In a class of his own

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Last weekend I participated* in the USPSA Area 1 Championship. As expected, Christian Sailer won.

One of the people in my squad, Steve, runs major matches in Montana and does range officer work for other major matches. He told stories of running Christian through stages.

Christian sees the stages differently than other people. He even sees them differently than other Grand Master shooters. When Steve runs Christian on a stage he doesn’t bother to follow him. He asks, “Where are you going to end up?” He then runs to the destination (as soon as it is safe to do so) and meets Christian in time to capture the last shot on the timer.

A specific example given was a stage where there were two targets visible between two barricades. Other Grand Masters would pause and fire the four shots, two per target, then continue on to the next targets. Christian ran by at full speed, “Bang, bang, bang, bang!” This resulted in four A-Zone hits.

As Steve pointed out, Christian is in a class of his own. Here are the results of the top ten people in the match from last weekend and from looking at the Match Points and Match Percentage you can clearly see this:

Place Name Class Div Match Pts Match %
1 Sailer, Christian G O 1460.8107 100.0000 %
2 Michel, Max G CO 1310.4572 89.7075 %
3 Ramberg, Tim G PCC 1275.3206 87.3022 %
4 Williams, Justine G PCC 1243.8811 85.1501 %
5 Conaway, Brennan G O 1229.281 84.1506 %
6 Tan, Loke G O 1228.1294 84.0718 %
7 Liu, Eric G O 1214.7476 83.1557 %
8 Chang, Jun G O 1209.7619 82.8144 %
9 Coley, Shane G L 1209.0808 82.7678 %
10 Steiner, Eric M O 1202.3446 82.3067 %

Notice how the people below him are grouped fairly tightly. There is no one within 10% of Christian.

I had hoped to watch him shoot a stage or two but he was shooting on the exact opposite times I was at the match. Here is the video of most of the stages:

* I came in 41 out of 58 in Limited Division and second out of seven in my age/division category. I had not shot an USPSA match since December of 2019. And with COVID keeping me out of the office I did not have the normal lunchtime access to the range for practice.

In another week or so I will have my private gun range and much better access to range conditions suitable for this type of practice: I’m going to be taking practice much more seriously:

20210811_134541

Quote of the day—Magus Melanie @MagusMelanie

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I have yet to hear any actual argumentation in favour of automatic fire guns vs semi- or single shot guns… just a lot of cock size defending

Magus Melanie @MagusMelanie
Tweeted on August 13, 2021
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

I was already on the case but In Chains @InChainsInJail also gave me a heads up.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Snyder

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Congress is going to pass wild spending package after wild spending package, and the Fed is just going to continue to pump billions upon billions of fresh dollars into the financial system.

This is the greatest financial bubble in the history of the world, and it will be fascinating to watch how long it can last before it finally implodes.

Michael Snyder
August 11, 2021
I Feel Like I Am Living In Crazytown
[For certain values of “fascinating”.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Point: Counterpoint

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I think I detect some hostility in the response.

Perhaps the anger clouded his thinking and this is why they limited the probable response to the unvaccinated. I am inclined to believe there are vaccinated people who also regard authoritarian activities as worthy of a similar response.

Quote of the day—Anne Stalfort @astalfort

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I am 100% for getting rid of the Second Amendment

Anne Stalfort @astalfort
Tweeted on July 20, 2021
[That will happen sometime after she reanimates her cold dead fingers.

Just remember, no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ted Cruz @tedcruz

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We woke libruls don’t need no fancy book learning.

Ted Cruz @tedcruz
Tweeted on August 11, 2021
[This is in regard to this:Image

This sounds like the “logic’ used for a lot of the push for more people to get college degrees and why it should be free in the last few decades., “People with college degrees earn more money and have better lives. Everyone should get college degrees.”

It, perhaps deliberately, confuses cause and effect. People with certain college degrees had the aptitude to understand and apply the course material required for high paying jobs in certain fields. It wasn’t just a generic college degree that resulted in high paying jobs. The English, psychology,  music, art appreciation, etc. degrees did not correlate with high paying jobs like the medical, legal, engineering, finance, and business degrees. But the political sounds bites led you to believe it was the degree and not the person able to acquire the degree that made the difference between the degreed and non-degreed.

