Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

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Observe the paradoxes built up about capitalism. It has been called a system of selfishness (which, in my sense of the term, it is) — yet it is the only system that drew men to unite on a large scale into great countries, and peacefully to cooperate across national boundaries, while all the collectivist, internationalist, One-World systems are splitting the world into Balkanized tribes.

Capitalism has been called a system of greed — yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.

Capitalism has been called nationalistic — yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity, and made it possible, in the United States, for men of various, formerly antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace.

Capitalism has been called cruel — yet it brought such hope, progress and general good will that the young people of today, who have not seen it, find it hard to believe.

As to pride, dignity, self-confidence, self-esteem — these are characteristics that mark a man for martyrdom in a tribal society and under any social system except capitalism.

Ayn Rand
The Voice of Reason
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

ATF on binary explosives

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I recently received an email from the ATF saying one of their bulletins, Safety and Security Information for Federal Explosives Licensees and Permittees, has been updated. Of particular interest was what they say about binary explosives (such as Tannerite):

ATF would like to remind those who manufacture, distribute, import, use, or store binary explosives of the vital importance of security safeguards for these materials. After a binary explosive is mixed, it is, by definition, an explosive and must be transported, used, and stored as an explosive. Whether the explosive materials are in the process of manufacture, in storage, or in use, we urge everyone to take all necessary measures to safeguard explosive materials and prevent them from falling into the hands of those who may use them in criminal or terrorist acts. We encourage all persons involved with binary explosives to report any suspicious behavior or unusual activity surrounding these materials to ATF and to local law enforcement authorities. Suspicious behavior may include a customer attempting to purchase large quantities of binary explosive materials while knowing little about the product. Unlike regulated explosives materials, ATF does not require persons to report the theft of precursor or binary explosive components. However, we request that everyone voluntarily report any theft or loss of these chemical explosive precursors to the local law enforcement authority and to the USBDC.


Note: A Federal explosives license is required to manufacture (mix) binary explosives for sale, distribution, or your own business use. Also, users of binary explosives must comply with their state and local explosives regulations regarding binary explosives and their use.

Just common sense advice. We can help avoid attempts at oppressive regulation if we watch out for bad guys ourselves.

Quote of the day—Robert Farago

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Gun ownership is an inherently political act. In fact, it’s a transformative political act. The more Americans who own guns, the safer our Constitutional republic will be. Without a shot fired.

Robert Farago
July 20, 2017
The Trace: ‘The NRA’s Campaign of Cultural Warfare is Working’
[Take a new shooter to the range, give them a great experience and save the republic.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan M. Gottlieb

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It was silly for Seattle to withhold this information, but we’re pretty certain why the city did it. The council was told that this tax could generate between $300,000 and a half-million dollars, but now it appears the city has collected just over $100,000, which is an embarrassing shortfall.

As a result the city has essentially lost money on this scheme because now they have to pay our attorney fees, plus a small penalty. On top of that, the city has lost tax revenue because one major gun dealer has moved out of the city and another has reported considerable sales losses. That is tax money the city will never realize.

Alan M. Gottlieb
SAF Executive Vice President
JUDGE FINDS AGAINST SEATTLE IN PRA CASE FILED BY SAF, MAGAZINE EDITOR
[Almost for certain, even without paying SAF lawyer fees, the city of Seattle lost money by creating a tax on guns.

But, it was never really about “revenue to provide broad-based benefits through research and prevention programs”. It was about raising the cost of exercising a specific enumerated right. They succeeded in driving sellers out of the city and encouraging legal buyers to travel out of the city.

They should be prosecuted.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Emily Miller‏ @EmilyMiller

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ALL AMERICANS can apply for DC gun carry permit, not just residents. Here’s link, but ignore the good reason part!

Emily Miller‏ @EmilyMiller
Tweeted on July 26, 2017
[Amazing. I started carrying a gun in the mid 1990s and DC not only prohibited carry, it also prohibited handgun possession unless the gun was registered with DC before 1976.

