Friends don’t let friends use Serpa holsters

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If you have a Serpa holster please throw it away. Tell others to throw theirs away. Don’t go shooting with people who use Serpa holsters.

If I know you well enough I’ll tell you the story as to how I came to this very firm conclusion via an email request. Otherwise ask me at match or other shooting event. I won’t be blogging about it.

I was not injured.

Update: Apparently some people aren’t familiar with Serpa holsters:

SerpaHolster

The gun is locked into the holster until you depress the unlocking lever with your index finger. You must keep it depressed until the gun is withdrawn maybe an eighth of an inch. What ends up happening is that the index finger keeps on pressing as the gun is completely removed from the holster. There have been many cases of there being an accidental discharge during the draw because the index finger ends up on the trigger and putting sufficient pressure on it to fire the gun before the gun is pointed away from the shooter.

In the report I have in hand what is believed to have happened was the shooter was moving the gun in and out of the holster practicing the release of the lock. When his finger entered the trigger guard on the partial draw and he then pushed the gun back into the holster catastrophe happened. The shooter survived and probably will make an, essentially, full recovery.

Quote of the day—Brian Keith

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The true diversity test

Liberals love to talk about diversity.

Churches in Seattle are festooned with “love your Muslim neighbor” signs.

But the real test of diversity isn’t whether you can break bread with someone who worships differently than you.

The real test is if you can be civil, be courteous, be inviting… to gun owners.

Consider this: all gun owners, in the minds of liberals, are responsible for all mass shootings.

Remember, a bombing or knife attack is the responsibility of the person, but attacks with guns are the responsibility of the inanimate object and all people who have those inanimate objects are at risk of engaging in the same criminal behavior.

This is the liberal mentality of, “I wouldn’t trust myself with a gun because I might go shoot someone the first time I got angry!”

To most readers here who concealed carry on a regular basis that sounds absurd, but I promise you it is a devout belief among Seattle liberals.

They believe that having a gun makes you into a crazy person who murders people.
Which book your worship out of, or if you pray with your hands in front of you or on the ground- that is small potatoes compared to having a device that instantly makes you a murderous psychopath.

And so the true diversity test is not whether you would shake a Muslim’s hand, or eat dinner with someone of a different skin color, or even a different sexuality. These kinds of diversity are officially encouraged, condoned, and safe.

The true diversity test is- would you have coffee with a gun owner?

With someone who lives on the responsibility plane of “I keep myself, my family, and my community safe from violence” and relies on police as the second line of defense?

My experience among liberals tells me, mostly not.

And I think it’s not just the gun- it’s the self-reliance that’s to blame.

Apart from my neighbors, I don’t accept that violence just happens randomly and I can do nothing to stop it.

I don’t wait meekly while evil people do evil things.

And in Seattle, that separates me from my community.

That stigmatizes me.

If I ever let it be known.

Check out the Pink Pistols experience in the Pride Parade. Flagrantly gay? Two thumbs up. Want to talk about defending yourself? We’ll follow you around and shout you down so everyone knows you aren’t welcome here.

I imagine inviting my more liberal friends to coffee and letting them know I’ll be armed. Or revealing during coffee that I’m carrying.

I don’t have the courage.

I don’t want the scene.

I can’t bear to lose yet more friends because I believe life is worth defending and I actually prepare to live that belief.

But you, dear reader of Joe’s blog- perhaps your liberal friends are different?

Perhaps you could invite them to a social situation where they explicitly know you’ll be armed?

I’ll love to hear the results of your True Diversity Test in the comments below.

Brian Keith
June 25, 2018
Via email. Slightly edited with permission.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tiffany Johnson

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One: I really wish my pro-gun friends would stop calling people “libtards.” Two: I really wish my gun-averse friends would stop calling people “Nazis.” #NotHelping. That is all.

Tiffany Johnson
June 24, 2018
Please Just Stop
[I have a strong inclination to agree with this. I used to call certain groups derogatory names and probably still do at times. But I try to avoid the name calling and talk about factual stuff and tendency instead. I still use insulting terms, such as having “crap for brains” for individuals if I think they deserve it on a particular issue or point.

