Quote of the day—DebateChallenge

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If you care about saving lives than you should crack down on cigarettes. Cigarettes cause about 480,000 deaths per year, there are far more deaths by cigarettes than there are deaths by guns. And of those 480,000 deaths, about 41,000 of them are from secondhand smoke. So just secondhand smoke alone causes about as much, if not more, deaths than guns.

DebateChallenge
December 17, 2017
Comment to Should Hawaii become the model for nationwide gun-control?
[Good point. One could debate the numbers of deaths correctly attributed to secondhand smoke, but those who are anti-gun (control freaks) tend to be the same type of people who want to claim secondhand smoke is a serious threat as well.

While I think one can make a freedom/liberty case for unrestricted recreation drugs for consenting adults, including tobacco and alcohol, they aren’t a specific enumerated right and the push back against restrictions would have less constitutional standing.

So, when someone want to ban guns (such as “assault weapons”) “for the children” you can point out that if they really wanted to “save the children” they should be an advocate for banning tobacco instead of guns. They would have a much higher potential pay off with less constitutional resistance.

We all know it’s not about saving lives and if you point out their misdirected concerns they will come up with some rationalization to remain fixated on guns. But you can hammer them with their lack of logic and make it clear to everyone “in the room” the motivation for this person is not “saving lives”. It’s about control of people who would own guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James B. Jacobs

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The SAFE Act succeeded in making a big political splash. It generated widespread and intense protest by gun owners and mobilized Second Amendment advocates and advocacy groups. In 2014, Governor Andrew Cuomo was reelected by a much diminished majority and Republicans regained control of the State Senate. This demonstrated that even in a very blue state like New York, gun owners are a significant constituency, one that punches above its weight because it includes so many one-issue voters. In the legislature, Democrats continue to introduce new gun control bills at the rate of about 50 per year, while Republicans regularly introduce bills to repeal or at least scale back the SAFE Act. Neither side currently has any chance of actually passing new legislation.

The SAFE Act’s impact on gun crime, suicides and accidents has never been seriously assessed, although both gun control proponents and gun rights advocates make extravagant claims. In truth, there seems little likelihood that the SAFE Act has had much, if any, effect since it has been only partially implemented, almost completely unenforced, and widely ignored.  Its various provisions are easily circumvented.

James B. Jacobs
December 19, 2017
Assault Rifles and The Impact of New York State’s SAFE Act
[It’s a very factual article with near zero emotional content. I like it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gavin Newsom‏ @GavinNewsom

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we ARE coming for your guns.

Gavin Newsom‏ @GavinNewsom
Lt. Governor of California and former San Francisco Mayor
Tweeted on November 14, 2017
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Charles C. W. Cooke

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Ed Asner, is a 9/11 truther. Given that, the quality of the work is about what you’d expect. Having proposed that Congress, the Supreme Court, and the majority of Americans “claim the Second Amendment is not simply about state militias but guarantees the unfettered right of everyone to own, carry, trade and eventually shoot someone with a gun” — ah, yes, the right to “eventually shoot someone with a gun,” so beloved to those of us who can read — Asner and his co-author, Ed Weinberger, proceed to offer up the most comprehensively illiterate and most embarrassingly researched example within what is, alas, a growing genre. As an example of Second Amendment trutherism, this one will likely never be beaten.

Charles C. W. Cooke
December 19, 2017
No, Salon, the U.S. Was Not ‘Founded on Gun Control’
[I’m skeptical of the claim that it will never be beaten. Human genius has limits but stupidity and evil do not appear to be so handicapped.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Steven Strauss

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What National Review’s “Republicans in Name Only” don’t understand is that “freedom!” trumps federalism. This act will free people from places like Mississippi from having to learn about other states’ laws when they visit those states. And the GOP really has a valid point here. Learning isn’t one of the strengths of the great state of Mississippi — it ranks 49th in the U.S. for the educational attainment of its citizens. Having to learn about another state’s laws before visiting there with a concealed, highly dangerous weapon is clearly too much of an imposition on residents of a state who have trouble graduating high school and college at the same rate as other Americans.

Steven Strauss
Opinion columnist, USA Today
December 18, 2017
Concealed carry reciprocity isn’t enough. What about drugs, driving and sex?
[Strauss was careful to call out Mississippi for comparison with (elsewhere in the opinion piece) with New York. Vermont, with gun laws even more lax than Mississippi with higher education and lower homicide rates than New York would not fit the narrative.