I still see the requirement to be registered and pay money to exercise what is acknowledged to be a specific enumerated right as an infringement of that right but it is a extreme improvement.

We have a lot of people to thank for this change, Alan Gura, CATO Institute, SAF, and the NRA are the most obvious but Emily Miller and her book were also significant contributors.

If you squint just a little you can see constitutional carry in DCs future.*—Joe]

* Yes. I know DC had constitutional carry for a few days three years ago (to the day of Emilly’s tweet) but it did not persist. This may not persist either but this time it is going to last more than a few days.

Quote of the day—Christopher Burg

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Some people might claim that the people being robbed aren’t innocent because they’ve been accused of a crime but civil asset forfeiture occurs before somebody has been found guilty of a crime, which is the problem. Under a justice system where one is supposedly innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt there is no justification for stealing an accused individual’s property. So, yes, Jeff Sessions announced that his department is going to be stealing from innocent people and that should have everybody up in arms.

Christopher Burg
July 19, 2017
Jeff Sessions Announces Justice Department Will Increase Theft
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—kam

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Without Central Banks this market wouldn’t exist. All the algorithms today are but spin off of linear regression. Boats rising with the tide.

Earnings can be replaced with Central Bank cash/credit, but not over the long run. And that day could be tomorrow, or in 10 years. Who could have thought that easy money would have created so many walking corpses.

kam
June 15, 2017
Comment to What Happens When the Machines Start Selling?
[H/T to Brett.

Who? I’m not sure about “walking corpses” being explicitly predicted but there were many people who thought it was a really bad idea.

The lessons learned in the next few years will be remembered for probably a generation or so before “the new kids on the block” believe they are smarter and/or times are different. The best fix would probably be when the lesson is visible world wide as burned out ruins of cities for governments to be prohibited from trying to “manage the economy”. But I put the odds at 50-50 that will happen on even one continent.—Joe]

Quote of the day—TexasTopCat

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The people pushing this law know that there will be no reduction in criminal violence, it will merely be one more group of people that will be denied civil rights and become unarmed victims of crime.

TexasTopCat
July 16, 2017
Comment to ‘Gun safety’ is not ‘gun control’: Letter to the editor
[The law being discussed is about “extreme risk protection” orders.

The questions I have are:

  1. If these people are so dangerous to themselves and/or others why are they still allowed to drive cars and/or possess a can of gasoline and a book of matches?
  2. Why are they not put in an institution, closely observed, and being treated?

Oh, that’s right. These are gun owners we are talking about. They are a special case. Any plausible, no matter how speculative, rationalization is sufficient justification to infringe upon their rights. And then, once they are no longer gun owners, there is nothing to fear about them.

As TexasTopCat articulates, nearly all the people pushing these laws know the law cannot possibly do what they say it will. It’s just an excuse to forcibly convert people who are more independent than they into a condition of more dependence.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield

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All the shocked media coverage of the latest acid attacks in London carefully tiptoe around the obvious issue. Acid attacks tend to involve immigrants or the children of immigrants. They’re a horrifying tactic that has been imported to the UK.

Acid attacks are one of those enriching benefits of diversity.

Instead of dealing with the obvious, the proposals push for “Drain cleaner control”. As if you can seriously prevent people from getting their hands on chemicals that don’t go well with the human face. After the triumphs of gun control and knife control, now it’s onward to drain cleaner control.

Acid attacks in London have climbed from 162 in 2012 to 454 last year.

We could talk about immigration. Or we can try to ban drain cleaner.

Daniel Greenfield
July 14, 2017
“Diversity” is Why London has Acid Attacks
[I expected that after gun and knife control they would started demanding either rock or stick control.

I was wrong, but it could still happen. Give them a few years. Intelligence has its limits but stupidity does not appear to have an upper bound.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dana Loesch

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Only people with a predilection for violence would mistake a condemnation of violence as a ‘call to violence.’

