If Obama wants to truly curb gun ownership at the national level, the solution there is also simple, as the following chart from the NYT reveals:
He should resign.
Tyler Durden
January 1, 2016
Obama To Unveil “Multiple Gun Control” Executive Actions Next Week
[I’m not sure it would reduce it but it stands a chance of slowing the growth.—Joe]
Via NRA-ILA:
In control systems and electronic amplifiers engineers design things to be self correcting. Think of the simple control system for the heating system in your home. You set the thermostat to a particular temperature and it will turn the heat on it if gets too cool and off when it reaches the desired temperature. This is a closed loop system. There is a sensor which provides information about the current status of the system and this information is used to control the heat source and keep the temperature within acceptable limits. The system has a feedback loop from the output (the room temperature) back to the input (the heat supply).
Without such a feedback loop it would be very difficult to maintain a system at a stable temperature. When the outside temperature changed the inside temperature would change too. If someone left a window open the interior temperature would change.
I have often thought our planet must have one or more feedback loops to maintain it’s temperature at something very close to the same (averaged the entire surface over the entire year) temperature. I knew one feedback loop, which the climate change people seldom, if ever, mention, was that plants are CO2 starved. At our current concentration of about 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere it’s not easy for the plants to absorb and then pull the carbon apart from the oxygen to build plant matter. In fact, at current atmospheric pressures, photosynthesis shuts down at between 150 ppm and 200 ppm. As atmospheric CO2 increases plants grow faster. Faster growing plants mean more energy is absorbed from the sun, reducing atmospheric heating, and more CO2 is absorbed from the air. Hence the green house effect, atmospheric warming, from increased CO2 is counteracted, at least in part, by the feedback mechanism of increased plant growth.
There are other feedback systems as well. One of which only very recently was discovered:
According to a study by the Institute of Catalysis and Environment in Lyon (IRCELYON, CNRS / University Lyon 1) and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), the oceans are producing unexpectedly large quantities of isoprene – a volatile organic compound (VOC) – which is known to have a cooling effect on climate.
Our planet temperature is not an open loop system. If it were then the global warming/cooling climate change people would be right to be concerned. But it is, almost, obviously not. Closed loop systems are much more difficult to upset and are much more stable. We have a closed loop system with many feedback loops. These loops make the system extremely difficult to model but don’t tell me climate is changing until you can explain to me how the inputs to the system have the potential to break the feedback loops which stabilize the temperature.
If the railing cry of the English Parliament was no “taxation without representation” today’s slogan ought to be “no representation without taxation” since it is the latter that best incentives participation.
Samuel P. Huntington
From The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama.
[I only have the one QOTD from this book. And then it was only when the author quoted someone else. But it is an excellent book. I found it fascinating.—Joe]
I have yet to see a gun-control proposal that persuasively purports to do this or even one that would have stopped any of the recent high-profile events.
…
Usually, policymakers prescribe proposals that apply to a recent policy failure, but in the case of gun control, the proposals don’t even address the margins.
Cynthia M. Allen
December 10, 2015
Please, please convince me gun control will work
[Yup. And the only answer I can come up with for this behavior is that they have some other motivation than stopping the high-profile events we are seeing.—Joe]
… the media have played right into Trump’s hand.
They constantly denounce him as grossly insensitive for what he has said about women, Mexicans, Muslims, McCain and a reporter with a disability. Such crimes against decency, says the press, disqualify Trump as a candidate for president.
Yet, when they demand he apologize, Trump doubles down. And when they demand that Republicans repudiate him, the GOP base replies:
“Who are you to tell us whom we may nominate? You are not friends. You are not going to vote for us. And the names you call Trump — bigot, racist, xenophobe, sexist — are the names you call us, nothing but cuss words that a corrupt establishment uses on those it most detests.”
What the Trump campaign reveals is that, to populists and Republicans, the political establishment and its media arm are looked upon the way the commons and peasantry of 1789 looked upon the ancient regime and the king’s courtiers at Versailles.
Patrick J. Buchanan
December 3, 2015
Why Liberal Media Hate Trump
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Republicans! Don’t get me started. You can’t sneer at constitutional rights for a decade and a half and then expect them to be a credible shield when you abruptly decide they matter again. With few exceptions, Republicans arguing about Second Amendment rights resemble a kid becoming a sudden rules-lawyer halfway through a game of Calvinball.
Ken White
December 7, 2015
Talking Productively About Guns
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
The French have been working hard for years to show the Muslims that they mean them no harm. THAT, we are told, is how you get along in peace with people of other cultures, and if other people hate you then there must be a good reason; you need to look at yourself and see what you can do to make them stop hating you.
The French have also adopted the idea of massive violations of the right of honest citizens to keep and bear arms. Criminals will have whatever they want, but the honest must be disarmed.
