Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—Sarah Connor

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Some good things came out of that fiery inferno: By the end of the day, April 19, 1993, I was a recovering liberal, ready to bear arms.

Sarah Connor
April 19, 2012
Comment to April 19, 1993: Where were you when Waco burned?
[I have a similar story but it started a little bit earlier.

I had bought my first gun in December of 1992. It was just an SKS but it was a beginning. This was in large part because of the helplessness I felt at Ruby Ridge a few months earlier. It went down just a few miles from my home at the time and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have a firearm of any type and I had zero training.

Just the siege at Waco confirmed I was going down the necessary path. I didn’t have to wait for the outrage of the burning. The only doubts I had were whether I had started my journey soon enough and if I had enough money and time to complete it in time. In May of 1995 I got a contracting job at Microsoft that paid a lot of money and gave me easy access to high quality training and a nearby indoor range.

I was shooting USPSA matches in early 1995. I shot in a lot of steel plate and pistol league matches from 1995 through 1999. I went to my first dynamite shoot in May of 1996. I bought my STI Eagle in late 1997. I went to the USPSA Area 1 Championship in June of 1998. I won the Intermountain Tactical Rifle Championship in July of 1998. The first Boomershoot was in October of 1998. I took a class in long range precision rifle shooting in early 1999. Hundreds of people have participated in Boomershoot. They acquired the equipment and skills to hit one minute of angle targets out to 700 yards.

I and hundreds, if not thousands, are ready. It was Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban that motivated us. But what the really means is that almost for certain our equipment and skills will not be required for that method of last resort.—Joe]

Quote of the day – Dennis Prager

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This might mess up Joe’s auto QOTD super system and crash his server, but here goes;

“I prefer clarity to agreement” – Dennis Prager

I love that quote, and he uses some version of it often on his radio show.  It is in contrast with the usual method of obfuscation for the purpose of recruiting to one’s cause.  Understanding, the prerequisite to true agreement or true disagreement, can only come out of clarity.  It is required for any positive, productive communication in any subject.  I don’t know if Prager has said it as such, but clarity is pure poison to the left.

Pure.

Poison.

As such, our mission is easy, no?  If I had to name one thing, the lack of which is resulting in the most problems in our society, it would be clarity.  Not energy, not oil, not honesty, not contraception, not redistributed money, not even liberty, but clarity, because without it we don’t have any of those other things.  We’re paralyzed.

Think how refreshing it would be to hear true clarity on a regular basis.  “Honesty” could be substituted in many cases, but it’s different from clarity in that some people don’t actually know what they think– Their thinking process has been retarded through obfuscation.  Clarity must some first, then, before honesty (or the lack thereof) can become an issue.  Glen Beck oft repeats a variation on it; “Say what you mean and mean what you say”.

No doublt, if some politician ever reads this, he’ll be asking his campaign advisors how he can best appear to be saying what he means and meaning what he says, ’cause he heard it was popular with those idiots in flyover country.

Quote of the day—Mitt Romney

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We need a president who will stand up for the rights of hunters and sportsmen, and those seeking to protect their homes and their families. President Obama has not. I will. And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

This president is moving us away from our Founders’ vision. Instead of limited government, he’s leading us toward limited freedom and limited opportunity.

Mitt Romney
April 13, 2012
Romney touts support for gun rights at NRA

romney-AP120413035813_244x183

Photo credit: AP Photo/Michael Conroy
[Since Romney is a politician and his lips were moving I question how firmly, if at all, he believes what he says and whether he will remain true to these campaign promises. But he is saying some of the words gun owners and freedom lovers want to hear.

I want to hear that he is going to do more than play defense (“defend the rights”). I would prefer that he say something along the lines of what Newt said a short while later to the NRA (H/T to Bitter). We should be expanding the scope of the right to keep and bear arms to the rest of the world via the UN. That means a strong offense, not just defense.

For those of you who question the validity of that last sentence by Romney please see my QOTD-Barack Obama from October 28, 2008 with further info from Kevin.—Joe]

Why TSA explosives detection is pointless

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If the TSA were to scan for Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer (AN) they would get a very high percentage of travelers testing positive as this guy did:

An 82-year-old farmer from Brush got quite the surprise Thursday when he was briefly detained by Fort Collins-Loveland airport security after his suitcase tested positive for the chemicals used to make bombs.

