It’s nice when they self identify

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

Illegal hands

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As I was reading this article I started out thinking this is another example of people creating a problem statement to arrive at their desired solution. While this is true, I ended up laughing at ambiguous wording:

Hopkins study evaluates BPD tactics for gun control

…

Beilenson said there was a 45 percent reduction in repeat offenses. He added that the biggest problem was simply the number of guns in Baltimore.

“[There are] literally as many guns as people in Baltimore, mostly in illegal hands,” he said.

We have sometimes wondered when they would get around to banning sticks, stones, feet and hands. Perhaps Beilenson thinks some hands are already banned.

Quote of the day—Gil G

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When you can’t get to shoot others there’s no freedom, right?

Gil G
February 2, 2018
Comment to Gun Rights Advocates Score Victory With Latest Illinois Supreme Court Ruling
[This is what some anti-gun people think of you.—Joe]

Cell phones are good for rats

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Back in the early 2000s I talked to a researcher who said he did tests which showed that rats exposed to satellite phone radio emissions had fewer cancers than rats not exposed to the radio emissions. Then about two years ago more research indicated the same thing with conventional cell phones.

Today, another study came out which reported:

The radiated rats somehow lived longer than comparison rats that were not exposed to cellphone radiation.

Okay, I’m convinced. If you want your rat to have a long and healthy life you should give it a cell phone.

New shooter report

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Kelsey recently joined my team at work. Like Caity, when she first joined the team full time, there was a minor flaw. Everyone else on our team knows how to shoot and enjoys guns. Kelsey is very quiet and difficult for me to read. I wasn’t sure whether to discuss this issue with her or not. Over the course of a few weeks it came out that she was interested in learning to shoot so I reserved the training bay for 12:00 –> 2:00 (they only do two hour blocks) today. It turned out our boss gave us all the afternoon off since we have to work part of Sunday this weekend so Kelsey and I weren’t rushed when we visited the range.

I started her out with a suppressed Ruger Mark III 22/45 with subsonic ammo at five yards.

20180202_131701

That went well. I didn’t take a picture of the target after the first eight shots, but here you can see the target after 18 rounds:

20180202_132021Cropped

The first eight shots were the three at the bottom, and then a vertical hole of five shots you could cover with a nickel. The one wild shot at the top was near the end of the second magazine.

I had forgotten to tell her to keep the front sight in focus. We talked about that a bit and then she went on to a .22 revolver. I had her fire it single action with CCI CBs:

20180202_132334

That went well:

20180202_132445

Okay, now a challenge, and the reason I seldom recommend revolvers. Shooting a revolver in double action mode:

20180202_133121

Again, a couple wild shots near the end of the string. But the rest of the shots are really rocking it for a new shooter with any handgun, let alone a double action revolver. She learns fast!

I gave her a choice, learning to shoot faster, move to a larger caliber gun, or more precision shooting with the Ruger. She choose more precision shooting with the semi-auto.

I was amazed. This is 10 rounds at five yards:

20180202_133747Cropped

These were shots 37 through 46 in her entire life. She only once even held a gun in her hands before (so she says).

This is after 20 rounds:

20180202_134056Cropped

Okay. She’s a pro. There is nothing I can teach her about this type of shooting. We have to move on to something else. She is going to get bored putting so many bullets through a single hole.

I put up a paper with four bull’s-eye targets and told her to put one round on each bullseye. Keep it in the black or smaller, but shoot faster. She did a couple strings of five shots each. She shot quite a bit faster, but about half the bullets were in the 10 ring.

Uhh… nice.

I told her she can go faster still, “Just keep them in the black. As soon as the sights are lined up somewhere within the black, squeeze off the last 20% of the trigger pull”. “Oh”, she replied, “I can do that.” And she did. Hmm… I need to push her more.

I pulled out the shot timer and went through the range commands with her: “1) Make ready. 2) Are you ready? 3) Standby…BEEP!” Got that? Good. Let’s try it.

And I finally pushed her into failure. With four shots, one bullet barely nicked the bottom of the paper, and one missed on the right side of the paper entirely. Ah! Now we have something I can teach her!

Shooting fast, particularly in competition, is a mind game. A little bit of stress can make everything fall apart. Don’t let the timer or the shooter next to you, with their own set of plates competing for the first to complete, affect how you shoot. You shoot your targets your way, just like you did in practice. Let’s try it again.

She got it. From the low ready she was able to get five shots into five targets (one of the targets twice) in six point something seconds. All her splits were less than a second.

We had used up all our range time so we cleaned up the range and as we returned to the lobby to wash up I asked her to walk slowly past the shooters in the next bay and look at the targets the other shooters were producing. I told her, “There won’t be any targets even close to what you did today”. I was right. There wasn’t a pattern on any of the targets I could have completely covered with both of my hands spread wide.

We went on to the lobby and I finished washing first. I grabbed her 20 round target and showed it to the range officer behind the counter. She was as amazed as I was and pulled up Kelsey’s profile in their database and made a note of something about “A legend has been reborn.”

Kelsey earned her new shooter smile and she is now a complete member of our team:

20180202_132018

Quote of the day—Chief Justice Karmeier

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Innocent behavior could swiftly be transformed into culpable conduct if an individual unknowingly crosses into a firearm restriction zone. The result could create a chilling effect on the second amendment when an otherwise law-abiding individual may inadvertently violate the 1000-foot firearm-restricted zones by just turning a street corner.

Chief Justice Karmeier
February 1, 2018
Ban on Carrying Guns Within 1,000 Feet of Park Struck Down
Complete decision: The People of the state of Illinois, Appellant, v. Julio Chairez, Appelle
[Chilling effect!!!!

I’ve been wanting to hear those words in a court decision in regards to the Second Amendment since before the Heller decision. I wish it was in a U.S. Supreme Court decision but I’ll take it as a first step.

Apply the legal concept of a chilling effect applied to the laws of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, and California. This is one of the lanes on the road to victory.—Joe]

Anti-gun people say the strangest things

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Via the FPC:

TheThingsAntiGunPeopleSay

One might think this sort of thing was a “brain fart” or some slip of the tongue that occurs when under the stress of an interview or public speaking event. But I’ve seen these sort of things happen in written communication. They simply do not have the mental processes to handle rational thought. This happens so frequently we have a name for it. It is called Peterson Syndrome.