The Insidious Semantics of “Gun Control”

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I was taking care of my backlog of unread email and found The Insidious Semantics of “Gun Control” from JPFO. Here is part of it:

guncontrol-poster-450

“Gun Control” advocates fall into only two categories: the Liars and the Ignorant. There is no third category.

The Liars invent the lies. The Ignorant believe the lies and repeat them.

…

“Gun Control”: This is the “big daddy”, the cornerstone, the very foundation of the gun prohibitionists’ deceptive artifice. The phrase, on first hearing, sounds innocuous. After all, why wouldn’t people carefully “control” their firearms?

…

“Personal Arsenal”: This is owning anything over two guns. Two guns is “Multiple Weapons”.

A “Weapons Cache”: This seems to be three or more guns. A “Hidden Weapons Cache” means you don’t leave your guns on the kitchen table all day long.

A “Stockpile of Ammunition” is anything over twenty rounds of any caliber. It’s really a “stockpile” if you have several calibers in your “cache”. That makes you a “Survivalist” or a “Militia Member”.

There is more but the above is what jumped out at me.

ITAR is being updated

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I’ve written about ITAR before (and here). It is being updated for the age of the Internet. With the current administration in power you know that doesn’t mean it’s an improvement from our viewpoint.

The NRA explains:

Commonly used and unregulated internet discussions and videos about guns and ammo could be closed down under rules proposed by the State Department, amounting to a “gag order on firearm-related speech,” the National Rifle Association is warning.

In updating regulations governing international arms sales, State is demanding that anyone who puts technical details about arms and ammo on the web first get the OK from the federal government — or face a fine of up to $1 million and 20 years in jail.

One could dismiss this as tin-foil hat fears but there does appear to be reason to be concerned when you read the actual proposed changes which include things like this:

This rulemaking proposes that the electronic transmission of unclassified ‘‘technical data’’ abroad is not an ‘‘export,’’ provided that the data is sufficiently secured to prevent access by foreign persons. Additionally, this proposed rule would allow for the electronic storage of unclassified ‘‘technical data’’ abroad, provided that the data is secured to prevent access by parties unauthorized to access such data.

It is easy to read the proposed changes as my reporting accuracy issues with some ammo on my blog as sufficient grounds to be subject to felony charges. Gun and ammo manufacture websites appear to be covered as well, but they would be in a much better position to pay the annual $2000 ITAR fee and get permission before posting their material.

Government is way out of control. Contempt for and ignoring our government at a very broad level will only increase until it collapses.

If you can tolerate getting angered every minute or two read By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission. I’m listening to it now via an audible book. I about a third of the way through and the situation with stupid, stifling, obvious (to me) unconstitutional  regulations is being presented. ITAR hasn’t been mentioned so far but probably 99% of the Federal regulations could qualify.

I think the author is going to tell us to ignore the regulations and wait for the collapse as the best way out. That would appear to me to be just as good as advice as anything I can think of.

Update: Sebastian agrees it is a very serious issue.

And the winner is

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Last month I had a photo caption contest and I have selected a winner. It is Defens with:

Fetch the stick, Feinstein!

I found this particularly amusing and applicable because one of my motivations for Boomershoot, and in particular the posting of the recipe for Boomerite, was because of a law that Senator Feinstein wrote and got passed many years ago. That law made it illegal to distribute “bomb making instructions”. We don’t use “the ‘B’ word” at Boomershoot. We make “reactive targets”. In part, Boomershoot is about mocking Senator Feinstein.

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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If you want to know where social Marxism (collectivism) is headed, this is it: the labeling of individualistic philosophies as dangerous thought crimes and tribal communities as time bombs waiting to explode in the face of the wider global village. They desperately hope to conquer the world by dictating not only national boundaries and civil liberties, but the very moral code by which society and individuals function. They wish to bypass natural law with fear, fear that the collective will find you abhorrent and barbaric if you do not believe exactly as they believe. Individualism will one day be the new misogyny.

Think of it this way: If an undoubtedly forgettable movie like “Furious 7″ can’t even portray a fictional step away from the abyss of collectivist cultism without a prophecy of doom from Reuters, then is anyone really safe from these lunatics?

Brandon Smith
May 13, 2015
Collectivists Hate Individuality, Tribalism And ‘Fast And Furious 7′?
[No one is ever completely safe from any lunatic. Even a completely sane person might make a careless mistake and run over you in a crosswalk.

But Smith was asking a rhetorical question after painting what appears to be pretty accurate picture of the collectivist cult mentality. A clear statement of the problem is the first step in solving the problem and Smith appears to have done a good job in this regard.—Joe]

Boomershoot 2015 email

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After Boomershoot I don’t want to even think about it for a while. Unless email requires a response from me I just let it set in my inbox. I finally got around to looking at the collection and thought I would share some of it.

