Quote of the day—Ryan Holiday

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The most powerful predictor of virality is how much anger an article provokes. I will say it again, the most powerful predictor of what spreads online is anger.

Ryan Holiday
2013
Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
[This is an excellent book. Jaime, my oldest daughter, got this for herself and we just started listening to it this week. Last night was our first chance to talk about it.

In some regards it is depressing and disgusting. It explains why so much of what we see online is click bait with little or no regard for the truth or completeness. On the other hand it explains in detail how much power blogs, even those with relatively small followings, have if they know what they are doing. Holiday explains in detail how he and many others manipulate the blogs and from there the major media. Everyone, except perhaps the end user, along the way gets what they want.

The online world has returned to the day of yellow journalism like it was 100 years ago. The most sensational headlines of those days sold the most papers on the street. It wasn’t until the transition of the subscription model that newspapers became somewhat trusted news sources. The subscription model of blogs and online news have been, at best, struggling and the quality is corresponding poor. Because sensationalism gets page views and page views mean advertising money, sensationalism wins over thoughtful analysis and thorough, accurate presentation of facts.

Getting back to anger. You see this in the gun rights battle. Both sides use anger to motivate their followers and raise money.

Any blogger who is even quasi-serious or anyone who is concerned about principles and truth in the news should read this book. It will not only open your eyes but it also enables those who care more about the ends than the means to better reach their desired ends.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Maybe we are just little, and governments are huge.  That doesn’t mean we should make it any easier for them to do bad things than it already is.

Roberta X
October 14, 2015
Okay, Let’s Take This “Get Rid Of The Guns” Thing One Step At A Time
[Roberta has some good points.

I would also like to suggest people look at the numbers.—Joe]

Free item

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The first half of the prose rewrite of “The Stars Came Back” is called ” The Stars Came Back: Back from the Dead “. It is now on Kindle unlimited.  So, for those of you that thought you might like to read the edited PROSE version, you can get it at no cost. Whoo-Hoo! Electronic book only so far. Eventually it’ll hit paper for those who, like me, prefer hardcopy. But those won’t be free 🙁

Sometimes, free is good.

SAFE act

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The 2nd Circuit Court upheld the NY “SAFE Act 2013” last week. Bummer. They said that NY could ban certain arms, prohibit private transfers, etc. On the one hand, that really sucks for the people of NY, another in a long line of suckage. Oh, well, I don’t live there, and I’m never planning too. And it sets a circuit court precedent that specific guns can be banned. On the other hand, it was passed so fast, and is so broad, it’s likely to get appealed to the Supreme Court, and it’s also likely to get taken up.

High risk appeal. If we win, it’s big. If we lose, it’s HUGE.

Interesting times.

Mesa Verde

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Mesa Verde National Park is the location of abandoned Native American cliff dwellings.

Although people had lived in the area for thousands of years the cliff buildings were used for less than 100 years. People left the area by 1285 due to a long lasting and severe drought.

In the upper left corner of the picture below you see a dwelling across the canyon from where Barb and I toured “Balcony House” as seen with the naked eye.

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Below is with a 300 mm lens (~6X).

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Below is a close up of the dwelling in the picture above.

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Continue reading →

Steel match results

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I was expecting the worst when I went to Whidbey Island for the monthly steel match. I have been very busy recently and hadn’t shot a pistol in nearly a month. After I arrived I realized I had left my race holster at home. My centerfire shooting was all from an inside the waistband holster and my draw time showed this.

 

I was surprised to do as well as I did. I did quite well (I won) with iron sighted rimfire pistol and decent (second place) with iron sighted centerfire pistol:

 

Name Division Seconds
Brian Lawson RF-RI-O 42
Brian Lawson RF-O 44.08
Steve Mooney RF-RI-O 44.99
Steve Mooney RF-O 51.36
Steve Mooney RF-O 57.44
Joe Huffman RF-I 63.54
Theo Newstad PCC-O 67
Scott Bertino RF-O 69.14
Jim Dunlap RF-O 69.93
Scott Bertino RF-I 73.31
Theo Newstad RF-O 80.17
Rev Barchenger RF-O 83.17
Dave Shupe CF-O 83.29
MAC RF-RI-I 84.11
Bruce Barchenger CF-I 84.27
Joe Huffman CF-I 86.34
Brian Lawson CF-I 89.46
Theo Newstad CF-I 91.12
Dave Shupe RF-O 92.05
Bob Austin CF-I 92.27
Bruce Barchenger CF-I 94.32
Larry Languille PCC-I 116.05
MAC CF-I 124.95
Dennis Bohling CF-I 151.76
Linda Pickering CF-I 165.21

RF-RI-O: Rimfire Rifle Optics

RF-O: Rimfire Pistol Optics
RF-I: Rimfire Iron sights
PCC-O: Pistol Caliber Carbine Optics
RF-RI-I: Rimfire Rifle Iron sights
CF-I: Centerfire Iron sights

