Our laws can be friendly to those who obey them, and too often useful to those who don’t.
Cullen Hightower
[Among the most useful laws to those that disobey them are the laws that attempt to ban or restrict goods or services. The black market always finds a way whether it is something physical like booze, guns or recreational drugs or some service such as high interest loans (loan sharking), gambling or prostitution.–Joe]
Category Archives: Gun Rights
Quote of the day–Adolf Hitler
Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.
Adolf Hitler
[For my readers, see Dan’s comment, that don’t “feel” people living under restrictive gun laws are oppressed.–Joe]
This is what happens in places without guns–Case I
If this had been in a gun friendly state in the U.S. these scumbags would be suffering from acute lead poisoning after about the second “unannounced visit” and the expected winners of the next Darwin awards. Instead they invaded several homes before getting caught and will get another chance to invade homes after they get out.
A Dublin man was tonight sentenced to nine years in jail for trying to force a young woman to have sex with her flatmate and then cutting her with a knife.
Stephen Phelan, 20, from Poddle Close in Kimmage was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and assault causing harm to the woman by a jury in June.
At the sentencing hearing, Judge Phillip O’Sullivan also imposed concurrent sentences ranging from three to seven years for 17 other offences carried out on the same night.
On February 11 2003, Phelan and an accomplice began a spree of burglaries which led to the sexual assault, the stabbing of a student nine times and the crashing of a car into a Dublin Bus.
Judge O’Sullivan said Phelan had been involved in a series of violent incidents and outlined the impact on his victims: post traumatic stress disorder, the loss of power in an arm, permanent scar wounds and a fear of sleeping alone at night.
“No summary of mine can do justice to the trauma suffered by these people,” he said.
He imposed a five-year probation sentence on Phelan to commence on his release, after hearing from a psychiatrist who said he had serious reservations about him getting out into society again under the influence of drugs.
Phelan had been spending €1500-€1600 euro a day on crack cocaine and had been using robberies to fund his habit.
Detective Sergeant George McGeary said Phelan and his accomplice, who has since fled the jurisdiction, had broken into a house in Harold’s Cross, where four people were living, including the young woman.
They armed themselves with a screwdriver, a Stanley knife, a Swiss army knife, a dumb-bell and a hacksaw.
After searching the house for property and money, Phelan went into the bedroom of a 24-year-old tenant. She screamed when she saw him and shouted at her flatmate to get her trousers.
The court heard he came into the room and told her: “Give us what we want or we’ll cut you.”
He was unable to find her ATM card and told her to take off her clothes, where he believed she was concealing it.
Later in the burglary, he came back into her room and told her to lie down on the bed or he would cut her nipples.
She refused several times to take off her clothes but then Phelan came back, held a knife to her throat and told her to ’take off her f*****g clothes’.
Detective Sergeant McGeary told the court that she was crying while she took her trouser bottoms off.
He used his knife to cut off her underwear and then told her to have sex with one of her two male flatmates.
He refused, saying “She’s my friend” but was then cut twice on the upper arm in a X shape.
The young woman was then ordered into the bedroom of another flatmate, who had been forced to lie naked on the bed.
Phelan told them to have sex together and they kissed, pretending to have sex.
Phelan then cut the woman’s buttocks with a knife and also made a cut running from the top of her back to the base.
Detective Sergeant McGeary told the court that the flatmates had been terrified by Phelan’s threats.
Home invasions are rare where people’s rights to defend themselves are not infringed by oppressive governments. And this is just a hint of some of the things that happen.
Heads up!
I don’t know if this is something to be looking out for or if it’s
just some random event. But from watching my sitemeter I discovered the
following. The ATF (“Executive Office of the Asset Forfeiture” no
less!) just did a web search for the words {exploding targets}.
