Quote of the day—Lisa Vaas

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We would be remiss were we to not point out what has been demonstrated time and time again: that Big Data can be dissected, compared and contrasted to look for patterns from which to draw inferences about individuals. In other words, it’s not hard to re-identify people from anonymized records, be they records pertaining to location tracking, faceprints or, one imagines, anuses.

Lisa Vaas
April 8, 2020
As if the world couldn’t get any weirder, this AI toilet scans your anus to identify you
[It’s a lot like most encryption*. Data is only “anonymized” in the minds of those doing the anonymizing. The right people, with a big enough dataset, and enough CPU cycles can deanonymize/decrypt it.

So, other than the obvious embarrassment of having pictures of your anus being featured in the next big data security breach, what is the worst way this technology be abused?

It turns out that just like fingerprints and irises you can be uniquely identified by your anus. If all toilets were equipped with cameras and the data obtained by a totalitarian government it would becoming far more difficult to keep your location private. It would violate my Jews in the Attic Test.—Joe]

* There are exceptions. One-time-pads come to mind.

Quote of the day—Christopher Ryan @ThatChrisRyan

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Republicans are against voting, against women, against education, against health care, against a living wage … at what point do we conclude they are against human beings?

Christopher Ryan @ThatChrisRyan
Tweeted on April 9, 2020
[This is what they think of you.

Typical left wing politics. It looks like Ryan is prepping the battlespace for the railroad cars and the final solution.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sheriff Steve Reams

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While I understand each person’s choice to disagree with me, my response to those individuals is this: I’m not comfortable giving up the fight for their constitutional rights in exchange for their vote/support.

Steve Reams
Sheriff Weld County Colorado
March 2020
Colorado Inmate Red Flags Sheriff
[And others are not only comfortable and willing but desirous and eager to strip the people of their constitutional rights.

Culture, philosophy, and elections are important.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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Via Paul K. from here, who says, “Perfect…”

01-corona-free-dt-600

The political left has been calling “gun violence” an epidemic and using other disease terminology to describe firearm ownership and misuse. So, it’s perfectly reasonable, and just as effective, to extrapolate in the other direction.

Quote of the day—David Kopel

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Maximizing harassment of law-abiding gun owners is a feature, not a bug, of gun control.

David Kopel
April 8, 2020
Our right to arms faces a death by a thousand cuts
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Hannah Furfaro

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People will remain at risk until most are immune to the virus either through vaccination or extensive community spread, said Yonatan Grad, assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Without a vaccine, the end of the pandemic here could go like this: aggressive social distancing will help flatten the number of infected at any given time, but to prevent a serious reemergence, widespread testing is needed to detect those who have the virus, and those who are immune. Government officials will need to get serious about tracing who has come into contact with someone who has been diagnosed with the disease, Grad said. Once the virus is under control, he added, officials should attempt to keep infected people elsewhere from bringing the coronavirus back to Washington.

Hannah Furfaro
April 8, 2020
Coronavirus has closed Washington’s schools, at least through summer. When will it be safe to return?
[There are predictions the peak in resource use and daily deaths will in less than a week. But that assumes “full social distancing through May 2020”.

I don’t see May being a time we can return to normal. “Normal” will not return until there is a vaccine or herd immunity. Even then, because of our prolonged work from home and social distancing we will have made drastic changes in our society. I expect many companies will shed major portions of their office space. I expect schools will have made significant migration to online teaching.

I see some of this as a very good thing. For many jobs the office space and commuting in a era of high speed digital communications is a waste of resources. Imagine the time, fuel, construction materials, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, water, sewer, trash, and transportation bandwidth saved without there being “the office” to go to.

There will be a component of individual responsibility take place that I see as good as well. The need to be “in the city” will dramatically decrease. This will change the demographics and the politics of the nation and the world.

I see the loss of a major portion of the restaurants and small shops in our future. Large retailers will survive only because of their online sales. If something can be sold online and delivered in a small vehicles by one person who drops a package at your door there will be very few local shops which carry it. Items which need special handling such as perishable foods will be the partial exceptions.

