags mandatory and ubiquitous is a logical move to counter the threat of terrorists using the roadways, and that it will scoop up insurance and registration scofflaws in the process.
This scheme fails my Jews in the Attic Test and must be vigorously opposed. Besides, terrorists will just destroy or otherwise neutralize the transmitter when they go on a mission. And if detection and sanctions are in place for destroyed devices they will just destroy the devices on vehicles at random in the shopping mall parking lot until the population at large is fed up with the harassment and the police effectively ignore destroyed devices. It’s costly, it can’t accomplish it’s intended goals, and it’s a hazard to freedom. Don’t even bother testing it.
For some reason I don’t think they chose the right picture to encourage people to support their efforts (the article is titled The world’s first global gun treaty enters into force):
On 24 September 1999, the Security Council convened its first meeting at ministerial level devoted to the issue of small arms. A report (S/2000/1092) was prepared with the assistance of internationally recognized experts following the ministerial meetings request that the Secretary-General “develop a reference manual for use in the field on ecologically safe (amended in report S/2000/1092 to read ‘environmentally sound’) methods of weapons destruction in order better to enable Member States to ensure the disposal of weapons voluntarily surrendered by civilians or retrieved from former combatants”. The report has been used as a guide in the preparation of this aide mémoire.
…
…
A DESTRUCTION HANDBOOK
Small arms, light weapons, ammunition and explosives
UNITED NATIONS
http://disarmament2.un.org/DDAPublications/desthbk.pdf
Give the TSA one-way ticket to oblivion. A pretty good article too. It’s only a half-way measure, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
Motto found among the papers of Thomas Jefferson.
Leaders are best when people scarcely know they exist, not so good when people obey and acclaim them, worst when people despise them. Fail to honor people, they fail to honor you. But of good leaders who talk little, when their work is done, their aim fulfilled, the people will say: “We did this ourselves”.
Lao Tse
[I would argue most of our current political ‘leaders’ fail this test. — Joe]
When firearms go, all else goes…we need them every hour.
George Washington
Well…not really. It’s just that the TSA apparently has a severe case of rectal cranium inversion. From CNN:
Infants have been stopped from boarding planes at airports throughout the United States because their names are the same as or similar to those of possible terrorists on the government’s “no-fly list.”
…
The TSA has a “passenger ombudsman” who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2.
It was Schneier’s post that alerted me. He is more polite than I on this topic.
Update: As one of the comments indicates it appears the TSA says to allow kids under a certain age to travel even if their name is on the watch list. But if it’s “in the fine print” the ticket agent is almost for certain going “to play it safe”.
Diplomacy: The art of saying “nice doggie” until you can find a rock.
Will Rogers
Diplomacy is the art of saying “nice doggy” until you get a sight picture.
Anonymous adaptation
[“Sight picture” refers to having the sights on your firearm aligned on the target correctly. — Joe]
I scanned in the letter (page 1 and page 2) I received today. Basically they said, “You have all the documents you are going to get.” But they did give me a link to a website with at least some of the Policies and Procedures Manual. This was a big help. It explains a couple of things. It includes list of things that can result in First Offense Termination. It includes “dishonesty” and “unauthorized disclosure, access, or use of information that is proprietary or confidential to PNNL or its clients”. Both of those items were in my termination letter and were totally unexpected and unjustified. I was completely taken aback they said such things about me–particularly since they never confronted me and asked for any explanation about any such allegations. It was only be including those things that they could justify a first offense termination.
It was also by going through this Policies and Procedures website that I was able to find out how they justified not sending my performance reviews. I asked for my “Personnel File.” They did send me my “Personnel File.” What I was interested in was in my “Field File.” I see…
I’ll post more as I learn more. See also the new section at the bottom of the main page of the PNNL info site.
