Intellectuals

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Via Kevin:







This really resonated with me. I know an avowed Marxist who is a professor of business. The last few times I spent time with him I wanted to leave the restaurant because of the way he bullied the staff. I was extremely uncomfortable with his demanding to be in control of things that were against the restaurant policy. And that same demanding “in charge” attitude extended other things as well. He asked that I not carry a gun when in his presence. He apparently didn’t know that at least two others and possibly three were also carrying as well. I told him, “No. I prefer to carry.” My soon to be ex-wife asked him to drop it and he did so I didn’t have to tell him what I really thought and blister the ears of others.


His superior attitude, even with confronted with the logical inconsistences and obvious falsities of his beliefs, was nearly intolerable. Even the simplest to confirm facts would be dismissed with, “I don’t believe your facts.” And finally, just, “We’ll just have to disagree because I feel this way.” in direct conflict with his own supplied facts. He even insisted that basing decisions on emotions, “is just as valid as facts and logic.”


He seemed proud of the corruption of his city politicians (Chicago). He told stories of all the graft and was proud of his vote for Democrats. He laughed at the fence around the graveyard, “To keep the dead from voting.”


I’ve had extended conversations with others who view themselves as “intellectuals” and they all view themselves as superior to others and I wouldn’t trust them to think themselves to a draw in a game of tic-tac-toe. It’s the “intellectuals” of the anti-rights crowd that are confused that everyone doesn’t see the superiority of their view and demand guns be banned regardless of the increases in violent crime when the victims are disarmed. Facts are irrelevant because they believe they are smart when in fact they have merely subscribed to a religion that rewards its followers with the belief they are superior to others.

Random thought of the day

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I heard Romney did exceptionally well in the debate last night. I wasn’t interested in watching. I couldn’t see any advantage to watching in real time as opposed to hearing a recap on the radio talk shows and blogs as I got ready for work and rode the bus to work this morning. So I spent the evening at dinner with friends and didn’t get home until midnight.

Some pundits are claiming Obama made such a poor showing that he may lose the election. But I think those people are overlooking something.

Obama has the critical communist dictators endorsements of Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and Vladimir Putin while Romney has the kiss of death NRA endorsement. When the choice is between the tranquility of servitude and the animating contest of freedom how is there even any question of who should or will win? Who would want to compete when you can have tranquility?

Of course some people see things differently than I do. There are those that believe the clear winner of all three presidential debates will be Obama.

Quote of the day—ISH (Mininerd)

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You smell that? Do you smell that? Schadenfreude, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning. You know, one time we watched the “great communicator” liberal president bomb, on live tv. Read the transcript. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ anti-gun talking point. When it was all over I walked up to the podium. The smell, you know that patchouli and tears smell? The whole hill. Smells like … victory.

ISH (Mininerd)
October 4, 2012
Comment to Watching the Twitter Debate Meltdown.
[Someday, in the not too distant future, one of my grandkids will be reading the archives of my blog and ask, “Grandpa, what is a ‘Brady Campaign’?”

I will then explain to them about the KKK, the Aryan Nations, Handgun Control, Inc., and other organizations that tried to infringe upon our natural and constitutionally protected rights and how many thousands of people spent millions of hours and 100’s of millions of dollars defeating them. And how they are now nothing more than a sad footnote in history. And I imagine them saying, “That’s boring. Can we use the M-16 to blow something up with Boomerite?” And with tears streaming down my cheeks I will say, “Yes. Yes we can. You are welcome.”—Joe]

But I only paid X for the gun!

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I’ve brought this up before, but I keep hearing that assertion.  It says you can never pay more to accessorize a gun that the price you paid for the gun.  It should always be less.  I’ve had people mention their free guns– gifts.  “I didn’t pay a dime for the gun, so how can I justify X?” or “I only paid 100 dollars for this Carbine back in the ’60s…!” (Never mind that it may now be worth 800 or more)


There are high-end optics that cost more than almost any firearm made, except for some of the fine double rifles, and you aren’t going to be using these optics on a fine double rifle.  Ditto for some of the hand-made flintlock longrifles and such, and a few boutique rifles.  There are also sound systems that cost more than a lot of used cars, so I guess you have suffer with an inferior sound system until you can afford a more expensive car to put it in.  A friend of mine once had a $50K sound system in his apartment, so I guess he was really breaking the rules.


