In California, no surprise, a ban has been proposed on:
…hammers, wrenches, slingshots, shields and presumably anything else with a blunt edge such as garden rakes or sticks.
I’m am surprised they are going after blunt objects first. I would have expected them to ban sharp objects first. But it really doesn’t matter that much to me which they go after first. The answer is the same.
There have been some concerns that the tourniquets I linked to on Amazon in this post might have been counterfeit. I received the ones I ordered and I am pleased to announce they appear to be the genuine article. Here is a picture:
The way you can tell the real thing from a counterfeit, at least the ones we saw in class, was by the end. If it is stitched on the end instead of welded then it is counterfeit. See the little dots, slightly darker the rest of the material, in the red end? Those are the welds.
It’s rare that I’m going to suggest the ATF is good for something. But this, via an ATF Tweet, is a pretty good idea if you handle it right. It is a Personal Firearms Record. In case one or more of your guns are stolen you have the serial numbers to give the police to aid in identification and return. I don’t see much of a point in the “cost” or “purchase location” columns but you don’t have use them.
I don’t recommend using the ATF form directly, web bugs or the equivalent could cause you to self register as a gun owner. Printing it out while you are disconnected from the Internet should be fine. Or you might want to consider using this version (Mayor Joel emailed me a still different version in .PDF format with a space for pictures) which I created from scratch which has the same format.
And I would treat this document with more security than I did the guns themselves. If the police can find this document and decrypt it then you have just self-registered all your guns. I’m thinking this would be a valid application of encrypting the file, hiding it with steganography, putting it on a CD, removing all fingerprints and DNA, the burying it as a private “geocache” somewhere in the woods.*
Now that the ATF has finally done something useful can we disband them as a “poor return on investment”?
*Ry was referring to himself this morning in a much different context when he proclaimed, “I need to go get fitted for my tin-foil hat.” But he could have been speaking for me in many instances.
The New York SAFE ACT represents a tremendous step toward sensible gun control.
Michelle Schimel
Assembly Member, NY State 16th District
August 6, 2013
Exit Wound: Who Will Take on Gun Control?
[The New York SAFE ACT is some of the most repressive, short of a total ban, legislation this nation has ever seen. That she thinks of it as a “step toward sensible gun control” should tell you all you need to know. I can only conclude that in her mind “sensible gun control” is a complete ban on firearms.
What we really need is for “sensible politician control” to be enforced.—Joe]
The New York City Department of Education is waging a war on words of sorts, and is seeking to have words they deem upsetting removed from standardized tests.
The words that could be banned include, alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, drugs, evolution, hunting, nuclear weapons, politics, slavery, terrorism, war, and weapons (guns, knives, etc.).
That’s going to make it rather difficult to write a test that addresses history and even the 2nd Amendment. But perhaps that is their intent rather than some sort of unintended consequence. It is New York City after all. They have put stunning restrictions on large sweet drinks, salt, and guns. Is it any surprise they now want to ban words?
Whether it’s sugar, salt, patrol rifles, or words the answer should be the same, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.
I understand the joys of playing with things that go boom. But don’t be stupid. Especially felony stupid:
the Utah beauty queen was arrested over the weekend and charged with assembling homemade bombs and throwing them from a car, many of them at people, authorities said.
Via email from Chet (and I think someone else Tweeted about it but I can’t remember who) we have this story:
Federal authorities on Monday cracked down on the use of exploding targets popular in the shooting community but blamed for seven recent wildfires in the Rocky Mountain region.
U.S. Attorney John Walsh and Forest Service regional forester Dan Jiron issued a prohibition on unpermitted explosives in 22 million acres of forest and grassland in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Violators face fines of $5,000 and up to six months in prison.
The Forest Service likely will impose a nationwide ban within a year. Meanwhile, other regional foresters are expected to issue similar prohibitions.
My experience is that it’s tough to ignite things with an exploding target. But these guys were able to do it and have the video to prove it. Ry and I worked on and off for over a year trying to ignite gasoline. It it was only by putting Titanium or Magnesium shavings in Boomerite were we able to get fairly frequent ignition. The type of targets these guys were using is different than Boomerite. These targets are made with flash powder and rapidly burn more than detonate.
About one out of every two or three thousand Boomerite targets will ignite rather than detonate. We don’t know why this is. We think it might happen when there is an edge hit. In any case we schedule Boomershoot to be sometime other than fire season because of the risk of fire. Even then we have had numerous fires.
The bottom line is that I understand the concern about exploding targets in the forests during fire season. It’s not very wise to take that sort of risk.
Chet asked if this change in regulation would impact Boomershoot. The answer is, “It might.” But probably not in the way most people might think it would.
Boomershoot is held on private property, not public lands, so prohibitions against exploding targets on public lands isn’t going to be a problem for us. The way it might change things is if it more people attend Boomershoot to get their “fix” of shooting exploding targets that they previously satisfied by buying their own targets and shooting them on public lands.
Shiny one ounce silver coins rounds are some of the prettiest small objects I have ever seen. The design on these makes them even more attractive.
As I mentioned the other day Ry and I took a “Tactical First Aid” class. His mention of it is here.
