Benton County. Case 06-2-02728-8.
More later. Some details need to be taken care of before I say much more.
Category Archives: Gun Rights
Quote of the day–Mother Jones
For every attacker shot and killed in self-defense, 130 Americans are killed by guns for other reasons.
Mother Jones
Who We Kill
March/April 1996 Issue
The MoJo Wire and MOTHER JONES are projects of the Foundation for National Progress. A nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.
Founded in 1975 to educate and empower people to work toward progressive change.
[Another case of using the wrong metric. The correct metric is attacks stopped, not attackers killed.–Joe]
It helps to practice
I did a little bit of pistol practice last week. Then I did quite a bit of dry firing Saturday evening before going to the IPSC match on Sunday. I came in fifth overall out of 17 entries. The practice helped. In particular on the last stage I shot (Both Sides Now #1) I could feel things working correctly. I still hit, just barely, a no-shoot target but I felt myself enter into “the zone”. The conscious mind was merely an observer as the eyes, hands, and fingers aligned the sights and pulled the trigger. From 35 feet away I drew and fired six rounds into six targets while leaning around the edge of a barricaded in, on the average, under five seconds. It felt really good for a change. I should practice more.
Mixed news from Congressman Ron Paul
Ron Paul is actually a Libertarian. He just puts an R after his name so he can actually get elected instead of being on the outside and whine about things. He is a freedom advocate that is practical–something that is sometimes difficult for me. I tend to be more absolute and reluctant to sacrifice my principles even when I know it’s not in my best self interests to be so.
That aside, here’s what Ron Paul is saying about the current state of gun control:
The gun control movement has lost momentum in recent years. The Democratic Party has been conspicuously silent on the issue in recent elections because they know it’s a political loser. In the midst of declining public support for new gun laws, more and more states have adopted concealed-carry programs. The September 11th terrorist attacks and last year’s hurricanes only made matters worse for gun control proponents, as millions of Americans were starkly reminded that we cannot rely on government to protect us from criminals.
…
Gun control may have faded as a political issue, but the mentality that Washington knows best– and that certain constitutional rights are anachronisms– is alive and well. Look for gun control advocates to bide their time and look for new ways to resurrect the issue in 2008 and beyond.
As fast as we can… we need to change the negative view of guns and their owners. We need to have and create the proper State of Mind in the public.
A simple logical idea
Can’t we just all agree? Can’t we all just get along? It’s such a simple logical idea:
Montreal — A young man shot in the head during a college shooting rampage called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday to limit handguns and impose an outright ban on assault rifles.
Hayder Kadhim, who was shot three times by killer Kimveer Gill on Sept. 13, has written Mr. Harper an open letter in which he describes his ordeal after Gill opened fire on students at Dawson College, killing Anastasia De Sousa and wounding 20 other people.
“This has brought me, as a Canadian citizen, as a friend of Anastasia and as a victim, to write a letter to our prime minister to tell our government that we need to strengthen the laws regarding gun control,” Mr. Kadhim told a news conference.
“Guns and society definitely don’t mix. This is a simple logical idea that I think most Canadians would agree with.”
Simple ideas for simple minds. So if “guns and society definitely don’t mix” then you should be calling for the police and military of Canada to give up their guns too. After all, aren’t they part of society? Or do you think that guns do have some place in society? Don’t the police and the military have guns so they can protect innocent life? And don’t private citizens have a right to protect their own lives? It is this argument that brings “society” to the conclusion that the individual doesn’t have the right to defend themselves. To the conclusion that the good of “society” is more important that the good of the individual.
I’ve been listening to the audio book version of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I could rant on this topic for quite sometime at the moment. The book gets my blood pressure up. It’s fiction but it’s too close to reality to be comfortable. I don’t care for her version of ideal relationships between men and women but she really nails “the good of society” and “higher purpose”.
Quote of the day–Lord Acton
There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
Lord Acton
[Keep this in mind when dealing directly with the anti-gun bigots.–Joe]
Quote of the day–William O. Douglas
When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen’s constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.
William O. Douglas
Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court
April 17, 1939 to November 12, 1975
[Nice words but in practice there are certain complication in the implementation.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Larry Whitmore
This type of sensational journalism contributes nothing to an already emotion-filled debate and only serves to mislead and confuse the issue. The simple truth is: You cannot legislate against insanity. Unfortunately, Ackerman and others have a problem grasping that fact.
