Guns are, in a manner of speaking, an appliance. They have a function, and they do it well, for a very long time under most usage rates. The technology is pretty straightforward, the cost is competitive, the technology generally improves with time, and they are easy to operate.
Major home appliances? Not so much. Continue reading
Think of the state as a band of thieves, and you will not be far wrong.
Glenn Reynolds
December 28, 2014
TINKER, TAILOR, STALKER, SPY
[And thugs.—Joe]
Some revolutions bear fruit, and some kill the tree, but revolutions spring from poison that is already killing the tree.
kchrisc
February 8, 2015
Comment to The Paradox Inherent in Any Slave Nation Revolution
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
When I held my own gun for the first time in my life in this country, I felt empowered and for the first time, I felt free.
If the Communist government took my gun rights away, why are you limiting my gun rights in Colorado? Are you becoming communists? I hope not. I lived under tyranny for 24 years, I do not want to ever live under it again.
Lily Tang Williams
February 2, 2015
Testimony to the Colorado Legislature
[H/T to Catalina Kelly.
I don’t think the transcript is quite right but it is close. The part I quoted starts at about 3:40.
When you hear her voice it is even more powerful than the words alone.—Joe]
Essentially the vast majority of the existing population is already suffering to one degree or another under the present day rule. And they are doing nothing to free themselves from their oppressed condition. Other than the very small minority who will join the rebellion when hope surfaces with the insurgency, the majority will remain either neutral (meaning frozen in fear glued to their propaganda mind control devices) or will rise to defend their shepherd……or at the very least their meal ticket. The ultimate enemy of a revolution is not the oppressive government it is attempting to overthrow, but the general population it is trying to ‘free’.
Cognitive Dissonance
February 8, 2015
The Paradox Inherent in Any Slave Nation Revolution — Even When the Sociopaths Lose They Win
[This post has some interesting insights for those who yearn for a rapid revolution. A case can be made that successful revolutions (those that actually change things as opposed to merely substituting one tyrant for another) must occur in the cultural rather than at the point of a gun.—Joe]
Even though I was just commenting for laughs, and don’t really think all gun enthusiasts have tiny pee-pees (actually, they’re sociopaths), I was happy to be of service.
formerChild
February 12, 2015
Comment to How All Your Favorite Liberal Blogs Muffed The Yoga Pants Bill (Which Does Not Exist)
[This is what they think of you: If you are a gun enthusiast then you are a sociopath.
Good to know. Keep that in mind because it will be just one of the many justifications they would use as they herd you into the “education” camps.—Joe]
As I mentioned in the QOTD this morning last night I attended a presentation entitled Active Shooter Preparation by the Bellevue Washington Police department at the Newport High School.
The presenter was Officer Scott Montgomery who usually is a traffic cop but is also on the SWAT team and is a “certified active shooter instructor”.
It was a relatively small group attending. I was fairly close to the front making it difficult to see everyone and didn’t take a close inventory but I expect it was about 30 people.
At the time the Columbine massacre happened police training was that the police should secure the area and wait for the SWAT team to arrive and possibly enter the building. Of course the shooters had long since run their course by the time SWAT entered the building. This was a wakeup call and police training changed in response.
The training now has long been that the school should go into “lockdown”, people hide wherever they can, and they wait for the police to arrive. Upon the arrival of three or four police officers they would form a team and enter the building to engage the shooter. No active shooter incident has ever been stopped by such a multiple officer team.
At the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting there were students on the football field when the shooting started in the cafeteria. The school went into “lockdown”. The people on the football field went back into the school toward the shooter because that is what you do in a lockdown situation. They were following their training.
Active shooters evolved their tactics and so both the police and private citizens need to evolve as well. The Virginia Tech shooter took advantage of the lockdown and upped it one. He brought his own lock and chain. He went into a classroom, locked the doors shut, and started shooting them.