The reason I think it doesn’t help is because it alienates people who might be aligned with you on one or more topics. For example, someone might identify as a liberal because of their strong support for equal rights and access to legal abortion. They might also think gun ownership is important but is not what they mostly identify with. Getting them to help teach an introductory gun class is going to be a lot easier if you haven’t, even indirectly, called them a “libtard”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—ACLU

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The ACLU generally will not represent protesters who seek to march while armed.  It is important that this content-neutral rule be applied without regard to a speaker’s political views.  It should also apply whether or not state law permits or prohibits the carrying of weapons in a protest.  To this end, and consistent with time and resource constraints (including assistance from the national office to affiliates and vice versa), we should exercise due diligence in assessing whether the potential client seeks to march while armed.  If there is reason to believe that the clients do so intend, and we are unable to satisfy ourselves that they will not do so, we should be reluctant to accept representation.

ACLU Case Selection Guidelines: Conflicts Between Competing Values or Priorities
2018
[H/T to Chet in the comments.

See also: Memo: ACLU Will Weigh ‘Effect on Marginalized Communities’ in Free-Speech Cases

Apparently some speakers are more protected than others. Neo Nazis marching down the streets of Jewish residents should be protected. Gun owners advocating for the right of Jewish residents to have the ability to defend themselves should not be protected.

Okay, that makes things perfectly clear for me. Whatever “principles” the ACLU claims to have do not have a significant overlap with mine.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Phil Watson

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After further examining and scrutiny of printed text on an official I-1639 petition it is apparent that language designated to be changed or removed is not “lined out,” nor are proposed new statutory additions underlined as they appear in the version submitted to the state and published on the Secretary of State’s website.

If petitions being circulated are not “true and correct” it is agreed that we must challenge these petitions and have them legally invalidated.

Since the outset of I-1639, our campaign has raised questions about not just the unethical nature of the initiative and its backers, but also the unethical gamesmanship of the public policy process.

Phil Watson
Committee Chairman
Save Our Security | NO on I-1639
https://saveoursecurity.net
[Regarding a petition intended to be put before Washington State voters this fall.

Via email June 22, 2018.

And from here:

I-1639Deception0

I-1639Deception1

They have to lie to win. Lying has become a part of their nature. I suspect they literally cannot resist the urge to lie. These are evil people committing evil against the people of this state. The signature gathers, the signers of the initiative, and especially the people financing this fraud are conspiring to infringe the rights of Washington State citizens and should be prosecuted.

And via email from Brian Keith:

I-1639Deception2

Keith also said:

The sign on the right says “protect kids from guns.”

This is at Trader Joe’s in Seattle.

So we have a few lies here:

A 20 year old is a “kid”

A law can protect a kid from violence

A 18 year old would only be hurt by owning a gun, and wouldn’t be defending themselves

18-20 year olds are actually attacked with “assault weapons” to a significantly significant degree

People who serve in the military aren’t competent to possess firearms in their daily life

The list goes on…

So, crap for brains, or knows they are lying and just wants power at any cost?

Does it matter?

Brian Keith

Don’t sign this petition.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Greg Bates

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If we want to end the carnage, we must advocate for the solution that is required, not one designed to be politically palatable. Instead of shying away from the NRA’s accusation that gun control advocates want to take away their guns, we should embrace it as a mantra.

Let’s clear the air and call for total civilian disarmament. Period.

Greg Bates
February 25, 2018
Maine Voices: It’s time for a gun abolition movement
[I find it interesting there is no thought given to how, or who will take away all the guns. And does Mr. Bates have any clue what the cost will be? I don’t think so. I think he has crap for brains.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

I know that guy!

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From NRA Shooting Sports USA:

John Vlieger won High Overall at the 2018 USPSA Michigan Sectional Championship at the Detroit Sportsmen’s Congress in Utica, MI, earlier this month. Vlieger finished with 1196.4947 match points and a time of 115.44.

Picture from Ammoland:

JohnVliegePlaque

John is my son-in-law.

Quote of the day—BestFeeds

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A law should be made to ban freelance freight and ban on running open arms. But this law has not passed due to the effect of the influence of the owners and arms lobby in congress of arms manufacturing factories.

BestFeeds
June 20, 2018
No Gun Control Legislation -70 People died in 3 days in United States
[This author could be replaced with a relatively simple computer program. Or, quite possibly, he already has been. With these anti-gun people it’s sometimes so hard to tell.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jim N. Taylor

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If we wiped out the ATF agency tomorrow, we would all sleep more soundly the next night, and our tax burden would decrease a bit. If we limited our fears to what is rational, most of government would disappear.

Jim N. Taylor
June 19, 2018
COMMENTARY: Flat sales taxes fail to discriminate
[It is irrational to expect people to be rational.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Quinn Norton

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Facebook and Google seem very powerful, but they live about a week from total ruin all the time. They know the cost of leaving social networks individually is high, but en masse, becomes next to nothing. Windows could be replaced with something better written. The US government would fall to a general revolt in a matter of days. It wouldn’t take a total defection or a general revolt to change everything, because corporations and governments would rather bend to demands than die. These entities do everything they can get away with — but we’ve forgotten that we’re the ones that are letting them get away with things.

