Quote of the day—John Gregg

The right to carry a bowie-knife for lawful defense is secured, and must be admitted. It is an exceeding destructive weapon. It is difficult to defend against it, by any degree of bravery, or any amount of skill. The gun or pistol may miss its aim, and when discharged, its dangerous character is lost, or diminished at least. The sword may be parried. With these weapons men fight for the sake of the combat, to satisfy the laws of honor, not necessarily with the intention to kill, or with a certainty of killing, when the intention exists. The bowie-knife differs from these in its device and design; it is the instrument of almost certain death. He who carries such a weapon, for lawful defense, as he may, makes himself more dangerous to the rights of others, considering the frailties of human nature, than if he carried a less dangerous weapon. Now, is the legislature powerless to protect the rights of others thus the more endangered, by superinducing caution against yielding to such frailties? May the state not say, through its law, to the citizen, “this right which you exercise, is very liable to be dangerous to the rights of others, you must school your mind to forbear the abuse of your right, by yielding to sudden passion; to secure this necessary schooling of your mind, an increased penalty must be affixed to the abuse of this right, so dangerous to others.”

John Gregg
Texas Appeals Court Judge
1859
John Cockrum v. The State Page 402
[Via The legal history of bans on firearms and Bowie knives before 1900 by David Kopel.

I found this take on the use of large knives versus guns very interesting. There are several facets to this, but the following is the most intriguing. Those who would restrict access to guns would increase the use of weapons the courts have found to be more deadly.—Joe]

Before I had a blog

Back in the dark ages, before I had a blog, I attempted mass communication using a word processor to put words on material made from dead trees. I then used an envelope and stamp to send my missives to the local newspaper in hopes they might indulge me by sharing my words with their readers.

I didn’t realize it, but my parent saved at least some of those published Letters to the Editor.

Although my parents died in 2012 and 2014, my brothers are still cleaning the attic of their house. Stuff related to me has ended up on my desk. These two clippings arrived recently and are from over 20 years ago:

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Quote of the day—Cal Thomas

If confronted by someone seeking to loot, destroy your business, or kill you, would you see your armed self as the best defense, or would you call 911, hoping the police will show up in time, if at all? Or would you be glad that a Kyle Rittenhouse is patrolling your streets like a neighborhood watchman, doing the job the police are unable, or reluctant to do?

Cal Thomas
November 27, 2021
Cal Thomas: The Rittenhouse verdict
[I think a bit more context is necessary to correctly answer these questions. I would be inclined to give the police a couple of free passes until it was clear they weren’t going to do their job. I would then reevaluate the situation.

There could be situations, much later in the timeline, where I would give people a pass for taking the action to the derelict and/or malicious politicians failing to do their job.—Joe]

My grade school was small

Back in the days of the dinosaurs schools were much smaller. This is the first through the fourth grade with the one and only teacher:

TeakeanCavendishStudents

I’m the third boy from the left. Verl Presnall, who I mentioned when he died just over a year ago, is the first boy on the left. Second boy from the left, L.J., worked at CCI for decades.

Thanks to cousin Janis, first girl from the left, who posted the picture on Facebook.

Quote of the day—NRA-ILA

Repeal of the PLCAA would potentially have even more devastating impacts than new federal prohibitions on the types of firearms Americans could own. That is because it would leave to the imaginations of thousands of greedy trial lawyers and activist judges reasons for why this or that type of firearm or ammunition is “too dangerous” to be available to the American public. These suits, moreover, would undoubtedly be underwritten by any number of billionaire activists, creating a litigation war chest that no single player in the gun industry could match.

NRA-ILA
January 25, 2021
Biden Plots Sneak Attack Against U.S. Firearms Industry
[It was because of the existential threat of lawsuits that 21 years ago Smith & Wesson agreed to not manufacture firearms with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, that dealers who sold their firearms would not sell normal capacity magazines or “semi-automatic assault weapons”, restrictions on sales at guns shows, and a host of other restrictions. Gun owners spontaneous boycotted S&W and they very nearly went bankrupt from the boycott.

In 2005 the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) gave manufactures and dealers some relief from the fear of being crushed by lawsuits on one side and being boycotted into bankruptcy if they flinched in their stand against the forces of evil.