Predictably then, we get this quote after last night’s coordinated jihad attacks in and around Paris. This was from someone at a rock concert;
“We lied down on the floor not to get hurt. It was a huge panic. The terrorists shot at us for 10 to 15 minutes. It was a bloodbath.” (That’s from CNN if you want to look. I’m not linking to them)
If all you can do is lie down and hope, while people around you are being shot, for 10 to 15 minutes, then your tactics suck. Dozens of people died on that scene, like the helpless sheep they worked so hard to become.
They’ve brought this upon themselves, I’m very sorry to say, and it’s difficult to have much sympathy for them. We’ve tried for years to warn them.
The left in the U.S. sees all this and says to themselves; “We totally need more multiculturalism and more gun control.” That attitude, that insanity, is the enemy as much as any jihadist, for it is that attitude that has emboldened the jihadists. They must be laughing their asses off at our stupidity.
Via a link on Facebook by Greg Hamilton we have pictures of the (fake) car bomb (see also here) the Islamic wannabe terrorist tried to detonate and murder 25,000 people in Portland Oregon in 2010:
To me, one of the more interesting parts of the story is this:
The evidence admitted at trial provided the public a rare glimpse at FBI techniques used in terrorism sting investigations. Most terrorism cases don’t go to trial; they often end in a guilty plea instead.
This is consistent with what Greg said on Facebook and what I have heard hints of before:
Dozens of these have been prevented. Some so early they never became a story.
Carry your gun. It almost for certain won’t help with a real car bomb but it could be very useful in a mass shooting incident.
War has been repeatedly declared on us by these people. We are at war whether you want to believe it or not.
It’s just a labor camp, and work sets you free, so really they just want to set you free…
Lyle
December 2, 2015
Comment to Quote of the day—Comrade Enver Hoxha@ComradeEnver
[That is so twisted that it’s essentially true.—Joe]
Opposing common-sense gun safety laws either means that someone is too extreme or too much in the pocket of the gun lobby.
Geoff Garin
A pollster for Clinton’s 2008 campaign now with her super PAC, Priorities USA Action
November 6, 2015
Why Hillary Clinton Thinks Gun Control Can Win in 2016
[Via an email from Miles (a frequent commenter here).
As he also said in the email:
Yep, this is what they think of us. And if they’re this delusional, I hope thy keep thinking it.
While it’s clear the Democrats don’t have very strong presidential candidates and they are choosing their issues poorly I currently don’t see a lot of strength in their opposition. So I suspect it will be another one of those elections where many people will vote for the candidate who they think is the least evil.—Joe]
With this enemy, we have to push aside arguments on law, morality and comparisons of security and the rights of the individual. That means to do what they did in World War II to Dresden. They wiped it off the map. That is what has to be done to all the territorial enclaves that ISIS is holding.
Shabtai Shavit
Former chief of Mossad
November 15, 2015
Experts Explain How Global Powers Can Smash ISIS
[Opinions vary. Read the article for other views.—Joe]
Democrats aren’t doing this because they think it’s the only possible way to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons. We know this because we’ve established that the attorney general already has all the power she needs to indict, arrest, convict, and sentence known, dangerous terrorists. Democrats are doing this because they think it will benefit them politically. In the wake of a massive terrorist attack on free, innocent people in Paris, Washington Democrats have decided that their real enemy isn’t ISIS. Just like Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton declared in a recent debate, their real enemies are Republicans.
And they’ll do whatever they can to defeat these dangerous electoral terrorists…even if it requires the wholesale elimination of the constitutional right to due process.
Sean Davis
Co-founder of The Federalist
November 23, 2015
Sorry Democrats, But There Is No ‘Loophole’ That Allows Terrorists To Legally Buy Guns
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
As much as there ever was a primary thread.
I’m working on another book. Well, three or four of them, nominally in parallel. Because one at a time would be to simple 8-0… Anyway, I’m not much of a biblical scholar, but there are a series of related topics that are not “easy look-up” sorts of subjects on Catholic church teachings, monastic order traditions, and canon that I need to know so I don’t make too many , er, “fundamental” errors on the faith and teachings. If you know something about the Bible, and perhaps are a regular church-goer who would like to see that a SF books gets the basic correct and would like to weigh in a few thoughts, head on over to Not A Biblical Scholar and add your two cents worth.
Our nation has watched as community after community has had to confront the tragedies that occur when weapons designed to kill large numbers of people quickly get into the hands of a dangerous person. No Wisconsin community should ever have to face such a tragedy at the hands of someone armed with a semiautomatic assault weapon.
I can conceive of no legitimate reason that any citizen should need to own or use a semiautomatic assault weapon.
Lisa Subeck
State Representative, Democrat Wisconsin
Media release November 4, 2015.
[H/T to Barron for the email pointer.
I can think of many reasons why citizens should own and use the type of firearms she wishes to ban. And like a fish who doesn’t know what water is Ms. Subeck doesn’t have the imagination to recognized the most obvious reason. That is, the number one reason for owning and becoming skilled in the use of these type of firearms is to defend ourselves against people like her who are contemptuous of basic human rights.