This is not your standard first aid class. This is a class for dealing with traumatic injury. Heart attacks, drowning, choking, and even head injuries were not specifically addressed. I took this class to address the potential for gunshot and explosive injury at Boomershoot. The lessons learned are also applicable to automobile and industrial accidents.
There were some very interesting points made in class. Here are the ones that stuck in my mind:
*This was mentioned several times and I kept expecting to hear, “and tasty with ketchup.” I was disappointed but didn’t want to be known for contributing that to the conversation.
All I know for certain about this person is they are ignorant, an Android user, and Sitemeter captured their visit to my blog. My hope is that those vectors are orthogonal. Their entry page to my blog is here.
Check out the search phrase, “what is the red spot indicates whether a man is virgin r not”:
| Domain Name | (Unknown) | ||||||||||
| IP Address | 101.223.172.# (Unknown Organization) | ||||||||||
| ISP | Unknown ISP | ||||||||||
| Location |
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| Language | English en | ||||||||||
| Operating System | Linux Unknown | ||||||||||
| Browser | Safari 1.3 Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.6; en-gb; GT-S5360 Build/GINGERBREAD) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1 | ||||||||||
| Javascript | version 1.5 | ||||||||||
| Monitor |
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| Time of Visit | Aug 6 2013 7:48:46 am | ||||||||||
| Last Page View | Aug 6 2013 7:48:46 am | ||||||||||
| Visit Length | 0 seconds | ||||||||||
| Page Views | 1 | ||||||||||
| Referring URL | http://www.google.co…in r not&v=133247963 | ||||||||||
| Search Engine | google.co.in | ||||||||||
| Search Words | what is the red spot indicates whether a man is virgin r not | ||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | http://blog.joehuffm…ased-virginity-test/ | ||||||||||
| Visit Exit Page | http://blog.joehuffm…ased-virginity-test/ | ||||||||||
| Out Click | |||||||||||
| Time Zone | UTC-1:00 | ||||||||||
| Visitor’s Time | Aug 6 2013 2:48:46 pm | ||||||||||
| Visit Number | 1,738,272 |
American gun owners should resolve to drive gun grabbers into social and political oblivion. Gun owners and gun owner groups should develop, promote and implement an attack strategy against gun grabbing establishmentarians.
For over four decades law-abiding gun owners and gun rights organizations have fought the enemies of freedom generally from a defensive position, reacting against anti-gun proposals as they are advanced.
However, gun rights people and interests should go on the offensive. It’s time to attack ideologically and practically the gun-grabbing establishment and its spokesmen and adherents with vim, vigor and absolute determination.
John M. Snyder
April 25, 2013
USA Should Drive Gun Grabbers into Oblivion
[Other than “YES!” I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Steve Marmel
July 25, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
H/T to Weer’d Beard for the email pointer.—Joe]
Barb L. was spending the day with her kids doing a bunch of fun stuff so I could have just stayed in the clock tower and cleaned my guns or washed laundry. But no. I convinced Ry we should get up way too early on a Sunday morning and do something more interesting. We went to a part of town that I had only been to a couple of times. I’m not sure Ry had ever been there. And every time I had been there I heard gunfire. Are you getting the picture?
The morning was interesting but uneventful. Then late in the afternoon things got cranked up several notches as the gunfire became more frequent.
I was rather busy when things got exciting and didn’t have time to take any pictures until afterward. Still, they should give you a clue:
One of the more interesting things to me is that all that color is in the contact lens, not my eye. Here is what the contact lens looked like after I put them in the cleaning case:
My eyes look entirely normal after taking out the lens. I guess that is a good thing. Except those were brand new contacts this morning. They were supposed to last for a month and it looks like even after an hour in a hydrogen peroxide solution the color is staying.
I don’t remember how many tourniquets were applied to my arm but I do know that when Laurie put hers on the bleeding didn’t stop and she kept tightening it. I think the buckle tipped over and as she was cranking on it my skin got pinched. I now have a several bruises that are going to last for a week or more.
Another thing that was rather interesting to me is that out of 13 students in the class there were three women. The prettiest one chose me as her partner* to do “blood sweeps” on each other of the entire extremities.
We started at 8:00 AM and except for lunch I didn’t leave the West Coast Armory property until about 6:00 PM. Then as soon as I got back to the clock tower had lots of clothes to wash and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to wash all the fake blood off of my skin. I still have lot of red on my left arm and I suspect my face still has a red tinge to it.
I’m sure I didn’t have as much fun as Barb and the kids did but I think it was worth it. I just hope I never have to put my new skills to a real live test.
*This seems to be a pattern in my life ever since Terri R. (a cheerleader in high school who I had never talked to) chose me as her lab partner in chemistry. I don’t think there were any other girls in that chemistry class and of all the guys in class she chose me. I’m not complaining, but I do think it is odd.
August 4th, 2013. The Non Sequitur cartoon strip has “the birth of ideology.” Fundamental denial of reality, then parsing words in really silly ways to “prove” you are right. Yup. Pretty much. Comments are interesting, too. Shows some serious ideology.
