Quote of the day—Philip Luty

More importantly, at least as far as I was concerned, it succeeded in giving the British anti-gun lobby something to think about, which was the whole motivation behind the project in the first place. The irony of the whole story though is this: it was those responsible for the hand-gun ban whom I have to thank for ‘Expedient Homemade Firearms’. If it were not for the anti-gun lobby, neither the book or this web site would exist!

Philip Luty
Approximately 1996
Book History
[And if it were not for the U.S. anti-gun lobby neither my blog nor Boomershoot would exist.

At least in my case I haven’t been put in prison (yet). Luty was denied parole because, “Mr.Luty continues to maintain very strong views about UK gun laws to which he is opposed. Report writers identify considerable apprehension over his lack of insight and concern over the wider implications of his offences and his continuing views over gun ownership and use.”

Imagine being held in prison because you refused to agree that blacks should be slaves or that only licensed journalists are entitled to have free speech.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Siara

These Repubs need to learn to differentiate between their guns and their Dick S. Serious. Too much of their identities is wrapped up in this. It’s silly.

Siara
February 4, 2013
Comment to Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Gay bashing in Seattle

This looks like a race and/or gay bashing:

On 5/29/13, just shortly before 10:00 p.m., a witness flagged down an officer to report that he saw 6 or 7 men assaulting an unknown black male. The witness went on to say that while the group was assaulting the man they were yelling racial and sexual orientation epithets at the victim.  The witness saw the group beating the man with their fist and kicking him. They were also striking the victim with their skateboards.

While officers were interviewing the suspects, a man (later identified as the victim) walked up to the scene, bleeding from a laceration to the mouth. He pointed to the group and told the officers that the suspects had assaulted him and called him names associated with his ethnic background and sexual orientation.

The victim stated that he did not know the suspects or why they attacked him.

The 20-year-old victim was bleeding heavily from a lacerated lip.  He was transported to HMC for further treatment of his injuries.

You could be the nicest person in the world with no known enemies in what you think is a “safe part of town” but yet people could hate you and want to inflict violence upon you. Be able and prepared to defend yourself.

The police hit their targets about one third of the time. Unless you are more highly trained than them you are unlikely to get a better hit ratio.

Getting “one shot stops” is difficult and rather rare. There are seven attackers and you only have a 10 round magazine in your gun? Tell your next of kin to blame the anti-gunners if you run out of ammo and your attackers kill you.

Update: I should have pointed out that this happened in the same Seattle area neighborhood, Capital Hill, that recently had gay/gun-rights posters criticized by the local press which claimed, “What better way to make people feel unsafe in gay-friendly Capitol Hill than by slyly referencing homophobia and hate crimes in pro-gun propaganda plastered on every street corner?”

One handed drawing from concealment

Insights’ John Holschen shows us how to draw from concealment from a bottom opening garment. Here is the video:

Barb learns to fight with a knife

As a birthday present I gave Barb L. a Syderco Delica knife and a one day Defensive Folding Knife class from Insights Training.

This video was taken when she learned what she could do with it on a piece of meat covered with two layers of clothing:

There was also a birthday card, cake, dinner, and some other things included but this is the portion of her birthday most on topic for this blog (and suitable for public consumption).

Slightly off topic is that the Instructor is someone I have talked about numerous times on this blog. Here are some posts that mention him. There are others as well:

Barb and I had lunch with John and we had an interesting conversation. He has had some unusual jobs recently. Some were extremely boring, but that was actually part of the interesting part.

Update: The second link to the QOTD by John has been fixed.

Quote of the day—Dave Workman

The Chicago contingent is in a predicament that would be uncomfortable and embarrassing for lawmakers in any state west of the Mississippi, considering the homicide rate their city suffers … under the current regime. But they are the Chicago contingent, and they seem immune to embarrassment and discomfort while the bodies pile up.

Dave Workman
May 29, 2013
Clock ticking on Illinois carry effort
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Richard Pearson

Whatever the case some kind of concealed carry will come to Illinois. Some believed it would never happen. Many of our good members have passed away waiting for concealed carry to come to Illinois. I was thinking about them today. I could see their faces but I have to tell you I could not remember all their names. We should all be grateful for their efforts and remember that freedom comes at a dear price. In any case, I hope they are looking down on us and see that concealed carry come to Illinois. I also wonder, not just today, but often, how many lives were wasted because we did not have concealed carry in Illinois. I hope those people are looking down on us and are comforted by knowing many lives will be saved and others will not have to suffer the untimely death they suffered.

