Quote of the day—Cynthia Kounaris

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There is no anti-gun group with enough money to defeat the pro-gun money. There is a lack of will and desire to confront this issue in the state and federal government and no strong anti-gun leadership from either party. The only way left to fight the gun industry is through the voices (and votes) of the American people.

Cynthia Kounaris
April 17, 2012
Guns Help People Kill People
[And the American people have spoken. NRA membership is at or near an all-time high. The NRA annual meeting this year set a new attendance record. And 68% of the American people have a favorable view of the NRA.

Ms. Kounaris, the problem for you is that there aren’t enough people on your side of the issue. And the reason you don’t have many people is in a large part because gun control advocates can’t answer Just One Question. The anti-gun groups don’t even have a way to join on their websites. They have no real membership in the sense of the pro-gun groups. It’s time to educate yourself and join one or more of the winning teams.—Joe]

Quote of the day – Dennis Prager

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This might mess up Joe’s auto QOTD super system and crash his server, but here goes;

“I prefer clarity to agreement” – Dennis Prager

I love that quote, and he uses some version of it often on his radio show.  It is in contrast with the usual method of obfuscation for the purpose of recruiting to one’s cause.  Understanding, the prerequisite to true agreement or true disagreement, can only come out of clarity.  It is required for any positive, productive communication in any subject.  I don’t know if Prager has said it as such, but clarity is pure poison to the left.

Pure.

Poison.

As such, our mission is easy, no?  If I had to name one thing, the lack of which is resulting in the most problems in our society, it would be clarity.  Not energy, not oil, not honesty, not contraception, not redistributed money, not even liberty, but clarity, because without it we don’t have any of those other things.  We’re paralyzed.

Think how refreshing it would be to hear true clarity on a regular basis.  “Honesty” could be substituted in many cases, but it’s different from clarity in that some people don’t actually know what they think– Their thinking process has been retarded through obfuscation.  Clarity must some first, then, before honesty (or the lack thereof) can become an issue.  Glen Beck oft repeats a variation on it; “Say what you mean and mean what you say”.

No doublt, if some politician ever reads this, he’ll be asking his campaign advisors how he can best appear to be saying what he means and meaning what he says, ’cause he heard it was popular with those idiots in flyover country.

Quote of the day—Honus

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Anybody openly carrying a gun into Starbucks (or anywhere else) to “make a point” or “exercise a right” is inherently unqualified to carry a weapon. This is a fundamentally improper use of a firearm.
 
Like your dick, you only take out your gun if you are prepared to use it. You don’t openly carry it into a coffee bar to scare the liberals. This identifies you as a cheap tin can that shouldn’t be allowed near anything as powerful as a Model 29 or to use the other common penis substitute, a Porsche Turbo Carrera.

Honus
March 4, 2010
Comment to Open Thread: Penis Substitutes At the Ready!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Perhaps we should replace congress

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As much as I detest people that think it is legitimate to make laws based on majority rule when it should be a matter of principle it is reassuring when the majority aligns itself with principles:

Most Americans support the right to use deadly force to protect themselves – even in public places – and have a favorable view of the National Rifle Association, the main gun-lobby group, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
The online survey showed that 68 percent, or two out of three respondents, had a favorable opinion of the NRA, which starts its annual convention in St. Louis, Missouri, on Friday.

The approval rating for Congress is currently running about 12%. I claim this is in a large part because they have no principles, only policy positions which change about as often as their dirty laundry that keeps showing up in public.

This leads me to believe the appropriate thing to do is replace congress with the Board of Directors and senior members of the NRA.

I did not know that

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With the strict gun control implemented in Mexico I did not realize the Mexican Constitution has a right to bear arms clause:

The inhabitants of the United Mexican States have a right to arms in their homes, for security and legitimate defense, with the exception of arms prohibited by federal law and those reserved for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard. Federal law will determine the cases, conditions, requirements and places in which the carrying of arms will be authorized to the inhabitants.

I would be willing to bet the Brady Campaign would almost be willing to accept a “guaranteed” right “protected” thusly. The VPC wouldn’t of course. But giving the Brady Campaign a reason to disband would be appealing.

But I’m inclined to go with the “shall not be infringed” version and have the Brady Campaign disband because we have accomplished all our goals in the U.S. and have moved on to protecting the right of people to keep and bear arms in other countries.

