Drones are another word for “skeet”.
Steve
October 17, 2015
Comment to In Post-Debate Push, Hillary Clinton Highlights Gun Divide With Bernie Sanders
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Rev. John Buttrick
We need the president, Congress, governors, councils, legislators and citizens to discuss the options for creating a society where gun ownership is an exception not the norm.
…
∎ We can protect our homes with a network of good neighbor communications and an attitude of welcome to the stranger.
∎ We can learn to participate in and strengthen our democratic society as the way to prevent government from becoming oppressive. (No amount of home firepower can protect us today from a rogue government army in possession of assault weapons, rockets, tanks, drones and overwhelming air power).
∎ We can provide gun rentals at firing ranges for the sport of target shooting.
∎ We can re-evaluate the ethics of hunting for sport while permitting the use of basic rifles and shotguns for hunting food and for predatory animal control in rural settings.
∎ We can work for an economic system that is fair for all people, narrowing the gap between the wealthy and the poor.
∎ We can advocate against all forms of racism and cultural bias.
Gun legislation and/or constitutional amendments may be far in the future. But political, religious and social leaders and every citizen can begin to cultivate a climate that discourages gun possession.
Rev. John Buttrick
October 17, 2015
My Turn: The path to end gun violence
[He’s delusional and/or hopelessly naïve.
But the one thing you want to remember about this is that you should never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Dan Gross
This is not a negotiation with the NRA. We don’t negotiate with terrorists.
Dan Gross
President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
October 14, 2015
Gun control group bashing Sanders, Chafee
[H/T Thirdpower.
And what is the typical way of dealing with terrorists?
This is what they think of you and the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. They want you in prison or dead for defending and/or exercising a constitutionally protected right.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell
Statistics on murder are among the most widely available statistics, and among the most accurate, since no one ignores a dead body. With so many facts available from so many places and times, why is gun control still a heated issue? The short answer is that most gun control zealots do not even discuss the issue in terms of hard facts.
The zealots act as if they just know — somehow — that bullets will be flying hither and yon if you allow ordinary people to have guns. Among the many facts this ignores is that gun sales were going up by the millions in late 20th century America, and the murder rate was going down at the same time.
Thomas Sowell
October 14, 2014
SOWELL: The ‘gun control’ farce
[As usual, Sowell expresses things succinctly and powerfully. Nearly every paragraph in this article is worthy of being QOTD here.
What Sowell doesn’t say, no surprise since it’s out of scope for his article, is that increased gun ownership increases the distribution of hard facts to the population at large. And since hard facts are detrimental to the objectives of the anti-gun crowd anything they do which increases gun ownership in either the short term or long term decreases the odds of them achieving their goals. Hence when politicians start talk about restricting gun ownership, and gun sales dramatically increase, they are indirectly their own worst enemy.
Instead of doing “battle” with those who advocate on social media for the restriction of our right to keep and bear arms maybe we should thank them for increasing gun sales and exposing more people to the hard facts of gun ownership.—Joe]
Oh, auto-correct
I received this customer inquiry today;
“Which of the has tunes would fit a polish style am.”
So I did a little translation;
“Which of the gas tubes would fit a polish style AK.”
And translation of the translation;
“Which of your forward optic mounts would fit a Polish style AK?”
Context. It’s all about context– I’m reasonably sure I wasn’t being asked about the appropriateness of certain music for Polish radio stations on the amplitude-modulation band, for example. And so now I can give an informed answer to the question without asking him to clarify.
Quote of the day—Bay Area Official
No one wants to touch the legitimate hunter. But we’ve got to protect society from nuts with guns.
Bay Area Official
1967
[Via Friday A/V Club: What the Gun Debate Looked Like in 1967.
After nearly 50 years of increasingly strict laws, now with some of the most repressive gu laws in the nation, the words they use are nearly the same. California has banned the most commonly sold rifles, used by hunters, sold in the U.S. and yet they never stop pushing for more.
It stops here. It stops now. And we are reversing the trend.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Windy Wilson
If it does get to the point that “Constitutional Carry” is the law in all 50 states, we will still have to be vigilant, the forces of slavery never rest.