The way I see it, if you paid some low price for your rifle, and it does the job you need of it, then you now have more money to spend on a good optic.  I don’t see a conflict here.  It’s all about the setup you want, not some spreadsheet of arbitrary rules based on relative prices of the components.


If it makes anyone feel better, I once had a 150 dollar stereo in a 100 dollar car, with a 500 dollar set Michelins under it.  Can someone make the case that I should have restricted myself to crapy tires because I only paid 100 bucks for the car?  I put over 100K miles on that car too, which included some rather long road trips – you want to me run retreads on it?  Uh; no.  It had well over 200K on it when it finally died a violent death, otherwise, 20 years later I might still be driving my 100 dollar 1963 Dodge 330.  What’s your problem?


ETA,  From comments;  “You are not accessorizing your rifle, you are accessorizing your SCOPE!”  That is a better way to look at it.  Get a great scope and find a rifle that’s good enough for it.  Then you have something.

Quote of the day—Adam Kline

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There is no organization on our side in Olympia that can do for us what the NRA does for our pro-gun colleagues; that can gin up the support, generate the letters to the editors of every hometown paper, get the folks in our districts to circulate petitions and call and write and visit our district offices, get the back-stories of gun violence on the TV news, bring surviving victims to visit with editorial boards, bring the home folks to Olympia to pack the room at legislative hearings, raise funds to hire the consultants and wordsmiths to help target the sensitive races and frame the message and run the outside game. There is no one to organize this state’s willing and wealthy donors to fund independent expenditures and cut maximum checks to those suburban and rural Democrats for whom any gun bill is a tough vote—and yes, any Republican gutsy enough to buck his or her caucus—so that we legislators can get the job done. CeaseFire has little if any capacity for this unglamorous work. It prefers to release position papers and go on TV.

Adam Kline
Washington State Senator
October 2, 2012
Sen. Kline: Democrats haven’t wimped out on guns—The more complex truth behind Olympia’s failure to restrict access to firearms.
[H/T to Joe Waldron on the WA-CCW Yahoo Groups email list.

Read the whole thing and the comments. Understanding why we win and why they lose is important. We need to keep winning.—Joe]

Back to the basics

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I’ve been debate the pro-rights side on guns for so long that I sometimes forget that it is easy to leave newcomers behind. Tonight was a case in point.


I left the following comment, via Facebook, on a “Think Progress” article entitled “An Aurora Shooting Survivor Makes A Powerful Gun Control Ad:



We had the debate. Your side lied, cheated, and took unfair advantage at every opportunity. But still your side lost. Big time.


You side lost the safety argument and your side lost the legal argument (see the U.S. Supreme Court decisions D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago). You have no arguments left. The conversation was over years ago and all you are doing now is whining about the outcome. Go tell your problems to a therapist because the adults in this conversation aren’t interested in your delusions of relevancy.


Yes. It is recycled from a blog post I made a while back.


A former manager of mine at Microsoft (a really nice guy BTW) responded with:



Joe, If I were to support the idea of a civilian carrying a gun, you’d be one of the few people I would trust with one. Because I think you know what you’re doing. However, I don’t get why the law allows any average Joe (pun intended) who has no f*ing clue — or worse, has dangerous intent — to easily carry one as well. It makes no sense to me.


Okay. Time to get back to the basics. Shyam is a naturalized citizen from Sri Lanka. He doesn’t have the full history of gun control, gun ownership rates, and crime statistics in this country at the tip of his tongue. And probably 99+% of the native citizens don’t either. My original comment presumes too much. So I followed up with the following:



First off, you missed an important concept. The law doesn’t “allow”. The law has relatively few restrictions. Freedom is the default position rather than “allowed” or “granted”.


Getting past that point there are two reasons there are relatively few restrictions: 1) There is no data to indicate it makes the violent crime rate worse; 2) It is a specific enumerated right just as is the right to free speech or freedom of religion even if the speaker/writer has no clue what they are talking about. A case can be made that certain books (Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto as well as certain religious texts come to mind) are responsible for more deaths than private ownership of firearms. Yet we “allow” free speech.