Regardless of their intent I doubt that it will affect Boomershoot much
since we don’t sell them just provide the opportunity to shoot at
them. But it might affect Tannerite
and others. Or it could just be they wanted to purchase some for
their own amusement. Further conjecture on my part would be
unwarranted.
| Domain Name | atfonline.gov ? (United States Government) |
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| IP Address | 199.196.144.# (Executive Office of Asset Forfeiture) |
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| ISP | Executive Office of Asset Forfeiture |
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| Location |
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| Language | English (United States) en-us |
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| Operating System | Microsoft Win2000 | ||||||||||||||||
| Browser | Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) |
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| Javascript | version 1.3 | ||||||||||||||||
| Monitor |
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| Time of Visit | Dec 12 2005 11:28:00 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Last Page View | Dec 12 2005 11:29:42 am | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Length | 1 minute 42 seconds | ||||||||||||||||
| Page Views | 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| Referring URL | http://www.dogpile.c…7/top/-/Moderate/0/1 | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | http://blog.joehuffm…ploding Targets.aspx |
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| Visit Exit Page | http://blog.joehuffm…merite II Tests.aspx |
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| Time Zone | UTC-6:00 CST – Central Standard Time CDT – Central Daylight Saving Time |
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| Visitor’s Time | Dec 12 2005 1:28:00 pm | ||||||||||||||||
| Visit Number | 52,344 |
Quote of the day–Robert Fulford
My generation of Canadians grew up believing that, if we were very good or very smart, we would someday graduate from Canada.
Robert Fulford
[Particularily relevant now with the proposed ban on handguns in Canada.–Joe]
Fuel depot blast in England
It’s too early to know for certain if it was an accident or if it was terrorism. And even if it was determined to be terrorism there is a good chance that knowledge would be restricted. In any case, it sure was a big explosion (latest news here):
A series of explosions rocked a major oil depot just north of London just before dawn Sunday, injuring 36 people.
Huge balls of fire shot into the sky and the area was filled with clouds of thick, black smoke.
People living nearby have been forced to leave their homes in Hemel Hempstead.
Some residents said they heard a small plane flying overhead just before the first blast. But Hertfordshire police said rumours that the aircraft was involved were unfounded.
Witnesses said there were three explosions at the Buncefield fuel depot. The blasts were heard as far away as the Netherlands.
Some firefighters said that this was the biggest fire they’ve ever tackled.
Thick clouds of smoke were spreading to the southeast and southwest, but were not believed to be toxic.
The oil depot supplies fuel for a large part of southeast England. However, a spokesperwosn for oil giant BP said there would be no problems with fuel shortages.
And if it does happen that it was a terrorist attack the VPC and Brady Bunch should take note that this sort of thing happens even where .50 BMG’s are banned. It’s the people not the guns.
Exporting the gun culture
It’s not much, but it’s a start:
READING, England — During his training to become a British police
officer, Ben Johnson recalled, an instructor told him and other
recruits, “If you ever see somebody carrying a gun, turn and run away
as quickly as possible.”“It was a bizarre situation,” said Johnson, 34, a former police
officer in Garland, Tex., and U.S. Army soldier who moved here with his
British wife three years ago and became this country’s first
non-British police officer. He said running from trouble was exactly
the opposite of what he learned as an American cop.Now Johnson is publicly challenging one of the great traditions of
law enforcement in Britain, what he calls the “old-fashioned idea of
the unarmed bobby on the beat.” He has written to his chief asking for
permission to carry a gun, arguing that Britain is no longer safe for
unarmed and under-trained police officers. He says he will resign if
the chief refuses.Johnson’s case has caused a media furor here, partly because an
American — a Texan no less — is claiming he feels less safe as a
police officer in Britain than he did on the beat in the United States,
which is routinely portrayed here as a gun-drunk Wild West.…
Britain has some of the world’s toughest gun-control laws, and
violent crime, while increasing, is still far less common than in the
United States. There were 184 murders last year in London, a city of
more than 7 million people, compared with 572 in New York City, which
has 8 million people.…
“The U.K. is changing rapidly, and the police have been slow to
adapt,” said Johnson, 6-foot-4 and razor thin, cradling his infant
daughter in his lap in the dining room of his neat row house. “We
should value the lives of police officers enough to properly equip them
and train them to do the job — even if that means getting rid of some
old-fashioned notions.”He said he had 36 weeks of academy training and
supervised field work to become a police officer in Texas. But at
Thames Valley he said he received less than half that, and most of the
instruction involved how to fill out paperwork.Johnson said British officers are instructed to retreat if they see
a gun and call for backup from armed officers, but that can give
suspects time to escape.
I love how they compare the entire U.K.
London, with tough gun control laws, to NYC also with tough gun control
laws. Why not compare it to the states of Washington and Idaho
combined? Those states are almost friendly to gun owners and the
right to self defense. They have about the same population and a good mix of urban and rural areas. Why? Because it’s the Washington Post and they have an agenda. Here is a comparison they could have done:
Washington and Idaho Population according to the 2000 census: 5894143 + 1293953 => 7188096
Washington and Idaho murders and non-negligent manslaughter (FBI Year 2000 UCR): 196 + 16 => 212.
