Quote of the day–Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre

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If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country … The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre
February 5, 1794
Report on the Principles of Political Morality
[Via Bill Whittle:

Via Kevin Baker’s The Slaughter isn’t a Bug, It’s a Feature.

Read that again:

Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.

That is what emanates as a natural consequence from those that believe if only the 1% (or 10% as President Obama’s good friend Bill Ayers believed) were responsible for the problems of the rest of the population were “taken care of” utopia could be achieved. The method for dealing with these “troublemakers”, as Whittle above points out, is frequently the murder of tens of millions of people. And as Kevin points out, this is a “feature” not a “bug” in the mind of the self-anointed.

And that is Why Boomershoot.—Joe]

A good use of their money

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It’s extremely rare that I am pleased with anything Washington Ceasefire does. But I find this moderately pleasing:

New ads asking you to think twice about gun ownership are showing up on Metro buses…

…

Ceasefire spent $50,000 on the bus signs…

The ads are trying to change the minds of people about exercising their specific enumerated right to keep keep and bear arms. That’s going to be a really tough sell. And to what end? The only way that can have a detrimental effect is if they can get a critical mass in the legislature through the shift of public opinion. They are advertising in districts they already “own” legislatively. The best they can hope for is to keep from losing some of that support.

It is going to be a especially difficult sell since they are using bogus statistics. Only one researcher has come up with their claimed conclusion, “When you have a gun in the home, you are 22 times more likely to kill a family member or a friend than you are an intruder”. Other researchers disputed it. And the wording of the conclusion is such that it is very misleading. It assumes the only valid use of a firearm is if it is used to kill an intruder. Brandishing or a wounding that results in the protection of innocent life or property doesn’t count with this metric.

So… keep pouring that money down the toilet Washington Ceasefire. Your end is near and I am pleased you are hastening that day.

Quote of the day—David Stockman

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The Fed is a patsy. It is a pathetic dependent of the big Wall Street banks, traders and hedge funds. Everything (it does) is designed to keep this rickety structure from unwinding. If you had a (former Fed Chairman) Paul Volcker running the Fed today 7/8— utterly fearless and independent and willing to scare the hell out of the market any day of the week — you wouldn’t have half, you wouldn’t have 95 percent, of the speculative positions today.

…

When the real margin call in the great beyond arrives, the carnage will be unimaginable.

David Stockman
March 3, 2012
DAVID STOCKMAN: You’d Be A Fool To Hold Anything But Cash Now
[H/T to Rudy Kearney.

I’m not convinced cash and gold are the only thing to hold onto right now. Farm land, copper coated lead, and brass would seem to hold their value better than cash and probably gold. But I see his point about stocks and fully agree the carnage is going to be massive.—Joe]

‘Civilians’

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It seems to have become universal.  Cops refer to us as civilians, meaning, I guess, that cops don’t see themselves as civilians, meaning that they think they are military police.

If you want our respect, you might at least try using the language correctly, otherwise I’ll assume you went to cop school because you were rejected as a junior high school janitor.

I rarely watch television anymore, but last night I caught some of a show about cops in Alaska.  I’ve been to several parts of the state, so I was interested in a general sort of way.  Absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous photography, but it otherwise made my skin crawl.  In what I can only assume is an effort to dehumanize the people they ostensibly serve, cops refer to men and women as “males” and “females”.  No one is a man, or a woman, or a husband, father, son, brother, wife, mother, sister or daughter, but is a “male” or a “female” as though cops are of a different species.  By their own language then, they’re non human MPs.  Or is it superhuman MPs?  Either way it’s sick.

They say there is a high rate of suicide in Alaska, and they showed a couple of responses to the same.  I find it extremely unfortunate that they send a man with a uniform and a gun (drawn) to respond to something like that.  It’s probably the worst possible choice.  Yes; I know the reasoning, so don’t bother.  It’s just extremely unfortunate.  They hauled one guy off to a “doctor”.  Gawd.  The last thing that “civilian male” probably needed was cop (who refers to him as a “civilian male”) and “doctor”.  The whole thing reminded me of that spoof Star Wars Cops video, only it wasn’t a spoof.

It’s a small world

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This morning I road the bus into downtown Seattle pretty much as usual except one of Caleb‘s brothers was on the same bus. He recognized me from the Boomershoot coat and says he reads my blog all the time. 🙂

It turns out he works five stories above me in the same building.

Quote of the day—Irene Peter

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Ignorance is no excuse, it’s the real thing.

Irene Peter
[Especially when it is deliberate. Which means the great majority of anti-gun people are “the real thing”.—Joe]

Media invite for Boomershoot 2012

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Share with your media contacts:

Boomershoot.org Media Invite: Intro to Explosives Magazine
by: robosapien1010

For more information see Boomershoot.