Quote of the day—George Bernard Shaw

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Martyrdom’ is the only way a person can become famous without ability.

George Bernard Shaw
[I wonder who he was talking about. Colin Goddard of the Brady Campaign comes to mind but the timeline doesn’t quite work.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mitt Romney

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We need a president who will stand up for the rights of hunters and sportsmen, and those seeking to protect their homes and their families. President Obama has not. I will. And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

This president is moving us away from our Founders’ vision. Instead of limited government, he’s leading us toward limited freedom and limited opportunity.

Mitt Romney
April 13, 2012
Romney touts support for gun rights at NRA

romney-AP120413035813_244x183

Photo credit: AP Photo/Michael Conroy
[Since Romney is a politician and his lips were moving I question how firmly, if at all, he believes what he says and whether he will remain true to these campaign promises. But he is saying some of the words gun owners and freedom lovers want to hear.

I want to hear that he is going to do more than play defense (“defend the rights”). I would prefer that he say something along the lines of what Newt said a short while later to the NRA (H/T to Bitter). We should be expanding the scope of the right to keep and bear arms to the rest of the world via the UN. That means a strong offense, not just defense.

For those of you who question the validity of that last sentence by Romney please see my QOTD-Barack Obama from October 28, 2008 with further info from Kevin.—Joe]

Blogging will be very light for a while

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I know I haven’t been blogging much recently. Lots of stuff going on. Tonight things came to a head.

Most of the details are going to remain private but about 6:00 PM this evening wife Barbara was served with papers at our Moscow Idaho home saying I wanted a legal separation. I stayed in the Seattle area this weekend.

About 6:20 she drove off in the Jeep I bought her for Christmas in 2010. The police and family looked for her but didn’t find her until she had totaled the vehicle and then tried to swim the Clearwater river at night. The water was probably just barely above freezing.

The police pulled her out and she is currently in the emergency room in Lewiston. Physically she is fine but will be held for 72 hours for mental observation.

Comments are closed.

Boomershoot hotel reservations

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Ry reports his room reservation he made last May at the Best Western in Orofino for Boomershoot 2012 was cancelled exactly 90 days later.

If you think you have a reservation there please check to make sure everything is still in order.

If you have lost your reservation there may be other places in town that still have rooms available. Here is a list of places with phone numbers where you can look.

Quote of the day—Sebastian

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There’s no politician in the world that wants to write off the votes of 5 to 6 million Americans out of the gate.

Sebastian
April 10, 2012
The Dreams of Bloomberg
[I’m reminded of something Chris Cox (NRA top lobbyist) said, “They don’t fear me. They fear you.”—Joe]

Why TSA explosives detection is pointless

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If the TSA were to scan for Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer (AN) they would get a very high percentage of travelers testing positive as this guy did:

An 82-year-old farmer from Brush got quite the surprise Thursday when he was briefly detained by Fort Collins-Loveland airport security after his suitcase tested positive for the chemicals used to make bombs.

Large numbers of false positives mean they have to hand examine large numbers of people. This will require far more manpower and increase the frustration with the TSA. If they don’t scan for AN then they leave a huge gaping hole in their security. Yes, AN needs something else with it to detonate. Boomerite, for example, uses Potassium Chlorate (PC) and Ethylene Glycol (EG). Scanning for either of these isn’t going to accomplish anything. PC is one of the main ingredients in matches. EG is the common automobile anti-freeze. False positives are us.

Scanning for all three, AN, PC, and EG would detect Boomerite but there isn’t anything particularly magic about those three. AN with any number of things will explode. Here is just a partial list of things I have used:

  • Aluminum powder
  • Diesel
  • Model racing fuel
  • Powdered milk
  • Powdered sugar
  • Wheat flour
  • Propylene Glycol
  • Nitromethane
  • Acetone (nail polish remover)
  • Methanol (wood alcohol)
  • Naphthalene (moth balls)

Basically anything that will burn will enable detonation of AN. So unless TSA is willing to detain and hand search every passenger that walked through their recently fertilized lawn and then ate a powdered sugar donut on the way to security there is no point in scanning for AN. Plus this assumes that a real threat would not be able to seal and clean up their explosives device and themselves sufficiently that they couldn’t get their chemical profile below the detection threshold.

