Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Bob Owens

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Media Matters and their leftist allies view this trend towards gun ownership in demographics that they once “owned” as a “gateway drug” towards classical liberalism, libertarian beliefs, or conservatism. They are fearful that if young liberals start following their peers into social shooting events at the new “guntry clubs” popping up around the nation, then the political shift towards anti-gun Marxism and socialism will not only be arrested, but reversed.

They know that firearm ownership is a gateway towards thinking as an individual and thinking more about individual rights, and this terrifies the anti-gun, collectivist left.

For them, fighting against the “new NRA” is more than fighting against gun ownership. It’s a fight for the very survival of a belief system that is starting to collapse under its own ponderous weight.

Bob Owens
August 6, 2014
Why the “New NRA” Terrifies the Political Left
[H/T to Sebastian.

While I believe it is true that gun ownership is a “gateway drug” toward classical liberalism I’m not sure the collectivist left is able to articulate their hatred that succinctly. I think it is more like, “Must hate because GUNS!”—Joe]

Symbolism

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I came across an interesting article at the Blaze about a conversation with a former gang member. It was from an excerpt from the book “The Future of the Gun.” It looked at guns as symbols, specifically symbols of power in inner cities neighborhoods, and how the youngsters saw people in light of the laws, guns, and power/strength, in a way that makes a lot of sense, but a perspective articulated in a way I’d never heard before.

Let me show you what’s going on here: Over there you see some stores that are open — there are shop owners there. They should be the pillars of this society. They should be the leaders…everyone should look up to them. But they don’t. They’ve been neutered, their guns have been taken away. They have to call 911, and hope [someone comes to rescue them] if something happens. So they’re victims waiting to happen.

Conversely:

Now look around more: There’s a cop. Unfortunately, too often the youth…they don’t look up to police officers, and there’s all sorts of deep reasons for that…Now look around more, what else do you see? What you see are…gang leaders.

The end result in this former gang member’s view is that for the young kid:

he looks around the neighborhood, and he looks for the power…He looks to the gang member who has a gun tucked away in his shorts. He’s the power in that neighborhood. Whereas the average person who has been disarmed, the average store owner who has been disarmed are neutered, they don’t.

He’s right. People, especially young men, want power, to feel empowered. Welfare laws what they are, there are few good fathers to be role models in a lot of inner city “families.” Boys and young men look for “strong”  men to emulate, and they see gang-bangers above shop-keepers in the social hierarchy. The anti-gun laws have created the inner city gang problem, and here is the underlying mechanism. Gun laws are not only unconstitutional, they are anti-human, they are anti-black, anti-business, anti-woman, and anti-equality. As people are wont to say, “read the whole thing.” It’s not long.

90 days to turn them in

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H/T to Barron on Facebook.

Please note that this was as of February 14, 2013. That was nearly 18 months ago.

Missouri Democrats Introduce Legislation to Confiscate Firearms – Gives Gun Owners 90 Days to Turn in Weapons:

Missouri Democrats introduced an anti-gun bill which would turn law-abiding firearm owners into criminals. They will have 90 days to turn in their guns if the legislation is passed.

Dana Loesch Radio reported on the new legislation being pushed by Missouri Democrats:

Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution.

Here’s part of the Democratic proposal in Missouri:

4. Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution:

…

UPDATE: It’s not just Missouri…
Minnesota Democrats Introduce Law to Confiscate Guns… Using Same Language as Missouri Democrats

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

Test everything

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The picture below is from a computer backup I was doing over the network.

TransferRate

This was with the existing file on the target drive being overwritten. For new files the transfer rate is nearly constant and a little above the peak shown here.

I suspect the algorithm used by either the driver or the controller for the hard disk for update an existing file results in a large number of seeks of the head. The file copy program (Robocopy in this case) could work around the problem by deleting existing files before doing the copy. But the designers of the program may not have been aware of the problem with this particular hard drive.

