Americans have always come together as ‘one’ when we have a identifiable threat or a common enemy and the Democratic Party fits the bill perfectly. #Truthdom #WalkAway
Isaiah Washington @IWashington
Tweeted on July 13, 2019
[I don’t think it is quite that simple and clear cut, but I can see a good case being easy to make.—Joe]
I wonder how gun grabbers would describe hell: fire and brimstone or free men living happy lives?
Chet
July 7, 2019
Comment to Quote of the day—Nate McMurray (@Nate_McMurray)
[Excellent question.–Joe]
It would violate ex post facto constraints but we can fantasize about it. And it might be fun to suggest it to your local SJW.
This is what House Democratic leadership fears: that Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad, through their dominance of social media and their centrality on conservative media, will become the faces of the House Democratic majority.
…
Trump took a fight House Democrats were having with each other and turned it into a fight they are now having with him. In doing, he rallied House Democrats around the Squad, and made himself the Squad’s chief opponent. “The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four ‘progressives,’ but now they are forced to embrace them,” Trump tweeted. “That means they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the USA! Not good for the Democrats!”
Ezra Klein
July 16, 2019
Trump vs. “the Squad”–Trump reunited the Democrats to further his narrative.
[“The Squad” is the far left wing of the Democrats and their politics will be unacceptable in the vast majority of U.S. political jurisdictions. Speaker Pelosi knows this. She has data, from the quoted article, which says:
…the weird poll that Democratic officials apparently leaked to Axios to emphasize the damage Ocasio-Cortez was supposedly doing to the party. The poll was of non-college educated white men, and the post-publication controversy has swirled around whether it’s appropriate to call this group, which went heavily for Trump, “swing voters.”
But more telling was the framing of the poll by whoever leaked it. The Axios headline read “AOC defining Dems in swing states,” even though the results didn’t include any data to that effect. What the poll did show was that 74 percent of the respondents knew of Ocasio-Cortez, and 53 percent knew of Omar. How many other House Democrats have that kind of name recognition?
“If all voters hear about is AOC, it could put the [House] majority at risk,” an anonymous “top Democrat” told Axios. “[S]he’s getting all the news and defining everyone else’s races.”
Trump apparently saw this and made three tweets (and here and here):
So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
The Democrats went berserk saying this was racist. Trump’s racist tirades against “the Squad,” explained:
Trump is just castigating them as foreign because he says racist stuff.”
I find it telling that the tweets have to be explained as racists rather than demonstrate the racism directly. Ordinary people can clearly see they aren’t racist. The political left is like a paranoid person who imagine they see “people out to get them” everywhere. Healthy people don’t see the imaginary threats but that doesn’t reassure the paranoid. To the paranoid, as is the case with the political left, they interpret the fact that only they can see the “threat” as proof of their special powers.
With these three tweets President Trump bonded, essentially, all Democrats with “The Squad”. This bonding is a political albatross.
Congresswomen, who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our Country. Get a list of the HORRIBLE things they have said. Omar is polling at 8%, Cortez at 21%. Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party. See you in 2020!
Tim Pool describes it as 4-D Chess:
Via email from Chet who also asks, in a somewhat different context:
Would it be possible to do this for the first and second amendments? For example coming up with really, really outrageous positions that would distract the opponents of the bill of rights?
I’m of the opinion that:
The vast population of this earth, and indeed nations themselves, may readily be divided into three groups. There are the few who make things happen, the many more who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens.
On a good day I watch things happen. To accomplish the analog to President Trump’s manipulation of the Democrats but in defense of the First and Second Amendment is beyond my capacity. Suggestions?—Joe]
In the comments Gerry asked if the bales at Boomershoot would be square or round. I’ve only seen round for at least 10 years. The renter appears to have finished the baling at about 7:30 PM today.
As expected, the bales are round:
Turns out the California county with the most concealed carry licenses has a lower homicide rate than LA County, where it’s easier to win an Oscar than get a CHL.
Cam Edwards @CamEdwards
Tweeted on July 16, 2019
[Reference article, also by Edwards, is here.
Just another data point demonstrating that anti-gun people lie. It’s part of their nature.—Joe]
Via Chris Rawls:
The answer to the question depends on who you are asking if it has sunk in with.
For decades it has been obvious to gun owners who follow the gun control debate “these people” are evil. They lie, they defy clear constitutional intent, they imply they want to reduce crime but it’s abundantly clear that is not the real reason, they insist on banning “assault weapons” even they are only very rarely used in crime, and tell us there is no slippery slope but always come back for more after every victory they achieve.
I think the hard cord Democrats know who they really are. They are for the power. For people to mock and disrespect them creates an incredible urge to destroy even children associated with restricting their access to power. These people have to “know” what they are that they would murder children on their path to power. But it is a small price to pay because those who would restrict their access are not really human. They are deplorables.
The question is, “Does the set of people who are mostly apolitical know who these people really are?” I wish it were true. But I’m not yet convinced they are.
