Well… sort of. There’s only one outlet that actually ran it that I know of. I like their headline: Fired PNNL worker claims gun discrimination in lawsuit.
I just wish they had linked to my website that proves the case rather than just saying I “say” or “claim” something happened.
Oh well. It’s not the public that matters that much. It’s the judge and jury. And I got a 600% increase in traffic on that website from the newspaper story anyway.
Kevin has an update for his The Other Side posting. The doctor that inspired him to write the post to begin with responded. Well sort of responded. He just said:
Kevin, thanks for writing. I am all for individual rights but life is sacred. Too many guns end up in the wrong hands. Whatever reason, the youth of North Philly too easily obtain firearms which are designed to seriously wound. Furthermore, the folks who wrote the constitution also owned slaves. Times do change and we have not demonstrated that the masses, unlike you, can responsibly control firearms. Peace, JK
“Too many guns” “Wrong hands” “Too easily”
That’s the problem with getting into debates with these people. They don’t respond to any of your logic or the facts. They just chant slogans. Our side does something like what Kevin did, tearing the guys entire position to shreds, and he just chants his slogans again.
In the update Kevin tears him to pieces, again, but it’s not going to do much good in the doctors case. It can do good for our side in that observers can see the emptiness of the “argument” the bigot presents and I am not going to discourage anyone from doing that. But for me, I’m tired of investing that much time into something that will just be dismissed with couple of sentences. This is why I came up Just One Question. Kevin actually used it in his original post and, of course, the doctor ignored it.
Oh, for your reading enjoyment, here’s another good exercise in logic and facts.
Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
[This has also been attributed to Harold R. McAlindon. I am unable to find any dates for the life of McAlindon and I’ve never heard of him before today so I’m inclined to believe Emerson was probably first. Regardless, this is my plan in the New Year for dealing with the anti-gun bigots. There is no path in the legal world where I’m headed with PNNL. I hope to leave a trail of (figuratively) bloody bodies that others will follow in our fight to reclaim our freedom against the anti-gun bigots.–Joe]
With machine guns and flame throwers.
All perfectly legal and a good time was had by everyone. Except maybe the anti-freedom bigots reading about it at home.
Via Kevin.
One of the ways the anti-freedom people make progress is by asserting people like us are extremists, dangerous, and a “threat to society”. While in fact just the opposite is true. Even if you don’t want to take the time to assert (and/or prove) the anti-freedom bigots are a threat to society you can easily demonstrate the gun nuts (like me, Kevin, and his friends) are just ordinary people, are not extremists, and are only a threat to a tyrannical government. People, in general, want to be “in the middle” and “moderate”. By pushing the envelope in the freedom direction you make it easier for the “moderates” to be further from the anti-freedom bigots.
Do your part and don’t hide in the closet about it.
The government deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government spends and the amount it has the nerve to collect.
Sam Ewing
January 1991
Readers Digest Quote
[I never thought of it that way before but I wonder if gun control is an attempt by the government to gain more nerve and reduct the deficit.–Joe]
I’ve said it before but talking with Lyle at UltiMAK yesterday I obtained some more evidence that gun owners are in many ways treated like blacks in this country were 50 or 60 years ago. Actual lynching don’t occur. Ruby Ridge and Waco come close in many respects but no ropes and trees were involved. But what does happen is marginalization, shunning, firings (mine and I know of three other people that had similar problems), and signs such as this one (St. Louis Missouri August 13, 2006):
When I see a sign like that I can’t help but think of signs like this:
From http://www.cah.utexas.edu/ssspot/lesson_plans/lesson_10.php
And read through this list and find how many similar restrictions apply to gun owners. A sample:
Back to what Lyle told me–One of the limiting factors to growth in his business (gun accessories) is building stuff fast enough. For over a year he has been trying to find more machine shops to build his stuff. He has had something like seven or eight companies tell him they don’t want his business because it is gun related. He has been unable to find any new suppliers in the last 18 months. Legally I support their right to refuse to do business with someone. For example I wouldn’t do business with someone making “ovens” for Nazis. And I don’t want my Modern Ballistics program sold to certain organizations opposed to basic human rights. But that so many companies have this bigoted viewpoint tells us a great deal about the attitudes of this country.