Campus carry ban struck down in Colorado

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It’s not a good day for the remaining anti-gun people (all 10 of them). From Denver:

The Colorado Supreme Court has struck down a gun ban by the University of Colorado Board of Regents that had prevented students from carrying concealed handguns on campus.

Quote of the month—U.S. District Court Judge Benson Everett Legg

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A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.

Benson Everett Legg
U.S. District Court Judge
March 2012
MARYLAND RULING A ‘HUGE VICTORY’ FOR SECOND AMENDMENT, SAYS SAF
[This is absolutely HUGE!!!

Ruling here.

Who wants to donate to the Tequila fund for the new Brady Campaign President?

I’ll donate a $0.10 to the Brady’s for Tequila and $100 to SAF to keep the Brady Campaign crying into their booze.—Joe]

Update: As George R. on the gun email list at work said after he donated $50.00, “Take that Sarah Brady!”

SAFDonation

Quote of the day—Ruckus

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How many Billion people in the world Don’t carry a gun? Ever. And live to tell about it. They don’t get the shit kicked out of themselves day in and day out, and most important they most likely have normal sized genitalia.

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

How many billions of people in the world don’t use their fire extinguisher, smoke detector, or car seatbelt and live to tell about it? Yet it’s going to be rare that people make fun of them for possessing those safety items.

How many people wish they were carrying a gun when they were mugged, raped, or kidnapped?

And how many of those nearly one hundred million people that were murdered by their own government in the 20th Century wished they had a gun as they were lined up at the ditches waiting for the bullet to the back of the neck, starving in concentration camps, or arrested in the middle of the night and taken to a basement cell for execution?—Joe]

Don’t be stupid

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If you are going to be making explosives PLEASE don’t do it some place stupid—like your office at work:

A 50-year-old Lorain County man was jailed for arson on Saturday for an explosion that injured him in his Elyria office on Friday.

Police said Robert Shaw of LaGrange was mixing chemicals to build exploding targets for firearm target practice when one blew up around 9 a.m. in the office at Diamond Products on Prospect Avenue.

Go to some open space where an accident doesn’t injure others or their property. If you don’t you can spoil the fun for the rest of us who don’t have an interest in acquiring Darwin Awards.

Via email from Bubblehead Les.

Quote of the day—Steve Moore

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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed to ensure America’s freedom to travel. Instead, they have made air travel the most difficult means of mass transit in the United States, at the same time failing to make air travel any more secure.

…

TSA is finally feeling what it’s like to be screened. It has walked through the detector of bureaucratic failure and the red light has gone off. It’s time that we ask congress to have TSA “step over to this area” for a more thorough search. For once, “TSA screening” will be productive. I predict that dangerous amounts of inefficiency, derivative thinking, and reactive policy will be located, if not in their shoes, in their DNA.

Steve Moore
January 24, 2012
TSA: Fail
[I could probably pull a half dozen QOTDs from this post. It’s really good.

H/T Say Uncle and Richard R.—Joe]

On the seventh day

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If you follow my Tweets you will know that I submitted a Windows Phone 7 application on February 25th. In my Tweet I asked, “Does anyone know how long it takes for it be certified and published?”

No one responded.

Yesterday I asked a guy at work who had gone through the process. “About 60 days” was his response. But then he explained it was a very special case that involved getting special permission, blah, blah, blah…

I dug deeper into Microsoft App Hub and found:

Certification takes an average of five business days. If it has been longer than seven days to complete Certification, contact Support from the e-Form from your account Dashboard.

Today, just a few hours from it being a full seven days, I received an email telling me the app had been published.

Still it doesn’t show up in the market place. After some more searching I found (on the same page as the previous quote):

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for the app to show up in the catalog.

So my work is finished and now I must wait a day.

And so on the seventh day it was finished and it was very good. And on the seventh day I rested.

So here is a direct link to “As the Crow Flies”. It isn’t currently active but will be within 24 hours.

This is a very simple app that measures the great circle distance between any two points on the surface of the earth using Bing Maps with aerial photography. The points could be your office and that beach in the Bahamas. It could be the opposite sides of the Space Needle. It could be the distance from your shooting position to that cardboard box filled with explosives on the hillside.

Update 3/5/2012 4:24 AM: The link to the app above now works but searching in the marketplace still does not.

Update 3/5/2012 6:45 AM: The app is fully active in the marketplace now.

Random thought of the day

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Most of the the time when you see or hear the phrase, “If you don’t play the game, you don’t get to make the rules” it is referring to the Pope making (Catholic) law in regards to sex.

It occurs to me that phrase would be equally applicable to anti-gun people demanding “safe storage”, gun and/or gun-owner registration, and magazine capacity restrictions.