PCC-I: Pistol Caliber Carbine Iron sights

 

Quote of the day—Bacon @Baconmints

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You can be tough, you can be brave or you can buy a bunch of guns like a scared little coward. Your call. #tinycockclub #bokbok #fuckthenra

Bacon @Baconmints
Tweeted on December 23, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Via a Tweet from BFD‏ @BigFatDave.—Joe]

One round short

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I just finished reloading a few rounds for my next pistol match and ran my round counting program to report on the total number of rounds I have ever reloaded. By complete coincidence the total was one short of a nice round number (from a computer programmer’s viewpoint):

223.LOG: 2027 rounds.
22LR.log: 0 rounds.
3006.LOG: 467 rounds.
300WIN.LOG: 1351 rounds.
40SW.LOG: 40054 rounds.
45.log: 0 rounds.
50bmg.log: 0 rounds.
9MM.LOG: 21636 rounds.
Total: 65535 rounds.

Bryce Canyon

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It was foggy when we started our hike through Bryce Canyon. This gave the area a surreal feel at first. But the fog burned off and we got some great long distance views as we finished. The hiking book Barb brought claims the Queen’s Garden and Navaho Loop trail is reputed to be the best hike in the U.S. if not the world. After hiking through almost unbelievable geological formations this is a believable claim.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

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Sea level to 9800 feet

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Barb and I were on vacation for the last week. Friday (October 16th) we left home about noon and drove to West Port, Washington (on the coast) to visit friends for the weekend.

I saw a couple stickers on a car that indicated I was near “my kind of people”:

WP_20151017_12_36_00_Pro__highresWP_20151017_12_36_07_Pro__highres

On Sunday morning we drove to the Seattle-Tacoma airport and flew to Las Vegas, arriving about 7:00 PM. We then drove to Brian Head, Utah arriving about 2:00 AM local time.

It was an interesting drive from Las Vegas to Brian Head. Just getting the rental car was an adventure. We “got a good deal” on a Jeep (I need lots of headroom) via Fox Rent A Car. When we checked in they told us it was an extra $10/day for a second driver. So much for the “good deal”.

We loaded all our stuff into the Jeep and started to leave when I noticed the low tire pressure light was on. I reported it and they said to take a different Jeep. We loaded our stuff into and started the car and the “Oil Change” light came on. We reported it and checked out the only small SUV remaining, a Rav 4. By adjusting the seat to the lowest position I could sit in by tipping my head to the side just a bit. And it smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. We were discussing going to a different rental agency when another Jeep, freshly washed showed up. We inspected it, found nothing wrong, and moved all our stuff into it and drove away. It wasn’t until two days later that we discovered the right rear door would not lock. We won’t be renting from Fox Rent A Car again.

The weather apps on our phones warned of heavy rains and flash floods all the way to Cedar City. The speed limit was 80 MPH on much of the interstate freeway in Utah but with the heavy rains I seldom drove over 55 MPH.

We needed to get some groceries and according to our research prior to leaving home there was a 24-hour Wal-Mart Super store in town. We arrived about 12:40 AM to find the store was closed. We drove around a bit and found a grocery store which was open. Barb went in and started shopping while I parked the car. When I walked in I was told they were closing in seven minutes. Barb and I coordinated our searches and dashed all over the store picking up various items. It was a bit of a hodgepodge of stuff and few things that weren’t quite what we thought we had grabbed off the shelves but it was good enough and we laughed at ourselves as we went through checkout.

We continued on to our condo at Brian Head, climbing up to 9800 feet above sea level, with the last mile or so pushing slush and snow ahead of the Jeep. We got into bed about 2:00 AM.

The next morning, Monday, we felt ill. I recognized the symptoms. It was altitude sickness. I would get dizzy every time I changed from a sitting or bending over position to standing. I was sometimes gasping for breath. We considered just staying there and getting better before we continued on to the National Parks. Barb looked up the symptoms and treatments on the Internet. Symptoms are similar to having drank too much alcohol and a hangover. Hmmm… so that’s what a hangover feels like. I’ve never had a hangover before. The treatment is to go to a lower altitude. You can avoid it by acclimating more slowly. Gain about 3000 feet per day they said. Great. We exceeded the recommended altitude gain per day by a factor of 3.27. No wonder we were feeling messed up.

All the National Parks we were visiting were at a lower altitudes so we decided to continue on schedule in the hopes of feeling better when we got to lower ground. We went to Bryce Canyon, at an elevation of over 8000 feet, and went on a three mile hike down and then up out of the steep canyon.

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We felt much better…

Details on our adventures with lots of pictures to follow in more blog posts.