He doesn’t stop with cherry picking his data to reach is conclusion. He conflates speed limits and other rules of the road with a concealed carry license. A fairly reasonable comparison would driving licenses and concealed carry licenses. Explaining how “full faith and credit” does not apply is required too, but Strass has a narrative to fit and wouldn’t want to hear of a fair comparison. Implying gun owners are uneducable and being smug is more important than truth to him.

One could conclude that Strauss is a bigot and make a good case for that. But you should also leave open the option he has evil intent and put him on your list for consideration of prosecution.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ed Asner & Ed Weinberger

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Let’s consider the case made by the NRA, its Congressional hired hands, the majority of the Supreme Court, and various right wing pundits who claim the Second Amendment is not simply about state militias but guarantees the unfettered right of everyone to own, carry, trade and eventually shoot someone with a gun.

Ed Asner & Ed Weinberger
December 16, 2017
Sorry, NRA: The U.S. was actually founded on gun control
[This is what they believe our, and the Supreme Court’s, opinion of the right to keep and bear arms is. You know they have a weak case when they start out with a straw man argument.

They continue with claims that the individual rights conclusion of Heller decision was a completely new interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. They claim it ignored 200 years of precedent and historical context when all nine justices agreed it referred to an individual right. Yes, only five justices agreed that D.C. had infringed upon the right but all nine agreed the 2nd Amendment protected an individual right. Apparently a couple of people who are best known for their work on the television series “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”, a work of fiction, think they know constitutional law and history better than the nine justices on the U.S Supreme Court in 2008.

I know these Hollywood types can develop an exaggerated sense of self importance, but WOW, these guys are operating on a different plane of existence.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jonathan Walder

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When your proposals never would have stopped the massacre that inspired the proposal, it makes it very clear that the proposals are not made in good faith. As we’ve seen, the problem lies not with the private sale exception, but with the fact that the NICS checks are not particularly effective. Fix that before you start passing unenforceable laws that require drug dealers to run background checks on other drug dealers.

Jonathan Walder
December 14, 2017
Comment to SANDY HOOK ANNIVERSARY: THESE ARE THE GUN CONTROL LAWS THAT HAVE FAILED SINCE THE NEWTOWN SHOOTING
[“Fix that”? I don’t think it is fixable. Well, maybe getting rid of NICS and spending the money on something more productive might be considered a “fix”.

Prosecuting violent criminals would seem to be a good alternative.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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The FBI set a record for checks! The FBI had to pull staff from other crucial tasks to manage the management of innocent shoppers! The federal agencies spent enough money to beef up the system from last year’s record, to handle this year’s record! Here, lapdogs, take your handout. Everyone did.

Missing was the blatantly obvious — were any criminals caught, any crime stopped, by this over-hyped, ultra expensive, democrat-promoted system? Not one word addressed that — the supposed reason the thing exists. Not one story posed the question. It is a 100% error of omission or misguided spin. Hooray for our side, we set a record! Did we do any good? Who cares, we don’t report on that.

Alan Korwin
November 30, 2017
Background Check “News” Deceives
[It’s because it’s not about catching criminals or stopping crime. It’s about hassling gun owners and getting one step closer to gun registration.—Joe]

Interesting psychology

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As you read the news about all the sexual harassment claims and denials keep in mind the human mind is a tricky thing. For example:

Several studies have shown that people are more likely to label a given behavior as sex to the extent that their significant other did it as opposed to themselves. In a study of 839 college students (96% heterosexual) who were asked whether oral contact with another person’s genitals counted as sex, it turned out that just 36% of women and 39% of men said it did when they imagined themselves doing it. However, when asked to imagine their partner doing the same thing with someone else, 62% of women and 63% of men suddenly viewed it as sex.

Truth is extremely elusive. Definitions matter. Measurements matter. Numbers matter. There are facts and there are opinions. A lot of what we are seeing in the news are opinions and what is important are the facts.

Quote of the day—Ramesh Ponnuru

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Public support for a ban on the civilian ownership of handguns has been falling for decades. In 1959, 60 percent of the public favored the idea and 36 percent opposed it. By 1975, support had fallen to 41 percent and opposition risen to 55. Now there’s a 76–23 percent supermajority against the idea.