So, even with the “gun-drunk” Wild West states of
Washington and Idaho the number of murders is comparable. Could
it be that something other than rate of gun ownership is the dominate
factor? Any sane person would conclude that, but the anti-gun bigots aren’t sane.�
That there is even a debate about keeping policemen disarmed in the
U.K. is further proof of that nationwide case of Hoplophobia. Fortunately there is help–if they would just take advantage of it.
Update: My mistake. The Washington post
comparison was London to NYC, not the entire UK to NYC. I’ll
update with city to city murder rates when I have more time.
Help Washington Ceasefire
It’s an exceedingly rare event when I encourage people to help Washington Ceasefire rather than Washington Ceasefear. But this is one of those rare times. Ceasefire is conducting a poll. The question of the poll is: “How serious do you think handgun violence is in Washington?” Currently the results of the poll (on the main page, this may not last long) are:
Answer Votes Percentage Not at all serious: 14 60.% Very serious: 6 26.1% Somewhat serious: 2 8.7% Not very serious: 1 4.3% A little serious: 0 0.0%
There are so few votes it’s not a good statistical sample. Why don’t we help them out? And just to be fair–only vote once.
Update (04:20, December 12, 2005): Analog Kid posted about the poll and his readers helped out too. Thanks to everyone that participated. Here are the latest results:
Answer Votes Percentage Not at all serious: 425 77.6% Not very serious: 83 15.1% Very serious: 27 4.9% A little serious: 11 8.7% Somewhat serious: 2 0.4%
Special Boomershoot pricing for Canadians
Considering recent news from Canada and the real reason for Boomershoot I have decided to give Canadians entering Boomershoot 2006 a rebate of one half the price their entry fee. Payable upon showing their Canadian drivers license or other proof of Canadian citizenship at Boomershoot 2006.
Quote of the day–Greg Hamilton
Happiness is being near the top of the food chain.
Back of a T-shirt worn by
Greg Hamilton
Self defense and firearms instructor
September 15, 1997
[Also applicable to the truth laid bear ecosystem for blogs.–Joe]
Liberals plan to announce handgun ban
Yahoo News reports:
OTTAWA (CP) – Prime Minister Paul Martin will venture into a violence-plagued area of Toronto on Thursday to announce a sweeping ban on handguns, The Canadian Press has learned.
Martin was scheduled to visit Toronto’s troubled Jane-Finch area to make a “safer communities announcement.” Liberal sources have confirmed the announcement includes an “outright” ban on handguns.
However, there will be exceptions for competitive target shooters, gun collectors and peace officers, a Liberal insider said on condition of anonymity. The source would not explain any more details of the policy proposal.
Handguns are already severely restricted in Canada and a handgun registry has been in force for more than 60 years.
…
Windsor MP Joe Comartin, the New Democratic Party’s justice critic, said the announcement sounds like “smoke and mirrors.”
“Basically, all handguns in Canada are illegal now,” said Comartin. “The only people who get permits are those who are using them for recreational purposes or those who need it for their own personal safety and there’s not a lot of those that are granted.”
He said the announcement sounds like “a political ploy during an election to garner some headlines and make it look like you’re actually doing something when, in fact, what you’re proposing is pretty meaningless.”
…
It remains to be seen how the ban will go over in rural areas, where the issue is more about rifles. Many Prairie rifle owners have never forgiven the Liberals for creating a registry for long guns.
Created 10 years ago, the registry was supposed to cost a mere $2 million. Instead, its cost has ballooned to more than $1 billion.
The Conservatives, who declined comment on the expected handgun ban Wednesday, have called the program a boondoggle and Auditor General Sheila Fraser has sharply criticized the waste and mismanagment that have pervaded the registry.
Gun owners warned at the time that the registry was the first step toward confiscation of their guns. Martin’s announcement may be seen as confirmation of their worst fears.
…
Wendy Cukier, who co-founded the Coalition for Gun Control after the Montreal massacre, said the government has yet to live up to previous promises to ban the AR-15 semi-assault rifle and the Ruger Mini-14, the same weapon used in the Polytechnique shootings.
But she said existing laws limiting the use of rifles and shotguns have been successful.
