Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day—BLoving

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I’m reminded of a discussion I once read from a fiction writer regarding the concept of Evil when portraying an antagonist in a story: historically, very few verifiable evil people have considered themselves to be evil. In their minds, they are simply Right; and anyone who disagrees with them is Wrong. This is why we have never seen any actual group identifying themselves as The League of Villainy or the Brotherhood of Evil or some other such nonsense. No – really evil people are the ones who cloak their intentions behind a veil of righteousness and seek to use the law, legal force, or legal authority to force others to do things or live their lives as the Evil Ones see fit.
We must all remember that Law is never about asking nicely, Law is about force – passing a Law means legally depriving individuals of their right to make a choice. And that, at its heart, is what the Gun Bigots want: to use the force of Law to deprive others of the right to live their lives differently. There is no “Gun Control”, only “Gun Owner Control”. What the leaders of the Gun Bigots want does not fit the definition of insanity, but it does cross the line over the definition of Evil.

BLoving
December 10, 2017
Comment to Question of the Day: Are Gun Control Advocates Insane?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John D. Clark

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The old destroyer gun turret which housed our card-gap* setup had become a bit frayed and tattered from the shrapnel it had contained. (The plating on a destroyer is usually thick enough to keep out the water and the smaller fish.) So we had installed an inner layer of armor plate, standing off about an inch and a half from the original plating. And, as the setup hadn’t been used for several months, a large colony of bats —yes, bats, little Dracula types —had moved to the gap to spend the winter And when the first shot went off, they all came boiling out with their sonar gear fouled up, shaking their heads and pounding their ears. They chose one rocket mechanic —as it happens, a remarkably goosy character anyway—and decided that it was all his fault. And if you, gentle reader, have never seen a nervous rocket mechanic, complete with monkey suit, being buzzed by nine thousand demented bats and trying to beat them off with a shovel, there is something missing from your experience.

John D. Clark
1972
I G N I T I O N !: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, page 171
[I love this book.—Joe]

* The card-gap test is used to determine the shock sensitivity of a potentially explosive liquid. A 50-gram block of tetryl (high explosive) is detonated beneath a 40 cc sample of the liquid in question, contained in a 3″ length of 1″ iron pipe sealed at the bottom with a thin sheet of Teflon. If the liquid detonates, it punches a hole in the target plate, of 3/8″ boiler plate, sitting on top of it. The sensitivity of the liquid is measured by the number of “cards,” discs of 0.01″ thick cellulose acetate, which must be stacked between the tetryl and the sample to keep the latter from going off. Zero cards means relatively insensitive, a hundred cards means that you’d better forget the whole business. As may be imagined, the test is somewhat noisy, and best done some distance from human habitation, or, at least, from humans who can make their complaints stick.

Quote of the day—John Feinblatt @JohnFeinblatt

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As a package, “Fix NICS” would keep guns from domestic abusers — while “Concealed Carry Reciprocity” would force states to allow people to carry concealed guns in public even if they are domestic abusers, have other dangerous histories, or lack even the most basic safety training to carry concealed guns in public.

John Feinblatt @JohnFeinblatt
President of Everytown for Gun Safety
December 8, 2017
NRA hijacks first bipartisan gun bill in years. Now it’s too dangerous to pass.
[There is a reason no one ever says anti-gun people are smart.

Here we have one of these mental midgets apparently unable to avoid asserting two incompatible conclusions in the same sentence. If Fix NICS keeps guns from domestic abusers, because they are prohibited from firearms possession, then how can CCR force states to allow something Fix NICS prevented?

This sort of thing happens so frequently we have a name for it. It’s called Peterson Syndrome. Logical thought is beyond their capability.

I wish we could just laugh these idiots out of the political arena but unfortunately there are too many people with these type of mental issues.—Joe]

Quote of the day—NRA

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Despite scare tactics by the bill’s opponents, concealed-carry licensees as a group have proven to be more law-abiding than the general population and even the police. We are on the eve of passing the most expansive piece of self-defense legislation in the history of Congress.

NRA
December 6, 2017
House approves concealed-carry reciprocity, gun bill faces challenge in Senate
[The first sentence is factual and verifiable. See, for example, Comparing conviction rates between police and concealed carry permit holders.

The second sentence is somewhat subjective but I am in agreement with it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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We’re one step closer to fully restoring the Second Amendment as it was originally intended. Now, if the Senate can follow the House lead and pass this measure, law abiding American gun owners will no longer have to fear wrongful arrest and even imprisonment for having a firearm for personal protection as they travel from state to state.

Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
December 6, 2017
CCRKBA HAILS CONCEALED CARRY RECIPROCITY VICTORY
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gary North

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When Deng Xiaoping inaugurated an agricultural reform in 1979 which relied heavily on private ownership, he launched the most impressive period of economic growth that any large country has ever experienced. But that ended socialist economic planning. When, on December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union was going out of business, that ended the lure of socialism among the intellectuals. They had always clung to socialism because they expected that their class would exercise power in a socialist regime. When it became clear that the Soviet Union was too feeble to impose its will on the Russian masses, that was the end of their infatuation with Communism and socialism. It was always about power. It was never about the logic of socialism.