Quote of the day—Robb Allen

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Officer Friendly obeys the laws of physics and cannot travel at the speed of light and reach you in time. What do you do during that long moment between when you realize the life of your family is in jeopardy and when the cops actually show up?

Me? I do a press check.

Robb Allen
March 2, 2012
When seconds count
[Works for me!—Joe]

Posit

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There essentially are no restrictions on guns or ammunition.  There are several organizations, local, national and worldwide, providing guns and ammunition to minors and to the poor, either for free or at subsidized prices, often without parental consent, even to the point of covering up for criminal use of guns in some cases so as to maximize the number of kids with access to guns.  It is a human right after all.  A right is a right, and that’s that.  If you so much as question it, you are against children and against human rights in general, you backward-minded Neanderthal, redneck ignorant Nazi bastard.  There are gun training programs in most public schools, with free ammunition available if a kid goes to a school counselor to ask for it, saying that his parents are denying him his right to ammunition.

There’s the background.  It is firmly entrenched in our culture, hardly anyone is questioning it, those who do are never taken seriously, and for sure it is not threatened either by this Congress or any foreseeable one.

Then; proposed new federal legislation adds to all of the above by forcing tax payers to pay for free guns and ammunition, for the asking, nationwide.  Anyone objecting to this new bill is accused of wanting to “ban guns”, denying the poorest people and the children their second amendment rights.  If you can’t get it for free, immediately, any time, anywhere, your right to it has thereby been denied, QED, so without this new bill, even with everything in the first paragraph untouched and safe for the future, the second amendment is effectively banned.  Poor, sobbing victim after poor, sobbing victim is paraded in front of the in-depth news show cameras to tell their stories of woe and despair arising from a lack of access to ”affordable” guns and ammunition, and the pundits have nothing but sympathy for them, and the serious understanding that can only come from having had similar experiences of their own.

Now; it is by that same resoning, in that same sort of environment, that Rick Santorum and others are accused of wanting to ban birth control.

Focus, People.  Santorum may be the spawn of Satan for all I know, but neither he nor anyone else of any prominence wants to ban birth control.  This entire issue was manufactured by Democrats to divert attention from the Obama economy and other Obama atrocities because they believe that “social issues” are the Republicans’ weakness and they want to keep the discussion focused there.  Some among us have actually fallen for it even though it’s been used a thousand times before in broad daylight.  Please get a grip.

Now I will point out that when we of the pro liberty mindset want a human right respected (one that‘s actually in the constitution, for example) we don’t demand that certain goodies be given to us as part of a government program at taxpayer’s expense and we don’t demand it be given to kids against their parents wishes.  The proof of whether a “right” is really a right is that a true right never demands anything from anyone else other than non interference.

Quote of the day—Robert Anton Wilson

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Belief is the death of intelligence.

Robert Anton Wilson
[I’m reminded of Ann Landers who said, “No one has the right to destroy another person’s belief by demanding empirical evidence.”

I’d also like to remind people that those that respect everyone’s beliefs have no respect for the truth.—Joe]

Quote of the day—J.G.A. Pocock

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The bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his participation in politics as a responsible moral being.

J.G.A. Pocock
Historian, describing the beliefs of the founders of the U.S.
From The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition.
[Another one via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.—Joe]

Winning public opinion

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This is something I wrote for the gun email list at work. Most of the people on the list live in California so I slanted it a little bit in that direction but I think it has application for a much broader audience.

I realize the situation is much different in California than in the states I spend most of my time (Washington and Idaho) but we are winning. We have been winning a bunch of court battles. We have been winning some political victories (carry in National Parks and in checked bags on Amtrak, carry in 49 states, fines for cities and elected officials in Florida who violate state preemption, etc. etc.). The anti-gun organizations are in financial trouble. And probably most importantly we are winning public opinion (see the most recent Gallup poll on guns).

As much progress as we have made elsewhere California and a few other states are still are a cancer that can spread if not treated. Don’t think that those of us in the free(er) states are unaware of the importance of these trouble spots or that we are neglecting the situation. And we are making progress in California. As you folks are probably even better aware than I SAF and CalGuns are making progress in the courts. I’ve spent a lot of time with Alan Gottlieb and Alan Gura and I am convinced they are more than competent and have plans that have a reasonable chance of success.

The blogosphere is also doing what it can to change things in California. Through the cooperation of Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned I was interviewed by a reporter for the Los Angeles Times yesterday. I was a bit apprehensive as the LA Times has been far from friendly to gun owners in the past. This report was fair and did not take advantage of some things I said which could have sounded poorly out of context. Although she didn’t mention it in the article her mother has even been to Front Sight!

I suspect California gun owners can make a difference by “coming out of the closet” now. I understand the risks but the rewards can be significant if done correctly.