We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joe Biden

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This idea that we don’t have elimination of assault-type weapons, magazines that can have — hold multiple bullets in them, is absolutely mindless. It is no violation of the Second Amendment, it’s just a bow to the special interests, the gun manufacturers and the NRA. It’s gotta stop.

Joe Biden
September 2, 2019
Joe Biden calls for elimination of gun magazines that can ‘hold multiple bullets in them’
[“Big lie” comes to mind. And that would probably be sufficient in most cases. But this is a special case.

“Mindless.” In context, this is more Interesting.

Rule 2 of SJW’s Always Lie is once again validated.—Joe]

This was supposed to be scheduled for posting on April 6 but I got the date wrong and it went live on the 5th on the same day as a different post. I’m leaving it on the 5th because there are live links to it and if the date changes the links will be broken.

Quote of the day—Mike Roberts @ecopoesis

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I had no idea one of the symptoms of COVID-19 was penile shrinkage.

Mike Roberts @ecopoesis
Tweeted on April 1, 2020
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

This was his response to the record number of NICS checks in March.—Joe]

Quote of the day—bitterb @bitterb

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It seems that “Holy Shit March” is a phrase we can just use for everything in life at this point.

bitterb @bitterb
Tweeted on April 2, 2020
[This was in response to this tweet by Tamara K. @TamSlick which I was seriously considering for a QOTD in it’s own right until bitter topped it:

Almost four million NICS checks in March. That’s a lotta guns.

It’s interesting to see the normalcy bias in action. Six months ago I, in my rational mind, knew something like this was possible but it didn’t feel possible in any reality I might experience. Today, working from home, seldom going to stores, wearing a mask when you do, and wiping down everything that has had recent contact with another human before it comes in the house feels ordinary.—Joe]

Free business/entrepreneur coaching

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A few days ago I received an email from Brian:

I am doing a bunch of webinars for entrepreneurs where we do group coaching- essentially, brainstorming and deploying ways to connect with our customer bases and increase the chances that we stay in business.
 
I’d be happy to do one for your audience. Definitely off topic for your blog. But you have plenty of business owners I bet who would appreciate getting together and access to a business coach in this format for free.

This led to:

Hello Joe’s audience,

I’m Brian Keith and a member of the gun culture like you.

Current events show me more than usual that we are in a culture war for the soul of America.

As a business coach, the main contribution I can make is helping our team’s businesses survive this season.

If you are an entrepreneur, or you know a business owner who is in the gun culture (“one of us”), I have two offers for you:

1. I can lead a regular (monthly? biweekly? weekly?) group coaching call where you bring your problems to me and we figure them out together. The group format means you get to learn from your peers, and it keeps my costs low.

2. You and I can talk one on one for an hour. You get more privacy, and leave our call with a more customized plan on what to do in your business to survive and maybe even grow right now.

What does it cost?

You and I rubbed shoulders at Mecca manufacturing Boomerite. You comment on Joe’s blog. You and I look forward to Boomershoot 2021. We’re on the same side in this cultural fight.

So the cost is free.
All you need to do- email me (brian (at) redbeardconsulting.com) whether Option 1 (regular group coaching calls) or Option 2 (a single one-on-one call with me) would best help your business survive.

The range is open

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I haven’t been to the range in several weeks now. And probably won’t for a while still. But the range I go to most frequently (Bellevue) sent out an email a few minutes ago:

Why is Our Range Open?
We have many clients who work in law enforcement or in the private security sector. These individuals must maintain
firearms proficiency for their personal safety and to meet professional certification requirements. We have other clients who don’t fall into the above categories but have personal circumstances which make firearms proficiency a priority for them.
 
Additionally, many families perceive an increased need for all members to have familiarity with defensive firearms. It is especially important that these new or less experienced shooters have the opportunity to learn and practice safe firearms handling skills in a controlled environment.
 