He had practiced this. We know this because people at the gun range where he practiced reported, when interviewed after the Virginia Tech event, they he did something very odd when he was at the range. He put his targets on the ground in rows. He then walked down the “aisles” with a gun in each hand and shot the targets as he walked by.
Montgomery told us they train using Simunitions in actual schools that are about to be remodeled or torn down. He stressed that even though they train for active shooter situations in a school they cannot be there in time to prevent horrific outcomes. “You are the first responders.” he said. If you do nothing, that is wrong. Fight, flight, and freeze are very natural responses. If you have children under your care you will probably not leave them. It is against our nature to fight. Almost no one practices fighting. Hence, if you have not thought about the situation you almost for certain will freeze. You just won’t know what to do.
You need to think about these things now, frequently, and prepare yourself mentally to do something other than freeze.
What private citizens need to do is think about all the “What if?” cases and plan for them ahead of time. What will you do? What are your options? How many exits are there in your situation? Don’t just think of the doors. Windows can be broken and dropping from a second story window is probably going to result in fewer injuries than waiting for a bullet to find you as you hide under a desk.
Teachers of younger students are particularly resistant to “losing track of a child”. “What if they get lost out on the street?” He response to this is, paraphrasing, “Which would you rather have, a lost kid on the street with every cop in the state converging on the site or the kid at immediate risk of being shot? We can find the kid on the street in the next hour. We can’t protect them from a bullet in the next minute.”
He told us that in police academy they were taught there are three types of people, “Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs”. Most people are sheep. The police are clearly the sheepdogs. But you don’t have to have a uniform to protect your flock.
An active shooter is a dynamic event. Things change rapidly and the police cannot tell you what is going to be the best action to take. The people on the scene right then and there have to adapt to the situation and take appropriate action based upon the information available to them:
People need to develop a survival mindset: Awareness and preparation are key:
Make a decision:
This is the new mindset people must develop. It is not a static decision. Adapt to the changing situation.
If you have to fight allow yourself to have a “righteous anger”. You can be a “mother bear”. If you attack do it with a full commitment until the threat no longer exists. You may have to take their life.
Your mindset is important. His mindset which he encouraged others to have, “I’m not going to give my life for someone else. Someone else is going to have to take my life.”
DHS produced a video to teach the new mindset:
He was generally okay with it but with some minor issues. The two issues I remember were that it portrays women, but not men, as inclined to freeze. Men freeze too. Women can and will fight. This is particularly true when defending children.
The first police to arrive will be extremely single minded. They will not be friendly. They will not help you. They may yell at you and/or push you aside. Their mission will be to engage the shooter as quickly as they can so the total number of victims can be minimized.
When you encounter the police show your hands. Don’t worry about having a cell phone in it. It is very unlikely they are going to mistake your cell phone for a gun and your cell phone may come in handy later.
They will be doing active shooter response training, similar to fire drills, with the schools. It’s not quite the same thing and the results will never be as good, but keep in mind that in the last 50 years they have been doing fire drills no student has ever died in a school fire. Training works.
Much of the presentation seemed to presume there was a single shooter. I asked something like the following, “I realize Columbine was a somewhat unique event but there were two shooters and they used explosives as an significant component of their attack. Does this change your training?”
Montgomery said 67% of the active shooters in this country have been a single person. But they train for multiple shooters and even well planned team attacks such as a terrorist group might implement. It doesn’t change the mindset of the private citizen much. Events are dynamic and you won’t have perfect information. Yes, you may be running away from a shooter into an ambush but you are running away from a known threat. Be prepared to change your actions based on new information.
Someone else asked about the layout of the school and the risk of all the students exiting into the common area. It is surrounded on three sides by the building with a hill overlooking it (the eastern part of the parking lot). School officer Greg Mills explained they have timed the various paths to exit the buildings and can exit in reasonable times to other areas.
I then pointed out, paraphrasing, “I think was in Arkansas in the late 1990s where two shooters pulled the fire alarm and then waited in the tree line with rifles for when the students came out into the open. A similar attack at Newport might look inviting.”
