Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day–Traci Hughs

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If we had less guns on the street, more people would be alive today.

Traci Hughs
August 21, 2007
D.C. police spokeswoman
In Study Of Gun Traffic, Va. Stands Out
[She doesn’t address the issue of whether the homicides she is referring to were felonious, justified, or praiseworthy. She doesn’t address the issue of substitution of other weapons as a means of homicide. She doesn’t address the issue of felonious homicides that are committed without a gun that could have been prevented had the victim possessed a gun. And I’ll bet she can’t answer Just One Question. And I don’t think it is a misunderstanding of the English language that throughout the article author, Alison Klein, refers to firearms being seized by law enforcement as being “recovered”. “Recover” means “to bring back to normal position or condition”.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Perry Barlow

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You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

John Perry Barlow
[Barlow was speaking of the Internet but he just as well could have been talking about the gun culture in our country.–Joe]

Stockpiling ammo

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Lots of people have been reporting on the high price and shortages of ammo recently. I know the folks over at Master Blasters Bullets and they told me the price they pay for lead has increased something like a factor of four in the last two years.

And if you are, or will be, into reloading you should buy some bullets before the price goes up again. I know the prices at MBB will be going up very soon and I have my order in at the existing prices.

And stocking up now is a good idea just to help counteract the anti-gun bigots.

Speaking of socopathic dictators

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Recently I posted a quote about sociopaths. Auntie Tam tells us of how one such sicko died a violent death after being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands including:

In 1868, when the allies were pressing him hard, he convinced himself that his Paraguayan supporters had actually formed a conspiracy against his life. Thereupon several hundred prominent Paraguayan citizens were seized and executed by his order, including his brothers and brothers-in-law, cabinet ministers, judges, prefects, military officers, bishops and priests, and nine-tenths of the civil officers, together with more than two hundred foreigners, among them several members of the diplomatic legations (the San Fernando massacres). During this time he also had his mother flogged and ordered her execution, and also attempted to have himself canonized by the local bishops.

Sociopaths; just one of the many reasons gun control fails my Jews in the Attic Test.

Quote of the day–John Gilmore

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The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

John Gilmore
[This, or a similar, quote is often attributed to John Perry Barlow but Barlow gives credit to Gilmore (and here) for at least the concept if not the exact words. Regardless, this point is being hammered into the psyche of the anti-gun bigots. They no longer have their hand on the throttle of information dissemination. Freedom of information is something some people just can’t tolerate.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Tim Heyne

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It’s a gun. It’s an instrument of death. It’s the most violent, the most vile instrument of death you could have in your house.

[…]

I’d love to be able to take your hand gun.

Tim Heyne
August 16, 2007
TIM HEYNE TURNS TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH
From VC Reporter


[Just in case there is any doubt about what the anti-gun bigots really think about guns and what their objectives are. I do give this guy a little bit of slack. He was walking with his wife and best friend when all three of them were shot. His friend and wife both died. That would mess up the mind of anyone. It’s ironic though that the best chance of surviving an attack like that would have been if one or more of the three had been armed and now he is trying to prevent others from defending themselves from a similar attack.–Joe]

He must think he has ESP

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It’s a frequent complaint of mine when dealing with neurotypicals. Some people believe they know something about which they cannot possible know and most often they get it wrong. Garen Wintemute, director of the violence-prevention research program at the University of California, Davis is no different. In an August 12 article in the Star-Telegram, Gun control back as national issue it is claimed:

In 2005 and 2006, Wintemute attended 28 gun shows in Texas (in Dallas and Houston), Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California — areas where he said guns are acquired and later used in crimes in California. Afterward, he urged lawmakers nationwide to put more restrictions on gun shows.

“I would like to see a policy change that makes direct private-party transfers of guns illegal,” Wintemute said. “And I’d like much more vigorous law enforcement presence at gun shows. I noticed the illegal stuff was conducted right out in the open.

“Bad guys had no concern they might be caught.”

What “illegal stuff” did he observe? Whenever I’ve confronted people about this sort of thing it turns out they confuse what they would like the law to be with what the law really is. They frequently claim they saw “criminals” buying guns–but they can’t explain how they knew they were criminals. As near as I can tell they imagined they were criminals. They thought they just knew from looking at someone. Apparently they believe they have some sort of extra sensory perception I guess.

