Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day–Dennis A. Henigan

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The central policy issue is whether the enactment of specific restrictions on firearms will prevent violence. Whether violence necessarily increases with the number of guns available in a society provides little guidance on that central issue.

Dennis A. Henigan
Vice president for law and policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Lethal Logic, page 108.
[Even after reading the entire book I still have to shake my head at these two sentences. They almost directly contradict each other. If violence doesn’t increase with the availability of guns in a society then that does tell us that guns are an independent variable in the search for ways to prevent violence. “Independent variable” means it doesn’t make any difference in the outcome. Hence they cannot legitimately claim violent crime as justification for “specific restrictions on firearms”.

He does attempt to explain what he means in the following pages. But it boils down him claiming that restricting access and public carrying of firearms does prevent violence and it does not decrease “the number guns available in a society”. This is a disingenuous at best and actually is factually false.

Even the CDC says there is no evidence that any gun control laws have made people safer. Just One Question has been around for over five years now and still there hasn’t been an answer come up that Henigan would be happy with. And anytime you increase the cost (money, time, and risk of innocently breaking a law are including in the definition of “cost” in this context.) the market will respond by lowering consumption.

Hence, ANY restriction put on firearms will necessarily decrease the number of guns available. Throughout the entire book Half-Truth Henigan very carefully words things such they are just barely true or only delve into outright falsehoods long enough to arrive at misleading conclusions. I think I have the time today, so today is going to be the day that I go through my notes on his book and make them into a blog post.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Oren’s War

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Can the United States government actually get too large? Can “We, the People” ever retake control of our elected government officials?

Young marksman Oren Fletcher learned to hunt in the hills near his family’s farm and spent hundreds of hours at the range target practicing with his custom-built, high-powered rifle. Upon the untimely murder of his father at the hands of the newly and illegally created United States Federal Office of Gun Enforcement, Oren takes matters into his own hands.

With a strong and dedicated will to eliminate and sidetrack those who would destroy our country’s Second Amendment and the Constitution, Oren sets out to restore solid American values based on his own interpretation of our nation’s “Supreme Law of the Land.”

Several subplots interweave the novel, finally intersecting with a definite finality for the “bad guys.” Meet “Louie the Pig,” a murderous repeat offender and his druggie partner Raymond Porter, along with street scum Bobbie Jones, who murdered Oren’s mother.

The United States Enforcers are worse than these lowly felons. Hiding behind newly created American laws created to remove all guns from private ownership, the Enforcers raid and pillage gun owners with sanctioned impunity. Under the leadership of Enforcer General Bob Woods, the Enforcers forever change the meaning of the words “gun collector.”

While Oren makes the biggest impact on both criminals and Enforcers alike, it is a host of American heroes, the Militia, if you will, that shows its indomitable American spirit throughout this novel.

Oren’s War
From the back cover and the website.
[I’ve just barely started it but this may be the book for gun owners in this decade that Unintended Consequences was for them the 1990s.–Joe]

Quote of the day–rectifier

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There’s a legal and very practical way to deal with open carry gun advocates that will get rid of some bad genes in CA. Tell the open carry gun advocates you dare them to come to your house with their guns. If they are stupid enough to come into your house with their guns get your loaded gun out and blow them away. Not a court in CA will convict you of any crime. This falls under the use of force (lethal) laws in CA. Whether the gun carrier guns are loaded or not you cannot tell and you have the lethal legal right to protect yourself here. This would be a good way to get rid of these mentally challenged people and will contribute to making the gene pool better in CA. Most of these gun carry advocates are already pretty close to getting a 1st place Darwin award. Help make sure that they do get it.

rectifier
February 3, 2010
Comment to Peet’s and CPK tell Open Carry customers: No guns allowed
[Remember, these bigots don’t just want you in the closet. They want you dead.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Dennis Henigan

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Don’t expect the NRA to abandon its reliance on the fear of gun bans – it is not clear that the gun lobby knows any other way of arguing its case. And, admittedly, it may take years before the impact of the Heller decision on the gun debate is fully felt.

Dennis Henigan
February 3, 2010
Frank Luntz: “Culture War” Over Guns Is a Myth
[Half Truth Henigan is at it again. It will take years before we finish clearing the books of all the unconstitutional gun laws. But the “gun lobby” makes lots of arguments without “the fear of gun bans”. If Henigan believes what he just said then I guess he didn’t notice the some of the things the gun lobby has accomplished recently. Examples include Federal legislation allowing people to check guns with luggage on Amtrak, allowing concealed carry in National Parks, and blocking progress on restrictive gun show legislation. This doesn’t include the progress made in the previous 20 years on enabling concealed carry.