Windy Wilson
October 12, 2015
Comment to Quote of the day—Richard Beary
[I have nothing to add.Joe]
Random thought of the day
I was listening to the audible version of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples: The Birth of Britain today and it was implied that the power of church of early Britain was restricted by enforcing vows of poverty. That might be a misunderstanding of mine because I was driving in heavy traffic at the time and wasn’t giving the book my full attention. But anyway, that suggested something to me.
I wonder if requirements of poverty and perhaps chastity for politicians would improve the character of those who seek public office. They currently take an oath of office to uphold the U.S. constitution. But that is ignored by 99+% of them. In part because what the constitution “really means” is subject to interpretation and opinion. It can’t really be measured with numbers all that easily. Income can be measured much less subjectively. The indirect bribes of “stock tips”, “loans”, and “donations to the foundation” would be more easily detected by the lifestyle they live if they were required to live a life of poverty after gaining public office.
Of course the downside would be that very capable people would be self deselected from the potential candidates. But if one is to claim that politicians are self serving and government is too large and powerful. Such a requirement would change the character of the politicians in many that is in the generally correct direction.
Quote of the day—Dell Grifith @D0NNIE_BRASC0
@TitoJazavac they definitely don’t make dicks grow
@Karlmm3 @nicky0472 @ShengLong111 @ArmedLimey @Paul197 @KentAtwater @EdCarman @JimJlr2
Dell Grifith @D0NNIE_BRASC0
Tweeted on March 22, 2015
In response to, “guns don’t stop crime or make people smart.”
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
One has to wonder if he ran the experiment and was disappointed in the results. But I’m pretty sure that he (or she) isn’t interested in experiments, data, and analysis. Childish insults appear to be the epitome of their accomplishments.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Richard Beary
Talking about firearms now is like talking about race. These are difficult conversations, and people get very polarized on each side of it.
Richard Beary
Chief of police for the University of Central Florida
President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police
October 9, 2015
Gun Debate Divides Nation’s Police Officers, Too
[Also of interest from the same article:
Jennifer Carlson, an American sociologist at the University of Toronto who studies police attitudes toward gun laws, says this divide has grown since the 1990s. A generation ago, she says, police chiefs made a common cause of legislation such as the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady bill.
“And now you’ve really seen police not taking as much as a unified stance, at least publicly,” she says. “That’s been a major shift.”
She thinks this may have something to do with the expansion of concealed handgun permits, which gun rights groups pushed for especially hard starting in the late 1990s. Police chiefs initially resisted the expansion of the gun permits, but Carlson says many of them changed their minds when they saw that increased permits didn’t cause a big increase in shootings.
Back in the 90s there were discussions about whether the concealed carry permits were something we should push for or not. The argument boiled down to “The 2nd Amendment is my carry permit”. If we concede that we have to ask permission to carry a gun they can, at some later time, deny us that permission. The only principled thing to do is to push for “Vermont carry”.
Had we gone the “principled” versus practical route my guess is we would be in a much worse situation than now. Now we have concealed carry in all states and are making progress toward constitutional carry in a significant number of states. We made progress because we were able to change the culture. We were able to change the culture at the national level because we were able to show we could be trusted with guns in public in states that were gun friendly.
I despise politics because principals and rules (such as the constitution) simply don’t matter. But politics is how laws are changed and politics are the art of the practical and the possible. And that is the path to victory. You do whatever works to get closer to your goal. You get acceptance from the culture. Then you do it again to get another step closer to your goal.—Joe]
Quote of the day—David Hardy
It’s just a ploy to pick up the pro-gun vote, with a promise that she’d support repeal of GCA 68 and enactment of 50-State constitutional carry, plus a $10,000 gift to each gun owner, so long as we self-verify that we have no plans to commit a crime.
David Hardy
October 9, 2015
Hillary compares dealing with NRA to negotiating with Iran
[I LOL’d.
But the reality is that Hillary is saying she regards the NRA and gun owners as terrorists and if she acquires the power she will treat us as such.—Joe]
Gun grabber dream
Via Sebastian and an email from Barron we have Josh Marshall demonstrating he has crap for brains as well as honesty:
We’re now actively debating things that no civilized country has ever even contemplated – the right to take a semi-automatic weapon into a family restaurant or shopping mall.