Since explosives detection is pointless and they do not hand examine every passenger TSA is really nothing but A Security Theater.

RFID shielded wallet

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The NRA is selling a wallet which shields your RFID cards from being scanned.

I’m a little torn as to whether I want to get one or not. It’s very convenient to just swipe my wallet over the the scanner when I get on the bus to go to work. If I had the shielded wallet I would have to take the card out to scan it.

On the other hand Ry recently demonstrated an app for an Android phone that could scan that same card and get my public transportation history for the last 10 days.

Pampered Cowards

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Here’s a quote I got today from a customer.  We were going back and fourth regarding the configuration of his rifle and which of the vastly superior UltiMAK optic mounts would fit it.  I paraphrase for clarity;

“…mine is a sporterized one… No scary features– to keep our state politicians’ diapers dry.” (he’s in the PRC)

I’ve eschewed potty jokes of late, as they’re usually not productive.  This one brings up a key point though.  My first thought after reading it was; Who cares, or should ever care, about politicians who would soil themselves at the thought of a well and properly armed citizenry, i.e. who cares what a coward thinks?

This is an open message to all politicians and law enforcement.  If you’re afraid of a citizenry that has its rights fully respected, exercised and protected, you’re either a coward, a criminal or a fool, and in any of those cases you don’t belong in your position.  Your position is for those who respect and love liberty, and have both the courage and the personal wherewithal to protect it.

(Disclaimer; my wife is a public school teacher, so although I preach liberty, and the responsibility of self reliance that comes with it, some of my household income derives from a coercive redistribution racket)

Quote of the day—Don B. Kates Jr.

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The argument that an armed citizenry cannot hope to overthrow a modern military machine flies directly in the face of the history of partisan guerilla and civil wars in the twentieth century. To make this argument (which is invariably supported, if at all, by reference only to the American military experience in non-revolutionary struggles like the two World Wars), one must indulge in the assumption that a handgun-armed citizenry will eschew guerrilla tactics in favor of throwing themselves headlong under the tracks of advancing tanks. Far from proving invincible, in the vast majority of cases in this century in which they have confronted popular insurgencies, modern armies have been unable to suppress the insurgents. This is why the British no longer rule in Israel and Ireland, the French in Indo-China, Algeria and Madagascar, the Portugese in Angola, the whites in Rhodesia, or General Somoza, General Battista, or the Shah in Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran respectively–not to mention the examples of the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It is, of course, quite irrelevant for present purposes whether each of the struggles just mentioned is or was justified or whether the people benefitted therefrom. However one may appraise those victories, the fact remains that they were achieved against regimes equipped with all the military technology which, it is asserted, inevitably dooms popular revolt.

Perhaps more important, in a free country like our own, the issue is not really overthrowing a tyranny but deterring its institution in the first place. To persuade his officers and men to support a coup, a potential military despot must convince them that his rule will succeed where our current civilian leadership and policies are failing. In a country whose widely divergent citizenry possesses upwards of 160 million firearms, however, the most likely outcome of usurpation (no matter how initially successful) is not benevolent dictatorship, but prolonged, internecine civil war.

Don B. Kates Jr.
Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment
Michigan Law Review 82 (1983): 204-273.
[Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.

This is along the same lines as what Lyle described as the Plausible Threat.

It’s worth noting that the estimate of 160 million firearms in the U.S. was in 1983. The estimate is nearly double that now.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle

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That of course was its only purpose from the outset, so we’ll have to call the program a complete success.

What?– You believed the stuff about “protecting public safety”? No, see, that’s the just the selling point. That’s that charming, handsome man with his arm in a cast, Ted Bundy, asking you get in his van. Forget the assertions. The actual goal is something else entirely. That’s how communists (and serial killers) roll. It’s always a ruse.

Lyle
April 6, 2012
Comment to Gun card chaos: FOID foibles in IL
In response to “The only success of FOID cards is the successful persecution of gun owners.”
[Many, perhaps even most, of the people advocating for restrictions on firearms believe it will improve public safety. But at the top they know better. I’ve been listening to them and even meeting them face to face for many, many, years. Listen to and read carefully the words of gun control politicians Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, and Bill Clinton. Listen and read carefully the words of the top leaders of the anti-gun activists. The smart articulate ones. Not the rambling incoherent ones. They know the truth. They know it’s not about public safety. It’s about buying votes, gaining power, and control of the general population.