Larry Whitmore
Executive Director
Canadian Shooting Sports Association
Cannot legislate against insanity
October 30, 2006
Toronto Star
[It is my opinion they cannot grasp that fact because they too have mental problems. The writers of our constitution did in fact attempt to legislate against insanity. It’s called the Second Amendment. And as Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, et al. plainly demonstrate it wasn’t entirely successful.–Joe]
Another sign
Today, Amendment II Democrats pledges itself to helping take back America from the Republican Party and giving it back to the people. We will settle for nothing less than a Democratic House and Senate in 2006. And, at the same time, there is a golden opportunity for pro-RKBA Democrats to dramatically change firearms policy within the Democratic Party itself from the ground up. All we have to do is join together, stand up on our hind legs, and exercise our First Amendment rights if we want any hope of affecting real change within the party of Jefferson, Kennedy, and F.D. Roosevelt.
Can anyone name a U.S. political party that openly says, “We are opposed to the people having the right to keep and bear arms.”? Certainly there are individual politicians that work to subvert it and are openly for gun control. But they don’t dare make it a party platform.
We are making progress. We just need to drive the remaining bigots into political extinction. Once the gun issue is under control we can working on the next greatest threat to our freedom. My vote probably would be to set our sights on the war on some drugs or the income tax.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Barb and I visited the exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. Very interesting. It wasn’t overwhelming or awesome. It was more like somber reverence. To actually be looking at documents that were written over 2100 years ago put me in a very somber mood.
From what I could tell there weren’t any big revelations in the documents. A lot of them were copies of known works of the existing Bible. Others were rules for “purification” and other standards of behavior for a particular Jewish sect.
It was worth my time and money to see them since it was only a 30 minute drive and $20.00 to get in the door. Knowing what I know now I probably wouldn’t travel a 1000 miles and pay hundreds of dollars to see them. But then I’m an atheist and don’t consider the documents to be the word of god(s) either.
Update: I forgot to mention the indignity of attending. There was a big sign just before you went in the building but after you had paid for your ticket that said no firearms or knives. It even said mandatory search of bags. I had to find a locker across the way to put my knives and my handgun in. There was no search of my person and I’m pretty sure there were no metal detectors so I probably could have defied the sign and gotten away with it.
But what was the reason? Did they think someone was going to go off the deep end and shoot a 2100 year old scrap of parchment? Oh, I forgot, they don’t need a reason.
Choosing the right metric
One of my “hot buttons” is when people choose the wrong measurement for optimization.
I did that with Boomershoot 2005 when I tweaked the explosive mixture such that I got good results with a rim-fire .22. It turned out that the typical center-fire bullets had great difficulty detonating them.
This metric problem was one of my points in this post.
I heard of one software company that gave raises out based on the number of lines of code produced by the software developers. This adversely affected the designs, implementations, and even style of the code produced.
Another well known anti-virus software company paid bonuses for quickly finding solutions to new computer viruses. One enterprising employee became well known for finding figuring them out. Of course he didn’t tell management that he had created these same viruses and released them into the wild.
Gun control advocates rejoice and claim they were right when deaths and injuries due to bullet wounds decrease after a restriction on firearms is passed into law. They do that even if violent crime, injuries, and deaths increase. They ignore that many of those deaths and injuries are justifiable or even praiseworthy shootings that stopped criminal attacks.
Another one is that windmill manufactures work toward greater efficiency. In most cases this is the wrong measurement. The only case that this is important is if land space or wind is in short supply. If you have lots of land that can host windmills then the correct metric is cost per kilowatt-hour over the lifetime of the windmill.
Some of the first mass produced solar cells were for use in spacecraft. Area and weight were at a premium and hence efficiency was one of the proper metrics to use in the design. That is not true for the side of the shed I used for mixing and storing explosives over a quarter mile from the nearest usable power line. I have lots of area and I don’t care if it takes ten times as much area as the more efficient but twice as expensive solar cells to generate the same power. This is now being realized by the manufactures.
Examine every metric carefully. Think about the unintended consequences. Think about what is really important to the target audience. It can make a huge difference.
The consequences of gay marriage
Clayton claims that that the recent court rulings on allowing gay marriage, “… is likely to make the legal situation for homosexuals more difficult, not easier.” He also predicts that these court rulings will help get Republicans to the polls this election.
I agree with this latter point but disagree with the first. I think gay marriage as well as equal rights for gay is here to stay. It is an idea whose time has come. The worst anti-gay politicians can do is slow down the inevitable. The reason is because there have not been any dire consequences happen that are attributable to acceptance of gays in society. Just as gun owners right to carry weapons for self defense were gradually recognized in state after state without “blood running in the streets” so it is with gays and the recognization of their rights.