Federal guidelines recognize the above issues and have designated firearms retailers and ranges as essential critical infrastructure.
 
Our opinion is that each individual should have the opportunity to make an assessment of their personal risk factors and act according to that assessment.
 
What are we doing to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission?

Traveling alone in your vehicle does not increase your risk or the risk to anyone else. The risk of COVID-19 transmission is increased most significantly by close interpersonal contact.
 
Upon arrival, clients are asked to maintain 6’ or more of distance while waiting to approach the check-in-counter one client at a time (unless in a group of two who already share close social distancing.)
 
Clients are assigned shooting lanes one person per booth. (The only exception is that two family members who already share close social distancing may share a booth.)
 
Once on the range shooters are separated from each other by over six feet of space and two partitions (we leave an empty booth between each shooter.)
 
The ventilation system on the range provides constant air flow away from the shooters.
 
Upon exiting the range all clients are directed to wash their hands in the bathrooms located in the range lobby.
 
All surfaces that people contact are cleaned multiple times during each day.
 
Going to a shooting range is not the best choice for all persons at this particular time. It is however an essential activity for some people and an activity which can be engaged in without significant risk of exposure to COVID-19.

The range will be open Thursday through Sunday,
10am to 8pm until further notice.

Quote of the day—Brantley Starr

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The federal government forgot the Tenth Amendment and the structure of the Constitution itself.  It is concerning that the federal government believes it swallowed the states whole.  Assuming the federal government didn’t abolish the states to take their police power, the Court DENIES the motion to dismiss WITHOUT PREJUDICE.  The Court will allow the federal government to try again and explain which enumerated power justifies the federal regulation and whether it allows a taking without compensation.  The Court requests that the federal government also address any limits on that federal power and the Court’s proper role in examining the validity of the underlying rule when determining if there was a compensable taking.

Brantley Starr
United States District Judge
March 30, 2020
BRIAN P. LANE, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiff,  v. THE UNITED STATES
[Via Reason: Another Trump-Appointed Judge Benchslaps the Trump Administration for Rewriting Federal Gun Laws
[It’s a good start.

I know it’s too much to ask for, but I’d like to see those responsible for rewriting the definition of a machine gun without going through the proper legislative procedures being recommended for prosecution. If if they did go through the legislative process see the prosecution any legislators who voted for the illegal infringement of our rights as well as the criminals who advocated for such legislation.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Cam Edwards

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For years, Everytown for Gun Safety has presented itself as a moderate “gun safety” group that isn’t interested in stripping Americans of their rights, but is only in favor of “commonsense gun safety” regulations. Now they’re exposing that lie all by themselves. In a time of uncertainty, and during an emergency, Everytown is doing everything it can to prevent Americans from acquiring firearms and ammunition. There’s nothing common sense about that. Their position has nothing to do with gun safety and everything to do with keeping as many Americans as possible unarmed and defenseless when more Americans than ever before are choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Cam Edwards
April 1, 2020
Everytown Law: It’s Totally Constitutional To Close Gun Stores Right Now
[Has there has ever been a firearms restriction this organization has publicly opposed? I don’t think so and and I doubt there ever will be. Their objective is to incrementally eliminate firearms in the hands of ordinary people.

They need to be opposed and prosecuted.—Joe]

Quote of the day—STAY FKING HOME @flopperdog

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So we’ll lose 100k to Covid and another 100k to self-inflicted dumbass shootings.

STAY FKING HOME @flopperdog
Tweeted on April 1, 2020
[I realize arithmetic, or in many cases even numbers, are not within the domain of knowledge for these people. So, I’ll take care of that for this numbers illiterate.

From the CDC (2018 was the most recent data I found):

image

So, assuming a constant population, at that rate it will take over 218 years to achieve the 100k number asserted. Of course the population is almost certainly going to increase instead of remain constant. But, the rate of unintentional firearms deaths have been falling:

image

Assuming a linear* rate of fall that current 0.14 rate will drop to zero about half way through the year 2034 with a rate of 0.132 at the beginning of 2020. The area under that triangle from the beginning of 2020 until it drops to zero at year 2034.625 is 0.965 per 100K of the population. Assuming a rough population of about 280,000,000 that means about 2,700 people will die in the next 14 years due to unintentional firearm deaths before the rate drops to zero.