Boomershoot 2015 video

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Via email from Ballisticarc:

Quote of the day—rickn8or

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Suppressors ought to be regulated like holsters and scopes.

rickn8or
October 23, 2015
Comment to Hearing Protection Act
[Be careful what you wish for. There are two solutions to the problem as stated.—Joe]

Quote of the day—bayo0786‏ @heyoyayo

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@wallsofthecity Of course we want to take your guns.  And like every other liberal goal over the past 50 years, we will be successful.

bayo0786‏ @heyoyayo
Tweeted on October 22, 2015
[What this guy doesn’t understand is there are lines which must not be crossed.

What you need to understand is that you must never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Hearing protection act

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Unlikely to pass, but a good idea none the less. The bill would remove the $200 tax stamp on suppressors and make them a normal 4473 item handled by FFLs the way a firearm would be as far as the FedGov is concerned.

Yes, I know they shouldn’t be regulated at all beyond a basic buyer-beware consumer-safety sort of “do they work as advertised” thing, but it would be another step in the right direction. It would also help the economy by increasing demand for something domestically-made.

Quote of the day—David Kopel

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The 2nd Circuit took the opposite approach: Guns that are more accurate and easier to use for “deadly” purposes (whether against home invaders or while hunting) are exactly the guns that may be banned. This is in tension with Heller.

By the 2nd Circuit’s reasoning, inferior guns that are less accurate, less comfortable to use and less useful supposedly enjoy greater constitutional protection. That is a Bizarro Second Amendment.

David Kopel
October 21, 2015
2nd Circuit upholds N.Y. and Conn. arms bans; contradicts Heller and McDonald
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mike Monteiro @Monteiro

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We are going to take your guns and melt them into whatever fucked up weird machinery is used to harvest kale.

Mike Monteiro @Monteiro
Tweeted on October 20, 2015
[Molon labe Mike.

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

Quote of the day—Brief of NRA

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Incredibly, Highland Park exempts devices that would otherwise be prohibited as a “barrel shroud” if they do not allow “the bearer to hold the firearm with the non-trigger hand without being burned.”

BRIEF OF NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC. AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
August 28, 2015
[This, perhaps more than anything tells us what we need to know about the anti-gun mindset. If you shoot a gun, for whatever reason, they want the shooter to be at risk of being hurt.

This is like demanding that cars must not have doors or seat belts. If they can’t ban all of them then they want to ban all but the ones which put the users at high risk of injury. These are very sick people and should be dealt with accordingly.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gerald Lee Wolters

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Now the Commander in Chief needs to make these laws Federal with an executive order. Full stop. One nation one policy. Australia y’all.

Gerald Lee Wolters
October 19, 2015
Comment to Federal Court Upholds Bulk Of Gun Control Laws Passed In Wake Of Newtown
[These people live in an alternate reality where they believe we are all subjects of a king or dictator.

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

And their point is?

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled:

As to the ban on large-capacity magazines, the court upheld it by again pointing to Newtown and the shooter’s ability to fire “154 rounds in less than five minutes” — an observation that was in line with the lower court’s finding that “large-capacity magazines result in more shots fired, persons wounded, and wounds per victim than do other gun attacks.”

Using that criteria they could also ban six shot revolvers as well as ten round magazines. And I expect, single shot guns. As that is only about one shot every two seconds. Certainly two round magazines would be fail their criteria.

Here you see 12 shots from a revolver in under three seconds:

Hence, using a revolver, people could shoot 154 rounds in less than 40 seconds. Okay, not everyone is Jerry Miculek. And this was pretty much a peak achievement for Jerry. Even multiplying Jerry’s time by a factor of three, which brings it into the range of mere mortals, results in the 154 rounds being fired in less than a minute and a half.

Here I demonstrate shooting 35 rounds in less than 16 seconds with 10 round magazines even though I had to clear a malfunction:

This means one could easily fire 154 rounds in less than a minute and a half.

What these people don’t realize is that the size of the magazine isn’t the critical part of putting a lot of bullets on target. It’s the target acquisition time. If the number of shots fired per unit time were something they were seriously going to restrict they would have to ban cartridges.

Of course they would consider that a valid and worthy goal. But it would be ignored and just as easily circumvented as their existing ban on standard capacity magazines.

So, what’s their point? I have to conclude Ayn Rand has their number.

Quote of the day—obvious-if-you-read-carefully

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The problem are guns being stolen from these wannabes who watch the “Terminator” movie and have too small wee wees and run down and blow their wad on the cool blue steel of a handgun then take it home so they can stroke it and fantasize.  Of course, not bothering to save any money for the gun safe or even a trigger lock.  Then a year later when they are bored of it, they leave it on the dresser in plain sight and the bad guy spies it through the window and breaks in and takes it.

Then a year later the gun is used to kill someone.

What universal checks allow us to do is track the gun back to small wee wee guy who made it available to the criminal element by his irresponsible ownership of it.

obvious-if-you-read-carefully
April 1, 2015
Comment to Gun background check hearing: Does bill close loophole or create unenforceable law?
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

One might also ask this bigot if he has a citation for the research backing up his claim that this scenario is “the problem” and how background checks would improve his imagined scenario.—Joe]