I also remember the endless string of enemies we have faced in our quest for concealed carry and our seemingly endless efforts to preserve the Second Amendment in Illinois. Many of those enemies will see Illinois get concealed carry first hand.

Many of our enemies have passed away also. I hope they are looking up and see concealed carry come to Illinois.

Richard Pearson
May 30, 2013
ISRA Thursday Bulletin
[H/T to Michael B. via email.—Joe]

The REAL “War on Women” – Gun Control

From CCRKBA:

Quote of the day—Aaron Blake

Many in the Democratic Party quite simply aren’t being ruthless about gun control.

Aaron Blake
May 28, 2013
Democrats still aren’t being ruthless about gun control
[Mr. Blake, I hope that statement is used at your trial.—Joe]

A good start

There is a an old joke that goes something like (where X is lawyers/politicians/ethnic-slur/etc.):

Q: What do you call a bus load of X that drives off of a cliff?
A: A good start.

While I’m sympathetic to someone who has lost their job, probably through no or little fault of their own, I think of this as pretty much the same way:

The Chicago Sun-Times has laid off its entire photography staff, and plans to use freelance photographers and reporters to shoot photos and video going forward, the newspaper said.

A total of 28 full-time staffers received the news Thursday morning at a meeting held at the Sun-Times offices in Chicago, according to sources familiar with the situation. The layoffs are effective immediately.

This is the same paper that still employs Mary Mitchell even after she said this:

There’s no telling how many guns would be taken off the street in gang- and drug-plagued neighborhoods if police were to set up roadblocks and search everyone going into those areas.

For those of you who argue that what I am proposing violates basic civil rights, forget it.

When you go to an airport or into most schools, you have to walk through a metal detector.

This is the same paper that publishes editorials like these with no author name:

Editorial: Reject concealed gun bill

…we shudder at the thought of the concealed-carry bill scheduled for a vote Friday in the Illinois House. The bill not only would allow concealed firearms to be carried throughout the state, but it also would overturn the assault-weapons ban in Chicago and Cook County, as well as other laws aimed at keeping guns out of criminals’ hands. In all, 109 home-rule governments would see their gun laws nullified. Gov. Pat Quinn came out strongly against the bill late Thursday.

Editorial: No more concessions on gun bill

We doubt many gun control proponents in the state Legislature ever thought they could vote for a concealed-carry bill that not long ago would have been a gun advocate’s dream.

At this point, gun-safety advocates must draw a line. No more concessions.

If the editors of that paper were writing “Reject mixed race marriage bill” and “No more concessions on segregation” and advocating warrantless searches of homes looking for mix-race couples they would, and rightly so, have trouble getting their newsprint delivered through the hordes of protestors.

That they and their ilk in Chicago steadfastly adhere to beliefs, proven false decades ago and in 49 other states, that it is appropriate to deny specific enumerated rights even after being told by the courts to change their ways is proof positive of their bigotry. Their advocating of the continuing and expanding infringements of basic human rights has contributed to the needless deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people over the years. I look forward to the Sun Times going bankrupt, the assets sold off, and the entire staff laid off. I would love to see their buildings torn down, then gun ranges, gun shops, and gun and ammo factories built in their place. Then offer the editors and management jobs cleaning the toilets in the gun establishments and tell them they should be thankful they aren’t in prison.

I won’t be going to New Jersey

The only reason I would voluntarily visit New Jersey is if I could get a no-limit varmint hunting license for the politicians and law enforcement. This has to stop:

Motorists driving through New Jersey can be subjected to a warrantless search if their luggage is similar in appearance to a gun case, an appellate court ruled last week. The Superior Court’s Appellate Division upheld a five year prison sentence against Dustin S. Reininger, a former police officer who was in the process of moving from Maine to Texas when a Readington Township police officer recognized the cases in the back of Reininger’s vehicle as the sort that usually carries a rifle.
During the long trip on March 20, 2009, Reininger became tired and decided to pull off the road in an empty, well-lit parking lot. He stopped his green Toyota SUV, turned off his lights, and went to sleep in the driver’s seat under a blanket. At 3:25am, Officer Gregory Wester knocked on his window and woke him up, shining a flashlight in his eyes.

