Quote of the day—Viscount Halifax

Posted on by

He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

Viscount Halifax
1940
Referring Winston Churchill’s speech in the movie The Darkest Hour.
[For Valentine’s Day Barb and went to this movie (she chose it). It is a very good movie.

Mobilize the English language and send it into battle. This what gun owners need to do. It is either that or face our own darkest hour and/or a bloody war.

I have often thought something like that is what I was doing. I try look at things, change the point of view, and articulate a vision which makes obvious we have the high moral high ground, we should always attack, and we must always make our enemies defend.

But I had never articulated it even one tenth as clearly and succinctly as Halifax did in the movie. The movie inspired me. Henceforth, I will make better use of words. If these words are properly crafted into powerful weapons of war we can win the battles needed to defeat the forces of evil in this country and avoid a war of bullets and blood.—Joe]

Overheard at work

Posted on by

Boss Lady: I used to run explosives through the TSA.

My ears went up and I listened in as she was telling a co-worker about going through the TSA a few days ago. It turns out that she used to work for Homeland Security and one of her jobs was to test the TSA. This time she wasn’t working for Homeland Security and her pre-check card had just expired (it was her birthday). The people at SeaTac TSA remembered her.

She got “special treatment” even without the pre-check card. It just wasn’t the kind of “special” she was expecting.

We were just talking about this at work

Posted on by

There are a three new people on my team at work. Two of them have a decade or more of experience in the field and one is in sort of an expanded intern program and is “drinking from a firehose” as she is coming up to speed. A week or two ago the newbie expressed some insecurities about her being able to contribute and one of the experienced guys reassured her and told her about “Imposter Syndrome” and said that he feels that and probably everyone does. Nearly everyone on the team jumped in to reassure the newbie that she is doing extremely well (she is) and had their own little stories about how they feel insecure about various aspects of their ability to do their job.

XKCD gives us another example:

Impostor Syndrome

XKCD for the win

Posted on by

I love the insight XKCD displays at times. This is a great example and so timely:

Robots

Whenever you visit XKCD be sure to use your mouse to hover over their image. In this case you will see:

Don’t be nervous about the robots, be nervous about the people with the resources to build them.

Of course, we aren’t too far away from the day when there will be robots to do all the mining, transportation, and processing to build themselves.

Quote of the day—Phil Murphy

Posted on by

Good news, we have among the smartest, most progressive gun laws in the nation. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that they can be stronger. There’s no reason why we can’t strengthen them.

…

There’s a myth out there that if you strengthen gun safety laws you somehow chip away the Second Amendment. I don’t believe that … This is not a zero sum game.

Phil Murphy
Governor of New Jersey
February 13, 2018
Gov. Phil Murphy talks gun safety at South Jersey roundtable
[From the perspective of wondering what color the sky is in his universe I would like to hear him answer the question, “What sort of law do you believe would ‘chip away the Second Amendment?’”

I am of the firm belief that the only thing which will stop the New Jersey slide down the gun control slippery slope is hitting bottom with a complete ban on all firearms and/or the arrest and prosecution of their politicians.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Comfortably Smug‏ @ComfortablySmug

Posted on by

Listen to the sound of their gears and them walking. Remember that sound. You’ll hear it again soon enough as you hide in a closet, holding your child close, fighting the urge to scream. Watching the sliver of light under the door until they arrive.

Comfortably Smug‏ @ComfortablySmug
Tweeted on February 12, 2018
[Skynet smiles.—Joe]

It’s nice when they self identify

Posted on by

I’ve used this car wash many times. And I walked right by it today.

From the Bellevue Washington police blog:

What started as a routine trip to the car wash ended in a melee and an arrest this past Sunday in Bellevue. Yesterday afternoon shortly before 3 p.m., Bellevue police responded to a road rage incident in the parking lot of the Brown Bear car wash in the Factoria neighborhood of Bellevue. While responding, police learned that there was a minor rear-end crash involving two vehicles that were waiting in line for the car wash. One of the drivers got out of his car to take photos of the damage to the vehicles. The other driver then reportedly got out of his car, pointed a handgun at the victim, and made threats.

When police arrived, the suspect, a 40 year-old Bellevue resident, refused to exit his vehicle or follow the Officers’ instructions. Officers attempted to remove the suspect from the vehicle, and the suspect fought, punching one of the Officers in the face. The suspect allegedly threatened to kill the police and made disparaging comments about the victim’s perceived ethnicity. Police used a taser to subdue the suspect, who was arrested. The Officer that was punched had a minor injury and was transported to the hospital as a precaution. The suspect’s vehicle, a red Chevrolet Camaro with a custom license plate “DIRTBAG”, was impounded to the Bellevue Police Department for a search warrant.The license plate of the suspect's vehicle.