Even ignoring those items the entire premise of his post is obviously false. There is a huge cultural war going on. How else can you explain observations like those made in the second half this post?

But what makes this particular half-truth so interesting is that all of those items, which have nothing to do with “gun bans”, are in the 2009 Brady Gun Violence Prevention Report Card. I can only think of the following possible explanations:

  1. Henigan didn’t read the report card and press release his organization published 15 days ago.
  2. Henigan forgot the contents of the report card and press release his organization published 15 days ago.
  3. Henigan didn’t believe the report card and press release his organization published 15 days ago.
  4. Henigan thinks no one else remembers the report card and press release his organization published 15 days ago.
  5. Henigan does not limit himself to rational thought.

I’m inclined to go with #5.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Lyle @ UltiMAK

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The very fact that there are anti gun rights weasels in Congress is in itself a crime. When will the time come that it isn’t considered “balance” to include the bigoted comments of the anti gun rights activists in public discourse, and it is seen for what it is– a lying, bigoted, anti American movement? The Enemy Within. Would we tolerate the KKK being invited to speak in public forums? Would we tolerate an anti women’s suffrage coalition of Mayors?

One thing we should always keep in mind is what victory would look like. One feature of victory would be that any politician who, even under his breath, even caught in a private conversation, suggests an infringement on a constitutional right risks swift impeachment. What could be worse, after all, than someone charged with protecting our rights actually fighting against them? Would you tolerate your nanny abusing your kids? Would you tolerate your security guard stealing from you or attacking you? Would you tolerate your grounds-keeper tearing up your lawn and garden, demanding that you have no right to a nice lawn? Would you tolerate your accountant embezzling from you? Why in the hell should we as a society tolerate any politician who hates the very fact that we have rights? If the term, “enemy of the state” has or ever had any meaning, surely an anti-rights politician is a prime example.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
February 1, 2010
In the comments.
[Wow! I think we should start including the essence of that in our emails to our congress critters.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Virginia Mountainman

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Gun Control supporters are in the grips of a long term voter backlash that shows no sign of abating anytime soon, the gun control gains made in the early 1990’s planted the seeds, and those seeds, having grown into trees, are bearing fruit now. Every time a politician even mentions any kind of gun control, email servers melt, mail bags multiply, phone lines get red hot, and politicians get the message very quickly.

As long as gun owners perceive a threat, their activism will continue, after all, it is much better to be on the offensive, than the defensive. They are reminded of the threat, regularly, like the push to ban assault rifles in Washington state…Eric Holders comments..”talk” of closing the gun show loophole. Even Brady giving Obama an “F” reminds us, that their are people out there, who are plotting and scheming against the US Bill of Rights.

The talking heads on the news, that talk about “meaningful gun control” and complain about “lack of movement” on it, don’t realize that all they are doing is reminding, millions of TV viewers in “rest of the nation”, that “they are still trying to ban guns”…They elites just don’t get it, so they keep talking, and the people, keep listening, and seeing the threat..

The Brady Campaign’s and VPC’s successes, almost 20 years ago, has come back to bite them, they kept “poking” the sleeping giant that is several million, peaceful, law abiding, reliably voting, solid block of gun owners… The politicians where quick to learn that gun control did not bring near the votes, Sara and her ilk promised, instead it costed them dearly, when their first votes on Gun Control, became among their very last votes.

Now those gun owners have reached the political strength, to not only stop, most gun control proposals before they even get to the floor for a vote, they have the ability to form their own legislation, and get it passed into law, and that is what we are seeing now…

15 years, of constant, steady political gains, has made it so..

Brady and the VPC should have quit, when they where ahead in 1993….The Hated AW ban of 1994, was the legislation that enraged millions, and most of them are still pissed about it.

If they would have stopped then, gun rights would not have moved so far today, but when they started banning guns, because of cosmetic features, gun owners woke up and said this is pure political BS, and “not one step more”.

In a way, Brady, MMM, and the VPC, are their own worst enamy…We are a creation of them, now they can feel our wrath, its not our fault that we outnumber them by 10 to 1 at every meeting, lobby day, or public event..