In my situation I don’t care a lot because it can just run as a background task and it doesn’t much matter if it takes 10 minutes or 300 minutes (yes, the transfer rate is over 30x slower). But for some people it might.

As always, thoroughly testing your products, processes, and assumptions is important and either this one wasn’t fully tested or management marked the bug as “Won’t Fix” and shipped it anyway.

Having presided over numerous Boomerite failures I know how easy it is to say, “This change shouldn’t matter” or “This has to make it better, no need to test it.” There is a reason many companies have a test team that is independent of the development team and may even have a reporting chain independent of engineering.

This, almost, paranoia about testing can be generalized to a lot of things in your life. Have you ever changed a tire on your current vehicle? I bought a used vehicles a few years ago and discovered a day or so after I bought it that it didn’t have a jack in it.

You have a gun to defend your home and loved ones? Have you ever pied the corners of your home with that shotgun? Have you looked at possible choke points for stopping a home invasion? How about looked at what happens to misses or shoot-throughs from likely shooting positions? How do those speed reloads you practice for USPA matches work out for you when you are at the top of the stairs in your birthday suit?

Progressives want the government to have more power to implement “social justice”. Ask the tens of millions of people that went into the Gulags of the USSR how that worked out for them. Oh, that’s right, most of them that weren’t shot after their forced confessions were worked and starved to death. We don’t need to run that test again. 100+ million people have already been killed during the testing done by various progressives regimes in the 20th century.

Anti-gun people want to register guns. Ask Canada how that worked out for them.

Does your bug-out kit included canned goods but you forgot to include a can opener?

You’ll discover many such things when you test.

Quote of the day—David Dunning

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If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent … when you’re incompetent, the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.

David Dunning
June 20, 2010
The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)
[H/T to Linoge who got me started on the Wiki-wander that led here.

I found it fascinating that there have been similar astute observations on the same topic throughout history.

This is exactly what happens with many of the anti-gun people we encounter. They cannot even comprehend how disparate in competence they are when they engage us on the topic. They are frequently profoundly clueless, don’t know it, and cannot be told how clueless they are.

It find it interesting that another aspect of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that those who are highly competent tend to underestimate their skill level. Perhaps the following Twitter exchange demonstrates that:

 Lady Farmer ‏@djmincey11 7h

@apple_butter NOBODY WANTS YOUR DAMN GUN! Understand now? @TANSTAAFL24 @KentAtwater4 @wallsofthecity @psherm07

Joe Huffman ‏@JoeHuffman 5h

@djmincey11 You must have your head in the sand: https://blog.joehuffman.org/category/gun-rights/no-one-wants-to-take-your-guns/ … @apple_butter @TANSTAAFL24 @KentAtwater4 @wallsofthecity @psherm07

Lady Farmer ‏@djmincey11 4h

@JoeHuffman I don’t care to read your “opinion” piece. @apple_butter @TANSTAAFL24 @KentAtwater4 @wallsofthecity @psherm07

Joe Huffman ‏@JoeHuffman 3h

@djmincey11 Factual examples are not opinions. Are you allergic to facts? @apple_butter @TANSTAAFL24 @KentAtwater4 @wallsofthecity @psherm07

Lady Farmer ‏@djmincey11 3h

I know the difference between fact & speculation. Cognitive powers aren’t magic. I’ll give you a minute to Google the big words @JoeHuffman

Joe Huffman ‏@JoeHuffman 3h

@djmincey11 For years I had the job title of Senior Research Scientist II. I know this topic well and I know you don’t. @wallsofthecity

Lady Farmer ‏@djmincey11 3h

For years I held the title of Executive Director, Reigional Director, CEO and Vice President/Owner. Now what? @JoeHuffman

Joe Huffman ‏@JoeHuffman 2h

@djmincey11 I suggest you learn some science and educate yourself on the topic at hand. @wallsofthecity

Lady Farmer ‏@djmincey11 2h

I suggest you KNOW your opponent BEFORE you run into battle. @JoeHuffman @wallsofthecity

