I won’t be going to New Jersey

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The only reason I would voluntarily visit New Jersey is if I could get a no-limit varmint hunting license for the politicians and law enforcement. This has to stop:

Motorists driving through New Jersey can be subjected to a warrantless search if their luggage is similar in appearance to a gun case, an appellate court ruled last week. The Superior Court’s Appellate Division upheld a five year prison sentence against Dustin S. Reininger, a former police officer who was in the process of moving from Maine to Texas when a Readington Township police officer recognized the cases in the back of Reininger’s vehicle as the sort that usually carries a rifle.
During the long trip on March 20, 2009, Reininger became tired and decided to pull off the road in an empty, well-lit parking lot. He stopped his green Toyota SUV, turned off his lights, and went to sleep in the driver’s seat under a blanket. At 3:25am, Officer Gregory Wester knocked on his window and woke him up, shining a flashlight in his eyes.

…

A jury acquitted him of the charges for possession of the “assault firearms” and handgun possession but convicted him in absentia of illegal possession of hollow-point bullets, shotguns, rifles and a high-capacity magazine. He was apprehended in Texas and extradited to New Jersey.

H/T to JoeyD Sr. for the email who, appropriately, used the subject line of “Fascist States of America”.

Spitfire 944

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This is off topic but I really enjoyed watching this.

An 83 year old American pilot from WWII sees the video of his wheels up landing of a Spitfire modified for photo reconnaissance for the first time. He flew 51 missions. Alone. Unarmed.

H/T to JoeyD Sr. for the email.

The Stars Came Back -086- Clear for action

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Fade in.

EXT – DAY – on the plain not far from the badlands

View is low angle, watching the speeding ship approach and race by, one landing gear strut still stubbornly hanging down, partially extended. Continue reading →

Quote of the day–Ladd Everitt

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We’ve always been too polite, by appealing to politicians to do the right thing, … appealing to their conscience and hoping they’d come around even when the evidence suggested they wouldn’t. We went too far into the realm of educating the public and ceded the field of politics to the NRA. That was disastrous for us.

Ladd Everitt
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
May 2013
This Is How the NRA Ends: A bigger, richer, meaner gun-control movement has arrived
[The NRA ends? They just set a new record for annual meeting attendance. They had over 86,000 show up. The anti-gun organizations are run on shoestring budgets with unpaid interns.

The problem they have trying to educate the public is that the more educated the public becomes the more apparent it becomes that the anti-gun side is wrong.

The problem they have with politics is that just a single political organization on our side has 5 million members (the NRA). And there are others, such as the CCRKBA, which have hundreds of thousands of members. None of their organizations have dues paying members. Their “biggest” organization has a mailing list of 25 to 50 thousand. The politicians respect votes and little else. The anti-gun people cannot deliver the votes and hence the political field is “challenging” for the anti-gun people as well.

Gun control advocates are too polite?

Ah yes, I remember now:

I wonder what Everitt thinks the proper response should be.—Joe]

Just say “NO!” to crime prevention

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The video posted here reminded me of something important.

This lept out at me like a cat with firecrackers exploding at its feet;

“The question is…how do we prevent people from committing crimes in the first place.”

No it isn’t. NO IT ISN’T!

The question IS; how do we protect liberty and dispense justice equally and reliably? The concept of crime prevention doesn’t even belong in the conversation, that is, if we’re talking about legislation, which we are.

How many people understand this? It’s there in that pledge, thingy; “…with liberty and justice for all.” Note the absence of any mention of crime prevention in the Pledge. You don’t find it in the declaration of Independence either, unless by “crime” we mean government overreach (in THAT case it’s in there, and I’m all ears if we’re having a conversation about preventing government overreach).

You can in theory have liberty and justice, OR you can have “crime prevention” legislation, but they cannot exist simultaneously. They’re mutually exclusive. The former defines a free state and the latter a police state.

The term “liberty and justice for all” takes crime as a given, a fact of life (if there’s no crime, there’s no need for a justice system). It’s an acknowledgement of the obvious – that people can do bad things. Because people can do bad things, we need our liberty protected and we demand justice. The term enshrines our right to self defense, free speech and all the rest, and promises a system of correct, organized, consistent and predictable retaliation (justice) for criminal acts.

I don’t think this is widely understood anymore. It certainly isn’t taught, and yet it is at the core of American Principle. Liberty and justice are two sides of the same coin. Crime prevention legislation is an entirely different coin, of a currency we want nothing to do with. I could say this a thousand different ways, but who gets it?

No, Little Grasshopper; crime prevention is the excuse of every police state. Having your rights respected and protected and having a proper justice system is the best condition of government you could ever ask. The prevention part is a combination of individual self defense and moral leadership, and neither of those are government business. That’s your job as a citizen. Crime prevention is your job. If it could be done with government force, (and all the worst places you can think of) would be crime free.