From Cat:

Hi Joe,

I had a fantastic time at my first Boomershoot!
Thank you and your crew for making this event happen, and for supporting the 2nd amendment.
I hope to be back next year!

The BBQ was amazing!

She also shared a picture of the fireball:

boom

From Matthew:

Enjoyed the opportunity to come with the guys and get to shoot.
Enjoyed meeting some of the other shooters, great folks!!!!!!

From Grete:

Joe,

It was a great experience!

See you next year!

From Greg and Bob:

It was the most enjoyable event we’ve been to. The weather was perfect and our shooting neighbors were friendly. It was great. We did not have any issues during the event. The fireball was amazing, the targets exploded and the BBQ was excellent. Looking forward to next year.

From Joe:

Dear Joe,

Thanks again for this wonderful event. I have been coming for many years and each time is the best time I have all year. Looking forward to next years event already.

You and your crew give a great party!

From Bill:

Joe, I had a great time throughout the weekend.  Great people, food and scenery. Something I will do for next year is site my riffles better (add scope).

Mark your calendars. Boomershoot 2016 will be April 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.

Ammo matters

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I went to the range today and tested various ammo in my Ruger 22/45.

This target was made shooting five rounds offhand at 25 yards with CCI Standard Velocity ammo:

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This is the same target after I fired another five rounds with Federal “Target Grade Performance” “Auto Match” (AM22) at the same range:

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Other people also report accuracy issues with the Federal ammo and others report problems with reliability.

I shot more groups at seven yards with similar results. The Federal was far less accurate than the CCI. I shot some old CCI Blazer at seven yards. The one flyer was my fault. There are four rounds in the hole that looks like only two shots:

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I shot some more rounds through my new STI DVC. The following are five rounds at seven yards:

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I then tried some handloads that used 180 grain Rainer Restrike JHP bullets. The results were terrible. I moved the target to 25 yards to see if there was some key-holing or something. Only one bullet was on the paper! It looked like a normal hole so I moved the target to 10 yards and saw what I was expecting:

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It’s most obvious with the top hole. See the “grease mark” out to the right of the hole? That’s from the bullet striking the paper nearly sideways. Notice the other holes with the asymmetric tearing? Compare those holes to the holes from the factory ammo. The factory ammo has symmetric holes. The Rainer Restrike handloads are unstable in my gun.

Ammo matters. It matters a lot.

Quote of the day—F. A. Hayek

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There can be little doubt that man owes some of his greatest suc­cesses in the past to the fact that he has not been able to control so­cial life. His continued advance may well depend on his deliber­ately refraining from exercising controls which are now in his power. In the past, the spontane­ous forces of growth, however much restricted, could usually still assert themselves against the or­ganized coercion of the state. With the technological means of control now at the disposal of government, it is not certain that such assertion is still possible; at any rate, it may soon become impossible. We are not far from the point where the deliberately organized forces of society may destroy those spon­taneous forces which have made advance possible.

F. A. Hayek
October 1, 1960
The Case for Freedom
[The size and scope of our government has penetrated to depth in our society far beyond what Hayek could have reasonably foreseen in 1960. The banning of certain toilets, shower heads, and light bulbs is just the tip of the iceberg. The use of “eminent domain” to take your property and give it to another, the banning of larger than average soft drinks, and the banning of firearm accessories are just the tip of the same iceberg. The thousands of pages of law and regulations churned out each year are just the tip of the same iceberg.

Our vehicles license plates are scanned by police cars as they drive by, our cell phone positions are tracked, our phone call metadata is stored for use against us, the IRS has been weaponized and is used against political opponents, and drone are ready and able to drop a bomb on your location if the administration believes you to be a threat to national security.

It is easy to argue that “the deliberately organized forces of society” will destroy, or essentially has destroyed, the spontaneous forces of which Hayek speaks. Furthermore it is not farfetched to claim the only viable option at this point is to protect yourself and those close to you as best you can and prepare to rebuild from the ruins of the coming collapse.

I hope we can learn from what I fear is a lesson of staggering magnitude. Then, if the time comes, we must rebuild upon a foundation of solid political and economic philosophical principles. The works of Hayek are almost certainly part of that foundation.—Joe]

Units and measures; the milliHelen

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Fred;
“That amount of beauty necessary to launch one ship”

Front sight problems

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I’m not the only one to recently have problems with the front sight of their new gun (H/T to gonxau):

He also had problems with the rear sight. I’m not up to 500 rounds yet so I may have problems as well by the time I shoot that many rounds in my new gun.

Slightly off topic… I should soon have some microscope pictures from the gun barrel that died in April. The reason why it split is apparently quite unusual. Assuming I have permission I’ll share everything after I get the pictures.