The advice I gave Lyle was, “Ask them if they have a similar policy about doing business with blacks.”
One of the rumors I have heard out of PNNL was that I had modified one or more of my sites to treat visitors from the lab differently and put “malware” on the labs network. This claim is totally false and I sometimes wondered if anyone actually thought that. Perhaps someone did because I found this. It’s a report on my PNNL.INFO website in regards to spam, adware, and spyware. A number of the sites for which I am the webmaster and have some relationship to the PNNL conflict are shown to have been tested by McAfee SiteAdvisor. Others for which I am the webmaster have not been tested. I’m wondering if the bigots were trying to verify their claims by submitting my sites for analysis. If so, they failed. McAfee loves me.
It’s a little bit of a stretch but it seems to me this is another bit of evidence the bigots were spreading falsehoods about me.
Did you ever notice the things we do and consider worthless we call “academic”?
Lyle Keeney
December 29, 2006
[There was no need to make mention of Lyle’s opinion on the quality of our education system. Also of interest while I was visiting UltiMAK yesterday was clutter on his office floor (see below). I wish my employer would let me have that type of clutter around. Not that I would do it, because I’m generally a little neater than that, but it would nice to have the option without being considered a threat to society.–Joe]
PNNL has been visiting my blog again:
| Domain Name | pnl.gov ? (United States Government) | |||||||||||||||||||
| IP Address | 130.20.121.# (Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory) | |||||||||||||||||||
| ISP | Battele Pacific Northwest Laboratory | |||||||||||||||||||
| Location |
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| Language | English (United States) en-us |
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| Operating System | Microsoft WinXP | |||||||||||||||||||
| Browser | Internet Explorer 7.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1) |
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| Javascript | version 1.3 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Monitor |
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| Time of Visit | Dec 29 2006 10:35:54 am | |||||||||||||||||||
| Last Page View | Dec 29 2006 10:44:34 am | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Length | 8 minutes 40 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||
| Page Views | 2 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Referring URL | http://72.14.253.104…n&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Search Engine | 72.14.253.104 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Search Words | cache:fbt0ho8yu5oj:www.pnnl.info/ pnnl.info | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | http://blog.joehuffm…Their Attention.aspx | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Exit Page | http://blog.joehuffm…16-8fef957f2701.aspx | |||||||||||||||||||
| Out Click | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Time Zone | UTC-8:00 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visitor’s Time | Dec 29 2006 10:35:54 am | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Number | 123,275 |
I wonder if it was the newspaper article or the lawsuit being served…
Practical competition is open to all reputable persons without regard to occupation. It may specifically not be limited to public servants.
USPSA Handgun Competition Rules
PRINCIPLES of USPSA Competitions
Draft–January 2008
[A reminder for those wishing to become oppressors. Government employees are servants. The way they are kept servants is by the people refusing to allow their right to own and use guns to be infringed. Reminding the servants of the skill of the people is a part of keeping the servants in line. The USPSA is part of that.–Joe]
Back in the late 90’s when I worked at Microsoft an anti-gun bigot invited a “team of professionals” to put on a presentation for Microsoft people on “Children and gun safety” or some such thing. Microsoft doesn’t (or at least didn’t) allow their facilities to be used for political activities and this bigot had some weasel worded title that made it almost sound like it was an educational instead of political presentation. I arrived 15 minutes or so early to make sure I got a good seat from which to video tape the presentation. I actually arrived before anyone, including the presenters, arrived. When they arrived I helped them bring in their computer and some other materials and help them get connected to power, etc.