Another way to think of this is that violence against an innocent person is already illegal. Making the possession of a tool that enables such violence illegal is not going to increase the barrier against the more fundamental crime. And furthermore even a complete ban on firearms cannot be expected to be any more effective than a complete ban on certain recreational drugs are now. Which is to say, “Completely ineffective”. But what such restrictions do accomplish is create a black market for such items and nearly completely eliminate any good that can be accomplished by the use of such items. Hence law abiding people who need to defend themselves are prevented from defending themselves with the best tools available while those with criminal intent get full advantage of such tools against disarmed victims.


There. I hope that helps.


Update: Shyam replied a few minutes later:



You had me, up to the point about self defense. I once had a manager at MS who carried around a Rambo knife, for self defense. He even once took it on the plane, on a work trip to Arizona (usability study of some educational software we were building) and San Francisco. Long story short, someone in baggage handling stole his knife .. and he was very uncomfortable being out in the open, walking around sfo that night… we should get lunch sometime. No guns or Rambo knives 🙂


My reply:



I work downtown near Westlake Park. If we are close enough to walk name the time and the place for lunch.


Interesting about self defense being the place that I “lost him”.

Quote of the day—Barak Obama

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The vast majority of Americans would like to see serious gun control. It does not pass because there is this huge disconnect between what people think and what legislators think and are willing to act upon.

Barak Obama
October 19, 1998

Listen starting at 0:18:21.
[The disconnect is between Obama and 1) the Constitution and 2) “the vast majority of Americans” Obama regards as irrelevant.

See also John Lott’s post on the same quote.—Joe]

Markley’s law Monday art

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It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

PD*57977908yang-by-jake-and-dinos-chapmanyin-by-jake-and-dinos-chapman

Via email from Barron who found the link at Say Uncle.

So what could they possibly be thinking this accomplishes? They win a “crap for brains” tag as well.

Quote of the day—Robert Farago

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Those people that seek to disarm others unleash evil upon the world.

Robert Farago
Gun Rights Policy Conference September 29, 2012.
[The sad part is that most of the people that participate in and advocate the disarming of people do it with the best of intentions. It’s like giving candy to your children and it rots their teeth.—Joe]

GRPC day 1

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Yesterday was the main day for the Gun Rights Policy Conference. It was wonderful meeting and listening to all the big names of the gun rights movement.

The thing that struck me most was that it would appear that we had more speakers at our conference than everyone that attends the Brady Campaign meetings. I count nearly 70 speakers.

Another thing of particular note is that the attitude at GRPC 2012 is much different than the last one I attended in 2000. The feeling was of confidence and reports of winning on multiple levels and in so many jurisdictions. There are more than 8,000,000 active CCW licenses out there. There are 200 campuses that do not infringe upon the rights of the students to defend themselves.

Alan Gura was not able to attend due to the birth of his son a week ago. But he did send us a report telling us that there is a good chance the next 2nd Amendment case to reach the Supreme Court will be one regarding the right to carry a firearm in public. In 2000 we were having trouble getting a majority of states to recognize it as a privilege.

Last night at dinner I found a small table with some room at it and asked if the chair was taken. It wasn’t and I was welcomed to sit down. After a bit one of the people introduced himself as Fran Becker the Republican challenger to Carolyn McCarthy (of “shoulder thing that goes up” fame). Wow! As we chatted about McCarthy I said something about it seemed that those most ignorant about firearms are those most opposed to firearms ownership. He extended that thought and said liberals seem to be ignorant on nearly all issues. I told him of my recent date with a liberal being like a visit into an alternate reality and he started taking notes. He said he really liked how I expressed a particular thought.

Wow!

I emailed him a link to the post where I had developed the thought in more detail.

I have a plane to catch now but there will be lots of pictures and other content to post about GRPC 2012 in the coming weeks.

ASSAULTED: civil rights under fire

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I met with and talked to people from Dead Patriots Films last night. This is the project they are currently working on:

When the subject of California’s gun control laws are discussed, rarely are they associated with the civil rights movement and the quest for equal rights for all. This film will compare the historical aspects of gun control targeting the indigenous tribes of North America and emancipated slaves through the Jim Crow era to today’s laws that favor elitists and denies the rights guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment to the most vulnerable in our society.