Mills also addressed this. He said that during fire drills he is not responsible for evacuation of the students. He immediately exits in that direction and looks for “anything out of place”. He said, paraphrasing, “I might be the first one shot, but we are aware of that risk and try to address it.”
I was tempted to ask about private citizens with firearms because strictly speaking the presentation wasn’t just about active shooters in schools. But I decided not to. First off it is illegal for private citizens to have a firearm on school property and this was primarily a presentation for parents and students. Secondly this is a tremendous change in attitude from cowering and waiting for the police. If this new mindset takes hold then private citizens with guns to defend themselves and their children will come naturally. The culture is changing and the law will follow.
I’m not going to give my life for someone else. Someone else is going to have to take my life.
Scott Montgomery @BvuePD
Bellevue Washington Police Officer
February 10, 2015
Said during the presentation of Active Shooter Preparation at Newport High School in Bellevue Washington
[I went to this presentation half, maybe even three quarters, expecting the presentation to urge people to lockdown the building and hide under desks. This tactic was explicitly rejected.
I will have a full write up later today but the short version is that I was very pleased with what the police are now advising people to do in an active shooter situation.
They have explicitly rejected the concept of people acting like “sheep” and wait for the paid “sheepdog” to arrive and save them. Yes, he used “sheep”, “wolves”, and “sheepdogs” as labels. They are advising people think for themselves and mentally prepare to do what is best for themselves and other innocent life.
The above quote was given in the context of his mindset and that of his fellow officers when engaging an active shooter. And that should a private citizen have to fight they should have the same mindset.—Joe]
HR 131, recently introduced by U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.)
“Current federal law guarantees the right of law-abiding persons to transport firearms between two locations where they have a legal right to possessand carry them, regardless of state or local laws that would otherwise apply. The firearm must be cased or otherwise not readily accessible. Unfortunately, anti-gun local officials are using overly restrictive state licensing laws to harass and prosecute travelers who have made every effort to comply with the law, resulting in seized guns that are sometimes never returned, delayed travel, legal fees, and sometimes even unnecessary guilty pleas.
H.R. 131 would ensure the law has the effect Congress intended when it passed more than 25 years ago. Specifically, the legislation would make clear that transportation of both firearms and ammunition is federally protected, as well as expand the protections afforded to travelers to include “staying in temporary lodging overnight, stopping for food, fuel, vehicle maintenance, an emergency, medical treatment, and any other activity incidental” to the trip. Additionally, the bill would place the burden of proof clearly on the state to show that the traveler failed to comply with the law.”
Emphasis mine. So some state clowns have been flouting federal law in going after people who travel innocently through their states with gun.
Continue reading
The title is of course misleading, as is all the speech of authoritarianism. Is it to protect the possession of responsible body armor? But an inanimate object can be neither responsible nor irresponsible. Is it to protect responsible bodies with armor? If so, why does it limit said armor? Is it to protect the responsible possession of body armor? How then would body armor be possessed in an irresponsible manner? Are there hoards of people possessing their body armor in some obnoxious fashion, say, wearing orange body armor with red clothing? One is given to wonder.
With all the Progressives pretending to be concerned, to the point of hyperventilating, about all the carnage carried out with guns, you’d think the one thing they’d want to see, besides a monopoly on gun possession for criminals, is more people wearing more effective body armor. Oh wait…
Authoritarians are of course insane, so in that sense there is nothing to see here.
One has to wonder what the authoritarian Republicans will do with this. My gut tells me they’ll be very much in favor of it, but will at the same time feel uncomfortable about letting their support be known. How that will manifest itself in their political actions I cannot guess. This sort of thing is an on-going problem for them (damn those liberty-minded little Hobbits!).
Please try to avoid getting caught up in the matter of the technical details of the various classes of body armor. This has nothing to do with any of that you know.