Nope. That debate was over years ago. We have concealed carry (theoretically, even if it is impractical in some cities or states) in the entire country. Since this guy clearly doesn’t know or care to know what he is talking about you can safely dismiss everything else he has to say except this:
yes, we really do want to take your guns. Maybe not all of them. But a lot of them.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.
Dear Josh,
Molon labe. I’ll be ready. Will you?
Your move.
Regards,
Joe
Quote of the day—Joeann Edmonds-Matthew
Please really think about guns and what they do. They KILL and that is all they do. Also the right to bear arms is for a militia and does not include Automatic weapons.
Joeann Edmonds-Matthew
October 5, 2015
In response to this comment to Oregon Shooter’s Mom Is A Paranoid Gun-Hoarder Who Taught Her Unstable Son To Love Guns
[This is what they think of guns and the right to keep and bear arms. It is total crap for brains on full display. And they want us to “really think”?—Joe]
Civil disobedience
The American People elected a handy Republican majority in Congress, in part to repeal Obama Care. Republicans ran, and were elected, based on that promise. Then they turned tail as soon as they were sworn in. They lied. As a Party, they lied.
We are now faced with the a representation system, as a means of redress of grievances, as a means of carrying out the will of the People with regard to upholding and protecting human liberty, which has failed. With Boehner’s recent stunt of shutting down an election for a new Speaker, the Republican Party is clearly maintaining its practice of running interference for the Progressives (incremental communists), and so there is no apparent correction in sight for this situation.
That leaves us with one option left before we get out our guns; civil disobedience. Refuse to take part in ObamaCare. Don’t even acknowledge it. There are ways of dealing with this, which your accountant/tax preparer, if he’s any good at all, can discuss with you.
Some Americans, as I type this, are in the Middle East in harm’s way, taking smallarms fire, in their attempts to save some of the Christians who are under attack and being killed for no reason other than their faith. They are risking, and some will lose, their lives in standing up for what’s right. I think we can risk getting a few letters in the mail, don’t you? I’m looking forward to it.
Quote of the day—Polybius
All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue colour, and this give them a more terrifying appearance in battle. They wear their hair long, and shave the whole of their bodies except the head and the upper lip. Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons; but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabitated first.
Polybius
About 140 B.C.
As told by Winston Churchill in A History of the English-Speaking Peoples: The Birth of Britain
[I’m not certain I believe this. I mean, why would all the people shave their entire bodies except the head and upper lip? That’s a lot of shaving.
Interesting about the group marriage thing though.
—Joe]
Quote of the day—Brief of NRA
Inherently, any firearm can be used for either offensive or defensive purposes. The performance capabilities that cause many firearms to be adopted by the military also make them a preferred choice among the American people. The inextricably intertwined history of parallel use by both the military and civilians necessarily means a firearm’s military heritage cannot foreclose its civilian use.
BRIEF OF NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC. AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
August 28, 2015
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Winston Churchill
Here was another trading centre, to which high civic rank had been accorded. A like total slaughter and obliteration was inflicted. “No less”, according to Tacitus, “than seventy thousand citizens and allies were slain” in these three cities. “For the barbarians would have no capturing, no selling, nor any kind of traffic usual in war; they would have nothing but killing, by sword, cross, gibbet, or fire.” These grim words show us an inexpiable war like that waged between Carthage and her revolted mercenaries two centuries before. Some high modern authorities think these numbers are exaggerated; but there is no reason why London should not have contained thirty or forty thousand inhabitants, and Cochester and St Albans between them about an equal number. If the butcheries in the countryside are added the estimate of Tacitus may well stand. This is probably the most horrible episode which our Island has known. We see the crude and corrupt beginnings of a higher civilisation blotted out by the ferocious uprising of the native tribes. Still, it is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land the live in, and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invaders’ hearth.
Winston Churchill
1956
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples: The Birth of Britain
[People like to believe the human race has been “civilized” for some time and mass killings and incredible cruelty are an aberration or an artifact of a particular race or religion. I don’t see it that way. I see “civilization” as a thin veneer which barely contains the true nature of people. I’ve heard people claim the atrocities of the 20th century with many tens of millions of murdered by their government will not happen again because “we have learned better”. I call B.S. on that.
