Category Archives: Gun Rights

The news they don’t report

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The anti-gun bigots in Massachusetts are happy:

The number of licensed gun owners in Massachusetts has declined by more than a quarter in the past six years, a falloff driven by restrictive laws, higher licensing fees, and cultural change, according to police officers and gun owners.

The drop is especially dramatic in the eastern part of the state and in urban areas. The number of licensed gun owners fell at least 30 percent in Boston, Springfield, Quincy, Fall River, and Waltham. It dropped at least 20 percent in more than 220 of the state’s 351 communities.

Fewer firearms on the street makes life safer for everyone,” said Robert F. Crowley, Quincy’s police chief.

[…]

In Boston, the number of licensed owners fell from 7,577 in 2001 to 4,374 this year, a drop of 42 percent. In the same period, gun licenses in Cambridge dropped 25 percent to 782; 71 percent to 484 in Brookline, and 33 percent to 1,150 in Newton, state records show.

“We’re pleased that the number of gun owners has decreased in our city, but the real issue is illegal guns, and we need more laws to deal with illegal guns in our cities,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston said in a statement.

Here is one of the contributors to that reduced number of gun owners: 

Edward Arsenault, 70, of Fairhaven, was turned down for his license renewal earlier this year because he had been convicted in juvenile court of stealing a chicken from a chicken coop when he was 9 years old, in 1946.

With a 30% decline in the number of gun owners one should expect the number of “gun crimes” should decrease by a similar amount wouldn’t you think (at least if you were a rational gun-control advocate)? But of course they aren’t reporting on that or even hinting that anyone has considered that line of thinking. A quick scan of the FBI’s UCR didn’t yield the information I wanted so I’ll just leave it as “interesting” they didn’t report on the dramatic drop in crime compared to other states that didn’t put so much effort into eradicating gun owners.

Quote of the day–Adolph Hitler

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This year will go down in history.  For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration!  Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future. 

Adolph Hitler
One attribution has it as:
‘Berlin Daily’ (Loose English Translation) April 15th, 1935 Page 3 Article 2 by Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann – “Abschied vom Hessenland!”
[This is such a wonderful quote that it falls into the category of “too good to be true”. People have a strong tendency to believe what they want to believe. Resist that temptation.

From http://www.rkba.org/research/rkba.faq:

This quotation, often seen without any date or citation at all,
suffers from several credibility problems, the most significant
of which is that the date given (*in alternate versions, the
words “This year…” are replaced by “1935…”) has no correlation
with any legislative effort by the Nazis for gun registration,
nor would there have been a need for the Nazis to pass such a
law, since gun registration laws passed by the Weimar government
were already in effect.  The Nazi Weapons Law (or_Waffengesetz_)
which further restricted the possession of militarily useful
weapons and forbade trade in weapons without a government-issued
license was passed on March 18, 1938.
   The citation usually given for this quote is a jumbled mess,
and has only three major clues from which to work.  The first is
the date, which does not correspond (even approximately) to a date
on which Hitler made a public speech, and a check of the texts of
Hitler’s speeches does not reveal a quotation resembling this
(which is easily understandable when you realize that “Hitler”
is commenting on a non-existent law).  The second clue is the
newspaper reference, which if translated into German resembles the
title of a newspaper called _Berliner Tageblatt,_ and a check of
the issue for that date reveals that the page and column references
given are to the arts and culture page!  No Hitler speech appears
in the pages of _Berliner Tageblatt_ on that date, or dates close
to it, because there was no such speech to report.  Finally,
the citation includes a proper name “Eberhard Beckmann,” which
is sometimes cited as “by Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann,”
which is an important clue itself, because it reveals that the
citation was fabricated by someone who had so little knowledge of
the German language that they were unaware that “Einleitung”
isn’t the fellow’s first name!  The only “Eberhard Beckmann”
which has been uncovered thus far did indeed write introductions,
but he was a journalist for a German broadcasting company after
WWII, and he wrote several introductions to_photography books,_
one of which was photos of the German state of Hesse (or Hessia),
which may be the source of the curious phrase “Abschied vom
Hessenland!” which appears in the citation.  This quotation,
however effective it may be as propaganda, is a fraud.