But, of course, the rate could increase some due to new ownership and potential lack of training. But with 100,000,000+ current owners the “worst” case is that the total number of gun owners increases to something like 200,000,000 adults.

Assuming the worst case, all unintentional firearms deaths are due to new owner gun sales inspired by COVID-19, and their rate of unintentional death by firearm is double the existing population for a few years before they are trained it is still far less than 100,000.

My rough estimate is that this dup (or evil) flopperdog is probably off by something like a factor of 25.

Not bad. I expected worse.—Joe]

* Poor assumption. It’s probably going to be closer to a decaying exponential but I don’t want to bother doing the curve fitting to find a better model. Besides, I doubt even one out of 1000 anti-gun people understand linear interpolation yet alone curve fitting and integration.

Quote of the day—Stephen P. Halbrook

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Americans should be mindful of the dangers of “emergency” decrees. History tells us that government diktats in response to man-made and natural disasters often lead to unprecedented restrictions on individual liberty that last long after the disasters are forgotten.

Stephen P. Halbrook
March 31. 2020
Will the Second Amendment Survive Coronavirus?
[I strongly agree.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan M. Gottlieb

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While we pursue litigation elsewhere we’re happy that the situation in New Jersey has changed. Regardless what some politicians might think, the Second Amendment is not subject to emergency orders, same as the First, Fourth, Fifth or other constitutional protections.

This is one more example of SAF’s ongoing mission to win back firearms freedom, one lawsuit at a time.

Alan M. Gottlieb
SAF founder and Executive Vice President
March 30, 2020
N.J. GOV. MURPHY BACKS DOWN, ALLOWS GUN SHOPS BACK OPEN IN SAF VICTORY
[I think legislative action is going to be increasingly difficult and even impossible in many states. The courts is where we have to fight and win. It appears to me that SAF is on the leading edge of this.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kris Brown

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State and local governments are well within their constitutional rights to broadly close businesses in order to prevent the spread and flatten the curve, and they are definitely not required to designate gun industry businesses as ‘essential’ and keep them open. There is no constitutional right to immediately buy or sell guns, and there is certainly no right to spread coronavirus while buying or selling guns.

Kris Brown
President of Brady United
March 29, 2020
BRADY OPPOSES DESIGNATION OF GUN STORES AS ‘ESSENTIAL’’ BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
[I find it very telling Brown refers to the “rights” of governments. Governments don’t have rights. They have enumerated powers granted to them by the people.

When and how did the people give governments the power to force people to stop or delay the exercise of a specific enumerated right?

Answer: The people did not give governments any such power.

Apparently Brown believes governments have rights and, if they should chose to do so, sometimes grants them to people. Brown has it exactly backward. The people have rights and grant certain power to governments to protect those rights*.

With such an upside down view of reality Brown’s opinion should be given as much respect as a flat earther or an space alien abductee.

While I agree there is “no right to spread coronavirus while buying or selling guns”. That isn’t the issue. One can buy and/or sell guns without putting others at risk of a deadly disease. Public health officials can certainly put appropriate restriction in place to prevent that without a ban on selling or buying. We are still buy and selling food aren’t we? A complete ban is no more appropriate than a complete ban on religion because religious organizations traditionally gather in enclosed spaces to worship.

I would also like to remind Brown that a right delayed is a right denied**.—Joe]

* “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

**Although Martin Luther King, Jr. is frequently credited with this, as near as I can tell, King never said it.

Quote of the day—Christopher C. Krebs

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Functioning critical infrastructure is imperative during the response to the COVID-19 emergency for both public health and safety as well as community well-being. Certain critical infrastructure industries have a special responsibility in these times to continue operations.