Here we have Winston Churchill claiming, “It is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in, and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invaders’ hearth.”
This should serve as a stern warning to those who would invade a land and the natives who would aid the invaders. I’m not sure where I read it, it might have been The Good Earth, but it went something to the effect of “If you kill a man’s father he will hate you. If you take his land he will kill you.”
Invaders from whatever distant land, be it another continent or the out of touch politicians in Washington D.C. who view the property of others as plunder should study history. They should not count upon the permanence of the good nature of a society when they plunder their property. There is a threshold beyond which the thin veneer of “civilization” is removed and a terrible, bloodthirsty, barbarian emerges.—Joe]
Quote of the day—RD Copeland@RD_Copeland
@andreagrimes first gun nut I see in the grocery store gets slapped up side the head and his tiny penis (aka gun) taken away.
RD Copeland @RD_Copeland
Tweeted on March 17, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via email from malroadkill.
Apparently Copeland does not realize they are announcing to the world their intention to commit the crimes of assault, battery, and theft. This also demonstrates Copeland may someday have an excellent chance to earn a Darwin Award.
All of this should surprise no one. Nearly all anti-gun people have crap for brains.—Joe]
Stupid research
Sometimes people do stupid research. I don’t know how this came about but it might have been they realized the question they really wanted answered was too difficult and they settled for something that was easier and was similar. Or it could have been any number of other things including just total crap for brains. I used to be research scientist for the government and I understand how these things happen. But still, I’m annoyed with this:
When two researchers at Chapman University in California began to study whether tall heterosexual men have had more sex partners than other heterosexual men, they assumed the answer would be “yes.” There was already extensive academic literature showing that height signals dominance, physical (and hence heritable) fitness, and social status to women who are seeking sex partners.
What I suspect they really wanted to measure was whether tall men had a larger selection of sexually interested women. Or that the women interested in them were of higher “quality”. But measuring those items would be much more difficult than asking people how many sex partners they have had. In essence, I suspect, they ended up using quantity as a proxy for quality.
As a result they ended up with rather uninteresting results:
To their surprise, that’s not what they found. Tall men don’t have a history of more sex partners than men of average height or most short men, according to their study in the latest online issue of Evolutionary Psychology. After dividing respondents into different height groups, the researchers found that every group of men taller than 5 feet 4 inches had the same median number of sex partners: seven. Only men classified as “very short,” or between 5 feet 2 inches and 5 feet 4 inches, had a significantly different sexual history. They reported a median of five sex partners.
Because they are using quantity instead of quantity there are numerous other factors that enter into the result. They hint at this some:
There’s another important thing to keep in mind when interpreting this data: The number of sex partners people have had might not be the best indicator of how desirable they are. It’s possible that someone might be highly sexually desirable but choose a monogamous or celibate lifestyle for an extended period of time. Also, “sex” was not defined in the survey, so participants might have differed in their interpretation of “sex partner” when providing their responses.
And there are other things as well.
What about men who find their mate “settle down” quickly? If tall guys have a better selection of quality women to choose from then might not they have fewer sex partners in their lifetime? Or at least the higher quality available early in life counteracts the increased availability of potential sex partners to the point the substitution of quantity for quality renders the results meaningless?
And what about men who pay for play? If short men have trouble finding willing sex partners might they not pay for someone that was more interested in the money than in the height of their customer? That could counteract the expected results as well.
If they really wanted to explore the height issue I would suggest they do some sort of “speed dating” testing. Or a test where two or more groups of women were given the same “online” profiles of men but the groups were told different heights for the men. Then see how many women were interested the men of the various heights.
I do know this, several women have agreed with Barb that it is important their man is as tall or taller than them. Barb is 6’ 1” and that severely curtailed her selection of men. This explains how I, being 6’ 3”, lucked out and she settled for me.
Smaller is better, maybe
In the “learn something new every day” category.
The furnace doesn’t kick on much during the summer here in the PNW, and for 4-5 months of the year we just heat with the waste heat from appliances and electronics, controlling the temperature mostly by opening windows. Locals know the drill. Well, with fall rolling around, eventually it was time for the furnace to kick on and move a little warm air around. But the spousal unit pointed out that it was still a tad chilly in the house, even after turning the thermostat up. Continue reading