The sad truth is, if they really want the gun right movement to go away, all they need to do is SHUT THE HELL UP about gun control, and in a few years, many strong gun rights supporters would stop pushing the legislators….BUT, Sara Brady, Paul Helmke, Micheal Blomberg, all republicans, cannot shut their traps that long to let the issue die down…

They keep the wound raw, so we, the great mass that is the Gun Rights movement, will march on…to victory…

Virginia Mountainman
January 31, 2009
Death of the Gun Control movement, birth of the Gun Rights movement
[I think this is a little overstated but the essence is true.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Lilly

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In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or it becomes true.

John Lilly
[See also what Paul Simon said on essentially the same topic.

There are lots of examples of this. It helps explain why there are so many religions that have incompatible “immutable truths”. It helps explain advocates of socialism even after the deaths of tens of millions and the misery of 100’s of millions by those attempting to build a “workers paradise”. And in my favorite example it helps explain why Chicago politicians put up such an irrational defense in the McDonald v. Chicago case (via Dave Hardy)–Joe]

Quote of the day–Andy Ostroy

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What’s happened is that, true to form, Democrats can’t seem to get out of their own way. Unlike their counterparts on the right, the party leadership, from Obama on down the Congressional line, is comprised of a bunch of spineless, visionless, disorganized, pseudo-intellectual sailors sinking in a sea of their own delusion and denial.

Andy Ostroy (Democrat)
January 27, 2009
The Problem with Democrats
[Considering that nearly everything they attempt to legislatively do cannot be found in the enumerated powers granted them by the U.S. Constitution I don’t have a problem with this.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Lt. Ray Lunny

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When police are called to a ‘man with a gun’ call they typically are responding to a situation about which they have few details other than that one or more people are present at a location and are armed. Officers may have no idea that these people are simply ‘exercising their rights.’

Lt. Ray Lunny
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office
January 28, 2009
News report inspires man to display gun in E. Palo Alto store
[Sounds a lot like responding to a call about someone “driving while black” in the “wrong” neighborhood.

You have to “love” them putting “exercising their rights” in quotation marks.

Via Say Uncle.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John F. Kennedy

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Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

John F. Kennedy
[This doctrine should be universally applied to all infringements of liberty here and abroad. If the president were doing his job he would start arresting the anti-gun and anti-liberty politicians in Washington D.C. then Chicago, New Jersey, California, etc. After the U.S. is cleaned up Canada and Mexico should be encouraged to get in line.

I’m posting this for January 27th on January 26th, a day early because I need it for another post. I thought I had already posted it years ago but I can’t find it now.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ashleigh Brilliant

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Maybe I’m lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong direction.

Ashleigh Brilliant
[If only President Obama were so smart.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Charles Caleb Colton

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It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Malinformation is more hopeless than noninformation; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, from which we must first erase. Ignorance is content to stand still, with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the wrong direction. Ignorance has not light, but error follows a false one.

Charles Caleb Colton
[I was reminded of this by:

Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Judiciary Committee that was hearing it, said the bill includes descriptions of features on firearms such as pistol grips on rifles and barrel shrouds that make a gun “more lethal than your average deer rifle.” That prompted laughter in the hearing room…

I also considered the following as QOTD in response but I had already used them. Anti-gun people suck up my supply of ignorance quotes at a prodigious rate:

I have news for Mr. Kline. The days of ignorance by the people at large is over. It’s not going to work this time.

The sponsors of this bill have, and spread, malinformation. It’s sometimes tough to deal with. But public laughter is a far more effective cure than anger and is better for your blood pressure too.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Richard M. Nixon

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It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

Richard M. Nixon
[I am reminded of this by the Obama Report Card by the Brady Campaign. On that same day the candidate they endorsed and everyone initially expected would be a shoo-in for the open Massachusetts Senate seat was beaten by a (at least moderately) pro-gun candidate. Now they want to beat on Obama who was considered their savior just a year ago.

The Brady Campaign would do well to remember the conditions under which President Nixon left the political scene. Claiming “necessity” and acting on that without adhering to the universal principles of honesty and integrity can lead to ruin. But then honesty has never been a strong point of the Brady Campaign so my advice is probably going be totally ignored.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Alastair Reid

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Looking for temporary Edens is a perpetual lure certainly not confined to writers, who sooner or later discover that the islands of their existence are, in truth, the tops of their desks.