“Overall gun death and injury in Canada is way down,” Cukier said. “Where we’ve actually seen a slight increase is in murders with handguns and so clearly our existing laws are not addressing the handgun problem and something is needed.”
…
“It’s going to accomplish nothing,” said Wayne Fields of LaSalle, Ont., president of the Law-Abiding Registered Firearms Association. “There’s already all types of legislation and illegal use of handguns is out of control.”
Quick correction, it should be Law-Abiding Unregistered Firearms Association.
I’ve commented on Cukier before (and here, and here). I’m certain she is not ignorant on this issue, I think James has her pegged, and she is deliberately misleading when she says “gun death and injury in Canada is way down”. That’s not the issue. The issue is what is the total crime rate? As you restrict weapons the population at large is made less safe because criminals have a safer working environment. You have reduced the total cost to being a criminal. A criminal can be successful simply by being large, strong, or armed with a simpler and/or cheaper weapon. If you could magically eliminate all firearms from the planet you could set the firearm death rate to zero but the total murder rate could climb. There is Just One Question at issue here and Cukier dodges it.
And of course assurances by the anti-freedom bigots that a gun registry won’t be used for confiscation are worthless. That is the only thing it is good for.
Quote of the day–James Bovard
Gun bans are an attempt to confiscate the right of self-defense. Politicians perennially react to the police’s total failure to control crime by trying to disarm law-abiding citizens. In a nutshell, gun bans mean that because criminals abuse guns, law-abiding citizen have no right to defend themselves.
James Bovard
Lost Rights
ISBN 0-312-12333-7
Copyright 1994, 1995
Outstanding photography
I have been a fan of Oleg Volk’s photographs for many years. These are some fairly new ones:
http://www.olegvolk.net/gallery/arms/guncontrol4677
http://www.olegvolk.net/gallery/arms/swordmaidentwo5009
http://www.olegvolk.net/gallery/arms/allpink4803
I think my daughter Xenia would especially like the second one.
Funniest AR-15 post ever
I don’t read much of AR15.com–mostly just when I see hits coming in on Boomershoot.org from it. Today this link was posted on an public folder at work. Some of the AR-15.com crowd claim it’s the funniest post ever. It could be–it’s very good. But you probably have to be a moderately well trained gun person to get the totality of the humor.
Aside from the humor there are some important lessons to be learned from the pictures and the comments. I’ll leave those lessons unstated so that it is less likely inappropriate people learn them.
Quote of the day–Bill Boyle
Real men use guns made of metal and use other people’s teeth to rack the slide.
Bill Boyle
Monday, December 05, 2005 2:33 PM
Microsoft Gun Club
After someone else suggested using his teeth to rack the slide on his polymer pistol if one hand was incapacitated.
Boomershoot t-shirt slogan
It’s time for me to create the next Boomershoot t-shirt (and mugs, hats, thongs, etc.). If you have a slogan you think would especially appropriate let me know and if I use it I’ll give you a free shirt, mug, whatever with that slogan on it.
Send your entry to slogan@boomershoot.org. Enter as many times as you like. I will be the final judge on what is used. All whiners complaining about not winning will receive an ammonium nitrate prill as a consolation prize if they show up at Boomershoot 2006 to claim it (valued at $250/ton–one prill weighs approximately 1 grain). Boomershoot helpers, friends and family members are all welcome to submit entries. Deadline is December 15, 2005. Here are previous years slogans:
- 2001–THE BIG BANG!
- 2002–Guns. Explosives. I was there.
- 2003–Project Fireball 2003
- 2004–A ton of explosives. Fun beyond measure.
- 2005–Exercise your freedom with guns and explosives.
Update: The slogans proposed so far. I don’t want people entering duplicates:
- BANG — BOOM — COOL!
- A practical alternative to a wholesome day at work. [I think I would change this to “A wholesome alternative to a practical day at work.”–Joe]
- A magical land full of rifles and explosives.
- Good marksmanship has EXPLOSIVE rewards!
- WHOO-WEE! That blowed up REAL GOOD! [obscure SCTV reference]
- Take your shot from the Grassy Knoll. [get all sorts of Google traffic from JFK theorists.]
- The smell of cordite. The sound of thunder.
- Heads up! Here comes the anvil!
- Prometheus suffered so you could do stuff like this. Don’t be ungrateful.
- Welcome to Joe’s World!
- Freedom smells like gunpowder
- Feinstein’s worst nightmare: Families. Guns. Fun.