Quinn Norton
May 20, 2014
Everything Is Broken
[This appears to be true. I suspect part of it is because most people want to belong to a social group. They want to be “normal” and liked and “supported”. If you take someone out of their social support group they loose their confidence. Making someone an outcast, for many people, is a terrible punishment. “Public opinion” matters because we evolved in an environment where shared values and group support gave us an advantage. Those shared values could contain some great falsities—a rain dance doesn’t change the weather, sacrificing a young girl to a “volcano god” doesn’t appease it, and the Final Solution to the “Jewish problem” didn’t make the world a better place. But a common belief that they could change the unchangeable and improve society by murdering millions probably improved morale, gave them a sense of accomplishment, and increased the productivity of the group.

Belonging to “the tribe” is important at a very deep level. This knowledge gives us power to take down powerful forces. But to be effective you can’t just make large numbers of people outcasts. You have to replace their existing “tribe” with another tribe. Religious cults recruit social outcasts and fulfill this basic need and they will believe the craziest things. Democrats recruit groups of people that believe such crazy things as a people can tax their way to prosperity, the government can control prices with no ill effects, or people and even states cannot afford health insurance but taxing people and filtering the money through the federal government will result in plenty of money. This coalition works and is powerful despite the crazy beliefs for the same reason the rain dancing and sacrificing to the volcano gods work. We can’t just mock them and make them outcasts. They will further insolate themselves from the truth.

I appears to me that all political parties have their share of crazy beliefs and do their share of rain dancing, appeasing non-existent gods, and murdering innocent people. Don’t align yourself with political parties and leaders any more than you have to. Align yourself with the truth and work to make social outcasts of those who promote falsity. Yes, I know truth is very hard to discern but as long as you don’t get emotionally involved with the answers you find along the way you can work your way closer with very little backsliding.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Z. Williamson

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And as to the solution to the problem you think you see: That has to be social and cultural, just as it was with the “problem” of liquor leading up to and during Prohibition, and as it is for marijuana and other recreational and potentially pharmaceutical drugs.

Which, as you might recall, also became “epidemics” because ignorant idiots insisted they knew the answers, until experts finally talked some sense into them.

Now please be quiet, the adults are talking.

Michael Z. Williamson
February 16, 2016
So You Want To Have A Conversation About Gun Control?
[If you think about it just a little bit you probably will find it odd that ant-gun people can’t see the similarities between prohibition of alcohol, recreational drugs, and guns. Prohibition of the first two did not work and the prohibition of the last isn’t and won’t work. But the anti-gun people somehow belief things will be different with guns. But, they can’t be that stupid, can they?

Some, of course, are. Others have no ability to think rationally. But the higher up the food chain you go the more you realize that can’t explain things. Leland Yee is a special case all his own. But there are numerous others that don’t fit any good model. There is one hypothesis that does seem to work in nearly all the remaining cases and has historical support in other countries.

They want a compliant citizenry.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Salisbury

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Hone in on our intention. This tragedy of rampant gun violence, murder, mass killings – all these terrible, painful things that we are seeking to stop, to put an end to this night . . . . We curse you, merchants of mayhem, profiteers of pain, dealers of death, you who fatten on the blood of innocents and feast like demons on their corpses! May your thoughts and prayers turn to poison in your mouths. May every mother’s cry be a bullet to your heart. May the weeping of children rend your flesh like shrapnel

…

If there is anything I can do at all that’s even remotely effective, that might be magic,

David Salisbury
June 2018
Documentary film depicts binding ritual on Trump, NRA
[H/T NRA-ILA who offer this perspective:

It kind of makes sense.

We all know that gun control is based mainly on magical thinking.

Salisbury believes himself to be a witch and is using his supposed powers against the the NRA.

At first I wondered, if he believes in his magical powers, why didn’t he use them to stop evil people from murdering others in the future. But then I realized that, of course, a witch aligns against the good people of the NRA. He is on the side of evil.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tony Asaro‏ @TGaucho

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I know what I want, thank you. Buy back & incinerate every civilian firearm. Every single one.

Tony Asaro‏ @TGaucho
Tweeted on February 25, 2018
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

And then this genius came up with a plan to fund it:

Charge registration on legal guns. Use $$ to run buyback program.