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2013/08/04
Of all of the things in Mom’s little box of recipes the only one I wanted was the one for rhubarb cobbler. The oatmeal cookies might have been nice and to know how she made pancake syrup might come in handy someday but I don’t think she had that one written down anyway. But the rhubarb cobbler is in a class of it’s own and I had to have it.
I’m pretty sure I got it shortly after Barb S. and I were married but I don’t recall ever making it. Rhubarb is not something you see very often in the grocery store and even though I think there was some rhubarb somewhere on the property of our house in Moscow I never bothered to actually pick it.
Last summer Dad gave me a bunch of rhubarb and the recipe but, again, I never got around to actually making it into cobbler. The rhubarb spoiled and I lost the recipe.
When Mom died I got the recipe again and this time I put it in OneNote on my phone. Barb L. called around to various grocery stores and found just one that had three packages of frozen rhubarb in stock. I drove over and bought them all. They sat in my freezer for months until I finally made it into cobbler a week ago today.
I shared it with Barb L. and her family when I went over for dinner. I warned Barb’s daughter that not everyone likes it. I told her my son likes the topping but the body of the cobbler isn’t something he would go out of his way to have. She tasted it and proclaimed it, “Delightful!” Since she is not the least bit shy about telling me she doesn’t want to eat the food I cook this was not her just being polite. It really is delightful.
Yesterday I bought another Pyrex 9”x13” pan when I saw it at a Goodwill store. I wanted it specifically for making the cobbler. I then went to three different stores before I found one that had rhubarb. I bought four pounds so I could make two batches.
9”x13” pan
2 pounds rhubarb
2C sugar
2T instant (preferred, but regular can also be used) tapioca
2t vanilla
1.5 brown sugar
1.5 C Quick oats
1C melted butter
1C flour
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Put the sugar, tapioca, and vanilla in the pan, mix, and spread evenly. Wash and then cut the rhubarb into sections about one inch long and spread evenly on the sugar mix in the pan.
Combine the topping ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until uniform (about 30 seconds in my Kitchen Aid mixer). Spread evenly over the body of the cobbler.
Bake for 40 minutes at 350F. The top should be slight browned and crispy.
Let it cool before serving or serve hot in a bowl with a scoop of ice cream on top.
So you think that money is the root of all evil?
Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?
Francisco d’Anconia
From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
[I have a silver round on my desk that was a gift from son James a few years back that sums it up far more succinctly than Rand’s character did:
Get your round here.—Joe]
We already have national gun registration. Without even having to connect any dots, we have what I’ll call the direct markers– anyone who has filled out a 4473 or had an instant background check, has a carry permit, has purchased a hunting license, etc., i.e. any government record.
Next are what we might call the second tier direct markers. Those are things like range membership, ammo or accessory purchases using a bank card, organization membership or donations, magazine subscriptions, et al.
Last is the “indirect marker” or any sort of metadata that would point to you being “one of those people” indirectly, or in the presence of other data. Web browsing and site visitation history, location/time data, security camera recordings, personal associations, et al. That list is a big one.
No matter whether it’s official or not, we have full national gun registration right now.
Just the things, the abuses, we already know about say it’s true. Then there are the abuses we don’t know about, which we can add to the already stinking pile.
The preliminary trial records of a local missing person case this week brought this to my attention. In it they used cell tower ping data (general locations and times) asserting that holes in the data indicated toward guilt. In other words, it wasn’t so much what was there, but what wasn’t there (L.O.S.) that we are to take, overlaid with verbal testimony and other clues, as damning evidence.
You may not be forced to wear an armband right now, indicating your tribal affiliation, but there is no need for such anachronisms anymore. Effectively you ARE wearing an armband and much more.
This is not to get you irritated or angry. There’s far too much of that already and none of that is helpful Just understand where we are in the process.
What isn’t being discussed much is that identification, ideology and affiliation data can be used by multiple parties. Spooks with spooking rings may be spooking in ways that would spook the spooks, and iron doors on grass huts can fool those inside as well as those outside.
Ooga booga!
Since I have nothing to hide the government has no reason to search or spy on me without a warrant.
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Separating words from realities is one of the most important steps toward evaluating government policies, whether domestically or internationally. Since rhetorical skills are the most highly developed skills among politicians, any serious attempt to see government policies for what they are means keeping our eyes fixed on facts despite the distractions of rhetoric.
Thomas Sowell
2010
Dismantling America: and other controversial essays
[Separating words from realities is one of the most important steps in human interaction, not just in evaluating government policy.
I’ve dealt with many well spoken but irrational people and I know that identification of and dealing with them early is far better than later. It’s too bad we don’t have a quick and easy test for this. It would make life in general, not just politics, far better.—Joe]
GAK! Been fighting a sinus infection, and forgot my Friday Gun Song! Better late than never, I guess.
A song from a long time ago, found a recording of it with a classic blues guy from the 1930’s playing it (Robert Johnson). Like many gun songs, it’s not all fluffy and light. Gov’t Mule is a pretty rock’n blues band by the sound of this recording.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq0_LjALQYU
For those not familiar with it, a 32-20 Winchester is like a scaled down .30-30, with the same sort of nomenclature, i.e., 32 caliber, 20 grains of black powder.