Quote of the day—Sandford Levison

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For too long, most members of the legal academy have treated the Second Amendment as the equivalent of an embarrassing relative, whose mention brings a quick change of subject to other, more respectable, family members. That will no longer do. It is time for the Second Amendment to enter full scale into the consciousness of the legal academy.

Sandford Levison
The Embarrassing Second Amendment
Yale Law Journal 99.3 (1989): 637-569
[Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.

And not just the legal academy, but society at large must recognize and respect the Second Amendment. We all have a job to do in making this happen. There are many ways to contribute. Do what you feel most comfortable with.—Joe]

Quote of the day—I-84

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The open carry crowd. Their guns have more bullets in them than they have IQ points. They consistently demonstrate that they need a gun to walk out into public places. Frightened, scared and cowardly they parade their failings for all to see. What’s next? Open carry their penises to prove they have one?

I-84
June 17, 2014
Comment to Gun-control, open-carry supporters stage dueling demonstrations one week after Reynolds shooting
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Kids and guns

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When I started reading this I was working myself up for a rebuttal but by the time I finished I decided it wasn’t worth it.

Via @rhodeskc:

KidsAndGuns

Quote of the day—Stanley Bonk

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The fastest way to lower crime rates is to get rid of guns.

Stanley Bonk
September 4, 2014
Comment to Moms’ Group Calls Out Kroger’s Gun Policy In Unprecedented New Ad Campaign
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

Bonk needs to compare crime rates inside and outside the formally gun banning regimes of Chicago and Washington D.C. But I expect facts are outside his area of experience.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Connors

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If judges can pontificate on questions of firearms engineering, then I can write legal decisions legalizing the possession of fully automatic firearms and rocket propelled grenades by the unorganized militia (ie, us). That’s fair, isn’t it?

Scott Connors
September 4, 2014
Comment to Judge Tries His Hand at Engineering
[Yes. It is fair.

It’s also just as likely to be faulty as the judge’s engineering efforts. This, of course, was his point.

What the judge and other “smart gun” advocates apparently don’t or can’t understand is that engineering against an intelligent adversary is dramatically different and more difficult than engineering devices to reduce the probability of accidents or the mitigate the effects of such an accident.

Turn signals and brake lights reduce the chance of accidents. Seatbelts mitigate the effects of accidents. There has been little need to significantly improve the technology of these in the last 50 years.

The technology of antitheft devices has seen dramatic improvement in the last 50 years. This is because in the case of the theft of a car the engineer has an intelligent adversary working against them. Both the thief and engineer attempting to protect the car innovate nearly constantly.

And even that analogy is weak because:

  • Guns have the contradictory criteria of failing to fire if the thief removes or disables the power supply and being useable by the owner in an emergency situation if the battery or electronics have died.
  • A inoperable gun is far more transportable than an inoperable car.
  • A car has large and reliable power supply.
  • A car can be disabled for many seconds or even, in extreme cases, a few minutes without serious consequences.
  • A few pounds of anti-theft technology added to a car are not an obstacle to its use.
  • Two way communication technology is common and relatively difficult to defeat in a car. Not so in a gun.

If you are going to pontificate on “Smart Guns” you should get the advice of an engineer with experience in security.—Joe]

He shot all of us in the foot

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Daughter Kim told me about this yesterday. Great. Just great:

An Idaho State University assistant professor with a concealed-carry gun permit shot himself in the foot with a semiautomatic handgun that accidentally discharged from inside his pocket in a chemistry classroom full of students, police said on Wednesday.

I expect it will be years before the damage done by this accident will fade away.

Don’t be stupid and ruin things for everyone. Use a quality holster whenever and wherever you carry a handgun.

Quote of the day—harrington

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Who else wishes Pres Obama would force through gun control before he leaves?

I wish he would force it trough like he has done other things. The NRA has the cons/tea partiers worshipping them like Christ and the entire country wants more, strict, comprehensive gun control at a rate of 94% support. I think this would be an amazing humanitarian move by him and a gift he could give the children of this country.

harrington
September 4, 2014
Yahoo! Answers
[This fails on so many levels it’s difficult to even address.

“Force through gun control”? Apparently this person doesn’t have a clue about the U.S. Constitution or more likely just doesn’t care. They want a king or dictator not a constitutional republic.