A jury acquitted him of the charges for possession of the “assault firearms” and handgun possession but convicted him in absentia of illegal possession of hollow-point bullets, shotguns, rifles and a high-capacity magazine. He was apprehended in Texas and extradited to New Jersey.

H/T to JoeyD Sr. for the email who, appropriately, used the subject line of “Fascist States of America”.

Quote of the day–Ladd Everitt

We’ve always been too polite, by appealing to politicians to do the right thing, … appealing to their conscience and hoping they’d come around even when the evidence suggested they wouldn’t. We went too far into the realm of educating the public and ceded the field of politics to the NRA. That was disastrous for us.

Ladd Everitt
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
May 2013
This Is How the NRA Ends: A bigger, richer, meaner gun-control movement has arrived
[The NRA ends? They just set a new record for annual meeting attendance. They had over 86,000 show up. The anti-gun organizations are run on shoestring budgets with unpaid interns.

The problem they have trying to educate the public is that the more educated the public becomes the more apparent it becomes that the anti-gun side is wrong.

The problem they have with politics is that just a single political organization on our side has 5 million members (the NRA). And there are others, such as the CCRKBA, which have hundreds of thousands of members. None of their organizations have dues paying members. Their “biggest” organization has a mailing list of 25 to 50 thousand. The politicians respect votes and little else. The anti-gun people cannot deliver the votes and hence the political field is “challenging” for the anti-gun people as well.

Gun control advocates are too polite?

Ah yes, I remember now:

I wonder what Everitt thinks the proper response should be.—Joe]

Just say “NO!” to crime prevention

The video posted here reminded me of something important.

This lept out at me like a cat with firecrackers exploding at its feet;

“The question is…how do we prevent people from committing crimes in the first place.”

No it isn’t. NO IT ISN’T!

The question IS; how do we protect liberty and dispense justice equally and reliably? The concept of crime prevention doesn’t even belong in the conversation, that is, if we’re talking about legislation, which we are.

How many people understand this? It’s there in that pledge, thingy; “…with liberty and justice for all.” Note the absence of any mention of crime prevention in the Pledge. You don’t find it in the declaration of Independence either, unless by “crime” we mean government overreach (in THAT case it’s in there, and I’m all ears if we’re having a conversation about preventing government overreach).

You can in theory have liberty and justice, OR you can have “crime prevention” legislation, but they cannot exist simultaneously. They’re mutually exclusive. The former defines a free state and the latter a police state.

The term “liberty and justice for all” takes crime as a given, a fact of life (if there’s no crime, there’s no need for a justice system). It’s an acknowledgement of the obvious – that people can do bad things. Because people can do bad things, we need our liberty protected and we demand justice. The term enshrines our right to self defense, free speech and all the rest, and promises a system of correct, organized, consistent and predictable retaliation (justice) for criminal acts.

I don’t think this is widely understood anymore. It certainly isn’t taught, and yet it is at the core of American Principle. Liberty and justice are two sides of the same coin. Crime prevention legislation is an entirely different coin, of a currency we want nothing to do with. I could say this a thousand different ways, but who gets it?

No, Little Grasshopper; crime prevention is the excuse of every police state. Having your rights respected and protected and having a proper justice system is the best condition of government you could ever ask. The prevention part is a combination of individual self defense and moral leadership, and neither of those are government business. That’s your job as a citizen. Crime prevention is your job. If it could be done with government force, (and all the worst places you can think of) would be crime free.

Plastic guns are easy, try paper!

Via an email from Paul K. we have instructions on how to make a working gun out of paper. I have duplicated the instructions here for archival purposes.

I really, really, have serious concerns about using one of these. I can see where the radial strength might be adequate when using a small gauge shotshell but the recoil could still be a problem. There is no breachface and stock to prevent the shot shell from pushing the nail (firing pin) and perhaps the case-head into/through your hand.