One thing I would like to suggest is that gun owners/clubs reach out to traditional media. Boomershoot has had some remarkably good coverage (the KING5 Evening Magazine video on Boomershoot was even nominated for an Emmy). Boomershoot has some draw and some PR talent (not me) that most gun organizations can’t take advantage of but they can help gain public acceptance of gun owners without too much effort.

Find local news outlets that have a local events sections and get your IPDA/USPSA/Cowboy-Action/Steel-Challenge/Bowling-Pin/Bulleye/High-Power/whatever match listed. After the match write up a story (my PR person says, somewhat cynically, “Reporters are lazy. If you want their support do their work for them.”) about the match results and send it to the local news organizations. If you have something a little different you might even get them to send a reporter. Cowboy Action frequently qualifies as “different” enough. Action Pistol (IPDA/USPSA) matches provide an opportunity for this as well. I created stages for a USPSA match that addressed a visit by Fred Phelps to the area and made it into the local newspaper and the AP. That led to an interview for an article in the Seattle Times. A YouTube video of a Gabby Giffords themed concealed carry side match to a USPSA match generated nearly 8000 views and the rage of anti-gun groups and even got the attention of a Brady Campaign Board member who said, “These folks could have just sat back and shut up.”

If a news article has errors about guns (.357 caliber Glocks and 40mm handguns are my favorites) contact the reporter. Ask if they would like to attend a “media day”. Invite a number of media organizations and if you get a decent response set up a ½ day class (Keep it short! They won’t want to invest a whole day) to teach them the basics of gun types, gun vocabulary, gun myths, and gun safety. Print and bind some nice copies of the NSSF writers guide to give them (NSSF may have some for sale or distribution, you might check with them before printing your own). Include some range time with a .22 with options for larger calibers for those that are interested.

Carefully select your media guides. Good looking professionals of both sexes and various ethnic backgrounds will help dispel the stereotypes they may have of gun owners. Train your people! Prepare them for loaded questions. When media is expected at Boomershoot we have designated media contacts and since our people are spread all over the country do training via email discussions. We have a media guide FAQ (with our own inside humor) to help prepare our people. And except for those in the media who we know are gun friendly (I.E. Michael Bane of Shooting Gallery) we have a media guide with them at all times. We successfully handled a Newsweek reporter who, as near as we could determine, exclusively reported on terrorism, both international and domestic.

If you decide to head down this path let me know if I can help. My Boomershoot PR person currently has some health issues that sometimes prevent timely responses but if anyone thinks they could benefit from some help I will be glad to share what I have learned and pass on the tougher problems to an expert.

Quote of the day—Greg Hamilton

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[W]e have to get some shit straight.

If you are an atheist then the Koran is fiction, if you are Christian it’s either fiction or worse, the work of Satan, if Jewish well I don’t know, you probably think something like the Christian, and if Muslim, ….oh yeah I don’t have Muslim friends…. Well whatever you believe, unless you are Muslim the Koran is NOT holy or sacred, it is a FALSE book, about a FALSE religion, by a FALSE prophet of a FALSE god. Everybody have that straight?

We publicly fund shit like “Piss Christ” and the same Americans who protest to protect it are mad about a fucking Koran?

Today should officially be “go buy a Koran, put it on the barbecue, and cook some fucking pork chops and bacon with it” day.

It’s called a fucking war, if you don’t like it feel free to castrate yourself and all the males in your genetic line, convert to Islam, and let the savages breed with your women.

Oh, one more thing, unless you are a follower of Islam quit calling that boy-buggering pedophile Mohammad a damn prophet! Whether you are atheist, Christian or Jewish he CAN’T be a prophet. He is either a wack-job like L.Ron who made some shit up or he is the minion of the Devil.

Greg Hamilton
February 27, 2012
Facebook Post (with some minor typos fixed).
[Greg is very good at succinctly expressing a complex topic in such a way that you realize the topic perhaps isn’t as complex as you thought it was. See also all my other quotes by and references to him.

The one thing not directly addressed in his rant above is about respecting other religions. If we are to respect the First Amendment don’t we have to respect all religions? To that I would say the First Amendment is about mutual respect. Read Osama bin Laden’s letter to America and tell me how we can have peace with people like that and still have a First Amendment, a Bill of Rights, or even a constitution other than something that is subordinate to the Koran. He literally says:

What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

…

You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.

Our options are: 1) Dispose of our Constitution and accept Islam as our one and only state approved religion; 2) Be at war with them—forever; 3) Convince them by any means possible that portions of their religion have to be permanently abandoned.

Respecting their religion is only an option if it is your intent to completely submit to their religion. If that is your intent then as Hamilton says, “…feel free to castrate yourself and all the males in your genetic line, convert to Islam, and let the savages breed with your women.”—Joe]