Large numbers of false positives mean they have to hand examine large numbers of people. This will require far more manpower and increase the frustration with the TSA. If they don’t scan for AN then they leave a huge gaping hole in their security. Yes, AN needs something else with it to detonate. Boomerite, for example, uses Potassium Chlorate (PC) and Ethylene Glycol (EG). Scanning for either of these isn’t going to accomplish anything. PC is one of the main ingredients in matches. EG is the common automobile anti-freeze. False positives are us.

Scanning for all three, AN, PC, and EG would detect Boomerite but there isn’t anything particularly magic about those three. AN with any number of things will explode. Here is just a partial list of things I have used:

  • Aluminum powder
  • Diesel
  • Model racing fuel
  • Powdered milk
  • Powdered sugar
  • Wheat flour
  • Propylene Glycol
  • Nitromethane
  • Acetone (nail polish remover)
  • Methanol (wood alcohol)
  • Naphthalene (moth balls)

Basically anything that will burn will enable detonation of AN. So unless TSA is willing to detain and hand search every passenger that walked through their recently fertilized lawn and then ate a powdered sugar donut on the way to security there is no point in scanning for AN. Plus this assumes that a real threat would not be able to seal and clean up their explosives device and themselves sufficiently that they couldn’t get their chemical profile below the detection threshold.

Since explosives detection is pointless and they do not hand examine every passenger TSA is really nothing but A Security Theater.

Pampered Cowards

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Here’s a quote I got today from a customer.  We were going back and fourth regarding the configuration of his rifle and which of the vastly superior UltiMAK optic mounts would fit it.  I paraphrase for clarity;

“…mine is a sporterized one… No scary features– to keep our state politicians’ diapers dry.” (he’s in the PRC)

I’ve eschewed potty jokes of late, as they’re usually not productive.  This one brings up a key point though.  My first thought after reading it was; Who cares, or should ever care, about politicians who would soil themselves at the thought of a well and properly armed citizenry, i.e. who cares what a coward thinks?

This is an open message to all politicians and law enforcement.  If you’re afraid of a citizenry that has its rights fully respected, exercised and protected, you’re either a coward, a criminal or a fool, and in any of those cases you don’t belong in your position.  Your position is for those who respect and love liberty, and have both the courage and the personal wherewithal to protect it.

(Disclaimer; my wife is a public school teacher, so although I preach liberty, and the responsibility of self reliance that comes with it, some of my household income derives from a coercive redistribution racket)

Quote of the day—Lyle

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That of course was its only purpose from the outset, so we’ll have to call the program a complete success.

What?– You believed the stuff about “protecting public safety”? No, see, that’s the just the selling point. That’s that charming, handsome man with his arm in a cast, Ted Bundy, asking you get in his van. Forget the assertions. The actual goal is something else entirely. That’s how communists (and serial killers) roll. It’s always a ruse.

Lyle
April 6, 2012
Comment to Gun card chaos: FOID foibles in IL
In response to “The only success of FOID cards is the successful persecution of gun owners.”
[Many, perhaps even most, of the people advocating for restrictions on firearms believe it will improve public safety. But at the top they know better. I’ve been listening to them and even meeting them face to face for many, many, years. Listen to and read carefully the words of gun control politicians Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, and Bill Clinton. Listen and read carefully the words of the top leaders of the anti-gun activists. The smart articulate ones. Not the rambling incoherent ones. They know the truth. They know it’s not about public safety. It’s about buying votes, gaining power, and control of the general population.

For a long time I have wanted to get a meme started, “What is the real reason?” But apparently we are not quite ready to ask that question. And for the population at large, and gun control advocates in particular, gun ownership laws are not something that is subject to reason.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brady Campaign

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Although the exact number of Americans killed by gun violence in the 20th century will never be known, it is now all but certain that it will, by any measure, vastly exceed the number of Americans shot and killed on battlefields since 1900.

Brady Campaign
December 30, 1999
MORE AMERICANS KILLED BY GUNS THAN BY WAR IN THE 20TH CENTURY–1.4 Million Known American Firearms Casualties Since 1933
[What the Brady Campaign either is ignorant of or willfully ignoring is that during that same time frame countries without the right to keep and bear arms murdered about 170 million innocent non-military lives in the 20th Century.