If the truth be known (perish the thought) this is one of many signs indicating that Congress is preparing for war with the American people. Many of them are no doubt blissfully unaware of that prospect, but it must be understood that blissful unawareness, and the vehement defense thereof, is a key component of such campaigns, right up to, and through, the the very end.
I can find no excuse – zero, none – that someone running for office or training to be a police officer hasn’t found the time to peruse the operating instructions for our Republic.
Got Constitutional questions? RTFM.
Archer
December 16, 2014
Comment to Filed for future use
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Now that the Republicans control both Houses, they’re asking for money to “fight” the Democrats. I get multiple pleas from them every day, asking for money.
I didn’t know it took a constant in-flow of money for a representative or a senator to do the right thing, that without said constant flow of money they’d…what?– They’d still be caving, capitulating, and expressing disdain and disgust toward their liberty-minded base? This is an interesting phenomenon. So money = courage, principled stands and moral fortitude? I did not know that.
It would be vastly more principled and honest of them to come right out and say, “We’ll support this specific bill and get it pushed through for this specific price. We’ve already received this percentage of our price, and so can you spare a hundred bucks? And by the way; if our price isn’t met, we’ll of course keep your money anyway and use it for things WE want instead.”
Or is it that they intend to buy gold with my donations, place gold bricks in a leather bag, and beat Democrats up ‘side the head with it? That would at least make some kind of sense, but then why not use a plain, clay bricks, or some rocks? Why gold, particularly? A hickory axe handle can work wonders, and it only costs a few dollars.
Bill Whittle brings the facts;
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE
You decide. Would you rather raise your children in Democrat controlled-since-the-Stone-Age, Detroit, or in Gun Nut Central, Plano, Texas?
(Hat tip Kevin Baker)
Would you rather more places be more like Detroit, or more places be more like Plano? There are causes and effects involved here. Are you interested in cause and effect, or are you more interested in furthering the Progressive agenda?
If you’re interested in “saving the children” the answer is fairly simple, and yet you’ll reject it out of allegiance to your political agendas. Therefore you’re not interested in saving children, QED, and no one should listen to you. You’re interested in something else entirely, and it isn’t pretty, or noble, or based on compassion or understanding.
I’ve often criticized the use of statistics, when asserting the principles of liberty takes back seat, and I will likely continue to do so. This bit from Whittle however will be very useful in the sentencing hearings of Progressive operatives who’ve been depriving people’s rights under color of law. One of those rights being deprived is the right to protect one’s children using a gun, and a very high death rate has resulted from that deprivation. Progressives are killing people at an astonishing rate, right here, right now.
Save the children; get a gun. Save the children; defeat Progressivism and relegate it to the dust bin of an ugly history. Save the children; advance the American Principles of Liberty.
ETA; There can be no “getting along”, or making nice, or living with, an idealogy that violates human rights on a wholesale level as a matter of national policy. Practicing Progressivism is in fact a crime, right now. All of it. It’s a violation of everythig America stands for and a violation of the constitution, and it’s perpetrators should be dealt with accordingly. The only question left is; are we going to it the easy way or the hard way?
Cool. Very cool, and very unexpected.
Just got word from Vox Day that The Stars Came Back has been nominated for a Prometheus Award for this year. It’s the award given by the Libertarian Futurist Society.
Past winners include Sarah Hoyt, Harry Turtledove, L. Neil Smith, Vernor Vinge, Terry Pratchett, Ken MacLeod, Poul Anderson, James P. Hogan, J. Neil Schulman, and many more big names. Even if I come in last place, just being nominated to potentially stand amid such a group of names is quite an honor.
The problem I see is, the left imported the Muslim threat. Then the leftists at Charlie Hebdo inflamed it with leftist snark to the point that it began shooting at them, and even killed innocent citizens in the Kosher Deli. Now they want everyone to “stand with them,” which really means fight the enemy they imported and angered, while they hide under the table, so they won’t have to face the consequences of their own stupidity.