The constitutionalists and Tea Parties worship guns? The entire country, 94%, wants strict comprehensive gun control? Citation needed.

Humanitarian move and gift? Forcing people to be defenseless is not humanitarian. It’s not a gift if it wasn’t something you owned to begin with.

Hasn’t this guy heard? Gun control kills kids! Here’s the story in comic book form so maybe he can understand.—Joe]

The definition of irony

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The University of Idaho vehemently opposed respecting the Bill of Rights and the Idaho State Constitution in regards to firearms. The legislature finally told them to suck it up and face reality. They have reluctantly entered the 21st Century screaming and yelling and they still don’t like it and they are doing whatever they can to make sure the students know they don’t like it.

The fall semester just started which is the first semester since the law went into effect on July 1 of this year. One professor, Dan Hickman, put the following into the syllabus for one of his classes:

The University of Idaho bans firearms from its property with only limited exceptions. One exception applies to persons who hold a valid Idaho enhanced concealed carry license, provided those firearms remain concealed at all times. If an enhanced concealed carry license holder’s firearm is displayed, other than in necessary self‐defense, it is a violation of University policy. Please contact local law enforcement (call 911) to report firearms on University property.

Apparently he wants to ostracize people who go through several hours of training and a FBI background check in order to exercise a specific enumerated constitutional right.

Daughter Kim sent me this picture from the Memorial Gym, the same location as the ROTC gun range:

V__F2FD

They create a victim disarmament  zone and then declare it a “Designated Safe Zone”?

And, as Kim pointed out:

It also bothered me that the only sign I saw in memorial gym was that one on the door to the women’s center which is supposed to be about women empowerment.

Irony. Find your definition here.

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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Western civilization is at war with the IslamoNazi world.

The problem is that Barack Obama, allegedly, the leader of the free world, does not recognize this simple truth. And that’s because he is a radical leftist who is incapable of recognizing, much less confronting, true evil.

…

Imperial Japans was defeated by killing lots and lots of Japanese, and incinerating their cities.

Same for the Nazis.

And that’s how we are going to defeat IslamoNazism. By eradicating these human monsters and their sanctuaries. There is no talking to them. There is nothing to negotiate.

They must be hunted down and killed.

Robert J. Avrech
September 3, 2014
How to Defeat IslamoNazism in One Easy Lesson
[Negotiating with them would be like negotiating with someone who wants to murder you. There is no compromise available.

The sooner and more vigorously we get started on this unpleasant task the lower the death toll for everyone.—Joe]

Inflation

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The other day Kevin made a post about the inflated price of reloading ammunition.

Today I was looking at the price of Ammonium Nitrate which is the principle ingredient in Boomerite.

In 2005 I paid $0.14/pound.

In 2007 I paid $0.50/pound.

In 2012 I paid $0.99/pound (see also the pictures of it here).

Today it costs $1.06/pound.

The price of freedom supplies keeps going up.

Update: As requested by Paul Koning I have expressed it in ounces of gold per ton of AN:

  • 2005: 0.655
  • 2007: 1.525
  • 2012: 1.169
  • 2014: 1.669

Quote of the day—Samuel Priest

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Guns have been part of my life since the day I was born. I mean that literally. My father pushed the barrel of a tiny .22 into my mother’s vagina, I grabbed on, and he pulled me out. I was ushered into this world holding my first gun.

From there, I was nursed with a gun, my parents would put baby formula inside barrels of various guns and have me suck it out for nourishment. Sometimes they’d cut the formula with some gun oil, so it’d go down easier. I’d often fall asleep in my crib, a colt 45 nestled in in my mouth, dreaming of guns.

Samuel Priest
August 28, 2014
A Reasonable, Level-Headed Gun Enthusiast Suggests Small Gun Control Changes
[H/T to Bob S. who says, “Marlarkey and then some.”

The two paragraphs above are the least offensive. It goes downhill from there. He thinks of himself as a comic but I couldn’t find anything funny in his entire post. I think he has crap for brains. That he lives in Chicago probably explains the rest.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rachel Lucas

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Nor would it be different if “mothers” were suddenly put in charge.  I feel vicarious resentment of that claim because if I were a man with children, I’d really like to know just what in the hell makes Sally Field think women love their children more than men do.  Human nature is what it is, and we will fight over shit until we go extinct.  Even if the best mother EVER was Queen of the Planet, someone somewhere would still need to have their ass kicked, and she’d have to send somebody’s child to do it.