It appears the failed (for certain definitions of “failed”, one can make the case it was deliberate deception which worked exactly as planned) college degrees for everyone project is now being implemented at the high school level.

And so now, it is clear we need to add Oregon to the list of states circling the toilet drain. The Antifa/BLM stuff in Portland is just the most visible symptom.

I recently met a group of people who could be described as Oregon refugees. They left Oregon because of the stupid and/or evil politics and took up residence in Idaho. Idaho is the fastest growing state in the union. The people I was talking to are living in travel trailers and mobile homes as they try to get their own homes built. They work in the construction industry and help fill the gap in construction workers. They own and/or rent heavy equipment and are skilled operators. I wish them well and welcome them to Idaho.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sumera Siddiqi

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Humanity needs to become a bigger priority in this state. This means that stricter gun control is necessary. Our government should listen to its people and make them feel safe, rather than allowing a law as dangerous as permitless carry.

Sumera Siddiqi
Liberal studies freshman at University of Houston
August 9, 2021
Permitless carry infringes on the right to safety
[Is it truth or is it a caricature? Sometimes it is so hard to tell.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Larry Keane

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There are lies, damned lies and gun control lies. The problem with the gun control lies is that those who continue to spout them have no shame even when they’ve been proven wrong.

Larry Keane
August 9, 2021
NSSF: There’s one thing those who are pushing for gun control don’t want you to know. It’s called “the truth”.
[As Lyle sometimes points out, a case could be made that they take pride in their lies.—Joe]

Quote of the day—J. KB

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I have been listening to the book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland on Audible on my commute.

It’s a difficult book to listen to.

In chapter 10, the author talks about the clearing of the ghetto at Międzyrzec to send the Jews to Treblinka.

What stuck out at me was that 11,000 Jews were deported and over 900 shot by a cadre of only 350 police.

…

And there wasn’t one report of Jews fighting back.

J. KB
July 23, 2021
Why I am the way I am
[The book sounds as if it has similar content to Hitler’s Willing Executioners which I have posted (this post is extremely relevant J. KB concerns) about before.

I just purchased the Audible version of Ordinary Men and will start it later this week when I finish the current book I’m listening too.

As difficult as the books may be to read/listen-to they present some very important lessons worth learning.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Abt

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Everything we know about evidence-based violence interruption says you have to interact directly with the highest-risk individuals. And that’s true for police, but that’s also true for all sorts of community services, including but not limited to street outreach. So for all of these individuals who are at the highest risk, all of a sudden, all of those services stop because of the physical distancing mandates.

Thomas Abt
August 2, 2021
What Philadelphia Reveals About America’s Homicide Surge
[Ahh… This can explain the rise in violent crime over the last year or so. I had not had a good hypothesis for what was going on. This sounds quite plausible.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James

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Why is it that back in the 1950’s, one could walk into a hardware store, gun shop or mail order all kinds of firearms with no background checks or waiting period and crime was far less than today?

James
August 7, 2021
Comment to BREAKING: Mexico Blames American Guns For Their Problems, Sues U.S.
[My first hypothesis is criminals were more likely to be prosecuted then. My second hypothesis is that we didn’t have a culture of entitlement and people competing for profit in the victim Olympics. Both could be true as well as false.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Allan Stein

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While many individual preppers and prepper organizations try to remain anonymous, the number of people preparing appears to be growing. In the last year alone, roughly 45 percent of Americans, or about 116 million people, said they spent money preparing for hard times or spent money stockpiling survival goods.

Allan Stein
August 6, 2021
‘Preppers’ Quietly Stock Up for the ‘Perfect Storm’
[We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Davide Mastracci

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I’m not going to speculate as to why people buy pickup trucks, but the reality is the vast majority aren’t doing so for work purposes.

Their choice is putting us all at risk, whether on the streets, or through damage to the climate. Reducing further destruction to the climate and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is far more important than corporate or consumer freedom.

It’s time to ban sales of pickup trucks for non-work purposes, for all of our sakes.

Davide Mastracci
July 13, 2021
Reducing further climate destruction and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is more important than corporate or consumer freedom.
[Tyrants have to tyrant.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Margaret Sullivan

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The democracy beat shouldn’t be some kind of specialized innovation, but a widespread rethinking across the mainstream media.

