Giffords group merges with Law Center

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This is interesting:

The group created by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to push for tighter control on the sale of guns is merging with a group focused on the legal issues surrounding gun control.

The merger, announced Wednesday, brings together the notoriety of Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions in Washington with the legal acumen of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco.

For now, the two groups will retain separate names and separate offices.

Usually when an anti-gun group merges with another it means one of them was broke. This doesn’t seem to be the case this time:

Americans for Responsible Solutions Foundation took in $159,900 in 2014, according to its most recent tax return filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Americans for Responsible Solutions Political Action Committee raised about $3 million in the final six months of 2015, according to its filing with the Federal Election Commission. There was about $4.2 million in its campaign account at the start of 2016.

The Law Center took in about $1.4 million in 2014, according to its most recent tax return.

I wonder if Giffords just doesn’t have the time and/or energy and is basically selling her name and donor list.

Quote of the day—John Niven

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It seems increasingly obvious that the real infant with a gun here is America itself. Watch it stumbling around like a giant toddler, wreaking untold havoc and then screaming its head off if someone dares to confiscate its beloved toy.

It’s about time someone took the toys away for good.

John Niven
March 14, 2016
John Niven: American gun laws are just crazy, it’s time we took the firearms away from them
[H/T to Say Uncle.

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

Just keep thinking that

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Anti-gun activist pastor Michael (how does he keep his tax exempt status?) Pfleger says:

Until America is so wounded by gun violence in the white and wealthy communities, till that happens and people start voting out politicians who are owned and bought by the NRA, it’s not going to change.

As is common with these type of people they believe it is all about the money. They do not, and perhaps cannot, comprehend there are many people who are guided by things other than money. Those other things include facts, logic, and principles.

As long as these people don’t understand the motivation for people to exercise and protected their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms they have little hope of gaining political traction.

Even if we were to grant his statement as true the facts are that violence in general is reducing as gun ownership increases. So, by his own logic, gun control is projected to be less likely in the future.

So if Pfleger keeps thinking that he’ll live the rest of his life bitter, hateful, and deluded. He’ll likely end up being one of those people that I feel sorry for as they wander around town shouting at clouds, mumbling at lamp posts, and spending their nights at homeless shelters.

Of course there is another way to interpret his words. He could be calling for people to begin shooting up “the white and wealthy communities”. If so, and he continues in that direction, then his life could have a much different, but no more pleasant, path.

Either way Pfleger and those who believe like him are on the losing side of history.

Quote of the day—Brett

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In a modern organizational environment you sometimes feel compelled to telegraph your feelings, but it is important to remember to not put them on broadband.

Brett
March 14, 2016
[I work with Brett. A co-worker of ours unnecessarily consumes a lot of bandwidth. This is a detriment to everyone involved.—Joe]

Why Men Think Women Are Flirting

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This explains some things:

Basically, quoting Justin J Lehmiller, “It’s adaptive for men to error on the side of over- rather than under-perceiving women’s sexual interest.” There is little to lose and something to gain by misperceiving friendliness or politeness as sexual interest. Hence it may have become hard-wired into human males.

Update: This is not to say this justifies men being aggressive, in any form, toward women. Men need to realize it is easy for them to make erroneous conclusions and women need to realize they may sometimes need to be “less than subtle” in their communication with men.

Quote of the day—Nelson ⚒‏@NeLoNe79

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@MilitiaJim @wallsofthecity @JClaireBurke You love need guns I get it, God didn’t bless you enough in the trousers.

Nelson ⚒‏@NeLoNe79
Tweeted on November 30, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Via a tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

Steel challenge match results

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The forecast was for 100% chance of precipitation for every hour of the match at Renton today. Although the sun did break out for about 45 minutes of the hour from 12:00 to 1:00 the forecast was technically correct. They had canopies over the shooting areas, I wore a good hat, rain pants, and a waterproof coat so I stayed dry. But I didn’t wear warm enough clothes and I got rather chilled. And once I spent a few minutes in the car to warm up. Next time I’ll bring more clothing options.