The film takes a critical look at the original intent of the current California guns laws in contrast with crime and murder statistics before and since their implementation; and compares these laws to those of the adjacent states. Story threads also look at the myriad of concealed carry permitting processes across the state to illustrate that not all residents are treated equal.

A few minutes ago I donated $200 to help make this film a reality. Please consider donating. There are only four more days left to reach their goal.

Quote of the day—Richard Nascak

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We are not fighting for rights. We are fighting to regain rights we once had.

Richard Nascak
Co-Executive Director Florida Carry.
September 29, 2012
Gun Rights Policy Conference: Panel on State Legislative Affairs Briefing I.
[The only tweak I have to add is that gun rights aren’t lost or gained. They are infringed or respected. Hence I think this should be stated as “We are fighting to have our rights respected.”—Joe]

GRPC day 0

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I arrived in Orlando last night without incident and checked into the hotel which was conveniently at the airport. I just walked across the terminal and went up the escalator to the hotel lobby.

After checking in, loading, holstering my STI, and dumping my stuff in my room I started looking for the “Regency Ballroom”. I almost immediately came across Alan Gottlieb (founder of SAF) and his wife Juliann. Alan was headed to the ballroom so I chatted with him as we walked to the ballroom. When I got to the lobby in front of the ballroom almost immediately Robb Allen spotted me and came up to greet me. We hung out together most of the time when he wasn’t doing Florida Carry stuff.

Robb and I went to Chick-fil-A for a snack while waiting for registration to open. This was my first visit to a Chick-fil-A. I wasn’t impressed. I asked for the “eight nugget” package and got seven “nuggets” which were no bigger than the tip of my thumb. Plus, I’m pretty sure the clerk was rubbing her nose with the bottom of the plastic lid she put on my lemonade. I wondered if it was the Celebrate Diversity t-shirt I was wearing. Anti-gun people can be so uncivil.

I got in line for registration and realized Jeff Knox was in front of me. I introduced myself and he told me he wants the recipe for Boomerite (here). While talking to Jeff Alan Korwin came up to me and gave me a “Guns Save Lives” sticker. And then Juliann brought my badge to me without me having to wait in line. Wow!

I got some real food at the reception and wandered around looking at badges. I saw Emily Miller talking to Joe Tartaro of SAF. I saw Joe Waldron of CCRKBA. I talked to Bob Meier from JPFO about their new initiative (more details later). And I spent some time playing with the Laser Shot simulator which looks like an excellent training aid.

Robb spotted Miguel of Gun Free Zone and we talked to him for a bit. His day zero report is here.

John Richardson of No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money recognized Robb and/or me and introduced himself and chatted for a bit.

A longtime reader of my blog (who I don’t think has ever left a comment on my blog, [hint, hint]) came up and introduced himself.

It was a great start and that was just the reception. The real deal starts in a little over an hour.

How’s that working out for you?

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Two days after I received an email from anti-gun group (who shall remain nameless) inviting me to watch a fund raising video I finally got around to it. It had 111 views. 111? From their “supporters”? Wow! And I wonder how many of those were actually from the pro-gun side, like me, keeping an eye on the enemies of freedom.


When Barron and I (mostly Barron) put together a video of a bunch of “beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies” shooting a USPSA stage we get thousands of views.


I think it’s time for the anti-gun groups to carefully evaluate the effectiveness of their fund raising efforts and scrap those when are actually losing money. Of course that would mean they would have to scale back to begging on the sidewalk outside Joyce Campaign headquarters. I’d be okay with that.

Free speech as a revolutionary tool

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H/T to Bruce (Squirrel Hunter) who sent this to me via email.

There may come a time when speech isn’t free and/or nearly all freedoms are gone in which case you or your descendants have little choice but to make like you are George Washington. Don’t jeopardize the last ditch option just because you don’t need to exercise it today.

WashingtonFreeSpeech

Of course this reminds me of something Weer’d Beard said.

Quote of the day—Judge Michael Pert QC

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If you burgle a house in the country where the householder owns a legally-held shotgun, that is the chance you take. You cannot come to court and ask for a lighter sentence because of it.