Anonymous Conservative
January 22, 2015
Are We All Charlie Hebdo?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
I have never been a big fan of C.S. Lewis in general. When I received the following email I very nearly responded back with a negative response:
Dear Joe,
Could I interest you in please posting a notice on your blog of the following new YouTube video from the C.S. Lewis Society of California of my keynote talk at the first annual conference of Christians for Liberty, that was held at St. Edwards University in San Antonio, TX, August 2, 2014?
Thank you for your kind consideration!
Best regards,
David
——
David J. Theroux
Founder and President
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA 94621
(510) 632-1366 Phone
(510) 568-6040 Fax
http://www.independent.org
I decided that I should at least watch a minute or two of video before rejecting it.
This quote at about 2:25 in the video made me decide to post it:
Could one start a Stagnation Party—which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place?
C.S. Lewis
1940
I came across a great new word today at ESR’s blog. “Kafkatrapping”
The term Kafkatrapping is based on the story “The Trial” by Kafka. (whole story here)
The definition: a form of argument that, reduced to essence, runs like this: “Your refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…} confirms that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}.”
There are several variants of it explicitly discussed and described in the blog post. Well worth reading. We run into it a lot from the left, and among anti-rights activists generally.
…we are told, by someone (?) to celebrate the life’s work of one Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – gun owner, second amendment supporter and NRA member.
OK, but if I approve of his message and his efforts, then surely every day is MLK Day, no? Just as, if you’re a Christian every day is Christmas.
Anyway; I wonder what MLK Jr. would say today, more than 50 years later, of race relations and the moral state of Americans. I don’t recall him having said;
“I have a dream…of a day when a little black child and a little white child will sit down together, and the little black child will accuse the little white child of exercising “White Privilege” and blaming him for his problems. I have a dream of a time when over ninety percent of all black people will sell their votes to the political party of the KKK in exchange for largess, indoctrination into the authoritarian system, lies and broken promises. I have a dream of a time when black people are corralled into dysfunctional, government-union-controlled schools, discouraged from using the schools of their choice, and taught hopelessness and anger instead of hope and love, and I have a dream today, People, of a time when government will have replaced the father in the majority of black families…”
No, I don’t recall him saying any of that, but that is apparently what some people are celebrating today, while calling for more of the same.
Matthew Foss
From here.
[I don’t know the date or which of the many Matthew Foss’s in the world wrote this. I don’t know if it was a parody or sincere. If you find out let me know so I can update this post.
Assuming it was sincere…
Just so you know what they think of you and what they want done to you.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over what to do with the “terrorism done in the name of Islam” problem in the wake of the recent events in France, just as there is after each such event. Many talking heads say many things, but mostly their words shed darkness rather than light. The first step in finding a solution is properly defining the problem. Without clarity, there can be no visibility.
I have a simple proposal:
The next time there is such an event in a western nation and we can positively identify and surround the perpetrators before they are dead, we offer them this deal: Drop their guns/bombs and hold up their hands and surrender with the remaining hostages unharmed, and they can be tried in the Sharia court of their choice, with the following caveats: the trial must be started within one year, the verdict delivered within two years, and the court must be formally recognized and approved of by at least two leading national Islamic leaders in the Islamic world (such as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and the Ayatollah of Iran, or similar) who acknowledge in public, in the nation’s native language, to the people of their respective nations, the court’s legitimacy.
Either they find the perps not guilty and we can have an official Islamic court ruling that Sharia is utterly incompatible with western culture, laws, and values; or they are found guilty and executed, and we have an official Islamic finding that terrorism and murder is forbidden under Islam. If no leading scholars will recognize the court publicly it will be a tacit admission they want it both ways – be legal in Islam, but not have the west see that.
Either way, the clarity such a decision would provide would allow the appropriate battle-lines to be drawn, so the proper war could commence with sides more clearly delineated.