By the time the presentation was supposed to start just two other people had showed up. I knew both of them and both were firearms instructors for Insights Training Center who also worked for Microsoft. They were Kevin Kerkam and John Fogh (see the quotes I have from John here). The “team of professionals” decided that with such a small group, I think there were five of them and just the three of us in the audience, that we should have an interactive discussion. But first they demanded that I put away my video camera and refused to tell me why. I finally did and they proceeded to tell us about how lax gun laws were and about all the things that needed to be done to “save the children”. One of the things we discussed was a “waiting period” before one was allowed to purchase a gun. I asked why they thought that was a good idea. And the poor woman told us it was because people needed time to “cool off” before purchasing a weapon. This didn’t really make much sense to me so I asked, “So, if I go into a gun shop, show them my concealed carry permit and a pistol on my hip then they wouldn’t need to make me ‘cool off’ before purchasing another one, right?” She turned a pale shade of gray and looked around at the people beside her as John, Kevin, and I smiled expectantly at her. Her fellow bigots didn’t look any more comfortable than she did and after a five or ten seconds of a deafening silence the head of Washington Ceasefire (I forget his name, but he resigned and went to work someplace else in late 2001 or 2002) spoke up and said something like, “We’re not going to go there.” The presentation went on for a little longer until John and Kevin also asked questions and made comments that made it clear to the “team of professionals” they were talking to people they couldn’t convert and had them outclassed in both brains and preparedness. The head guy called it quits and I went up to talk to him for a while as they packed up. They had made a claim about guns and suicide and he claimed to be friends with a researcher on the topic and in response to one of my questions he was going to “do some more research” on the topic. I exchanged email addresses with him and we discussed how suicide data could be examined to find out if the presence of guns increased the suicide rate. He thought I had some good ideas on how to reduce the potential for errors and biases and agreed to let me know the results of his contact with his suicide researcher friend.
After a week or so I sent him an email and we exchanged several emails on the topic. At first he “hadn’t got around to” contacting his friend and finally he just didn’t answer my emails. What I never told him was that I knew the research had already been done, I knew the results, and I knew he wouldn’t like them. I just wanted to see what kind of response I could get from him when he found out he was wrong on that point too.
I’m reminded of all this because another anti-gun bigot just got nailed on the “cooling off period” ruse. This time in Australia:
A parliamentary inquiry into gun-purchasing regulations has angered Tasmania’s anti-gun lobby.
The changes proposed by the State Government include bringing Tasmania in line with national gun trafficking laws, limiting gun use in the security industry and strengthening licensing processes for firearm dealers.
It has also set up a parliamentary inquiry into whether it is still necessary to have a cooling-off period before a person can buy a second gun.
Gun Control Coalition spokesman Roland Browne is furious.
“The cooling-off period for the second and subsequent firearms protects the community, it’s designed to protect women especially from abuse by firearm owners in the home,” he said.
“That was why it was put into the national firearms agreement in the first place.”
State Police Minister David Llewellyn says the cooling-off period for the purchase of a second gun does not prevent impulsive crime.
“The reason for that cooling-off period was to prevent impulsive buying of firearms that could lead to a crime, someone shooting someone in impulse,” he said.
“They’ve already got a firearm, then obviously it doesn’t actually achieve the outcome if you’re talking about the second firearm.”
Browne is furious? I’ll bet he’s just putting on an act to cover for the embarrassment of being nailed on the snow job they have been pulling on everyone. I’ll bet he would be “furious” if you asked him Just One Question too.
From the Second Amendment Foundation:
BELLEVUE, WA – Recalling that the late former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a firm, if not outspoken, advocate of personal defense – she campaigned for civil rights in 1958 in Tennessee with a pistol on her car seat – the Second Amendment Foundation today is inaugurating a new award honoring women who use firearms in lawful defense against a criminal attack.
SAF Founder Alan M. Gottlieb announced the award’s first recipient will be a Mississippi grandmother who fatally shot a would-be robber in October.
…
“We’ve spoken to Harrison County Sheriff George Payne,” Gottlieb added, “who said he is proud of Beth Greer and that she is doing well in the aftermath of this traumatic incident. In defending herself, this courageous lady set an example for others to follow. In the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs. Greer demonstrated that when someone has the will and the means to fight back, they can overcome and win.”