I hadn’t practiced all this week and the first few stages I shot (my stage shooting order was 2, 3, 4, 1) demonstrated this.

Still, I had fun.

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The Leprechaun

Final Name SCSA Class Division Time String 1 String 2 String 3 String 4 String 5
Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P
8 Huffman, Joe 29386 U RFPI 13.53 5.01     3.93     3.36     3.24     3.00    
15 Huffman, Joseph   U ISP 18.99 7.08     3.94     3.55     4.71 6.00 4.42  

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Lucky Charms

Final Name SCSA Class Division Time String 1 String 2 String 3 String 4 String 5
Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P
13 Huffman, Joe 29386 U RFPI 13.69 3.56     3.60     3.57     2.96     3.87 3.00
29 Huffman, Joseph   U ISP 22.49 4.57     7.24     6.08     6.84     5.00    

WP_20160313_09_54_05_ProAdjustedRenton Plate Rack

Final Name SCSA Class Division Time String 1 String 2 String 3 String 4 String 5
Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P
12 Huffman, Joe 29386 U RFPI 17.65 5.07     3.64     4.41     4.90     4.70    
18 Huffman, Joseph U ISP 24.35 8.05     5.46     6.85     6.34     5.70    

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Saving Ammo

Final Name SCSA Class Division Time String 1 String 2 String 3 String 4 String 5
Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P Raw P
17 Huffman, Joe 29386 U RFPI 19.60 3.77     2.95 6.00 3.75     13.53     3.13    
25 Huffman, Joseph U ISP 25.58 4.83 9.00 7.53     6.15     5.09     6.81    

My guns worked well except for one failure to properly strip a round out of the magazine with my .22.

The complete results are here, but the divisions in which I participated are below.

Rim Fire Pistol Iron (RFPI)
Final Name SCSA Class Division Time Stage 1 The Leprechaun Stage 2 Lucky Charms Stage 3 Renton Plate Rack Stage 4 Saving Ammo
1 Sailer, Christian A86982 U RFPI 36.48 10.81 8.35 9.41 7.91
2 Larson, Addison   U RFPI 51.08 11.58 12.51 14.47 12.52
3 White, Alex   U RFPI 58.12 24.61 10.49 12.09 10.93
4 Huffman, Joe 29386 U RFPI 64.47 13.53 13.69 17.65 19.60
5 Meboe, Joey   U RFPI 79.71 27.53 13.48 22.91 15.79
6 Jackson, Duane   U RFPI 92.22 21.49 18.36 35.97 16.40
7 Gile, Conner   U RFPI 94.04 23.72 16.64 25.50 28.18
8 Kenny, Dan A23624 U RFPI 99.40 17.49 16.67 33.26 31.98

Iron Sighted Pistol (ISP)
Final Name SCSA Class Division Time Stage 1 The Leprechaun Stage 2 Lucky Charms Stage 3 Renton Plate Rack Stage 4 Saving Ammo
1 Dougan, Brian   U ISP 85.79 22.56 20.07 24.71 18.45
2 Komatsu, Jeff   U ISP 89.62 20.04 22.42 24.73 22.43
3 Huffman, Joseph   U ISP 91.41 18.99 22.49 24.35 25.58

All’s well that ends well

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A customer shot and killed a hatchet-wielding man attacking a clerk at a convenience store in Burien Sunday morning.

A bad start to a day that ends the way it should – the attacker stopped by a concealed carry customer in the shop. Way to go, Mr. “regular customer.”

Quote of the day—Glenn Reynolds

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When you have a society that can’t do things that need to be done because every change threatens somebody’s rice bowl or offers insufficient opportunities for graft, you’ve got a society that is due for a reset, not for incremental change.

The thing is, resets are often kind of ugly.

Glenn Reynolds
March 11, 2016
UNEXPECTEDLY: Walmart’s customers are too broke to shop. Fundamentally transformed!

Quote of the day—Hognose

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The guy or girl who holsters a .45, or a Beretta, or a Glock, or an M&P, or a Chief’s Special five-shot revolver, for that matter, and closes the book on pistol selection can get on to the more serious business of pistol training and practice. The principle resource that satisficing can buy you is time, which is the one resource you can’t buy or produce more of, and the one resource that is ever in short supply.