Quote of the day—Varad Mehta

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The solution to violence is supposedly to lay down arms and swear a truce. But when one side’s arms drip with ink and the other’s drip with blood there is no peace to be had. “We will stop drawing cartoons” and “we will stop killing you” are incommensurate concessions.

Those who think they are equal, that the pen is mightier than the sword because the sword only wounds the body while the pen wounds something greater because intangible—the soul of society or some ineffable value like justice or safety or dignity—will always implore us to let the wookie win because they take the enemy at his word. But safety of this kind is not really safety because its maintenance is not in our hands but theirs.

Varad Mehta
June 4, 2015
Don’t Let The Wookiee Win
[Via a Tweet from Gay Cynic.

Those who demand others to refrain from the exercise of their right to free speech because of the threats from violent criminals should think about the lessons they are teaching. What they teach is that others should become violent criminals to get their way as well.

What I find most perplexing is that those who insist we submit to the demands of these criminals are those least able to deliver violence should their lessons be taken to heart. Hence they are attempting to create a world where they would be the first to become slaves to those able to deliver violence.—Joe]

Check your privilege

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Translation; Check (stop or reduce) your objectivity

The more objective person has great advantages over the less objective person, and those advantages will be seen by the less objective person as threatening, unfair and oppressive. The less objective person thus sees the more objective as aggressors, imposing all manner of suffering upon the less objective.

It has two great benefits to the ego of the less objective. It reduces the comparative advantage of being objective (thus providing “Social Justice”), and it absolves the less objective of responsibility for their foolishness.

Since it requires a great deal more objectivity (which the less objective hate with a burning passion, much as a vampire would hate the sunlight) to convince the less objective to become more objective, the situation is a sort of Catch-22.

The classic definition of such is paranoia, but I see it more as a convenient method of control, by the less objective, of the more objective. A form of bullying from below, if you will.

So long as we entertain the foolishness of the less objective in any way whatsoever, we are being controlled by, and we are thus encouraging and empowering, the foolish. Our entertaining the foolish comes from our unwillingness to become the targets of their naked outrage. It is cowardice. When we know better, and do it anyway, we deserve everything that results (which will of course be horrible).

Quote of the day—George M. Lee and John R. Lott

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CCW permit holders are so law-abiding that they compare favorably even to police officers. According to a study in Police Quarterly, during the period from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2007 there was an average of 703 crimes committed by police per year, with 113 involving firearms violations.6 With about 683,396 full-time law enforcement employees in 2006,7 that translates into about 102 crimes by police per hundred thousand officers. Of course, this compares very favorably to the U.S. population as a whole over those years, with 3,813 crimes per hundred thousand people – a crime rate that was 37 times higher than that for police.

But concealed carry permit holders are even more law-abiding than that. Between October 1, 1987 and April 30, 2015, Florida revoked 9,793 concealed handgun permits for misdemeanors or felonies. This is an annual rate of 12.5 per 100,000 permit holders – a mere eighth of the rate at which officers commit misdemeanors and felonies. In Texas in 2012, 120 permit holders were convicted of misdemeanors or felonies – a rate of 20.5 per 100,000, still just a fifth of the rate for police.

Firearms violations among police occur at a rate of 6.9 per 100,000 officers. For permit holders in Florida, it is only 0.31 per 100,000. Most of these violations were for trivial offenses, such as forgetting to carry one’s permit. The data are similar in 24 other states.

George M. Lee
John R. Lott
June 2, 2015
BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE CRIME PREVENTION RESEARCH CENTER
IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS AND APPELLEES JEFF SILVESTER, ET AL., AND SUPPORTING AFFIRMANCE
JEFF SILVESTER, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
vs.
KAMALA D. HARRIS,
in her official capacity as the Attorney General of California,
Defendant-Appellant.
[This makes it extremely clear that if you are concerned about private citizens legally carrying guns in public then there are a limited number of nonexclusive conclusions that can be arrived at regarding your concerns. Which of the following best describes you?

  1. You are far more concerned about the police carrying guns.
  2. You are not concerned about people legally carrying guns committing a crime with them. Instead you are concerned about those people using them lawfully. If you are a rational person we must conclude you are a violent and/or evil person afraid of being legally shot.
  3. You were ignorant about the crime rates of people who legally carry guns and will now cease advocating in support of more restrictive laws regarding the carry of firearms in public.
  4. You have crap for brains and don’t care what the data is.

Other options exist but they appear to be variations of the themes I have already enumerated. Or did I miss some?—Joe]

When satire is indistinguishable from reality

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From Ken White we have a Leaked Northwestern University Email States Rules For Title IX Investigations which includes this among other things:

Classes on the American court system, civil rights and civil liberties, and criminal justice may continue so long as professors emphasize to their students that they are participating an an anthropological study of a profoundly sexist and cisgender-biased system and that no positive normative judgment is intended.

