Quote of the day—Ladd Everitt (@LaddEveritt)

Says the d**kless loser who needs a gun to feel like a man. No one is afraid of you. We’re going THROUGH you to save lives.

Ladd Everitt (@LaddEveritt)
Director at @1Pulse4America
Ex-@CSGV comms director (2006-2016)
Tweeted July 29, 2018
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Way to stay classy Ladd. You are really showing your intellect. I’ll bet you get a lots of new converts to your cause with that line of reasoning.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Nick Wing

The gun lobby has long pushed a vision of the world in which anyone could be armed at any time, and in which you need a gun to defend yourself against that constant threat. By inviting the “era of the downloadable gun,” as Defense Distributed has coined it, we’d be one step closer to that dystopian future.

Nick Wing
August 3, 2018
The Darkly Twisted Logic Behind The NRA’s Support For 3D-Printed Guns
[The only twisted logic I found in the article was in that of the author. Why do they think that just because anyone could be armed at any time would mean there is a constant threat? In most states and locations in the U.S.it is already the case that someone there could be legally armed at any time. And most of the other locations are covered by the easily probable case of someone being illegally armed. The only way I can make sense of his view is if he is living in some sort of fantasy world.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dana Loesch‏ @DLoesch

A lot of very sensitive, triggered people out there today. A reminder: never bend a knee to the outrage mob.

Dana Loesch‏ @DLoesch
[Don’t forget:

Have you ever noticed that crazy people will act only as crazy as you let them be?

Tell the children they aren’t going to benefit from throwing a tantrum.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jonathan Lowy

Judge Kavanaugh must tell the American public whether he will protect their most important right — the right to be safe from gun violence.

Jonathan Lowy
Vice president of litigation at the Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence
July 26, 2018
With Kavanaugh, Court Could Take Aim at Gun Control Laws
[Lowy must believe he is in some alternate universe. In the universe I live in no such right exists. It sounds to me like he is advocating for the “right” of criminals and tyrants to “practice their trade” without fear of meaningful opposition.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Amy Swearer

President Trump himself tweeted that the idea of approving 3D-printed guns “doesn’t make much sense.”

But the only thing that “doesn’t make much sense” is the hyperbolic response of gun-control advocates to activity protected by both the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution.

Amy Swearer
August 1, 2018
3D guns: Despite the complaints of gun-control advocates, these weapons are protected by the Bill of Rights
[Well… it makes sense if you understand that the gun control advocates want to eliminate the entire Bill of Rights.—Joe]

Rounds in the last month

I reloaded 1193 rounds of .40 S&W last month. It was all 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges.

This is just two rounds short of the maximum number of rounds reload in a single month all year. Still, it only brings the rounds year to date to 6,532. By this time last year I had reloaded 12,712 rounds. I probably will make it something over 10,000 rounds for the year but it will be a lot less than the 23,356 I did last year and the 18,265 I reloaded the year before that.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 84,697 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 115,505 rounds

You won’t hear this from the MSM

Interesting:

A quarter of Illinois’ county governments have passed resolutions declaring their county a “gun sanctuary,” including those in Brown and Greene counties.

Wow!

This is consistent with other data such as law enforcement say they would not enforce more restrictive gun laws.

Overheard at work

Some of my teammates and I were discussing the details of an email we got from someone who claimed they had been hacked. It had a number of conclusions which were absurd on their face and the data they supplied were consistent with an alternate hypothesis which was void of any wrongdoing. Yet, we were inclined to look into it a little bit more…

Joe: What they are saying doesn’t make any sense but it’s all within the realm of standard ignorance.

Caity: I like that phrase, “Within the realm of standard ignorance.” Can I be Queen of the Realm?

Quote of the day—Alyssa Milano

Imagine the damage one of these guns, even if it was only capable of firing one shot, could do aboard a plane. Or in a government office. Or in your child’s classroom.

Alyssa Milano
July 31, 2018
Alyssa Milano: A 3D printed gun is downloadable death
[Imagine the good one of these guns could do if it was used to defend your life or the life of your child. Imagine the harm it will do if the courts somehow decide the First Amendment doesn’t apply to software used to protect freedom.

I find it very telling she thinks a government office is a particularly bad place to have a gun. World history shows governments are a much bigger threat to innocent life than all other threats combined. This puts her squarely on the side of evil.

Ms. Milano, go back to your acting. These are specific enumerated rights we are talking about and we don’t want or need your acting skills to inject emotional baggage into a question of civil rights.—Joe]

It’s the Russians!