So, in this month, the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s Bolshevik revolution in Russia, we can rejoice in the fact that socialism is dead. From a theoretical standpoint, it was never alive. It was a corpse from day one. It was sustained by rhetoric, not logic.

Gary North
October 12, 2017
Why Socialism Is Dead
[Just because it is, and always was, dead doesn’t mean that there aren’t large numbers of people worshiping it and demanding, upon the pain of death to non believers, that others worship it as well. The Second Amendment helps guarantee you can exercise your First Amendment right to freedom of, or from, religion.—Joe]

Quote of the day—jerry the geek

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You think we’re still holding our breaths in fear of a dystopia?

We’re already living in it.

jerry the geek
December 3, 2017
Comment to When will this boil over?
[I think I could successfully defend this position against anyone.—Joe]

Quote of the day—PuttsForSix

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I’m all for repealing 2a and banning and confiscating all firearms. Give a 90 day grace period and then make all gun possession by civilians a felony.

PuttsForSix
November 12, 2017
Comment to Hand over your weapons
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

The logistics of this would be “quite interesting” even if the collection points didn’t collect incoming fire. That is a lot of material to dispose of. How do they dispose of the guns without the guns being “reclaimed” in transit? If destroyed onsite how do they keep the site supplied with power and/or fuel for their torches? There would have to be records kept so that individuals couldn’t claim the gun they bought a few months earlier (for which the ATF has the 4473) had already been turned in. What if those records were corrupted or destroyed?

As you start working through the security details of such an operation you end up thinking you could write a novel about it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alex Pareene

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We will probably not nationalize or expropriate our arms manufacturers any time soon, though we obviously should. We can at least make it possible to sue them into dust. But if you want a gun ban in the United States, here’s a thought: Even if you accept the (obviously, stupidly, grandly wrong) conservative interpretation of the Second Amendment, there’s still no actual right to sell guns. So why not ban that?

Alex Pareene
November 20, 2017
BAN GUNS
[Apart from not reading and/or understanding the complete decision he references he has crap for brains if he thinks his suggestion even begins to make sense. Using the same logic, you may have the right to vote but not holding elections makes that right meaningless. Which, of course, is what he wants. But I find it difficult to believe the courts would tolerate such an idea and if they did I find it difficult to believe there would be enough law enforcement willing to enforce such decisions and/or prevent a dramatic and sudden shortage of judges and politicians.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Marjorie Decker

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It is a privilege that we allow individuals to hold onto something that causes harm and death. It is a privilege to have a car license, it is a privilege to have a gun license.

Marjorie Decker
Massachusetts state representative (Democrat)
November 16, 2017
‘Privilege’ comment riles gun rights supporters
[So holding onto a kitchen knife or baseball bat is a privilege? How about a pitchfork or a torch? Or how about a bucket of hot tar, a bag of feathers, and a fence rail? Does the state of Massachusetts issues licenses for these?

Also of interest, “Are there hunting licenses and bag limits for politicians who have crap for brains and vote for laws infringing upon the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms?” I’m asking for friends who live in Massachusetts.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

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The battle for gun rights is one fought predominantly by the common man. The beliefs of both our liberal and conservative elites are in fact abetting the criminal rampage through our society.

Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 20
[This essay was originally published in 1993 by The Public Interest.

As Chris Cox said

They don’t fear me. They fear you.

Chris Cox
NRA-ILA Executive Director

The NRA represents the common man and woman.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Steve Gilbert

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The schizophrenia of the gun controller is bizarre.

The writer makes an excellent point about if the gun control people were concerned about saving lives they would be for more aggressive police methods. Yet the same liberals that advocate for draconian gun control are often the same liberals at Black Lives Matter rallies chanting “F**k the police”.

Similarly, if they were truly concerned about saving lives they would be advocating for more people to have concealed carry permits, since statistically people legally carrying handguns are much safer than the unarmed victims. Yet the gun controllers fight concealed carry laws too.

So since it is obvious that they are not about saving lives, one has to ask
“What do they really want?”.

Steve Gilbert
November 7, 2017
Comment to Why Gun Control Loses
[I have frequently asked, “What is the real reason?” The reason I “ask” this rhetorical question because I think it is more effective for people to have their brain working on the question than to assert the answer. I suspect this is particularly true in the case of people who are undecided or not firmly committed to either side of the debate.