Judge Michael Pert QC
September 26, 2012
‘Expect to be shot if you burgle gun owners’, judge warns criminals
See also The police should heed this judge’s wise words and Burglary shooting couple emigrate to Australia.
[H/T largebear2 of the WA-CCW email list.

This wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy if it hadn’t happened in England. Had it been in one of the free territories of the U.S. I would have expected the judge to have advised the householder to use the same brand of buckshot the police use instead of birdshot.—Joe]

Gun Right Policy Conference

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I made it through TSA (A Security Theater) wearing my “Celebrate Diversity” t-shirt without problems. I’m now waiting to board at the gate for my flight to Orlando and the Gun Rights Policy Conference. I’m looking forward to hanging out with Robb, Chris Knox, Mark Vanderberg, John Richardson, and many many other “cool kids”.

Quote of the day—Larry Hyatt

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Ten thousand baby boomers a day are turning 65. They can’t run, they can’t fight, they got to shoot.

Larry Hyatt
Owner of a North Carolina gun shop.
Gun Control Fears And Obama Partially Responsible For Recent Increase In Weapons Sales
September 13, 2012
[Reality has this funny way of knocking down your door when you try to shut it out. Realizing that you are more at risk for a violent encounter at an older age even though you live “in a safe place” is one of those times.—Joe]

Brace For Impact

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I was asked by Gresham Bouma’s PR guy to speak at a press conference held last Monday.  I had all weekend to think about it.  The idea was to have some local Business people talk about their challenges in running and growing a business in this economy, with emphasis on the old “jobs” meme (a meme I find ridiculous simply because jobs are the side effect of creation and production, which in turn arise from inspiration, which can’t blossum without liberty. If we seek to add “jobs” without addressing all those prerequisites, we’re completely missing the point and if we allow the prerequisites to exist, we don’t have to worry about “jobs”).


It was only as I was driving to the conference that this little thought came;


A lot of people are not so much thinking of hiring right now as they’re just Bracing For Impact.


I wanted to keep it really short, so I just laid out the two visions of government.  In one, I said, the government’s job is to reign us in, control us, direct us, redirect us, tell us what to do and what not to do.  It starts with the notion, which comes to every one of us at some point as we watch other people speaking, debating, or running a company, that WE could do a better job if only WE were in charge.  I made the point that in a free society, that confidence, justified or not, is what inspires us to go out into the market and prove ourselves.  It’s the motivation for the engine of prosperity.


It’s when government comes along, appeals to the spirit that tells us “I can do better”, then promises to take the reins and use the coercive power of government to FORCE people to “do it the right way” that we step off into the abyss.


The other vision of government is that its job is to protect our rights– our property rights and freedom, rather than to direct us.


I looked the press people in the eyes and asked them, personally; “If you were starting a business, under which model of government would you prefer to do it– the one that says government’s job is to rein you in, control you, direct you, pile on requirements and restrict you, and then tax you to pay for public works, or the one in which government is there to protect your rights?  “I think it’s pretty obvious” and I left it at that.  It only took two minutes or so.


I was watching an old episode of Glen Beck a few nights later.  It was almost year old and I’d never seen it, but I was randomly searching the site– something I’d never done because I don’t have the level of subscription that allows me to watch much on there.  But there was that old episode under some other heading, way down on the menu, and in it were those exact same words that Beck said had come to him last summer;  “Brace for Impact”.


So what if things aren’t going to get all that bad.  Maybe we somehow can avoid hyper-inflation, energy and fuel rationing, and all the unrest combined with blatant and not so blatant attacks from all directions by multiple enemies of liberty.  If you’re somewhat ready anyway, the worst that can happen is that you’ll have some extra food, backup power, expanded capabilities and overall greater independence.  That doesn’ seem like a bad thing.

Zombies

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H/T to JoeyD Sr. for the email.

ObamaZombies

I got a laugh out of this even if the zombie meme is wearing thin and I don’t really think of Obama supporters as being mindless.

To think of Obama supporters as being mindless is to underestimate the intelligence, power and resourcefulness they have. Many may indeed be little more than “useful idiots” but there are also those that believe they are the intelligent ones that “should be in charge”. They understand politics, psychology, and sociology well enough to be dangerous and frequently have the mindset such they don’t have a problem being extremely dangerous to their political opponents. All with the best intentions for the greater good of course.—Joe]