Check your facts before you publish them. I wear size 14 shoes and even though my mouth opens wider than most people it’s much preferable to not insert my foot into my mouth rather than extracting it after I have.–Joe]

Gun Blogger Rendezvous

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Barb and I will be at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in October at Reno. We haven’t made our reservations yet but the vacation time is scheduled and currently the plan doesn’t have any obstacles.

This year I’m going to bring what I call my spud gun. It actually shoots 210 grain Berger VLDs at 2915 fps rather than Idaho’s famous vegetables. It was custom made by a gunsmith in Idaho and a friend of mine figured it couldn’t be as a good a rifle as the one made by Arnold Arms north of Seattle. I started referring to my rifle as my spud gun just to neutralize his criticism of my choice of gunsmiths. I could have the last laugh by reminding my friend of the tens of thousands of dollars he had invested in Arnold Arms–which he lost when they went bankrupt–but that would be cruel.

Nice Sheriff

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I knew about the article from the chatter on the local email lists but hadn’t actually seen it because the Lewiston Morning Tribune doesn’t have free access. But thanks to Uncle I found the AP version of the story. Here is the gist of the story:

MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) – The sheriff of a north-central Idaho county where a shooting rampage left four dead and three wounded last May wants more people to obtain concealed weapons permits and carry guns, including on the University of Idaho campus, to improve public safety.

“In my opinion, if there were more students with (concealed weapons permits), the world would be safer,” Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch told the Lewiston Tribune on Tuesday. “Just because we (law enforcement officers) are charged with protecting the public, doesn’t mean the public shouldn’t be able to protect itself.”

And the most memorable part of the story:

“When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away,” David Klingenberg, 36, told the meeting. “I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy.”

David was the Secretary/Treasurer of the now defunct Palouse Practical Shooters. The PPS range and functions have been taken over by the Lewiston Pistol Club and David shot at a couple LPC IPSC matches (here and here).

Also related is that the Lewiston Morning Tribune currently has a poll up, “Should private citizens be allowed to carry guns into public buildings?“. You might want to participate.

It’s all in the mindset

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The headline reads SF Leads Nation With Toughest Gun Control Law. It’s not true, Washington D.C. and Chicago are tougher with near complete bans on handguns and severe restrictions on long guns. But that’s not my main point. The headline could just as accurately be SF Bigots Implement Repressive Law Against a Minority but that might make the bigots feel bad about themselves.

Quote of the day–Martha Stout

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A person without conscience, even a smart one, tends to be a short sighted and naive individual who eventually expires of boredom, financial ruin, or a bullet.

Martha Stout
The Sociopath Next Door
[At first I was rather depressed by the book. In the U.S. one in 25 people has no conscience. They can do anything they want and not feel the least bit of guilt. Fear of getting caught and punished yes, but that just means they work a little hard and smarter to get away with whatever they want to do. Torturing animals, torturing humans, lying, cheating, backstabbing, murder, rape, whatever relieves their boredom. Those that follow the rules are stupid and naive. All part of the mindset of the sociopath. And it is the sociopath that is the dictator, the corrupt politician, the serial killer, and one of the reasons the average person needs to own a gun. As I got near the end of the book I heard about what serious deficits they have in their emotional lives and how their lives frequently end. This gave me hope. Hope that perhaps justice is more sure than it sometimes appears to be.–Joe]

Mayor, Mayor, Quite Contraire

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We’re hearing rumors that the Moscow, Idaho Mayor, Nancy Chaney, is plotting to ban guns in “Public Places”.

One’s right to self defense is under attack right here in Idaho.  Do I need to look up the political affiliations of the Mayor?  Does anyone wonder?

AP has it now, so the story is repeated verbatim on several sites.  As anyone could predict, it starts out describing a multiple murder committed using firearms.  The conclusion is always the same:  We must “prevent” further incidents of people breaking the law by passing more laws.  That way, when criminals obey this new law, they won’t be able to break the old ones.

“I think there is probably some nervousness about that, of course.”

Chaney said the shooting at the courthouse made her concerned about how vulnerable people might be at public meetings. She said she was also concerned about armed citizens who might be inclined to “swoop in to protect people” in situations that police should deal with.

“We don’t want to tread on anyone’s Second Amendment rights,” Chaney told the Lewiston Tribune. “We want to find out what is within our legal prerogative.”

She doesn’t want to tread on anyone’s rights, she just wants to ban guns.  Its hard to find anything on this locally, so apparently its being kept pretty hush.