Here is a sample of my asking this question:

There is a Steven Gilbert who has commented on this blog before (and here). I wonder if it is the same person who commented on the National Review article above and was inspired by my continued harping on this rhetorical question.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alcibiades Anon

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Sociopaths will inherit the earth.  We are built for the chaos to come.  We are built to benefit and thrive in this new land of opportunity.  We must begin to raise our brothers and sisters through the ranks and teach them to function.  The Trickster’s Path can help those that need to find their way.  There are other sources, other ways.  We must find the way forward.  We must be placed to take the power that is ours by right.  The flies have ruined our world, ruined our societies.  It is time a new people take dominance.

We must be the guiding light, and iron rod.  Many of us are in positions of power already, we must unite under our own flag.  Emotions and fear have ruled this world for too long already.  It is time for the hyper-rational to take their turn.  In the chaos that will come we must lead.  We must be the spiders placing ourselves in the darkness for our prey.  We must spin our webs, and make our plans.  If we wish to truly dance in the ashes of “civilization” we must be ready.

Alcibiades Anon
July 5, 2017
We Must Prepare for the Chaos and Violence to come
[Be careful what you wish for. This applies to empaths, sociopaths, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, everyone. There are many political factions and none appear to have a majority of power. If the rule of law breaks down too far then who and what emerges from the ashes may be something quite different than you imagined, or even could have, imagined.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Maj Toure

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I don’t think there’s a black gun culture or white gun culture, I think there’s an informed gun culture and an ignorant gun culture.

Maj Toure
Black Guns Matter
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Z Williamson‏ @mzmadmike

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I still need to get a barrel blank and a custom set of dies so I can have a rifle in .499 Feinstein caliber.

I keep being tempted to name my guns after contemptible losers in the 2A debate. but my guns deserve better.

Michael Z Williamson @mzmadmike
November 26, 2017
Tweeted (and here)
[I don’t give pet names to my guns (or cars, or body parts, etc.) but I must say I briefly considered an exception to that policy when I read his tweet.

If you don’t get the joke with Williamson’s first sentence leave a comment and someone will explain it to you.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Frum

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It’s out of bounds to observe that “Chicago” is shorthand for “we only have gun crime because of black people” or how often “I want to protect my family” is code for “I need to prove to my girlfriend who’s really boss.”

David Frum
October 6, 2017
The Rules of the Gun Debate–The rules for discussing firearms in the United States obscure the obvious solutions.
[I wouldn’t say it’s “out of bounds”. I would say it’s stupid to say things that are obviously and easily provably to be false.

I have to wonder if Frum’s straw man arguments are the result of raw talent or if it took years of training.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Patrick Radden Keefe

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Following the Newtown shooting, Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of Gun Owners for America, suggested that these massacres might be avoided in the future, if only more teachers were armed.

As Pratt’s sentiment should make clear, the United States has slipped its moorings and drifted into a realm of profound national lunacy.

Patrick Radden Keefe
December 15, 2012
Making Gun Control Happen
[The fact that the prohibition against teachers being armed is an infringement upon their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms and is a felony punishable by death doesn’t even enter into Keefe reality bubble.

Also, I find it very telling that anti-gun people derisively dismiss statements out of hand which could be either verified or refuted with a little research. Facts are irrelevant in their alternate reality and tell us who the lunatics really are.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Ropeik

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Fighting for the right to own a gun is a way of asserting control against a society that many feel is encroaching on their values and freedoms. Millions of people with such feelings want guns less to protect themselves against physical danger and more to protect themselves from the threat of a society they feel is taking away their ability to control their own lives. That deeper loss of control fuels the disproportionately intense passion of gun rights advocates and explains what The New Yorker calls the ”conspicuous asymmetry of fervor” that energizes 4 million members of the National Rifle Association to effectively determine gun control policy for a country of 310 million.

People with these concerns have been identified by research into the Theory of Cultural Cognition as Individualists, people who prefer a society that grants the individual more freedom and independence and leaves them more personally in control of their individual choices and values. Contrast that with the sort of society preferred by Communitarians, who feel most comfortable, and safest, in a “We’re all in it together” world of shared control and communal power, a society that sacrifices some individual freedoms in the name of the greater common good. These deeply conflicting worldviews drive the central conflict in the fight over gun control.

David Ropeik
2016
The Gun Control Battle Isn’t About Guns As Weapons. It’s About Guns as Symbols.
[Via an email from Paul Koning.

Ropeik, while obviously anti-gun, does give almost fair respect for our philosophical viewpoint. It’s nice to see the debate framed with something approaching reality as opposed to straw men.—Joe]

Quote of the day—SteveM081411

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I want your guns melting in pile in the town square, deal with me.

SteveM081411
November 11, 2017
Comment to Hand over your weapons
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

People should be careful what they ask for.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Clint Smith

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I was just in California, WHAT A SHIT HOLE. It’s a 110.

…

I still had two guns. And both of them were big. And I wasn’t comfortable at all. But I still had two guns.

And a rifle.

It’s California.

Clint Smith
Founder of Thunder Ranch
August 7, 2017
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]