I want to change the conversation. I’m tired of people saying “things will never change.” I’m tired of walking on egg shells. After Sandyhook, if that’s where you’re at, you’re wrong.
SAY IT BOLD:
WE WILL TAKE YOUR ASSAULT WEAPONS.
Nate McMurray (@Nate_McMurray)
Tweeted on June 26, 2019
[Who is this “we”? Most cops are opposed to that idea.
I would like to suggest McMurray get a little practice in before he goes nationwide with that plan. I’d like to suggest he stop in at my place in Idaho sometime so I can give him a lesson or two.—Joe]
I kept forgetting to make a post about my reloading activities. Partially because there hasn’t been much. But it was greater than zero and I intended to make my usual posts. Oh well.
March
80 rounds of match grade .223. This was four sets of 20 using various weights of CFE 223 powder. Even the hottest loads, showing some minor high pressure signs, were almost 20 fps slower than previous loads with Varget which showed no pressure signs. Varget is one of Hodgdon’s Extreme Rifle Powders which is extremely consistent from lot to lot and extremely temperature stable (actual test with 308 Winchester):
CFE 223 is not part of their Extreme product line.
April
125 rounds of match grade .223 using the previously tested Varget loading.
May
216 rounds of match grade .223 using the previously tested Varget loading.
2509 rounds of .40 S&W.
175 rounds of these were a load which tested hotter than expected. They resulted in a Power Factor of 182.7. My previous tests indicated this load should result in about a 175 PF. I was quite perplexed at this until I looked at my data closely. This velocity measurement was done when the temperature was 80F. My previous velocity measurements had been at a lower temperature. I verified this by cooling some of the ammo to 35F. The velocity was over 25 fps slower which was equivalent to a powder charge of 0.1 grains less. I put these rounds aside for a match in Idaho on a cold day.
The remainder of the .40 S&W rounds were of the load I wanted to use for USPSA matches when the temperature is 60 F or warmer.
June
61 rounds of match grade .223 using the previously tested Varget loading.
This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:
223: 7,439 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 2,126 rounds.
300 Savage: 50 rounds.
40 S&W: 100,872 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 134,891 rounds
Over 100K rounds of .40 S&W! That’s kind of cool.
I probably like this more than I should.
Few skills are so well rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims.
Thomas Sowell
March 6, 1999
THOMAS SOWELL: Back again – random thoughts
[The Democrat candidates for president illustrate this point quite well.—Joe]
I’ve been whining to Barb about the tall grass when I went to the Boomershoot site about 10 days ago. Daughter Kim, Jacob, and I taught some new shooters (report coming any day now) how to shoot handguns and rifles and we had to drive and walk over the hay crop to get to the berm where we could shoot safely. I hated doing that. The crop belongs to the renter and we were damaging it. When I was growing up on the farm it was considered normal to be putting the hay crop in the barn on the 4th of July. This year the crop hadn’t even been cut. We did have a very late spring so it wasn’t really a surprise. Even though it was a very small percentage (probably like 0.1%) which had some damage I felt bad about it.
Yesterday the renter cut the hay and my webcam got a pretty good picture:
Dunno …
My (point) is that guns are for those with tiny penises.
And that they’re for people who want to kill w/o any skill.
#AnyIdiotCanShoot
Mark in Minnesota @mark_casper_usa
Tweeted on July 7, 2019
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
H/T to less fat Dave @BigFatDave.
Oh, and he blocked me. I find that very telling. His ideas can’t stand up to even the most casual of criticism.—Joe]
Prior to the Area One match in Bend Oregon I expressed some concerns about making Major Power Factor. It turns out I did just fine:
I saw the chrono team weigh the bullet before getting any velocity measurements, 180.2 grains, and knew I was going to be okay. My sample of 20 had a minimum of 178.3, a maximum of 180.7 and a mean of 179.2. I was concerned they might pull a 177 or something. Then, if the velocity was really low for some reason I could be pushing the threshold and perhaps break into Minor Power Factor (< 165). But the velocities were good. Had they pulled a 177 grain bullet and measured the same velocities the power factor would have still been 170.6 and comfortably in Major.
The odds were low of getting a low velocity since my measurements indicated a mean velocity of 978.4 with a standard deviation of 10.6. But still, you never know how the tolerances might stack up against you on any given day. As it is I suspect the chronograph they used would not agree with my chronograph, which is another variable that is difficult to plan for.
One might say The Singularity Is Near:
AI Pores Over Old Scientific Papers, Makes Discoveries Overlooked By Humans
Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory trained an AI called Word2Vec on scientific papers to see if there was any “latent knowledge” that humans weren’t able to grock on first pass.
The study, published in Nature on July 3, reveals that the algorithm found predictions for potential thermoelectric materials which can convert heat into energy for various heating and cooling applications.