Plastic guns are easy, try paper!

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Via an email from Paul K. we have instructions on how to make a working gun out of paper. I have duplicated the instructions here for archival purposes.

I really, really, have serious concerns about using one of these. I can see where the radial strength might be adequate when using a small gauge shotshell but the recoil could still be a problem. There is no breachface and stock to prevent the shot shell from pushing the nail (firing pin) and perhaps the case-head into/through your hand.

Use at your own risk and remember that the extent of my obligation should this result in you or a friend of yours dying an unnatural death is to nominate you for a Darwin Award. If, and only if, I am in a generous mood when I learn of your date with fate.

Handguns in England

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Via Guns Save Life we have this poll result from England:

Vote now: which bill would you like to see introduced in the Commons?
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Votes: 9,726

 

It would be nice to have a scientific poll on the topic. Certain events can and do rapidly change the political climate. It could be the mindset of the subjects have changed because of the brutal murder of a soldier while bystanders watched and took pictures. You would have thought the steady rise in crimes committed with guns in England and Wales (from 2009) would have been sufficient:

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year  –  a rise of 89 per cent. 

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold. 

In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled. 

…

Only four police forces – Cleveland-Humberside, Cambridgeshire and Sussex – recorded falls in gun crime.

But clearly it wasn’t. We should encourage them and provide examples of how to develop a healthy gun culture. Perhaps we can speed up the recovery of their sick culture which disarms and punishes victims and enables predators.

Sometimes people take a long time to grasp reality but that doesn’t mean reality doesn’t grasp them immediately.

The Stars Came Back -085- Checklist

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Fade in.

INT – DAY – Tajemnica Bridge

The screen countdown shows 00:39, 0:38

Everyone in the bridge is seated and strapped in. Helton looks at his checklist book, still only half competed, in front of him. Continue reading →

Quote of the day—Alexa Fritts

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The National Rifle Association’s position and concerns will be made very clear when we file our lawsuit.

Alexa Fritts
Spokeswoman for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action
May 15, 2013
Signing of Md. gun control bill to launch new legal battles, fight for public support
[This same quote is also attributed to “Jacqueline Otto”. It is possible that it was written by someone else or even a committee. But still, I like it.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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AssaultWeaponBullElk

There are so many things wrong with this that I wouldn’t even try to enumerate all of them but here are the first two that come to mind:

  1. “Assault weapons” use a medium power round that would be either illegal (in many states) or unethical to use for harvesting an animal as large as a bull elk. The use of such a rifle would most likely result in the animal being wounded and getting away. It would not reduce it to a bag of bloody, shredded, meat.
  2. An image that properly illustrates “The civilian need for military-style assault weapons” is one like this:

Update: A better image from S Andrew Nicol:

TheCaseForCivilianOwnershipOfMilitaryStyleWeapons

More beach pictures

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Barb L. and I took Jazzy and Maddy to the ocean with us this weekend. Jazzy had never been to the Pacific Ocean. I took a bunch of pictures of Jazzy and Maddy and made a simple video of them.

We had some dramatic moments when they went on ahead of us around a tight spot on the beach while the tide was coming in. Barb ran to catch up with them, almost fell (I caught it in three sequential frames on my camera), then yelled at them, “The tide is coming in. Be careful!” They responded with, “We know!”

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They then proceeded to continue on around the corner. We waited a couple minutes and watched with increasing concern as the water continued to cut off the “pass” between us and them. I then dumped my backpack and camera case and jumped between rocks over the water and ran around the corner to find them. They were another 100 yards or so beyond and about to go out of sight around another corner. I ran to catch up with them and yelled when I thought I was close enough for them to hear me above the waves, “You need to come back now!” I was concerned they might not heed my concerns either. But they responded and started walking back at a brisk walk. I ran back.

The “crossing” was almost unrecognizable as the place I had crossed maybe two minutes previously.

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I stepped onto the closest rock and got my shoes wet up to just below the ankles. The hiking boots are water resistant and my feet remained dry as I waited for the wave to go back and I jumped across to another rock and climbed out the other side without getting wet.

Jazzy and Maddy soon followed and didn’t care all that much about the depth of the water because they had taken off their shoes much earlier (there is a tale to tell about the shoes too):

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Maddy had tied her shoes to her backpack and then walked probably a mile or so before noticing that one was gone. We were able to determine, roughly, where she lost it because of all the pictures I had taken of them. But we figured the shoe was completely gone because the beach was about 100 yard narrower in that spot than when she had walked by earlier.