Ramesh Ponnuru
Senior Editor of National Review
November 6, 2017
Why Gun Control Loses
[Which is why the anti-gun organizations don’t mention handgun bans anymore and in 1988 deliberately pivoted to “assault weapons” which they knew were confused in the public mind with fully automatic weapons. They are now nearly stalled on their “assault weapons” push and are pivoting to “universal” background checks and “Extreme Risk Protection Orders”.

We need to keep encouraging our culture by coming out of the closet and taking new shooters to the range. We are winning battles but the war will never be completely over.—Joe]

Quote of the day—C.S. Lewis

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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

C.S. Lewis
1948
God in the Dock
[See also this more recent and on topic interpretation.

This is the essence of most of those who demands we give up our guns. Don’t ever forget they think of us as infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals and they demand to control us. For our own good.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ridley Nelson

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Without drastic reduction in the number of guns – by say 80 percent – alongside very tight gun type and use restrictions, we will continue to live in a country where deer get far better protection than humans.

Ridley Nelson
December 12, 2017
Armed as For a War Zone
[Really! Some might be tempted to demonstrate the fallacy of Nelson’s assertion with a side by side comparison of the differences.

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

Q#

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I already know C#, I guess it’s time to learn Q#:

Microsoft today launched a preview version of a new programming language for quantum computing called Q#. The industry giant also launched a quantum simulator that developers can use to test and debug their quantum algorithms.

The language and simulator were announced in September. The then-unnamed language was intended to bring traditional programming concepts—functions, variables, and branches, along with a syntax-highlighted development environment complete with quantum debugger—to quantum computing, a field that has hitherto built algorithms from wiring up logic gates. Microsoft’s hope is that this selection of tools, along with the training material and documentation, will open up quantum computing to more than just physicists.

We are living in the future.

I’m not sure how to interpret the feelings this causes in me. I think it might be fear.

Quote of the day—Jim

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The left is always trying to define the 2nd Amendment as about “hunting”.

Fine. No bag limit, no season.

Jim
December 10, 2017
Comment to When will this boil over?
[He’s not wrong.—Joe]

Quote of the day—BLoving

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I’m reminded of a discussion I once read from a fiction writer regarding the concept of Evil when portraying an antagonist in a story: historically, very few verifiable evil people have considered themselves to be evil. In their minds, they are simply Right; and anyone who disagrees with them is Wrong. This is why we have never seen any actual group identifying themselves as The League of Villainy or the Brotherhood of Evil or some other such nonsense. No – really evil people are the ones who cloak their intentions behind a veil of righteousness and seek to use the law, legal force, or legal authority to force others to do things or live their lives as the Evil Ones see fit.
We must all remember that Law is never about asking nicely, Law is about force – passing a Law means legally depriving individuals of their right to make a choice. And that, at its heart, is what the Gun Bigots want: to use the force of Law to deprive others of the right to live their lives differently. There is no “Gun Control”, only “Gun Owner Control”. What the leaders of the Gun Bigots want does not fit the definition of insanity, but it does cross the line over the definition of Evil.

BLoving
December 10, 2017
Comment to Question of the Day: Are Gun Control Advocates Insane?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Barb rides mall elephant

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I remember when I was in my late 20’s when my ex-wife told me to act my age. I was walking on the edge of a curb like a little kid would do. It apparently embarrassed her or something. I would also sometimes (or not) step on sidewalks cracks and would walk on the rails of railroad tracks. I mostly ignored her demands, why should I not be allowed to have a little fun when it did no one any harm?

Barb doesn’t have any such inhibitions about “acting her age”, doing things that might embarrass some people, or me being a little childish in my self entertainment. She sometimes even declares, “I’m ridiculous!” as she makes herself laugh. I tell her she is incredibly funny.

Last night we were on our way to meet some friends and as we went through Westfield Southcenter shopping mall she spotted some motorized animals the kids were riding around. “I want to do that!”, she exclaimed. I thought she was joking. We were a little bit late and this would make us even later. But she was serious and I had no basis to complain.

Today she told me it was the most fun she had all night. By far. Knowing her night, this was impressive.