Dana Loesch
July 3, 2017
A gun-control group’s cheery response to the NRA’s ‘dystopian’ recruitment ad
[It’s not a “mistake”. It’s rules #1 (lying) and #3 (projection) in SJWs Always Lie.

In the last few months the political left has caused a million dollars of damage in just Portland alone and openly saying (emphasis added):

We are committed to the idea that people in our community should be able to participate in resisting this bigotry in whatever capacity they find appropriate. For this reason, we have chosen to make the primary focus of the event a rally at a separate location that is adjacent to the Alt Right rally.

We are unapologetic about the reality that fighting fascism at points requires physical militancy.

…we are not opposed to the tactic of property destruction…

In Baltimore, 2015, damages were estimated at nearly $13 million. In Ferguson the costs of the riots were in the tens of millions. And millions more in physical damage.

Then, last month, someone from the political left shot Republican Congressmen at a baseball game.

And the political left has a “cheery response” to Loesch’s “dystopian” video expressing concern about the violent left?

The only reason they are “cheery” is because they are getting away with their criminal behavior.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mark Prichard

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You know how liberals are going to solve the Republican problem? … They are going to get better aim. That last guy tried, but he needed better aim. We will get better aim.

Mark Prichard
July 6, 2017
Police arrest man for allegedly threatening Sen. Flake’s staff
[“The Republican problem”?

Hmmm… I see.

As always, liberals channel Trotsky and think like Goebbels.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

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It is impossible to address the problem of rampant crime without talking about the moral responsibility of the intended victim. Crime is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back, immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and prosecutors are too soft, because the police are hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The defect is there, in our character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers.

Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 17
[This essay was originally published in 1993 by The Public Interest.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sir Launcelot

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In your country, people who criticize the government can be arrested and sent to “re-education” camps. But over here, if government agents started trying to do stuff like that, they’d likely get blown full of holes by pissed off Americans with guns.

So our guns protect our freedom of speech.

I can criticize my government if I want to. I can say “Donald Trump is a corrupt pompous ass and his cabinet is full of lickspittles and toadies.”

Or I can criticize the Chinese government if I want to. I can say, “Xi Jinping heads an evil government that oppresses the rights of Chinese citizens while the Party lackeys grow rich from corruption.”

Now you try. Go on, post something critical about the Chinese government.

Sir Launcelot
July 1, 2017
Tomb Raider forum post in the The mass shootings and gun control debate thread
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

So you think you’re a rifleman?

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A friend is putting on an Independence Day rifle match at his place in Latah County, Idaho;

Five shots from each of four positions (standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone), 4 black bull’s eyes (one for each position) each being 4 M.O.A. in angular size at 25 meters. That’s a target size of about 1.1″. You have a total of ten minutes to get into your various positions and make your 20 shots.

“Four M.O.A.”, you think, “I can hit that all day”, right? We hit one M.O.A. targets at Boomershoot, at distances such that the shifting wind is a major factor, so 4 M.O.A. is a piece of cake, right?

Uh uh. Using a light, but quality AR carbine in 5.56 mm, the best I’ve done so far in practice is 8 hits out of 20 shots. I’m not using a shooting sling, as that’s something I’ve never worked out. Other than your body and possibly a sling, there is no support allowed.

Any rifle in any caliber, centerfire or rimfire.

I noticed right away that the sight heights on my ARs (I use optics) are such that I needed to re-zero for 25 meters (about 27.5 yards).

Try it and report back.

I would love to see a match like this done in the form of a mountain woods walk, so you have the added issues of the portability of your equipment, your physical condition, your ability to shoot under some degree of physical stress (such as aiming while winded) and using improvised shooting positions due to terrain and flora. Too often we tend to want a “shooting range” set up all nice and ideal and level and comfortable, and in that case we are sometimes missing the point. Anyone who’s hunted for more than a few seasons will understand, and in fact hunting includes all of the above (plus the unpredictable nature of the target(s), doesn’t it?

Who will they blame?