Rachel Lucas
September 17, 2007
If mothers ruled the world, there’d be no goddamn….lots of things
[H/T to Erik Onstott for the Facebook comment.

Continuing the almost theme from last week. It gives us more clarity on the issue.—Joe]

Three counties in Idaho make the list

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According to this article three of the top thirty counties in the country for homes that have guns are in Idaho. Nez Perce County (Lewiston is the county seat) is number three with 59.0% of the households having guns. They were edged out by Fairbanks borough, AK and Tooele County, UT both with 59.1% (I want a recount!). I don’t consider it home but I do own a little land in that county and drive through parts of the county whenever I go to the Boomershoot site.

Nez Perce County is home to CCI and Speer which are some of the area’s largest employers so those workers probably contributed a far amount to the gun ownership in the area. Another thing that probably influences the ownership in the area is the good hunting. Hunting is a very popular activity there.

The Gun Box

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I was sent, for a limited review time, The GunBox Biometric Hand Gun Safe.

First the negatives.

They have a YouTube video on how to get into the box with a common tool. The video is not listed so that helps but security through obscurity is, putting it mildly, frowned upon in the security world.

The interior height should be a little greater. It was tough to get the lid to close with my STI Eagle. The oversized magazine well would hit the lid when I tried to close it. I was finally able to find a configuration to get everything, including hearing protection, in but it was tight:

IMG_1577AdjustedForWeb

And if I didn’t have the gun in just the right spot it would fail to open unless I put some pressure on the lid when the mechanism was activated.

My Gun Blog .45 fit fine in most positions. Some positions were still an issue. The magazines had to be laying flat which took up more space than I thought they really should. My Surefire 6PX Flashlight was limited to certain locations in the box as well.

IMG_1576Adjusted

Next, the positives.

It does seem to be pretty tough. I was a little disappointed in the testing in their video:

I would have like to have seen attempts at prying it open by someone with a little more skill and strength than the small children shown in the video. But it’s cast aluminum. A hacksaw is going to cut through it in seconds so anyone that has access to tools, time alone with it, and doesn’t care about damaging the box will easily gain access. This is not intended to be protection against skilled and determined thieves.

It is opened via an RFID (wristband, optional ring, or RFID label to put on your phone or drivers license) or fingerprint. The slowest access time is with your fingerprint as it takes longer to read and process it than it does with one of the RFID access methods. From “the buzzer going off” to “first shot” took me about four seconds. With the wristband I could do it in three. I was a little annoyed with the wrist band in that I had to present a certain portion of the band to the sensor. For the easiest access to the box the buckle of the wristband needed to be on the top of my wrist which is the least attractive way to wear the band.

Initially I wasn’t too keen about the opening mechanism but I was focusing on the wristband. I still don’t think I would wear the wristband all the time. And if you left the wristband in a drawer or in a closet then it would be more susceptible to discovery by the kids. Don’t worry about having the wristband around if you don’t plan on using it or if you lose it. You can have the box unlearn all fingerprints and RFID devices and reprogram it for just the opening methods you plan to use.

And I might see putting the label on my drivers license even though it would be much slower to find my wallet in the pile of clothes beside the bed. It could read the label through the wallet just fine. It wasn’t necessary to remove the label from the wallet so the time to open would be primarily the time to get your wallet to the sensor.

Some people might find wearing a ring acceptable. I’m not a ring person and I wouldn’t wear a ring just for this gun box.

The fingerprint method seemed to work well enough. This is how I think I would use it. I programmed it to accept three of my fingers and one of Barb’s then she, her daughter, and I all tried all our other fingers in an attempt to get a false match. All attempts at false entry failed.

I occasionally had failures to open on the first try with both my index fingers. I think it was the vertical angle (airplane pitch) I used when it was learning the fingers. When it was learning the fingerprints it was on the floor where I was taking pictures. When I was doing extensive access testing it was on the desk while I was sitting.

I had it learn the same fingers again with the angle I used when sitting at the desk and access was almost 100% on the first try. They claim it will hold “approximately 100 unique fingers” so you might consider programming it for the same finger in different orientations for more reliable opening. You do not need to do this for various horizontal (airplane yaw) angles. The sensor works just fine for 360 degree access on the horizontal plane. That is very nice feature and it work flawlessly for me.