Interesting:

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity ahead of November’s midterm elections, according to three people briefed on the matter.

In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week and a public post on Tuesday, the company told lawmakers that it had detected and removed 32 pages and accounts connected to the influence campaign on Facebook and Instagram as part of its investigations into election interference. It publicly said it had been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two officials briefed on the matter.

Like the Russian interference campaign in 2016, the recently detected campaign dealt with divisive social issues.

Facebook discovered coordinated activity around issues like a sequel to last year’s deadly “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Specifically, a page called “Resisters,” which interacted with one Internet Research Agency account in 2017, created an event called “No Unite the Right 2 — DC” to serve as a counterprotest to the white nationalist gathering, scheduled to take place in Washington in August. Mr. Gleicher said “inauthentic” administrators for the “Resisters” page went as far as to coordinate with administrators for five other apparently real pages to co-host the event, publicizing details about transportation and other logistics.

Mr. Gleicher said it disabled the event on Tuesday and notified 2,600 users of the site who had indicated interest in attending the event.

Coordinated activity was also detected around #AbolishICE, a left-wing campaign on social media that seeks to end the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, according to two people briefed on the findings. That echoed efforts in 2016 to fan division around the Black Lives Matter movement.

American intelligence and law enforcement officials have been warning for months that Russia’s efforts to undermine American democracy remain active and pose a threat to this year’s elections. If in fact Russian, the activity would provide vivid evidence that the kind of cyber operations used around the 2016 campaign were still in use.

I sometimes have contact with current or former people in the intelligence community. I don’t have any specific information but “it is well known” the Russians like to create internal conflict in their enemies. It is a part of their culture and even have a word for it (sorry, I don’t remember it). I have been told they organized both anti-Hillary and anti-Trump events in 2016. It’s what they do. Hacking into the DNC and Hillary’s email servers and releasing the contents wasn’t necessarily to help elect Trump. It was to create conflict.

I have to wonder… is a lot of the conflict on social media regarding firearms fueled by Russia? When you are debating some twit on Twitter are you actually wasting time talking to a paid Russian troll?

Quote of the day—Stanislav Mishin

Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.

So, Americans listen up, do not fall for the false promises and do not extinguish the light that is left to allow humanity a measure of self respect.

Stanislav Mishin
December 27, 2012
A Russian View on Gun Ownership
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Wendy Cukier

If you look at the rate of murders not caused by guns and you compare Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, what you see is that it’s roughly the same in all four countries, although the U.S. rate is slightly higher,

Wendy Cukier
President of the Coalition for Gun Control (Canada)
July 28, 2018
Canada Is Raging Against Gun Violence—But Not Like America
[Caused? Nope. That is a deliberate lie. If they have to lie to to win it is definitive proof their intent is evil.—Joe]

Washington State I-1639

Interesting development:

A ballot measure that would put new restrictions on the sale of semi-automatic rifles qualified for the November ballot Friday, but also faced a new court challenge.

Secretary of State Kim Wyman certified that supporters of Initiative 1639 gathered enough signatures to be on the general election ballot. The campaign turned in about 378,000 signatures, more than 100,000 above the minimum required.

The initiative raises the age for the purchase of a semi-automatic rifle to 21, requires a more extensive background check for handgun purchases and requires firearms owners to store weapons securely.

In announcing that the initiative had enough signatures, Wyman said there are “concerns” whether the petition sheets complied with legal requirements, but the initiative did not run afoul of any legal requirements that are under her authority.

Previously the courts said

…the court doesn’t have the legal authority to tell Wyman to reject an initiative

Wyman has the legal authority to reject initiative petitions that she determines are deficient, but otherwise would have to file them. Judicial review can only occur if she refuses to accept them, and then only if the initiative’s sponsors go to court.

Wyman is the Secretary of State. At that time Wyman said:

On Tuesday afternoon, Wyman issued a statement saying she will follow the law in evaluating “fairly and impartially” whether to accept initiatives, which include whether the petitions contain all the language required.

“State law clearly defines the authority my office has for accepting or rejecting petitions,” she said.

Then on Friday:

Secretary of State Kim Wyman certified that supporters of Initiative 1639 gathered enough signatures to be on the general election ballot. The campaign turned in about 378,000 signatures, more than 100,000 above the minimum required.

In announcing that the initiative had enough signatures, Wyman said there are “concerns” whether the petition sheets complied with legal requirements, but the initiative did not run afoul of any legal requirements that are under her authority.