In addition to the general stupidity of her media release her bill demonstrates she is clueless in many dimensions. Here, for example, is her description of the pistols to be banned from the proposed bill:
3. A semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and that has any of the following:
a. A folding, telescoping, or thumbhole stock.
b. A 2nd handgrip or protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand.
c. The capacity to accept an ammunition magazine that attaches to the pistol outside of the pistol grip.
d. A threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash suppressor, forward handgrip, or silencer.
e. A shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles, the barrel, and that permits the user to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being
burned.
f. A manufactured weight of at least 50 ounces when the pistol is unloaded.
She has crap for brains and should be treated as such.
But the real lesson to remember from this is:
Under the bill, whoever transports, purchases, possesses, or transfers a semiautomatic assault weapon is guilty of a felony and may be fined up to $10,000, sentenced to a term of imprisonment of up to six years, or both.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
We should not apply any time limits. We should know them all by name. We will search for them everywhere, where ever they are hiding. We will find them in any spot on the planet and punish them.
Vladimir Putin
November 17, 2015
Putin vows payback after confirmation of Egypt plane bomb
[His definition of “punish” will have significant differences from that of our current president. It may well involve removing their entire family line from the gene pool.
The French and the Russians are probably in good agreement on the task at hand. France is asking “European allies” to join them. I expect Israel probably is interesting in cooperating as well. If ISIS follows through on their threat, The American Blood Is Best, and We Will Taste It Soon, then there may be sufficient motivation for our country to “achieve consensus” and put aside our differences with other nations and ally with them to achieve a more “lasting peace” with Islam.
We have the technology to do a much “better” job than we did in the past few hundred years we have been at war with them. If the political will to use it comes about things things will get very ugly.—Joe]
In the end, liberal identification with criminals leads to the police knowing that the politicians don’t have their backs and to a reduction in effective crime control. It’s not an accident that liberals disagree with Giuliani’s “Broken Window” policing philosophy, since liberals don’t seem to care about the victims of “petty” crimes.
We need to tell the American people, our friends and neighbors, the truth that liberals aren’t like honest folk instead liberals identify with criminals and therefore support laws that favor criminals over victims and society.
Tom Trinko
October 31, 2015
Why Liberals Identify with Criminals
[H/T to Ed Driscoll.
There is far more to this than Trinko elaborated on in his post. In The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, 1918-1956 by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn there is extensive reporting of how the criminal class was the natural ally of the communists because the criminals would steal from and murder those with property. I.E. those who bettered themselves above the “common person”. Also political heresy, ideas contrary to communist thought, was considered more dangerous than thieves and murders to the communists and were treated as such.—Joe]
Any politician who wants gun control should not only never make office, but should be banned from politics for life.
Matt Irwin
November 6, 2015
Comment to McAuliffe Attempts To Claim Virginia Loss Wasn’t Because Of Gun Control
[Of course. It’s no different than they wanted to implement speech, religion, or book control.—Joe]
On September 13, 1994 the Democrats passed the most restrictive federal gun control law in US history. On November 8, 1994, the Democrats suffered their second biggest defeat ever. As a result of a 54-seat swing in membership from Democrats to Republicans, the Republican Party gained a majority of seats in the United States House of Representatives for the first time since 1952 and a majority of votes for the first time since 1946. It was also the largest seat gain for the Republican Party since 1946.
In January 2014, Obama and the Democrats led the charge in further restricting our Civil Rights as numerated in the Bill of Rights by trying to pass an even more oppressive gun-control law than in 1994. On November 4, 2014, the elections resulted in the largest Republican majority in the entire country in nearly a century, with 54 seats in the Senate, 247 (56.78%) in the House, 31 governorships (62%), and 68 state legislative chambers. Moreover, Republicans gained their largest majority in the House since 1928, the largest majority in Congress overall since 1928, and the largest majority of state legislatures since 1928.
I pray the Democrats are so stupid to try it again!!!!!!!! Then you will only be able to see the Party named Democrats in the history books.
M-1
November 6, 2015
Comment to Democratic pollsters: Don’t blame gun control for Virginia loss
[There is more than a little exaggeration in the conclusion but I suspect a fair amount of truth too.—Joe]
From Why Hillary Clinton Thinks Gun Control Can Win in 2016:
Seven years ago, when Hillary Clinton was fighting a grueling Democratic primary battle against then-Sen. Barack Obama, she boasted of duck hunting and championed the Second Amendment. Clinton’s campaign in Indiana sent around negative mailers pasted with rifles, accusing Obama of being weak on gun rights. She talked of learning to shoot a gun as a child.
“You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me how to shoot when I was a little girl,” Clinton said in April 2008. “It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of who they are.”
Now she says:
Today, Clinton’s calculus has changed. She has come out this campaign in favor of gun control measures with a vigor that surprised even some Democrats, targeting minorities and urban voters.
…
Clinton is helping shape the national debate about firearms, calling for a “national movement” to “stand up to the NRA” and lambasting Republicans for voting against gun control legislation.
I guess this must be “evolution” in action. I can’t imagine it is because she sees the potential for campaign money in taking a different position.