I’m in complete agreement with commenter AddictionMyth who said:

I understand that satire is protected by the First Amendment. But this was insufficiently parodic to avoid being confusing. At least, I didn’t laugh. Not once.

The engineering mindset

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On Saturday Barb and I were going out for the evening. She was trying to decide what to wear and:

Barb: I don’t like anything I put on.

Joe: That’s an easy problem to solve.

Barb: ??

Joe: Take everything off.

For some reason Barb didn’t see this suggestion nearly as helpful as I did.

I think the issue is with her problem statement. I should work with her on that so that in the future we won’t have these sort of misunderstandings.

Orange is a special color

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The anti-gun people were asking that everyone wear orange yesterday to support them. As with Sebastian, I didn’t see anyone wearing orange all day. But an interesting observation was made by Miguel and CCRKBA. Miguel is rather subtle so I’ll use CCRKBA’s words to provide the detail for those anti-gun people who are little on the slow side:

Today’s nationwide effort by the Michael Bloomberg-supported Everytown for Gun Safety to promote the wearing of orange garments in an effort to push the gun control agenda at least uses a color so many of Bloomberg’s former colleagues are already wearing, in prison, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms observed.

“We’ve been watching social media throughout the day, and we’re stunned that the organizers of this event chose the same color that many prison inmates, including several ex-members of Bloomberg’s other group, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, are wearing every day of the year,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “At least they’re sticking with a color familiar to so many anti-gun politicians.”

Two Bloomberg-supported groups, Everytown and Moms Demand Action, along with other gun control organizations – essentially the entire gun prohibition lobby – are endorsing and participating in today’s “wear orange” effort.

“When this publicity stunt was launched,” Gottlieb observed, “the organizers tried to peddle this as an adoption of the color that hunters wear for safety in the field. What they didn’t expect, however, is that millions of hunters and gun owners are now fighting back, reminding the gun grabbers on social media that orange is also the color of prison jumpsuits.

“At least we’ll see the anti-gunners coming from a long way off,” he chuckled, “but we can’t be sure if they’re just misguided protesters, or jail escapees. In either case, we’re advising our members to not let anybody wearing orange get too close today.

“What is truly deplorable,” Gottlieb added, “is that this effort tries to send a subliminal color-coded message, linking crime and violence to legitimate hunting and recreational shooting. Maybe next year, the gun prohibition lobby should just wear black and white stripes.”

It’s no wonder they chose orange to represent their people. It’s what so many of them wear on a day-to-day basis.

Quote of the day—Paul Barrett

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More than nonlawyers would expect, the justices are fair-weather textualists, demanding strict adherence to congressional language when it suits them and inferring hidden implications when that’s more convenient.

Paul Barrett
June 1, 2015
What the Abercrombie Bias Case Might Mean for Obamacare
[Not only more than what we expect but far more than what we can tolerate.

When they are inconsistent we don’t know what the “law” is at the time you make your life choices. Can you really call it “law” when it depends on the whim of someone in a black robe a thousand miles and years removed from the scene and time of the “crime”? In order for the law to be just it must be knowable at the time you make your choices.—Joe]

Security theater in the news

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Via Bruce Schneier and Tyler Durden:

An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.

The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.

According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General’s report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.

…

In addition, the review determined that despite spending $540 million for checked baggage screening equipment and another $11 million for training since a previous review in 2009, the TSA failed to make any noticeable improvements in that time.

That money is a total waste. It’s nothing but security theater. Let the airlines handle their own security, or lack thereof, any way they want instead of the government continuing to infringe our rights and waste our money.

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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Hoplophobia continues to take a huge toll on the nation, distorts the political climate, and costs lives as innocent people are disarmed or subarmed (inadequately armed due to infringing laws) to help salve the irrational fears of its sufferers. The White House had no comment.

Alan Korwin
May 31, 2015
Medical Hope for Hoplophobia Sufferers
[Of course they had no comment. As with all people with personality disorders they don’t think there is anything wrong with them. And if something goes wrong they cannot see that they made any contribution to the problem.

In addition to consideration of a test for voters I think consideration should be giving to tests for public servants. Hoplophobia sufferers would be immediately disqualified.—Joe]

My first gun class

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I was looking for something else and found the certificate for my first gun class:

NRAPersonalProtectionCertificate

The instructor, Carl Zmuda, now, 20+ years later, frequently attends Boomershoot.

Quote of the day—Jesse Hattabaugh ‏@arkanciscan

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@wallsofthecity Well whip out your dick then chief and let’s get some data

Jesse Hattabaugh ‏@arkanciscan
Tweeted on January 17, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Linoge.—Joe]