We were approaching the trailhead when Barb and I started thinking about making an improvised “shoe” for Maddy to walk the 3/4 of a mile or so on the gravel path back to the car. We had just concluded a t-shirt with a  plastic bag wrapped around it held in place with a rubber band would work or maybe just have her wait at the trailhead while someone went back to the motel and come back with her other pair of shoes. Jazzy and Maddy were probably 75 yards ahead of us when we saw one of them point and then they both started running. “A race?”, I asked Barb. “I don’t know”, she said. A few seconds later we understood as Maddy picked her shoe up off of the beach. It was on the edge of the water and probably 75 yards inland from her path in the other direction. The two socks she had stuffed in the shoe were still there too.

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Lucky day.

The Stars Came Back -084- Trust

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Fade in

INT – DAY – Tajemnica’s bridge.

Lag, Helton, Quiritis, Bipasha, Camp XO

Helton: Now we spin up, sound retreat, and get the hell out’a here!

Lag: (thoughtfully, quietly, looking at the AARAS display) … No. Continue reading →

Quote of the day—deeambro

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Is it true that a man who needs an assault weapon to feel like a man is just compensating for the lack of something else? You know what I mean guys.

deeambro
February 4, 2013
Comment to Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

The cause of genocide

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…and of mass killings, and most wars.

It has been the thesis on this blog that disarmament has lead to more death by violence than any other single factor. I submit that such an assertion misses a critical point.

This is hard to put into words. Criminals, evil, exists everywhere and in all times. What separates times of relative peace from times of chaos and mass death then? I submit that it is resolve. A state of mind.

Tam recently spoke of a seeming dichotomy between Europe’s tendency toward docility or complacency and Her capacity for mass killing on a grand scale. I say that they are the same thing.

The willingness to go along to get along, the fear of making waves, the unwillingness to stand up and draw a line in the sand, and more importantly the lack of understanding or embracing of basic principles…together, THAT is the cause of chaos and mass death. Disarmament, while critical to the end of mass killing, and being a virtual guarantee of it, is but a symptom of that cause. The criminal element need but wait for the time to strike, meanwhile preaching peace at the cost of freedom. That includes the criminal element that always lurks in the halls and offices of government.

How else do you explain a thousand Jews guarded by a pathetic few Germans, while no one organizes a rush against the guards to easily overpower them? It wasn’t merely the lack of arms, but the lack of hutzpah THAT RESULTED iN the lack of arms. This is currently the state of all of Europe, the UK, and it’s becoming the case in the U.S.

I recently heard a phrase that will stay with me for the rest of my life. “The most powerful weapon of the oppressor is the the mind of the oppressed.” — David Masters quoting Stephen Banta

Intimidation is in the mind of the intimidated, not in the mind or the hands of the bully. Guns are only a factor in the hands of those who aren’t easily intimidated. For the easily intimidated, guns are pretty well worthless. Discuss.

Later we can talk about who’s the more easily intimidated, the self sufficient individual or the desk jokey politician with a team of interns.

Quote of the day—Zelman and Stevens

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Unarmed minority groups die when the armed majority decides to kill them.

Aaron Zelman and Richard W. Stevens
Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament
Hartford, WI: Mazel Freedom Press, 201
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

On the ocean

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We made it to the ocean this afternoon and almost immediately went for a walk on the beach. I did not bring my chemistry set but we had a good time anyway.

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View from our room.

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View from our room.

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View from our room.

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View from the beach.

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View of the beach.

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Mutant moss. I think we should check on it tomorrow and see if the earth is in danger of being taken over.

Gun cartoon of the day

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From here:

NRA_Senseless

Not just anti-gun but anti-free speech as well.

Thanks to the cartoonist for showing us their true colors.

Quote of the day—Brooke Anderson

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The measure would repeal Chicago’s assault weapons ban and put public safety at risk.

Brooke Anderson
Spokesman for Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.
May 23, 2013
Quinn skeptical of Ill. House concealed-carry plan
[So tell me where is the murder rate higher? Is it in cities that don’t have a “assault weapons” ban like Seattle, Dallas, or Miami? Or is in Chicago?

I suppose it does depend upon your definition of “public”. My guess is that Anderson and Quinn are concerned with the safety of their primary constituents—the criminal elements of Chicago. And that includes those holding government office.—Joe]

Someone learned the hard way

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Buses and trucks have a much larger turning radius than cars.

Someone at 4th and Olive in downtown Seattle learned the hard way this afternoon:

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Gun cartoon of the day

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From here:

NRA_Insanity

I don’t think I have ever heard it was “one tiny step”. But certainly a good case can be made that gun control was required for every genocide.

But the cartoonist isn’t really concerned with the facts. He just wants to dehumanize gun owners. Which, by the way, was also a requirement for nearly every genocide.