Making this happen will call for something that Big Journalism is notoriously bad at: An open-minded, nondefensive recognition of what’s gone wrong.

Top editors, Sunday talk-show moderators and other news executives should pull together their brain trusts to grapple with this. And they should be transparent with the public about what they’re doing and why.

As a model, they might have to swallow their big-media pride and look to places like Harrisburg, Pa., public radio station WITF which has admirably explained to its audience why it continually offers reminders about the actions of those public officials who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Or to Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn’s letter to readers about how the paper and its website, Cleveland.com, refuse to cover every reckless, attention-getting lie of Republican Josh Mandel as he runs for the U.S. Senate next year.

Margaret Sullivan
July 28, 2021
Our democracy is under attack. Washington journalists must stop covering it like politics as usual.
[Ms. Sullivan openly demands the suppression of views which diverge from her narrative.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—amicus curiae brief

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New York’s licensing requirements criminalize the exercise of the fundamental Second Amendment right, with rare exception. As a result, each year, we represent hundreds of indigent people whom New York criminally charges for exercising their right to keep and bear arms. For our clients, New York’s licensing regime renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction. Worse, virtually all our clients whom New York prosecutes for exercising their Second Amendment right are Black or Hispanic. And that is no accident. New York enacted its firearm licensing requirements to criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities. That remains the effect of its enforcement by police and prosecutors today.

BRIEF OF THE BLACK ATTORNEYS OF LEGAL AID, THE BRONX DEFENDERS, BROOKLYN DEFENDER SERVICES, ET AL. AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS
July 2021
[Via Damon Root.

It is somewhat disturbing that pointing out that the demographics of the illegal prosecutions are believed to make a difference in whether the law is declared unconstitutional or not. It would seem to me the constitutionality of a law should not be decided on skin color or ethnicity.

That said, if it gets another SCOTUS justice vote (Root opines, “It’s possible that such arguments will resonate with Justice Sonia Sotomayor”) I give my thanks to the public defenders for their contribution.—Joe]

Eagle Scout fundraiser

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The daughter of a long time Boomershooter has a daughter working on her Eagle Scout project and needs some money to complete it.

Here is her GoFundMe pitch:

Hello, everyone! My name is Elysia, and I’m a Scout from Troop 498. I want to be the first female Scout from my Troop.

For my Eagle Project, I want to build a eagle-perching pole on Eagle Island in Eagle Lake. A previous Eagle Scout put a pole on the island for our local eagles to perch on. It was there for many years, but it was made from a fallen tree, and eventually it rotted, and it fell during a winter wind storm. The community has wanted to replace it with something better, but there are a lot of projects they want to do, and not a lot of people that want to take charge. They were very happy when I said I wanted to do this!

My plan is to get a 35-foot aluminum flagpole and mount it in a concrete foundation on the island. At the top, I will put a lightweight triangular perching structure to replace the usual ball at the top of the flagpole. I will build the perching structure out of aluminum pipe and aluminum sheets, welded together into support arms, with some hardwood dowels for the eagles to actually perch on.

The flagpole is the most expensive part of the whole project at about $3750, but we need a pole like that because:

  • We need to transport the flagpole to the island by rowboat, and it comes in two 75-lb pieces. Wood utility poles would be too heavy to transport, even if they float.
  • The island is only 20-feet in diameter, so the pole needs to be light enough for a few people to lift it into the foundation socket without heavy equipment
  • Wood will eventually rot away, but we’re using only aluminum pole, aluminum screws and aluminum parts for the perch, so we won’t get galvanic corrosion between different metals.
  • The pole is rated for 60mph winds with a flag on it, so that should stand up to windstorms even with the perch at the top
  • It should be strong enough for 12-lb eagles to land on, but too wobbly for them to try to build a nest on it.

I hope to build the concrete foundation for the flagpole in August while the weather is dry and the lake is low. Then I’ll get the aluminum parts together to build the perch assembly, and some of the volunteers from my troop know some Boeing engineers with the right kind of equipment to weld aluminum. (I have my Welding merit badge, but welding aluminum is not like welding steel!)