Now, the forces of evil have announced they are going to strip this protection and destroy the entire firearms supply chain.—Joe]

Grandpa Huffman and the international incident

Brother Doug has been doing some research on our grandfather Huffman. During WWI Grandpa was in the U.S. Army and was sent to Russia. Here is the latest story related to that deployment.


I bought a couple more books on the American Expeditionary Force Siberia.  One called, “The Russian Sideshow” by Robert Willet is particularly interesting.  I have been able to correlate things he said in the book to things my grandfather, Cecil Huffman wrote home to his parents about.  In particular, the trip to Vladivostok is of interest.

Cecil sailed to Vladivostok on the Sheridan, leaving San Francisco on September 2, 1918.  They were accompanied by another troop ship called the Logan.  The ships stopped at Japan to take on coal.  They stopped at Hakodate on the northern island of Hokkaido, which unfortunately didn’t have any coal.

From the book:

As the two ships anchored outside Hakodate on the northern island of Hokkaido, it was decided to let the doughboys get off the ship, visit the city, and stretch their legs.  It was not a wise decision.  The ships arrived unannounced, and very soon, unwelcomed.  As the thirty seven hundred doughboys, unsteady from weeks at sea, descended on the city, they immediately looked for bars and ladies of the evening…

It soon became apparent that Japanese whiskey had a power that affected the men far more than they anticipated.  Johnson described the problem to Roberts: 

“All the cheap bars have Scotch whiskey made in Japan, “ he told us, “If you come across any, don’t touch it.  It’s called Queen George, and it’s sublimate proof, because thirty-five hundred enlisted men were stinko fifteen minutes after they got ashore.  I never saw so many get so drunk so fast.”

Johnson enlisted Roberts and a few others to round up the men and get them back aboard the two transports.  Roberts described the challenge:

“Intoxicated soldiers seemed to have the flowing qualities of water, able to seep through doorways, down chimneys, up through floors.  When we slowly edged a score of khaki-clad tosspots from a dive and started them toward the ships, then turned to see whether we had overlooked anyone, the room would unbelievably be filled with unsteady doughboys, sprung from God knows where, drunkenly negotiating for the change of American money or the purchase of juss one more boll of Queen George.”

It was not just the enlisted men; officers joined in the orgy and later paid the price.  Eventually, order was restored, and the two ships lumbered out of port, still without coal.

Cecil wrote his parents (This is his punctuation, spelling and sentence structure):

                                                                                                 On Japan Sea
                                                                                                  September 28, 1918:
Dear Father + Mother,

Well I wonder how you are tonight I am fine and dandy.  We stopped in Japan got to go ashore one after noon had more fun than I ever had in the same length of time.  They just follow you around in droves some of them can talk a little English my bunch ran onto some boys that were talking English in high school they said, could talk pretty good had them show us to a resturant we went in and ordered ham + eggs they brought us bread and butter on plates we told them we wanted ham and eggs so she went back and brought us some raw eggs in the shell then one of the boys went in the kitchen and showed them what we wanted so after so long a time we got them they were sure good when we got them.  There was one thing right after another happening all the time we were there.  The town was a dirty place they had no sewers or anything like we have at home they had street cars but the tracks are not kept up are awfully rough.  They are about a hundred years behind the U. S. in everything…

The ships sailed north about 150 miles to Otaru to get coal.  Only a few men were allowed to go ashore at Otaru, but those few managed to convince the locals that gilded Philippine one-centave coins were pure gold coins.  They were passing the coins off to the locals when the fraud was discovered and the police got involved.  One of the soldiers smashed a liquor bottle over the head of a police officer and it created what was described as a true international incident.  The ships were held in port until the fraud and assault charges were resolved.  While they were being held in port a typhoon came in and blew the Logan ashore damaging it slightly.  (Cecil was on board the Sheridan)

Cecil mentioned the typhoon in his letter of September 28:

Had a real storm while we were in the harbor I never saw the wind blow so hard the water or spray blew through the air just like the snow flies in a bad snow storm.  Was glad we were in the harbor it would have been awfully rough on the sea.

The ships arrived in Vladivostok on September 29 at 8:30 PM, the day after Cecil wrote the letter to his parents.  He didn’t mention any of the conflict the soldiers had with the Japanese in his letter.

It is interesting to note that Dad told me Uncle Walt and Grandpa didn’t drink, while Uncle Claude was a heavy drinker.  I have no idea if Grandpa was involved in the drunken behavior in Japan or not.  He was 31 years old at the time, older and possibly more mature than most of his fellow soldiers, but who knows what part he played in the unruly scene in Japan.