There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.

The trade-off is not between guns being readily available to individual criminals and guns being banned and hence as difficult to obtain as other banned items like recreational drugs. The trade-off is between freedom and tyranny. It’s between losing a million innocent people in century due to criminal acts of individuals and losing 100 million people due to criminal acts of governments.

The founders of the this country understood and placed the security of a free state above the risk from individual misuse of arms:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Firearms in the hands of the people are a plausible threat to would-be tyrants and hence a “safety net” for freedom.

Gun control in this country was implemented to make it easier to suppress slaves, former slaves, and the descendants of slaves. That is a shameful heritage for the advocates of gun control.

The Brady Campaign is a small and small-minded organization that does not represent the people of this nation or it’s values. It’s time they faded away into the dustbin of history like their small-minded ancestral cousins, the KKK.—Joe]

More on the Plausible Threat

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This is in response to Joe’s QOTD here by JFK

JFK’s concept is what I’ve dubbed the “Plausible Threat” influence in human interaction.  Reagan referred to it as “Peace Through Strength”.  My Plausible Threat concept is of the same nature, but is much more broad.

Why does someone do some something he doesn’t want to do, when he is told to do it?  Why does someone avoid doing something he wants do to, when told not to do it?  Often it’s because he sees a plausible threat of some kind looming over him, which will harm him in some way if he doesn’t tow the line.  It applies in all sorts of interactions and life decisions.  In some cases there is a moral factor, wherein a person’s conscience is more prominent in the decision making process.  In other cases it is the plausible threat that tips the scale.  In yet other cases the plausible threat is not enough, and a person or group will act in spite of it, i.e. it’s a gamble wherein the perceived benefits are deemed greater than the perceived threat.  The threat could be anything from minor social tension to global nuclear annihilation.

Our second amendment is, in part, to guarantee a natural right, but also it is to ensure a plausible threat as insurance against growing tyranny. 

We’ve seen on TV shows like Survivor what most people will do for a million dollars.  What would some people or groups of people be willing to do for several trillion dollars, their own army, and the power to substantially control millions of people?  It would take a very plausible threat indeed to dissuade the sort of motivations we’re seeing in that arena, and we have a long way to go before the whole of the people are armed well enough, organized well enough, and act in such a way as to dissuade the sorts of tyranny already in place, and the sorts that we have yet to see.

Quote of the day—President John F. Kennedy

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We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

President John F. Kennedy
January 20, 1961
Inaugural Address
[The “we” and “them” Kennedy was referring to were the United States and the communists of the world. But the sentiment has broader application.

It also applies to the people of a nation and a government delegated certain powers by those people. And if you think of “arms” as lawyers and financial resources it also has application to those with whom you enter into contracts with.

And if “arms” were a metaphor for “votes” the first sentence, but not the second, could have immediate application to the NRA, SAF, and other gun rights organizations and politicians versus the anti-gun organizations and politicians.

I had hinted at something similar with a very narrow application over 16 years ago but Kennedy says it more clearly and with broader application.—Joe]

Liberty is Not on Trial

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Don’t forget it.  This is (partially) in response to the QOTD below.

The argument for liberty is primarily a moral one.  Many people focus on cause and effect.  We could dig into detail after detail, analyzing this and that cause and this and that effect.  In that pursuit, yes, we will find much evidence in favor of liberty.

But liberty is not on trial.  Oh no, Young Grasshopper.  This may be news to most people, but it is the socialist/communist/Fascist (statist) bloc that is on trail.  I hereby accuse it of willfully conspiring to perpetrate envy, hopelessness, fraud, grand larceny, stagnation, decline, anger, hate, conflict, assault, battery, chaos, and mass murder.

It is not up to us to defend liberty as such.  We who support and uphold it are the plaintiffs, see?  Liberty needs no defense in that sense, because it has done nothing wrong.  It needs to be taught, yes, but if any fingers of blame are to be pointed, they should be pointed at the statists, and if any defense need to be mounted, let the accused try to defend their crimes.  Let them point back and leer at us— but always understand that they are the accused and we are (liberty is) the injured party.