Joe Huffman ‏@JoeHuffman 2h

@djmincey11 I find it odd that you don’t follow your own advice. Is hypocrisy one of your greatest strengths? @wallsofthecity

Lady Farmer ‏@djmincey11 2h

Are we finished yet? I am bored with this sniping. @JoeHuffman @wallsofthecity

Joe Huffman ‏@JoeHuffman 2h

@djmincey11 Only if you stop tweeting nonsense about guns, gun owners, and the enumerated right to keep and bear arms. @wallsofthecity

Lady Farmer ‏@djmincey11 2h

And FYI… I will NEVER stop tweeting facts because it hurts your feewings. *here’s a hanky* @JoeHuffman @wallsofthecity

I dropped it there because she was going off the deep end into irrationality at that point. At no point did my feelings come up in the conversation or was I even aware of having any particularly strong  feelings on the matter. And she was particularly lacking in facts.

But the point I wanted to make was that I didn’t think I was being particularly effective. Perhaps just a little bit more than holding my own.

So imagine my surprise to the following tweets in response to the exchange:

Linoge ‏@wallsofthecity 2h

Your afternoon’s entertainment: #gunsense useful idiot @djmincey11 is trying to have a battle of wits with @JoeHuffman. She came unarmed.

towerclimber37 ‏@towerclimber37 53m

@wallsofthecity @djmincey11 @JoeHuffman hahahahah she got owned.

Blackstone ‏@bitterclingerpa 36m

@towerclimber37 @wallsofthecity @djmincey11 @JoeHuffman Owned? Broken, sold, used, traded & then sold again. Science vs a Suit

Epic.

Interesting. Very interesting.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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GunViolenceMeeting

Mr. Biden, two sides can play that game.

We are all very aware of your position on how to deal with the criminal use of guns. Does that mean politicians friendly to us should be able to pass or repeal laws or regulations without input from you and your ilk?

And if the cartoon was drawn from our perspective we would have you dancing with glee on the bodies and blood of children because of the increased opportunity to infringe upon our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. And that would be more accurate than how the NRA is portrayed in this cartoon.

Quote of the day—kim launius ‏@kimmie8264

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your all insane and don’t need to own a gun. #gunsense

kim launius ‏@kimmie8264
Tweeted on August 10, 2014
[As Linoge Tweeted in response, “It’s spelled “you’re”, and you don’t get to decide that. #gunsense #fail“.

This woman is a real gem. Here is the picture she uses for her Twitter profile:

KimLauniusTwitterProfile

And here is definitive proof she has crap for brains:

KimLauniusCrapForBrains

I case you have forgotten LBJ was a Democrat.

Don’t let anyone ever get away with telling you no one wants to take your guns.

And what is it with progressives and political violence? It must be because it’s the best chance they have for success. In the choice between brain and brawn they certainly do come up short on the brain side.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Trysha (@MapleysMorsels)

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[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via Mark‏ (@tazcat2011).—Joe]

Quote of the day—Justin Anderson

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It’s strictly prohibited and we are not in the habit of making exceptions. But we certainly do everything we possibly can to make all our students feel safe. We feel that it is a top priority.

Justin Anderson
Spokesman for Dartmouth college
Gun Control Rule At Dartmouth College Denies Taylor Woolrich Protection From Stalker With ‘Rape Kit’
[I think I see the problem here. Dartmouth only cares about feelings. They care about the feelings of their students and they feel about making those feelings “a top priority”. They don’t have respect for the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. They ignore the reality that their feelings do nothing to protect her from the reality of a confirmed stalker intent on raping her. They ignore the reality that her carrying a defensive tool might help her as well as make her feel safer.

There was a time when people that disconnected from reality were put in mental institutions. That probably isn’t a legal option in this case but you would think they could be prosecuted for conspiracy to deny her rights.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Medicine4theDead

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The only crazy people here are the paranoid gun nuts who are nothing but a bunch of thugs trying to intimidate everyone with threats of violence because they are cowards.