Chaney, Girl, you be trippin’!  People may be “nervous” about a lot of things.  Some people at one time were very nervous about black people wanderin’ all over free and what not, too.  It doesn’t mean they had any right to keep black people out of public places, any more than you have the right to ban self defense.  If you’re too nervous to do your job properly while respecting and appreciating the rights of your neighbors, I’m sure we can find a more level-headed replacement for you.

Quote of the day–Diego

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If there ever comes a time when I have to defend my life, I wouldn’t trust that to anybody else — no matter what oath they took or what contract they signed. I came to America from Brazil. The Second Amendment, I think, is one of the best things about this country.

Diego
Pennsylvania
Armed America–Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes
Page 48

Another anti-gun blogger

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As Uncle pointed out (and here) we have a new kid on the block. I left a comment in response to his post Happiness is a warm gun. Comments require approval before they show up so I decided to post it here because I expect the probability of anti-gun blogger Bryan Miller approving the comment are no better than 50-50.

My comment:

I find the following data points about Miller very interesting:

  1. He refers to gun rights activists as “boys”.
  2. When people call him on his inaccurate use of the phrase “assault rifle” he says, “It’s just a name.” Yup, it’s just a name. Just like “n****r” is “just a name” for people with dark colored skin.
  3. He questions the mental qualifications of people with a fondness for a particular hobby that he doesn’t share.
  4. He wants to restrict the rights of certain people.

It’s all part of the mindset Miller has. He apparently believes he is better than others, specifically he is better than people that own or want to own guns. It took me a long time to understand anti-gun people like Miller. I grew up in a place with a very homogenous population and hence there was virtually no elitist mentality other than the typical school stuff of the fourth graders looking down on the second graders and the high school seniors looking down on the freshman. It took some long discussions and email with a recovered liberal friend of mine (see here and “Comments from ‘Mike’ at the bottom of this page) and seeing the racist roots of gun control before it finally clicked into place. It’s even more clear to me from the many discussions I have had with these type of people about what they are trying to do. You can ask them just one question and they will dance around the question and even call you stupid for asking the question–but they won’t answer the question. To them it’s perfectly clear that the question doesn’t need to be answered. What they are doing, what they want to accomplish makes perfect sense and needs no justification. The conclusion was finally obvious to me–the anti-gun people are the bigots of the 21st century. It took me a long time to realize this because I didn’t have any real contact with the more typical bigots until a few years ago. The parallels in mindset and thinking processes were astonishing—but that is a topic for an entire blog post, not just a comment on someone else’s blog. I now have Just One Question for Miller:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

Also, Mr. Miller, when you “explain the Second Amendment” to us, please address the points in this blog posting: An Individual Right. Thank you for providing us with this forum where you show us your true colors and allowing us to show ours.

Quote of the day–Bryan Miller

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These high-sounding lectures from you and your colleagues in the so-called “gun rights” crowd are not even slightly impressive (they are amusing, though). As I’ve written above, society has a duty to mediate between individual privilege (that’s right – privilege – neither you nor any other American has an unfettered “right” to own any weapon he or she wants) and public safety. In this case, the choice is clear. The public safety demands that massively destructive weapons like the Big 50 be prohibited from public purchase. And, you are in a tiny minority if you think Americans, and especially New Jerseyans (who suffered so from 9/11), would rather face the issue AFTER some terrorist knocks over a chlorine plant or similar disaster and hundreds die. Nuff said.

Bryan Miller
July 27, 2007
Put down the ducky — I mean, gun
[Typical elitist mindset–He can’t be bothered to address the points made. Furthermore he is willing to give up, and demand that others give up rights, in the name of “crime prevention”. What a disgusting, revolting, frightening mindset.–Joe]

Posts that get attention

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Interesting. My most recent post about the TSA is getting more and more attention. Most recent is this mention in a forum:

If you really need to believe that you’re safe when you get on a plane, don’t read the above. If you want to realize what a bullshit fantasy “safety” through a “security” agency is, then take the red pill and click the link.

I like how he expressed that. Very nice. I remember one time not too long after 9/11 Ry was having Thanksgiving dinner with us and our extended family at my parent’s place. Somehow Ry (software tester extraordinaire–finding flaws is what software testers do) and I started talking about all the vulnerabilities in our country that someone could use to cause us great damage. We were rattling things off so fast that someone had to raise their voice to get in a command to “STOP”. People didn’t want to know. They wanted ignorance. This is baffling to me, but whatever.