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A step in the right direction:

The Czech parliament is working to liberalize the country’s gun laws, allowing people to better defend themselves. The reason for this new policy is safety, as well as practicality; in light of recent attacks in neighboring countries, the Czech government recognizes that disarming people puts them in danger, and that broad European gun control policies are ineffective. The Interior Minister said it best when he asked parliament to “show [him] a single terrorist attack in Europe perpetrated using a legally-owned weapon”.

In response to terrorist attacks the EU is making it more difficult to get guns and the Czech Republic is making it easier. My hypothesis is that the Czech Republic will have few terrorist attacks and those places with increased restrictions on guns will have more attacks. I also expect those places with more restrictions will blame the increase in attacks using firearms on the Czech Republic just as Chicago blames their problems on places nearby with less repressive gun laws even though those places have less criminal violence than Chicago.

Projection. It’s rule #3 in SJWs Always Lie.

Quote of the day—Paul Koning

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Constitutionally, speech is speech, and inquiring into the motives of the speaker is a legal absurdity. And speech is protected, period.

The root cause of course is that progressives hate free speech in all its forms, and invented the fake category of “hate speech” for the same reason they invented the fake category of “assault weapon”.

Paul Koning
June 28, 2017
Comment to Violence Alert: Communist Mr. Kit O’Connell’s Ready To Bash Back To Survive
[That is a very interesting observation.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Calimero

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Contrast between freedom-hating decrepit Western Europe and Eastern Europe is glaring. Eastern Europe still has vivid memories from what’s down the statist road.

This should be a warning to US gun owners. You’ve scored major victories through hard work, but freedom haters will always come back. Defend the culture (take non gun owners to the range, esp. in restrictive states) so that gun ownership becomes and stays mainstream.

Calimero
December 28, 2016
Comment to Courage
[Calimero lives in France.

There is another comment along the same lines from March 14, 2017:

There’s a strong divide, shown in today’s vote at the EU Parliament, between Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

Eastern Europe still has vivid memories from Soviet rule, while Western Europe is oblivious to (or downright embraces) the shift to leftism/statism. One may argue Western Europe never was all that much into individual rights.

Eastern Euros still have that yearning for freedom. And the West essentially fucked them over today.

I hope the Czech will be able to mitigate the effects of the updated EU firearms directive. Poland, Hungary aren’t really all that hot for gun control either.

France, UK, Germany, Holland all screwed the pooch.

Take a new shooter to the range. It’s a good first step down a slippery slope to a desire for individual freedom in general.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brett

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Three weeks of utilities are all that separate us from savagery.

Brett
June 23, 2017
[Brett is a co-worker of mine.

I’m not sure it will take three weeks, but it’s in the ballpark.—Joe]

Resistance is futile

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I am in the process of renewing my ATF license to manufacture high explosives. For some reason I can’t find anywhere in the U.S. Constitution where the Federal government has been granted the power to regulate the manufacture and consumption of explosives entirely on my property, entirely within the state of Idaho.

So, in keeping with the current “resist” political theme of the last few months, I’m bravely sending the renewal form to the ATF with a “Freedom Forever” stamp.

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I suspect no one at the ATF will perceive the irony and my resistance will be futile.

Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield

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The ritual is tribal. A lefty dons the mock wig of the hated enemy and is ritually humiliated for the entertainment of the tribes of Manhattan, Berkeley and Marin County. The foe is destroyed in effigy. The video of his destruction is virally spread with titles such as, “Saturday Night Live Destroys Trump”.

And yet Trump, like all the other viral subjects of destruction, is never destroyed. The tribal ritual lets lefties vent their anger on a totem that, unlike Trump, can actually be destroyed by liberal laughter.

Satire isn’t trying to save the Republic. It isn’t stopping Trump. It’s saving the left.

Daniel Greenfield
May 2017
The War of Two Americas
[Via Robert J. Avrech and email from Paul Koning.

Read the whole thing. I alternated between seeing it as a nearly unbelievable conspiracy theory and brilliant insight. Perhaps it is both.—Joe]