Alastair Reid
Whereabouts–Notes on Being a Foreigner, Page 73.
[The same applies to socialists, progressives, and liberals (but I repeat myself). Anti-gun people also attempt to set sail for their imaginary island oblivious to or deliberately ignoring the fact that so many similar voyages ended in genocide. And those voyages that have not yet ended in genocide did not find Eden or even a better place than the one they left. I wouldn’t mind it so much if they didn’t insist, at the point of a gun, that others join them on their own version of Voyage of the Damned.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Colin Moore

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…[S]uch ideas have merit in Hillary’s world, where even little victories lead ever closer to the big prize: no guns, just government.

Colin Moore
January 21, 2010
Ban by baby steps
[As Secretary of State Mrs. Clinton has influence on the gun ban treaty and will probably do whatever is possible to push us closer to her version of utopia–a world without private ownership of arms.

This part of the reason I push so hard on the bigotry and “specific enumerated right” issue. We need to putting pressure on foreign governments that infringe their citizens rights as well. Canada, England, and Australia would be first on my list. It’s a human right and we should be sending the appropriate messages when any government infringes on this right. And part of that message should be Col. Cooper’s view on the topic.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ian

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I’ve been America three weeks and I’ve shot four different guns. This is so cool!

Ian
January 21, 2010
[Ian is from Toronto and is an intern at Microsoft. He said the above after going to the range, touching, and shooting a gun for the first time. Freedom is very cool.

Pictures to follow.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Tam

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Five gets you ten his new company has nothing to do with fruity “LDA” triggers.

It must have been physically painful to have been contractually obligated to pimp those things.

Tam
January 21, 2010
Comment to Todd Jarrett Leaving ParaOrdnance.
[Similar, but far less succinct and articulate, thoughts went through my head when I read the news.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Daniel Johnson

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If gun people and libertarians want to reject the benefits of American society and live freely, independently and unfettered on their own, they should look for caves in Montana and, if they’re full up, Afghanistan probably has vacancies. They’ll definitely need their guns there.

Daniel Johnson
January 20, 2010
The Second Amendment Fantasy and How Americans Have Been Taken In
[I find it interesting that Johnson and his ilk cling to their beliefs after all nine of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices found that the right to keep and bear arms was and is an individual right. And then they want us to leave when the facts don’t suit them. But then, what else can you expect from bigots?–Joe]

Quote of the day–Thomas Carlyle

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I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Thomas Carlyle
[Nor do I.

However you will frequently read of the anti-gun people proclaiming with great satisfaction that such and such a poll shows “the people” want “assault weapons” banned or the “gun-show loophole” closed.

So what is it? Do they believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance?

I am quite sure that is not the case. We have direct evidence the anti-gun people deliberately prey on the collective ignorance of people. Like other con-artists their success depends on coming up with new scams with which to fool their victims as their old scams are exposed.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire

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I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire
To M. le Riche, February 6, 1770
It was not Voltaire, but his biographer, S. G. Talentyre in The Friends of Voltaire, who originated the famous remark, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
From The Great Thoughts (link is to the 2nd Edition, mine is the 1st Edition–1985) compiled by George Seldes.
[I sometimes think of deleting a comment on my blog from someone too stupid to know how to determine truth from falsity. They may be so pig-headed as to continuing insisting the righteousness of their cause despite uncountable instances of them presented with overwhelming evidence their cause is at best ill-advised and I feel some frustration at their inability or refusal to follow even the simplest of logic trains. But then I think of what Voltaire said.

I wouldn’t directly give my life to enable him or her to continue pushing their agenda. Indirectly I suppose it is possible via my pursuit of liberty but that would be a side effect rather than in direct support of such an individual. I think I might consider looking the other way rather than risk my own life in defensive of theirs should I know harm to them was imminent.

I sometimes wonder if in a fight to the death if adhering to principles is a luxury only affordable when you are winning. Does the other side abandon their principles when they are loosing? Or do they adhere to them until the end? If so then perhaps those principles are best known by their examples of Reasoned Discoursetm (see also here and here). Is their insistence that you should be silenced or put to death a sign they have abandoned principles because of the hopelessness of their cause? Or is it insight into the true nature of their principles?

I don’t know for certain.

At least for now I exercise loyalty to my principles by not deleting their comments.–Joe]