Use at your own risk and remember that the extent of my obligation should this result in you or a friend of yours dying an unnatural death is to nominate you for a Darwin Award. If, and only if, I am in a generous mood when I learn of your date with fate.

Handguns in England

Via Guns Save Life we have this poll result from England:

Vote now: which bill would you like to see introduced in the Commons?
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Votes: 9,726

 

It would be nice to have a scientific poll on the topic. Certain events can and do rapidly change the political climate. It could be the mindset of the subjects have changed because of the brutal murder of a soldier while bystanders watched and took pictures. You would have thought the steady rise in crimes committed with guns in England and Wales (from 2009) would have been sufficient:

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year  –  a rise of 89 per cent. 

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold. 

In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled. 

Only four police forces – Cleveland-Humberside, Cambridgeshire and Sussex – recorded falls in gun crime.

But clearly it wasn’t. We should encourage them and provide examples of how to develop a healthy gun culture. Perhaps we can speed up the recovery of their sick culture which disarms and punishes victims and enables predators.

Sometimes people take a long time to grasp reality but that doesn’t mean reality doesn’t grasp them immediately.

Quote of the day—Alexa Fritts

The National Rifle Association’s position and concerns will be made very clear when we file our lawsuit.

Alexa Fritts
Spokeswoman for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action
May 15, 2013
Signing of Md. gun control bill to launch new legal battles, fight for public support
[This same quote is also attributed to “Jacqueline Otto”. It is possible that it was written by someone else or even a committee. But still, I like it.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

AssaultWeaponBullElk

There are so many things wrong with this that I wouldn’t even try to enumerate all of them but here are the first two that come to mind:

  1. “Assault weapons” use a medium power round that would be either illegal (in many states) or unethical to use for harvesting an animal as large as a bull elk. The use of such a rifle would most likely result in the animal being wounded and getting away. It would not reduce it to a bag of bloody, shredded, meat.
  2. An image that properly illustrates “The civilian need for military-style assault weapons” is one like this:

Update: A better image from S Andrew Nicol:

TheCaseForCivilianOwnershipOfMilitaryStyleWeapons

Quote of the day—deeambro

Is it true that a man who needs an assault weapon to feel like a man is just compensating for the lack of something else? You know what I mean guys.

deeambro
February 4, 2013
Comment to Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

The cause of genocide

…and of mass killings, and most wars.

It has been the thesis on this blog that disarmament has lead to more death by violence than any other single factor. I submit that such an assertion misses a critical point.

This is hard to put into words. Criminals, evil, exists everywhere and in all times. What separates times of relative peace from times of chaos and mass death then? I submit that it is resolve. A state of mind.

Tam recently spoke of a seeming dichotomy between Europe’s tendency toward docility or complacency and Her capacity for mass killing on a grand scale. I say that they are the same thing.

The willingness to go along to get along, the fear of making waves, the unwillingness to stand up and draw a line in the sand, and more importantly the lack of understanding or embracing of basic principles…together, THAT is the cause of chaos and mass death. Disarmament, while critical to the end of mass killing, and being a virtual guarantee of it, is but a symptom of that cause. The criminal element need but wait for the time to strike, meanwhile preaching peace at the cost of freedom. That includes the criminal element that always lurks in the halls and offices of government.

How else do you explain a thousand Jews guarded by a pathetic few Germans, while no one organizes a rush against the guards to easily overpower them? It wasn’t merely the lack of arms, but the lack of hutzpah THAT RESULTED iN the lack of arms. This is currently the state of all of Europe, the UK, and it’s becoming the case in the U.S.

I recently heard a phrase that will stay with me for the rest of my life. “The most powerful weapon of the oppressor is the the mind of the oppressed.” — David Masters quoting Stephen Banta

Intimidation is in the mind of the intimidated, not in the mind or the hands of the bully. Guns are only a factor in the hands of those who aren’t easily intimidated. For the easily intimidated, guns are pretty well worthless. Discuss.

Later we can talk about who’s the more easily intimidated, the self sufficient individual or the desk jokey politician with a team of interns.

Quote of the day—Zelman and Stevens

Unarmed minority groups die when the armed majority decides to kill them.

Aaron Zelman and Richard W. Stevens
Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament
Hartford, WI: Mazel Freedom Press, 201
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]