Robyn K? @RobynK12

These people have crap for brains.—Joe]

Don’t think it can’t happen where you live

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I used to live a five minute walk from here. My kids daycare was a block away. I have filled up my car at this station many times:

Redmond Police officers shot and killed a man outside a busy Safeway gas station in Kirkland Thursday evening.

The shooting happened just before 5:00 p.m. outside the Kingsgate station near 124th Ave. NE and NE 144th St.

According to police, the officers recognized the man, who they say was considered armed and dangerous.

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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No one in mass media is talking about murder and murderers. Watch. They’re only talking about shooting and shooters. By itself, shooters and shooting is not anything bad—and they know that. Being a shooter and shooting is what good Americans do all the time.

Murder is ugly, too ugly to bear. Murderers are horrible, to be rejected outright by society. No glory in being a murderer. Especially no prize for being a mass murderer. So the media avoids it, and in their conspicuous campaign against private arms, they avoid dealing with the murder angle.

The media are leading the nation down a path of perdition, turning shooters and shooting—people and activities with wonderful, excellent attributes—into targets for fear, loathing and legislative assault. And they’re good at it.

Alan Korwin
February 26, 2018
The Problem Isn’t the Shootings. It’s the murders.
[Interesting point.—Joe]

Quote of the day—K. Sennholz MD‏ @MtnMD

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Your children will be tormented every day of their adult life, because of the evil you spread. They will be called vicious names everywhere and will have to change their names because of the SHAME you brought upon them. This is just a fact.

K. Sennholz MD‏ @MtnMD
Tweeted on June 11, 2018
[This was in response to the following Tweet from Dana Loesch‏ @DLoesch regarding the money the NRA received from Russia:

$2,500 over a three year period in expat dues and magazine subscriptions can totally buy an election but $145m paid to the Clinton Foundation after the Uranium One (and $500k for Bill’s speech) sale cannot, apparently. #AntiGunLogic #ButMuhRussia

This is what they think of you.

These people have mental health issues. Never believe that they can be bargained with. Never believe that you can have a rational discussion with someone like this. Never believe they wouldn’t celebrate the creation of death camps for gun owners.

And most importantly you should never register or willingly give up your guns.—Joe]

Another ASI match

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Last Saturday Ry and I went to an ASI match at the Renton Fish and Game Club. This was my third and Ry’s first match of this type. We were not happy with a few safety issues that happened with our RSO officers. There was no one in real danger but some rules were broken and contrary to every other match I have been to they blew me off (in a friendly manner) when I gently pointed out one of them.

The match itself was good. The stages were interesting enough yet simple such that beginners wouldn’t have a problem with them. I came in 10th out of 65. If I hadn’t just barely nicked a no shoot target I would have came in 6th. And it annoys me they assigned the penalty as a procedural on a different stage (no difference in my final score). And they also misspelled my name. But that’s minor stuff.

I wouldn’t bothered with making a video but I had invited my team at work to watch and/or participate at the match and Caity told me that she and Kelsey were going to some sort of women’s conference. I joked that the match would be more fun. She joked back that she would take pictures and we could compare on Monday. So… I had to make a video:

Shooter POV Action Shooting International Match from Joe Huffman on Vimeo.

Caity took one boring picture. I won.

Quote of the day—Bob Cunningham

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“It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

In that one paragraph, Scalia kills any argument that individuals have the right to carry weapons similar to those used in the military. Not only does he address military-style weapons, he anticipates the argument that every “pro-gun” advocate makes in declaring the militia equivalent to the military, and rips its heart out.

Bob Cunningham
June 12, 2018
Why There Is No Constitutional Argument Against Gun Control
[Interesting.

Reality is extremely difficult thing to observe and you don’t have to go to the subatomic or cosmic scales to be convinced of that. Here, Cunningham and I can read the same exact words, written by an experienced writer, and arrive at completely different unambiguous conclusions.

I wonder what color the sky is in his universe.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Don Brown

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Frigus manus a mortuis

Don Brown
June 10, 2018
Comment to Group approves wording for proposed gun control measure in Oregon
[I suspected what this might mean, but I had to get it translated to make sure.

I’m not particularly fond of this sentiment in its original form but saying it in Latin gives it a bit of new life. I have been using a reversal of this phrase (see the third paragraph) for more than a decade now and think it is far more appropriate.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mr. Drew for 2018‏ @nofaith313

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Jesus you really need to get over your little penis.

Mr. Drew for 2018‏ @nofaith313
Tweeted on June 9, 2018 in response to:

[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

For some reason they always find ways to amaze me in their ability to change the subject into their obsession with penis size.—Joe[