Here is one of their many videos on the use of The Gunbox:

I liked this safe and for keeping guns out of the hands of children and casual access attempts by unauthorized people I would recommend people give it serious consideration. It’s attractive enough to leave on the nightstand and functional enough to keep the kids out of it.

Quote of the day—bwakfat

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There is NO LEGITIMATE REASON to open carry in any Target Store anywhere at anytime. Anyone doing so should be arrested and slapped into handcuffs for disturbing the peace–or better yet–indecent exposure. If enough people insisted on that, these malevolent dolts might keep their substitute penises in their pants and away from children, the elderly, and decent people everywhere. Enough! You whip your penis–substitute or real–in a public shopping area, you go to jail, like the lowlife you are.

bwakfat
July 3, 2014
Comment to Big Win For Gun Control Groups: Target Bans Guns In Its Stores
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!–Joe]

Quote of the day—jw1

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Fools, yourself included, who think their metal penises require public display?
Have issues of inadequacy.

jw1
July 2, 2014
Comment to Big Win For Gun Control Groups: Target Bans Guns In Its Stores
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!–Joe]

Quote of the day—Ira F.

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The ‘gun rights’ advocates are on the wrong side of science and the wrong side of history. Societies that take away all but true hunting rifles have proven the point of those who say that hand guns and anything that approaches an automatic weapon are inherently dangerous and should be banned. Making the case for self-defense when a person’s handgun is many times more likely to kill someone that person knows than protect him/her from a felon is like making the case for creationism by citing the Bible. Those who opposed gay rights are learning their lesson. Those who opposed the decriminalization of marijuana are learning their lesson. And we’re coming for the guns. They are absolutely correct. WE ARE COMING FOR THEIR GUNS.

Ira F.
May 26, 2014
Comment to Senate Democrat Calls For Bringing Back Gun Control Bills
[Aside from the obvious disconnects from the facts Ira is another example to use when someone tries to tell you the lie, “No one wants to take your guns.”—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Those who think the militarization of law enforcement is something that has been ignored by gun rights advocates apparently weren’t listening during and after the events in Waco, Texas in early 1993.

Quote of the day—Rick McGinnis

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There’s an article of faith on the left that the world would be a kinder, more humane place if it were run by women. Based on the leftist women I knew, the world they ruled would be a place you’d navigate by the mountains of skulls.

Rick McGinnis
August 29, 2014
Comment to Three Essential Films About Terrorism
[There is some evidence to support this hypotheses. For example the Weather Underground had many women it.

On a more personal note an admitted Marxist woman I used know was also heavily involved in the ecology movement. To the best of my knowledge she didn’t actually do it but she didn’t see problem in spiking trees even though it presented a life threatening danger to loggers and sawmill employees.

Another way to look at this is the differences in the behavior of females versus males of most mammals. The female is a much more vicious defender of their young than the male. Could those who view a strong government of their making as a “child” and transfer that same instinct of a vicious defense to defending their political creations?

And how about women who are strong advocates for gun control? Does this hypothesized trait explain why anti-gun women are so violent?—Joe]

Cheaters

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From David Hardy in regards to how the FBI, in the Uniform Crime Report instructions, requires the local law enforcement define justified homicide in their own particular manner. Their definition significantly undercounts justified homicide as it is defined by conventional definitions:

The FBI count is artificially defined in a way that far undercounts defensive uses. The usual definition of self-defense with a deadly weapon is use of force immediately necessary in light of a reasonable belief that the perp is likely to inflict death or serious bodily injury.

But the FBI UCR Reporting Handbook at pp. 17-18 uses a completely different definition. Reporting officials are instructed, in the case of use of force by a non-LEO, to include under justifiable homicide only killings “The killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.”

The illustration given (do NOT list as justifiable a situation where a citizen shoots a fellow attacking him, in a crime of passion, with a broken bottle — the author must have watched too many 1950s movies about street fights) makes it apparent that the assault itself does not count as “commission of a felony.”

The FBI explicitly states in the UCR Handbook:

Reporting agencies should take care to ensure that they do not classify a killing as justifiable or excusable solely on the claims of self-defense or on the action of a coroner, prosecutor, grand jury, or court.

The coroner, prosecutor, grand jury, and court could unanimously agree it was a justified homicide and the FBI would still insist it not be included in the justified homicide stats.

I call that cheating.