…
“It can read any paper on material science, so can make connections that no scientists could,” said researcher Anubhav Jain. “Sometimes it does what a researcher would do; other times it makes these cross-discipline associations.“
The algorithm was designed to assess the language in 3.3 million abstracts from material sciences, and was able to build a vocabulary of around half-a-million words. Word2Vec used machine learning to analyze relationships between words.
“The way that this Word2vec algorithm works is that you train a neural network model to remove each word and predict what the words next to it will be,” said Jain, adding that “by training a neural network on a word, you get representations of words that can actually confer knowledge.“
…
As one example, researchers fed publications from before 2009 into the algorithm and were able to predict one of the most effective modern-day thermoelectric materials four years before it was actually discovered in 2012.
The technology isn’t restricted to materials science either – as it can be trained on a wide variety of disciplines by retraining it on literature from whichever subject for which one wants to provide a deeper analysis.
“This algorithm is unsupervised and it builds its own connections,” said the study’s lead author, Vahe Tshitoyan, adding “You could use this for things like medical research or drug discovery. The information is out there. We just haven’t made these connections yet because you can’t read every article.”
One could also say, with a similar amount of justification, Skynet smiles.
Brandon Straka has an excellent video that should be shared with people who think the political left occupies the moral high ground:
Here is his YouTube channel where you can find similar material.
Some ignorant anti-gun people seem to think the AR in AR-15 means “Assault Rifle”. Some trolls deliberately say that just to get people worked up and to waste their time.
I’d like to definitely set the issue to rest with this post. The AR in AR-15 does not mean “Assault Rifle”.
Here, for present day applications, is the definitive definition of what AR means (given appropriate legal constraints):
H/T to Phoenix @Phoenix81977532.
Early Saturday morning, that man, Willem Van Spronsen of Vashon Island, returned to the Northwest Detention Center, the holding facility for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, this time armed with a rifle and incendiary devices, according to Tacoma police.
Police said Van Spronsen tossed lit objects at vehicles and buildings, causing one car fire, and unsuccessfully tried to ignite a propane tank.
Officers were called by an ICE employee who saw the rifle. Soon after they arrived, officers reported “shots fired,” said Tacoma police spokeswoman Loretta Cool, although it is unclear who fired first or if Van Spronsen fired at all. The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office classified his death as a homicide.
The four responding officers all opened fire and then took cover, uninjured. After medical aid arrived, officers found Van Spronsen dead. He had multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s office.
The Puget Sound Anarchists are taking credit:
We Are The Fire That Will Melt ICE – Rest in power, Will Van Spronsen [Olympia WA]
…
Early this morning around 4am our friend and comrade Will Van Spronsen was shot and killed by the Tacoma police. All we know about what lead up to this comes from the cops, who are notoriously corrupt and unreliable sources for such a narrative. The story that we do have is that Will attempted to set fire to several vehicles, outbuildings and a propane tank outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma which houses hundreds of immigrants awaiting hearings or deportations. He successfully set one vehicle on fire and then exchanged gunfire with Tacoma police officers who fatally shot him. He was pronounced dead on the scene. We find his actions inspiring. The vehicles outside the detention facility are used to forcibly remove people from their homes and deport them, often to situations where they will face severe danger or death. Those vehicles being destroyed is only a start of what is needed. We wish the fires Will set had freed all the inmates and razed the entire Northwest Detention Center to the ground. And we miss our friend and wish from the bottom of our hearts that his action had not ended in his death.
Will Van Spronsen was a long-time anarchist, anti-fascist and a kind, loving person.
He left a letter before executing his attack. It sounds like he was deliberately committing suicide by cop (click to enlarge):
This is totally on the backs of the political left. They are the ones fanning the flames.
The police have been arresting some of these thugs. But I expect the violence will continue to increase until arrests, convictions, and the occasional justified homicides have thinned their ranks much further. It’s too bad the leaders of the political left are not taking legal heat but that’s not the way it works. It’s the useful idiots like the yesterday’s terrorist who pay the ultimate price for the political evil of the left.
Here in the United States, where we have the Second Amendment as the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights, anybody who seriously believes the citizens will line up to just hand over their guns may be too delusional to be president.
Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
July 8, 2019
DEM. CANDIDATES SHOULD TAKE LESSON FROM NEW ZEALAND, SAYS CCRKBA
[Mostly correct. It should be expanded to say the equivalent of, “…is too delusional to be elected to any political office.”—Joe]
You might notice that something seems off about a Democratic state senator sponsoring a bill loosening firearm restrictions, that law speeding through a Democrat-controlled legislature, and then a feverishly anti-gun governor stamping it with approval. The city knew a change in state law to preempt the city gun law, something the anti-gun crowd has consistently fought against, was the only way to strengthen the city’s mootness argument. This is merely a case of the city and state colluding to keep the Court from settling the matter once and for all.
Matthew Larosiere
July 11, 2019
New York City’s Dishonest Attempt to Squelch a Gun-Rights Lawsuit
[Of course they are being dishonest! It’s an essential part of the anti-gun culture.—Joe]