Hognose
January 25, 2016
Pistols & Optimizing vs. Satisficing
[H/T to Tamara.

Greg Hamilton has insight on a closely related topic which is relevant here as well:

If during the time you were reading the latest “stopping power” article you were instead practicing to save your life you would be far, far ahead.

You should spend far more of your time and money budgets on training and practice than on your equipment. I know this is difficult and it’s easy to run down the equipment rabbit hole but try to avoid it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Will Franken

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I am still one of the most oppressed minorities living in the West today.

I am an individual.

Will Franken
March 7, 2016
What Life As A Transgender Woman Taught Me About Progressives
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Robert Rotberg

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We’re not taking anything away. We’re strengthening the rights of Lexingtonians to be secure in their private houses and less fearful of people spraying bullets at them.

Robert Rotberg
Founding director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict and Town Meeting member
March 8, 2016
Lexington debates proposal to ban semi-automatic weapons
[What this guy wants:

the proposal seeks to ban any semi-automatic rifle or handgun that has a removable magazine capable of holding 10 or more rounds. It also seeks to ban any magazine that holds 10 or more rounds.

And he claims, “We’re not taking anything away. We’re strengthening the rights of Lexingtonians…”?

Gun banners lie because it’s the only way they can win.

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

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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This is a big win. Not just for gun rights but for the freedom movement in the battle against billionaire elitist gun prohibitionists like Michael Bloomberg. West Virginia just told him he can’t buy away our Second Amendment rights.

Alan Gottlieb
March 7, 2016
Gun control group ‘livid’ about permitless carry override veto
[While there is a certain amount of truth to this, 10s of millions, or more, of dollars can buy more repression of our rights than we care to tolerate.

Probably the best we can do is make the cost, in time, money, and public opinion, as high as practical such that the return on Bloomberg’s investment is as low as possible. In the case of West Virginia, gun rights supporters caused him to do the equivalent of setting a very large pile of $100 bills on fire. Bloomberg has an distressingly large number of $100 bills he is willing to throw on the fire but getting nothing except reports of his failures in return for spending large amounts of money will be discouraging to both him and the people he is funding. It also demonstrates that the claim that “the greedy gun manufactures with lots of money” and the NRA get legislative votes by outbidding the virtuous anti-gun activists is false. With this key assumption falsified it demoralizes them and makes it more difficult for them to recruit additional people and raise money in general.—Joe]

Quote of the day—surfinbird512 @surfinbird512

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some big fat piece of shit behind an AR 15! he can’t even see his dick.

surfinbird512 @surfinbird512
Tweeted on November 25, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Linoge.

Just remember, we have SCOTUS decisions, they have childish insults.—Joe]

Speer Gold Dot Short Barrel expansion test

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I recently hand loaded some 180 grain “Gold Dot® Short Barrel®” rounds in .40 S&W. Yesterday I did the promised “chronograph and water jug testing”. Here are the results:

Powder: 3.9 grains of Bullseye
Primer: WSP
OAL: 1.132

10 shots over the chronograph from 10 feet away.

Minimum velocity: 814 fps
Maximum velocity: 864 fps
Mean velocity: 838.1 fps
Standard deviation: 15.5 fps
Power Factor: 150.86

The water filled milk jug test was to determine if the bullets would expand at this relatively low velocity. The 0.401 bullet expanded to just under 0.6 and retained nearly 99% of it’s mass:

IMG_5327Cropped

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This is very good.

Brother Doug was a little worried that with the lower velocity perhaps a non-expanding bullet would be better for self defense because of the better penetration. Would it penetrate deep enough to “do the job”? I didn’t have any ordinance gelatin but my guess is that it penetrates just fine. They fully traversed three one gallon milk jugs filled with water. This is just under 18 inches of water.

I didn’t expect it would penetrate that far and for my first shot I only used two jugs for depth and put one on each side of the rear jug in case the bullet didn’t go straight after hitting the first jug:

IMG_5297

It fully penetrated the two jugs and I was unable to find the bullet in the berm.

