Image from an anonymous donor referencing my just one question post.
Update: Bill suggested I put this on a shirt. So I did. Get your shirt here.
Category Archives: Gun Rights
#OrangeYouGlad Susan Sarandon #WearOrange
#OrangeYouGlad Kim Kardashian #WearOrange
#OrangeYouGlad Amy Schumer #WearOrange
#OrangeYouGlad Boston Mayor Marty Walsh #WearOrange
I received some images from an anonymous source to share with the suggestion to start a “#OrangeYouGlad” campaign. Here is the first one. Share widely and freely.
Quote of the day—Daniel Payne
“Gun control that works” continues, as always, to not actually work. Like Sasquatch, it’s always out there somewhere—but you never find it.
Daniel Payne
June 1, 2016
No, We Haven’t Discovered ‘Gun Control That Actually Works’
A national gun registry would be just as stupid and ineffective as Washington DC’s gun registry.
[Sasquatch. I like that. Unicorns, leprechauns, and the Great Pumpkin would also be appropriate.
The anti-gun people keep trying to ignore inalienable rights in favor of “security”, or “safety”. But, as I have been saying for years they can’t get traction in that direction either. So the motivation for gun control must be ignorance, irrational, or evil intent.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Superunknown @TheCatholicBoat
@HarryThetech76 @RuncibleSpoun my hypothesis is that you’re a confederate sister fucker with a small dick, who overcompensates with guns.
Superunknown @TheCatholicBoat
Tweeted on December 16, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via a tweet from Linoge.
We have SCOTUS decisions, facts, and rational arguments. They have childish insults.—Joe]
Ray Carter
I was reading my RSS feed this morning and Tam informed me Ray Carter died. Last Monday I had read Ray’s Facebook post saying he was in the early stages of liver failure and had at best three to four weeks left. It was the cancer that was discovered in, I think, 2013. He had said Boomershoot was on his list of things he always wanted to do so Ry and I made it happen in 2014. By that time the cancer was in remission and I hoped Ray would attend more Boomershoots but that didn’t happen. Ray was working for the Second Amendment Foundation at the time and I asked if he would be the dinner speaker and he readily agreed.
Oleg Volk attended Boomershoot that year, had a photo session with Ray, and shared his raw images with me. Here are a few of them:
I’ve written about Ray numerous times as has the more well known Seattle Times. Once we were even in the same Seattle Times editorial.
As I explained here I first met Ray when working with Cease Fear which lead to my creation of the Jews In The Attic Test. It was Ray who came up with the name Cease Fear as a play on the name of the main anti-gun group in the state, Washington Cease Fire. You should have seen the looks on their faces when we showed up in Olympia with our signs and shirts to counter their lobbying efforts. It was wonderful.
I still have the shirt someplace. Here is a picture of me wearing it (click on it for a larger version):
Ray did a lot of work to further gun rights. And being gay he could say things and converse with authority to both gun and LGBT people on how we could work together for mutual benefit. He was a huge benefit to the gun rights movement in Seattle, Washington State, and the nation.
His more visible work in the last decade involved a number of fronts. In 2008 Ray went to work for The Second Amendment Foundation. In 2009 Ray was a plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against the city of Seattle for banning guns in city parks. He was also active in the leadership of the Washington Arms Collectors.
I featured him once for my quote of the day:
The police (and paramedics) are dandy when they arrive. But in the immediate moment of attempted felonious or otherwise violent action being committed upon ones self, persons one is responsible for or the imminent threat thereof a more immediate tool is both appropriate and desirable even in this day and age. It is my observation that a .45acp JHP placed center of mass at approximately 900fps will, more often than not, bring such unpleasantry to a swift halt, though on occasion repeated application of the lesson is required.
Ray Carter
November 21, 2014
He will be greatly missed.
Stephanie Sailor
I met Stephanie Sailor at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Washington D.C. in 2000. We were both speakers at the event. I was incredibly impressed with what she had done for gun rights in Chicago. But being shy and intimidated by beautiful women I never would have approached her even if I had thought of something important to say to her.
But it turned out she approached me about being a member of the Microsoft Gun Club (now called “Gun Club at Microsoft”). We talked and Boomershoot soon came up. She, being a marketing person, realized more than I did the potential it had for positive media coverage and the implications for gun rights. She was a big reason for the success of Boomershoot (see page 86 of the March 2013 issue of Western Shooting Journal).