Cool!
About an hour ago I got a call from John Trumbo of the Tri City Herald. He said he had just talked to Battelle about my lawsuit (Word .DOC file). Battelle said they hadn’t been served yet (not surprising) and would only say that I had worked for them between “such and such dates” and that I had worked on Internet security projects. He wanted to confirm with me, as stated in the complaint that I knew of nothing I had done wrong except for the allowing of my wife and daughter to use the company laptop to access the Internet and that it was against company policy. I confirmed that was the case. He stated it was hard to imagine anyone would try to build a case for termination based on their advocation of Second Amendment rights. I agreed but assured him I am certain that is the case. He said, “It will go out tomorrow.” And “Onward and upward I guess.”
We’ll see how my luck (very good for the last several years) with reporters and Second Amendment issues holds up under the pressure of an adversary like Battelle.
Update: It’s out. I can’t complain. I’m thrilled to confirm Battelle still claims the termination was “for violating PNNL policies (involving) inappropriate and unauthorized use of PNNL computers.” That would be the hosting of a personal website on a company computer as they told the Department of Energy which is totally false. And/or it could be the use of the company laptop by my wife and daughter a few times which is true but is not going to be believable as cause for termination to any jury. They are going to have a “fun time” making that case. More on the quandary they are in some other post.
Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.
Josh Sugarmann
Conclusion
Assault Weapons and Accessories in America
1988, 42 pages, $6.00
[I’ve made reference to this quote before (and here) but never made it the QOTD. I do that today because Kevin uses it in his post The Other Side. As I mentioned in the comments to Kevin’s post, I have to have a certain amount of admiration for Sugarmann. It was this “study” by Sugarmann that was the seed for the “assault weapon” ban of 1994–all based on the deliberate confusion of the public. Mr. Sugarmann knows the truth and when the ’94 ban was about to sunset in 2004, while other anti-gun bigots were screaming about “blood will flow in the streets”, Sugarmann quietly told people that “not much will change” with the expiration of the ban. He successfully created the ban out of his insight on the ignorance and gullibility of the people and then moved on when he knew the deception could no longer be sustained.–Joe]
All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those towards whom it is directed will understand it. Therefore, the intellectual level of the propaganda must be lower the larger the number of people who are to be influenced by it.
Adolf Hitler
[This is part of the reason why we have trouble getting our message across to the public. Freedom, whether it is gun rights, right to privacy, or economic rights is more difficult to explain than, “The government will take care of you.” But just because something is simple to explain and appealing to the masses doesn’t mean it’s right. Hitler’s message was simple, appealing to the masses, and totally wrong. Just like the message of the anti-freedom bigots of our country today.–Joe]
I’d love one, but I’d probably get in trouble. Oregon has laws against hunting over a baited field.
Todd Ellner
12/24/2006 10:36 AM
Washington State Concealed Weapons Discussion
[Referring to the picture below which was found at this website.–Joe]
That discussion wouldn’t be productive.
Peggy Hevland
Specialist
HRM, CISD
peggy.hevland@pnl.gov
509-375-6523
June 3, 2005
[When I asked, “What specifically did I do wrong?” as she and Byran McMillian were in the process of firing me. It turns out that I later found out why I was being fired–some people had a problem with me being a civil (gun) rights advocate. It’s the quote of the day for today because I just found out the lawsuit papers have been served to McMillian. Peggy…Someday in the not too distant future I believe I’m going to have a very productive discussion with you. Either that you will be held in contempt of court.–Joe]
Only it’s guns. A real downer for the day.
Via Say Uncle.
Waiting for the door-to-door gun confiscation?
Better use that time to prevent them: Vote. Run for office. Train new shooters. Educate fence sitters.
Oleg Volk
November 11, 2006
Speaking of Oleg Volk, Say Uncle points out this picture from Oleg. It makes me wish I had taken pictures of my girls when they shot guns for the first time.
The title for this post is stolen from the commenter dantheserene to Oleg’s post.