The second time I changed the configuration to just three jugs lined up in a row:

IMG_5302Cropped

Again the bullet penetrated all the jugs but I found the bullet just sitting on the ground behind the jugs.

That was interesting

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Barb and I were out running errands this morning and we stopped at Walmart to pick up what I think is the last remaining components for Boomershoot targets (we should have also picked up some rubber bands but I’ll get those sometime this week during lunch). As we were approaching the checkout counter I told Barb, “This is sure a strange combination of stuff. I wonder if they will notice and say something.”

People noticed. They said things:

Clerk : What are you going to use all that <baking component> for?

I hesitated and thought about it for a second or two. He was still ringing stuff up and I hadn’t paid for it yet. If I told him the truth it could delay our departure. Before I could decide what to do he continued:

Clerk (with a smirk on his face): Are you going to use it with the anti-freeze?
Guy in line behind me: With all that anti-freeze, you could make quite the <dessert component>.
Joe (addressing the clerk with a big smile): Actually, I am going to use them together. I make explosives with them.
Clerk: Excuse me?
Joe: I use them to make explosives.

The clerk’s hand froze in midair over the keypad and the smile on the face of guy in line behind me disappeared into blank, ashen colored, stare.

I continued:

Joe: I have a license to make high explosives. I put on a shooting event each year with exploding targets. People come from all over the country to shoot at them.
Clerk: Where do you do this at?
Joe: Idaho.
GILBM: You come all the way over to Washington buy this?
Joe: I live over here but put the event on in Idaho because I need a lot of land and tolerant neighbors. I have the property and the right neighbors over there.
Clerk (hands moving again): Oh. I was thinking maybe Mount Index.
Joe: Nope.

I finished paying for the components then Barb and I quickly loaded up the car and left before the cops could get there.

Quote of the day—Wayne LaPierre

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Mrs. Clinton, if you want to come after the NRA, if you want a fight over the God-given rights of America’s 100 million gun owners, if you want to turn this election into a bare-knuckled brawl for the survival of our constitutional freedom, bring it on. We aren’t going anywhere – and we aren’t hard to find.

Wayne LaPierre
March 3, 2016
NRA chief tells Hillary Clinton to ‘bring it on’ in gun control fight
[I think that sums it up fairly well.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Black Bullets International

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We Stand behind our products – Because it would be really stupid to stand in front of them.

Black Bullets International
2013
Motto
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—bruce lancaster

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When you come for my guns, you will need to bring yours. If you are successful prying my gun from my cold, dead hand, take care. The barrel will be quite hot. … Understand the consequences you beg for: I will fight you to my last bullet. I will fight you until my knife is worn to the hilt. I will fight you until my knuckles are shattered, my nails torn free and my teeth broken at the roots. … When you have tended your wounded and mourned your dead, good luck mustering the courage to face my neighbors, my grocer, my barber, the lady at the gas station cash register, my pastor, my sons, my daughters… They will offer you the same resistance I did. You will reap the whirlwind. If you’re successful killing me or someone like me, you will be hunted. You will be run to ground. You will be smoked out. You will be hung from the nearest tree. Your villages will be plundered, your livestock slaughtered, and your homes burned to ash. There will be no quarter. Each and every disgusting one of you traitorous evil freedom haters will die.

I welcome you to come whenever you think you’re ready. Say When.

bruce lancaster
March 1, 2016
Comment to How to Pass Gun Control in the Sixth-Most-Gun-Owning State in America
[H/T to Sebastian for the link to the main article.—Joe]

Homicides versus guns in developed countries

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Via Ry’s tweet we have source code and data to test various hypothesizes regarding firearm ownership and homicide:

Fit linear regression weighted by number of homicides. Homicides are rare, therefore variance of homicide rate estimates is primarily driven by number of homicides rather than by population. There is no circular reasoning here – we’re predicting homicide rate rather than absolute number of homicides.

Exclude countries with gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per capita lower than the median because we are primarily interested in developed countries.

Firearms are statistically significant and have negative coefficient in the regression.

Conclusion: in developed countries, more firearms means less homicide.