Medicine4theDead
Comment to Bullets to the head: Why James Brady’s shooting led to gun control, but Gabby Giffords’s did not
[All the “gun nuts” I know just want to be left alone. The thugs are those that want to take guns from peaceable people.

As for cowards, I don’t see Medicine4theDead using his real name or offering to take point to take the guns from all those paranoid gun nuts. I wonder why that is.—Joe]

Quote of the day—American Academy of Pediatrics

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The AAP supports firearm regulation, including a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazine sales.

American Academy of Pediatrics
April 2014
State Advocacy FOCUS
[H/T to Miguel.

Don’t ever let anyone get away telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Keeping records of your exercise of rights

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Imagine you were in the printing business and the government required you to put serial numbers on every book you printed. Imagine the Bureau of Books (BoB) seized a book at a private residence and tried to trace how it got into the hands of someone who was forbidden by Federal law to own a book. They then found out book was recorded as being scrapped instead of lost or stolen.

This is what then happens:

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ROBERT BRINKERHOFF, 54, of Old Lyme, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in Bridgeport to one year of probation for violating federal firearms laws.  BRINKERHOFF worked as the general manager of Tri-Town Plastics, a federally-licensed firearms manufacturer located in Deep River.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Tri-Town Plastics (“Tri-Town”), which has since been bought by Smith and Wesson, had a contract with Smith and Wesson to manufacturer firearm frames at its Deep River facility.  In February 2012, after the Plainfield Police Department seized a Smith and Wesson 9 millimeter handgun from a residence, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) learned that Smith and Wesson had no record of the handgun ever having been manufactured.  According to Tri-Town’s records, the handgun had been scrapped back in March 2011.  At that time, ATF was preparing to conduct a routine inspection of Tri-Town to determine whether to renew their federal license to manufacture firearms.  Tri-Town had also been inspected in 2009 and been directed by ATF to address some record-keeping issues discovered during that inspection.  When two Tri-Town employees discovered that there were approximately 23 firearms missing from their inventory, rather than report them as missing, the employees falsely listed them as “scrapped” in Tri-Town’s acquisition and disposition records, so that ATF would not learn that they were missing and would renew Tri-Town’s license.

Soon after ATF contacted Tri-Town in February 2012 to ask about the Smith and Wesson handgun seized in Plainfield, one of the Tri-Town employees responsible for the fraudulent scrapping advised BRINKERHOFF of what had been done in March 2011.  At that point, BRINKERHOFF, who had not known about the March 2011 conduct, failed to report these missing firearms as lost or stolen.  In June 2012, BRINKERHOFF caused a theft/loss report to be filed with ATF that listed all of these firearms, but the report failed to advise ATF that all of the firearms had been falsely listed as scrapped back in March 2011.

On March 10, 2014, BRINKERHOFF pleaded guilty to one count of failing to file a theft/loss report and one count of making false statements in a theft/loss report, which are both misdemeanor offenses.

As part of his sentence, Judge Underhill prohibited BRINKERHOFF from engaging in a firearms-related business for a period of 90 days.

This ongoing investigation is being conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert M. Spector and Vanessa Richards.

The Second Amendment is just as important as the First Amendment. That this happened to a someone in the gun industry doesn’t make it any less repugnant.

Alan Korwin on James Brady

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The post on James Brady that I wish I had the knowledge and skill to write:

Attacks on the Civil Right to Arms to Continue Unabated

Criminal acts still cleverly used as leverage to disarm the innocent

Sarah, not Jim, the real force behind the anti-rights movement

by Alan Korwin

“There’s no way to tell if you’re on the Brady rights-denied list, (the “NICS Index”) and attempting to buy a firearm if you’re on the government list is a felony. Attempting to find out if you’re on the list is a crime.”

James Brady, the White House Press Secretary under President Ronald Reagan has died. He was 73. He is being credited with “stunning successes” in the “gun-control” efforts in America.