This advisory guidance and accompanying list are intended to support state, local, tribal, territorial and industry partners in identifying the critical infrastructure sectors and the essential workers needed to maintain the services and functions Americans depend on daily and that need to be able to operate resiliently during the COVID-19 pandemic response.

…

Workers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers, importers, distributors, and shooting ranges.

Christopher C. Krebs
Director
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
March 28, 2020
MEMORANDUM ON IDENTIFICATION OF ESSENTIAL CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WORKERS DURING COVID-19 RESPONSE
[Emphasis added.

There are some weasel words which give local area discretion to add or remove items but SAF and the NRA have been suing the politicians who have been shutting down gun stores:

I’m surprised at the lack of howling from anti-gun ownership groups. The worst I have seen so far is from the Gifford group:

Even some gun control advocates say it might not be wise to shut down federally licensed firearms dealers, whose sales require background checks. That could force buyers to use a website or seek a private sale that doesn’t require a check, making it more difficult to trace a firearm if it’s used in a crime.

There are risks to both closing a gun shop or keeping it open, said David Chipman, a retired agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“If you keep it open, there’s the risk of first-time buyers who are largely buying out of fear and panic and untrained,” said Chipman, now senior policy adviser for Giffords, a gun control advocacy group.

Gun control advocates are concerned about a large number of new owners lacking the usual access to training on how to store and handle their weapon properly. They also worry that Americans who are stocking up now eventually will sell their firearms privately.

“If we can imagine how horrible this crisis is … the people who hoarded the guns might decide six months from now – once they see no zombies around but they’ve run out of tuna and beef jerky – that they need the money to buy food,” Chipman said.

Millions of new gun owners has to be the nightmare scenario for these groups. This is a silver lining in the dark cloud of COVID-19.—Joe]

COVID-19 news you can use

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How you can reuse N95 masks. It’s a very technical paper but the takeaways I got from it are:

  • The N95 mask gets most of its filtration capability from semi-permanently electrically charged particles in the mask material.
  • Attempting to clean the masks with alcohol or even alcohol vaper will SERIOUSLY degrade the filtration ability of the mask. Don’t do that!
  • “…it is reported (if it is true) that COVID-19 cannot survive at 65C for 30 minutes. Therefore, it is safe to treat the masks in hot air at 70C for 30 minutes and this process can be repeated multiple times to reuse the masks without a noticeable loss of efficiency. But be sure to suspend the masks in the hot air in the oven without contacting or putting the masks too close to a metal surface. The respirator can be hung in the oven using a wood or a plastic clip on its edge of non-breathing zone or put on a wood grill at least 6” away from a metal surface.”
  • “…our investigation showed that the charge loss on the electret is unnoticeable by sterilization using 125oC steam for three minutes.”
  • “…our investigation showed that the charge loss on the media is unnoticeable in boiling water for three minutes but stirring on the mask is not recommended to avoid its physical damage.”
  • If you plan to use water to sterilize the mask “…be sure that the inner or the outer veil of the mask is not made of paper-like tissues – paper pulp or nonwovens bond by water soluble binder, which will either dissolve in water resulting in loose fibers in the veil or the loss of its strength after exposing to water.”

To save you a minute or so of your time, 70C is 158F and 125C is 257F.

Boomershoot 2020 is canceled

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At 2:45 AM this morning I sent a version of this email to all entries and the spectator and announcement list for Boomershoot:

Boomershoot 2020 is five weeks away and COVID-19 infections are still increasing across the country. I’ve had several people tell me they are not coming this year. Many states, including Idaho, have travel and social contact restrictions.

I’m canceling Boomershoot 2020.

I’m sorry to do this but both the legal and moral issues don’t give me any other options.

Regards,

Joe Huffman
Boomershoot Event Director
Cell: 208-301-4254

There has been a Boomershoot every year since 1998. It makes me sad to know that continuous record will be broken. I considered rescheduling for this fall but the end of fire season and the beginning of mud season is too unpredictable.