So, the courts say it is up to the Secretary of State to make sure the petition is in compliance with the law (they aren’t). The SoS says she doesn’t have the authority to reject them even though they are not in compliance. Hence the initiative will be on the ballot this fall where it is expected to pass.

So, what I want to know, is the State of Washington going then claim they don’t have the authority to enforce a law that was illegally passed?

I don’t think so.

NRA-ILA and Alan Gottlieb have both filed lawsuits to stop this fraud.

Facebook changes

Today I was notified there are changes coming to how my blog posts are shared on Facebook:

We wanted to update you about an upcoming change Facebook is introducing to their platform, and which affects how you may share posts from your WordPress.com website to your Facebook account.

Starting August 1, 2018, third-party tools can no longer share posts automatically to Facebook Profiles. This includes Publicize, the tool for WordPress.com and Jetpack-powered sites that connects your site to major social media platforms (like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook).

I can still share them manually which means it won’t happen as much. I just don’t like Facebook for a variety of reasons and this change doesn’t endear them to me either.

Quote of the day—BFD‏ @BigFatDave

No more compromise
No more compliance

#GunSense

#GunControl

WhyThreat

BFD‏ @BigFatDave
Tweeted on July 27, 2018
[This reminds me of something I have pointed out before:

Have you ever noticed that crazy people will act only as crazy as you let them be?

It’s time to let the crazy people know we aren’t going to let them continue the act.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sen. Charles Schumer

America is going to get a lot less safe.

are not only scary, they’re outright dangerous in the way they can mimic the look and the capacity of a hardened, fully semiautomatic weapon.

Sen. Charles Schumer
D-N.Y.
July 22, 2018
Schumer Goes Full Semi-automatic
[NRA-ILA comments:

Gun owners often share a laugh over what appears to be the profound ignorance of much of the anti-gun community. However, gun rights supporters must also be aware that some of these absurd moments might just be attempts to mislead the less informed. Understanding this, gun owners must work to better educate the public and dispel the lies our opponents traffic in.

This sort of thing is to be expected. Attention to detail and the truth would get in the way of his evil agenda. No need to quibble with him. Just do your best to keep him as far from power as you can.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tamlynn Torchon

Let’s be clear: gun control is neither gun abolition nor gun confiscation. No one is trying to take away your guns, and no one is suggesting a ban in the U.S., either.

Tamlynn Torchon
July 26, 2018
Opinion: Gun control is useful, necessary and complicated
[Yes. Let’s be clear. Torchon is extraordinarily ignorant and/or lying. Therefore we can regard everything they say as worthless or evidence of their evil intent.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Andrew Whitehead, Landon Schnabel and Samuel Perry

In our newly published and freely available study, the connection between Christian nationalism and gun control attitudes proves stronger than we expected. It turns out that how intensely someone adheres to Christian nationalism is one of the strongest predictors of whether someone supports gun control. One’s political party, religiosity, gender, education or age doesn’t matter.

You could be a mainline Protestant Democratic woman or a highly educated politically liberal man — the more you line up with Christian nationalism, the less likely you are to support gun control.

Andrew Whitehead, Landon Schnabel and Samuel Perry
July 25, 2018
Why some Christians don’t believe in gun control: They think God handed down the Second Amendment
[Interesting observation. But probably not that surprising when you know their definition of Christian nationalism:

Americans who subscribe to Christian nationalism believe that America has always been ― and should always be ― distinctively Christian in its national identity, sacred symbols and public policies. What’s more, for adherents to this ideology, America’s historic statements about human liberties (e.g., the First and Second Amendments) are imbued with sacred, literal and absolute meaning.

If I understand this correctly they believe a higher power, the Christian God, created our nation and constitution. And, I would imagine, therefore claim that God’s creation must be in His likeness—i.e. perfection. Any utility argument, or even a principled argument, that does not address the creation of the U.S. Constitution by a perfect being is pointless.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Cam Edwards

That pile of cash is the Venezuelan equivalent of one US dollar. Behold the power of socialism.

ThePowerOfSocialism

Cam Edwards @CamEdwards
Tweeted on July 23, 2018
[The destructive power of socialism is absolutely amazing. No other political system has been so well tested and proven again and again to be such a threat to property and lives. Only an “intellectual”, completely out of touch with reality, could honestly advocate it as an improvement in the living conditions for the majority of the people.—Joe]

Learning to escape a carjacking

A small part of the class from this weekend:
The ultra short version:

  1. Pretend compliance
  2. Jerk your head back and punch the gas for a second
  3. Lean over to put more car between you and the guy with the gun until you have some speed
  4. Pop up and get control of your car