The suspect is expected to be charged today in King County Superior Court with first degree assault with a firearm, assault on a police officer, malicious harassment, obstructing police, and resisting arrest.

If all the dirt bags would identify themselves in such a manner it make so many things much easier.

Reining in the Washington Governor’s Emergency Powers

Posted on by

Washington State emergency powers need to be respectful of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Firearms Policy Coalition has a form letter to sign and send to your state Senator:

Proposed floor amendment 545 to SSB 6006 repealing the unconstitutional power to arbitrarily ban firearms possession during a declared state of emergency would bring state law into compliance with current case law on the matter. Laws and declarations similar to Washington State law concerning citizen possession of firearms during a declared state of emergency have been found to be unconstitutional.

The fact our state has never acted on this emergency “power” to restrict the lawful possession of legally owned firearms has left it on the books, unchallenged, as a litigant would lack standing on this unused law.

A relic of the 1960’s, laws of this nature were enacted to empower the government against those that may choose to exercise their freedoms clearly outlined in the Bill of Rights and the Washington State Constitution.

In addition, in upwards of 600,000 Washingtonians are extensively background checked and legally certified to carry firearms by the State of Washington. Is it to be assumed that this imagined “emergency power” also extends to these individuals? If so, it would be a stunning reversal for the state to summarily revoke these licenses in such an action. There would surely be both legal and political consequences for elected officials and the state if such an action were to ever occur.

During a declared emergency when 911 response resources would surely be stretched thin, citizens would likely be on their own to defend themselves and others. As recent geological research has outlined, Western Washington is one of the world’s most dangerous earthquake zones. A large earthquake could separate citizens for days or even weeks from vital emergency services.

Tell your representative support SSB 6006 if it is amended by calling at 1-800-562-6000 and then send them an email today!

Click on the link above, fill in a few items, then click the submit button to send a very quick email.

Quote of the day—Jayjaybe

Posted on by

It’s an individual hazard derived from an obsolete premise.

Jayjaybe
February 11, 2018
Referring to the 2nd Amendment in a comment to The showdown over the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act
[I’m pretty sure they lack any SCOTUS rulings to back up that assertion.

This is what they think of the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Patricia Eddington

Posted on by

Some of these bullets, as you saw, have an incendiary device on the tip of it, which is a heat seeking device.

So, you don’t shoot deer with a bullet that size. If you do you could cook it at the same time.

Patricia Eddington
Assembly Woman D-NY
July 2007
[Via a tweet from Firearms Policy Coalition.

See also:

I can be pretty creative if I try. But even if I was given weeks to try I don’t think I could come up with some of the crazy things the anti-gun people say.

I used to listen to a morning D.J. on the radio which regularly featured stupid stuff that people said and did. It had a soundbite of something like, “Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.”* The things these people come up with illustrate the truth of that statement.

At times it’s mind boggling that our enemies are this stupid and yet after the fifty years I have been aware of the battle they still haven’t been defeated.

But does does explain why they push for “smart guns”? Do they recognize they are too stupid to use them without technological assistance?—Joe]

* Mark Twain said something similar.

Quote of the day—Eileen McCarron

Posted on by

But too many guns in society is a root problem that spreads in many directions, including causing the deaths of law enforcement officers. The gun is such a lethal object, and it gives so much power to people doing wrong to use against someone trying to stop them.

Eileen McCarron
President of Colorado Ceasefire Legislative Action
February 6, 2018
How to end line of duty deaths in Colorado?
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

McCarron fails to mention that a gun gives power to innocent victims defending themselves. One must conclude that McCarron does not want people have such power to defend themselves. This being a specific enumerated right it then, obviously, follows that McCarron is conspiring to deny people this right and 18 USC 241 applies. I look forward to her trial.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lucia Guzman

Posted on by

We keep doing our best about moving some bills forward to rid our area of more and more guns, but we’re kind of locked in here, not being in the majority.

Lucia Guzman
Senate Minority Leader, D-Denver
February 6, 2018
How to end line of duty deaths in Colorado?
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Andrea Stewart-Cousins

Posted on by

There are things that are very, very good and have worked, and we can’t just stop,

Andrea Stewart-Cousins
New York State Senate Minority Leader
February 6, 2018
New York Democrats renew call for gun control laws
[These sound like the words of a drug addict.

I guess it shouldn’t be surprising. Power is a very potent drug. And like other recreational drugs it tends to be destructive to both the user and innocent people near the addict.

The people of New York should intervene and remove her from power.—Joe]

This has to be a coincidence, right?