The book mentions all three skirmishes Cecil was involved in.  Previously, I could only find information on the skirmish at Novo Nezhino.  The book downplays the significance of the skirmish at Novo Nezhino compared to the description I found in the book entitled, “The history of the 31st.”  I will write about the skirmishes at Maihe and Knevichi at a later date.

Quote of the day—Walter K. Olson

I am a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, with which I have been associated since 1985, and am the author of three books on the American civil justice system. My most recent book, The Rule of Lawyers (St. Martin’s, 2003), published in January, includes a chapter exploring the origins and objectives of the movement seeking to make makers and distributors of guns pay for criminals’ misuse of their wares. I conclude that the gun suits are at best an assault on sound tenets of individual responsibility, and at worst a serious abuse of legal process. Even more ominously, the suits demonstrate how a pressure group can employ litigation to attempt an end run around democracy, in search of victories in court that it has been unable to obtain at the ballot box. Finally, I argue that strong Congressional action to restrict litigation of this type is not only consistent with a due regard for federalism and state autonomy, but is in fact required by it.

Walter K. Olson
April 2, 2003
PROTECTION OF LAWFUL COMMERCE IN ARMS ACT HEARING
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

[Reading the transcript was interesting. At that time, prior to the Heller Decision in 2008, SCOTUS had not definitively stated the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. This was an issue in the hearings:

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. In the finding, Mr. Keane, on the finding number one, citizens have a right protected by the second amendment to the United States Constitution to keep and bear arms, I notice it says ”citizens” and not ”a citizen.” there is no individual right in the Constitution to bear arms, is there?

Those were dark days.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Peter J. Boyer

Henigan believes that it is imperative to steer the argument about guns away from the problematic area of criminal use, with its inconvenient focus on criminals, and toward the matter of guns in the home—incidents of suicide, accidental shootings, and domestic violence. This is an important shift, because it allows the gun debate to be recast as a health issue. Henigan told the Castano lawyers about the many studies that have considered guns in an epidemiological context; in other words, guns should be thought of as pathogens, and gun ownership, perhaps, as a disease.

Peter J. Boyer
May 17, 1999
BIG GUNS
The New Yorker
[I was rearranging some things in my bookcase and found the May 1999 issue of The New Yorker. The quote above is from one of the articles. Viewing the article online requires payment. The picture below is the entire second page of the article.

image

See also:

I find the wording of Henigan’s response to congressman Feeney interesting. Henigan is a lawyer and I’m sure he chose those words carefully. He doesn’t say he believes the characterizing is invalid. He only says he doesn’t endorse it. There is a reason I call him “Half-Truth Henigan”.

The mid and late 1990 were very dark days for the rights of gun owners.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Hood

The federal government has lost its proper moorings to its founding document, and that the Framers of the Constitution would be horrified at much of what is even being debated in Washington, D.C. these days (quite apart from which side in the debate they might, upon reflection, endorse).

North Carolinians should take the lead in this important cause. We are (or used to be) “First in Freedom” for a very good reason. We used to be the cantankerous old coot at the constitutional garden party. It’s time we became him once more.

John Hood
March 9, 2020
Let’s spoil the garden party
[It really is a states issue to bring the Feds back in line with the Constitution. But it’s going to take more than one state to do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it requires a constitutional convention of the states. And that gets us into scary territory.

The second best approach I see is the sanctuary movement and related activities. Just look at what’s happening with legalization of marijuana. It’s still against Federal law but so many states are ignoring the Feds and businesses in those states are getting away with it. When will this start happening with suppressors, machine guns, 4473’s, and NICS checks? Or even W-2’s, 1099’s, and 1040s?—Joe]

AR-15 Sporter

Via a tweet from Lucky Duck @FlyingJayDee:

From 1963 iirc.

ColtAR-15Sporter1963

There is a reply worthy of note from NoGuns❓NoAlcohol❗@NoGunsNoAlcohol:

This is actually 1964 but semantics.

Note the price in 1964, $190. It was just about then, perhaps 1965, in our part of the country earning $1000/month was considered really good money. So, the AR-15 Sporter would cost a person about a weeks pay. And so, making a few assumptions, it appears the relative price of an AR has come down some.

But the most important thing to note is that 55 years ago the AR-15 was marketed as a hunting rifle. People claiming it was designed as a weapon of war are ignorant, stupid, and/or lying.

Quote of the day—Ammo.com

There was, predictably, very little meaningful blowback on the United States Marshals Service or any other parts of the federal government. The Ruby Ridge Task Force delivered a highly redacted 542-page report. And the six marshals involved in the initial shootout were given the highest commendations awarded by the United States Marshal Service.

Ammo.com
August, 2019
Siege at Ruby Ridge
[A similar thing happened with the Waco massacre. The ATF agents who attacked and killed innocent people were given medals and a memorial was created for the agents who died when their victims fought back.

I would like to suggest justice would have been better served if their estates, including their viable organs, had been auctioned off, the proceeds given to the survivors of the Branch Davidians, and then their heads mounted on pikes in front of ATF headquarters for a few months.—Joe]

I’m not sure I knew this

Mom died in 2012 and Dad died in 2014. My younger brothers have been slowly cleaning out our parents house and recently told me that at the present rate they should be finished by, IIRC, 2050.

In my last trip to Idaho there was a stack of stuff waiting for me. The following newspaper clipping was among the things I found:

OrofinoHighSchoolTrackRecords

In the 440 Yard Dash section I’m listed as tying for 8th and 9th place for all-time record times. I don’t think I knew this. I never thought myself as all that great. Doug Meyer (2nd), Morgan McEntire (6th), and Greg Heathco (7th) were competing in some of the same years I did and I compared myself to them. And Olsen frequently talked about Chris Johnson (1st). Johnson was rather ordinary until his senior year and Olson said that he just had to give Johnson the instruction to lift his knees more. The result was amazing. So, I indirectly compared myself to Johnson as well. Olson was never able to figure out what to tell me so that I could do significantly better.

Probably the best thing that would have made a difference was for me to be born one day later. Had I been a day younger I would have been in the class of ‘74 instead of the class of ‘73. Instead of being the youngest student in my grade I would have been one of the oldest. At that age another year makes a significant difference in athletic performance.

Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

The people, among the most highly regulated on earth, told themselves that they were free because they retained the means of revolt. Just in case things ever got really bad. No one, however, seemed to have too clear an idea what “really bad” really meant. The people accepted the fact that their government no longer even remotely resembled the plan set forth in their original constitution. And the people’s values no longer remotely resembled those of their Founding Forebears. The people, in their naiveté, really believed that the means of revolt were to be found in a piece of inanimate metal! Really it was laughable. And pathetic.

No, the rulers knew that the people could safely be trusted with arms. The government educated their children, provided for their retirement in old age, bequeathed assistance if they lost their jobs, mandated that they receive health care, and even doled out food and shelter if they were poor.

Jeff Snyder
October 18, 2004
Walter Mitty’s Second Amendment
[This relates to what Lyle said the other day.

I have Snyder’s Nation of Cowards which is a collection of his essays. Nearly every paragraph of every essays qualifies as QOTD material. And as Sean F. told me a few months ago, Snyder is just mind blowing with his views on the right to keep and bear arms. If I could get every anti-gun person to read just one simple book, this would be it. I’m tempted to buy a stack of them and hand them out to people. It is absolutely amazing stuff.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mark Rosenberg

We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. It used to be that smoking was a glamour symbol—cool, sexy, macho. Now it is dirty, deadly—and banned.

Mark Rosenberg
Director for CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
October 16, 1994
New Tactics Urged in Fight Against Crime
[Tell me why this shouldn’t be treated as a confession of guilt in a violation of 18 USC 241 and/or 18 USC 242.

In more recent news connected to this see What Does The Omnibus Spending Bill Mean for Gun Control? Background Checks and CDC Studies where congress gave the anti-gun people some of what they wanted and didn’t even give gun owners a breadcrumb.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

It is by no means obvious why it is “civilized” to permit oneself to fall easy prey to criminal violence, and to permit criminals to continue unobstructed in their evil ways. While it may be that a society in which crime is so rare that no one ever needs to carry weapon is “civilized”, a society which stigmatizes the carry of weapons by the law-abiding – because it distrusts its citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers and murder– certainly cannot claim this distinction.

Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 28
[This essay was originally published in 1993 by The Public Interest.—Joe]