- Sight alignment, trigger squeeze, holy shit!
- Guns, Explosives, and the Pursuit of Happiness
- Blow Shiite up
- Famous
potatoesexplosives - Reach Out And Blow Something Up
- This is my target. There are many like it. But this one explodes! [based on the Rifleman’s Creed]
- Peace Through Superior Marksmanship [I think I would change this to “Freedom Through Superior Marksmanship”–Joe]
- The blood of the enemy!
- Vini. Vidi. Boom. [I came. I saw. I blew stuff up.]
- Don’t know Jesus??? I’ll make ya Holey !!! Braaappp….
- Peace, Love, Explosives and Guns.
- Got boom?
- Got kaboom?
- If you don’t get it, then never mind.
- Life, liberty, and the pursuit of kaboom…
- I shit you not – we shoot bombs. [Hint to others. We NEVER use the ‘B’ word at Boomershoot.–Joe]
- We shoot bombs. [Ditto the previous comment.]
- Get a big BANG for your buck.
Gifts for gun haters
Click on the image for variations on the theme.
Complaining about freedom
The Canadian Shooting Sports Association invited Glen Caroline, director of the NRA’s grassroots division, to be a keynote speaker and is give a seminar. Wendy Cukier (I wrote about her before) and other anti-freedom advocates are all bent out of shape about it. They apparently have a problem with freedom of association and freedom of speech as well as freedom to keep and bear arms. From The Star:
U.S. gun lobbyist here to `counsel’
Canadian shooting group enlists NRA Official denies interfering with election
Nice. The paper doesn’t say the NRA is interfering in the election–they just plant that thought by saying the Canadian shooting group denies it. Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, and Mother Therese would have denied being mass murderers too.
Dec. 3, 2005. 01:00 AM
BETSY POWELL
CRIME REPORTER
A crime reporter! How appropriate for a political story.
…
But Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, said she’s astonished by the blatancy of the NRA’s involvement because the group’s influence in jurisdictions outside the United States, while well known to people who monitor gun control issues, is not as familiar to the public at large.
“I don’t think the average Canadian understands how powerful the gun lobby is,” in opposing attempts to block tightening of gun control legislation and bans on handgun sales, the Ryerson professor said.
“It is ironic because it’s three days before the anniversary of the Montreal massacre, it’s in Toronto where most people are currently preoccupied with trying to prevent gun violence.”
The NRA has a well-established tradition of “interfering” in other countries, Alun Howard, of the International Action Network on Small Arms, said yesterday by phone from London, England. “We’ve seen them working in Central America … their arguments have appeared in England and Australia, so it’s certainly a worrying trend that the NRA has gone global.”
Most recently, the NRA’s influence was credited — or blamed, depending on your viewpoint — with influencing the outcome of Brazil’s national referendum in October on a proposal to ban the sale of guns.
In a country with one of the world’s highest firearm murder rates, the proposal was soundly rejected.
NRA public affairs director Andrew Arulanandam said yesterday that the organization is only too happy to provide “counsel” to organizations in other countries to help ensure that “gun rights” prevail around the world, adding “we’re really heartened with what happened in Brazil.”
The NRA was approached because members belonging to the association share its underlying mantra: that gun control laws don’t work, criminals don’t obey the law, and the only people affected by gun control are law-abiding citizens, Whitmore said.
I just “love” that a “crime reporter” wrote the story, not a political reporter. And that the reporter describes as a mantra (mystic incantation) the verifiable fact “gun control laws don’t work, criminals don’t obey the law, and the only people affected by gun control are law-abiding citizens.”
After we are done in Iraq we need to liberate Canada from the bigots like this ‘reporter’.
Quote of the day–JJ Johnson
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we have this discussion with you folks about 223 years ago? I’d have thought that having the road between Lexington and Concord fertilized with dead Redcoats answered that question back then.
…
If my ancestors would have been armed, they wouldn’t have been slaves.
JJ Johnson
Black American gun-owner
Answering the poll question “Should America ban the handgun?”
BBC News — March 1998
Quote of the day–Iver Johnson revolver ad
ARE YOU A MENACE TO CRIMINALS?
If householders were required by law to own and know how to use revolvers, burglary would cease. It is an act of good citizenship to make crime dangerous — an encouragement of crime to remain defenseless.
From an Iver Johnson revolver ad
Circa 1904