Posted on by

Via a retweet from David Whitewolf we have this:

6 x 5 x 2 minutes in an hour
8 x 3 hours in a day
7 days in a week

So every month has 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x [# of weeks] x 3 x 2 x 1 minutes in it.

So there are 8! minutes in February.

Except, of course, on leap year.

This is incredible. This has to be a coincidence. Right?

It would appear so (see also here). In any case, wow!

Quote of the day—Frank Jackson

Posted on by

We are reminded, through senseless tragedies, of the need to remove and keep weapons from the hands of those who should not have them.

Frank Jackson
Cleveland Mayor
January 31, 2018
Ohio Supreme Court rules against Cleveland’s efforts at local gun control
[Perhaps Jackson had a preconceived solution and, at best, a poorly defined problem statement when he started on this ill fate journey down the gun control path.

A better problem statement is:

Violent criminals with weapons are murdering innocent people.

This lends itself to a much larger solution set. Many of those possible solutions will get support from pro-gun people. For example:

  • Teach well behaved people how to defend themselves and other innocent people.
  • Increase police and prosecution resources to make criminal activity more certain of incarceration.
  • If, through due process of law, it can be determined that someone is a near certain violent threat to others keep them incarcerated and/or treat them until they are no longer a threat.

It bugs me that people say convicted felons, domestic abusers, or people on the terror watch list are too dangerous to be allowed possession of a firearm. Yet, they are allowed to be in public and purchase knives, baseball bates, gasoline, matches, drive cars and fly airplanes. People should be categorized as one of the following:

  • Low risk and have a right to be in public unsupervised
  • Moderate risk in need to be under some level of supervision while in public
  • High risk in need of incarceration
  • Extreme, permanent, risk and should be put to death (Ted Bundy who escaped several times, and was a committed serial killer when in public, would qualify)

Criminal control, not object control.—Joe]

That was interesting

Posted on by

This is almost the only way I would be interested in watching so I found it sort of amusing… On Sunday I was paid to watch the Super Bowl.

“Why?”, you ask.

My company is considered “critical infrastructure” and our product being functional during the Super Bowl was important enough to devote some extra resources to making sure nothing “bad happened”. I work on the Threat Intelligence team and we needed to “keep our eyes open” for possible threats to our assets before, during and after the Super Bowl.

Our team brought food and drink into the office and watched our cyber sources “with one eye” while the game was on a large monitor at the front of the office.

We had been looking for potential threats for months. While there was a few things of concern early on, in the final few days leading up to the event there was NSTR (Nothing Significant To Report) every day. I was a bit concerned it was “too quiet”* but as a friend of mine said on Twitter:

Last night, I saw a miracle. America, a land divided of many opinions, lifestyles, socioeconomic backgrounds, a land of the colored, the gay, the racist and the homophobes… people of such diversity all set aside their differences to celebrate the Patriots losing the Superbowl.

* The signal going dark for a while got us going for a bit but we quickly determined it had nothing to do with us and the stadium hadn’t been vaporized or anything.

Quote of the day—Cody Wilson

Posted on by

Gun control is not dead, gun control is undead. We just keep killing it but it keeps coming back.

…

The handgun is at the center of what is protected in the Heller decision. So, whereas, AR-15’s may not ever be backed up by the Supreme Court, there’s no way of getting around, right now, the protections that the Supreme Court gave to the handgun. And so this is the core of the Second Amendment liberty as it’s currently understood.

Cody Wilson
Director of Defense Distributed
February 5, 2018
Want to Make an Untraceable Handgun at Home? Cody Wilson Can Help.
[For certain values of “understood”.

These are interesting times we live in.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Aharon Grossman

Posted on by

Carrying makes you a sissy.

  • If somebody bumps you walking down the street while you are carrying, you show extra restraint and let it go.
  • If someone whistles at your girlfriend while you are carrying, you smile and shrug it off.
  • If two guys are in a scuffle and you are tempted to jump in to break it up, you don’t.
  • If somebody gets in your face about your inconsiderate parking, you use you best verbal judo to de-escalate the situation.
  • If things do get real hot, you’ll find yourself yelling, “I don’t want any trouble.” so that all the bystanders and their cellphone cameras can hear.

Aharon Grossman
January 18, 2018
Answering the question, “What should I know carrying a concealed firearm?”
[Or, in other words, “An armed society is a polite society.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

Posted on by

A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half.

Thomas Sowell
November 27, 2003
Random Thoughts
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

Posted on by

Have you ever noticed that “progressives”, with their claims the 2nd Amendment only protects muzzle loaders, are less than tolerant about progress in firearm technology?