Wintemute should be asked to explain how he knew who the “bad guys” were. Did they have “FELON” tattooed on their foreheads? Or maybe it was their skin color–were they “bad guys” because their skin was black? Or was it because it was white? Did they have their baseball cap on backward? Or were they wearing camo pants?

I suspect Wintemute is just another anti-gun bigot. I sent the following email a few minutes ago. I’ll let you know if he responds.

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:22 AM
To: ‘gjwintemute@ucdavis.edu’
Subject: A question about your study.

 

In the article Gun control back as a national issue you are quoted as saying “I noticed the illegal stuff was conducted right out in the open. Bad guys had no concern they might be caught.”

 

Could you tell me what sort of “illegal stuff” was conducted? And how did you identify people as being “bad guys”.

 

Thank you.

Quote of the day–Joan Burbick

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The mystique of the Western gun rested on an inflated belief in the individual and the power within reach of an ordinary human being.

[…]

The gun has become a fetish–an emotional response to a changing America, the idea that somehow, the social problems of the U.S. will be solved through private gun ownership and a lot more guns.

Joan Burbick
Professor of English and American Studies at Washington State University
Author of Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy
Quotes found at Guns R Us — Is it time to re-examine the West’s fascination with firearms? in Missoula Independent By: Ray Ring August 16, 2007
[It’s interesting to me that Mr. Ring referred to Ms. Burbick as “Jean Burbick” instead of “Joan Burbick”. Typical of an anti-gun bigot–getting the facts straight don’t seem to matter. Please note that Burbick is engaging in a bit of projection with her claim “the gun has become a fetish”. It’s the anti-gun bigots that believe gun regulation have magical power to protect people. And Burbick also overlooks that the concept of individual power, and even the individual itself, is the one distinguishing difference between Western Civilization and all others. For her to denigrate the concept of individual power and rights is to undermine the very basis of our culture.–Joe]

The Second Amendment in Public Buildings

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Here are the results of the poll done by the Lewiston Morning tribune, and which Joe referenced in an earlier post:

Should private citizens be allowed to carry guns into public buildings?

74% Yes
26% No

It shows the most lop-sided poll result currently displayed on the LMT poll page, and the largest number of voters, i.e. more people care about it and their opinions are the most clear.  That’s encouraging as it shows we are making progress, at least in North Idaho where peace and hard work are more important than fear-mongering and scheming.

Now I wonder how many of those who voted “No” are the regular recipients of a government paycheck as compared to the “Yes” voters.  I submit that a disproportionate number of the “No” votes are coming from public employees.  If so, shouldn’t we be hiring servants who protect our rights (or in a worst case scenario, just do nothing) rather than trying to force us to comply with their personal wishes and soothe their irrational fears?

To put it another way; If our public servants are even slightly uncomfortable with us having our civil rights intact, are they right for the job or are we better served by people who are glad for our civil rights and who have the maturity, strength and courage to protect them vigorously?

Not funny

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From the guy that brought us THE WHITETAIL HUNT WITH A MOUNTAIN HOWITZER (my post about it is here) we now have (via ahab at Say Uncle), How to Hunt Feral Cats in Wisconsin with a 12 pound Coehorn Mortar Cannon.

I was okay with the whitetail hunt because the odds of a clean kill were probably better than with a conventional rifle. And while dropping a 2 1/4 pound hard rubber ball on a cats head at terminal velocity is, well, terminal the odds of a head shot from 400 yards away are low. A hit to numerous other body areas is going to result in a crippled cat that might get away before you can put it out of it’s misery.

Doing this sort of crap puts hunters, and gun owners in general, in a bad light. Although I think it would be cool to have a similar toy I do not approve of the activities advocated.

The latest in children’s back packs

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It’s back to school time. Time to buy your child a new back pack. Rated at level II it’s available here.

Quote of the day–Bruce Willis

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If you take guns away from legal gun owners then the only people who would have guns would be the bad guys. Even a pacifist would get violent if someone were trying to kill him or her. You would fight for your life, whatever your beliefs. You’d use a rock or tear one of these chairs out of the floor.

Bruce Willis

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
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