Brady had been shot in the head with a .22 caliber revolver during an assassination attempt on president Reagan in 1981, and was severely incapacitated by the injury. Confined to a wheel chair for the balance of his life, in constant pain and speaking only with extreme difficulty, his ambitious and attractive young wife Sarah was understandably horrified and reportedly turned bitter by the life-changing tragedy. Their world had turned upside down.

Continuing a long tradition of spinning gun-related news to fit a set of beliefs instead of conformance with the facts, the “news” media is portraying James Brady as the moving force behind what is now the Brady Center for the Prevention of Gun Violence, formerly the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, formerly the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence Allied with The Million Moms March, formerly the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, formerly Handgun Control, Inc., formerly the National Council to Ban Handguns.

…

Read the whole thing.

Quote of the day—James Binder

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Call or e-mail your Congress member and demand that he or she support a child’s right to a secure environment and vote for legislation that eliminates firearm possession.

James Binder
August 3, 2014
James Binder: Children, families safer in homes without guns
[H/T Thirdpower.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dan Gross

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There are few Americans in history who are as directly responsible for saving as many lives as Jim.

Dan Gross
President of the Brady Campaign
From Gun control man’s legacy James Brady, former press secretary under Reagan, dies
[I am willing to concede there are almost certainly some lives saved by the Brady Act. But what Gross and others refuse to recognize is that those lives saved come at the cost of other lives lost.

The chilling effect of getting your name put on government list prevents some people in high risk situations from getting the self-defense tools they need. Why be afraid of being put on a government list? Most governments are hostile to gun owners and treat them with great suspicion and sometimes murder them without cause. If you were gay would you register as a gay with the government? Or would you willingly put you name on a list of Jews, Muslims, or couples in mixed race marriages? You might think it would be okay at a particular place and time but in the big picture things can change quite rapidly and lists which were “promised” to be held in strict confidence end up getting into the worst of hands.

There were people murdered during the waiting period, required during the first few years of the Brady Act, before they could possess the gun they so desperately needed. Did Gross include them in his calculations? Did Gross do any calculations at all? My guess is that his only metric was the number of sales blocked. This was regardless of how many of those sales blocked represented a death due to someone who was unable to get a gun to defend themselves with. He didn’t bother to research the question at all, let alone do the subtraction in the expression “Lives Saved” minus “Lives Lost”.

Even after a dozen years to collect and study data criminologist still can’t find conclusive evidence the Brady Act, on the whole, saved any lives.

No. Gross doesn’t really care about the truth. Gross is simply continuing the long history of a culture of deception within the Brady Campaign. They have to. It’s all they have.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Susan Danzig (@SusanDanzig219)

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I f’n hate guns. Unlike the Prez, I would take away everyone’s.

Susan Danzig (@SusanDanzig219)
Tweeted on August 4, 2014.
[H/T to @BigFatDave.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with saying that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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HuntAnything

This is so absurd that it doesn’t even qualify as a straw man.

But this is what they think of you and want others to think of you. I can only think of one reason for this. It’s propaganda to justify treating us as less than human.

It’s what to expect from statists:

propaganda2-68
“Tsar, priests and the rich on the shoulders of workers”

Spiegelman-Rotten
“Rats. Destroy Them,” a 1940s poster from occupied Denmark

Quote of the day—Candi​Rue

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But if gun owners carry their penis substitutes into Target where “open carry” is legal, Target can’t prevent it. “Respectfully requesting” doesn’t mean anything to these freaks.

Candi​Rue
July 2, 2014
Comment to Big Win For Gun Control Groups: Target Bans Guns In Its Stores
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!–Joe]

Turn ‘em all in

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Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

Gun cartoon of the day

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ThumbingNose

This is what they think of the NRA and gun owners who stand up for their rights.

Perhaps they think it is about money.

Or they cannot comprehend that we have principles regarding the Bill of Rights.

Or they cannot comprehend that guns are also used to protect innocent life.

Or maybe they know better and just want us to not be able to protect ourselves.

In any case they must not succeed.