Anyway, on to what makes particular posts interesting…

Uncle and Existing Thing (via Uncle) linked to my TSA post. I was thinking Uncle would link to it when I made it. He links to almost anything of mine that is a little out of the ordinary (honest, I have only made him one offer for a free position at Boomershoot–which he hasn’t acted upon. I don’t think that constitutes bribery). Thinking about what makes a post interesting I made the connection to the recent career advice from Scott Adams (via Kim). I have expertise in more than one field and combining that expertise with a somewhat rare political viewpoint (pro-freedom) increases my “value”. In this case it was my expertise in explosives and (computer) security.

I keep wondering if there is a way to combine all my hobbies in an interesting way. But at least for me guns, explosives, and sex just don’t mix.

Some might say it is ironic

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I say, what do you expect? Disarming potential victims is almost never a good idea. As long as predators exist their prey will need to defend themselves. Taking away the tools used for defense is just asking for more victims. That the daughter of a gun control activist gets shot gets two responses from me:

  1. (Outwardly) I’m so sorry, is there anything we can do to help?
  2. (Under my breath) Well, duh! Would you like some firearm training for your family so this is less likely to happen again?

Regarding predators… I’m listening to a book on my iPod Nano now: The Sociopath Next Door. Four percent of the population are sociopaths. Not all are violent, but more than enough are. There is no cure. As long as sociopaths exist in the general population, and probably even if there weren’t, the innocent will need tools to defend themselves. People that argue “economic justice”, “midnight basketball”, or even “two parent families” will make ownership of defensive tools obsolete is exceedingly naive.

Quote of the day–Jeff Knox

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I can’t endorse the bill because it is wasteful and supports an unconstitutional program, but I won’t oppose it because it contains provisions that I consider critically important — things I’ve been writing about for years — correcting the injustices of permanently denying Second Amendment rights, without recourse, to tens of thousands of people. Maybe I’m missing something and maybe I’m wrong, but at this point, I think our energy can be expended in much more productive ways — making sure Tiahrt passes comes to mind.

Jeff Knox
Hard Corps Report
May – June 2007
Volume 4, Issue 3
[Jeff captures my take on it quite well. I wish I had got around to reading it before I posted my own opinion of the Tiahrt amendment.–Joe]

A look into our future

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From Canada, Turning Legal Gun Owners Into SOCIAL LEPERS:

Citing concern over the “sinister uses” of guns, University of Toronto officials are closing down their 88-year-old shooting range. No word yet on the fate of the university’s chemistry labs.

More than just one more example of political correctness run amok (which of course it is), I take this gesture as academic ideologues’ invitation to government to follow suit and ban gun sport and gun collecting nationally. Alas, I think the initiative might find broad public support. To many liberal Canadians nowadays, tolerating gun use in any capacity is akin to complicity in Bambi’s mother’s murder, fatalism regarding school massacres and genuflection to American imperialism.

And from the same article it looks like I have a new book to read:

In a recently-published book discussed on these pages last Thursday, Mistakes Were Made:Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson argue that many social and cultural problems spring from humans’ inability to admit when they’re wrong. How right they are. And as further evidence to those adduced in their book, I would cite: the blinkered ideologues who punish responsible gun users for the sins of criminals; police who automatically privilege the idle or fabricated concerns of disaffected women over men’s property and civil rights; and governments who continue to throw good money after bad in perpetuating an institution that fails utterly to deter gun crime, but succeeds magnificently in stigmatizing an identifiable minority of law-abiding citizens as criminals in waiting.

Our future as gun owners doesn’t have to be same as that of Canadian gun owners. Right now we essentially have the bigots at a standstill. We need to keep pushed them and change the attitudes in this country. We have to have the right mindset and turn the anti-gun bigots into the social lepers.

Poetry in Motion

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My son, Alex and I went to the range last weekend.  He wanted to confirm zero on his rifle before the start of hunting season, and I wanted to do the same with a 50 caliber muzzleloading caplock rifle.

I don’t know how explain this, but it wasn’t until we were half way home that I again realized the fact that I had any problems or concerns in life at all– they had completely gone away for the time we spent at the range.

I hadn’t experienced anything like this in, I don’t know how long. Talk about “Zen and the Art of the Rifle” which is the title of one of Oleg’s recent posts.