Quote of the day—John D. Clark

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The old destroyer gun turret which housed our card-gap* setup had become a bit frayed and tattered from the shrapnel it had contained. (The plating on a destroyer is usually thick enough to keep out the water and the smaller fish.) So we had installed an inner layer of armor plate, standing off about an inch and a half from the original plating. And, as the setup hadn’t been used for several months, a large colony of bats —yes, bats, little Dracula types —had moved to the gap to spend the winter And when the first shot went off, they all came boiling out with their sonar gear fouled up, shaking their heads and pounding their ears. They chose one rocket mechanic —as it happens, a remarkably goosy character anyway—and decided that it was all his fault. And if you, gentle reader, have never seen a nervous rocket mechanic, complete with monkey suit, being buzzed by nine thousand demented bats and trying to beat them off with a shovel, there is something missing from your experience.

John D. Clark
1972
I G N I T I O N !: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, page 171
[I love this book.—Joe]

* The card-gap test is used to determine the shock sensitivity of a potentially explosive liquid. A 50-gram block of tetryl (high explosive) is detonated beneath a 40 cc sample of the liquid in question, contained in a 3″ length of 1″ iron pipe sealed at the bottom with a thin sheet of Teflon. If the liquid detonates, it punches a hole in the target plate, of 3/8″ boiler plate, sitting on top of it. The sensitivity of the liquid is measured by the number of “cards,” discs of 0.01″ thick cellulose acetate, which must be stacked between the tetryl and the sample to keep the latter from going off. Zero cards means relatively insensitive, a hundred cards means that you’d better forget the whole business. As may be imagined, the test is somewhat noisy, and best done some distance from human habitation, or, at least, from humans who can make their complaints stick.

Quote of the day—John Feinblatt @JohnFeinblatt

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As a package, “Fix NICS” would keep guns from domestic abusers — while “Concealed Carry Reciprocity” would force states to allow people to carry concealed guns in public even if they are domestic abusers, have other dangerous histories, or lack even the most basic safety training to carry concealed guns in public.

John Feinblatt @JohnFeinblatt
President of Everytown for Gun Safety
December 8, 2017
NRA hijacks first bipartisan gun bill in years. Now it’s too dangerous to pass.
[There is a reason no one ever says anti-gun people are smart.

Here we have one of these mental midgets apparently unable to avoid asserting two incompatible conclusions in the same sentence. If Fix NICS keeps guns from domestic abusers, because they are prohibited from firearms possession, then how can CCR force states to allow something Fix NICS prevented?

This sort of thing happens so frequently we have a name for it. It’s called Peterson Syndrome. Logical thought is beyond their capability.

I wish we could just laugh these idiots out of the political arena but unfortunately there are too many people with these type of mental issues.—Joe]

Quote of the day—NRA

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Despite scare tactics by the bill’s opponents, concealed-carry licensees as a group have proven to be more law-abiding than the general population and even the police. We are on the eve of passing the most expansive piece of self-defense legislation in the history of Congress.

NRA
December 6, 2017
House approves concealed-carry reciprocity, gun bill faces challenge in Senate
[The first sentence is factual and verifiable. See, for example, Comparing conviction rates between police and concealed carry permit holders.

The second sentence is somewhat subjective but I am in agreement with it.—Joe]

Protection from infringement

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There have been people expressing concern H.R. 38, which intents to provide a means by which nonresidents of a State whose residents may carry concealed firearms may also do so in the State, will be ignored by some state and local political jurisdictions. While it is true criminals tend to continue doing criminal things the bill provides some relief for the victims of these particular criminals:

(2) When a person asserts this section as a defense in a criminal proceeding, the prosecution shall bear the burden of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the conduct of the person did not satisfy the conditions set forth in subsections (a) and (b).

(3) When a person successfully asserts this section as a defense in a criminal proceeding, the court shall 10 award the prevailing defendant a reasonable attorney’s fee.

(d)(1) A person who is deprived of any right, privilege, or immunity secured by this section, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State or any political subdivision thereof, may bring an action in any appropriate court against any other person, including a State or political subdivision thereof, who causes the person to be subject to the deprivation, for damages or other appropriate relief.

(2) The court shall award a plaintiff prevailing in an action brought under paragraph (1) damages and such other relief as the court deems appropriate, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.

This is a good first step and would seen to me it hints that pro-rights federal administrations can, and perhaps will, utilize existing law:

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

It wouldn’t take very many government criminals being arrested, let alone successfully prosecuted, before the criminal class of these political jurisdictions would get the message and decide they had more important business to attend to than prey upon innocent people exercising their specific enumerated rights.

While H.R. 38 isn’t the end result we want, it’s a significant step in the correct direction.