It will be scary for some, just as it was with people carrying firearms in public, but eventually the fear will subside and most people will accept it.
Running up the white flag
According to Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University:
Democrats have run up the white flag. They have evidently concluded that curtailing the right of gun ownership is a nonstarter, especially if they intend to pursue victory in 50 states.
He speaks of “curtailing the right” as if it were a good thing. Would he speak so highly of curtailing the right of free speech? Or curtailing the right of due process? And he calls this running up the white flag? How about reluctantly acknowledging that the public will tolerate few further infringements of their right to gun ownership?
And this point total ignores the reality of those infringements being useless in terms of furthering public safety.
Get a grip on reality man. The Democrats needed a clue-by-four but at least most of them now avoid leading with their chin with their crazy ideas to restrict this particular inalienable right.
Beltway snipers
The Beltway Snipers have been of more than casual interest to me for numerous reasons. Even before we knew who they were or their motives it was source of concern because of the damage it did to our right to keep and bear arms. I was also asked by a program manager when I worked at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory if I had any ideas on how to catch them. The labs were getting asked by law enforcement for help. I didn’t really have anything other than what was already known. I don’t really think short of creating a surveillance society of both video and audio sensors that new technology can offer much help in catching criminals of this nature. But that’s getting off my main impetus for this post.
Michelle Malkin points out one of the criminals has confessed to another murder in Arizona.
It’s amazing to me how much these criminal got away with before being caught. And then they only got caught after they started leaving notes for the police!
It appears that because their motives are not obvious from the crimes it was extremely difficult to find suspects to examine for evidence. Scary stuff.
I tried but I couldn’t do it
I started reading the Brady Center’s “report” titled The NRA: A Criminal’s Best Friend–How the National Rifle Association Has Handcuffed Federal Gun Law Enforcement but had to stop when I got to:
<blockquote”>
…rolled back this provision of the Gun Control Act, leading to the dangerous spread of gun shows and sales by licensed gun dealers to criminals outside their place of business at these largely unregulated arms bazaars.
“Dangerous spread of gun shows”? Exercising the constitutionally protected rights of freedom of association and the right to keep and bear arms is “dangerous”? And no one can legally sell to convicted felons in or outside their place of business. There’s no exemption in the law for gun shows.
I have Just One Question for these bigots–the KKK of the 21st Century.
I’m so tempted
“Evil thoughts” from reading this:
Your generous donation and bids on our auction will support the Freedom States Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to “Changing the Way America Things About Guns.”
All proceeds go directly to grassroots organizations working to reduce gun violence.
Our auction items range from exotic vacation getaways to donated items guaranteed to delight and surprise!
I wonder what the reaction would be if I donated a shooting position at Boomershoot 2007 for their auction. I guarantee my donation would “surprise”. And I would get a great deal of delight from it if I could see the expression on their face. But since they would get all the surprise and I can’t get any of the delight I’ll just continue to fantasize about it.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
It’s rare that I copy some one else’s blog posting word for word without adding some significant content of my own. But in this case I don’t have much to add. Say Uncle has pretty much said all there is to say on the topic and about all I can say is, “Me too.” So here goes:
And, while we’re at it, let’s add:
After all, that is their goal. Don’t be fooled.
There are others that want to ban all guns too. And of course these guys don’t even try to hide the fact that they want to ban all guns.
Uncovered meat
To my female readers, just so you know your place:
Muslim leaders, women’s rights advocates and political leaders in Australia today condemned one of the country’s top Islamic clerics for comparing women who don’t wear head scarves to “uncovered meat” who invite rape.
…
In a translation from Arabic by the newspaper, later verified by other media, Hilali was quoted as saying in the sermon: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s?”
“The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the head scarf worn by some Muslim women.
Of course if some “cat” treats one of my daughters like “uncovered meat” there might be some question as to who is going to end up as “uncovered meat” for the cat. And example of daughter Kim in action is here.
Quote of the day–Greg Hamilton
From the Greg Hamilton to English Dictionary by Meredith Robinson:
Mass Launcher also Behavior Modification Device and/or Reactive Defensive Tool
Translation: A gun.
Give them back
Say Uncle pointed out this website by the NRA. I made the mistake of watching the videos just as I’m about to go to bed. That wasn’t wise. My adrenalin is running way to high to sleep now.