For a long time I have wanted to get a meme started, “What is the real reason?” But apparently we are not quite ready to ask that question. And for the population at large, and gun control advocates in particular, gun ownership laws are not something that is subject to reason.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brady Campaign

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Although the exact number of Americans killed by gun violence in the 20th century will never be known, it is now all but certain that it will, by any measure, vastly exceed the number of Americans shot and killed on battlefields since 1900.

Brady Campaign
December 30, 1999
MORE AMERICANS KILLED BY GUNS THAN BY WAR IN THE 20TH CENTURY–1.4 Million Known American Firearms Casualties Since 1933
[What the Brady Campaign either is ignorant of or willfully ignoring is that during that same time frame countries without the right to keep and bear arms murdered about 170 million innocent non-military lives in the 20th Century.

There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.

The trade-off is not between guns being readily available to individual criminals and guns being banned and hence as difficult to obtain as other banned items like recreational drugs. The trade-off is between freedom and tyranny. It’s between losing a million innocent people in century due to criminal acts of individuals and losing 100 million people due to criminal acts of governments.

The founders of the this country understood and placed the security of a free state above the risk from individual misuse of arms:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Firearms in the hands of the people are a plausible threat to would-be tyrants and hence a “safety net” for freedom.

Gun control in this country was implemented to make it easier to suppress slaves, former slaves, and the descendants of slaves. That is a shameful heritage for the advocates of gun control.

The Brady Campaign is a small and small-minded organization that does not represent the people of this nation or it’s values. It’s time they faded away into the dustbin of history like their small-minded ancestral cousins, the KKK.—Joe]

More on the Plausible Threat

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This is in response to Joe’s QOTD here by JFK

JFK’s concept is what I’ve dubbed the “Plausible Threat” influence in human interaction.  Reagan referred to it as “Peace Through Strength”.  My Plausible Threat concept is of the same nature, but is much more broad.

Why does someone do some something he doesn’t want to do, when he is told to do it?  Why does someone avoid doing something he wants do to, when told not to do it?  Often it’s because he sees a plausible threat of some kind looming over him, which will harm him in some way if he doesn’t tow the line.  It applies in all sorts of interactions and life decisions.  In some cases there is a moral factor, wherein a person’s conscience is more prominent in the decision making process.  In other cases it is the plausible threat that tips the scale.  In yet other cases the plausible threat is not enough, and a person or group will act in spite of it, i.e. it’s a gamble wherein the perceived benefits are deemed greater than the perceived threat.  The threat could be anything from minor social tension to global nuclear annihilation.

Our second amendment is, in part, to guarantee a natural right, but also it is to ensure a plausible threat as insurance against growing tyranny. 

We’ve seen on TV shows like Survivor what most people will do for a million dollars.  What would some people or groups of people be willing to do for several trillion dollars, their own army, and the power to substantially control millions of people?  It would take a very plausible threat indeed to dissuade the sort of motivations we’re seeing in that arena, and we have a long way to go before the whole of the people are armed well enough, organized well enough, and act in such a way as to dissuade the sorts of tyranny already in place, and the sorts that we have yet to see.

I passed

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A couple weeks ago I took the USPSA range officer class with Ry and Barron. I got my grade back today. I passed with a 92 on my first try. Ry got a 88 and Barron got a 94. 85 is passing.

This means we will have officially certified (assuming the certification comes through in time) range officers at Boomershoot 2012.

Quote of the day—Quiddity

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I’ll give you my cold, dead dick when you take it from my gun-wielding hands!

Quiddity
March 4, 2010
Comment to Open Thread: Penis Substitutes At the Ready!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

NBC producer fired over Zimmerman call

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As you probably have heard the call of Zimmerman with the police that NBC aired on the Today Show was edited such that Zimmerman appears to say, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.” This was not how it happened and a producer was fired over this. Good. The damage this deliberate slanting of the news could have been been millions of dollars in property damage and even people ending up dead from riots. As it is the tremendous amount of time and energy expended by people basing their actions on falsified information is incalculable.

The story is an AP story and is spreading rapidly. It certain deserves exceedingly wide coverage. Perhaps tensions can be reduced and people will look more closely at all the facts related to this event. And long term I hope more people verify stories reported by the media before taking extreme action.

Some of the news outlets reporting this story: