Quote of the day—Gertrude O. Douglas @Gertrude_O_D

Posted on by

I was a victim of 3 violent robberies in my life

The last one 3 yrs ago was an exceptionally violent house robbery by 4 armed men who assaulted everyone, including my 8yr old grand daughter

I remember thinking then, as I do now, thank God I did NOT have a gun in the house

Gertrude O. Douglas @Gertrude_O_D
Tweeted on December 12, 2019
[And would she thank God she did not have a fire extinguisher in the house when an arsonist tried to burn her house down?

And would she thank God she did not have a telephone in the house when the armed men assaulted her and her family?

And would she thank God she did not have a first-aid kit in the house after she and her family were assaulted?

The mindset of some people is incomprehensible to me. There are times when I just want to let Darwin sort them out.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Greta Thunberg

Posted on by

Unfortunately, we probably already know the outcome. World leaders are still trying to run away from their responsibilities but we have to make sure they cannot do that.

We will make sure that we put them against the wall and they will have to do their job to protect our futures.

Greta Thunberg
December 13, 2019
Greta Thunberg tells cheering crowd ‘we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall’ if they do not tackle global warming as she attends climate protest in Turin
[This is consistent with much of the political left throughout the 20th Century. But usually they do not publicly announce this until they have consolidated more political power than what this 16 year old has. I attribute the poor judgement to her youth.

It would appear that after saying this she received some coaching from someone wiser than her:

Yesterday I said we must hold our leaders accountable and unfortunately said “put them against the wall”. That’s Swenglish: “att ställa någon mot väggen” (to put someone against the wall) means to hold someone accountable. That’s what happens when you improvise speeches in a second language. But of course I apologise if anyone misunderstood this. I can not enough express the fact that I – as well as the entire school strike movement- are against any possible form of violence. It goes without saying but I say it anyway.

Any native Swedish speaker out there that can verify or refute this claim?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D.

Posted on by

The radical liberal mind is trapped in his bitter cynicism because he suffered certain kinds of neglect, deprivation and abuse at an early age and has had as a consequence to deny, as if they don’t exist, whole realms of human experience, because awareness of those realms is emotionally painful beyond his tolerance. He has not had as an infant and toddler the deeply formative benefits of engagement, love, tenderness, protection and empathy that would allow him to understand and participate happily in the human benevolence that is everywhere available to him as an adult.

To the radical liberal who is blind to an entire realm of interpersonal experience, and who distorts the realities of spontaneous cooperation in every community where freedom prevails, America and Trump are devils that must be stopped from destroying the world. The radical liberal and the Trump-deranged individual see only the projections onto others of their own inner badness, greed, predation, exclusion, prejudice, bigotry, envy, jealousy and exploitative impulses. They don’t see, beyond Trump’s personality faults, his goodwill for America, his generosity toward veterans and other Americans, his grandiose but effective identification with the greatness of America. The dysfunctional families which radical liberals and Trump-deranged sufferers come from are the source of their projections of badness onto our country. What they see in present-day America are transference versions of their own early traumas.

Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D.
September 30, 2019
Psychiatrist: Trump Derangement Syndrome is real – and serious
[As stated in SJWs Always Lie, They lie, they double down, and they project. This psychiatrist claims he know why they do this:

Perhaps. But I would like to see the raw data he used to arrive at his conclusions.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson

Posted on by

This is what being unhinged looks like—being so sure of your correctness that you demand affirmation. The use of violence to revolt against lawful elections is only done by people who don’t care about free and fair elections. Britain is not a rogue state where sham elections are held. It’s a cornerstone democratic nation.

Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson
December 13, 2019
Democracy Is Alive And Well Despite The Media’s Best Efforts
[The political left only consider the democratic process as valid as long as it is making progress in their direction. When “progress” slows or reverses they bring out the violence.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeffrey Folks

Posted on by

The problem for the liberal is that most people do not want to be transformed.  They want life to be better but not qualitatively different.  It is only the liberal, or the “progressive,” as he prefers to be called today, who welcomes revolution and relishes the violent tactics necessary to bring it about.  For the progressive, it is an article of faith that the masses will resist change and must be forced to swallow it.

This is a crucial difficulty, and it gives rise to all sorts of persuasion, nudging, compulsion, and outright violence.  If the masses don’t know what’s good for them, they must be made to change.

Jeffrey Folks
February 24, 2018
Leftists versus the People
[As we are seeing both here and most recently and vividly in London. Voting is what they advocate for when they think they will win. Violence is always there as plan B.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

Posted on by

From

Jamel Jackson‏ @JamelJackson10.

See her tweet and the accompanying thread.

AccomplishedSoMuch

It’s almost mind blowing that they believe this is what we think and how we view the issues.

Also note, the artist didn’t realize the gun needed a rear sight.

They are ignorant in so many dimension. This makes them extremely dangerous. Without facts to anchor them they can easily believe whatever they want to believe.

Quote of the day—Fritz Edmunds

Posted on by

If plastic water bottles are okay, but plastic bags are banned, — you might live in a nation (state) that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots WE DO LIVE IN SUCH A DUMB COUNTRY!!

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If an 80-year-old woman who is confined to a wheelchair or a three-year-old girl can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE IN ALL UPCOMING ELECTIONS. MOST OF THE IDIOTS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY SAY ONE THING AND DO THE OPPOSITE KNOWING THAT THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED THEM IN DO NOT PAY ATTENTION

Fritz Edmunds
February 3, 2013
Channeling Jeff Foxworthy In a Country Founded by Geniuses and Run By Idiots (the link is dead as of December 12, 2019)
[This has been attributed to Jeff Foxworthy but that is probably incorrect.

It would appear this is just as true now as it was almost seven years ago.—Joe]

Virginia Democrats

Posted on by

Via Matthew Bracken.

This appears to be correct:

VirginiaDemocrats

Respond appropriately.

Quote of the day—Oleg Volk

Posted on by

The recent terrorist event in the zoo previously known as Great Britain illustrated the unfortunate decline of that people. On the one hand, brave residents went after the perpetrator of violence with all available tools. On the other, the sole available weapon was a narwhal tusk in its original shape, not even fashioned into a proper spear. That’s Paleolith-level tool, no better than those available to Neanderthals.

Oleg Volk
November 30, 2019
Paleolithic Britain
[As I have not heard any whining from people in (formerly) Great Britain about a subject using such a tool for defense of innocent life is considered acceptable behavior. One has to wonder what it would take for these people to think it appropriate to use a more civilized tool.

I wonder if they are permanently stuck in the mindset of a subject as opposed to a free citizen.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dean Weingarten

Posted on by

Preventing a murder or suicide committed with a particular method is *not* a compelling governmental interest, because it is not clear if prohibiting one method will do anything to lower murders or suicides generally. It is arguable that prohibiting one method will lead to the rise of other methods. If preventing one method does not lower the overall rate, resources have been wasted and liberties narrowed to no effect. Thus, singling out one method becomes a matter of choice and preference.

Using the Orwellian phrases of Progressives is one of the easiest ways to lose an argument with them. If you cede to them the ability to define the words and terms of the language used, they win, mostly by default.

Dean Weingarten
December 8, 2019
”Preventing Gun Violence” is not a Compelling Governmental Interest
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Justin Anderson

Posted on by

Sales have definitely been brisk, especially of small, concealable handguns. We also saw a spike in sales of tactical rifles like AR-15s and AK-47s, for which I think we can confidently thank Beto O’Rourke.

Justin Anderson
Marketing director for Hyatt Guns in Charlotte, North Carolina
December 4, 2019
ATF: 423M guns in America, 1.2 per person, 8.1B rounds of ammunition a year
[If the anti-gun people want there to be fewer guns in circulation the best way for them to accomplish that is to stop trying to ban and/or restrict gun sales.

Using other information from the article, I’ll leave following as a exercises for the reader:

  • Calculate the percentage (worst case using reasonably valid assumptions) of the total number of guns used in a murder or violent crime each year.
  • Calculate the percentage (worst case using reasonably valid assumptions) of the total number of rounds of ammunition used in a murder or violent crime each year.

And more directly related to the Anderson quote, the anti-gun people should ask themselves, “Are all these people buying the guns that we plan to confiscate just really stupid? Or, are they planning to shoot the people advocating for confiscation?”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ben Joseph Woods

Posted on by

The legal precedent we would set by allowing the legislature to selectively ignore enumerated rights at will is the same mindset that 150 years ago lead this country into a civil war.

Ben Joseph Woods
December 5, 2019
Pubic comment to Fairfax County Virginia on debate regarding becoming a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary county.


[The part quoted above starts at 5:38 in the video. The previous minutes are definitely worth listening to.—Joe]

I was productive today

Posted on by

This is just part of the ammunition I reloaded today:

20191208_174417

Major power factor loads using 180 grain bullets chambered in .40 S&W. These will be used both for practice and USPSA matches.

Quote of the day—James Howard Kunstler

Posted on by

What is the Democratic Party today? Well, it’s the cheerleading squad for “seventeen” government agencies that add up to the craftily-labeled “intel community,” a warm-and-fuzzy coalition of snoops, false witnesses, rogue lawfare cadres, seditionists, and bad-faith artists working sedulously to hide their previous misdeeds with ever-fresh ones. They’re the party against free speech, the party against due process of law, the party determined to provoke war with Russia. They’re the party of sexual confusion, sexual hysteria, and sexual conflict, the party of kangaroo courts, cancel culture, erasing boundaries (including national borders), and of making up rules for all that as they go along — like the Nazis and Soviets used to do. The ideas and policies they advocate are so comprehensively crazy that their old support of slavery looks quaintly straightforward in comparison.

James Howard Kunstler
December 6, 2019
A Fraught Moment
[Harsh! But fair.

Via email from Chet.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brad Smith

Posted on by

The pressure to put data centers in more countries is giving rise to what is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most important human rights issues. With everyone’s personal information stored in the cloud, an authoritarian regime bent on broad surveillances can unleash draconian demands to monitor not only what people are communicating, but even what they are reading and watching online. And armed with this knowledge, governments can prosecute, persecute, or even execute those individuals they consider threats.

This is a fundamental fact of life that everyone in works in the tech sector needs to remember every day.

Brad Smith
President and chief legal officer of Microsoft
September 2019
Page 45 in Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age


[One of Barb’s brother-in-laws recommended this book to me a few days ago as we were having a discussion about privacy and security.

I’m only about 20% of the way through the book but I’m really enjoying it. What I’m hearing matches the general tone of the culture when I worked at Microsoft. They take customer privacy seriously.

They have a team of about 50 people that work full time to respond to government requests and push back if the request is out of line with the law. They have promised to go to court rather than comply with requests that don’t have the warrants and documentation all in order. And they have gone to court numerous times. Smith claims they win in court 90% of the time.

I don’t know the details of the level of cooperation my current employer and the government have but I know that on the security side of things we take things very seriously. I also know that, IIRC, we have about 100 full time people who deal with government requests for information. I’ve talked with some of them and they too seem to believe it’s critical to keep the government on the straight and narrow.

I only see the criminal side of things but if we know or suspect customer personal information has been compromised, by either insider or outsiders, we put a stop to it as quickly as possible. And in the past year or two I’ve been seeing names of the people we chased end up in the news as being arrested, prosecuted, and convicted. None of them have been government officials, but that’s probably a little too much to expect.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Glenda T. Goode

Posted on by

When your opponent is self energizing as far as creating disrespect in a society there is no sense egging them on. By letting them continue the process they will eventually take it too far.

Know what the democrats do is self serving and destined to either a tyrannical socialist state or their extinction . Either way, this dispute will not go on forever.

Glenda T. Goode
December 5, 2019
Comment to Truth.
[When stated as “forever” she is absolutely correct. But the heat death of the universe is a long time from now. I suspect she really meant sometime before that. But similar disputes have persisted for hundreds of years. For example we have more than one religion in the world with some pretty nasty conflicts between some of them.

One could make the case the Democrats are engaged in one last epic struggle before they implode in the 2020 election and go the way of the Whig party. The Whig party was originally formed around the hate of President Andrew Jackson and it’s easy to make the case this is what the Democrats have done with a name replacement. But just six years ago people were making the case the Republican/Tea party would disappear for similar reasons. It, obviously, didn’t happen.

But yet there certainly have been high tension disputes between competing political parties which have been decisively settled. The most obvious one is the one between Republicans and Democrats which was settled in 1866 when the Democrats also attempted an insurrection.

I hope the current insurrection is settled soon, against the insurrectionist Democrats, and with less bloodshed than the previous insurrection.—Joe]

Boomershoot 2020 registration opens soon!

Posted on by

I finally have the new credit card processing working. I had to move the websites to a different hosting provider. For various reasons, I am abandoning the boomershoot.org domain. Everything is now on boomershoot.com.

Entry opens to Boomershoot 2019 participants on Wednesday December 11th at 6:00 PM PST. When you sign up, the site checks your name in the list of 2019 participants. It will fail to find you in 2019 if you use a different name with this entry than you did last year. The classic is ‘Robert’ versus ‘Bob’. If you can’t figure out why you aren’t being recognized send me an email and I’ll look up your entry from last year.

Entry for everyone begins on the first day of winter, Saturday December 21 at 9:00 AM PST.

Sign up soon so you don’t lose your favorite position (or something close by) to someone else.

Federal Air Marshal Qualification

Posted on by

I tried this years ago and failed. I should try it again.

Federal Air Marshal Qualification: Test Your CCW Skills

Commonly called the “old Air Marshal (FAM) course,” it was created for Federal Air Marshals in 1992. In cooperation with the Office of Civilian Airline Security, it was developed by a private instructor in the Fort Bragg, NC, area who routinely taught skills to certain units based at that facility. It eventually became the qualification course for all Federal Air Marshals. Those who passed it received their flying orders. Those who failed went back for more training. It was not an easy course. In fact, when senior officers from the Joint Special Operations Command attended and reviewed the course in 1998, their opinion was that those passing the TPC were among the top one-percent of pistol shooters in the world.

I expect I will fail again but I now have easy access to a place where I can practice on the stages I difficulty with.

Quote of the day—Robert A. Heinlein

Posted on by

Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.

Robert A Heinlein
1942
Beyond this Horizon
[This is the longer version of the famous quote. For my comments on this observation see my previous posting of the short version.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joseph O’Sullivan

Posted on by

Extending gun-free zones to include child care centers. Banning high-capacity magazines. Creating a licensing system for ammunition sellers.

With the Washington Legislature starting back up in January, gun-safety advocates, led by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, are planning a fresh push to pass new firearms restrictions.

Joseph O’Sullivan
November 22, 2019
Gun-free zones, licenses for ammo dealers: Gun-safety advocates reveal agenda for Washington state
[“Gun-safety advocates”? The NRA is a gun safety advocate organization with thousands of gun safety instructors nationwide. It is unlikely these people have ever even taken a gun safety class let alone taught such a class or advocated for anything other than restrictions on the specific enumerated right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The deceptive language is intentional and very telling. They know they cannot succeed without deliberate deception and lies. It’s part of their culture.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]