About me:

  • My cultural background is Peruvian, Texan, English, and Cantonese, and my dad is a US Veteran.
  • The Hamlin Robinson School is the best school for kids with dyslexia and language development difficulties. They really helped me! I hope they can help someone you know.
  • I am learning American Sign Language, and I hope I can earn my Translator patch soon.
  • I help my grandma at the Shelton Community Lifeline, when I can. If we raise more money than we need for this project, and my local community agrees, I want to use any extra to help the homeless shelter.

After my $50 donation she has 3,920 of her $4,500 goal. Can you guys push her over the top? Donate here.

Quote of the day—Chris Farrell

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The FBI needs to go away. It should happen in an orderly and thoughtful process, over a period of months. Congress should authorize and create an investigative division in the U.S. Marshals Service and open applications for law enforcement officer seeking to be rigorously screened, vetted and then accessed into the new organization. Similar action was taken before in the very creation of the FBI. It is now time to clean house and restore the public’s trust in the “premier investigative agency” of federal law enforcement.

Chris Farrell
July 28, 2021
Disband the FBI
[About 99% of the Federal government needs to go away to be operating with the limits set by the U.S. Constitution. So the FBI is just a tiny snowflake at the tip of the iceberg.

And if you think about it a little bit you realize the bigger issue is all the Federal laws the FBI enforces. The laws need to be eliminated first or at least concurrently with the FBI. If they didn’t have laws to enforce their “teeth” would be essentially pulled and be mostly irrelevant.

The FBI was once extremely well regarded. I remember my dad once telling me, I must have been about eight years old at the time, how great the FBI was. They trained to shoot one handed and using their weak hand only. I was amazed at this. And, “Once the FBI is on a case the case will be solved. The FBI always gets their man.”

After Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the failed coup against President Trump, to hit just a few of the low spots, many people now rightfully regarded the FBI as an enemy of the people.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Naomi Wolf

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If we’ve gotten to a point where a giant tech company, or even a little company, is silencing people who are providing first-hand sourcing for major, major news stories, or reading press releases from elected officials, that’s like not America anymore.

Naomi Wolf
July 30, 2021
Former Clinton Adviser Naomi Wolf: Big Tech Bans Leading to Self-Censorship
[I was chatting with someone about this sort of thing a few weeks ago and he said something which surprised me. He said, “I don’t expect Facebook to exist a year from now.”

I expressed my surprise but there were more important things to discuss and I dropped it. He is a former Secret Service agent, but I don’t see how that would give him insider knowledge about something as big as the elimination of Facebook as a company.

Is this a QAnon thing I haven’t heard?—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Chipman

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The frustration is in the United States the freedom of speech and to say things is largely cannot be regulated.

David Chipman
2019
Biden ATF Nominee ‘Frustrated’ By First Amendment Freedom Of Gun Owners To Say Things He Doesn’t Like
[Chipman isn’t fit for a government job as a toilet scrubber, let alone a position requiring a presidential nomination and Senate approval.

Via email from Rolf.—Joe]

SCOTUS decisions mean nothing

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From Newsweek (emphasis added):

Millions of Americans could be forced out of their homes after the Biden administration declined to extend the federal eviction ban put in place last September to protect tenants during the pandemic. The White House said Thursday that it would not extend the moratorium, citing a Supreme Court decision last month against an extension past July.

…

Bush and Pressley spearheaded a letter to Biden Saturday—signed by six others including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota—calling for “an urgent government response,” according to Politico. “Extending the eviction moratorium is a matter of life and death for the communities we represent,” they wrote.

Rep. Maxine Waters of California called on Biden to issue an executive order to “expand and extend” the moratorium on CNN Saturday, criticizing the president for following the Supreme Court’s ruling. “We thought that the White House was in charge,” she said. “We have families, probably 11 million families, out there who stand to be evicted.”

I grant you that Rep Waters isn’t the sharpest Fruit Loop in the knife drawer, but her “thought” seems to be shared by others. This appears to include the writer of the article. I find this “thought” of hers extremely telling. She and others do not regard SCOTUS decisions as binding on the executive or legislative branch.

This is truly scary stuff. Make appropriate preparations.