After I met Stephanie she ran for U.S. Congress a couple times on the Libertarian ticket, attended a few Boomershoots, and then somewhat mysteriously disappeared from public view. We occasionally had contact via email and phone but she was extremely concerned about remaining hidden. She briefly came out of hiding with an alias and made an appearance at Boomershoot 2012 before going into hiding again. I maintained contact with her for a few months but things were difficult between us and there hasn’t been any contact since then.
Until today. She send me a brief email and a link to her blog and the one post on it. She is using her real name again.
Her blog post is titled Warning: White Bill Cosby Preys at Libertarian Conventions. I knew some of the stuff she wrote about in the post but not all. It’s some really heavy stuff.
She says, “Today I’m in a place of no longer living in fear. This article is cathartic.” That’s really good to hear. I knew things were very difficult for her but I didn’t really understand where the problems were coming from, how to help her, or if she even could be helped. What I see is very good news for her well-being and I hope she continues to improve. Both for her sake and for us. She was a tremendous ally in our fight for gun rights and I hope she is someday able to reenter the fight.
Boomershoot 2016 dinner speech
Barron recorded Brian Keith’s speech at the Boomershoot 2016 dinner. Unfortunately his video camera also collected a lot of glare from my bald head. Still, the speech is worth listening to if you look away or wear sunglasses:
From the NRA today – Washington State
On very short notice, but we do what we can;
“The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will be holding public meetings next week to discuss target shooting in state forests. It is imperative that shooters attend these meetings and weigh in. If non-shooters and anti-gun advocates are the loudest voices next week, these meetings will become the first step in prohibiting shooting on state lands.
We urge you to attend the following meetings beginning at 6:30 p.m.:
Tuesday, May 31, located at the Water Resources Education Center, 4600 SE Columbia Way, Vancouver, to discuss Yacolt Burn State Forest;
Wednesday, June 1, located at the Burlington-Edison High School cafeteria, 301 N. Burlington Blvd., Burlington, to discuss Harry Osborne State Forest;
Thursday, June 2, located at The Evergreen State College Longhouse Education and Cultural Center, 2800 Dogtooth Lane NW, Olympia, to discuss Capitol State Forest.
Keeping public lands open for hunting and target shooting is an NRA priority and the involvement and activism of individual NRA members is critical. There is a lot of public land at stake that could be closed to target shooting.
The ability to target shoot on public lands in an informal setting is being threatened by the increased use of these lands by non-shooters. Ensure that your public lands are not closed to shooting!”
We have it good in Eastern WA State and in Idaho, and of course that makes some people very angry and they want to do something about it. Take away your places to shoot and it’s the next-best thing to taking your guns.
Quote of the day—Ratus
The Anti’s are out there. They can’t be bargained with. They can’t be reasoned with. They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until your rights are dead.
Ratus
May 25, 2016
Comment to They have to lie to win
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Deception and lies
Yet another example of what the anti-gun people have to do to gain traction:
Watching the video, you hear Katie ask, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorist from walking into, say, a licensed gun dealer and purchasing a gun?” The camera then shows the group members TOTALLY SILENT FOR EIGHT SECONDS. The camera zooms in on one member, who looks down.
The clear implication is that none of the group had an answer for that question and was being evasive and avoiding eye contact.
The truth is, and as you will hear in the audio, below, that the group responded to Katie immediately, with answers to her question! Yet the video shows no one responding. Clearly, when Katie didn’t get the answer(s) she wanted, she changed the group’s answers by replacing them with other video of the group sitting around quietly between questions.
Quote of the day—Richard Feldman
Barack Obama is single handily responsible for the sales of more guns and ammo than any human being in the history of the United States. Clinton could do better.
Richard Feldman
May 23, 2016
Hillary Clinton Could Topple Obama’s Record for Revving Gun Sales
[While there is more than a little truth to this, Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, and numerous other evil politicians, as well as Bloomberg, Moms Demand, and The Brady Campaign contributed their fair share and will again contribute if our country is subjected to another President Clinton.
President Bill Clinton was a big part of the reason I became a gun owner and got into explosives. A President Hillary Clinton could be the reason millions more become gun owners.
You realize what this means, right? Anti-gun people should vote against Hillary to keep guns out of the hands of the American people.—Joe]
Old white guys?
Disputing the claim that gun owners are “just old white guys”.
They lie. It’s in their culture and it’s the only way they can hope to win.
Quote of the day—Josh Barro @jbarro
The NRA is backing Trump because it’s not a gun rights group, it’s a group for people who are insecure about their penises.
Josh Barro @jbarro
Senior Editor at Business Insider. MSNBC contributor. Host of KCRW’s Left, Right & Center. Host of @hardpasspodcast.
Tweeted on May 20, 2016
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
We have SCOTUS decisions. The best a “senior editor” can come up with is childish insults.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Alan Korwin
As Texas joins the rest of the nation in varying degrees of freedom to bear arms in public, I advise caution while the kinks are worked out, authorities get used to the new standards and procedures, social norms develop, shop keepers acclimatize, the public gets used to the new normal of open carry, some bad apples test the limits of endurance and civility (not recommended), and a few of you become test cases to clarify the gray areas. Even here in Arizona where I am, with free (paperless) open carry legal since statehood in 1912, there’s a little more to it than just putting on your boots.
Do your best to avoid being a test case. The anti-rights advocates out there and some authorities will be looking for the very worst examples to make into test cases, to hurt our rights, make gun owners look bad in public, and set precedents that limit exercise of the Second Amendment. They’ll be seeking to “prove” the BITS myth — blood in the streets — like they tried in vain when CHL passed. Don’t argue in public while armed.
Especially in the early days of open carry, watch out for each other and be on best behavior. We don’t live in the same wild west any longer. Belligerence or anything less than calm civilized behavior while you’re reasonably well dressed and carrying openly is an invitation for scrutiny and attention you would do best to avoid. I’m being nice about that (from a state that now enjoys full Constitutional Carry). Go slowly as you test the waters.
Open carry has advantages, especially the “inoculation effect” on the uninitiated, when they see reasonable people going about business politely armed.
Alan Korwin
January 28, 2016
Texas Open Carry Overview
[I think this is some good advice. Especially about being a test case. If we let our opposition chose the cases to take to court we stand a much greater chance of losing ground. We, closely supervised by experienced gun rights lawyers, must be the ones to carefully craft the cases to challenge the repressive gun laws in this country.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Geezum
If they are not happy with Vermont’s laws they should just move back to their safe space in NYC.
Geezum
May 13, 2016
Comment to Gun control bills fail in Vermont
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Asbury Park Press
Typically, as with any debate over gun rights, rational viewpoints are hard to find. Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, said the new standards could lead to “every cabdriver, every pizza delivery driver, and anyone else living or working in a high-crime neighborhood to qualify for a firearms permit.”
That sounds a little extreme, but is that any more hysterical than the gun-rights activists sounding alarms about government conspiracies and widespread gun confiscation every time government wants to ban an assault rifle or expand background checks?
In general terms, however, Weinberg’s warning should be heeded. The gun-rights crowd is trying to exploit the death of Carol Bowne, a Berlin Township woman allegedly stabbed to death by an ex-boyfriend while she was awaiting a permit to carry a gun for protection. Would Bowne’s life have been saved by an easier permitting process? We’ll never know. But as tragic as her death was, we can’t allow politicians to use the anger and grief over that death to advance an unnecessary and dangerous relaxation in the state’s gun controls.
Asbury Park Press
May 13, 2016
EDITORIAL: Don’t loosen grip on gun control
[This is almost material that could have come from The Onion.
The thought of people living or working in a high-crime area being allowed to defend themselves is considered “extreme” and “hysterical”? Wow!
They say, “We can’t allow politicians to use the anger and grief over that death…” Interesting. We should remember that the next time some activist wants to use anger and grief over the tragic death of someone murdered by a criminal with a gun. But of course that’s not how it works with these people. They have zero problem with their own hypocrisy.
Of course it may not be hypocrisy. It could be the sky is a different color in their universe.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Basepaul Season @paulbensonsucks
@SPQRzilla @TL671 @JoeHuffman @GunFreeZone president Hillary will ban guns and well finally be free of white terrorists.
Basepaul Season @paulbensonsucks
Tweeted on April 13, 2016
[This is what they think of you. And this is how they think things will go down in such a scenario.
Delusions are often functional.—Joe]