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that Man, by nature, yearns to be free.  Sure; with our liberty intact, we do vastly better than we ever do without it, but the argument is primarily a moral one.  Right and wrong.  Freedom verses force.  Choice verses coercion.  Good verses evil.  America was founded on that principle.  Isn’t it time we strive to understand, and then to fulfill America’s Promise of Liberty?  For once?

The plaintiff doesn’t walk into the courtroom with a defense attorney at his side.  He may need a good prosecutor, but he doesn’t need a defense.  Republicans of course have never understood it.  A plaintiff or a procesuter who is constantly defending himself, with the perpetrator sitting in judgement, is a blithering fool.

Quote of the day—Windy Wilson

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Their words and the things they choose to defend prove again that the Brady Center is not merely rooting for the criminal element, they are offering to hold their coats and act as lookout during the murder, rape or robbery of the law abiding citizens.

Windy Wilson
April 5, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—Gura & Prossessky.
[While I do not believe people of the Brady Center intend this to be the result I am certain this is the unintended consequence of their actions.

Many of these people have no rational belief system and some don’t even have a grasp of what rational thought is but some do. My model for those who have a quasi rational belief system is that they are only vaguely aware of these unintended consequences.

Those of us on the side of individual rights are willing to accept the unintended consequences of freedom. Those unintended consequences include crimes and accidents involving firearms.

As Thomas Sowell made very clear in one of his essays from the 1980s (read Compassion Versus Guilt, and other Essays) and in a great many of his other writings and lectures, “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

The proper question then becomes, “Which set of tradeoffs is better?” And digging still deeper, “How do you measure ‘better'”? But as near as I can tell our opponents are unwilling, or perhaps unable, to even acknowledge there are no solutions. Yet the real debate should be at least three levels deeper.–Joe]

What’s Going On With Gun Sales?

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Via an e-mail from the NRA (Yes; I am part of the “triangle of death” and as a card-carrying member, I get the sooper secret decoder ring and classified e-mails)

What’s up with gun sales?  Americans are rediscovering the fun and utility of gun ownership, that’s what.  People are starting to shrug off the effects of political and social bullying, saying “to heck with all that nonsense – guns are good, I want one and I’m buying one (or three)”.

Quote of the day—Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)

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The growth of TSA’s bureaucracy has outpaced the number of travelers the agency was designed to protect.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
March 28, 2012
How many airport security screeners is too many?
[I went through the Moscow/Pullman airport a few weeks ago and counted six TSA agents. There could have been more in back out of sight. 15 years ago, with only slightly less of passenger traffic, there was one security agent.

There are some things government is really good at—spending lots of other people’s money is near the top of that list.

If you have a desire to waste huge amounts of money then giving it to the government is probably a near optimal method of having your desires realized. If you merely burn your money and don’t get it completely burned someone could come along and recover a portion of it. Money given to the government is much less likely to incur those sort of risks.—Joe]

More on Heavy Boots

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Or is it Moron Heavy Boots?  Ry brought up the “Heavy Boots” phenomenon a while back, but I hadn’t heard of it until he explained it to me and I Googled it.  I was disappointed, but the story didn’t surprise me.  I’ve talked to a lot of people about a lot of things, having been in the service business and in consumer credit, for over 30 years.  Richard P. Feynman wrote about similar experiences he’d had in his teaching career.  It’s sad to realize how many people lack that little bit of curiosity that would lead them quickly to understand some of the basics of their world.

At the music store, I put up a poster-sized photo of the full Earth taken from space.  You’ve all seen it, and some of you will already know when it was taken, based on the history of the mission.  I looked at it a lot, just as a beautiful image that says something about the ingenuity of Man, before I realized that it told us a few other things.  So now I have some questions.  This is my Heavy Boots experiment but it’s on a bit higher level.  These questions are for those who have no idea when the picture was was taken without analyzing the image itself.  Forget the history and the mission, and so on.  It’s a simple question for those who know the basics of our solar system and of Earth’s place in it;
About what time of year was this photo taken?  How can you tell?  Also; About what time of day was it taken?  How do you know?

Here’s another one.  Looking at this image of the moon, assuming you’re facing East.  What time is it?  Why?