Alex had some of his custom ammo left over from the Boomershoot, and since the bullet manufacturer says their VLD is also a decent hunting bullet, he decided to use that accurized load for hunting this year.  I won’t tell you the size of his 200 yard group (he fired a total of four rounds that day– three at 200 and one at 50, to get a first-hand feel for the difference in POI) partly because it would be bragging, but mostly because you wouldn’t believe it anyway, coming as it did from a “mere” Ruger M77 MKII.  I had to explain to him that this was something remarkable, and yet maybe I shouldn’t have bothered.

It was one of those few days in life wherein one can truly say one was “at peace”.  But you don’t realize its happening until its over.

Quote of the day–Richard Cohen

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The more guns you have, the greater the chance they will be used. But both common sense and the law of averages escape presidential candidates, especially Republicans looking to assert their conservative bona fides. When it comes to gun control, they not only have to be against it but they have to insist — in raging opposition to common sense — that the more guns around, the safer everyone is.

[…]

He is the True Republican — a credit to his party, a threat to us all.

Richard Cohen
July 31, 2007
Thompson on Horseback
[Cohen is referring to Fred Thompson. What Cohen apparently believes is that any gun use is bad. This only demonstrates the mental problems of Cohen because in the same opinion piece he talks about the occasion when he wished he had a gun to protect himself. Cohen also neglects to take into account that during the 20th Century more people were murdered by their own government than were murdered by their fellow citizens–but only in countries with strict gun control. So, indirectly, people like Cohen who advocate strict gun control are a greater threat than those that advocate recognition of our right to keep and bear arms.–Joe]

Update: Uncle and Jeff both commented on this same opinion piece.

Quote of the day–Tom Robbins

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Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics, in that it involves selective breeding.  The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such, and the latter breeds (assumed) facts.  The husbandryman uses his skills to enrich the future; the historian uses his to enrich the past.  Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit.

Tom Robbins
[What reminded me of this is the Brady Bunch reading of the 2nd Amendment and related documents.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Burt Prelutsky

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Jews tend to think if terrible things happened to their ancestors in 15th century Spain and 19th century Russia and 20th century Nazi Germany, it can and will happen here. It’s a form of paranoia. But it’s a very strange form. For as we all know, this is a nation of 300 million. So, wouldn’t you think a minority numbering a mere five million, and in constant fear of pogroms, would spend as much time as possible on the firing range?

Burt Prelutsky
May 4, 2007
What is it with Jews and guns?

Republican Machinegun Shoot/Fundraiser

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Now here are some people who know how to have fun.

Tired of the usual chicken dinners, the Manchester Republican Committee is planning to arm supporters next month with Uzis, M-16 rifles and other automatic weapons for a day of target practice at a Pelham firing range.

“The thought just struck me one day: a machine gun shoot. What the heck?” said Jerry Thibodeau, the committee chairman.

We can expect the usual hysterics from the anti-freedom crowd, which of course adds to the fun.  They’re actually talking about firing sub guns and assault rifles at the fund raiser, but the term “machine gun” sounds more interesting I guess.  For myself, I’d like to fire a nice M2 at some old trucks and a few of Joe’s boomers.  Ma Duce is big, well-made, heavy, powerful, and loud as hell.  What’s not to like?

I find it encouraging that politicians on both sides of the turd feel the need to appeal to American gun owners.  We’ll see whose appeals are honest (or should I say the least disingenuous).

Quote of the day–Daniel J. Solove

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The “nothing to hide” argument speaks to some problems, but not to others. It represents a singular and narrow way of conceiving of privacy, and it wins by excluding consideration of the other problems often raised in government surveillance and data mining programs. When engaged with directly, the “nothing to hide” argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, the “nothing to hide” argument, in the end, has nothing to say.

Daniel J. Solove
“I’VE GOT NOTHING TO HIDE” AND OTHER MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF PRIVACY
George Washington University Law School
[A rather “dry” intellectual essay. Some of the better points are that government survelance changes the power balance between the individual and the politically powerful and data can be used for purposes beyond what it was orginally intended for. For example (my example, not the authors) 4473’s are intended to enable finding the user of a gun associated with a crime but can also be used to confisicate firearms from everyone. But if you want a snappy answer for someone who claims they don’t have anything to hide tell them to drop all their clothes, you want a picture. Then you want to know all their sex partners and from this point forward you want a live video feed of all their sexual encounters.–Joe]