One of my older brothers liked to mess with people when we were younger.  When one of his young sisters-in-law asked him what those bumps between the lanes on the freeway were for, he told them they were part of a project for the blind– so blind drivers could tell when they were crossing lanes.  “Really?” came the reply.  He pulled off a lot of that sort of thing, trying to see just how fantastic a story he could tell and still get someone to believe him.  I suppose his behavior could be referred to as a search for Progressive voters.  If you’re ignorant enough, you’ll believe anything if it’s presented just right.  Our coercively-funded schools have that part covered.  They actively discourage learning.

Leno had a bit on his show last night wherein he placed a magician behind the counter at a convenience store.  There were some plastic Easter eggs in a counter display, labeled “Insta-Chick” or some such.  The egg contained a little foam “chick” that would expand in water.  The magician, introducing the new and rare product to the customers “placed one in a cup”, then “poured water over it” and a live chick came out instantly.  People believed it, even after he said they were “engineered in China” such that you could let them dry out again and reanimate them later, and you didn’t need to feed them.  More “Heavy Boots”.  “Vote for me— I’ll give you free health care” or etc. is along the same lines.

I try not to be discouraged.  There are a lot of people who don’t fall for this stuff.  They can tell from looking at a photo of our planet what time it was taken, know that mass exhibits gravity, know that we can’t all get free lunch forever and there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.

Underestimating the difficulty

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ATK just won a contract to supply up to 450 million rounds of .40 S&W hollow point ammo to the Department of Homeland Security.

I first heard about this on the Glenn Beck radio show this morning. As Beck said, “That must mean they think that 150 million of us will need to be shot twice.”

If the plan were to shoot nearly everyone in this country they are seriously underestimating the difficulty if they think they will only need 450 million rounds. Hence I have to conclude they don’t have such a plan or if they do it demonstrates a catastrophic failure of their victim selection process.

Quote of the day—Bonzer Wolf

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The greatest delusion is the hope that the evils in this world can be cured by Progressive legislation.

Bonzer Wolf
Tag line
[At this point in time I am of the opinion that most of the evils in the world are the result of Progressive legislation. This is especially true if you include the Progressive movement of the early 20th century in Eastern Europe.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Fred

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I protect my family, my property, my interests and my life. If you did the same we wouldn’t need a Neighborhood Watch. Or Democrats.

Fred
March 28, 2012
Comment to New Happenings in the Zimmerman Case.
[That is overstating things a little bit but it does have a lot of truth in it too.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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It’s one thing to issue an executive order during peacetime saying private property “required” by the government can be taken if there is a national emergency. It’s quite another thing to enforce it during a national emergency.

μολὼν λαβέ!

Climbing the Clock Tower stairs with my rifles

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Today I brought a couple rifles back to the Seattle area for cleaning and preparation for Boomershoot. I call my place “The Clock Tower”.

As I was climbing the stairs with my cased rifles and openly carried pistol on my hip I wondered what the response would be if someone in this liberal enclave saw me as I was lugging the precision rifles up the stairs. Should I hurry inside to reduce the time they have to figure out the contents of the cases? Should I stop and chat with them and invite them to the range or maybe even Boomershoot?

In either case will the friendly neighborhood SWAT team pay me a visit early tomorrow morning?

Somehow I doubt people lugging books or political signs up the stairs worry about the quite the same things I do. As long as people carrying books or guns into their home worry about the police breaking down their doors in the early morning hours we have more work to do.

Quote of the day—Tom Diaz

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Lethality is the nicotine of the gun industry. Even more than the tobacco companies, firearm manufacturers have been shielded from public scrutiny and exempt from health and safety laws that govern other products.

Tom Diaz
January 20, 1999
[“Shielded from public scrutiny and exempt from health and safety laws? Do the rights protected by the First Amendment have a Federal Agency devoted to the regulation of them? Do you need to pass a background check before you can purchase a book on religion?

Are you required take a class and get a license before you are allowed to vote? But what is more dangerous? A few million people carrying handguns in public or a Joseph Stalin implementing his progressive political views? Diaz is not only has his facts wrong he doesn’t even have a clue about the dangers facing humanity.—Joe]